Civilization101Blueprint

Knowledge & Education

Knowledge is lost far more often than it is gained. The sector starts with the record, marks and tallies on day one, then writing, paper and printing, which make copies cheaper than losses. Schools and arithmetic for everyone make a written record checkable. Measurement, controlled comparison and publication make it cumulative; the university, the laboratory and statistics make it outlast the people who found it, and a free press carries it to everyone.
14 steps 8 field guides 2 builds 0 reference sheets 47 books and archives

Tracks

Each track is one line of development climbing the eight levels. A cell holds the step written at that level; cross-listed steps have their home in another sector and are shown here because this subject depends on them. Dashed cells are planned and not yet written; blank ones have nothing planned.

Records and writing

The mark, writing, paper and printing, and later the press.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
t0-record Start the record
Level 1: nothing planned
t2-writing Writing and the durable record
t3-paper Paper t3-printing Printing
Level 4: nothing planned
t5-press The press, and who gets to speak
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Teaching

Schools and arithmetic for everyone, then knowledge held by an institution.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
Level 1: nothing planned
t2-school Teach the next generation Guide t2-numeracy Arithmetic for everyone Guide ×3
Level 3: nothing planned
t4-university Knowledge held by an institution Guide
Level 5: nothing planned
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Science and measurement

Instruments, standard units, controlled comparison and publication, then the laboratory and statistics.

L0 Triage
L1 Foothold
L2 Forge
L3 Mill
L4 Engine
L5 Current
L6 Logic
L7 Frontier
Level 0: nothing planned
Level 1: nothing planned
Level 2: nothing planned
t3-instruments Instruments and measurement Guide ×5Build ×2 t3-units One metre, one kilogram, everywhere Guide ×4 t3-method Controlled comparison and the negative result Guide
t4-journal Priority by publication Guide t4-lab The laboratory as an institution Guide
t5-statistics Knowing whether a result is real Guide
Level 6: nothing planned
Level 7: nothing planned
Open the track, level by level →

Everything in Knowledge & Education

Gathered from the steps above: the guides and builds that serve them, the reference sheets those carry, and every book the steps, guides and builds cite.

Field guides

Level 3
Calculating by hand

Four-figure logarithms and trigonometry, square roots by Newton's method, and the two instruments that did the world's arithmetic before electronics.

 Level 3
Mathematics

The results every other science and machine is built on, in the order each needs the last: the formula, what it states, what it lets you do, and who first found it.

 Level 0
Institutions: what to found, and how to run them

Every public institution an advanced civilisation runs, in the order a rebuilding one can found them: what each is for, when it becomes possible, and the rules that keep it honest, useful and no bigger than its job.

 Level 3
The sciences

Fourteen branches, each with the handful of results a civilization cannot rebuild without, and where to learn the rest.

 Level 3
Physics

Force, energy, heat, light, electricity, relativity and the atom: the laws every engine, wire and lens obeys, each with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 3
Astronomy

The sky as calendar, clock and compass, then orbits, distances and the universe: each result with what it lets you do and who first found it.

 Level 2
Navigation and the sky

North is written in the sky twice a day and all night. Latitude is one angle measured at noon. Everything else is counting paces and not lying to yourself about the count.

 Level 3
Chemistry

What matter is made of and how it changes: amounts, gases, acids, the energy and speed of reactions, electrochemistry, and the reactions every industry on the ladder runs on.

Builds

A replica of a Leeuwenhoek microscope, about 5 cm tall: the tiny glass lens sits in the hole at the top of the brass plate, the specimen goes on the point just behind it, and the screws move the point to focus. The eye goes right up against the plate.
Level 3
Bead microscope

A glass bead the size of a pinhead magnifies 150–350 times: enough to see yeast, blood cells and the larger bacteria that cause disease.
Galileo's two surviving telescopes, 1609–10, Museo Galileo, Florence: long thin tubes, because a single-lens objective only gives a sharp image at a long focal length and a small aperture.
Level 3
Refracting telescope

Two lenses in a tube: a 1-metre objective and a 25 mm eyepiece give 40×, enough to see Jupiter's moons and the phases of Venus.

Books and archives

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