Note 1 - why 1919?
I believe that most of what we call standard on automotive designs
(independent suspension, hydraulic braking, automatic transmission, overhead
cams etc...) had been put into some limited production vehicle or another by
the end of the war.
I vaguely recall reading that in the 16 or early 1700s a fellow wrote home
about seeing a large lower-than atmospheric pressure engine made with such
precision that "one could not slip a shilling in between the piston and the
cylinder walls". Back then, or course the difference between piston and
cyulinder diameter was not taken up with hard wings, it was a simple leather
pad over the top of the piston and doused with water that did the job. It
seems that most of the work since then has been spent making the same tired
old design with greater and greater precision.
I spent a considerable time associated with the paper industry where we
commonly saw microwave absorption testing on paper machines with huge
spinning granite rollers. Strangely enough mixing old and new doesn't always
work out. Now they use fancy micro-processors to control the speed of the
cans (rollers). But modern digital systems are now less accurate than the
old electric "swing bar galvanometer" of the late 1800s. That used a
pendulum like process to maintain a constant speed on the system. Even at
millions of cycles per second, digital is much less regular than the earth's
gravity. So instead of a single control method you now have lots of
individual connected digital speed controllers all networked to stop the
rollers from charging each other.
You just wait, the next car engines will all have individual digitally
controlled cam shafts. By merely adding in another 500 moving parts they
will get another 5% efficiency out of the system. And some jackass will
calculate all the gas savings of 5% of the national fuel consumption, assume
that everybody even in bangladesh has the new engine, and claim that we'eve
licked the environmental problem and award tehmselves the designer of the
year award. Of course they won't calculate that the energy required to make
the 500 parts each for all those cars and will erase any possible savings to
the consumer or the planet.
I think the next engineer to propose another piston engine design as
something avant-garde and revolutionary should be put in the public stocks
and pelted with dead fish.
Hmmm.. I seen to be getting bitter. I think I will find myself a coffee and
be nice. Rant mode off. (grin)
2 - Man smarter than machine
I don't know Randall. I am definitely smarter than my computer, but when I
sit here running Microsoft Windows and staring at the screen, I am very
doubtful about who is in control...
Seriously, perhaps that's why we like our LBC's. The man is the control unit
and not an innocent bystander. I sort of like driving the TR6 with a
screwdriver in each pocket. Oh I definitely appreciate my modern machine
starting by itself to warm up before I come out of the house in the winter
and I can't say I want to go back to being dumped on the side of the road on
the way to an important meeting. I guess I just wanted my flying car by now
too.
Cheers,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Randall Young [mailto:ryoung@NAVCOMTECH.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2002 4:37 PM
Cc: triumphs@autox.team.net
Subject: RE: I Thought I was in love
> When are they going to invent something new? Accursed pistons
> with gears and
> joints and ten million moving parts. Nothing better mechanically
> since 1919.
Ok, I give up. What was the big mechanical improvement in 1919 ?
> In technology, as a general rule it's said that when the control unit
becomes
> more advanced than the machine it's controlling it's a sure sign that the
> fundamental principle of the system is obsolete.
I'm having a hard time with this concept. Until they come up with something
more advanced than man, then every machine has a control unit that is more
advanced than it is.
Randall
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