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Why Do Cars Have Brakes?
- abraininavat 14y agoThis is ridiculous. The typical "stoner effect" -- a phrase that sounds in some way deep or metaphysical causing susceptible people's neurons to flare, producing only the word: "Woah..." I know this is probably controversial, but in my opinion it's the same effect that causes people to find deep meaning in a Jackson Pollock painting. As others have pointed out, lots of fast things don't have brakes, because they don't need to stop. As I don't think others have pointed out, slow things have brakes too, such as the space shuttle transporter.
- SatvikBeri 14y agoYou're certainly right in that there are logical flaws in the article. But the stoner effect is useful (and dangerous) because it's much better at creating changes in beliefs/behavior than rational argument. It's a pattern worth understanding because you can use your understanding to defend yourself, or use parts of the effect to communicate your ideas and convince others. The book Switch[1] goes into more detail about what actually works when you're trying to get people to change. I highly recommend it if you're interested in Psychology or Marketing. [1]: http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385528752/ http://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-Hard/dp/0385...
- brudgers 14y agoThe analogy between automobiles and software testing can be extended to consider the racing line - the combination of velocity and distance through a corner which results in the fastest time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_line http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_line
- digitalWestie 14y agoIf people knew how to drive efficiently they'd use gears to do this and only use brakes to stop. Just sayin'
- __alexs 14y agoI'd like to see a gearbox that can get you from 120 mph to 0 in less than 3 seconds.
- Toucan 14y agoHow would that be efficient? Engine braking wears transmission components which are considerably more fragile and expensive than replacing brakes. Engine braking only stops you using the driven wheels, brake discs apply to all wheels.
- mpyne 14y agoEngine braking allows you to save fuel (by using stored energy of the drivetrain to handle compression of the air that normally would require work from combustion). And, as long as the car remains in gear there's not much extra wear on the transmission itself (certainly not compared to the torque from the acceleration the preceded it, at least).
- Toucan 14y agoI think we're talking about different things. digitalWestie's advice to use the gears to slow implied changing down through the gears to use the engine to brake, not simply leaving the car in gear while applying the brakes. For what it's worth, it does makes complete sense to leave the car in gear while braking and not to change to neutral.
- X-Istence 14y agoHas the art of using the engine to slow down become so unknown that it is no longer considered a way to slow down a vehicle?
- monochromatic 14y agoIt's not nearly as effective as braking.
- k00pa 14y agoI can drive without using brakes at all... And I do slow down. Brakes are when I need to slow down fast.
- X-Istence 14y agoIn most cases though if you pay attention to the road and the conditions around you, engine braking can be used quite effectively, and it is not as jarring as braking using the brakes. This helps when you've got friends/family that easily get car sick, mainly due to the jerky motions from people hitting the gas too hard, and slamming on their brakes. I use my engine to brake about as much as I use my brakes. It provides for a smoother ride overall. That being said, engine braking tends to only work really well with stick shifts...
- roel_v 14y agoOnly works on stick shifts.
- mpyne 14y agoIt also works on automatics that can be command-shifted, which are becoming somewhat more common.
- TorKlingberg 14y agoSome automatic transmissions allow the driver to force a lower gear to engine break. It is not used as often, but can be useful in long slopes to avoid overheating the breaks and reduce wear.
- monochromatic 14y agoI drove a motor scooter as a kid that had broken brakes. He's right--it wasn't much fun, because I knew I couldn't go fast.
- barrkel 14y agoAnd by extension, my scooter has ABS brakes, which means I can go faster in the wet.
- adam-a 14y agoThe premise is surely nonsense! The full logic ought to go: Why do we have cars? To go faster. Why do cars have brakes? In order to slow down again. If all we were concerned about was going fast then why ever slow down? Cars need to regulate their speed in order to provide safety, and also so they are usable, if I can't stop then I can't get out at my destination. Many elements of a car help in it's overall function, which is to go fast, but you may as well say the purpose of a fan belt is to go fast. Brakes are a part of a car and saying that their purpose is the same as the whole car is useless and confusing. They have a specific purpose within the machine. From the linked article: "[the] answer feels paradoxical which usually means there's a deep truth". Indeed. The simpler explanation is that it's pure twaddle.
- alexkus 14y agoIt's just one possible result of applying "two whys" and then not stating the answer to the first why.
- michaelt 14y agoif I can't stop then I can't get out at my destination. Different people seem to have different interpretations of this question. My interpretation was: Why have brakes instead of coasting to a stop? Coasting to a stop is popular with drivers who are 'Hypermiling' [1] - and bicycles used in velodromes don't have brakes [2]. While this isn't consistent with Richard Dalton's blog post (if you coast to a halt, you wouldn't need to throw your children out of a moving vehicle) but it isn't inconsistent with Jon Jagger's blog post, which Dalton credited as his inspiration. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving#Acceleration_and_deceleration_.28braking.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy-efficient_driving#Accele... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velodrome#Bicycles_and_track_design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velodrome#Bicycles_and_track_de...
- rdtsc 14y agoTo really add breaks where you can stop while running without blowing completely up you need to add fault isolation and tolerance in your system. You need to use actors and messages (you might get parallel execution as well depending on your algorithm as a bonus). The alternative is to prove that your program won't crash. So you need to write in a very restrictive style. This is more like you need to be able to compute a path your car will take ahead of time given all the other obstacles that could get in its way. That works too but it is highly impractical.
- atc 14y agoWhat a load of shit.
- robotic 14y agoanalogies gone wrong -- terribly wrong
- codeulike 14y agoWhy dont the lightcycles in Tron have brakes would be a better question.
- ynniv 14y agoWow, a silly brain teaser AND a strained metaphor. I'll never hear the end of this one!
- bazzargh 14y agoOverextending the analogy, there's no brakes on track bikes but they go fast too. They don't need them, the fixed gear means applying counter pressure on the pedals stops the bike. The clunky software analogy would be to do with lightweight simplicity.
- ilcavero 14y agoI wonder if car technicians go around making weak analogies with software development to justify their industry practices. Something like: "Why do software developers have compilers? blah blah blah, and that's why we need to keep your tools organized"
- wikwocket 14y agoWhy do computers have virus scanners? They only serve to slow down the computer and to block some programs from running. This is contrary to the goal of a computer, which is to run programs! But by blocking evil programs, the good ones can run faster, with less disruption. ...and that is why we change our motor oil.
- eitland 14y agoMy expeerience is they mostly wants to know as little as possible about computers. Computers are necessary evils to most craftsmen I can think of. And I kind of understand them.
- lazyant 14y agoEven my parody "Ten Reasons Why Building a Startup is Like Riding a Motorcycle" has more meat than this :-) http://lazyant.com/post/37406994081/ten-reasons-why-building-a-startup-is-like-riding-a http://lazyant.com/post/37406994081/ten-reasons-why-building...
- AUmrysh 14y agoWhen I was on my company's R&D team, we were looking at possibly designing a car. One of our ideas was regenerative braking (nothing new, I admit). Basically, you can use several types of pump or motor as a generator when run in reverse. This allows you to collect that energy back into the system instead of wasting it all as heat. It also has the added benefit of turning the rotational kinetic energy into stored potential energy, thereby slowing down the vehicle. Our design still included disc brakes for safety, but would have used the regenerative braking most of the time.