!!! This makes SO MUCH SENSE. Especially how PID is appropriate for situations where the, uh… :waves hands: small stair-steps that a calculus-based approach gives are useful. As opposed to a situation where either the inputs or outputs are so big that really squinching the math down would be a waste of time, so good old addition and subtraction are where it’s at.
Your point about a bimetallic strip holding a mercury switch is REALLY well-taken; especially the part about how it’s maintenance-free for 100 years. Of course, now I’m wondering if the fact that the bimetallic strip is a coil means that the physics of an expanding and contracting coil actually embed some kind of deep geometric magic, and that the behavior of a bimetallic coil as it expands and contracts is actually extremely sophisticated… but all I’m doing is conjecture here!
I feel like modern elevators have opinions about how to slow down and speed up in a briefer, yet smoother way that seems similar to what Nissan is talking about here. Like, at the new Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia, the elevators are stuffed with electronics and opinions. One of their swanky features is that they go from zero to “extremely fast” in a rapid, but smooth way that Douglas Adams would have described as “smug.” And they slow down the same way. Those have got to be big, precise, brushless motors(?) and a fairly well-understood domain (a box of people).
Anyhow, THANK YOU for your response. BoingBoing has the world’s best comment section.
