this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
853 points (98.6% liked)

Science Memes

11441 readers
951 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] LegoBrickOnFire@lemmy.world 50 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Those are things that regulate the tension in the overhead cables on train tracks. With the variation of temperature cables tend to contract/expand and this systems allows the cables to do so freely with a constant tension provided by the weights.

[–] verstra@programming.dev 21 points 1 month ago (2 children)

These are so simple and yet so clever. When i noticed them the first time i started noticing them everywhere (on all rail infrastructure).

[–] RubberElectrons@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I as well. Seattle transit, NEC Amtrak and NJ transit live off of these. If these systems work for them, they'll work for us all

[–] someacnt_@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Is it simple? It looks quite complicated, but maybe that's just me forgetting how to compute forces.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

simple in that it's just a clever series of wires and pulleys, not some sort of digital adjustment device, i suppose

[–] verstra@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

Also, you are looking at a few different wires at once here. Each separate wire is tensioned with a mechanism with a few moving parts.