So whether its Reel Life or Real Life, the idea about motion thrills us all. Yes friends in this post I will be talking about one of the earliest inventions that put our world into motion: WHEELS!!.
It did not began in England, Germany or for that matter any of the earliest developed European colonies.. But the world was first put into RPM in Mesopotamia (Present day Iraq) in 3500 B.C where wheels found its use as potter’s wheels for the first time followed by use with Axle in chariots.
Evolution continued and concept of spoked wheels cam into picture courtesy Egypt where these spoked wheels were used in chariots. Then as time passed wheels spread to other areas like Indus valley Civilization, China, Europe etc.
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| Let's Get Rolling |
You might be thinking that this guy has gone mad, he is reminding us of our boring history classes which were best spent over half an hour nap in corner of a classroom. So let’s go to our reporters from Mesopotamia to decode and understand how the wheels evolved over the time and have matured into Alloy or lightweight technology and what it holds for us in future. Santa and Banta over to you:
Earlyman Santa- Oh My god!!! These stones are so heavy how to transport it . I have to build a house today.
Earlyman Banta- "Arey prachin aatma" let's try a tree Trunk.....(to himself....look this idiot doesn't even know about the concept of rolling friction lesser than static friction, seems like he got his technical degree from Chowkwaala institute of technology.
Earlyman Santa- Oye prachin hoga tera bandar baap. i have already tried that but any object placed on it lacks stability and also the trunk itself is heavy so let's go for a sledge on trunk or log.
Earlyman Banta: aaya hai vadda sledge da lagda....when you will try to drag the sledge over first roller then who will keep the second roller to take the load from the front, tera pyo.
Earlyman Santa: oye family te na jaa....for the time being let's try this with a series of logs or rollers so that one can drag the load from one log to other and in the mean time i will look for an alternative.
After few days:
oye Bante veere ah vekh because of continous use of sledge over the roller a groove has been formed on trunk and now I can dradg the load more easily. kal pakka mod waale mandir pe paanch rupaye ka Prasad chadaunga.
Santa ( Minutes after introspecting the change) : oye khotya, tu paida hi nalaik hua hai. It’s Simple Physics: look the diameter at the area of groove is less so you require less energy and it creates a greater distance coutersy the uncut big trunk part.
So to leverage this finding ancient man cut out the portion of trunk
b/w two ends to form wheels and axles leading to the invention of wheel and axle concept.
What followed was years of evolution and engineering that has resulted into present day wheels and axle’s.
Stay tuned as in the next post we bring you what technology in the area of wheels awaits us in future.
Image Courtesy:
Evolution Image :http://library.thinkquest.org/C004203/science/invention.jpg
Wheel Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noshit-mag/with/4605220117/
