Technology without metal

So you've got a world with virtually no metal. There are trace amounts, sure, and occasionally a meteor might deposit some usable quantities, but for the most part people just have to live without metal.

What sort of limits does this place on technological development? Would it still be possible to build electrical devices without metal components? What about internal combustion engines?

No electricity or IC Es. Hells, even steam-engines are beyond you, unless you can figure out concrete, and even then you'll have to make do with stationary engines of very limited power (the concrete would prevent the flames of a fire from actually reaching the wood).

edited 10th May '14 2:11:49 AM by MattII

Carbon and (salty) water could be used as conductors. Machinery could possibly be made of ceramics.

Salt water is only conductive relative to complete non-conductors. Also, if you run a strong enough current through it, it starts to electrolyse into oxygen and hydrogen, a.k.a. an explosion waiting to happen.

Likewise, carbon has far too much electrical impedance to be a viable material for that purpose (the reason carbon fibers work in lightbulbs is that a lot of the energy passing through them is lost in the form of heat and, eventually, light). The only form of carbon that is in the same class as metals when it comes to conductivity is graphene, and good luck even figuring out that it is possible without the various technologies enabled by metals. The best naturally occurring carbon conductor is graphite, and graphite is only conductive on average, because there's some funny things going on with the molecular structure that make its conductivity dependent on the direction of the current. That means there's a few interesting little tricks you can do with graphite, but to even realize those are possible you'd need to have knowledge gained from the use of metal.

As for ceramics, you can indeed do a lot of things metals are used for with modern ceramics. The problem is that these are frequently based on metals to begin with (metal carbides, for example) and can't be worked without modern technology (again, metals). Naturally available ceramics won't get you very far.

That's basically it for technological development starting from scratch on the world you described.

If you have an already technological society ending up on such a planet, there's a few options (none of them ideal, ineffective stopgap measures at best), but the chances of discovering any of those without first having a good, solid look at how metals work are slim to say the least.

There's also the fact that metal tools were an incredibly effective labor multiplier. Yes, a lot of things can be achieved with stone-age tools (from megaliths to grand temples and pyramids), but the work is so much more labor-intensive that you run into serious shortages when trying to do anything on a larger scale. Effectively, pre-metal urban civilization needs a huge agrarian population to back it up, along with a vast infrastructure just for constantly replacing your stone tools as they wear out, preventing growth and consolidation. Remove metals from the equation, and society is likely to be permanently stuck on the early city-state level (and that only in a few exceptionally fertile regions), with most of the population tied up just trying to feed itself and no resources left over for development. Stone-age "empires" might last a century or two, but the effort needed to keep them going increases exponentially with size, and if they keep growing they inevitably collapse on themselves. To go bigger, you really do need metals.

TL;DR version: No electricity, and as for combustion engines? Hell, you're lucky if you get past the wheel.

edited 10th May '14 6:37:23 AM by MattStriker

Some parts of machinery could be made of ceramics. But ceramics don't do one thing that metal does very well — they don't flex for crap. They don't bend. They don't stand up to twisting. They don't give a little under pressure, then recover. They don't deform even a little without breaking. Metal does all those things (assuming that you're using the correct metal/alloy for the purpose), and that's one of its properties that makes it so incredibly versatile. Ceramics have a good bit of resistance to crushing pressure. They have a relatively poor resistance to torsion (twisting) and flexion (bending) pressures.

You could, for instance, make the pistons in an engine out of ceramics, and the engine block itself. But trying to make the crankshaft or camshaft for that same engine out of ceramic wouldn't work well, and making an axle? Not going to work.

{eta: 'd}

edited 10th May '14 6:44:14 AM by Madrugada

That's a very Earth centric view, just because technology developed a certain way here it doesn't have to in other places. Especially that "Hell, you're lucky if you get past the wheel."

And internal combustion engines doesn't mean 'car engine', ok, you might not be able to make crankshaft of ceramics, but huge low power engines could have enough space in it to fit crank out of wood, Oliphant tusks or whatever is the best material that world have.

I'm not saying combustion engines would be possible, just that they could. Hell, fit an wooden cannon to a cart and you get a cart with the simplest form of internal combution engine.

It is a materials-science-centric view. Unless the laws of physics work in completely different ways in whatever world this is set in, my points stand.

Unless the laws of physics and material components work differently in that world, ceramics, wood, stone, fabric, and other structural materials are still going to have the same limitations on what they can and can't do. Ceramics won't be flexible, they won't have good torsion resistance, and they won't have good shear strength unless it's made in a very thick block, because , because the crystalline structure doesn't allow for flexibility. Now, you may come up with something else that is flexible, but calling it ceramics is Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit".

edited 10th May '14 8:29:55 AM by Madrugada

So how does this world emerge without elements heavier than Helium? Metals are most of the periodic table. Hell, Lithium (Atomic number 3) is the lightest metal in the Universe. All but a handful of elements heavier than that are metals in one form or another.

Now assuming we have no or insignificant quantities of ferrous (Iron, Nickel, Manganese), cupric (Copper), or metals like gold, silver, platinum, lead, uranium or cobalt we still have major problems. It gets even worse if you have no semi-metals or semi-conductors like Carbon, Silicon, or Potassium.

It basically boils down to, what the bleep are these people and everything made of if all the stuff we know for life today doesn't exist? Earth itself is by and large a big ball of iron and metals. Take away all that and the planet weighs less than some dwarf planets. Those metals are more than just the stuff that makes machinery. Iron for example is one of the factors that allows blood to carry oxygen.

If a ceramic, wooden or whatever crankshaft doesn't work just make it bigger. You might end up with a 1 hp ICE that weighs tons but it would still be an ICE.

As you said "they won't have good shear strength unless it's made in a very thick block". Make it a very thick block then, make everything big.

, I'm assuming that in this context "virtually" and "trace amounts" means "enough for that to not be a problem".

edited 10th May '14 8:54:15 AM by m8e

@Major Tom: Well, it is possible to imagine a world where most heavier metal deposits are stuck at inaccessible depths. Granted, that gets us a whole new bundle of problems because that'd only be viable if the place had no tectonic activity or volcanism worth mentioning, and that would mean a surface we'd hardly recognize as a natural landscape (along with other potential issues, like a possible lack of a "core dynamo" and thus of a magnetic field strong enough to keep the solar wind out).

The OP is asking what the resulting technology would be on his world if he eliminates metals. One of the results would be that much current technology would be impossible, unless he gives that world something that has most of the characteristics of metal but isn't "metal".

edited 10th May '14 9:11:09 AM by Madrugada

So should I assume making glass or plastic also isn't possible without metal?

Glass is possible but not easy. Ceramics will serve for the crucibles and ovens necessary to make and work glass, but with no metal, you're limited to the sand that naturally occurs in a fine enough form to be usable. Plate glass and molded glass is doable, but blowing it into any form would also be difficult, since you would have to make the blowpipe out of something other that metal (wood; something similar to wood; or ceramic), and the heat of the glob of glass on the end of it would be continuously shortening it, as would the fact that most blown pieces can't be done in one go; you have to put the partially-formed piece (still attached to the blowpipe) back into the oven to bring it back to working temperature several times before it's finished. That oven is hot enough to soften glass— it's going to char or ignite wood or reed and degrade the ceramic overtime.

Plastic? Not likely, for one big reason: nothing to make the drill bits out of to get to the petroleum in the first place. Again, your only source of raw material will be surface tar deposits, and those are few and far between.

edited 10th May '14 11:49:51 AM by Madrugada

Glass is quite possible, but limited in application. Same with plastics, although creating those becomes a lot easier with metal around. The problem remains that neither of these even comes close to covering the gaping holes left by the absence of metalworking.

Well, if you want a society that still has recognizable electronics but lacks real industry I suppose you could remove most of the "hard" metals, like iron but still keep some rare, useful conductive ones like gold.

My question is to how you end up on a world without metal? Since metal is basically processed stone, this suggest your planet is made of...I mean, calcium in bones, sodium in salt...are these people even human? Is silicon being considered a metal for the purpose of this story?

Plastic can be made out of other things than petrolium oil. starch, cellulose, natural rubber, proteins like caseins et.c.

In a society lacking metal it's likely that these kinds of plastics would get developed earlier.

Yes, if you have a well-developed chemical industry. Which you wouldn't have, without metal. It'd be far too labor-intensive to be worth pursuing.

I'll say it again: Without metal tools, all the effort that's gone into science and technological advancement would have had to go into merely staying alive. Metalworking bought humanity the spare time to think about improving things rather than just struggling to keep them from getting worse.

Matt's right. For anything you want to point at and say, "oh, but you could use <this>", look into what making forming or maintaining that <this> requires. Odds are, you're going to find metal tools or equipment heavily involved. Now ask yourself what could replace the metal in those tools or equipment. Follow the chain back — almost everything we have and use now involves metal in the manufacturing process, even if it doesn't contain any metal itself.

Depending on how strict the rule against metals is, one might (in the appropriate areas) get away with making cutting tools (including swords) of obsidian. It's not a wonderful material, but it has seen historic use, as I recall.

That depends on the society. Agricultural societies are very labor intensive, leaving little time for side projects unless you've got the right tools to speed the work up. But hunter/gatherer societies actually had a great deal more free time, though that comes with the drawback of not being able to support a very large population.

I'll assume the question has morphed to: "Assuming the people of a world don't have easy access to metals, how would their technology develop?"

My answer: They really can't get much more than Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology. And since Most Writers Are Human, we can't exactly imagine an alternate world without something so fundamental as metal.

This kind of questions ("take out this basic building block of society") really bother me because we humans simply can't imagine how it would work.

Sorry to burst your bubble. I'm way too picky about my worldbuilding.

I'm working on an alien society of this sort at the moment. They use a lot of wood, mud-bricks and thatch. Their most advanced tools are rasp-leather (leather-backing, coarse-grain sand and glue) and files (same thing except using stick). Despite not bothering overmuch with grain crops (they're majority carnivores, though grains are useful as dry-weather feed for stock) they have a surprisingly advanced horticultural bent, especially arboriculture.

@Ars Thaumaturgis: The problem is that obsidian doesn't last. It's very fragile, wears down quickly and requires skilled artisans to make anything useful from. Just constantly replacing worn-down obsidian blades tied up a huge portion of the available labor pool in the societies that did make heavy use of it. This works pretty well in small-scale hunter-gatherer or small-village-farmer cultures, where you don't need to invest a lot of labor into the infrastructure of civilization, but on anything more complex it's a massive drain.

I did say that it was a poor material, I believe—I wasn't suggesting that obsidian would allow a society to advance terribly far, simply that it is a technology potentially available, if inferior to metal in many ways.