the.com/bearing
The unsung hero spinning quietly so everything else can move without screaming.
means The way you carry yourself or hold your direction, or the small machined part that lets one thing rotate smoothly against another.
from From Old English 'beran,' to carry or bear up — the same root that lets you 'bear' a burden or 'bear' a child. The sense of 'direction' grew from sailors who took their 'bearing' on how a ship carried itself relative to the stars; the mechanical 'bearing' is younger, named because it literally bears the load of a spinning shaft. All of it circles back to that ancient idea of carrying, a cousin of Latin 'ferre' and Greek 'pherein,' to bear.
- Ancient tech
- Egyptians rolled stones on log bearings millennia ago
- Da Vinci
- Sketched ball bearings centuries before they existed
- Speed king
- Some spin past 100,000 revolutions per minute
- Failure point
- Bearing seizures have crashed cars and grounded planes
- Lost meaning
- Also means knowing exactly where you stand
north magnetic pole — magnetic compass bearing reference point that shifts ~55km annually, currently near canadian arctic
ball bearing — mechanical component with steel balls that reduced friction in rotating shafts since 1880s, used in every motor and wheel
bearing strait — 55-mile water passage between alaska and russia at 65°n, named after vitus bering 1728