The Greatest Mechanical invention

Hi Michael, when as a young lad I asked my farther how someone thought how to make machines, he told me that it probably started from simple things, and others thought of ways to improve or adapt and often add other concepts and so end up with a complex piece of kit. So your number 2 point, I believe is correct. In fact very often when at work and a problem arises, descussions take place and a sloution develops which can only be described as a team effort.

Regards Nick.

Hi Graham,

A gear wheel is simply a given number of levers arranged in a circle.

Regards

Terry

Unfortunately the chap (who was in the documentary) doesn't seem to have published his design!

The Greeks had many other mecahnical marvels, often powered by steam or water pressure - they even invented the vending machine. Heron of Alexandria described many of them.- altears taht opened doors when a fire was lit under them, or poured wine, basic automata.

They weren't 'dead ends' in the sense they had no-where to go, only in the sense that the Romans seem to have had no time for such silliness and we had to wait for a thousand years for them to be picked up again.

Neil

If you consider only how complex a mechanical device is it there are many canidates. Lathes , Steam Engines ....

Now, if you consider the magnitude of invention and ingenuity, I think there is nothing competing with the BOW and ARROW!

While you could look at the spear as an advanced stone throwing thing and the throwing stick (is that the right term?) as an arm lengthening thing as just developments of the same thing, the BOW and ARROW stands out. It takes a lot of thought and invention to actually bend a stick, hold it with some rope, and then use it to throw arrows at distances no man could throw a spear. This would get food at the homestead and more time for thought!

Neil,

There are some useful references in this paper

The Horological Journal articles were fairly detailed.

MichaelG.

Interesting. Wikipedia has three articles Atalatl, Spear Thrower and Woomera. the first two are very similar, while the third claims: "The extra energy gained from the woomera's use has been calculated as four times that from a compound bow"

The distance record for an atalatl approaches 260m. For hunting (rather than war)the certainty of a kill matters more than range or accuracy o the ability to accurately throw a spear with great force that can kil a deer or antelope instamntly may be more effective than a bow that would probably just injure the target leading to a long and perhaps unproductive chase/trailing of the target.

Which reminds me - most folks think humans are generalists with big brains, not much good at anything else. In fact, we are highly specialised for endurance - a human can outdistance a horse, because the human just keeps going. This was demonstrate ina documentary where two Kalahari Bushmen succesfully hunted down an antelope, just by following it and disturbing it every time it rested. After several hours they just walked up to the anetelope, already dying of heat exhaustion, and cut its throat. They did not seem even a little fatigued.

Neil

One has to consider that the, 'Old' people had little concept of time and lived day by day and only experienced the seasonal changes and as such saw the migrations of animals and maybe followed them to take them as food.

In the same period the ice age occured and it was only when the ice age retreated that mankind flourished. During this time they no doubt domesticated several feral animals such as cattle, dogs and anything that took their fancy, goats ?. Like today with Reindeer in Lapland.

it does not take much imagination to see that they would then use the larger animals as pack animals like the nomads do today. The dogs would help in hunting to distract the prey as it would be despatched.

Doing all this they had to create shelter, perhaps caves, (wall paintings) and perhaps clothing and create weapons like the bow and spear(Shown in the wall paintings), fire was essential as seasonal weather would curtail hunting and of course fire can help with food preservation and cooking.

so, one of the first devices may have been a rotated stick in a piece of wood to make fire.

It is clamed that the birth place of modern man (Homo Erectus) was in the Olduvai gorge in the Northern Frontier District in Kenya where Prof. Leakey found the bones and skulls of ancient man. mankind were few and far between in those times and there were no massive populations like now. In those days you could live off the land and comfortably. Animals abound and the lakes are full of fish, I know, I have been there and it is wild, hot and rugged with hot streams bursting from underground. You would not go hungry but you would need shelter as in the day it reaches 40C.I understand that in those days the land was forested. Like many parts of the world that are now desert that were once wild Oasis

Clive

Typewriter. Okay, it ultimately gave way to the keyboard, on which you lot are typing all this crap instead of doing something useful...!

not necessarily the 'greatest mechanical invention',

but hidden away and often overlooked and still in regular use are quite a large number of church bells cast as long ago as the 13th century in the UK.

the process used in their manufacture in the medieval times was an incredible art, and by far the largest manufacturing process at the time and for many centuries until the industrial revolution.

that so many ancient church bells remain in regular use is to my mind truly remarkable.

later the same process was used to make bronze cannons.

there was quite a debate in the later part of the 19th century and early 20th century as to whether 'modern' bells' had the same tonal characteristics as their medieval counterparts. and a lot of modern rings of bells incorporate medieval bell metal.

imagine witnessing a half ton bell being cast in 1280! what magic that must have seemed!

have a look at the medieval stained glass windows on the north side of the chancel in York Minster which show how these early bells were cast!

cheers,

julian

I always thought that spreading knowledge and discussion is useful. I beleived that the ability to reflect, reason analyse and act as well as being able to pass on knowledge is what distinguished mankind from the animal kingdom Now I know it's crap Hmmmmmm..............

Must go and sit on my own in isolation and cut bits of metal as a penance.  Or   --- I could get on with writing crap and those who wish to do something useful could ignore it and not waste their time reading and commenting.

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 14/10/2012 09:18:31

Hi Julian

"not necessarily the 'greatest mechanical invention',

but hidden away and often overlooked and still in regular use are quite a large number of church bells cast as long ago as the 13th century in the UK."

I certainly agree with the first bit!

We live in a village right next to the church and "benefit" from a regular "entertainment" on Sunday mornings (no lie-ins here!) and weekly practice evenings. We have to keep our dog indoors as if she goes into the garden when the bells are ringing she just sits and howls. On the plus side we don't have any trouble with the "neighbours" - they are always deadly quiet!

Regards

Norman

Most Victorian inventions.

If it wasn't for the Victorians we would be in the shìt - literally as they designed and build most of our sewerage systems in this country and some are of immense proportions.

John S.

Hi Gray,

Spot on, see my posting at the end of P4.

Best regards

Terry

Hi John

Again I agree as i said in my post above, flush toilets and the sewer drainage system are a huge machine which quietly benefitsd us all.

Here is a quote from the 1841 Crown Comission report into child labour in the Black Country which reported that there were few, if any, individual "privies" and described the toilet arrangements as below, for more see here:

"The working classes of Coseley, for the most part, as I am informed, and certainly the great majority in Lower Gornal, are in the habit of fixing a perch (about the size and length of a clothes prop) horizontally across one corner of their little strip of yard or dreary garden. Sometimes several families combine and carry a perch to the corner of a neighbouring field, which act of undue possession being sure to be very soon imitated by others, a disturbance is apt to ensue, if not a fight, the parties being so utterly ignorant and debased as not to be conscious in the slightest degree of the degradation implied in the whole proceeding."

There had been many deaths in the area from Cholera as well as severe outbreaks of Scarlet fever and God knows what else, not to mention the stench.

I vote for the humble lavatory (and drainage system)

Best regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 14/10/2012 11:46:16

Oh for heaven's sake it's a JOKE!

Don't you lot get jokes?

Mind you, that said, then if none of you do, then I have learned something from this thread...

Edited By Steve Garnett on 14/10/2012 16:41:21

Yep Steve

I get jokes - in fact jokes for me make pleasant pastures amongst life's stresses. Trouble is they need to be (at least a bit) funny and I guess your post came across more as a bit frustrated and annoyed that folk should be posting about such insignificant, Non-ME things. This is the problem with this method of communication - we can't see the smile on your face or the tongue in your cheek!

N

Edited By NJH on 14/10/2012 16:51:29

Okay, it's too subtle...? I'll have to find a 'joke' light from somewhere then!

Hi Steve,

Not subtle, just not funny .

I love a joke and try add a bit of humour into my postings, but things don't always come across on the screen as they do in conversation. Smileys were introduced to try and inject that nuance that one gets in face to face conversation, pity they are so overused and abused.

Best regards

Terry

I think you'll find that jokes are a bit like beauty - it rather depends upon the eye of the beholder...

Well I'm laughing at you lot bickering amongst yoursleves

Oscar Wilde could have written a play on these lines. The Importance of Posting Earnest? Perhaps we should give the award to the smiley?

Neil;