Adam, thank you for not editing out any goofs, repetitions or dead air. Being able to listen along at a human pace makes these tool tips unusually watchable amongst the breathless TikTok madness that is most of KZread.

@flyingcatpack

2 жыл бұрын

I wish I could give this comment more then 1 like!

@amartinez97

2 жыл бұрын

I really dont think most of youtube is tiktok madness most of it is reviews on various forms of media,tools and entertainment followed by music, reactions and the tiktok crap.

@ctdieselnut

2 жыл бұрын

@@amartinez97 I remember hearing there is something like 500 hrs of video uploaded every minute. Theres no need to be watching something you don't like. Shorts(rebranded tiki toks) have there place, and sponsored tool reviews are a joke. That being said, I wish yt wouldn't recommend that garbage so much.

@ringodingo

2 жыл бұрын

Especially for those of us who play it at x1.5 speed.

@marksturtz

2 жыл бұрын

Tom Porter , well said!! I can not add anything more .

Thank you Adam for bringing attention to the science of metrology. We hope you’re able to visit us and tour our facility one day. I’m pretty sure you’d enjoy the calibration lab!

@chrisdowns3155

2 жыл бұрын

If he does, make sure to show him optical flats and block calibration by interferometry.

@AssMcBlast

2 жыл бұрын

Thanks for everything you guys do!

@DarenLewis

2 жыл бұрын

Mitutoyo team, Thanks for being the inspiration here and supporting the channel. We all learn so much from Adam's passion.

@michaelfornasiero2749

2 жыл бұрын

Your facility in Illinois is incredible, I really hope he gets to visit some day and see your calibration lab!

@kgchrome

2 жыл бұрын

mitutoyo, i would so dearly love to use your calipers, but you STILL do not make any left handed versions. we are 12% of the general population, and much greater in the creative community. please help us achieve our best results. thank you.

I'm a QC Inspector for the aerospace, defense, nuclear/powe-gen, and med device industry. I routinely inspect things that are measured to the micron and less, mostly spinal medical implants and parts used to perform angioplasty...on infants. I get small. In my 20 years of working small, I have never seen anyone so passionate and enamored of process as myself, until now. Also, your quote "All measurement is a compromise or circumstances." Is beautiful and I will be printing and framing it for my office (quoting you of course), come Monday. Thank you for shedding a little light on something I take very seriously. I could tell you some really cool stories and circumstances surrounding the processes and environments required to make measurements even smaller than those you discussed. Also, Mitutoyo, accept no substitutes.

I love how unscripted this is. It feels like a really good conversation with a professor at the end of the day after class.

@petermgruhn

11 ай бұрын

I found myself flipping it off because I have to go make dinner.

@galaga00

10 ай бұрын

@@petermgruhnCool story.

@ruolbu

9 ай бұрын

I feel like he actually repeated a section in there which he did twice and forgot he put it in both times

@mcho3121

6 ай бұрын

@@ruolbuI think that he filmed it twice to give two view options and the editor just included both to give the full explanation and demonstration.

"This morning I woke up thinking about gauge blocks..." Adam Savage is an international treasure.

@edschmid123

2 жыл бұрын

"This morning I woke up thinking about gauge blocks..." Machinists: "Ah yes, as one does. Continue."

@cubertmiso4140

2 жыл бұрын

There is epic documentary about measurement that kickstarted the industrial revolution. More high level but gave better overall ramifications of each level of accuracy.

@johnd5398

2 жыл бұрын

Great... now I"M going to wake up thinking about gauge blocks.

@zeruzio1345

Жыл бұрын

Adam Savage is an international treasure. Get Nic Cage on the phone, I've got an idea for a movie!

@petemiller519

11 ай бұрын

Well said, He truly is.

Adam at 37:34, "I am like a bull in a china shop." I'm surprised Adam still uses this phrase since he knows that bulls avoid knocking over china while in a china shop since he tested this on Mythbusters!

@AgentJohnSteed

2 жыл бұрын

You can also see the panic in his heart as he realizes he could have tipped the box over. Butt clench for sure.

@timix_au

2 жыл бұрын

I think the video's point applies here - they measured that myth, and found it to be incorrect and inaccurate for their specific purposes, but for a quick throwaway metaphor to counter a bit of clumsiness with humour, it still fits our general understanding of the world well enough to fill in the gap.

@ruiloureiro3167

2 жыл бұрын

Very true!

@MrT------5743

2 жыл бұрын

I too had to make this same comment. Found it funny how he referenced a myth they did and it is also kind of a fitting how you can't really measure anything precisely. Like how destructive is a bull in a china shop really?

@sophiecates2924

2 жыл бұрын

Oooh, this is a neat bit of history actually! "Bull in a China shop" is a fossil phrase. The use of the phrase lasted longer than the collective memory of its meaning! It originally referred to John Bull, who was kind of like England's Uncle Sam and first appeared as a newspaper comic satirizing English interference in Chinese markets.

I love the “im like a bull in a china shop” line from Adam & then the silent pause & realization that he has already Busted that myth. Still one of my favorite episodes ever & biggest surprises from the show.

@imnoblueberry8502

Жыл бұрын

I haven’t seen that episode, what’s it about and what did they find out?

@freekthecat

Жыл бұрын

@@imnoblueberry8502 They tested the myth of the phrase "Like a bull in a china shop." which implies one is clumsy as much as a bull would tear through a china shop and destroy everything. They got an actual bull and set up a mock china shop and had the bull chase rodeo clowns or an equivalent through the "shop" or if that wasn't the case and I'm just having a Mandela Effect moment, at the very least they had the bull run through the mock shop. To everyone's surprise the animal did not knock over a single shelf and none of the test china was broken, completely busting the myth. The reality is that the animal didn't want to collide with any obstacles as much as you would not want to collide with any tree while running through a forest.

@imnoblueberry8502

Жыл бұрын

@@freekthecat oh wow that’s pretty cool and makes a lot of sense when u put it like that. Still crazy tho that a big bull can move quickly through rows with china and still not hit anything😮 Thank u for the response and clarification man😄👍

@snaponjames

11 ай бұрын

​@@imnoblueberry8502I love how your comment is perfectly angular!

@jswtubin

9 ай бұрын

I was listening to this and as soon as he said it, I paused too and was like, "heeeeey, wait...." and I immediately stopped what I was doing just to see if anyone else had caught that and found your comment. 😊

I'm as of recently a Quality Analyst at an engine factory. I don't get to use it yet, but the measurement labs and equipment are terrifying and awe-inspiring. Terrifying in how unbelievably difficult it is to measure things this accurately, and we're doing it. I see lots of Mitutoyo's stuff as well as Starrett, lots of granite everywhere, and the really fancy stuff like the gauge blocks are locked up in a special lab that's squeaky clean, in stark contrast to the common filth of the factory. It just sparks a sense of reverence, Quality is the field where the philosophical and abstract are blended with the physical and concrete, that's why I love it so much.

@galaga00

10 ай бұрын

What I love about this is that even in those squeaky clean environments it’s still only accurate up to a point I assume.

@peteg22397

9 ай бұрын

@@galaga00 They are indeed. The ones at my work get sent off for external recalibration yearly to make sure surface wear hasn't taken them below the accepted tolerance

@SuperPhunThyme9

7 ай бұрын

oh man....that sounds like my kind of field

@allenklingsporn6993

6 ай бұрын

​@@peteg22397 Every plant that has an ISO-compliant management system have regular calibrations that are traceable to NIST standards. Great initial portion of study (where does precision truly come from!?) in the field of Quality. Metrology is awesome, but I do prefer the people side of the field.

@allenklingsporn6993

6 ай бұрын

It's important to know that it doesn't stay that way through anything but hard work. When the rest of the plant is filthy, the lab is the place that MUST always inspire us to do better. Metrologists have a heavy burden, and not all live up to the title.

From my time in a Cal lab I'll never forget this: "a man with a watch knows what time it is. Give him another watch and he's not so sure anymore." It's great to see a person as enthusiastic as Adam.

@1pcfred

2 жыл бұрын

My PC uses NTP so I'm good with the time it keeps. I was watching the USNO master clock webpage New Years eve and my PC clock was bang on.

@2993LP

2 жыл бұрын

That's attributed to Einstein. Since your two clocks aren't in the exact same place, gravity pulls just a little bit different on them, and their velocity is a little bit different, so relativity warps the passage of time for the two clocks.

@1pcfred

2 жыл бұрын

@@2993LP time is not going to dilate so much locally to matter to me. Now when they launched the first satellites they didn't know if it'd matter then. So they built the first satellites with a switch in them. If it mattered they'd flip the switch. It turns out it did matter too.

@2993LP

2 жыл бұрын

@@1pcfred It might matter if you were really accurately measuring time. Since you're not, yeah, it doesn't matter.

@1pcfred

2 жыл бұрын

@@2993LP I'm accurately measuring time. I usually know what day it is. That's accurate enough.

I'm a metrologist and I'm making this video required viewing for all the engineers I have to work with. My favorite measurement tool is a Coordinate Measuring Machine (CMM). After almost 20 years of Adam teaching me new stuff, I finally know a little more about the subject than he did. Yet he still managed to explain it better than I could. Thanks, as always.

@Jimunu

2 жыл бұрын

And that he did it mostly from the top of his head. Is what I find aweinspiring.

@robinsuurs4748

2 жыл бұрын

This. This is exactly how I feel as well about this video. First time ever I knew more, but Adam still understands better.

@Alavashus

2 жыл бұрын

now to start a debate between machinists and cal techs about the often dreaded micro-inch!

@jhueth3969

2 жыл бұрын

It is granite though right?

@msbrickkitten6882

2 жыл бұрын

@@Alavashus I don't have a week for that!

I've been a metrologist for 31 years, absolutely LOVE how much Adam brings to our science and career. Every day, tens of thousands of calibrations are done so that everything you use as a consumer is measured to the millionth of 'whatever'. Love this channel!

@MrMcSwiftface

4 ай бұрын

Do you know of any other good KZread content on this subject?

@dakotaboy80

3 ай бұрын

@@MrMcSwiftfaceThere's only one Adam Savage.

@ChrisNorulak

3 ай бұрын

Just started a job as a (lab) metrologist - seeing him fumble through certificates is already familiar... Really cool to learn about Guage blocks and ringing

Been a Metrologist for 23 years. You cant imagine how awesome it is knowing that more people will know how cool and amazing the field is from this. We define reality lol.

@The88Cheat

Жыл бұрын

I thought you said "meteorologist" and I wondered how that would relate to the video. I'm dumb.

@astranger448

Жыл бұрын

Same here ;-)

@lavalampex

Жыл бұрын

Just think of medieval times or even 50-100 years back when there were no gauge blocks. People measured with sticks and copied from reference objects. It's even more a mystery now how they built the great pyramids with those big heavy stone blocks.

@astranger448

Жыл бұрын

@@lavalampex they had this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_rope aka the rope with 13 knots

@noahstevens1886

Жыл бұрын

Metrology doesn't define reality.

Long live the people who possess this level of enthusiasm, for geeky things.

@boomfiziks

2 жыл бұрын

I’d recommend watching the PBS show called “Fractals - hunting the hidden dimension “. It very much relates to what you’re talking about.

@thesonicalchemist8600

2 жыл бұрын

Luckily 5.5 million people subscribe

@deeschoe1245

2 жыл бұрын

The Geek shall inherit the earth!🤘🤘

@davydatwood3158

2 жыл бұрын

Anything is geeky if someone has this much enthusiasm for it! :)

@goodstormsgames9744

2 жыл бұрын

Yes

I truly believe Adam Savage is the only person that can say "I woke up this morning thinking about gauge blocks" and no one bats an eye.

@DasGanon

2 жыл бұрын

Na, I could see Destin from Smarter Every Day or Alec Steele doing that too.

@robertbuick1500

2 жыл бұрын

My wife would vehemently disagree.

@comfortablynumb9342

2 жыл бұрын

Wait. Don't you wake up thinking about fine measurements? I thought we all did 😅

@RACOONBACON

2 жыл бұрын

My work deals with them so I tend to wake up with them on my mind as well.

@RandyContello

2 жыл бұрын

this old tony also...

Never thought a video about measurement would make me tear up, but here I am! This inspired a pure sense of awe and fascination about the world that we think we understand. One of my favorite quotes is, "The more I learn, the less I know." What seems like a simple question and answer becomes a constellation of variability. I find that amazing.

Adam I've been in fabricating and machine my entire working life, and am currently a quality manager at a machine shop. Thank you for being passionate about something that so many take for granted. As I was showing my wife portions of this video, and I was geeking out over it, she looked at me like she had to hurry up and go change the cats litter boxes and I was keeping her from that. I appreciate it more than you know!!! Have a fabulous day!

If there’s one thing that I like about this channel is just how improvised everything is. Most large channels are all well prepared and everything when it comes to making videos but Adam here goes out on the fly and takes it all in one take, even when it comes to asking Alexa something and then telling her to shut up or reading paperwork while the camera’s rolling. He’s a mad scientist and I love it

@Shogunersash

2 жыл бұрын

100% Script and dancing have ruined KZread lol

@leigh9360

2 жыл бұрын

It's rare to have someone knowledgeable and charismatic enough to be able to pull that off. For most people they would come off as awkward and rambling.

@larrybud

2 жыл бұрын

@@Shogunersash depends on how much time you have on your hands.

The Pursuit of Precision is such a fascinating tale of human endeavor. The development of zero, base ten math, calculators (both the people and then development of machines), engineering tolerances, manufacturing tolerances... the advent of the ruler which brought on the sliderule. Surveying using gunter chains and now GPS with accuracy down to micometers. Machinist chasing zeros. Mathematicians chasing zeros. Engineers chasing zeros. It's so intertwined with human history and development that we are at a point where precision can speak the tale of human development.

@brentoconnor6127

2 жыл бұрын

This video was foundational for me in understanding precision kzread.info/dash/bejne/mYKG0NSnZaerZZs.html

@scottcassidy8471

2 жыл бұрын

There’s a book called The Perfectionists, which is just an incredible telling of this tale.

@TheEphemeris

2 жыл бұрын

@@brentoconnor6127 I only wish Machine Thinking would release more content

@becnal

2 жыл бұрын

@@scottcassidy8471 You took my answer. 🍻

@jeromethiel4323

2 жыл бұрын

And precision is the reason humans are no longer part of a lot of manufacturing. Humans just cannot achieve repeatable, high precision results. That takes machinery. A modern high end CNC machine can outperform a master machinist and do it faster and more reliability. Now, it still takes a master machinist to do the setup and configuration of said CNC machine, but it only takes one time. Instead of having to hire an entire team of master machinists to make things, you hire one once to set up your machines, and then you're done. And there is no going back.

Well.....I was really excited to see those ceramic gauge blocks because I knew how accurate they are. I was a Toolmaker for over 40 years and routinely worked to a .0001 tolerance. We used carbide gauge blocks because we were working with carbide materials. We also worked with different tool steel. So our shop temperature was maintained at 68°, allegedly. You need a grinding machine process before gauge blocks are necessary. The surface roughness is too great to measure that closely. I'm sure you understand. As an old school Tool and Die maker, that thin film of oil needed for a gauge block build up was found on the under side of our wrist.

@JAMESWUERTELE

Ай бұрын

I just purchased a Mitutoyo gauge block ceramic set ASME 0 for my new 0-1” QuantuMike. So when my sport bike hits 16000 miles I can check my shims under bucket for my valve adjustment. Overkill 😂. Can’t wait to get them in Tuesday.

Very well done class Mr. Savage. I have been a QC inspector and manager for 32 years ,before retiring and helped build our companies inspection standards to today's quality. This would be a very good class for any starting inspector to watch. Good show.

I work in a metrology lab and I can say that I absolutely love my job! Waking up and going to work brings me joy! I also love how excited Adam is about metrology!!!

@samo4866

2 жыл бұрын

It is an interesting and satisfying profession, even though it's a severely underpaid one, at least for field technicians.

@Arrowed_Sparrow

2 жыл бұрын

That's frickin awesome, but what does the weather have to do with it.... Sorry, I couldn't help myself lmao.

@Jaywin228

Жыл бұрын

What do you do? CMMs?

@Tinmans21

Жыл бұрын

@@Jaywin228 mainly physical dimensional. We do have a PMM but that is not my responsibility at this time.

"Any measurement without the knowledge of uncertainty is meaningless" - Walter Lewin My favorite quote when it comes to accuracy

@codyeakinsbradley

2 жыл бұрын

Measure twice, never make a cut

@cloudbloom

2 жыл бұрын

@@codyeakinsbradley cut twice, then measure your mistakes

@kennethfharkin

2 жыл бұрын

Or as my detail design professor in engineering school said thirty years ago, Design it with a computer Draw it with a pencil Mark it with a crayon Cut it with an axe It isn't as bad as that but dealing with everything from the designers to the assemblers I can tell you it is a very rare designer who understands the limits of the ability to make or measure the features they are designing. "Why do you have the tolerance for that feature at +/- 0.0001"" "Because that is what the program is set to..."

@fduisterwinkel

2 жыл бұрын

@@kennethfharkin Also, there are two kinds of manufacturers, the ones that make the part to spec and bill you accordingly, and the ones that call you to tell you that you're an idiot. I greatly prefer the second kind.

@gohawks3571

2 жыл бұрын

@@cloudbloom 😁😁😁 Also, a favorite of mine (forgot who, only my husband told me): "The shorter the ruler, the longer the shoreline"

Oh! Adam! Watching you is such happiness! Seeing a person exhibit such awe, excitement, and sheer pleasure from having and sharing knowledge makes me feel all warm inside! It brings me memories of my childhood in 1950's, learning about ancient cultures & history with my father -- and again, listening to my grandson info-dump about the pharaohs & pyramids. Knowledge is power, is wonder, is joy! Keep bringing joy to our world Adam!

I saw a program on British TV a decade ago called " how long is a piece of string?" which explored this very fractal accuracy of measurement. Fascinating. You did a good job there, Adam.

My dad was a carpenter from the age of 13 (he quit school to support his siblings) until he died at 67. In my teens (i'm mid-50s now) I worked with him off and on. When calling out measurements he used to say "cut the line" or "leave the line" it wasn't until recently that I internalized what he was telling the saw-man with that phrase. My favorite measuring tool: the foldable wooden ruler. There's just something about it that I enjoy.

@lunam7249

7 ай бұрын

very important...."kerf" = the width of the saw blade.....usually 1/64 inch....a box is usually 3 cuts, 3 kerfs off and now your 1/16 inch wrong!!!

This video is the perfect example is why I idolize Adam.

@NICKCIN

2 жыл бұрын

100% The guy just dives in to so many things.

@Bennici

2 жыл бұрын

I love how when faced with the decision, he opts to go less into how neat gauge block ringing is or about how useful it is to heat parts when fitting them, and more into the philosophical ideas behind what is knowable. It tickles a certain part of my brain which I enjoy a lot, and it takes a special kind of person to make the jump from these superficial facts to the abstract layers that lie beneath.

@christopherhatch5469

2 жыл бұрын

I couldn’t agree with you more, King Kyle

@qpSubZeroqp

2 жыл бұрын

Completely agreed Kyle, which is why I love your channel as well! You both are incredible people that I hope to always have a part of me

@cavemanvi

2 жыл бұрын

the add??

I quite enjoyed this. In my own career as a glass artist and working with kilns I found that the amount a given material will move when it is heated up. Generally, I was working with temperatures ranging from room temp up to around 1650 F. With glass you can fuse different sheets of glass together and they will bond, but if they have different rates of expansion then, if that difference is great enough the piece will not survive over time. If the expansion is greatly different then the piece will break on cooling down. If it is slight then it may last hours, days or months before it breaks. Then you went on to mention the expansion of the cables of the Golden Gate bridge at noon vs. dead of night. This brings me to another thing I learned early on in my kiln work. If you put a piece of steel in the kiln and take it up to 1500 F it will be just fine. It will heat up and then cool down and be pretty much the same-aside from the spalling on the surface. However, if you have it constrained, then it will bend and twist and be deformed when it cools down. The understanding I gained from my kilns and trying to build metal forms to shape glass gave me a great insight into why the Twin Towers collapsed. The burning jet fuel heated up the steel supports but because they were supporting hundreds of thousands of tons they could not expand so they buckled and once they buckled they could no longer support that vast weight. A digression from what I intended to say, which was to thank you for this discussion of measurement.

@dflo4165

Жыл бұрын

Exactly right. The fireproofing was blasted off by the aircrafts entry into the interior of the building. It was only a matter of time before the support structures buckled, stretched, and broke. There was even a documentary showing that. Had it been just the fire, the fireproofing would have given firefighters time to put it out. The Empire State Building survived a crash by a B-25 in the late 30’ early 40’s. The Empire had massive steel girders in its structure. You might say it was overbuilt!

@NoName-zn1sb

Жыл бұрын

@@dflo4165 aircraft's

@JediSentinal

Жыл бұрын

@@NoName-zn1sb 😂 really?

@josephroach9793

Жыл бұрын

The twin towers coming down looked just like a building demolition I went to with traditional detonation charges lined up down the spine of the building.

@voiceofraisin3778

Жыл бұрын

@@josephroach9793 Hardly surprising, in demolition they break out the supporting walls with sledgehammers or mechanical means then use explosives to remove the supporting pillars. Once the lower support is gone the building drops in its own footrprint. The plane and the fire just repeated that on a slower timescale. A curious thought is that the WTC had an unusual structure, instead of being a frame it had a central spine, once the supports in the spine were weakened the building dropped straight down because all the centre supports raeched their failure point at about the same time. If it had a frame construction would the supports have only failed at the point where the fire was worst and then the top hundred floors would have toppled at the failure point. That might have saved a lot of lives below but would it have killed more people inthe surrounding area?

One of your best videos so far! I work with color science within the printing industry, and the more I learn the more I tend to start my answer with ”it depends” when I get a question regarding color.

@stevegee9087

6 ай бұрын

My partner and I started a photography business years ago, and she was getting all hepped up about the tolerance of the gamut on the high-end monitor that we bought. From my years of lab work, and quality assurance in the printing industry, I just said, "It doesn't matter - Just work within the edges."... Or something like that. Had to dumb it down really hard. My main guage in photography was, "Does the thing on the screen look like the thing that I'm looking at." Then it was all about whether my technique/composition etc was good. I never worried about how "good it looked on the screen." I was more invested in the capturing/recording equipment.

@user-mb9zx9lg7p

3 ай бұрын

I used to work with a Print Lab mixing ink I know what yousay

I took quantum mechanics in college. We did these incredibly complex derivations and when we got to the last class, I looked my professor dead in the eye and said “we don’t know anything. These are all approximations. We made all of this up and we still don’t know.” He responded, “and now you understand.”

@zapazap

2 жыл бұрын

Approximation to 29 significant digits is damn close to knowledge.

@theautisticguitarist7560

Жыл бұрын

That's the coolest thing anyone has ever said.

Probably the best Tested video I have watched. Thank you Adam! “All models are wrong, but some are useful” - British statistician George Box

@seasidescott

2 жыл бұрын

Now that is the rabbit hole from which there is no escape. Some are useful in some contexts, etc. I was able to get my head around it for scientific theories (them being the latest greatest approximation that was useful) but when this principle is extended to something like "truth" (where it is absolutely valid) one realizes every understanding we can have is relative, based on an imaginary model in our heads. That one can never know every single factor involved (no reductionist truth). I worked with some great physicists and learned to think in probabilities and that if something was 90% probable to them it was more certain that most people could be about anything in their lives. And of course that it's much easier to know when something is wrong though that's not the end of the story because even though someone's facts or thinking might be wrong their perception (e.g., of how something is interacting) might hold value. My picture of reality supplied by Hubble is still just a picture in my head and to pretend to myself that I understand it would be as crazy as someone's picture of a bearded god giving them their daily bread. That brings us to the "useful" part that I interpret as something that clicks with everything else and leads to greater understanding and ability to do things. People with too many imaginary false beliefs (lets say astrology and faeries) aren't usually able to fix their own washing machine.

Wild that I just sat here and listened to 45 mins of measurement discussion. Adam's a great teacher.

Adam, I am a Journeyman Millwright for the last 15 years. Your description of the art and science of measuring things was golden. Most people don't realize how everything expands and contracts with heat or the lack thereof. A great tool for calculating this is the Coefficient of Thermal expansion which can be found in the Machinery's Handbook. A teacher I once had said that with that book alone, you could teach yourself to build most anything you wanted. Thank you for your passion and honesty with all your projects.

My current favorite measuring instrument is my oscilloscope! A little peek into the world of quite short time periods! It turns "I push the button and it closes the circuit" into "I push the button and apparently it actually kind of rattles as it settles into being firmly connected over the course of 60 microseconds". It lets you move from measuring only steady states of electronic circuits to understanding how they change over time.

@prutok

2 жыл бұрын

The oscilloscope makes noise and uncertainty very visible.

For over two decades I have worked as an engineer closely with the machinists, metrologists, customer manufacturing, design and production engineers, quality departments and customer inspection. Before that I worked in a metrology lab. Almost all the machinists I deal with are literally Swiss machinists. Our normal tolerances we work with are +/- 0.001" (25 microns) with the smallest PRODUCTION tolerance I have had to work with for a multimode fiberoptic ferrule +/- 0.00025 MILLIMETERS! Accuracy and Precision are an incredibly complex subject which get exponentially more complex when you begin discussing Gage Repeatability and Reproducibility (GR&R). It is one thing to make an item once or twice for your own use but now try making 10,000+ of them for assembly and use by your customer in something like an implantable cardiac device or minimally invasive surgical component. Now you need to be able to measure not just the part but study the variations from operator to operator when making such measurements along with the variations in the measurement devices used just to determine if all parties can effectively measure the features in question. Then you can start discussing such things as gage tolerances where both you and the customer have certified Go and No Go Gages yet the product is conforming with your gage and non-conforming with the customer's simply because of variation within the allowed tolerance the gages are made to... These are the things which put me on planes to production sites and customers and keep me up at night.

@varmituofm

2 жыл бұрын

I had a professor working on nanoproduction. His precisions were incredible, on the order of hundreds of atoms. At the same school, I had engineering students who told me that they calculated that they needed the precision of their senior project (often go-cart sized) to within a micron (sometimes a lot less). They just used formulas blindly, no effort to understand the numbers.

@mikelang4191

2 жыл бұрын

I find that a significant issue in most all gauging, especially tapered thread gauges. The tolerance stack up combined with uncertainty narrows the effective manufacturing tolerances by a notable margin to conform to the gauge. It gets right out of hand at times. Metrology and expectations of accuracy and/or precision are challenging items to fully account for. I've literally solved non conformance by requesting the receiving facility double check the temperature at which the measurement was made.

This video was like 15% information and 85% Adam Savage Enthusiasm, and I enjoyed all 100% of it.

Adam: I learned much of this well done video while working at a Fortune 50 company, putting coatings on papers and films. The critical thickness of the material we were coating, an emulsion, depended on its viscosity (some were shear thickening, some shear thinning), temperature, velocities and the coating rolls used, measured in 0.00001 runout. It was as much an enlightening experience as you just expressed. Well done, Adam.

When I first started machining. My biggest epiphany was wrapping my head around not only measuring but thinking of things in life you think are square. But in the machining world making blocks square is a whole different world.

@fassay

2 жыл бұрын

Best comment. Square, parallels are hard. How do you set up your first perpendicular face on a milling machine?

@BerzerkaDurk

2 жыл бұрын

@@fassay I do it by putting the first milled face against the fixed vise jaw and putting a one-inch ball between the workpiece and the movable jaw.

@jbuchans331

2 жыл бұрын

@@fassay I guess it really just depends on how bad the saw cut is on the block and if I can get two sides parallel first. If the block is bad enough I usually just use the "pin method" ( not sure if it's actually got a name) on my movable jaw.

@jbuchans331

2 жыл бұрын

@@BerzerkaDurk you must be milling some good size pieces to be using a 1 inch ball

@BerzerkaDurk

2 жыл бұрын

@@jbuchans331 ha. true, ya know, I almost said use a ball or a dowel pin of a size depending on the workpiece, but I figured I'd keep it simple.

I love how Adam goes “About the thickness of a rolling paper” to talking about measuring fractals on a coastline. You need a podcast!

@tahvohck

2 жыл бұрын

They had one for a while! Sadly, it's ended now. But, there's a bunch of backlog if you want to look up "still untitled: the adam savage project"

@nicolas-pt6py

2 жыл бұрын

First time?

@XX32XX622

2 жыл бұрын

🔥

@nimoy007

Жыл бұрын

I mean, Tested still has the "This is Only a Test" podcast. No Adam, though.

@CharlieQuartz

Жыл бұрын

Just wanted to transmit the surreal experience of watching the video normally then scrolling to the comments and reading the OP quote the video as it was being said.

Such an excellent video. When I started to study machining 50 years ago, I had an excellent tutor who enlightened us students. Measurement of things is an endless challenge, and continues to fascinate. Really good topic, and video. Tolerances rule !

@peterparsons7141

7 ай бұрын

When we had to have a piece of work inspected.. I demonstrated how temperature determined if My work passed or failed. I machined my piece to .100” over size, the work was measured and failed on over size tolerance. Living in Canada I went outside for a smoke break, and took the work with me at -20c. When my work piece was measured cold, it fell right in the middle of the specification. My teacher loved it, and it was a good lesson for all of us. For people who care about such things, the specified tolerance of machined parts takes into consideration that the part will need to function at different temperatures. All machinists know this.

Thank you for this one, as a Quality Worker the fascination and sheer joy you show in this video is what I have every day in my work. Which is difficult to share, most people go glassy eyed when I start talking about quality and measuring things for work. I immediately drooled over the gage blocks, I have steel but ceramic is the gold standard and while I’ve been in quality for well over a decade I still hope to be worthy of those someday.

I can't remember a better video on a combination of Physics, Philosophy, an appreciation of the natural world and our understanding of it, I have watched in years. The sheer excitement and enthusiasm Adam conveys spews out of the screen and envelops you. Tolerance and uncertainty are the cornerstones of every measurement as the late, great Walter Lewin used to insist. We do not get to appreciate the nuance of that in our daily lives until a great educator like Adam comes along to make you think about it. This man is a national treasure.

@MitutoyoAmerica

2 жыл бұрын

We agree. Adam has a wonderful ability to speak to the masses regarding complex topics. Wounded video Adam!

My favorite class in engineering school was uncertainty analysis... confidence and the degree of confidence, the certainty of certainty, is an amazingly useful subject, applicable in almost every imaginable area of study or thought. Not only can you calculate the things you know you're certain of, but also the things you can't be certain about, it's math-magical. Great show man 👏

@CalvinHikes

Жыл бұрын

Even a theology course I took was called the sin of certainty.

I'm genuinely envious of people that call Adam friend. Having someone this passionate about anything is such a wonderful trait .

Adam is such a fantastic human! I do coding and game development, and I’ve been having tested on in the background, and there’s a level of comradeship that were both creating something (usually from nothing) that were both going back over and changing things, seeing how it looks or works, and doing it again and again until everything works and looks mostly exactly how you want it too. Thank you for moving to KZread, and being even more relatable! Keep on being amazing Adam! And everyone who empathizes on any level!

The way Adam pull back and says "with in reason..." and just look at the camera like a stern father , pure gold. please never leave us Adam.

@nicolas-pt6py

2 жыл бұрын

Adam is literally the kind of father figure I want

@kablammy7

2 жыл бұрын

I put the speed up to 1.5 because I noticed most of it was not presenting anything revelatory, but merely evidentiary . this video is proof positive that when you begin to get very senile : even simple elementary notions of new understandings seem to be monumental achievements which can foster euphoric propulsion for being mentally toastified for hours about your own personal incredible diadactic ingenuity .

@NoName-zn1sb

Жыл бұрын

@@kablammy7 I thot he was having an organism

"The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World" is such a great book and is in my top 5 books all time.

@waylandwhitney8462

2 жыл бұрын

Top 5 in my list absolutely.

Hello Adam, thank you for making this simple explanation. My friends can understand been a quality control inspector for medical device companies for 35 years. Metrology is fun for me. And yes, the word you did not use the entire talk was tolerance. I think that's the word you were looking for. And we work within microns all day. I enjoy your shows immensely. Very entertaining and educational. Irregularly work within around 30 nanometers on a lot of parts I work with. Measuring cylinders precision cylinders high-speed pneumatic motors pneumatic motors turning 100,000 RPMs with aluminum tools where if you hold them too long, the plug gauge would either get stuck or wouldn't enter because of the change in diameter just from holding the part for too long and raising the temperature. One or two degrees temperature is a major factor in micro measurements. I find titanium to be one of the more thermal stable materials work with it a lot in the medical field. Thank you again. Enjoy your shows. Take care

Thank you for making this video Adam. I'm 48 years old, and have decided to take up machining after a career in electronics, and feeling "burnt out". I'm excited about machining, and have been for a couple of years from tinkering in my garage and operating a couple of CNC mills here and there. I'm recommending this video to all my classmates for the way you explained metrology and displayed most of the content we learn about metrology in the first trimester. YOU'RE AWESOME MAN!

I just started cnc machining a few months ago, and I’m absolutely obsessed with the constant pursuit of precision. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as making something within 1/10,000th of an inch.

@andrewferguson6901

2 жыл бұрын

that is sub micron already😁

@peterweller8583

2 жыл бұрын

@@andrewferguson6901 then to an angstrom but at what temperature?

@angrydragonslayer

2 жыл бұрын

@@peterweller8583 i have special hvac in the measuring room :)

@peterweller8583

2 жыл бұрын

@@angrydragonslayer just like Uncle NIST

@angrydragonslayer

2 жыл бұрын

@@peterweller8583 funny thing, i once got to enter a vacuum room cetified by NIST while setting up a smaller version for a client (my client needed a 2x2.5 meter room, the certified one was ~40 m2 iirc) The mere idea that we can already reach the level of precision where that is needed boggles my mind.

10:25, not many people realise calipers have a 4th measuring surface on the outside edge of the jaw for measuring steps. Feels more sturdy to use than the depth stick when you have the space to use it

@infrabread

2 жыл бұрын

As a carpenter, that's the one I prefer to use. Only if I'm measuring the depth of a hole do I use the end stick.

@MMMeastro

2 жыл бұрын

With a digitale caliper first reset the zero if you change the way of measuring.

@JacoxNovak

2 жыл бұрын

well this comment has been tremendously useful as I went to see a video here on youtube :D for others, the link is: kzread.info/dash/bejne/oZxopsutititaKg.html

@mpetersen6

2 жыл бұрын

Using the 4th measuring option works great for layout work.

@wbfaulk

2 жыл бұрын

Not all of them do. I have a Brown & Sharpe 577 vernier caliper and, despite being the same general design, it does not have the jaw-side depth gauge.

I absolutely loved this. The topic and vibe. It feels like I'm having fun conversation with my dad in his workshop or a college professor outside of class. The topic is so interesting to me too--it's something I'd never be able to discuss about extensively with anyone else and hearing just how Adam speaks about it brings me joy and increases my interest in the topic too

I have spent almost 30 years in the injection molding tooling industry. I also spent nearly half that time involved in the EDM (electrical discharge machining) aspect of toolmaking. We seldom got into the tenths tolerances, but I always strived to be as accurate as possible in my setups and electrode machining. I can TOTALLY appreciate your passion for this Adam. Thank you for this video.

I would _LOVE_ Adam Savage to get to experience seeing a Scanning Electron Microscope look at something on the nanometer scale if it's not something he's had the opportunity to before - because I will never forget the first time I did, and how it gives you an understanding of just how intertwined everything is. The sample we looked as was held in a vacuum sealed chamber, in another stabilized container, and those containers all have various forms of other insulation to help remove the sample from interaction with the outside environment. This allows it to be stabilized to the device and apart from as many other surfaces as possible to act as insulation against energy transfer disrupting the focus and visible output. Despite that, if you talked at all while you were in the room with that device _even just at a whisper,_ the tiny vibrations from your voice would cause movement on the display, because that miniscule audible sound energy is transferring into and through all of the interconnected solid materials, and past all of the multiple forms of insulation and stabilization, and reaching the sample you are looking at. Then the more you understand about the tolerances and just how much all of those stabilization and insulation measures reduce the amount of anything from reaching that sample, the more monumentally impressive the scale of just how tiny and interconnected everything is. In the years since, that's made learning about things like cold welding in space even more impressive because of helping me to wrap my head around details that I'd never been able to grasp before.

@oscarn-

2 жыл бұрын

I love SEMs, we have a few where I work. I remember when in our old office, if a tram was driving four blocks away, you could see the vibrations in the image.

@jonwallace6204

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, those things are cool. Very similar to the width of the line on the tape measurer at that scale the wavelength of light itself isn’t small enough to interact.

@PierceArner

2 жыл бұрын

@@jonwallace6204 Yeah, there are _crazy_ techniques that they have to do with photolithography to be able to make some types of modern electronics because of that. That's the kind of stuff that blows your mind and helps underscore how much those in that field really understand the science behind those things.

Endorphin rush received. Through the first 90% of the video, I was screaming "this needs a reshoot with a proper script with cutaways and tidy editing". But toward the end, I realized that Adam's pure energy and delight in the topic comes through *because of* the stream of consciousness style. So for some, a clean linear presentation might be more effective, while others will grok better with this scattershot approach. In any event, thanks for the deep dive into the philosophy of metrology!

i have no practical use for any of the information presented here, but I absolutely loved every second of this video. thank you.

Love this stuff and Adam's intensity. I nerd out on some of the same things. Many years ago I was a machinist making parts for the F-16 and parts for Bell Helicopter at a subcontractor. This just brings back fond memories. I've always been a stickler for accuracy.

I had kind of an epiphany when you said, “the closer you look at stuff, the harder it is to measure” and I kept thinking back to modern physics and the uncertainty principle. That concept is so unbelievably hard to have an intuition for. However, at least for me, you gave an intuition for that principle on the limits of the smallest things in the universe. It’s simply just a scaled down version of what you’re describing. The uncertainty is larger than the measurement itself.

@evilspoons

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed, doing engineering in university I did a course that included the concepts of accuracy and precision, plus the accumulation of error. There's a specific process to combining measurements and the uncertainty in them, allowing you to ignore some (if they're substantially smaller than another, more massive error), and sometimes the results - the accumulation of tiny, tiny errors - can be rather surprising. This applied equally all the way from my quantum computing class up to literally measuring dots on ticker tape with a ruler in a physics lab.

@DudeWhoSaysDeez

2 жыл бұрын

Something that I find equally amusing and unintuitive is that color doesn't exist at the smallest scales, as the wavelength of light is larger than some of the smallest particles/objects. The fact that our measuring devices are limited by physics in this way is really strange but cool.

@trevorlybbert3640

2 жыл бұрын

So true. The problem is fundemental yo nature itself.

@jasonreed7522

2 жыл бұрын

As an electrical engineer my intuition for why you can't measure at the smallest level is that to see something you must shoot it which will deflect it. Normally the "bullet" is a photon but when we need a smaller wavelength of the bullet we use electrons. I also know that my chemistry professor explained the uncertainty principle once as not being quantum, it was just a part of the base equations where you could only know one variable to a certain range of the other. I also accept quantum is just black magic, electrons can jump through voltage barriers and respond to stimuli a few milliseconds before the stimulus happens (again black magic).

@jmmahony

2 жыл бұрын

Indeed, if there is a "smallest particle", then there is a limit to how accurately you can measure it, because your tools cannot be more precise than the size of the particles they are made of.

Adam, I love they way you don’t just explain things per point, you have a great story telling ability you marry with you explanations. It’s so much fun listening along to your journey to your main point.

I'm a retired metrologist Adam and I'd like to point out that even if you're not using the gauge blocks for comparative/relative measurements you can use them to spot check and verify your calipers and micrometers for example. Esp the ceramic ones because they're less susceptible to thermal expansion and error. My experience was all USAF and government so it wasn't machining, it was quality verification of tools used regularly on the flightline etc. Your calipers can also measure a dimension called "step' which is using the flat end and the end of the movement arm of the caliper. It's like a depth measurement but it gives you far more stability and helps you make sure you're perpendicular and not off angle which would give you an error on the long side of the measurement.

Thanks Adam. I’ve been really enjoying a bunch of your videos recently. This one took me right back to year 1 of my engineering degree (40 years ago). I loved the way you covered all the increasingly mind boggling concepts of metrology.

Adam, you are pointing out such important things, as you so often do. New eyes in the case of Impressionism was not merely practice in an existing field - it was adjusting the critic’s (and the western world’s) whole concept of what painting was meant to accomplish. That it wasn’t to spend countless hours hours drawing and painting create a polished representation of a traditional idea of figures in space as it had been worked out over centuries. The impressionists worked quickly to catch a momentary glimpse of how humans actually perceived the modern world. Originally, impressionist paintings looked careless, clumsy, untutored, unfinished - bad. But it wasn’t bad - it was a new kind of good. Grasping that demanded an incredible level of new learning, seeing, and understanding. Our world keeps changing and our tools change with it - we all need to continually change how we see and understand. You and your gauge blocks are helping us to understand that. Thank you! (And yeah, I’m an art historian.)

@sheyannev2757

2 жыл бұрын

I've been working in a building with a lot of impressionist paintings on the wall and my favorite part is how your mind fills in the blanks and from across the room they look incredibly realistic

@TricksterJ97

2 жыл бұрын

@@sheyannev2757 The mind is a wonderful thing. What we actually see is heavily processed by our brains to create the image we “see” in our mind’s eye. It’s a fascinating process that most of us don’t even consider.

An old machinist gave me the best advice when measuring engine parts. He said " the difference between a micrometer and a fancy clamp is the standard". This statement has fundamentally changed the way I view measurements and my tools.

@henrychan720

2 жыл бұрын

Someone need to link me to that pic of a guy using a micrometer as a welding clamp.

@schwarzerritter5724

2 жыл бұрын

What do you mean with "standard"?

@mikelang4191

2 жыл бұрын

@@schwarzerritter5724 the standard is the rod, manufactured to a precise length, which you use to calibrate the micrometer. Without it you have a fancy clamp.

This feels like the day I realized I had to measure the width of my blade on my table saw and figure out where to cut. It was totally crazy and mind blowing. This was a very exciting episode even if I am a year late.

I absolutely appreciate the fact that you recognize and address the needs for calibration and standards.

As a high school science teacher and maker, I loved this dive into the weeds! The thought process of “knowing” is fascinating and using measurements is so necessary. My students have not developed the needed “eyes” to properly understand or appreciate measurements at your levels, and, honestly, to the precision that a meter stick provides.

@pauld6967

2 жыл бұрын

Yardstick. :-)

Hearing Adam talk about learning guitar really hit home for me. So true, I love this channel and your work Adam!

@jordmosselman3403

2 жыл бұрын

Hey Rhett, found you here just before jumping over to your channel, yes Adam is a hero for a lot of people and has a great channel. The last suit build is crazy good. Helps me out nursing a cracked rib after crashing my bike the day before xmas, only four weeks to go? Ughh See you on the other side!

@jasonremy1627

2 жыл бұрын

Hey! KZreadrs I like who like other KZreadrs I like is my favorite thing in the world.

@STSGuitar16

2 жыл бұрын

Oh shit it’s Rhett! Fancy seeing you here man this is like a crossover episode for me lol

@MusicFillsTheQuiet

2 жыл бұрын

Will you guys be talking about the guitar player/effects builder equivalents on the podcast? My first thought was tuning with harmonics instead of only fretted notes, or knowing and using more than one vibrato technique? I feel like you two would have great thoughts on the subject.

@Hyce777

2 жыл бұрын

Dude, totally same. I've noticed a lot of patterns of "learning the next level of how something works" between making and playing... Always cool to have Mr. Savage corroborate our experiences.

Im no machinist nor have I ever thought of distances in these measurements. The way he explained the tools and the passion he showed, made me love this video.

I’m a biochemist, just graduated in may; one of my final courses was physical chemistry II. This class taught me the principals of empirical measurements and the faults in which it brings. Many points made in that class were theoretical; or limited to the relationships between two materials within the lab. This video on the other hand is a great example of how much trouble one can get into when measuring at a great specificity. Precision can only be accurate if all aspects of, not only the material, but also its environment is accounted for. Many thanks for your knowledge and time!

This was like a master class on philosophy of measurement, I super-enjoyed it!

This was something that bothered me from a young age. Whenever I was asked to measure things I always tried my best to minimise inaccuracy. I'm a mechanical engineer now and after studying metrology my questions were finally answered. I feel like you did a very good job explaining all of this!

@jasonreed7522

2 жыл бұрын

Something that bugged me in highschool was that even if i could memorize every formula, if stranded in say ancient Greece (ignore htf the timetravel happened) i could never build anything remotely advanced because how could i replicate our units. Sure i could declare some bar of metal to be a pound mass based on feel but it wouldn't be perfect so all our carefully discovered univeral constants won't apply. Now i am an electrical engineer so I'm doubly incapable of close enough units because how do i make a multi meter and get reasonably close to what a volt or amp is without a reference/calibration device? Now obviously a mech E could make functional machines and i could probably get reasonably acceptable electric lighting or something without proper measurements but that's not the point. I guess my point is the existential crisis of how do you remake units from scratch, especially without having to recalculate all the universal constants.

@EllaBananas

2 жыл бұрын

Same!

@Archgeek0

2 жыл бұрын

@@jasonreed7522 It's quite doable, but you have to dive deep into some history of science, foundations of your discipline sorta stuff. There's a standard definition of the volt that's a thing that can be measured using a fascinating little apparatus, but of course you'd have to build your way up to it. The 3-plate method of getting something really flat is a good place to start. The second thing is that you'd just need to put up with a little bit of slop at first. Go with a historical definition of something until you can measure cesium atoms pulsing to get a proper second and measure the speed of light. The rest follows from there, though machining precision will be the core of your ladder when it comes to building the apparati needed to nail down each.

@gene8842

2 жыл бұрын

@@jasonreed7522 well just like any other frame of reference, all of the constants like pi or eulers number, they are all comparative measurements. Absent the existing measurement reference, the formulas should work with ANY measurement as long as that metric is consistently applied. Just why the metric system is "most accurate" because of the set of revenues kept in a controlled environment in France. There is something to compare with.... hence the "reference". Just make your own meter, gram, liter and use them as references, all of the other relations should fall into place if those references are stable.

@jasonreed7522

2 жыл бұрын

@@gene8842 thats should only work for unit less constants. π is the ratio of a circle's radius and circumference and is you assume its value is 3.1415 you will be accurate enough. (Similar story for e, but i forget the base definition for its origin so lets say e^x is it's own derivative) Avagodro's number is the same a a dozen in that it groups many individual things into easier to count groups, only its way bigger than 12. But, some constants do infact have units like ε0 which it the permittivity of free space and has units of Farads per meter and Wikipedia has its base units done out. Granted most of the time the units make up the difference of the output and input of the formula. I suppose all you really would need to figure out would be the SI base units like seconds, meters, kg, Kelvins, Amps, mols, candela. Some wouldn't matter like Candelas measuring light. And some are easy like Kelvin being °C +275ish and °C being defined with 0 and 100 to water so make those 2 lines on a thermometer and evenly space the rest. Or mols being a fixed count of something, usually Atoms or molecules, and i just realized that if you figured out mass or volume units the other could be determined by density 1g of water = 1ml. I still think getting the electrical units sorted would be the hardest if you had to start from scratch. Actually this could be a cool challenge event, remake the units from scratch in a week. You are given a list of formulas and constants to help you. (Would be searchable electronic for ease of use) and give a prize to whoever is the closest / got the most.

The beginning of your video reminded me of a guy named Bob he was the best sheet metal man I have ever seen he could transition any size ductwork from squirt around oval you name it he could do it with great precision that worked every time we worked in a union shop when he found out that the concrete guys got the same pay as he did and the painters got the same pay as he did who didn't even need to buy his own tools he was livid he says I work in thousands of an inch over extended lengths making things out of 4x8 sheets of metal to exact measurements what does a concrete guy need a stick with three marks on it why should he get the same money as I do Bob was always an enjoyment I miss him dearly he died way too early of cancer. Rest in Peace Bob!

LOVE your enthusiasm and passion and how you explain things so un succinctly which isn't a word but it encompasses your much loved talent for going into depth with examples and lots of facts and tidbits along the way to explain something. Without that you'd have words and facts but no true understanding. Thank you for sharing your endorphin rush!

Adam, I love, love, love that you were hit by this wonderful epiphany. I’m a practicing statistician, and I can happily tell you that the whole point of statistical methodologies isn’t to measure a thing…it’s to tell you how much to trust/believe/discount/exult your measurement! Precision is relative and is endlessly battered by exogenous factors. Great episode!

@TricksterJ97

2 жыл бұрын

Adam needs to investigate statistical tolerancing!

For most of this video I sat on the edge of my seat watching in horror at the UNLOCKED box of ceramic gauge blocks on the bench. Thankfully they remained there the whole video and didn't end up on the floor. I kept shouting at the screen to lock the box then Adam notices the steel block box is open and closed it but leaves the ceramics open. Oh the humanity!

Adam, Thank you for what you do. I can sit and watch your videos all day long if I had time. The perspective you give as all things tools/shop/measurements relate to a deeper understanding of the world around us is truly mesmerizing to me.

It's so true. As a construction surveyor who works on industrial project but also on mass excavation project I always have to explain to engineers that precision goes with what you're working with and in which environment you are. Measuring gangway pins with a 3" instrument outside in February won't give you the same result as if it's done with a 0.1" instrument set up on a monument, under a hording in which the temperature and humidity are controlled. And you won't use a GPS precise to an inch to install pump or motor in primary extraction plant where you have 2-3 thou of tolerance. Really next time I'll tell them to watch this video cuz the same principles applies everywhere. Thanks for this superb masterpiece of uncontrolled explanations.

I absolutely love this! The first part reminds me of something I learnt some time back on the stages of competence - when learning a new skill we all fall into one of four categories of increasing competence. It starts with being unconsciously incompetent, where you don't know what you don't know. You then move to being consciously incompetent, where you gain an understanding of what is involved and can start to do the thing, albeit poorly, and with constant attention to what you are doing. Next you become consciously competent, where you can now do the thing well as long as you pay particular attention to what you are doing. And then lastly you become unconsciously competent, and can now perform at a high level and have an intrinsic understanding of what is involved and no longer have to consciously think through what you are doing. The second part of the discussion reminded me of something that blew my mind - the engine of a Formula 1 car is seized solid at room temperature! All of the components in the engine are machined to be within tolerance only at the operating temperature of the engine, so the entire engine is heated before it can be started! And, as you mentioned with the different coefficients of thermal expansion with your gauge blocks, there are many dissimilar materials that make up the various parts of the engine and they all have to be machined for their own particular rate of expansion to work when the engine is hot - this absolutely amazes me and I'm in awe of the engineers that design and build them!

@TheFalconerNZ

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah l was blown away as well when l found out the F1 are seized when cold

Love it when you do these “explainer” videos. Epic. Packed with valuable lessons for not just measurement but life itself.

damn... 45 mins went by quick! your passion about gauge blocks is like when i found out about fasteners... are rubber bands... and it BLEW MY MIND... also, dont forget to include the angle, trig and geometry to really blow everyone's brains that dont realize you have to measure at specific angles too

As a Scientist that is constantly taking measurements, daily, on so many different things... hearing you explain how science works in the world of measurements, makes me so happy. I put this to you, if you're amazed by this, imagine the factory that is making these and certifying them as accurate ( typically an analytical lab or calibration lab ). They have even more accurate reference materials they use to certify the values they put on each one of those measuring blocks because they have to be able to measure the deviations from their manufactured blocks vs. a reference standard that is even more accurate. It's a rabbit hole that just keeps going and going... not just in the small scale, but larger too. 1AMU is the distance between the earth and the sun, which is used to measure distances between planets... light years... it's just crazy stuff.

Your discussion about steel expansion reminded me of something a machinist friend told me. The 12-cylinder engine blocks in the WW2 Spitfires were so large, that the heat generated by milling caused the block to expand measurably. The blueprints had two sets of measurements on them. The set you used depended on which end of the block you started milling from. If something happened part way through that forced you to stop (e.g. a broken bit) the entire engine block had to be scrapped, and you started over with a new one.

In college, a friend and I were discussing the progression of precision in machines. Because in order to make a precision machine, it has to be made on a less-precise machine, which itself was manufactured on an even less precise machine... Love the video.

@greenveg42

2 жыл бұрын

Levers, man!

@isaiahbartlett9413

2 жыл бұрын

You need to look into the technique of hand lapping to understand this.

@alexandrezani

2 жыл бұрын

I used to think a bunch about how much science and technology I could reproduce if I went back in time. And the amount of stuff which boils down to "I don't even know how to make the measurement tools to do this" is kind of fun.

@1pcfred

2 жыл бұрын

Not really. They used the rule of three. If you create three planes and they all mate with each other then they're all flat. There's no combination of convex and concave that's going to work across three planes. Now with your perfectly flat surfaces you have the beginnings of precision. You have a reference. They did and still do it by hand too.

@alexandrezani

2 жыл бұрын

@@1pcfred You need abrasive between the plates to make that work. If your abrasive is not uniform, it's going to put gouges in your plates. It also needs to be super fine.

Adam, its funny. This is such a 'simple' topic, yet so rich and deep. Probably one of the most thought-provoking, eye-opening presentations I have ever seen you do. Thank you, deeply.

Adam I must say that you personally inspired me as a young man who stayed glued to the science and discovery channels! I believe it was your spirit of learning and testing the unknown unapologetically. From there I set up my life to aquire all the skills I would need to be a maker myself. Although my creating journey started many years ago 23 to be exact, I still find excitement in learning and trying new things. With that said, A big thank you to you from me. Please continue to learn and teach us all for the sake of comprehension of our ever changing world.

i was not, nor am i still particularly interested in metrology, but Adam's energy is intoxicating. He has a way of sharing ideas, concepts, stories etc that is extremely captivating and entertaining. A true pleasure to watch. That was really cool of Mitutoyo. It's always great to see/hear about companies that aren't just faceless entities

Since many people have already mentioned it, I am going to amplify "The Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy". Adam talks about using a surface plate; that book talks about how you make the surface plate in the first place. I've always been astounded by the idea that you can start with non-precision materials and create precision via the proper technique. Jon

@kablammy7

2 жыл бұрын

A study of the topic you mention sounds much more interesting than watching someone being astounded by their discovery of incidental properties ... I put the speed up to 1.5 because I noticed most of it was not presenting anything revelatory, but merely evidentiary . this video is proof positive that when you begin to get very senile : even simple elementary notions of new understandings seem to be monumental achievements which can foster euphoric propulsion for being mentally toastified for hours about your own personal incredible diadactic ingenuity .

@EnthalpyAndEntropy

Жыл бұрын

@@kablammy7 it's not senility. He's just later to a very specific party than perhaps you were and perhaps more excited than you.

@FernandoGYanesH

Жыл бұрын

@@kablammy7 your commitment to the utilization of extended vocabulary exudes a rather exorbitant degree of arrogance.

@kablammy7

Жыл бұрын

@@FernandoGYanesH indubitably thank you thank you very much

@cjbailey3646

Жыл бұрын

That's one of the kinds of realizations I love. It's like...it's somehow obvious, but also mind boggling. Because it's easy to understand how things become less precise through work and wear. And it's also self-evident that high precision tools must be, somehow, produced and calibrated from lower precision beginnings. And that those two absolutes can somehow be reconciled to get to the levels of precision needed for some of the modern conveniences the world relies on...Hard to wrap my head around, honestly, even reading and watching how it's accomplished.

I will never ever have to use any of those blocks in my life, but I now have a genuine base understanding of something new and it makes me feel just as excited as you look through this whole video. Thank you very kindly sir and I hope you learn something new everyday

I'm a professional high precision quality control inspector. This video really hit home for me and I completely understand and appreciate this video 🙂

The next tool you should buy (or borrow) is an 'optical profilometer' so you can measure your gauge blocks. You will find that even the best ones have surface roughness and non-planar surfaces at the nanometer scale. When you start getting serious about measurement, you can obtain an optical/laser micrometer and laser scanner, from a company like Faro or Micro-Epsilon. The accuracy of optical measurement is dependent on the wavelength of light and insensitive to temperature, so they are about as absolute as one can get. I love these spontaneous videos, here's to many more in the future! Cheers!!

@msbrickkitten6882

2 жыл бұрын

You'll definitely want a system like this in a temperature-controlled lab, just as he was saying with the precision and stability of the ceramic blocks, the same issue arises with optical/laser measuring systems. Typical to allow the specimen piece to soak a minimum of 24 hours at 20°C before measuring with such a system. :)

@3nertia

2 жыл бұрын

@@msbrickkitten6882 Soak, in what?

@FollowMarkP

2 жыл бұрын

@@3nertia soak means to let the object and tools being used to acclimate in the same temperature. Soak means that the temperature is consistent all the way through to the center of the objects.

@MitutoyoAmerica

2 жыл бұрын

To bad the cave isn’t large enough for a MiSTAR CMM. It includes thermal compensation for shop floor applications like Adam was describing.

Thinking about the minimum resolution of the universe has always been a fascinating subject for me. Whether it's chunks of time, physical mass or size, luminescence etc. Some of the most amazing insights into our universe have stemmed just from trying to measure progressively smaller increments of whatever the subject matter is.

@bradyoung6663

2 жыл бұрын

I can't wait to "see" what they find next. From cells to, I think qorks is smallest now, in what, 140 years? Not bad.

@routercnc9517

2 жыл бұрын

It’s all interesting stuff. For minimum resolution of the universe have a look at Planc length. Yes quarks are small as they make up protons and neutrons (once thought to be fundamental). String theory then takes this down still further by going down by about the same scale factor as people to atoms. So pretty small !

Re-watching this again. This is one of the best videos online. Thanks, Adam.

When i first saw this done it blew my mind... i though it was magnetic until i saw it done with ceramic blocks. I absolutely LOVE his excitement to explain this. Its so pure, like a little kid trying to show you his favorite toy. This whole video just had me smiling ear to ear.

Wait until Adam discovers the concepts of Measurement Traceability and Measurement Confidence.

@imark7777777

2 жыл бұрын

Oh no not another rabbit hole to look forward to? Oh Hey hi

@lbochtler

2 жыл бұрын

or until he discovers the lengths EE's go to to get accurate electrical measurements and the even greater lengths metrologists go to, in order to create the primary standard

@DanielLopez-up6os

2 жыл бұрын

YEP.

@ericks757

2 жыл бұрын

Precisely! (Pun intended)

@kenp9073

2 жыл бұрын

Or the different kinds of infinities!

For those hyped about this subject after hearing Adam's take, I highly, highly recommend Machine Thinking's video on the same subject. Soft spoken, but definitely with the same awe and enthousiasm for the small, the impact it had and where it all came from. kzread.info/dash/bejne/mYKG0NSnZaerZZs.html

@drewbeck1000

2 жыл бұрын

Yes! The Origins of Precision. Came here to tout it, too - 4 years old and still so great.

@CazClocker52

2 жыл бұрын

I love that video! It's been a LONG time since I've viewed it; it's about time I give it another look.

@jonathanshaw6784

2 жыл бұрын

That guy makes some really good videos

@bergiov

2 жыл бұрын

I saw this a while ago and have been looking for it again for a while. Thanks!

@Nevir202

2 жыл бұрын

Was pretty sure I'd watched this, and when I opened the link, it resumed from near the end, so I've definitely seen it before, and somewhat recently too, if YT still remembers my place lol.

Non-metal surface plates are usually not marble, rather they are typically granite, as it is more stable and high quality ones maintain calibration much better. Also, there is even more about the accuracy that you are not touching on. For example, to be of the closest accuracy, the temperature of the gauge blocks, surface plate and material to be measured should be normalized. To normalize, the material to be measured, the blocks to be used should be placed on the reference plate and left to normalize to each other for anywhere from 30 minutes to overnight, depending on the mass of each and the precision desired. I'm actually impressed with your video on this, so many hobbyists, machinists and even engineers do not put as much thought into the science of measurement. As a Quality Control director for several manufacturers, I immersed myself into the science of precise measurement. Thank you for sharing this information with your audience.

This one showed up in a side list, I see it’s a year after it was made, and I just brushed it as I was rolling through and it started, but it got my attention almost instantly. This is one of the longest, nerdiest, all over the place Adam Savage monologues I’ve seen, and I was sad when it ended. This was fascinating, educational, and presented with such enthusiasm it was infectious. I loved this so much. Thank You.

10:25 Hey Adam, you mentioned that calipers can measure in 3 ways. Actually calipers can measure in 4! Not sure whether you left out that detail on purpose as it is just another type of depth measurement, but calipers also have a "step" measuring mode. I'd try to explain it with just text, but that would probably lead to confusion. Smarter to look it up and find a diagram. The intent with the "step" measuring mode is that a makes it easier to keep the calipers perpendicular with the measured surfaces. This should reduce cosine error and make for more repeatable and accurate measurements 👍 You also mentioned that your 1/10ths gauge can be used to get sub-1/10ths accuracy. This would definitely come down to the build quality of your measuring device. Generally, if mitotoyu could get more accuracy out of that device, they would just put more markings on it and call it a 1/25ths gauge or 1/100ths gauge. The reason they don't is that they can only get reliable & certifiable repeatability down to 1/10ths. Measuring to sides of lines and such is using the tool past it's intended limits. While it would likely work fine for 1-off machining, where you can deal with the fluff for a single part, if you are doing something like machining aerospace bearings, someone else has to mass assemble the parts and they need to be certifiably in spec. For your style and use case, absolutely works. For more industrial and safety critical applications, it is better to get a more accurate measuring device that is actually certified to that precision and repeatability, such as a micron gauge (don't, they are so finicky to use).

@trialnterror

2 жыл бұрын

I caught the calipers right away! 4 ways he missed the step!

@MrZigzter

2 жыл бұрын

I was surprised he didn't mention the step measurement. Most likely an oversight but it is a common one!

@kochevar99

2 жыл бұрын

@@MrZigzter I’ll forgive him dudes going a mile a minute lol

@MrZigzter

2 жыл бұрын

@@kochevar99 Oh absolutely. I will never envy anything as much as I do his workshop 😆

@tinman5322

2 жыл бұрын

True, most do incorporate the step function but I have owned some that do not have that feature. They quickly became bartering fodder.

Your enthusiasm is contagious. You reawaken the magic and wonder of discovery most of us had as small children but have lost to the grind of adult life. Watching you bounce around with excitement had me chuckling. Thanks for sharing that excitement.

I love seeing stuff about metrology. I went to trade school for technical drawing and metrology was the only chapter i failed and had to redo. When i finally got a job, learning that our working tolerance was .005" initially blew my mind. The science of measurement is fascinating

I started out in my father’s machine shop at 11. I apprenticed under a guy named Huck; he was a master machinist. He sent rockets to the moon. Taught me about sin blocks. I was machining sprockets to 1/4 of 1/1000” on 911. Later in life I worked for contractors that didn’t care a whit about 1/4” over 8’. Drastic change in perspective. Meditative perspective bending. Love this content.