ConceptVBS
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2013–2020
9:31 · 9.3M views · Feb 10, 2009
A 1930s Chevrolet training film explaining the principles and development of the differential gear. It builds the idea step by step from first principles to the finished mechanism.
HN loves it as an example of old-school instructional film that makes how a differential works fully understandable in clear, simple language.
5 comments from Hacker News
Neat site. My father was a mechanic and thus I should know all of this stuff, but I wasted away my life behind the keyboard instead :D I often find videos do a much better job at explaining some concepts. For example, the section on differentials: [LINK] After reading this I feel none the wiser. Whereas after watching this ancient Chevrolet training video from the 1930's I feel like I completely understand how diffs work: this video
In case you're interested, here are two of the best video's I've seen describing how a watch works ( [LINK] ) and how a differential works ( this video ) Don't let their old school-ness throw you off. They are both extremely well done and demonstrate in clear and simple language from first principles to finished object.
These old-school education videos are such a treat. One of my favorite is on differential gearing - this video (apologies about the clickbait title)
I've never understood why these old instructional films so often seem much better at getting things across and making them stick in my mind than more modern material. A couple other examples. 1. A 1959 film from Bell Labs on wave behavior that made standing wave, reflections, energy loss due to impedance mismatch, and impedance matching much clearer than anything else I've seen: [1]. 2. A 1937 explanation of how the differential in a car works: [2]. Here is another upload of that which is lower resolution, but has more from the same source in the sidebar [3]. I suppose it could be something akin to survivorship bias that makes old educational films seem so good--the bad ones don't get remembered 60 years later. [1] [LINK] [2] this video [3] [LINK]
Fantastic!! High-quality educational videos like this are hard to come by. Here's another retro tutorial that really stands out in my memory (differential gears): this video