THE INEVITABILITY (AND NECCESSITY) OF BEING WRONG LOTS OF TIMES
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION IS THE FORCE OF RADIAL AIRCRAFT ENGINE IMPROVEMENT, ECONOMICS AND THE DRIVER OF EVOLUTION
One of the Author’s favorite writers is Kevin Cameron, the Technical Editor at Cycle World magazine[i]. Mr. Cameron writes a column called “TDC” (Top Dead Center). Mr. Cameron is likely an engineer and he knows a lot about engines and the mechanics and technical intricacies of motorcycles. And he is able to explain these concepts clearly and concisely in his column. He is the kind of guy you would like to have as a neighbor or a friend to talk with about motors, mechanics and motorcycles.
January’s TDC was about spark duration in engines and how changes in spark duration aided (or degraded) the performance of air-cooled radial aircraft engines, nitrous-burning dragsters and two-cycle engines[ii]. Particularly interesting to the Author was the discussion of radial aircraft engines. A couple of pictures of these unique power plants are posted below this article. The performance curve of the radial aircraft engine peaked shortly after World War II[iii]. The jet engine replaced these workhorses in fighter aircraft by the time the Korean War began.
Engineers struggled to squeeze every ounce of horsepower from these huge radial engines before and during World War II. Lives and victory over the Axis powers depended, in part, upon the performance of these machines. So lots of solutions were tried. A few worked.
ORDER FROM APPARENT CHAOS
Mr. Cameron’s February article is entitled “Untying Knots”. Cameron reviewed documents circa 1920-1926 from the military’s aircraft development center. The documents were related to the testing of early rotary aircraft engines. The point of the article was how small changes to the interrelated elements of engine operation had large, and often fatal, effects upon other elements of engine operation. Change one thing and another thing fails. Tweak this and then that breaks. Yet it is only through these putative “mistakes” that success emerges.
And over time with much experimentation, and almost countless failures, solutions emerge. Creative Destruction. Order from apparent chaos.
CREATIVE DESTRUCTION AND NATURAL SELECTION
“Creative Destruction” is a concept and a process originally developed by Joseph Schumpter in his 1942 book “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy”[iv]. Creative Destruction is the process by which product and technological innovation challenge, overtake and eventually supplant existing firms, services and products. Examples are PCs that eliminated many mainframe and minicomputers, diesel locomotives that replaced steam engines, and the cassette that supplanted the eight-track. This Creative Destruction is the engine of innovation that creates new value even as it destroys the value of existing firms.
Evolution is a similar process. It of course operates without direction or design, but it has the same effect as creative destruction. Small mutations (putative “mistakes”) in organisms compete for resources with non-mutated organisms. Most fail, like nearly all of the radial aircraft engine experiments. But a few succeed and pass their genetic information on to the next generation. Over vast periods of time and nearly countless small experiments, different, and better, organisms move forward.
THE SAME THING HAPPENS WITH ENGINES AND EAGLES.
HATE WALMART OR MICROSOFT? WAIT A FEW DECADES.
Better performing radial engines resulted from multiple experiments. And they worked well. However, the radial engine was creatively destroyed when the jet engine came along. And the same fate will probably befall the jet engine.
Similar fates await living organisms. It is commonly stated that 99.99 percent of species that ever lived are now extinct. The Creative Destruction that is the process of evolution ensures that this will be the result. Just as Creative Destruction will probably knock out Microsoft, WalMart and yes, possibly even Ducati, at some point in the future. And probably the human species, felines, canines and cetaceans. [v]
But there is another way to conceive of Creative Destruction. Each improved iteration of an organism, idea, a product, or a service has a better chance of survival by avoiding subsequent failure. One can also think of these as the beneficial mutations that drive the evolutionary process.
Similarly, failed engine designs or noncompetitive companies are cast aside, like deleterious mutations. There elimination removes the probability of similar failures in the future.
FUEL INJECTION REFUTES IRRREDUCIBLE COMPLEXITY?
But just one final twist. What has failed in one iteration may yet comeback as a positive addition in the future. Sometimes changed conditions can later resurrect and idea or product feature that previously failed. Consider fuel injection.
Fuel injected engines were built at least as far back as the 1950s. These systems were mechanical and did not function well enough to receive broad acceptance. In the 1980s, however, computer technology took over the fuel metering functions of fuel injection and nearly all current vehicles have fuel-injected engines. So much for irreducible complexity!
MISTAKES MADE IN PURSUIT OF INNOVATION NARROW THE FIELD FOR SUCCESS IN THE DESERT OF THE REAL!
[i] www.cycleworld.com
[ii] Old school dirtbikers, streetbikers and snowmobilers will remember the frustration of two-stroke engine spark plug fouling. And the spare plugs that one bought by the dozen.
[iii] Radial engines are still used in some aircraft and power many of the antique aircraft so popular at air shows. And just as the descendants of the dinosaur soar overhead as our feathered friends (modern birds), the radial aircraft engine lives on as the air-cooled, pushrod activated, single-pin crank V-Twin that powers Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
[iv] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction
[v] Forgive the Author if he is mixing Orders, Families and Species. He doesn’t know much about taxonomy.
posted by FOXP2 @ 6:09 AM
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