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1937 film explains how a car differential works

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Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#92
post #66

If you enjoy this, don't miss the video lecture on World War 2-era mechanical fire control computers by the U.S. Navy. I learned you can do a lot of computations with gears and shafts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwf5mAlI7Ug

Another great older film is "Similarities of Wave Behavior" [1] from Bell Labs. It was aimed at college students, and covers in a very clear way these topics: reflection of waves from free and clamped ends, superposition, standing waves and resonance, energy loss by impedance mismatching, and reduction of energy loss by quarter-wave and tapered-section transformers. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DovunOxlY1k

Thank you so much for linking to this. I knew about many of the concepts in an abstract sense but this cemented them all together for me in an intuitive way.

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#93
post #5

How would films like this be consumed in the 30’s? Would it be shown in theaters before a feature film?

It's most likely for personnel training. It would probably have been shown on a small projector in a classroom setting, much like is still done today.

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#94
Stumbled onto this explanation of how a Torsen differential works. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but it basically uses the one-way nature oh how a worm gear can turn a regular gear but not the other way around (due to the high gear ratio involved).

So in this differential, the housing can turn both wheels simultaneously, but if one wheel slips and becomes free, it can't direct the torque to the free wheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEiSTzK-A2A

Maybe someone has a better explanation?

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#95
post #89

The lack of background music and pace is really interesting to me. Compared to a typical "how it's made" video [1] (which I feel has a similar level of detail), this video feels significantly more digestible. Those moments of silence feel totally alien and out of place in today's style, but I think contributes positively to my ability to understand and process the information. [1] https://youtu.be/8gno0_emzo8

That's a good observation. There is a slow pacing but when it's quiet your mind is still working so it's not 'boring' time.

It's just like in sports now where someone has to be rambling about something the entire game, even though you're watching it. It's still useful, often to find out which player shot or for the added excitement with the crowd. But they ALL feel the need to fill dead space the entire show which I personally would experiment with if I ran the show. There's plenty going on always already. Humans are weird like that.

I'm sure this has applications in Youtube and other educational videos or whatever.

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#96
post #14

The style in those old films is so relaxing and pedagogically great. Has anyone else noticed that today's educational content intended for adults increasingly uses a format that was regionally only used for very young children? There is almost always personality emoting and doing accidentally on purpose funny things and laughing, exaggerating everything to keep people engaged.

A lot of 40s videos are so well balanced between basic tangible ideas to full device.

- differentials

- fluid based car transmission

- navy canon driver based on analog computers

- wave principles (using super cute appartus to show impedance)

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#97
I work as a diesel engine technician for a small midwestern chain and I whip this video out in the breakroom whenever the apprentice gets an idler/pitman or diff rebuild on a large truck. So many of the guys i work with know about LSD (Limited Slip Differentials) and locking differentials/hubs, but dont entirely understand why they are needed or how they work once the wheels are back on the ground.

if you really want to see something cool, check out interaxle differentials and detroit dfifferentials. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-d-uOYCrRE

torsen differentials are incredible as they can in many cases overcome the traction difference problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEiSTzK-A2A

Re: 1937 film explains how a car differential works

#98
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, there are plenty of companies founded before 1937 that still exist

But the people are dead, so they are the same or different ‘company’ in a similar vein of argument.

A company is not the people who work for it, or the people that own it. Its its own distinct legal entity.
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