justme igor
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this explains a lot about steam engines.
- Thread starter justme igor
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justme igor
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The loco was on the rails in 1940ish.
The only had pencil and paper, no calculator.
30 engineers were busy with drawing.
Now we have sophisticated cad programs, computers calculators and what not educated people.
How did they manage to think upon let alone to build a machine like that....
Oke the era of steam was midway, but how?!?!?
The only had pencil and paper, no calculator.
30 engineers were busy with drawing.
Now we have sophisticated cad programs, computers calculators and what not educated people.
How did they manage to think upon let alone to build a machine like that....
Oke the era of steam was midway, but how?!?!?
DickyC
(BZB Mountain Railway)
and within a few years Ai will design the latest travels pods without the need for humans (aka useless eaters), I physically cringe at that overused name "ai" now.... Are you in the part of the Nederland's with that lovely steam train near the inland see ? my Dog Ziggy is Dutch, he was born across the Zuiderzee from you in a village near Sneek and is a Stabyhoun
Software Tools
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By stepwise refinement over a century of elapsed time..... like all engineering development within a technology stream.
justme igor
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The inland see: ijselmeer, yes but at the other side of the main dyke.
Oposite of sneek, in North holland.
We have a "very old" steam train running: Bello
Home - Museum Stoomtram
Museumstoomtram Hoorn-Medemblik Tickets Plan je bezoek Reismogelijkheden Reisplanner Tarieven Route & parkeren Vorige slide Volgende slide
www.stoomtram.nl
The zuiderzee was the name before 1941, before the "afsluit dijk"
Before construction of the "houtrib dijk" it was called ijselmeer.
Now we have a other dyke that diveds the lake into two halfs.
Markerwaard - Wikipedia
They did however have Slide Rukes which can if you know how to wield them make extremely complex calculations. Oh I wonder if Logarithms were ever involved in them days as well, they must have been good for something other than ‘why on earth am I learning this in maths’?
DickyC
(BZB Mountain Railway)
It can where ever you want with a couple of "scrumpies" down the gullet
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
When I was surveying, as a young site engineer, we had to use 7-figure logarithms - these worked like normal 4-figure logs we used at school, but for the last three figures you had to do another separate calculation to get the entire 7-figure log. 7-figure logarithms were necessary for the greater accuracy required in surveying.
I wasn't actively involved in any ground/land surveying after my first year on site (1971) and later on in my career, about 15 years later, when I needed a small, curved, estate road to be set out, I hired an engineer who arrived with a Theodolite complete with computer attached to the tripod. Job done in one day
Madman
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The ancients built structures with nothing more than a water level and plumb bob. Or so that's what they'll have us believe. I agree. I was a draftsman at the beginning of my career. How is it that we could put on paper with a pencil and some basic drafting tools, stuff that nowadays needs the latest high tech computer ?
Software Tools
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You can still use paper on pencil if you like, but the outcome will just be a drawing, that will have to go though many other processes before it is results in a tangible result, quite a while later. In the CAD world, the design work on the screen can lead to directly to tangible results very quickly.
As a cadet electronics engineer I had to learn how to perform polar to rectangular coordinate calculations on a slide rule, which were extremely long and tedious. The advent of tools which automated such tedium (in the first case an HP-45 calculator) literally reduced circuit designing from a matter of days to mere moments. The old ways were very definitely not better, just longer. more tedious and error prone.
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True, but on the flip side, if some puts an incorrect figure into a computer, it doesn't get as easily noticed, so the error could easily cause chaos down the line.
Rhinochugger
Retired Oik
I was thinking about this the other day, as a plumb line is mentioned in the Old Testament (prophet Amos) so about 800 BC.
Now, how would they have made a water level in those days, given that you need a decent length of flexible tubing?
My thinking is that they would have used a 3/4/5 triangle to get a short horizontal from an accurate perpendicular (plumb line) then used crude optical ranging gear to extend the line over a distance.
Probably need to chat with an ancient Egyptian to really find out
Madman
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I'm not sure what you mean by that. Being in construction all my life, I read hand drawn architects drawings and translated them into something tangible. Had it not been for my and my fellow carpenters talent, all those pretty, sometimes, lines on paper would still be just that.....
My late brother, an engineer, gave me this many years ago;
An architect is said to be a man who knows a very little about a great deal and keeps knowing less and less about more and more until he knows practically nothing about everything, whereas, on the other hand, an engineer is a man who knows a great deal about very little and who goes along knowing more and more about less and less until finally he knows practically everything about nothing. A contractor starts out knowing practically everything about everything, but ends up by knowing nothing about anything, due to his association with architects and engineers. — AglaiaDaae
Madman
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And therein lies the problem. Where as at one time we had to think, that task has been taken over by machines.
In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lie
Everything you think, do and say
Is in the pill you took today
In the year 4545
You ain't gonna need your teeth, won't need your eyes
You won't find a thing to chew
Nobody's gonna look at you
In the year 5555
Your arms hangin' limp at your sides
Your legs got nothin' to do
Some machine's doin' that for you
In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube
In the year 7510
If God's a coming, He oughta make it by then
Maybe He'll look around Himself and say
Guess it's time for the judgment day
In the year 8510
God is gonna shake His mighty head
He'll either say I'm pleased where man has been
Or tear it down, and start again
In the year 9595
I'm kinda wonderin' if man is gonna be alive
He's taken everything this old earth can give
And he ain't put back nothing
Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man's reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it's only yesterday
In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
Songwriters: Richard Lee Evans
justme igor
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I learned how to work (read and write as we say) with one without computer....yes now these days they come with a gps signal and computer to do a job like where to put the pounding poles for the fundation, they can even set hights for bridges, curves in roads in a couple of hours......
And then they ask: where are the skilled workers?!?!?!?
Sometimes going forward is going backwards, 40 years ago a carpenter was a real trade, now? oyu can hold a hamer? than you are a carpenter....
justme igor
Registered
Often it is way easier to draw with just a pencil and a ruler, but the houses that are build now are a bit more complex than 40 years ago.
That is what keeps impressing me, its not a small machine.
And yes ancient engineers did great things just with a pencil, roman ingenuity, to much examples to place them here