Machines – Part Two

And, then, there is my car.  I love my Chevy Tahoe.  I  love to drive but driving these days is only around town.  And, only during the daylight hours.  No more night-time driving for me.  Of course, that means that I have to be very aware of time.  If I am somewhere away from home and darkness falls, I’m in trouble.  Also, no driving on long trips.  Daughter #1 has kindly been the driver for any long trips.  She also drives me around town as needed, as has my good friend, Rita.   There are so many other critical machines in my home.  But, I’ll leave them for another day.  And, this is the day.

 I remembered being in grade school and studying machines.  Simple machines, I learned, were not the fancy, multi-part machines that we think of as machines, today.  Like the ones described in my BLOG, last week.

There are six simple machines.  They do not have moving parts.  They just seem to be things.

Simple machines are:  screw; inclined plane; axle and wheel; wedge; lever; pulley.  I began reviewing the tools that I use outside of my house.  First, I thought I should be sure that my understanding (by definition) should be accurate.  So, first I checked Wikipedia.  Wikipedia says that “a simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force.  In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force .  Usually the term refers to the six classical simple machines that were defined by Renaissance scientists.”  (So, now, we’re into physics.)

I know that Wikipedia can, sometimes, be a little sketchy.  So, I went to my favorite dictionary – the American Heritage.  It says, “Any of numerous basic devices that alter the magnitude or direction, or both, of an applied force, traditionally including the lever, wedge, inclined plane, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw.”  Well, that seems very similar to Wikipedia.  And, it is more physics.

But, I thought I’d check ONE other source.  It is considered the most prestigious dictionary – the most worthy, if you will – the Merriam Webster Dictionary.  And, it says “the elements of which all machines are composed and including the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge, and the screw.  A machine is a physical system that uses power to apply forces and control or perform an action.”

I think somewhere something said that they make our lives easier.  I also learned that the first known time that the term simple machine was used was in 1702.  This thinking has been around a long time!

The definitions of simple machines involve physics.  So, let’s talk about physics.  Physics is not on my list of favorite things.   In college, I was able to test out of topics such as basic English and Biology.  Our school (Western State College) still required that we have the required number of specific classes – science classes, for instance.  So, I enrolled in a basic physics class.  I would never have taken a chemistry class; as a high school student, the whole of idea of chemistry terrified me.  I do realize that by completing certain activities such as cooking, I was actually dealing with chemistry.  You know, the relationship between using products creating a cake or bread.  Or, the action that occurs when butter is churned.  But, all of those symbols on the Periodic Table of Elements!  No thank you.  I didn’t want to mess with them.

And, so, I enrolled in the physics class.  The professor who taught this class was a rather short, pudgy, strange man.  In the first class of the quarter, he convinced me not to stay.  Nothing he said, really.  In the back of the room, he had some kind of horn that blasted as loud as a train’s horn when he pushed its button.  Which he felt the need to do many times during that class.  The entire class membership jumped every time he made it sound.  It frightened me to the point of causing my book and other materials to drop to the floor.  The next day, I dropped the class!  I don’t remember what class I took in its place, but since I did graduate from that college, I know that that class qualified as the science requirement.  But, as I’ve said – I don’t really understand physics.  At all – really.

I am, however, able to look at tools that I use to make my life easier and relate them to simple machines.

I live in snow country.  Snow melts and freezes.  I use an ice chipper to take care of the ice.  Ice on my driveway.  Ice on steps.  Ice on my sidewalks.  A wedge.  It is a wedge.  And, I heat with wood.  When HM Keith preps the wood for my stove, he sometimes uses an axe.  A wedge.  And, the chain saw’s chain is a wedge.  Every kitchen knife is a wedge.

Of course, the wheel and axle come into play when I use my child’s wagon to move my recycle across the street to the yellow-topped bin where my neighbor is kind enough to allow me to share his recycle bin.  My wheelbarrow has a wheel and axle, as does my two-wheel cart.

I have to admit that the inclined plane is a bit of a puzzle for me.   A ladder is described as an inclined plane.  I must have six or seven ladders – large and small, single ladders and ladders with more than one section.  You know, the kind you see advertised on TV.  The ladder that is the “be all to end all” of ladders.  Then, when Larry’s father was infirmed and needed to be able to get into the house in a wheelchair, he used the ramp that Larry built for  him – an inclined plane.

Using a lever to loosen a jar lid is easy.  I usually don’t use a lever to move a big rock or other heavy object.  To move a table or a chair, I usually use simple brute force!  Is a fork or a spoon a lever?

The screw is a little more difficult, as I think about the circular controls on my clothes washer and dryer, as well as my kitchen range; they are screws.  Of course, I use traditional screws to fasten two things together when nails won’t do.  Does the drill that I use to install the screws use a screw mechanism to work? When I turn the lid of a jar to open or close it, I’m using a screw; I also use a screw to open many bottles of medicine.  Is the steering wheel on my car a screw?  Or an axle and wheel?  Maybe, a little bit of both.  Some of my car’s dash controls are screws.  Such as the one that adjusts the radio’s volume.  Or, the one that turns the back window wiper on and off, as well as the one on the steering wheel stem where I turn the front wipers and window washer on and off.  What about the key way used to start the car?  Is that a screw?  Does your car have electric windows?  Or, do you crank the windows up and down using the screw mechanism of the handle.

The pulley is really not something that I know that I use.  I’ve mentally gone through every room in my house, as well as my garage and shed.  Nothing comes to mind.  Except, perhaps, the fan belt on the engine of my Tahoe.  I think that is a pulley.  I’m sure pulleys must be in my life, somewhere.  I just don’t know where they are.  It is possible that deep inside some of my house’s machines there are pulleys that I am not privy to.  I think there must be pulleys in the clothes washer and dryer, as well the mechanism that runs the fan on  my furnace.

As I’ve begun to explore the simple machines and how they affect my life, I’m surprised at the numbers of ways these machines make my life easier.  Surely, there are dozens and dozens of things that happen in my life, every day, that make me happier, and I don’t give them a thought.  Inventors of these machines in the years of long ago really knew what they were doing.  I’m thankful for their intuitiveness and hard work.

Be Safe and Be Well
The Cranky Crone
Thoughtful comments are appreciated.