Babbitt Bearings

RICHARD PARDON

Road & Track has a good story about how internal engine bearings were made before WW2. When people put their collective minds to work, there is nothing they can't accomplish, like terrorize and subjugate East Asia, or stomp the Axis powers into the ground, send a rocket-ship to the moon, or build a modern automobile. The automobile's success has been due to 1) the inventors ability to hide the myriad technologies behind a facade of shiny paint on a well-shaped tin can, 2) it's ability to stream high-resolution, real-time video past your eyeballs, and 3) save time.

And there are a bunch of technologies involved in the production of a modern automobile. I used to know what they all were, but now I'm not so sure. I wouldn't be surprised if more PhD's were granted for new automotive technology than for any other technology related subject.

Make no mistake, one of the reasons the automobile has been such a success is because people like going for a drive and watching the landscape stream by.

A copy of the story can be found here, in the case the R & T link goes away.