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Oct 24, 2020Liked by Surjan Singh

Damascus steel still has me baffled until today. I heard (..) one of the most accurate descriptions of what it was and how it was made is actually in a novel - The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson

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Brings to mind the lateral flex engineered into Moto GP bikes. When the bike is leaned hard into a turn, the suspension is now (nearly) parallel to the ground, thus the flex acts as vertical suspension while cornering.

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Jul 22, 2020Liked by Surjan Singh

The philosophical underpinning of this article is interesting to me - how does engineering affect culture and vice versa? Aspects of an engineered product like samurai armor will be partly due to tradition and the creative influences (i.e. artwork) on the designers. However, the design is also beholden to a slew of practical design constraints that will determine its form/fit/function. To continue with the example of samurai armor, I can think of several reasons why flexibility may have been useful:

- Warm & humid climate

- Lack of mineral resources and metals on Japan

- Varied use of weaponry, requiring flexibility (bows got more use than swords)

- Battlefield terrain (say, moving through hills or forests)

Practical choices based on those constraints forms an object that is useful and a cultural artifact. Samurai armor is uniquely an invention of the Japanese people. It is a representation of their traditions, influences, and environment.

Additionally, constraints the designers are facing will ultimately shape their mindset. Resource scarcity or ultra-harsh environments can cause very out-of-the-box thinking because the invention simply won't work without cleverness. If you haven't read Asimov's "Foundation", I'd recommend it. The premise is that a small colony of scientists is stranded on a barren planet with few resources. They have to be smart and scrappy to survive, which is reflected in every part of their planetary culture and the way they do diplomacy. I would say it's a very stark example of how culture and engineering are, in some ways, joined at the hip.

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