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Putting Civilization in Gear
| Article
# : |
10617 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1986 |
3,628 Words |
| Author
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William J. Cromie
William J. Cromie is a freelance writer and executive director
the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. He lives
outside Chicago. |
The invention of the wheel clearly was one of the most important events in the history of civilization. In both a literal and figurative sense, it got everyone and everything moving. It's a shame that we don't have anyone to honor for such a great achievement; no one knows who rolled the first wheel or where. The oldest surviving record of its use is a 5,500-year-old tablet showing two horses pulling a loaded wooden-wheeled cart in Mesopotamia.
Sometime afterwards--no one knows how long--the wheel became the basis for another technological breakthrough. An anonymous genius thought of sticking a series of pegs around the outside of a wheel, which would mesh with pegs on another wheel. By changing the size of the wheels and the number of pegs, force could be multiplied, speed increased or decreased, and the direction of rotation changed. The wheel made animal-drawn carts possible; pegged wheels, or gears, ultimately made possible automobiles, aircraft and most modern industrial machines.
Virtually any device you can name from toys to ships, watches to drawbridges, contains gears to transfer force and motion and to change their direction. Without gears, civilization, as we know it, would grind to a halt. The impact of gears is so basic that it is reflected in everyday language. Organizations are "geared for progress." Individuals "get into gear" when they start a task. Industry "gears" to meet the needs of society. A city "gears" for a winter storm. We "shift gears" to meet new challenges or to readjust attitudes and styles. On the other hand, institutions and individuals that are "out of gear" have stopped working or are in disorder. Engineer Darle W. Dudley, an important "cog" in chronicling the history of gears, puts it this way: "In the public mind, gears create the impression of positive action, coordinated--interlocked--precise application of effort to secure a desired result."
Despite this, people take gears for granted. "It's hard to appreciate their importance," Dudley remarks, "because we often don't see gears, only the box that holds them." The movement of any mechanical clock or watch is crammed with them; they fill the innards of cars, trucks, ships, airplanes, and helicopters. Your television set and an electric typewriter each contain about fifty gears. Many computers have them, and printers won't run without them. They are vital for the operation of power plants, drawbridges, paper mills and practically all industrial machinery.
Gear production in the United States is a $10 billion industry
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