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Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

blog.rootsofprogress.org

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Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#51

Post by inigyou »

nerdsniper wrote: post #20
LandStander wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why did we start with main+tail rotor helicopters? Nowadays 4-rotor quadcopters appeared and have taken over The quadcopter advantage is in it's mechanical simplicity, but having fewer longer blades is better for aerodynamic efficiency(at the expense of max airspeed). This matters less at RC scale, but at full size, even an all-electric helicopter will likely have more range than a quadcopter with the same batteries.

4 rotors is also a much more difficult “controls” problem. Helicopters actually glide reasonably well if their engine cuts off. They’re not super insanely unstable. Quadcopters are basically obligate fly-by-wire vehicles which necessitate at least pneumatic PID controllers if not computer chips to fly. You can make a helicopter work reasonably well a lot earlier in a pre-computer “tech tree” than you can a quadcopter…

A helicopter with a broken engine glides well enough to avoid instantly killing everyone on board if the pilot knows what he's doing. I wouldn't call it "reasonably well".

Here you go - drops slightly slower than a brick. The pilot has to speed up the descent on purpose so that he can use that stored energy to slow it down just before the crash, thus converting the crash into merely a hard landing. https://youtu.be/05_WFvh9ISk

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#52

Post by xtiansimon »

avidiax wrote: post #4

I think the author is missing another major factor: the early bicycle doesn't solve any problem satisfactorily. A velocipede at best saves you a bit of energy going flat or downhill, with relatively little increase in speed, with a relatively high capital expense. Compared with walking and horses, it doesn't help much. You have to get all the way to the safety bicycle (with pneumatic tires) before you have something…

Inflection point of technologies:

  - [pneumatic tire] -> bicycle.
  - [battery, touch screens, high bandwidth networks] -> mobile phones
  - [transformer architectures, massive datasets] —> “ai” as we know it today
Such an interesting topic. I remember a lecture of an English literature course. The course theme was how creative writing can be inspired by different disciplines such as biblical studies, philosophy, language studies, anthropology (a broad list). In the last example the professor describes how language might have evolved in an “eruption” or “tear” (itself a figurative expression). One discipline (volcanography) captures a difficult idea in another discipline (anthropology). An example of the course’s theory that multidisciplinary study informs creative writing—and there is an eruption producing something new. Maybe something like David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest”.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#53

Post by benj111 »

Theodores wrote: post #43
benj111 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there was ever a situation of roads getting overgrown. The canals and trains were part an parcel of the industrial revolution. That if anything led to more road traffic. Yes it may not be long distance, but it's still to the nearest town/train station. It's like suggesting that a local road next to a motorway suddenly doesn't get used. It won't get used by long distance traffic. But it attracts traffic…

Carlton Reid, the guy who started the trade website BikeBiz, is my source for this, and his is a name to look out for, his writing is consistently good and his advocacy based on a knowledge of history. I am just paraphrasing what I have learned from his telling of the early days of the CTC (Cycle Touring Club). There were many cycle touring clubs, and this was how men met women without their mothers being around! The…

>Only with 21st century goggles on does your idea of induced vehicular traffic make sense

I live between Manchester and Bradford. 2 towns that didn't exist before the industrial revolution. 2 entire cities built, basically because of that induced demand.

In fact I grew up next to probably what was the major road between the 2 judging by the number of ex inns.

Yes. You will get less traffic going Manchester Bradford on the road. But you have some guy in between those 2 points that wants to sell his cloth. He needs to get it to one of those 2 points. You need to get the wool to the factory. Etc, etc etc. that mill exists because you have those 2 cities, further they are connected elsewhere where.

Yes Bradford had factories, manchester had factories. But any small village around here had factories. Where I grew up was nowhere near the railway, canal, Huddersfield and Halifax were miles away, it still had 2 mills. I'm currently in pecket well, a tiny village of less than 50 houses on the top of a hill, I can see it had at least 1 mill because I can see it, now flats.

Yes, the stuff was only going to hebden bridge. But what was moving before that? Not much except wool and judging by the ratio of weavers cottages to mill cottages, a lot less than when the mill was here. Induced demand!

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#54

Post by Melatonic »

Theodores wrote: post #31
kopirgan wrote: post #22

Incredible to think that barely ten years after bicycles were somewhat perfected as useful, Wright brothers started testing their early plane designs.

I hate to burst your bubble, but... The Wright Brothers started in a bicycle workshop, as did practically every auto maker, in Europe, in the early days. The bicycle workshop was the cradle for many things. The Wright Brothers were not good for progress. Their game was patents. They were rent seekers, as in 'patent trolls', not innovators. This is why so much early aviation switched to Europe. With the bicycle the Wr…

Besides those early French helicopter things what major early aviation innovations were unique to Europe ?

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#55

Post by Melatonic »

Quothling wrote: post #9

> I think the deepest explanation is in general economic and cultural factors. I would say that this is very on point. Even during the renaissance "inventing" was a hobby for the aristocracy, as the author gets around with Giovanni Fontana. I'm not sure if a bicycle would've been a "cool" invention at the time. Because what would you do with it? For the majority of people there was very little need for personal mobil…

If mobility was not a thing then why were horses so popular ? Why is the bicycle credited with helping to give women so much more agency then ?

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#56

Post by mmooss »

inigyou wrote: post #50
jdmitch wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are partly right, but I also think the mechanical advantage of the bicycle, even the velocipede, was significantly underestimated. You say it saves "a bit of energy going flat or downhill" but some quick calculations suggest it is twice as energy efficient just balancing along, and 3 to 4 times more efficient pedalling. These advantages aren't always realised, especially over shorter distances, but I woul…

That sentence was about the pedal-less velocipede. It basically holds up your butt while you walk, and can coast a bit.

> It basically holds up your butt while you walk

There's also a second major benefit. Some amateur theory: There are two main advantages to wheels generally: A) Hold up your butt (support weight), and B) reduce friction with the ground, preserving momentum. Wheels move weight.

Walking A) puts weight on your legs, and B) is series of high-friction interactions with ground - on each step you would almost stop if you didn't expend energy to propel yourself forward to the next step (depending on how fast you're walking). You forward momentum is mostly wasted on each step.

Compare carrying something heavy walking and in a wheelbarrow: The wheelbarrow bears the weight and also uses forward momentum much more efficiently. The wheelbarrow was a high-impact innovation.

But the wheelbarrow still requires you to walk! So put your own butt in the wheelbarrow and using a crankshaft, pedals, and some gearing (and maybe a second wheel), propel your own weight forward too. Now you have a cargo bike. :)

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#57

Post by undebuggable »

belZaah wrote: post #8

It’s not at all immediately obvious as to why the bicycle stands upright or turns. The physics is non-trivial and, based on the drawings, offsetting the center of the wheel from the axis of thw wheel being turned was not a thing. But it is this feature, that allows the modern bike to maneuver. Counter-steering is very unintuitive. If you lack the underlying physics or, in fact, personal experience, the bicycle sounds…

> The physics is non-trivial and, based on the drawings, offsetting the center of the wheel from the axis of thw wheel being turned was not a thing.

There is whole physics around it and even legal regulations [1].

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_geometr...

Looking at the state of stomatology and medicine back then early velocipedes and bicycles were indeed mad. I wouldn't get on any of it earlier that sometime 1910s, once the safety bicycle was somehow perfected.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#58

Post by crooked-v »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #39
crooked-v wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric motors so every building didn't need its own steam engine, and cheap interchangeable parts manufacturing for the mechanisms that needed to be perfectly consistent in every installation to be reliable.

I think it was the automatic emergency brake.

Those are the mechanisms I'm talking about.

Re: Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? (2019)

#60

Post by singleshot_ »

pu_pe wrote: post #46
Theodores wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to burst your bubble, but... The Wright Brothers started in a bicycle workshop, as did practically every auto maker, in Europe, in the early days. The bicycle workshop was the cradle for many things. The Wright Brothers were not good for progress. Their game was patents. They were rent seekers, as in 'patent trolls', not innovators. This is why so much early aviation switched to Europe. With the bicycle the Wr…

When the Wright Brothers first came to Europe in 1908, their prototype could fly for several kilometers of controlled flight. The best European prototypes at that time were absolutely inferior, which is why the Wright Brothers immediately managed to sign contracts with European companies. They introduced the three-axis control system which was a major innovation, basically the opposite of a patent troll.

What controlled the roll axis? Why were ailerons invented? Was wing warping patented by the Wrights?
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