The age-old “invention versus innovation” semantic tail chasing.
Some people think applying old concepts to new areas counts as invention, some don’t. Debating the point isn’t useful because there’s no objective truth to get to.
>Some people think applying old concepts to new areas counts as invention, some don’t. Debating the point isn’t useful because there’s no objective truth to get to.
This is most of philosophy :) arguing about the definitions of words especially in the edge cases. But it does matter, because how we quantify, reward, and protect "invention" matters, to do that you need an accurate definition, and boring folks to hash over what counts and what doesn't.
Around here people care a lot about patents and what should be patentable, and that really revolves around what is and isn't actual innovation, actual invention. Sometimes a thing is truly new and unique, other times it's a trivial obvious change, most of the time it's ambiguous and having precise language to determine which one and to what degree a thing is, can make all the difference.
Thanks? I’ve learned to check whether an assertion is clearly defined and falsifiable before engaging. Otherwise you get “obviously frobulation is better than defrobrulation”
I appreciate where you are coming from, but I'm not willing to say that there is no objective truth to it. Take the triode, for example, or the transistor. I include the latter because while it did something that functionally the triode could also do, it did it by exploiting different physics, and the difference was significant.
Sure, but my point is that for either of those, someone could mount a spirited argument in any of four directions (innovation / invention x yes / no) and it’s all just semantics.
We humans desperately want binary definitions, but things like this are gradients coupled to imperfect terms.
Some people think sustaining debates by splitting hairs indefinitely is productive, some don’t. Debating the point isn’t useful because there’s no objective truth to get to.
Yeah, but then some of us might mount a spirited argument along the third dimension - (honest / lying). In my experience, most of the "semantic arguments" you mention happen in context of someone wanting to sell you something (whether a product or a belief) - so while it's never binary, the borders get fuzzier the further you go towards "lying" on that third axis.
Some could argue that the transistor wasn’t an invention but a discovery: the physical behavior of the semiconductors has existed for millennia, and we discovered that behavior, but we had already invented vacuum tubes before which did the same thing, just a lot less efficiently. Notice that I said “invented” vacuum tubes because the behavior comes from careful engineering and manufacture which didn’t exist in the known universe before that.
But here too, arguing on invention vs discover is pointless because there’s no common truth…
From Wikipedia: "After the war, Shockley decided to attempt the building of a triode-like semiconductor device." If attempting (and succeeding) in using one's knowledge to produce a specific thing that does not currently exist is not invention, what is?
More generally, if there's no common truth then that itself cannot be a common truth...
> Notice that I said “invented” vacuum tubes because the behavior comes from careful engineering and manufacture which didn’t exist in the known universe before that.
That would mean an invention can become a discovery, potentially millennia later, if we discover (no pun intended) that the thing already existed in some form. I think few people would agree with that.
Also, the same ”discover or invent?” question is frequently asked about mathematics, where “exist in the known universe” is very much open for interpretation. Euclidean geometry ‘existed’ in the known universe for centuries, for example, until Einstein found out that it didn’t.
Then there's a different tail chase that's on the opposite side of "innovation" - whether doing the obvious thing others are doing, but achieving wider reach because of more funding, counts as innovation, or just popularization?
(To me personally, it's popularization, but in startup economy, it's pretty much the definition of "innovation".)
I disagree that in general it’s not useful to debate subjective matters.
What is being debated is not whether the given label applies, but whether the label should apply (which really means what the label means), which are subtly different things. The outcome of such a debate is an improved definition or at least an improved understanding of the sense in which others use the label.
I take it you don’t think it pointless to have an argument about whether or not something is ‘racist’, for example.
Ok, what changes based on which label should apply?
> I take it you don’t think it pointless to have an argument about whether or not something is ‘racist’, for example.
In the abstract, it probably is, unless the point of the argument is to determine whether to make meaningful change. "Are oranges racist?" - pointless. "Is this policy racist, in that it disproportionately affects X minority group?" - meaningful.
Say we all agree this is an example of innovation and not invention - now what? What was the outcome that warranted the argument at all?
Sometimes it's about the journey. Arguing/debating, even when there's no objective truth to the conclusion, can still teach you a lot about yourself and your opponent. How you think, where you have gaps.
Think of any political debate during an election. There's no truth. It's more for the audience.
McLaren has a loooong history of applying carbon fiber in new ways that revolutionize racing - the MP4/1 was the first full carbon monocoque chassis way back in 1981. Even though carbon fiber had previously been used in a limited fashion in other automotive and aerospace applications, most people credit McLaren for really bringing carbon fiber to the automotive world, because the MP4 series of racing cars were so dominant, everyone else copied them.
McLaren is also currently leading the F1 world championship (after one race) after having won the constructor's championship last year. So whatever they are doing merits understanding.
I believe the original point was that McLaren had an easier time winning the constructors because they had two drivers collecting points, while Red Bull — due to Checo not performing — only had one
Checo (Sergio Perez) was Max Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull. Red Bull had a dominant start to the season which set Verstappen up to win the driver's championship. Lando Norris at McLaren mounted a challenge to Verstappen as the McLaren car went from good to great at Miami, but couldn't pass Verstappen. He did, however, have a strong teammate in Oscar Piastri, and the two of them handily accumulated enough points for McLaren to beat Red Bull for the constructor's championship.
Which brings us back to Checo. There's a strong argument to be made that he, driving the dominant car for the first six races and probably second best car for the remainder of the season, should have been able to score enough points to keep McLaren from winning the constructor's championship. He did not and Red Bull cut him loose at the end of last season.
The second seat at Red Bull has been a brutal spot to be in since Verstappen came along. Arguably their car is very tailored to his preferences, and it's hard for another driver to get the most out of it, or even set it up to suit their preferences. Whatever the case, it's been a bit of a revolving door.
I'd second it. F1 racing is an interesting combination of sport, physics, aerospace engineering and manufacturing. But most of us don't have the background to fully enjoy what you've said without at least some background.
I mean judging from Liam Lawson I think the car isn't that well suited to most people other than Max.
And I remember Christian Horner said something to Zak Brown that seems to fuel fire inside him. And McLaren have been improving since then.
And back to the topic, I was rathe hoping this is some new tech we could reduce the weight of F1. It is still way too long and wide. Even accounting for the upcoming 2026 changes.
I wish we could go back to Pre 2009, sub 600kg much smaller F1 cars.
Carbon Fibre didn’t become mainstream until Pagani Composite Research was established in 1988. The person who brought carbon fibre to the masses was Horacio Pagani through his cooperation with Lamborghini. That’s where Horacio Pagani had the money from to focus on Pagani Automobili.
IMHO, it can because there can be significant challenges of implementing a given (manufacturing) process under completely different constraints. Like, air frames need to deal with a huge amount of weight and massive temperature swings (a flight from Qatar to Europe for example will start with +40 °C, and at travel height -60 °C), and F1 racing cars will instead encounter very frequent and very rapid acceleration/deceleration and up to 5G in dynamic forces.
It looks exactly how the aerospace automated fiber placement robot arms operated starting 10 years ago...but with a slightly smaller table. So they revolutionized the technology by slightly reducing the working volume!
It's still very cool to see the technology propagate to other industries though.
Very impressive, that machine is a nice example of web handling equipment. A fascinating discussion of web handling is found in Exact Constraint: Machine Design Using Kinematic Principles by Douglas Blanding. These tapes seem relatively stiff and narrow.
I was under the impression that work with carbon fiber should be in a purpose-built facility, enclosed, negative pressure with dedicated, purpose built air handling and filtration equipment. You would want to compartmentalize and contain any potential dusts and fibers.
Not sure if this process doesn't generate such fibers, or if there are other engineering controls present? From the picture and video, there don't appear to be much in the way of controls at all. Depending on the dusts generated, I think I would fully enclose this machine.
Is it just that there's no shearing of the fibers? Or have they have worked with so many composites for so long that they no longer care?
Cool that they were able to bring this to industry! Several years ago I was at TU Braunschweig, where they were investigating on how to do this. In particular, on the laying tape's head, solutions on how to harden the epoxy as the material was laid down: directed energy with lasers? other infrared solutions?
I don't know how this one implements it, but I'd be curious to know :)
Pre tariffs you could get a whole Carbon bike frame from CN (including stem, handlebar, fork) for $500.
And while I'll give that there was variety between vendors, some of them were doing sophisticated layups with multiple grades of wave that withstood a torture tests far beyond the ANSI bike tests.
In fact you could argue they were overbuilt compared to Western brands (at a cost of 100 - 150g) since they didn't want to deal with warranty claims.
Truly amazing, cheap, good quality mass market carbon products.
> In fact you could argue they were overbuilt compared to Western brands (at a cost of 100 - 150g) since they didn't want to deal with warranty claims.
That's the single strongest advertising for a product I've seen in a while.
As a customer, I also don't want to deal with warranty claims. Overbuilt = as it should be. Excessive optimization ("value engineering") = bad, waste of resources, and producer of trash.
(Excessive optimization also limits what you can do with a product, and is potentially unsafe, as normal use could exceed structural or operational limits of the product, breaking it, and potentially hurting the user.)
(Okay, I feel like I'm gearing for a long rant about sorry state of physical goods on the market, so I'll just stop now.)
Not just the i3, BMW also produced the 'carbon core' 7-series, which I think was a very interesting development as well.
The 'carbon core' chassis are a combination of steel, aluminium and carbon fiber parts bonded together with adhesives. It is primarily used to improve chassis stiffness, not necessarily for weight savings.
Unfortunately it wasn't well received by the public, most critics seemed to agree that it's a bit of a gimmick feature. As far as I can tell BMW is no longer using the carbon core concept anymore. It was announced at the time that the 5-series would get a carbon core chassis as well, but I don't think that ever happened. The technology also hasn't trickled down to their performance cars lineup as most had hoped.
To me it's kind of saddening that people are willing to pay top money for carbon fiber body panels and interior trim, but when applied to the chassis (where it actually matters) they become sceptical armchair engineers.
Anecdotal, but a friend of mine who worked at BMW dealership at the time told me that the i3 didn't sell as good as BMW had anticipated, but since they had already invested heavily in the tooling to produce the i3 carbon chassis parts they needed to look for other applications. Apparently this is what led to the carbon core chassis concept for the then upcoming G11 7-series.
Most sports equipment where weight is a factor and there's no regulation preventing the use of carbon fiber has some carbon fiber alternatives! There's usually cheaper alternatives made of other materials, but the carbon fiber alternatives aren't particularly expensive.
I remember buying a carbon fiber squash racquet back in college when money was tight without breaking the bank (although I did break the racquet when accidentally hitting the backwall instead of the ball once though)
Do those still have a habit of snapping without any prior warning?
Having said that, the chrome moly top tube on my road bike broke without warning. Granted I did get hit by a cop car doing 80kph in a 50kph zone. Strained a thumb too.
I ran into a car that abruptly turned in front of me, impacting at 40 kph, followed by a somersault over the top and landing on the rear wheel. the frame absorbed the impact with the road and nicely snapped both seatstays but otherwise held up rather well.
Yes when CF fails it fails catastrophically but practically no, you do not ride your bike enough for the repeated fatigue to weaken modern CF enough for a catastrophic failure. If you do ride your bike enough, you're almost certainly replacing frequently enough that it will never be an issue.
If you want a bike to give to your grandkids when you die get Ti or some form of steel.
My 80’ Concorde steel frame is still intact -well slightly bend but not failure in sight- despite the daily commute and holidays backpacking/trailer. Grandkid test check.
> If you do ride your bike enough, you're almost certainly replacing frequently enough that it will never be an issue.
True for the light athletes that take care during usage and "upgrade" often. Part of the motivation to upgrade is security.
Be more careful if you ride in urban/outdoor with potholes and like to keep using a piece a hardware when it fits your needs.
As a bike mechanist we checked meticulously every second hand frame we sell and find some cracks time to time. Those happen (CN and Aluminum). Direct to the bin.
More importantly: check your rims, especially as we entered the disk era and don’t change them so often. They also do get cracks and fail catastrophically.
I own a 1992 Specialzied Epic Allez with carbon tubes bonded to aluminium lugs. I had an issue with a bond failing at the chainstay and it was repaired but the carbon tubes themselves are still going strong.
I am familiar with the failure mode of bonded frame, we had a number of vitus bikes in the family and usually they just become so noodly you stop before the bond is giving up totally. To be honest I am more concerned about the fatigue of the aluminum fork legs which is the reason I recently ordered a steel fork for the next time I am riding it.
I find CF poles last at least 400 miles on average through moderately rocky terrain. And rarely catastrophic failure. Lots of collapsible poles tend to start breaking close enough to the sleeve that you can shift the rings and tighten them and buy some time.
I've not seen any issues with random catastrophic failure like that in MTB land. Maybe it's because the parts are generally laid up much stronger than road? Wheels will break if you mash them into a rock, and even then Santa Cruz notoriously has a line of rims that Danny Macaskill had to ride down stairs repeatedly with no tires on to break.
With the ubiquity of frames at the high amateur level, if there were still issues you'd hear more about them.
Re CF frames... one neglected point is that even when you do crunch them into a rock, they're repairable, whereas Al frames aren't worth repairing due to the heat treat needed. My own CF XC MTB has a repaired chainstay.
where does it come from? Equinox EV is $35K MSRP and with $7.5K tax credit you get under $30K. Of course if $5K extra is not that expensive for you then i guess your "basic car" is a bit less basic than one may think :)
Thanks, this led me to the video on "Automated fibre placement technologies for aerospace applications" from the Bristol Composites Institute/Institution of Mechanical Engineers, which is really impressive and shows that this sort of process and carbon fiber layup in general has come a long way with robotics.
As far as teams where ITAR could apply, I don't think the Haas team has much worry. There hasn't been a competitive F1 team from America for at least a generation.
Yeah, skirting the sanctions on russia to supply them with mills for weapons manufacturing wasn't a great look either. Plus the fact that they are awful at F1. Would be nice to have an American team that I could actually cheer for
GM - via the Cadillac brand - is coming to F1 from next season, which is also a season in which there will be regulation changes to the cars themselves (i.e., everything to play for, everyone is starting from new, almost). With several US GPs, it's a good time to be a US F1 fan. As a Brit living a few miles from Woking, it's not a bad time for me, either... :)
That's true, and I do enjoy not having to watch the races live at 4am in my time zone. Also, the only reason GM is still around is because of crazy government bailouts. So I guess I can pretend Ive helped fund an F1 team with my tax dollars.
> it’s pioneering the use of an aerospace industry technique known as Automated Rapid Tape Carbon