
The Mechanical Transmission of Power (2013) - oftenwrong
https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/01/mechanical-transmission-of-power-stangenkunst.html
======
dredmorbius
A collection of thoughts....

 _De Re Metallica_ , mentioned in the article, was written by Georg Acricola
in the 16th century. It was not translated from the original (and highly
idiosyncratic) Latin until the early _20th_ century, by a young mining
engineer and his wife, Herbert Clark and Lou Henry Hoover. Yes, later the
President of the US. You can read their translation at (or download it from)
the Internet Archive:

[https://archive.org/details/georgiusagricola00agri/page/n4/m...](https://archive.org/details/georgiusagricola00agri/page/n4/mode/2up)

The book remained in use through the 20th century, discussing both mining and
metallurgy.

Stellnungkunst is one form of power distribution, of _motive energy_ across
space. There's another mode, which distributes _force_ across an area, through
distributed water (or other fluid) pressure. This was widely used in the 19th
century, and variants remain in use -- your dentist's drills and other
implements, and an auto repair garage's air-powered tools are examples, as
well as the mechanisms of some lifts. _Low Tech Magazine_ has an article on
this method as well:

[https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/03/hydraulic-
accumulato...](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/03/hydraulic-accumulator-
power-water-networks.html)

As I've noted below, the notion of rod-based mechanisms is reminiscent of Neal
Stephenson's "rod logic" from _Diamond Age_ , as well as complex mechanical
calculators such as the Curta, developed in the 1930s and still in use through
the 1970s:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta)

[https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/03/hydraulic-
accumulato...](https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2016/03/hydraulic-accumulator-
power-water-networks.html)

~~~
selimthegrim
From the wiki article

>It was not long before Herzstark's financial backers, thinking they had got
from him all they needed, contrived to force him out by reducing to zero the
value of all of the company's existing stock, including his one-third
interest.[1] These were the same people who had earlier elected not to have
Herzstark transfer ownership of his patents to the company, so that, should
anyone sue, they would be suing Herzstark, not the company, thereby protecting
themselves at Herzstark's expense. This ploy now backfired: without the patent
rights, they could manufacture nothing. Herzstark was able to negotiate a new
agreement, and money continued to flow to him.

Plus ça change with startups...

~~~
dredmorbius
I was just revisiting the Cisco founding story earlier.

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virtualritz
I always wonder how German words end up with these weird changes when they get
replicated in English. It seems someone got it wrong and other authors just
replicated (incl. this one).

It's Stangenkunst (no 'en' postfix)[1]. This literally translates to "the art
of rods".

The postfix makes it sound like the plural of the word in a Scandinavian
language or maybe Dutch. But it's neither. The German plural (not used) would
be Stangenkünste (Stangenkuenste, with the umlaut written out). This would
translate the "arts of rods"

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatrod_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatrod_system)

~~~
dredmorbius
Keep in mind that "art" had a meaning closer to "technology" than "creative
expression" ("fine arts"), as it does today. Much the same way as "science"
referred to all knowledge, regardless of whether it was "scientific" (Baconian
method of experimentation and observation) or not. Not all translation is
literal, and "rod mechanism" rather than "rod arts" is an arguably better
translation.

Though I can't help but think of Neal Stephenson's "rod logic" from _Diamond
Age_.

Or perhaps the Curta mechanical calculator:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta)

~~~
detaro
There's a few remaining traces of that use of "art"/"Kunst" in modern
language: "state of the art"/"nach allen Regeln der Kunst", "artisan" for a
skilled craftsperson, ...

Specific to mining, "Kunst" both was used for a specific mechanism and the
overall technology and its mastery.

~~~
phreeza
I wonder if in the past maybe the plural of kunst as in the specific mechanism
was Kunsten, and the plural of the genre/knowledge was Künste, and only the
latter has survived. That could explain why Stangenkunsten seems to be used in
the English literature.

------
madengr
The woodcuts of the mining machinery remind me of a book I obsessed over as a
child. Pick it up if you have kids. Written by L. Sprauge De Camp too, whose
was a prolific writer like Asimov.

[https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/man-and-power-the-story-of-
pow...](https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/man-and-power-the-story-of-power-from-
the-pyramids-to-the-atomic-age-a-deluxe-golden-book/8398952/item/12876051/)

Lawrence, KS had a mechanical transmission shaft running from the river front,
down town for industrial power transmission. Of course replaced by generators
at the same location. Excellent tour of the power plant if you are in the
area.

~~~
dredmorbius
NB: "Sprague", with a 'u' before the finial 'e' rather than following 'a'.

You might find a copy in a nearby library:

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/man-and-power-the-story-of-
po...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/man-and-power-the-story-of-power-from-
the-pyramids-to-the-atomic-age/oclc/1239492)

IA have a copy for lending:

[https://archive.org/details/energypowerhowma00deca](https://archive.org/details/energypowerhowma00deca)

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naikrovek
In my youth, I believed that people hundreds of years earlier were not as
intelligent as modern folks. I was obviously very wrong. Their inventions
simply used the scientific awareness of the time (I usually call that a
"scientific vocabulary" and I don't know if that's the right way to put it.)

My point is that they were just as smart and industrious as any other people
of any other time, and like everyone of every time, they were limited by the
resources available at the time.

~~~
dredmorbius
People have changed little evolutionarially over a few centuries (though the
notion that all adaptation has ceased is all but certainly false).

Factors such as nutrition, disease, and stress may well affect overall
intelligence, if such a thing can be reasonably measured, and there are
notions such as the Flynn Effect suggesting increases to IQ over the course of
the 20th century (though more recent work suggests this may have slowed or
halted).

Modern capabilities owe much to earlier work, recorded knowledge, a much
larger workforce devoted to innovation, the capabilities afforded by
tremendously increased energy utilisation (including more and purer materials,
precision, control, etc.), as well as the (often slow) abandonment of earlier
notions, particularly those endorsed by or supporting specific religious or
nationalist/tribalistic notions.

My view is that the net total intelligence has changed _relatively_ little,
but that opportunities, knowledge, and sheer physical capacity have increased
tremendously.

------
anonsivalley652
Neat.

Amish use compressed air for power within a building.

Nowadays, I wonder why we don't have a hydrogen grid instead of an electrical
one to eliminate transmission losses.

~~~
detaro
Hydrogen is really really annoying (=dangerous) to handle, you would not want
it in a public grid.

Concepts that synthesize hydrocarbons to be injected are more realistic (and
would allow re-use of existing consumers or even mixing with natural gas), but
of course rely on efficient and cheap-enough ways of doing the synthesis being
developed, beating directly used electricity might be hard. For over-capacity
uses efficiency is maybe not so important.

~~~
anonsivalley652
Somehow we manage to deal with gasoline and natural gas just fine and power
grid with hundreds of thousands of volts. Hydrogen infrastructure is a
solvable problem of fittings, protection systems, piping, odorants and
storage. The Japanese government is betting on it heavily.

You complete ignore and sweep under the rug the loses of existing
infrastructure by proposing creating more GHGs. Where are you going to
magically get all of that energy to make that not-FF FF? More FFs? What's the
point?

------
z3t4
Makes you understand how revolutionary electromagnetism/electricity is. Much
easier to transfer power via a cable, almost magical.

------
dang
A thread from 2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8811626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8811626)

2013:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5159884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5159884)

