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I’ve often wondered if there are any other examples of “scientific engineering” the Wright brothers pioneered. I’m not familiar with any. My feeling is Edison w

I’ve often wondered if there are any other examples of “scientific engineering” the Wright brothers pioneered. I’m not familiar with any. My feeling is Edison was a lot more random trial and error for example.

WalterBright 8y ago
I read Josephson's biography of Edison and it indeed looks like Edison's work was based on intuition, and trial and error. I don't think he ever did anything like what the Wrights did with propellers. For example, his development of the multiplex telegraph did not seem to show evidence of understanding electricity, just an awful lot of tinkering. Other aeronautical contemporaries of the Wrights exhibited little understanding, and a lot of tinkering, which is why the Wrights were able to leap so far ahead of them.
abecedarius 8y ago
Oliver Heaviside comes to mind, a little earlier, though when he was doing his best work he wasn't in a position to build it for real. He was even more of an outsider than the Wrights.
- petepete 8y ago
  James Watt, James Maxwell, Sir George Cayley, Francis Reynolds, Johann von Zimmerman. Science and engineering were closely intertwined during the industrial revolution. Even before then, Ismail al-Jasri fits precisely into this category.
ImprovedSilence 8y ago
I believe Tesla would be right up there with in the realm of “scientific engineering”, if not even ahead of the Wrights.
Theodores 8y ago
The Wright Brothers started out in a bicycle shop, their engineering was based on what they knew from bicycles. There are things like the CV joint that is not bicycle engineering but the nuts and bolts of how so many things that are put together can be worked out by people fluent in how bicycles work. All engineering on a bike is at human scale and can be related to, all of it is exposed and not hidden in magic black boxes. The Wright Brothers also added to the canon of bicycle design and engineering, with the left-hand and right-hand thread. They deeply understood how 'nuts and bolts' worked in order to solve a problem of the pedal and chainset of a bicycle falling out over prolonged usage, even if the bolts are done up tightly. Try and service a modern bicycle and when it comes to taking the pedals off you will only be able to do so if you appreciate left-hand and right-hand threads. The pedal on the left-hand side of a bike unscrews normally, the pedal on the right hand side needs you to unscrew it by turning the other way to expected, clockwise removes the pedal instead of securing it. Although a small innovation compared to building a whole plane, this left-hand/right-hand thread could have been devised by others, however it is the Wright Brothers that got there first, demonstrating their deeper understanding of how things are made and put together. Practically every auto manufacturer got started with bicycles instead of 'horseless carriages with horses'. The bicycle workshop is not recognised for what it is, the cradle of innovation and lightweight engineering (that contrasts with the 'big iron' of steam engines and what went before in the Industrial Revolution). Some of this innovation is just in little things like having standards, e.g. the 9/16" diameter of the screw on bicycle pedals. A lot of these things needed to be sorted out so that other things could be made.
- sopooneo 8y ago
  Excellent post and I learned a lot. One tiny quibble is that it is the left side pedal on a bicycle that is "reverse threaded". And as an exercise to the reader, if you think carefully through relative rotations of each pedal compared to its shaft, shouldn't it be the right side pedal that goes on/off wrong!? Why on earth is it the left one? answer here: https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655 https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655

WalterBright 8y ago

I read Josephson's biography of Edison and it indeed looks like Edison's work was based on intuition, and trial and error. I don't think he ever did anything like what the Wrights did with propellers. For example, his development of the multiplex telegraph did not seem to show evidence of understanding electricity, just an awful lot of tinkering. Other aeronautical contemporaries of the Wrights exhibited little understanding, and a lot of tinkering, which is why the Wrights were able to leap so far ahead of them.

abecedarius 8y ago

Oliver Heaviside comes to mind, a little earlier, though when he was doing his best work he wasn't in a position to build it for real. He was even more of an outsider than the Wrights.

petepete 8y ago
James Watt, James Maxwell, Sir George Cayley, Francis Reynolds, Johann von Zimmerman. Science and engineering were closely intertwined during the industrial revolution. Even before then, Ismail al-Jasri fits precisely into this category.

ImprovedSilence 8y ago

I believe Tesla would be right up there with in the realm of “scientific engineering”, if not even ahead of the Wrights.

Theodores 8y ago

The Wright Brothers started out in a bicycle shop, their engineering was based on what they knew from bicycles. There are things like the CV joint that is not bicycle engineering but the nuts and bolts of how so many things that are put together can be worked out by people fluent in how bicycles work. All engineering on a bike is at human scale and can be related to, all of it is exposed and not hidden in magic black boxes. The Wright Brothers also added to the canon of bicycle design and engineering, with the left-hand and right-hand thread. They deeply understood how 'nuts and bolts' worked in order to solve a problem of the pedal and chainset of a bicycle falling out over prolonged usage, even if the bolts are done up tightly. Try and service a modern bicycle and when it comes to taking the pedals off you will only be able to do so if you appreciate left-hand and right-hand threads. The pedal on the left-hand side of a bike unscrews normally, the pedal on the right hand side needs you to unscrew it by turning the other way to expected, clockwise removes the pedal instead of securing it. Although a small innovation compared to building a whole plane, this left-hand/right-hand thread could have been devised by others, however it is the Wright Brothers that got there first, demonstrating their deeper understanding of how things are made and put together. Practically every auto manufacturer got started with bicycles instead of 'horseless carriages with horses'. The bicycle workshop is not recognised for what it is, the cradle of innovation and lightweight engineering (that contrasts with the 'big iron' of steam engines and what went before in the Industrial Revolution). Some of this innovation is just in little things like having standards, e.g. the 9/16" diameter of the screw on bicycle pedals. A lot of these things needed to be sorted out so that other things could be made.

sopooneo 8y ago
Excellent post and I learned a lot. One tiny quibble is that it is the left side pedal on a bicycle that is "reverse threaded". And as an exercise to the reader, if you think carefully through relative rotations of each pedal compared to its shaft, shouldn't it be the right side pedal that goes on/off wrong!? Why on earth is it the left one? answer here: https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655 https://blog.everydayscientist.com/?p=2655