How plausible is the concept of accelerated technological progress in alternate history?

[Metempsychosis]

Tips Fedora

I prefer the graph with the Finnish-Korean Hyperwar.

 

[Jürgen]

I think the biggest “discoveries” tend to be philosophical or information sharing in nature. Paper, writing and mathematics are things which could be further developed much earlier and could have radical changed earlier societies and push them toward earlier development. As for philosophy it gives us explanation model for the world, when this at some point is mixed with experimentation, you will slowly get a philosophy which develop into science.

 

[Workable Goblin]

If you develop some technology for one purpose, it can be applied to something else. Plastics were originally developed during the nuclear program, for example. On the flip side, many advancement rely on technology from other fields. You can't really isolate technological advancement like that.

No they weren’t; the first plastics were developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You’re probably thinking of Teflon, but that was actually invented in 1938 and it was just scaled up to mass production faster because of the Manhattan Project (DuPont was already working to commercialize it).