From the Shop

What Were the First Gears Used For?

In our world of modern technology, it’s easy to forget our engineering roots. Gears are such a integral component of today’s machines, from space shuttles to smartwatches, it seems like they’ve been around forever.

But gear manufacturing had a definitive beginning, and one that would set the stage for the growth and evolution of the simple machines as we know them today. So where did gears originally come from, and what were they first used for?

The Earliest Gears

It’s entirely possible that gears are even older, but our earliest examples of historical gears date from around the 4th Century BCE in China, though the exact purpose of these gears has been debated. In Europe and Western culture, our earliest preserved gears come from the Antikythera mechanism, circa 150-100 BCE. Despite being an early example of gear use, the gears in this device are startlingly intricate, enabling users of the device to input variables and calculate astronomical positions.

Historians believe that differential gears first appeared around 1,000 BCE, again in China, to be used in south-pointing chariots, so that one portion of the chariot would always point south no matter where the chariot was turned.

Though uses varied and diversified once gears began to evolve, the earliest instances of gears were used for navigation, transportation, and calculating devices—not entirely different than how we commonly use gears today.

New and Modern Gears

It took centuries for modern gears to be adopted, with segmental gears appearing as early as 1206 AD, and worm gears appearing sometime around the 13th or 14th Century. Mechanical clocks, making use of gears, appeared as early as 725 AD in China, and worm gears started being used in roller cotton gins on the Indian subcontinent in the 13th-14th Century.

Today’s gears are far more precise, and can be used for a far wider range of applications. If you’re interested in learning how Federal Gear’s team of gear engineers are perfecting modern gear production, or if you’re ready to place an order, contact us today!

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