One Good Turn
"One Good Turn is a story starring Archimedes, who invented the water screw and introduced the helix, and Leonardo, who sketched a machine for carving wood screws. It is a story of mechanical discovery and genius that takes readers from Ancient Greece to Victorian Glasgow, from weapons design in the Italian Renaissance to car design in the age of American industry. Rybczynski writes an ode to the screw, without which there would be no telescope, no microscope - in short, no enlightenment science. The screwdriver, perhaps the last hand tool in a world gone cyber, represents nothing less than the triumph of precision."--BOOK JACKET.
Stats for nerds
4recommend
6mentions
5people
2018–2026years
83% recommend17% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- After my father died last year I’ve started going through his collection of popular-science paperbacks.
Done: QED, Richard Feynman. Lectures on explaining quantum electrodynamics but with no more math than geometry.
Currently: One Good Turn: A natural history of the screwdriver and the screw, Witold Rybczynski. The discourse goes into his references in depth. It has yielded an excellent list of museums to visit.
On deck: Impossibility: The limits science and the science of limits, John Barrow. A re-read for me. Barrow discusses what we can never know in a way that’s like P vs NP but for the physical world.*
- HN would probably be interested in another book by the author, Witold Rybczynski: One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303). It's born out of a writing prompt for a newspaper article - what is the most important tool (for construction specifically) of the past millennium? Prof. Rybczynski decided on this answer, and gives a history of the screw, both as a fastener and as a way to regulate motion in a machine. It's short but still quite comprehensive, even involving looking for screws in medieval drawings.
- Great read: One Good Turn: A Natural History... https://www.amazon.com/dp/0684867303?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_shar...
A history of the screw. Really interesting around how it was developed. Some machining techniques are far older than you’d expect, and some capabilities far newer.
The books thesis is that the screw is the most important invention.
- There's a great little book "One Good Turn" by Canadian architect, professor and writer Witold Rybczynski where he points out that "A Robertson screw can always be unscrewed".
- There's a lovely little book called "One Good Turn" by Witold Rybczynski subtitled 'A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw' A pure delight for those interested in such things like me.
- I'm not sure there's any really good book that furthers this argument (possibly The Perfectionists or One Good Turn?) but it sort of becomes obvious when you read about Maudsley (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Maudslay and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screw-cutting_lathe) and Wilkinson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkinson_(industrialist) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wilkinson_(industrialist)...
the cannon boring machine was what enabled the efficient steam engines which unlocked large mechanical shops (along with high quality cannons), while the lathe enabled precision machine tool making. I am sure many things had to happen around the same time for the revolution but IMHO the lathe was the true linchpin
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