The Greatest Mechanical invention

The Chinese Windlass is even simpler and can lift huge weights using a lever, one drum and one pulley. Add a simple ratchet and you have a non reversible system.

Regards

Terry

Where will this topic go next I wonder?

Since it started it has covered many different areas and been round the houses twice! even Graham now has drifted off his original question which I recall was him wondering what the 'The most valuable mechanical invention' was.

I am pleased that Graham has a nice ornate pair (of dividers) but surely they are not in the running to be the definitive answer to the original question?

Ian P

. with many of the

For what it's worth (0.5p?) I think the variety of our opinions reflects the evolutionary way in which things mechanical have progressed over the centuries/millennia, making it difficult to point to any single invention or advance as being The Great Leap Forward. For almost every development which is postulated, it seems possible to say thet it would not have happened without some previous invention or discovery, until you get back to things like smelting bronze and iron. But even then, the first bronzefounders may have used flint tools to get their firewood.

Andy

How about a hole in the ground...

Useful for many things, getting under the car, standing Stonehenge stones upright, disposing of bodies, hiding treasure...

Ian

Dividers, used by Navigators to, 'Step' across a chart, or profiling the shape in a casting box. Useful for finding the center of something. Possibly scribing parallel lines down a piece of metal from one edge.

Charts are not linear and the scale down the side is used to set the dividers to step the distance at that latitude.

clive

The invention of a sewage system was a gradual development over thousonds of years demanded by a growing problem facilitated by a growing population. The same could be said of the decreasing water use of the flushing toilet.

I still front the bow and arrow as an example that needs real inginuety and a real grasp of mechanical principles. The atlatl and spear throwing devices is all decreasing the accuracy of the spear, which is not spectacular anyway. If you have spent a few hour sneaking up on a pray, you would want to hit it with the first shot. If it is hurt, it can be folowed to the end, no matter how far.

In my opinion the bow and arrow is the greatest LEAP in mechanical development in human history.

If you look at the spear and atlatl that came after it it (did they?). they are just extencions to what was already known, but the bow and arrow needed a genuine understanding of mechanical priciples which is unsurpassed even in modern history. Considering that they had almost nothing to build upon, this, IMO is the greatest mechanical LEAP of invention in human history.

Kai

Nuclear weapons because they stopped all major wars?

Now we just get local stuff

Sorry, but in my opinion weapens can never be the greatest mechanical invention.

Niko.

T

I couldn't find a PDF copy of the 'Scientific American' article refererenced herein;

but, more than thirty years on, I remember it vividly.

The infamous "Protect and Survive" propaganda was ludicrous by comparison.

MichaelG.

[added hyperlink]

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/10/2012 21:47:23

Sadly, though they are the greatest spur to development. Aircraft and lorries during the first world war, jet engines and atomic weapons in the 2nd (from nothing to bang in 3 years). Seems to be human nature, a lot more effort has gone into swords than ploughshares.

Rod

So today it was announced that two cold war missile silos have been given British heritage status, and are now listed builings in the sense that they are important to our history !

So, lets propose the Rocket as it has lifted the human race into space and out of this world !

Clive

Hi Graham

I believe It was Eli Whitney not Colt who was the first to standardise parts in the manufacture of firearms (Muskets). also he is credited with the invention of the cotton gin.

He was certainly an early adopter of the milling machine, (possibly the inventor).

Cheers

John

Edited By John McNamara on 16/10/2012 11:39:25

Hi Gray,

I hate to differ but it was Maudslay and Brunel who gave us interchangeability with their block making machinery for the Royal Navy at Portsmouth in 1803, The production line was set up and the machines so accurate that any pulley would fit any block from the same range.. Maudslay also saw the advantages of interchangeable nuts and bolts later taken up by one of his co-workers, Mr Whitworth.

Best regards

Terry

The reductio ad absurdunm argument advance below supports my suggestion of the flint blade. More correctly flint or obsidian tools which required a degree of skill to make and use, but would have transformed the lives of those who had them.

As a myopic, I doubly appreciate these wee things as the invention of simple tools suddenly made short-sighted folk valuable to the community.

Neil

The zip fastener.

Martin.

I still vote for what was probably the first tool which had to be devised rather than found, The Hammer. Read the history of the inventor, New-Fist-Hammer-Maker here 

Regards

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 16/10/2012 16:11:38

Hi, I also dislike any type of firearms, or any other types weapons that are the subject of conflict. It is however, ironic that they are in fact a most important invention to a lot of peoples lives as well as being fatal to many others. As an example, apart from all the battles and wars that have happened in the distant past, my own life and that of my siblings would in all probability not have happened if not for both of the two world wars. Firstly because if the first world war did not happen, it is unlikely that my mother would have been born, and secondly, if the second world war did not happen my parents would probably not have meet when they did or even maybe not at all. This kind of scenario is likely to be the same for many post war births.

I still would not put any weapons, no matter how sophisticated they are as the greatest invention. The first clock of good accuracy and repeatability must be a contender, as it was likely to be one of the things that have made the logistics of our lives so efficient as it has become.

Regards Nick.

Hi All

Brunel Born 1806 only started work within a year of Eli Whitney' death (January 1825) so I guess that gives the discovery (Or at least rediscovery and improvement of previous work) to Whitney.

Maudlsley overlaps a bit so there is room for conjecture there.

I have been to the Whitney museum and have seen first hand some of the jigs and fixtures he made. By modern standards pretty rough however well advanced for his time.

Cheers

John

Not too far off-topic, I hope ...

The new series on BBC4 "Order and Disorder" by Jim Al-Khalili, is superb.

If you missed the first part; catch it on iPlayer.

MichaelG.