People’s proud invention of gears was preceded by mindless evolution: The tiny points on the legs of juvenile planthopper insects move like intermeshing cogs. Those cogs in young Issus coleoptratus ...

Backlash, a clearance between mating gear teeth, is built into speed reducers to let the gears mesh without binding and to provide space for a film of lubricating oil between the teeth. This prevents ...

This article was updated Feb. 28, 2023. It was originally published March 1, 2000. Planetary gears can supply high levels of torque and high-speed reduction. They are also relatively compact compared ...

Did you know that gears are all around you? You can find them in wind-up toys, bicycles, carousels, cars and trucks, cranes, drills, wind turbines, analog watches, and so forth! If you've looked ...

Imagine driving your car with a manual transmission without shifting the gears properly. It would be unnecessarily severe on your car’s engine and gearbox because you would be lugging (when driving in ...