 A modern non-digital odometer
 A Smiths speedometer from the 1920s showing odometer and trip meter An odometer is a device used for indicating distance traveled by an automobile or other vehicle. It may be electronic or mechanical. The word derives from the Greek words hodōs, meaning "path" or "way", and mētron, "measure". Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1016x738, 92 KB) Summary Source: http://flickr. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1016x738, 92 KB) Summary Source: http://flickr. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (611x680, 42 KB) Summary Late 1920s Smiths Speedometer showing odometer and trip meter. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (611x680, 42 KB) Summary Late 1920s Smiths Speedometer showing odometer and trip meter. ...
The distance between two points is the length of a straight line segment between them. ...
Karl Benzs Velo model (1894) - entered into the first automobile race An automobile is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. ...
The field of electronics is the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons (or other charge carriers) in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. ...
The word mechanical can mean one of several things: A device or principle described as mechanical relates to a mechanism or machine, or the realm of Newtonian mechanics. ...
Odometers appear as a row of wheels with the edge of the wheels towards the person viewing it. There are numbers written on the edge of these wheels. A mask covers these wheels from view, except for one row of numbers which can be seen through a window in the mask.
On older cars, odometers could only indicate up to a value of 99,999. At 100,000, the odometer would go back to zero. This is called an odometer rollover. Newer cars now have odometers that can indicate up to a value of 999,999.
A common form of fraud is to tamper with the reading on an odometer. This is done to make a car appear to have been used less than it actually has been, to get a higher price for the car. Many new cars sold today use digital odometers that store the mileage in the vehicle's engine control module which makes it even easier to manipulate the mileage by simply reprogramming it.
History An odometer for measuring distance is described by Vitruvius around 27 and 23 BC. The actual invention may have been by Archimedes during the First Punic War. Hero of Alexandria describes a similar device in chapter 34 of his Dioptra. The device was also invented in ancient China by Zhang Heng (78 – 139). Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He was the author of De architectura, known today as The Ten Books of Architecture, a treatise in Latin on architecture, and perhaps the first work about this discipline. ...
Centuries: 2nd century BC - 1st century BC - 1st century Decades: 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC 30s BC - 20s BC - 10s BC 0s 10s 20s 30s Years: 28 BC 27 BC 26 BC 25 BC 24 BC 23 BC 22 BC 21 BC 20 BC 19 BC 18...
Archimedes of Syracuse. ...
The First Punic War (264 to 241 BC) was the first of three major wars fought between Carthage and the Roman Republic. ...
Heros aeolipile Hero (or Heron) of Alexandria (c. ...
China is the worlds oldest continuous major civilization, with written records dating back about 3,500 years and with 5,000 years being commonly used by Chinese as the age of their civilization. ...
ZhÄng Héng Replica of Zhang Hengs seismometer Houfeng Didong Yi Zhang Heng (張衡, Pinyin: ZhÄng Héng, Wade-Giles: Chang Heng) (78 – 139) was an astronomer, mathematician, inventor, artist and literary scholar of the Eastern Han Dynasty in ancient China. ...
The odometer of Vitruvius was based on chariot wheels of 4 feet (1.2 m) diameter turning 400 times in one Roman mile (about 1400 m). For each revolution a pin on the axle engaged a 400 tooth cogwheel thus turning it one complete revolution per mile. This engaged another gear with holes along the circumference, where pebbles (calculus) were located, that were to drop one by one into a box. The distance travelled would thus be given simply by counting the number of pebbles. Whether this instrument was ever built at the time is disputed. Leonardo da Vinci tried to build it according to the description but failed. In modern times, however, Andre Sleeswyk was able to make a working model using gears similar to the Antikythera mechanism as opposed to the traditional cogwheel. A mile is any of a number of units of distance, each in the magnitude of 1–10 km. ...
Integral and differential calculus is a central branch of mathematics, developed from algebra and geometry. ...
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci ( Vinci, Italy, April 15, 1452 — May 2, 1519, Cloux, Amboise, France [1]) was an Italian Renaissance polymath: an architect, anatomist, sculptor, engineer, inventor, geometer, musician, and painter. ...
Schematic of the artifacts mechanism The Antikythera mechanism is an ancient artifact believed to be an early clockwork mechanism. ...
The odometer as used in most modern systems, where separate gears control each digit, was invented by William Clayton with help from Orson Pratt. Clayton, a Mormon Pioneer, developed the odometer (dubbed the "roadometer") to keep track of wheel revolutions on the pioneer carts. The odometer had multiple gears, including one which turned every quarter-mile and one which turned every ten miles. William Clayton was a Mormon pioneer, journalist, author, businessman, musician, and composer. ...
Orson Pratt Orson Pratt (September 19, 1811 – October 3, 1881) was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. ...
Law The resale value of a vehicle is often strongly influenced by the number of miles a passenger vehicle has on the odometer, yet odometers are inherently insecure because they are under the control of their owners. Many jurisdictions have chosen to enact laws which penalize people who are found to commit odometer fraud. In the US, vehicle maintenance workers are also required to keep records of the odometer any time a vehicle is serviced. Companies such as Carfax then use this data to help potential car buyers detect whether odometer rollback has occurred.
References - Sleeswyk, André Wegener "Vitruvius' Odometer", Scientific American 245.4 (October, 1981), pp. 188-200
- Sleeswyk, Andre W. "Vitruvius' Waywiser", Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences Vol. 29 (1979), pp. 11-22.
Scientific American is a popular-science magazine, published monthly since August 28, 1845, making it the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ...
See also Speedometer gauge on a car, showing the speed of the vehicle in miles and kilometre per hour on the out– and inside respectively. ...
A tachograph combines the functions of a clock and a speedometer. ...
A tachometer is a device used for measuring the speed of a moving body or substance (from Greek: tachos = speed, metron = measure). ...
A taximeter is a mechanical or electronic device installed in taxicabs, similar to a odometer, which calculates passenger fares based on a combination of distance travelled and waiting time. ...
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