cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32524920
I watched several videos on a Combine Harvester's inner workings and I still don't understand how this thing works.
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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Well, the first step was making a machine that does every step of the process to make it easier. Then you combine those machines into one big machine, hence "combine".
No one starts from zero and builds a machine like this. Each of those processes was its own problem that got solved first.
People don't seem to understand that complicated things don't just get invented out of nowhere. They almost always are the result of many steps along the way, each of which was useful in its own right.
And that's why it's common that multiple people invent the same thing at the same time. Like the theory of evolution, or the telephone. These things may be complicated, but all of the building blocks were created over a long time, and suddenly, their invention or discovery becomes inevitable.
Not to say that it never happens that people make large leaps, but it's rare.
To many "smart" people have stood up and taken the credit for hundreds of others and generations of work.
We have been sold and buy the idea that there a supermen out there that are beyond clever and capable when they are just the result of their environment and resources from others. And now history is looked at through that lenses looking for singulars where there is plural.
Like CEOs taking credit for all the work their engineers did.
coughMechaHitlercough
Elon musk invent mecha hitler to revive third reich in cyberpunk dystopia? Amazing /s
Same with evolution. "The eyeball is too complex to evolve as a whole unit!" Well, that's absolutely correct. First, start with a patch of light sensitive cells, iterate.
https://earthlife.net/nautilus-anatomy/#The_Nautilus_Eye
This is a great read; it posits that nautilus did have a mucous layer that is no longer present, but other cephalopods' complex eyes may have evolved from that
I love these little guys! I may have known before, but I learned the eye thing from this video yesterday actually (just to give credit where it's due):
https://youtu.be/1H5o13asiPA
No you’re wrong the eyeball is so complicated the only explanation is a divine being created us!!!
(Im being very sarcastic)
Well fuck that divine being, because squid eyes are better. I've had it up to here with the human god, I'm going to go start worshiping c'thulhu.
Even all those different little inventions had plenty of steps along the way, and almost all of them were viable during its time.
The greatest strength humanity has had to create ingenious machines wasn't intelligence.
It was time and manpower.
The first season of Connections did an exceptional job of illustrating that idea. Highly recommended!
Hamburgers
When I was taught that Philo Farnsworth, a "farmer" who "invented" television by using the idea of plowing a field in parallel lines to display an image, I was completely dumbfounded. A farmer figured out how to build a vacuum tube, fire an electron beam, deflect it at phosphor-coated surface, and do so in lines, varying the intensity, to display an image? This simplistic "history" skips about 50 years of progress in vacuum tube design and absolutely fascinating mechanical television.
On that note, The Upright Thinkers by Leonard Mlodinow is a good book about scientific progress, and really drives a point about incremental nature progress.
Much like a sewing machine. Fortunes were made by many, many people as they solved each small problem.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-singer-won-sewing-machine-war-180955919/
Ok let's start with one. How does one even start to make a self-propelling machine that cuts wheat stalks at ground level?
Make a self propelled machine and a machine that cuts grass and smoosh them together.
I generally prefer the squish method, but absolutely recognize the smoosh method and its inherent effectiveness.
You end up with more problems than you solve with squish and smoosh. These are sophisticated machines that can all too easily interfere with each others operation. The snuggle method has been proven to improve operability, lower service calls and reduce complaints
Cuddle works best because the machine spirits are happy.
i do be lovin the smooshes
We did two things first:
First we made a (simple) machine that cuts wheat stalks at ground level (scythe).
Second we made a (complex) machine that is self-propelling.
I'm gonna guess there was an intermediate step where we put mechanical scythes on horses or something
Yep, e.g. the McCormick Reaper, which is unsurprisingly is mechanically very similar to the modern grain head on a combine.
Here's a video of an even older Johnson Reaper in action.
Of course, yes, there was. But it was extremely brief in the grand scheme of things.
https://www.farm-equipment.com/articles/4269-timeline-of-ag-equipment-firsts
1830's the first mechanical (horse drawn) harvester comes out, and by the 1860's steam powered tractors were being introduced.
Well first there's the cutting technology. Scything is ancient. Industrial production of push mowers using cylinder blades were developed in the 1800s and the more modern gas powered rotary cutters came along in the 19th century with many other self-propelled and automated mechanisms. This started with coal and wood fired agricultural equipment used for processing, like threshing and winnowing. As internal combustion engines (gas powered) developed in the 20th century more equipment and processes could be incorporated on-site and in-field.
You look at a horse-drawn mowing machine like this and start thinking about how you could do something similar without the horse.
The first version is just a machine that mimics the human motion of doing that task. Its a mechanical reaper that is pulled by a horse:
https://okfronline.com/2024/02/inventions-of-agriculture-the-reaper/
Then someone figures out how to make a self contained engine and it becomes self propelled.
This is a process that occurred over centuries.
Stationary processing of grain. Then stationary automated processing of grain. Then add a cutting machine (from harvesting hay) and self-propelling and you've got your combine harvester.
The loading thing? A extruder on a swivel, old tech.
You take a self-propelling machine and put a hydraulic arm on its side that can be adjusted to be very close to the ground.
Mount a chainsaw at the end horizontally. Then experiment with blade lengths and different methods to keep it level over uneven ground.