Question: Did you learn about so-called “simple machines” (lever, wheel-axle, inclined plane, wedge, screw is one popular set) in school? Did your teacher critique the model or offer alternatives to it?

(for context, from a modern engineering perspective, this is basically a bullshit theory of machines on par with 5 elements, 4 humors etc)

Delver at contraptions.venkateshrao.com, running summerofprotocols.com, host of /gloom ☀️

@farcaster dev / dad / books, cooks, ski, code ~ there are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant

It’s not that bad. Grade school teachers rarely have a chance to develop critical depth themselves. It’s not an authority problem, just slow diffusion of ideas.

teaching us the greater lesson that authorities will present their shit maps to you as truth

Startup artist seeking inspiration.  Champion of /bcard

Modern view is closer to biological taxonomy and patterns

…oh damn for real?  I honestly thought it was a legit theory of mechanical primitives.

Are there more primitives?

Yes, they were taught as something like “the basic mechanics” and they could be combined like legos for more complex ones. But I personally never understood how those basics were discovered. Interesting, they sit in my mind in a diff bucket than friction and Young’s modulus etc.

Yeah I remember these in hs physics and no alternative