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Re: Segway info



Bob Sciamanda wrote:

The Amazon ad for the Segway Human Transport includes some interesting
technical stuff. Go to:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007EPJ6/ref=segway_tn_left/103-6703733-8593400

It says:
"The number of teeth on each gear is chosen
to produce noninteger gear ratios."

Oh reeeeeeally?

Such gears must be lubricated with 100% snake oil.

Non-integer ratios would be quite astounding,
considering that the gear ratio is equal to the
number of teeth on one gear divided by the number
of teeth on the other gear. It just cracks me
up to visualize a gear with a non-integral number
of teeth.

Kidding aside, I suspect that they should have
said "relatively prime" rather than "noninteger
ratios". This is a good practice, and is well
known (albeit not universally adopted) in mechanical
engineering.

==========

BTW, do you know a good way to show that two
large numbers are relatively prime? (Factoring
them both is not the most efficient way.)

Hint: It's quite possibly the world's oldest
nontrivial algorithm.