Ever hear the phrase "Balls out" when referring to pushing something to the max? Comes form the balls of the centrifugal engine governor. At maximum speed the balls extended all the way outward giving us the term "Running balls out."
edit: I once said this phrase at a work meeting and someone objected to my use of a crude term which I then explained much to everyone's surprise. They thought it had something to do with testicles.
Definitely a fun note :). I think I heard it first from a Jay Leno youtube video where he was showing his amazing collection of steam powered machinery.
This is from the article, but governors also played a role in kicking off modern control theory!
"""
In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell studied when these oscillations grow or die away in his paper “On Governors”[https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pdfs/teaching/old_lite...]. This became one of the beginnings of modern control theory.
"""
Example, throttle controls on a Dogulas DC3. All engine controls forward is the typical convention for full power. (At sea level, neglecting the altitude effect on required engine fuel/air mixture.)
One of the unexpected pleasures of having a 3 year old has been learning far more than I ever planned to about steam locomotives. It turns out steam engineering is fascinating, this article emphasized it for me even more. It really amazes me how much ingenuity there is in just connecting the right shapes and joints up so that the right thing happens at the right time, creating perfect cycles, regulators, etc. Seeing it explained in an iterative way like this is fantastic because you can understand what problem is solved by each part. I would love to see a piece like this strictly about locomotives.
Thank you! I have a few ideas for the next article. Locomotives are up there on the list, but they are the final challenge of steam engineering, there is so much to cover.
Also considering the origins of precision - the intertwined evolution of machining tools and measuring systems that allowed these machines to be built.
RE: 3 year old - yes, mechanical systems are wonderful for children (and adults). There is something incredibly satisfying about watching them in motion doing work.
Quinn (Blondihacks) on youtube is a model engineer machinist and has, IMO, the most outsider-watchable content on building boilers and steam engines like this.
One more: a little engine I'd never encountered before called a wobbler is, apparently, the hello world of machining model engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrHDrIms7-0
Ancient Greeks had a steam engine. They called it a Hero's engine. They used it as a toy.
They couldn't use it as anything else than a toy. The reason they couldn't because they didn't have the metallurgy and the machining to create pistons, valves, etc.
There's an important lesson that can be applied to every technology, I think: technological progress is always iterated, never revolutionized. If your novelty - a programming language, a framework, a methodology, whatever - doesn't stand on the shoulders of the giants, then you have simply nothing to apply this novelty to.
Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.
Fred Dibnah's BBC series "Age of Steam" is a fine overview of the development of steam engine technology and the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom.
This reminds me a lot of https://ciechanow.ski, down to the body typeface. (IBM Plex Sans?) Also, the SI units everywhere here make me beam. Thank you :)
100% - his articles were a major inspiration, and first line in the credits:
- Thanks to Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose exceptionally well written and designed articles inspired this one.
Awesome! It's pretty amazing all the concepts that need to come together for even these very old engines. I found I built a better understanding of what was going on as I built out the animations as well.
Cool! If you're in New Zealand, there is a massive, two story Double Woolf beam engine at MOTAT museum in Auckland, along with an array of other steam driven engines that they run from time to time.
One nit: All three animations that show the governor and the flywheel have the governor turning the wrong way, causing the gears that join them to do physically impossible things.
Oh my. Yes, you are totally right. This was tricky because I needed to merge two different animations (the governor moves independently from the rotation of the wheel), and I seem to have messed that up.
It was a mix of techniques, this article has been in progress for quite a while :). The first part was modeling all the relationships for an accurate beam engine in onshape (great cad tool). Then, I built a custom exporter to cleanly export it to three.js. This ensured physical realism for the hero of the article. All of these are linked from the article.
For the figures, I had prototyped some by hand, and it was slow going. Fable was the first LLM I found that was actually able to understand and model mechanical linkages correctly enough to be useful. I built a style guide, and iterated many times on each figure and animation until we arrived at something useful. There are also quite a few backing tests to ensure physical correctness of the animations (as far as reasonably possible :).
RE: units - Good catch - there is almost certainly a better way to phrase this one. I always tried to give physical examples to make things more concrete. But who knows, maybe the bathtub will take off as a unit :).
Ever hear the phrase "Balls out" when referring to pushing something to the max? Comes form the balls of the centrifugal engine governor. At maximum speed the balls extended all the way outward giving us the term "Running balls out."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor
edit: I once said this phrase at a work meeting and someone objected to my use of a crude term which I then explained much to everyone's surprise. They thought it had something to do with testicles.
Definitely a fun note :). I think I heard it first from a Jay Leno youtube video where he was showing his amazing collection of steam powered machinery.
This is from the article, but governors also played a role in kicking off modern control theory! """ In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell studied when these oscillations grow or die away in his paper “On Governors”[https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pdfs/teaching/old_lite...]. This became one of the beginnings of modern control theory. """
tbh, any time i've said it i've been referring to testicles, but thanks for the helpful excuse in future.
Similar to balls to the walls (or similar). Coming from the analog aviation controls I believe.
Example, throttle controls on a Dogulas DC3. All engine controls forward is the typical convention for full power. (At sea level, neglecting the altitude effect on required engine fuel/air mixture.)
https://www.douglasdc3.com/dc3throt/dc3throt.htm
That said, i'm sure the pilots were aware of the double entendre
Balls to the van der Waals
Engaging in a little hydrogen bonding, eh?
I suppose this is also the less colorful true origin of "balls to the wall" than the phrase itself suggests?
Nope. Balls to the wall refers to the balls on the end of throttle levers in aircraft cockpit.
Going balls to the wall means pushing the throttle and mixture all the way in to the firewall/instrument panel for maximum power.
Nit: I believe this originated with locomotives, predating aircraft by quite a bit!
and i suppose “fuck” is actually an acronym for “fornicating under command of king,” right?
> When the engine slows, the balls fall and open the cock again.
The choice of wording makes me suspect that they intended both entendres. ;)
One of the unexpected pleasures of having a 3 year old has been learning far more than I ever planned to about steam locomotives. It turns out steam engineering is fascinating, this article emphasized it for me even more. It really amazes me how much ingenuity there is in just connecting the right shapes and joints up so that the right thing happens at the right time, creating perfect cycles, regulators, etc. Seeing it explained in an iterative way like this is fantastic because you can understand what problem is solved by each part. I would love to see a piece like this strictly about locomotives.
Thank you! I have a few ideas for the next article. Locomotives are up there on the list, but they are the final challenge of steam engineering, there is so much to cover.
Also considering the origins of precision - the intertwined evolution of machining tools and measuring systems that allowed these machines to be built.
RE: 3 year old - yes, mechanical systems are wonderful for children (and adults). There is something incredibly satisfying about watching them in motion doing work.
Quinn (Blondihacks) on youtube is a model engineer machinist and has, IMO, the most outsider-watchable content on building boilers and steam engines like this.
Highly recommend this primer titled "The Model Engineering Learning Curve" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps_BQJEMnGA
She's been building a model locomotive for years now, there are over 100 videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLY67-4BrEae-xhrvZX33gPk4...
One more: a little engine I'd never encountered before called a wobbler is, apparently, the hello world of machining model engines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrHDrIms7-0
See also Wreck3Restored, a channel that documents the ongoing restoration of a 2-foot gauge steam locomotive. Crossheads and sliding valves featured!
https://www.youtube.com/@Wreck2Restored
Blondihacks is amazing. Beware though, you may be buying a lathe and a milling machine soon after you start watching :).
It's a great hobby. Manual machining is totally different from writing code, but you get into a similar state of flow.
Ancient Greeks had a steam engine. They called it a Hero's engine. They used it as a toy.
They couldn't use it as anything else than a toy. The reason they couldn't because they didn't have the metallurgy and the machining to create pistons, valves, etc.
There's an important lesson that can be applied to every technology, I think: technological progress is always iterated, never revolutionized. If your novelty - a programming language, a framework, a methodology, whatever - doesn't stand on the shoulders of the giants, then you have simply nothing to apply this novelty to.
Author here. The beam engine created power from steam, and was a key part of the early Industrial Revolution. The article is a deep dive into the engine: how it works, the history behind it, and the engineering tradeoffs the builders faced. There are quite a few interactive figures that I hope make the concepts easier to see.
This reminds me a lot of the articles at: https://ciechanow.ski/archives/
Not just in terms of presentation, but also quality.
Amazing!
Thank you, a lot of research went into it :).
And 100% inspired by Bartosz's articles - he is the first line in the credits section.
Really cool site! Did you create the animations with videos of assemblies in a CAD package? Very noice!!!
Thanks! Yes, some of the animations were created from this onshape model, which I rigged for motion: https://cad.onshape.com/documents/ebc9190f428cf30153c06148/w....
For other animations I put together a style guide and worked together with Fable to build them.
Fred Dibnah's BBC series "Age of Steam" is a fine overview of the development of steam engine technology and the industrial revolution in the United Kingdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl_UA36ouzM&list=PL2vJ5Cg-wl...
This has https://ciechanow.ski/ vibes, I like the form!
This reminds me a lot of https://ciechanow.ski, down to the body typeface. (IBM Plex Sans?) Also, the SI units everywhere here make me beam. Thank you :)
100% - his articles were a major inspiration, and first line in the credits: - Thanks to Bartosz Ciechanowski, whose exceptionally well written and designed articles inspired this one.
Glad you enjoyed the units :).
Nice replacement since B Ciechanowski joined OpenAI, we don't get those high quality articles anymore.
For those in London who want to see one of these in the flesh, as it were, there's one in Tottenham: https://www.mbeam.org/
This is what finally made the idea behind Watt's condenser click for me.
Awesome! It's pretty amazing all the concepts that need to come together for even these very old engines. I found I built a better understanding of what was going on as I built out the animations as well.
Cool! If you're in New Zealand, there is a massive, two story Double Woolf beam engine at MOTAT museum in Auckland, along with an array of other steam driven engines that they run from time to time.
Love this article!
One nit: All three animations that show the governor and the flywheel have the governor turning the wrong way, causing the gears that join them to do physically impossible things.
Oh my. Yes, you are totally right. This was tricky because I needed to merge two different animations (the governor moves independently from the rotation of the wheel), and I seem to have messed that up.
Fix shall be deployed shortly!
Fixed!
How did you do the figures? Iterative design with Three.js and an agent? What did that process look like?
It was a mix of techniques, this article has been in progress for quite a while :). The first part was modeling all the relationships for an accurate beam engine in onshape (great cad tool). Then, I built a custom exporter to cleanly export it to three.js. This ensured physical realism for the hero of the article. All of these are linked from the article.
For the figures, I had prototyped some by hand, and it was slow going. Fable was the first LLM I found that was actually able to understand and model mechanical linkages correctly enough to be useful. I built a style guide, and iterated many times on each figure and animation until we arrived at something useful. There are also quite a few backing tests to ensure physical correctness of the animations (as far as reasonably possible :).
Great historical science book on the steam engine here: https://www.amazon.com/Most-Powerful-Idea-World-Invention/dp...
One of my favorites. Good read.
First off, this is very cool, I love these kind of breakdowns from first principal.
This is sending me :)
> One cup of water becomes roughly 400 litres of steam, enough to fill two bathtubs
Three units of measurement in one sentence, my favorite unit is bathtubs.
Thanks!
RE: units - Good catch - there is almost certainly a better way to phrase this one. I always tried to give physical examples to make things more concrete. But who knows, maybe the bathtub will take off as a unit :).
Those damn imperial measurements.
my grandpa had a table top model of a beam engine that he would power with a pressure cooker