posted on December 09, 2011 at 1637

This is a good bearing

I’m repairing a power drill (more on that later), and I found inside it a rather excellent ball bearing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9fY82E_jVs

Nice.

* Why is “ball bearing” a synonym for “steel ball”? A ball bearing is a bearing, i.e. a rotary fitting that supports a spinning shaft, that uses balls to reduce contact area. It isn’t a marble made of steel. I’m guilty of calling the balls “ball bearings”, but the more I think about it the more I wonder why we needed a more obscure and less accurate metonym for “steel ball”.


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