mechanical science

TIBERIUS' GUIDE TO THE MECHANICAL SCIENCES

• Maxim #1: No matter what the problem or challenge, unless it involves generating light, there is always a mechanical solution to it. If you step into using coiled wire or batteries, you've stepped away from mechanical science and into electrical engineering. If you've stepped into using chemicals, beyond setting stuff on fire, you've moved to chemical engineering. As for mechanically generating light, the best you can hope for is striking objects together like cavemen.
• Maxim #2: There is always a elegant solution to any mechanical science problem, if you look for it. The elegant solution is all of the following: efficient (work input nearly equal to work output), precise (getting to the precise boundary between motion and statics), minimal (simple, low material use), and correct (does the specified job).
• Maxim #3: One can always get arbitrarily close to 100% efficient. Always. But no one knows how long or how much money it will take to get there... An engineer should aim for at least one 9 (90% or better), otherwise they're just enthusiasts of the art.
• Maxim #4: Any mechanical challenge can be met with one of five solution-paths:
  1. A layer of indirection or dissolution: breaking down something into smaller pieces that connect to one another. (XX? a nail into a screw?) (XXExample: you want to keep the strength of steel but you want the flexibility of leather: ring mail).
  2. Encapsulation of function: reducing the redundancy of the design or turning a linear problem (using space) into a rotational one (using time), for example.
  3. Different material
  4. Greater precision
  5. As a last resort, use more resources (more power or more structure), but see the maxim #4.
• Maxim #5: If you've ran out of time or budget (or interest), there's always the hidden sixth option: shift control to the user.
• Maxim #6: One can trade any energy-consumption (time) problem into a structural-static (space) problem or vice versa. Each of these should be considered equal constraints/solutions. Further, one can lower the usage of one arbitrarily low (but not to 0) by increasing the other. If you have no limit on these, you can often get nature to do the work with zero added energy or structure.
• Maxim #7: Any design that requires lubrication (beyond ~2psi or more than 108^oF) is generally bad engineering, making easy choices that will betray the machine. It's poor engineering, because nature is doing the work, not the engineer. Any such designs can be replaced by employing mechanical science options of Maxim #4.
• Maxim #8: Design deficiencies are heralded by 1 of 4 measurable factors:
  1. noise (squeaks, clatter/knocks, pings, loud exhaust)
  2. excess motion (vibrations, turbulence, uncaptured movement)
  3. heat or light
  4. odors or other waste by-products (smoke, unburned hydrocarbons)
• Maxim #9: Master your tools, or they will master you. If you depend on something, be sure you can build it. Many people become slaves to their machines and sacrifice their human nature to the limitations of the machine. A perfect machinist builds machines that are in harmony with the whole. Consider a sailboat that relies on nothing but Nature and the mastery of oneself.
• Most every mechanical contraption can be diagnosed (what is going wrong?) and queried (what is it`s design?) with stethoscope and a light hammer. A machinist should always have these available.
• Stay pure. The test of your skills is how little you depend on other disciplines to do your bidding: electrical, chemical, or otherwise to buffer your lack of mechanical engineering.

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See also: mechanical science 2.

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Like computer science can trade space for time, so can mechanical science.