TIL the first safety elevator brake was tested by cutting the cable with an axe

I read it in a history article about Elisha Otis's 1854 demonstration. They actually cut the hoist rope at the New York Crystal Palace to prove it would hold. Has anyone else come across other old-school safety tests that seem wild by today's standards?

3 comments

3 Comments

jade_jenkins13d ago

What about those old car crash tests where they just rolled them down a hill?

charlescraig12d ago

Rolling them down a hill was the best they could do back then. It gave them some basic data on how the frame held up. Makes you appreciate the tech we have now.

the_jana12d ago

Remember reading about old bridge tests. They'd just march a whole regiment of soldiers across it in step to see if the vibrations would make it fall down. Or they'd load it with way too much heavy stone just to find the breaking point. The idea of just... pushing something until it fails feels so blunt now. But I guess it got the job done.