December 24, 2017 Sunday
Bedtime Story
Automatic Controls in Kitab al-Hiyal
Very modestly, the book - Kitab Al-Hiyal or
the Book of Ingenious Devices begins taking the works of Greek civilization as
the starting point.
It was not exactly a serious book of
engineering but more of an amusement amateur type perhaps similar to my bedtime
stories though I cannot be hundred percent sure unless I personally read the
book page to page.
Around one hundred mechanical devices have
been described in this book including several devices with automatic controls.
When I describe some of the instruments
below you might not find them impressive if you chose to ignore or suppress the
fact that we are talking about 850 AD, almost one thousand years before the
beginning of Industrial Revolution in Europe.
Moreover, whatever else the three brothers
may have borrowed from the works of Greeks, the concept of automatic controls
was totally an avant-garde step of their own.
When I go through the kind of systems they
had devised I as an ophthalmologist am quite taken aback because I find the
ideas very impressive.
It may be partly due to my lack of
knowledge of mechanical engineering but I suspect the ideas would be given due
respect even by those who are in that field.
Most of the machines that the Banu Musa
brothers had described were operated purely by elegant and ingenious
combinatory use of hydraulics (application of fluid power), pneumatics
(pressurized air) and aerostatics (non-moving fluid or air).
For the first time in a written text was found
the description of “in-line” conical valve that would control the flow of two
different kinds of fluids such as wine and water.
Besides conical valve, they had also
described in their inventions plug valve, float valve (such as the ballcock
found in our flush toilets) and tap valve that is all around us.
The other novel mechanism that was found in
their devices was the fail-safe system.
A fail-safe system is essentially any
mechanism that will not endanger life or property if the machine as a whole
fails.
For instance, they describe a machine that
allows one to draw out small quantities of liquid from time to time, but
withdrawing a larger amount of that assigned would not be permissible by the
machine.
One of the crucial inventions that has a
direct bearing on our story was their description of the crank that appear in
several of their devices.
Many of you may not know what a crank is
since most modern apes are neither mechanical engineers nor desire to get their
hands dirty working with machine tools.
A crank is a device that converts a
circular motion into a reciprocating motion.
Now you may wonder what a reciprocating
motion is.
Well, a reciprocating motion is a
repetitive either up-and-down or back-and-forth 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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