On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 08:46:32PM +0100, Bob W wrote: > > there's a story, probably apocryphal, about Henry Ford asking which part of > the Model Z, or whatever, lasted longest. On being told that it was the > widget flange he ordered the engineers to make it weaker, and therefore > cheaper, since it was a waste to have one part outlive the rest of the car.
I've often heard a very similar story attributed to Colin Chapman (who was the lead designer of the notoriously fragile Lotus Formula One cars driven by such luminaries as Jim Clark). He (Chapman) was reputed to have said that the ideal Formula One car would fall apart as it crossed the finishing line. As far as apocryphal stories go, there's the WWII story about the analysis of bomber airframes to see which parts should be strengthened. A survey of all the currently-operational RAF aircraft was commissioned, and all the parts of the airframe that showed significant damage were to be considered for reinforcement. At this point, so the story goes, Barnes Wallis remarked that as this survey was limited to aircraft that had successfully returned to base, perhaps it would be better to reinforce the parts where none of those aircraft showed signs of damage ... -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
