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

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

#311

Post by Retric » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:40 AM UTC

anticensor wrote: post #162

jandrese wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story I heard was that a horse is good for about 0.5-0.6HP continuously. The farmer lied about his horse.

No, James Watt behaved like a sincere merchant, and he made a more powerful engine than he actually measured, in order to avoid making it again in case he complains that the engine is too underpowered.

Interesting, “It was found that a horse could conveniently raise a weight of 100 pounds attached to the end of the rope while walking at the rate of two and one-half miles per hour, or 220 feet per minute. This is 220 x 100— 22,000 foot-pounds. W att, however, in order to allow for friction in his engine and for good measure added 50 per cent to this amount, thus establishing 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, or 550 foot-pounds per second as the unit of power.” https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1466&...

It lists other estimates ranging up to 1.5 HP, and also has peak HP from one contest at 14.88HP though that was published in 1926.

PS: One even has Tredgold 6 hrs. 125 lbs. 3 m. p. h. = 1HP.

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

#312

Post by aaron695 » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

I find it interesting in developing countries the motobike is far more used than the bicycle.

It hasn't won, even amongst the real poor a motorbike is far more common.

Bikes are simply not much use.

Either you walk or you need motorised bike or in the other situations were a bike is of use you can also afford a motobike.

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

#313

Post by GhostVII » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:42 AM UTC

simulate wrote: post #44

In 100 years will we wonder why recumbent bicycles took so long to catch on? MIT's David Gordon Wilson, the writer of the excellent book Bicycling Science, had been advocating for recumbents as a more efficient design to replace traditional modern bicycles for decades. http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-designer-inventor-author-bike-b... and https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/bicycling-science-third-editi...

I don't think I would ever regularly use a recumbent bicycle, since you don't seem to have as much control over the bike than with a traditional one. You can't jump a curb or swerve around parked cars very easily on a recumbent. Also it's nice to be over top of the bike so you can easily jump off or redistribute your weight whenever you have to.

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

#314

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:44 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #239

runarberg wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think even horses was more of an upper class thing. Most humans throughout our modern history have used their own muscle power for work and transportation. In poorer rural communities a bicycle is immensely helpful in getting your products to a market more quickly and economically then walking. This is as true today as it was in the early 19th century.

I've seen rural roads in poorer parts of Eastern Europe some decades ago. They definitely used bicycles and found them useful, but that was more of a fair weather type of thing. And bikes were exclusively used to get one person from point A to point B; to carry goods they preferred 4 wheel vehicles, either motorized or not. Perhaps that's just my experience. You're right about horses. Oxen were the preferred power so…

I remember oxen being more practical and cheaper but not as high status as horses from Laura Ingalls Wilder's books.

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

#315

Post by track_me_now » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:45 AM UTC

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…

This entire post sounds like it was written by an alien trying to compress a full theoretical understanding of the bicycle into an essay without ever having ridden one. super-weird tone to the whole thing; they discount many researched aspects of bicycles and present the information like it's brand new.

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

#316

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:47 AM UTC

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…

Now that I have access to the book, I'll try.

Stark says, "Eventually, Mandarins at the imperial court had noticed that some commoners were getting rich by manufacturing and were hiring peasant laborers at high wages. They deemed such activities to be threats to Confucian values and social tranquillity[sic]. Commoners must know their place; only the elite should be wealthy. So, they declared a state monopoly on iron and seized everything. As Winwood Reade summed up, the reason for China's many centuries of economic and social stagnation is plain: 'Property is insecure. In this one phrase, the whole history of Asia is contained.'"

Footnotes for sources list "Hartwell 1966, 1967, 1971, McNeill 1982" for the info on the iron industry, and "Reade 1925: 108" for the quote.

"Hartwell 1971" resolves to 'Hartwell, Robert, 1971. "Historical Analogism, Public Policy, and Social Science in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century China." The American Historical Review 76:690-727.'

Hartwell 1966 is "Markets, Technology, and the Structure of Enterprise in the Development of the Eleventh-Century Chinese Iron and Steel Industry." The Journal of Economic History 26:29-58.'

(No Hartwell 1967 is listed in the bibliography.)

McNeill 1982 resolves to 'McNeill, William H. 1982. The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000. Chicago: University of Chicago Press'

Finally, Reade resolves to 'Reade, Winwood. 1925. The Martyrdom of Man. London: Watts.'

I'm not sure that Reade is important for more than the quote. I suspect that Hartwell and McNeill are the source of the actual info on what happened in China.

And, presuming that Stark summarized adequately, the problem may have been hiring peasants for high wages. That may in fact have been somewhat disruptive to the existing social order...

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

#317

Post by rlue » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:49 AM UTC

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…

Your points are all literally stated in the article's first bullet point.

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

#318

Post by Retric » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:50 AM UTC

acqq wrote: post #68

Retric wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A horse peaks around 15+ horsepower depending on age and breed they can significantly exceed it. They also generally average above 1HP for long stretches. 1hp is at best one measure of the average consistent power output of an average horse doing a full day of work every day for months. Or about the equivalent of a person doing 0.05 to 0.1 hp.

It all comes from Watt trying to calculate how to sell his machines to the owners of the mines, who depended before on ponies: http://ffden-2.phys.uaf.edu/103_fall2003.web.dir/Chris_Peter... "Watt was working with ponies lifting coal at a coal mine, and he wanted a way to talk about the power available from one of these animals. He found that, on average, a mine pony could do 22,000 foot-pounds of work in a minute. H…

Yea, it was a ballpark estimate not really a major study.

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1466&...

Shows several other HP estimates for horses at up to 1.5 HP per hours and even one at 125lb * 3mph over 6 hours = 1 hp. Also includes a peak from a contest at 14.88 HP.

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

#319

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 2:53 AM UTC

jdfellow wrote: post #192

A lot of the discussion here is about materials and manufacturing, which certainly wasn't available until the late 19th century to make and produce bicycles. But the real title of the article should have been, and the real unanswered question, is "Why did we wait so long for the draisine?" An all-wood two-wheeled single-track vehicle that was just kicked along like a scooter. This was invented in 1817, and the articl…

[deleted]

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

#320

Post by nickbauman » Tue, Jul 16, 2019, 3:08 AM UTC

bookofjoe wrote: post #300

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

Greek artifact, not Roman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

From the early middle of the ancient Roman era. The nationality of the artifact is less significant than the time in assessing the state of the art especially in this case.