The wheel and axle is one of six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists drawing from Greek texts on technology. The wheel and axle is generally considered to be a wheel attached to an axle so that these two parts rotate together in which a force is transferred from one to the other. In this configuration a hinge, or bearing, supports the rotation of the axle.
Hero of Alexandria identified the wheel and axle as one of five simple machines used to lift weights. This is thought to have been in the form of the windlass which consists of crank or pulley connected to a cylindrical barrel that provides mechanical advantage to wind up a rope and lift a load such as a bucket from a well.
This system is a version of the lever with loads applied tangentially to the perimeters of the wheel and axle, respectively, that are balanced around the hinge, which is the fulcrum. The mechanical advantage of the wheel and axle is the ratio of the distances from the fulcrum to the applied loads, or what is the same thing the ratio of the radial dimensions of the wheel and axle.
Read more about Wheel And Axle: History, Mechanical Advantage
Famous quotes containing the words wheel and/or axle:
“Everything goes, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being. Everything dies, everything blossoms again; eternally runs the year of being. Everything breaks, everything is joined anew; eternally the same house of being is built. Everything parts, everything greets every other thing again; eternally the ring of being remains faithful to itself. In every Now, being begins; round every Here rolls the sphere There. The center is everywhere. Bent is the path of eternity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“The Star that bids the Shepherd fold,
Now the top of Heav’n doth hold,
And the gilded Car of Day,
His glowing Axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantick stream,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)