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Last Word is Â鶹´«Ã½â€™s long-running series in which readers give scientific answers to each other’s questions, ranging from the minutiae of everyday life to absurd astronomical hypotheticals. To answer a question or ask a new one, email lastword@newscientist.com
How would human civilisation differ if the sun, moon, stars and planets were always obscured by clouds?
Hillary Shaw
Newport, Shropshire, UK
There might never have been as much progress, maybe with only occasional bursts of agrarian empire, such as Roman, Imperial Chinese and Aztec.
It would be hard to develop a calendar, with no clear sight of direction of the sunset, let alone moon phases, and solar eclipses would be perceived as simply very heavy clouds, coming at random times. Agriculture would be unreliable without clear planting seasons, limiting our numbers, and navigation almost impossible, even if we had the compass.
The gods would have been perceived as more capricious and, to appease them, maybe the creation of theocratic dictatorships would be seen as extremely important.
Without navigation and maps, humanity would develop as isolated communities and empires, rarely interacting except for border warfare, occasional conquest and then decay. The exploration of the world by European powers from the 1400s – discovering many plants, animals and peoples new to them and kick-starting Western science – would not have happened. There might even be less animal life, as some migrations could be problematic.
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Without navigation and maps, humanity would develop as isolated communities and empires, rarely interacting
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Science might have advanced in areas like geology, chemistry and physics, but progress would have been slow, and conquest or decline of the host empire would keep erasing any early discoveries. Perhaps one day someone discovers hydrogen, builds a balloon, and is awestruck by the sights above the clouds. If they aren’t executed as a dangerous heretic, that is.
Guy Cox
Sydney, Australia
Probably not much would have been different. If the stars and planets were always hidden, there would be no astrology – a plus.
We would still see day and night, and the seasons, so we would have calendars. Sundials are obviously out, but clepsydras (water clocks) have been used by ancient civilisations all over the world since at least 1300 BC so we could tell the time.
The biggest difference would probably be that we couldn’t navigate by the sun and stars, so travel across large bodies of water wouldn’t be practicable. That wouldn’t stop humans from populating most of the globe – that happened before such voyages were feasible – but it would have stopped colonial powers from taking over distant countries.
Maybe that would have been a plus, too.
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