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Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

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

#221

Post by dredmorbius »

mveety wrote: post #183
agumonkey wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dabbled in electronics, then electromechanics then mechanics. I'm now convinced that almost no software engineer is worth its title unless he made some physical apparatus on any complexity. Even a pair of scissors.

Why? That's akin to saying a mechanical engineer isn't worth their salt unless they know how to design and implement software. They're two different specialties that do different things. To be a good mechanical engineer you absolutely don't need to be good at making or even have tried to have make software.

Cross-discipline experience is invaluable, especially across several domains. One begins to appreciate commonalities, uniquenesses, and the infuriating significance of details only apparent on in-depth experimentation and iteration.

As with usability testing, small-n samples, say three to five, go a long way.

Do you have cross-domain expertise yourself?

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

#222

Post by silversconfused »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #190
silversconfused wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever try a bike from a bike shop? This sounds like a department store bike experience. Multispeed bicycles are not generic widgets you unbox, hop on, and go. They need tuning, like a musical instrument, and a lot of the adjustments are interdependent on one another.

That's like saying you can't just buy a harbor freight engine and expect the carb to be properly tuned. 99% of people are going to have no problem with how it performs as configured right out of the box.

You are mistaken. https://www.sheldonbrown.com/gloss_da-o.html#department

> The average department-store bicycle is ridden about 75 miles in its lifespan from showroom floor to landfill. The manufacturers know this, and build them accordingly. Department-store bicycles are most commonly sold in a partially disassembled and un-adjusted condition.

I should also clarify that SINGLE SPEED pedal brake bicycles ARE nearly maintenance free, and those DO work for most people out of the box in whatever state it might be in.

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

#223

Post by jsharf »

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…

What about making a bike out of wood? It would have a lot of friction, sure, but it might be better than walking?

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

#224

Post by adrianratnapala »

tlear wrote: post #207
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Be…

> 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

The assumption here is that every thing works in a clear way so you can see the military or whatever advantages of a particular phenomenon. Now I don't know if AnimalMuppet is literally correct that the bureaucracy simply shut down the steel industry -- but if it happened it would be because all that cheep steel was not being used for obvious things, like the imperial army, but for other unexpected uses. Maybe arms and armour still had to be made the old fashioned way anyhow, so there was no immediate military advantage.

More likely, things were subtler. Things innovations can strangled long before their importance is clear. Imperial China had a vibrant merchant class, but it isn't the kind of place that is likely to tolerate the "disruptive innovation" which fuelled Britain's Industrial Revolution -- where a bunch of upstarts come and do things with unexpected things. Even modern China (or for that matter the modern United States) struggles with it.

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

#225

Post by runarberg »

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…

This is not entirely correct. If you are a farmer you (or a someone working with you) still need to travel for numerous reasons, including to bring your products to market, to round up your animals, to buy equipment and supplies, etc.

You say they had horses for those types of traveling, except they most likely didn’t. Only a successful farmer could afford a horse. And even if they had a horse, chances were it was busy or tired for farming works to be used for transportation.

Most people walked to were they needed to go, in if the modern bicycle would have existed a farmers dream would be to have a successful crop one year so they could afford a bicycle. In fact a modern bicycle would have been a good investment for many farm as they allow farmers to bring more products to a market quicker and more efficiently, in turn allowing the transporter to be back at their farming job quicker and less tired.

This can be seen in today’s poorer regions where no trains nor road runs. But the occasional farm has invested in a bicycle to help with transportation.

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

#226

Post by adrianratnapala »

iguy wrote: post #134
nine_k wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good steel would only be strictly needed for axles. Bearings could have been polished and oiled wood. The frame, wood. The hinge of the front wheel, brass or another small bit of steel. Transmission could be a leather belt. Wheels, wood again. Would such a device somehow emulate a modern bicycle? Very likely. Would such a device be practical, reliable, fast, to say nothing of comfort? I greatly doubt it.

Right, that's how you could plausibly have made one or two, as a palace amusement, or a circus act. It's a little surprising this didn't happen (as far as I know). But efficient enough to go some distance, reliable enough not to need a full-time repair-man, and cheap enough to be sold to people who didn't already own a horse & carriage? That needed lots more technology.

> Right, that's how you could plausibly have made one or two, as a palace amusement, or a circus act. It's a little surprising this didn't happen (as far as I know).

You also need people to ride it. It wouldn't fly as a palace amusement because the king (and more importantly the little prince) would keep falling off. They won't have an incentive to value the skill until there is a horde of middle-class, 19th century, hipsters showing him up.

A circus act is more plausible, but only if there's some continuum of other simpler circus equipment leading up to this rather sophisticated bit of engineering.

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

#227

Post by jdnenej »

atoav wrote: post #160
nickbauman wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Antikythera Mechanism was a completely exotic Roman artifact. It was the space shuttle of its time. Not really a fair comparison. Dually, Romans were known for their extensive roads system. My family home sites directly below the Ancient Roman frontier in Germany, where you can climb a mountain and still find a 10 foot wide stone road they built 2000 years ago mostly intact

I grew up close to old roman streets and even in it’s best times it is nothing that you would wanna ride on with any kind of bike.

What about a modern mountain bike? Those are built to cross worse paths than just a regular dirt path.

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

#228

Post by mercules »

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…

Can you imagine having a bicycle made of casting iron with the technology of the past? Tetanus would be a problem, people wouldn't be able to have bicycles close to the ocean, it would be even dangerous if the person fell on the ground.

It certainly is amazing how people take for granted the marvels of current technology.

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

#229

Post by pfdietz »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #220
tlear wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Be…

This kind of thing isn't totally out of the question. The mandarins famously shut down China's budding sea voyages because they were run by a eunuch, and the mandarins and the eunuchs were opposed factions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He But there was never a Chinese ideological opposition to peasants becoming rich; the theory advanced by AnimalMuppet makes no sense.

Or, they shut down those voyages because they were economically absurd.

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

#230

Post by thaumasiotes »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #178
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Commoners got rich in commerce and in agriculture and landlording for most of Chinese history. A merchant legendarily put the first emperor's father on the throne of Qin in the third century BC. The merchants were despised, as merchants everywhere are; the rich farmers weren't. And a hereditary distinction between commoners and nobles was gone by the tenth century. So I'd want to hear a little more context to the cla…

A reply, now deleted, pointed out that AnimalMuppet's "source" appears to be more of a work of ideologically-motivated fiction than a source of credible information, as described in the Amazon reviews: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RKTM14HNQUUFO
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