December 18, 2017 Monday
Bedtime Story
Al-Jazari and Camshaft
The texture, color, design on a fabric thus
made can be varied by raising and lowering warp threads in different patterns
and not the simple alternating basic pattern.
This then, during the time of Jacquard, was
a manual process and he decided to change it.
He desired to automate the process not only
to increase its production but also to get the desired patterns right free of
errors.
This thought process, if you notice, is
very similar to that of Babbage the only difference is that Jacquard was
wishing to apply it to weaving and pattern making on the fabric whereas Babbage
had wanted to apply automata to the production of mathematical tables.
It was not that Jacquard was alone in
having this thought in his mind.
At the beginning of eighteenth century a
mania for Chinese fashion was sweeping across Europe and women were going crazy
for complicated patterns on their dresses.
I guess there are some things about both
men and women that never change.
The silk weavers knew that if anyone could
sort out this problem of mass production of luxury silk fabric with complicated
patterns, they were in for a serious fortune.
Historically, the two greatest source of
inspiration for innovation has been wars as they beget the question of survival
and profit as it enhances your probability of successful mating and
reproduction.
So much before the multi tasking Jacquard,
there was a son of an organ maker who happened to entire into textile business.
As a child he probably either saw or took
part in the construction of musical instruments along with his father.
Now musical organ making requires a moving
cylinder with pegs in it to make music.
Some bell towers with carillons also use a
similar principle.
This idea very likely came to Europe from
Arabs.
They were probably inspired to construct
such organs for their church purposes from camshafts first described in Turkey
by Al-Jazari way back in 1206.
Al-Jazari was another genius of the Islamic
Golden Age who not only was a great mathematician but was also a reputed
inventor and mechanical engineer.
He is most famous for authoring the book:
The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
Al-Jazari was perhaps the pioneer in the
arena of automata and robotics inventing automatic gates, doors and water
wheels working on hydropower.
Besides so many other things, Al-Jazari had
described in this monumental treatise camshaft, a shaft to which cams are
attached.
A cam is a rotating or a sliding piece in a
mechanical linkage that transforms a rotator motion into a linear motion.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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