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Pistons and Prejudices.---By "The Inspector."

19th April 1917, Page 7
19th April 1917
Page 7
Page 7, 19th April 1917 — Pistons and Prejudices.---By "The Inspector."
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

One of my earliest literary efforts was, I recall to • ray sorrow, associated with the persistent attempt • to remember how Many " c's " and how many " s's" respectively were to be properly allocated to the word' "necessity." As a very small boy, I seemed, for my sins, to be constantly confronted with the taskof writing, amongst other similar copy-book dogma,

• the sentence, in beautiful up and down strokes, "necessity is the mother of invention "—with a few pot-hooks and bangers to fill up the lines. From that day to this I think it has never occurred to me• seriously to query that amiable relationship, although I must confess to fleeting doubts as to its entire -legitimacy when I have had occasion to investigate the efforts of some of thoso with whom invention is a disease.

I have taken it for granted that the reason for an invention, its Arm et. origo, must have been the conviction of its perpetrator that it, or something like its was actually needed. And in the main, of course, that was a perfectly correct view to adopt. No sane man, and quite a lot of inventors are sane—I once patented something myself, starts out to improve upon something that he has always assumed is not in need of such kindly attention. Some specific shortcoming of an accepted method is, as a rule, the cause that sets the inventive mind to work: For that reason I surmise, there will so long as there are petrol engines, always be a plentiful crop of new carburetters, that crude compromise. While roads are greasy we shall regularly hear of new non-skids and so on. Mechanical and productive shortcomings will constantly bribg grist to the Chancery Lane mills.

Quite recently, however, I have been brought to realise that a vast new field for inventive research is open in directions in which no necessity appears, on the face of it, to exist. • And it is, When one commences to think about it, only rarely that invention is not originated and stimulated by obvious and definite necessity. The fact that scores of inventions, 'although meeting the necessity, fail on account of their complexity or uncommercial nature in no way affects the reason for their original conception. Many an invention isnes improvement but merely a useless modification. The publicity recently accorded to the new Ricardo piston design undeniably suggests that very much useful improvement is possible where existing practice has become stereotyped'. In other words, " Invention " may have another "mother " than "necessity." We may reasonably assume her name to be " inquisitiveness. '

The introduction of the new Ricardo form of piston very pointedly suggests that we are too inclined to take many things for granted, to accept the old-time practice, right up to such time as necessity convinces us that our prejudice in its favour is an ill-founded one. This new piston, to my may of thinking, creates no revolutionary constructional improvement, although it uncerstionabiy has such small advantages as may well lead to its widespread adoption. I surmise that its genesis was the inventor's inquisitiveness as to the finality of the long-adopted shape. I am aware of no general failure of the older type or of the contemplated necessity to discard in favour of something else. The inventor is therefore entitled to our thanks, if he have even achieved no more than • to persaade us that it is good in a way to be sceptical at least. in all things mechanical, to accept nothing as final, not even excepting such a. basic design, shall I say, as the hexa.gon nut.

The world of invention has always been hedged round with prejudices. No doubt the first man to use the log as a roller, the earliest form of wheel, was looked at askance, if nothing worse befell him, by his fellow savages, who probably drubbed the idea as new fangled and one calculated to injure unnecessarily the ancient and prosperous craft of sledge makers. This unrecorded benefactor of the human race was prompted, by necessityno doubt, but that he had to contend with prejudiced opposition is more than likely. Leaping forward thousands of years for modern examples of contentment with what has appeared to be good enough for the purpose, whet more striking examples are there than the Knight sleeve valve, of the Caterpillar tractor, and the prejudiced' criticism which they have both had successfully to overcome. Had not the inquisitive mind been brought to bear in both these remarkable oases we should have contented ourselves with the mushroom valve and the circular wheel for all circumstances, neither of which was taken for granted by the inventors concerned as embodying finality, although approved by world-wide consent as satisfactory. What has been done with such a commonplace as the internal-combustion engine piston is possible with many another mechanical component with which most of us are more or less intimately concerned. We must cultivate the habit, more than we have done in the pant, of taking nothing for grante,d. Unfortunately, standardization is often the mother of stagnation, another but an ill-omened relationship. We shall be helped after peace by the myriad necessities disclosed in detail in the Great War. Thiasin itself will stimulate inquiry and analytical research at first principles. We are all in the mood to change —whieh will help. I doubt if, as a nation, we shall ever be individually quite the same uninquiring people we have been in the past. It will aid us if we all become obnoxiously inquisitive. May our own great industry benefit accordingly. I already read of of a new engine with 60 per cent. fewer parts than those to which we have grown accustomed. That may prove Perchance to be improvement gone mad, but it is all in the same direction as the Ricardo piston. We must not leave well alone ; we need original thinkers, and plenty of improvers."

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