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Comment by gavmor | Hacker News Reader

If I were to take one book with me "down into the bunker," as Dartnell puts it, I'd hands-down take with me the Bosch Automotive Handbook[0], a phenomenally dense and thorough text covering not just cars, but their constituent parts--and their constituent parts' constituent parts--all the way down to the materials. It has wonderful tables of data on the properties of various materials (from advanced plastics and alloys to leather, paper, and common fluids) accompanied by clear and precise mechanical diagrams. It's precisely the kind of book that would secure a time-traveller's position as court wizard, all geared (ha) toward the eminently practical domain of moving across the surface of the earth.

0. https://www.sae.org/publications/books/content/bosch10/

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Machinery's Handbook is similar, but sort of a step back on the production chain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinery%27s_Handbook

Edit:

And a step further back would be Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy, by Moore. That book is a marvel of applied reason.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/foundations-mechanical-accura...

Another similar vein, the electrical engineering handbook https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780121709600/the-electri...

I know of a book that similarly impressed me, though I've not yet seen the one you refer to, although it won't be quite so deep:

The reprinted-under-many names book from Germany in the 70s? called variously:

"How Things Work", "The Way Things Work", and more

and published by Simon & Schuster, Paladin Press, and others

Searching for C Van Amerongen will bring it up, although I think it is by multiple authors.

https://archive.org/search.php?query=C%20Van%20Amerongen

I like it so much I have many copies of it both soft and hardcover.

„Wie funktioniert das?“ and it’s various versions are amazing books for teenagers interested in tinkering too.

Yes! That's it. That's the same book, that's the German name (which I couldn't remember). I know there are at least 2 of them, maybe more, and they are wonderful, it's so concise, they don't bullshit around at all. Hundreds of machines (and other things?) all explained with shocking clarity.

How did punch card readers work before optical reading was possible? They've got you covered. Want to know how tank gun stabilization works? Also covered. It really has everything.

Oh, I had a different book by that name How Things Work by David Macaulay. I loved it as a kid and a couple of years ago bought two used versions so that my son can experience it ;)

Macaulay's book was titled "The Way Things Work". I too loved it as a kid - what an incredible piece of art. I firmly believe every child should have a copy. One wonders how many STEM careers it provoked.

Your name confusion is understandable, as "How Things Work" was a popular book title - I had at least two books by that name concurrently with my ownership with "The Way Things Work", and I too was always getting them confused.

Yeah, you're right. I agree about the art, it was wonderful. I recall being mesmerized by the mammoths :P

For how long would cars really be practical in a "down in the bunker"-scenario, though? There wouldn't be any more fuel produced, probably, and cars require a fairly high standard of roads which also would be lost after not too long.

Personally, I would probably bring the equivalent book on bicycles, which I speculate would be the vehicle of choice for the end of the world. If anyone knows the name of such a book, I would be happy to hear it!

The idea is not to build a car just after you are out of the bunker. But it seems like this book would be helpful for a ton of useful things:

> thorough text covering not just cars, but their constituent parts--and their constituent parts' constituent parts--all the way down to the materials. It has wonderful tables of data on the properties of various materials (from advanced plastics and alloys to leather, paper, and common fluids) accompanied by clear and precise mechanical diagrams

The materials-part could probably be useful, but still, the utility of cars in a world where neither their infrastructure could be maintained nor their fuel produced is highly questionable. Bicycles are far less vulnerable, in my opinion.

You’re really getting hung up on the “car” part of it and not the “constituent parts”. This book would have everything required to build a bicycle.

Forget the car. The mechanical knowledge is the valuable thing.

Just looking through the table of contents [1] - this is not just for cars. It's basically a textbook on mechanical engineering, applied to something that will be common and very scavengable in a post-apocalyptic world. The first 159 pages is basically a quick-reference for applied physics; the next 50 pages is mathematics; the next 100 pages is material science. They don't get to anything car-specific until page 460.

[1] https://www.sae.org/images/books/toc_pdfs/BOSCH10.pdf

Why was this published? Bosch does not even make cars

Indeed, they only produce more car parts than any other company on this planet.

Bosch is a very large supplier for a huge amount of stuff in cars. Radars, other sensors, lights, ecu, brakes, hydraulics, gaskets, sealants, the lot.

Thank you for the link; yes, I laughed when I first paged across the book's reiteration of physical constants, the laws of thermo-dynamics etc. but in retrospect, it's helpful to have even elementary references when learning new concepts.

Engines can be modified to run on a lot of thing you can grow and process on a small farm. Maintenance would be an ongoing skill needed, so the role of mechanics and electro-mechanical knowledge would be highly valued again.

A harder challenge would be stripping out all the ECUs, computers and security crap to make things "just work" again.

All civilisations have been able to maintain their technology, but I think we are in an unusual and tremendously precarious point in history in the early 21st century. It seems far more likely that a loss of control over our technology will cause an apocalypse than that an apocalypse will cause us to lose technology.

>Engines can be modified to run on a lot of thing you can grow and process on a small farm. Maintenance would be an ongoing skill needed, so the role of mechanics and electro-mechanical knowledge would be highly valued again.

You could also drive things directly using a modified bicycle - see the Bicimáquinas-project from Guatemala: http://www.mayapedal.org/index.en

The 1978 book Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle had the same idea. In the book the Earth is struck by a comet which pretty much wipes out large areas of the planet.

Being from before the internet, one of the characters collects a whole range of books for topics such as tools, engineering, farming etc.

Alcohol Can Be A Gas is also worth a look.

Is this handbook still relevant in modern cars? I feel the new cars have so many hidden panels and electronics that you’re not expected to fiddle with the insides.

in a post-apocalyptic world, building an outdated suboptimal car is still better than not having the car at all.

I really wonder how practical this is though. The bicycle, for example, dates back to da Vinci, but we only became good enough at manufacturing to make the precise parts needed by the 19th century. having the diagrams is all well and good but we will also have lost the means of manufacturing reliably and that is going to be pretty tough to replicate.

Knowledge goes a long way though: i.e. knowing the 3-plate method for producing perfectly flat surfaces (most easily done with cast iron) gets you bootstrapped on making accurate tools, as does knowledge of how to build a lathe and what processes it is capable of.

All of which benefits from any type of work producing engine, since the core leap you need to make is to get away from being solely dependent on human labour as a power source.

Surely tractors are more important than cars as they help massively in food production. Simply moving about is easily done on foot. And the range of terrain that cars can cross is very restricted. Without regular traffic and maintaince I doubt roads would be passable in a couple of decades. Motorbikes though would still work fine.

I think the bigger issue would be rubber. Rubber cannot grow just anywhere and synthetic rubber requires a specialized petroleum industry.

Looking at the 11th edition it has chapters on Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Assistance and Infrared Night Vision Systems.

Pretty sure it covers modern cars fairly well.

It looks like the new 11th edition does include things like “the electrification of the drivetrain”, so it’s at least somewhat up to date

Can’t find it in amazon. Who is the author? Is it an old edition?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119911907/ref=dp_ob_neva_mob...

Thanks, I miss understood the post and was looking for the bunker title XD.

11th edition is already out. The link is to 10th.

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