Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#201

Post by JackFr » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:38 PM UTC

lucideer wrote: post #26

> (Some commenters have suggested that it was not obvious that a two-wheeled vehicle would balance, but I find this unconvincing given how many other things people have learned to balance on, from dugout canoes to horses themselves.) I'll be one of those commenters I guess.... What!?? Balancing in a canoe is in no way similar to a bicycle. I can jump in a canoe having never been in one, and it will balance itself. I…

>It seems pretty clear that the development of the bicycle would've been significantly hampered by the fact that balancing on two wheels was:

> (a) unintuitive as an idea with no analogue in nature or previous innovations

> (b) had a marked learning curve

> (c) that learning curve was separate and independent for each design.

This! It's completely non-obvious that balancing will work and there is no analog in nature to copy.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#202

Post by pier25 » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:39 PM UTC

anticensor wrote: post #164

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. HP is a measure of power . So is watts. Watts/second is not a meaningful unit.

It is the standard unit of power response slope over time . 1 horse of power equals 746 Watts, though.

But over 1 hour, no?

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#203

Post by JackFr » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:42 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #114

lucideer wrote: post #26

> (Some commenters have suggested that it was not obvious that a two-wheeled vehicle would balance, but I find this unconvincing given how many other things people have learned to balance on, from dugout canoes to horses themselves.) I'll be one of those commenters I guess.... What!?? Balancing in a canoe is in no way similar to a bicycle. I can jump in a canoe having never been in one, and it will balance itself. I…

> The horse, with its four (not two!) legs is an even more ridiculous comparison. The comparison is, as I understood it, the rider balancing on the horse itself. I've only ever done this myself with saddle and stirrups, so I don't know if this is significantly more difficult without those. I think you're being a little generous with the canoe. Boarding a canoe without a dock (that is, climbing in from the water) is t…

But a canoe floats, as a horse stands.

A bicycle simply does not stand up on its own.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#204

Post by gregmac » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #66

Excel_Wizard wrote: post #29

>Yet it was a simple mechanical invention As a mechanical engineer, this statement baffled me. All manufactured technology exists in the context of the manufacturing capabilities available to the designer. The manufacturing tech had to be tremendously complicated before a decent bike could be made. Hollow steel tubes aren't simple. Ball bearings aren't simple. There is a reductionist viewpoint among "theory" people t…

Right. And one point that cannot be stressed enough. Good steel, in quantity, only goes back to 1880. Lots of things that "could have been built in antiquity" foundered on that basic fact. Before Bessemer, steel was as exotic as titanium is now. The alternatives are not good. Cast iron? Too heavy and too brittle. Wrought iron? Maybe, but not that great. Lead? Too soft. Brass? Could work, but expensive. A king's kid m…

This threw me on a bit of a tangent to learn about iron and steel, and I came across this good video about the history of the two including the Bessemer Converter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E__zqy6xcw

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#205

Post by usrusr » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #79

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #55

One possibly overlooked factor: the nature of travel has changed dramatically in the last 200 years. Right up until World War 1, my ancestors literally had no reason to ever go more than ten miles from home, and even that was rare. The entire extended family lived within a two mile radius. This was because they were all farmers, and farmers didn't need to travel often. Furthermore, if you did travel, well, you alread…

Indeed, bicycles have generally been transport within cities and close-by. A world where most people lived in rural areas would not be that practical for bicycle travel even now.

Bicycles surely played a considerable role in inter-village traffic in the earlier parts of the 20th century. Maybe not in particularly poor or sparsely populated areas, but where villages are close enough to touch each others at the very edges of their walkable productivity zones? Maybe they got their bikes a few years later, maybe their cars a few years earlier than in the cities, but that still leaves quite a few years of cycling.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#206

Post by smogcutter » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

ScalaFan wrote: post #175

dTal wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bamboo-frame bicycles exist today as a fashionable item, and as far as I can tell without having ridden one, they work for practical purposes just as well as metal-frame ones. I suspect you could make a perfectly acceptable modern bicycle with 18th century technology, albeit not as durable. Metal axles aren't much of a problem. Light and strong wheels are trickier, but you could get away with solid wooden ones, or em…

Might not rubber belts have been possible instead of chains? Rubber was available 18th Century - maybe not in industrial quantities but still. In fact, latex was was available to the Mayans and Aztecs according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rubber#History

AFAIK you'd need vulcanization to make rubber belts practical, so wouldn't have been available much earlier than chains and sprockets.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#207

Post by tlear » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #93

Animats wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And one point that cannot be stressed enough. Good steel, in quantity, only goes back to 1880. Lots of things that "could have been built in antiquity" foundered on that basic fact. Before Bessemer, steel was as exotic as titanium is now. The alternatives are not good. Cast iron? Too heavy and too brittle. Wrought iron? Maybe, but not that great. Lead? Too soft. Brass? Could work, but expensive. A king's kid m…

What killed the Chinese iron industry wasn't the lack of a Bessemer converter. What killed them was the mandarin bureaucracy. The mandarins saw that some commoners were getting rich in the iron industry, declared it to be contrary to the proper order, and shut it down. (Source: "The Victory of Reason" by Rodney Stark.)

That does not sound like a good argument at all. Metal for vast majority of human history gave you massive edge in weapon technology. Some Mandarin just shut something like that down? Seems super unlikely

Vikings transported Crucible steel all the way from Afghanistan to make high end swords. Damascus steel(actually manufactured in India) and then forged into weapon in Damascus.. etc

There got to be other reasons. Better or equivalent to Crucible steel but en masss.. you can have forged plate for everyone, horse full armor, heat treated crossbow bolt heads etc.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#208

Post by admax88q » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

smileysteve wrote: post #172

nordsieck wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It would be less efficient, but still workable. Even just wood on wood is sufficient. Proof: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcvFpbh2fjE Your "proof" is unconvincing. 1. The bike looks super wobbly and seems like it takes a lot of effort to just make it function properly. Yes, it is an example of a wooden bicycle, but it is not an example of a useful wooden bicycle. It seems like it probably has a pretty short wo…

To amplify number 2; I just spent a week in Rome; Cobblestone would seemingly destroy the fragility. Anecdotally, on a bike ride recently, on a modern bike, hopping an inch curb snapped a chain.

Modern bikes are built yo tight tolerances for their purpose. Taking an inch curb in a mountain bike is nothing, taking it in an ultra weight optimized road bike is a different story.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#209

Post by your-nanny » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #189

Animats wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And one point that cannot be stressed enough. Good steel, in quantity, only goes back to 1880. Lots of things that "could have been built in antiquity" foundered on that basic fact. Before Bessemer, steel was as exotic as titanium is now. The alternatives are not good. Cast iron? Too heavy and too brittle. Wrought iron? Maybe, but not that great. Lead? Too soft. Brass? Could work, but expensive. A king's kid m…

> The alternatives are not good. Cast iron? Too heavy and too brittle. Wrought iron? Maybe, but not that great. Lead? Too soft. Brass? Could work, but expensive. A king's kid might have had a brass bicycle. Well that still leaves wood.

not strong enough for the frame without being too heavy. there are wood composite bicycles, today, but that is whole other thang

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

#210

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Jul 15, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #202

anticensor wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the standard unit of power response slope over time . 1 horse of power equals 746 Watts, though.

But over 1 hour, no?

No. 1 horsepower, this instant, equals 746 watts, this instant. An average of 1 horsepower over an hour equals an average of 746 watts over the same hour.