Talk:Water wheel

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Breastshot waterwheel diagram

Hello, This site was helpful for me to analyze a 1925 photograph I have of an undershot waterwheel in Weston, Massachusetts. I happened to notice that the diagram for the breastshot waterwheel is mixed up. The water flow is pointing from the tail race towards the wheel, exactly the opposite of how the term tail race was defined. I hope someone can fix it. 174.62.174.149 (talk) 00:41, 8 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Better ways to cooperate

Terry S, Reynolds, Stronger than a Hundred Men; A History of the Vertical Water Wheel. Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983. Robert, Friedel, A Culture of Improvement. MIT Press. Cambridge, Massachusetts. London, England. (2007). p. 33., has been challenged as an notable reference.

Spelling inconsistency- The word labour has always posed problem for some readers- the best way forward is to find an alternative word and write it out of the sentence. Does anyone have sufficient programming skills to write a template that checks the readers location or settings- and automatically renders out the letter 'u' for readers living west of the Scilly Isles, and north of Havana and south of the 59th parallel? A bigger problem is the word Fibre. Just a thought -- Clem Rutter (talk) 19:52, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The ref is still there, isn't it? I wouldn't be at all surprised to find "labor" was as old and valid a spelling as "labour". I did find the emphasis on "European" achievements to be uncomfortable, even for Wikipedia - we have enough neglect through ignorance of the rest of the world, we don't have to blow the horn so loud here do we? --Wtshymanski (talk) 22:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Put is straight- this style of writing is not one I aspire to, but in the context of flowery prose it is consistent. The problem is that it does reflect the facts, and the cradle of the early industrial revolution was Shropshire and the European waterwheel did enable iron to be processed in a way that it wasn't in Asia or Africa. The technology was soon exported to the European settlers in New England. Yes, I agree it is chauvanist- and verging on racist and could profitably be rewritten- but it is too easy to just delete it without replacing it with something more subtle. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 00:23, 8 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Largest ever?

Although the Laxey Wheel is the largest working water wheel in existence, is it thought to be the largest ever (either non-working or demolished)? PhilUK (talk) 21:22, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The angelfire web site (written by Theodore R. Hazen & Pond Lily Mill Restorations) states " The "Lady Isabella" is claimed to be the largest water wheel in Europe: and the largest metal water wheel in the world."

However, on the same site the page on Noria states "This type of water wheel includes the largest water wheel in the world, being 90 feet in diameter". I can find not other reference to it.

The World’s Largest Working Water Wheel The title implies that it is not the largest of all time. In the text it states "The wheel is quite huge; 22.2 meters in diameter with a width of 1.83 meters and enjoys being the only largest survivor of its kind in the world."

Solar Electricity: Engineering of Photovoltaic Systems Eduardo Lorenzo claims that the largest was the "Marly Machine" but other sources states that it was only about 10m diameter, but it could well have been the most powerful ever.

Malcolm.boura (talk) 11:48, 12 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Page rewrite

I started drafting a rewrite of the mathematical part and came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done adequately in isolation. I am preparing a reorganisation and partial rewrite of the page offline and I have started transferring that work to Draft:Water wheel

First bash at the introduction and the page structure are in place so comments welcome. (talk) 22:31, 11 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Father of Modern Hydroelectric Power : Lester Pelton (born 1908 Vermilion OH) patents are found in Smithonian

citations search: https://www.google.com/search?q=lester+pelton+facts&oq=lester+pelton&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.6998j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

title edit needed; it should be one word

i know what a waterwheel is. i do not know what a water wheel is. the redirect Should be To 'waterwheel', From 'water wheel'. thanks 2601:1C1:8B02:9D14:911E:7BEF:90FC:944A (talk) 18:34, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Both terms get many hits on Google Books, so I'd oppose renaming the article. --Wtshymanski (talk) 23:07, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stale Sources

Citation 67, http://www.h3eindustries.com/How-does-an-Aqualienne%C2%AE-work? is not a working link, and seems like product placement. 71.86.140.226 (talk) 17:41, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Efficiency of an Overshoot wheel

In the current article this is stated: "The overshot design is very efficient, it can achieve 90%,[17] and does not require rapid flow." I cannot find that number (90% efficiency) in the quoted source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pastej (talk • contribs) 01:05, 2 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"waterwheel working like a lever"

I was under the impression that all waterwheels were a form of lever. What other forms of waterwheel are there? Bob Wikicont (talk) 07:55, 30 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No corn in old world

"This technique was employed along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in 10th-century Iraq, where large shipmills made of teak and iron could produce 10 tons of flour from corn every day for the granary in Baghdad.[89]" 70.16.198.245 (talk) 13:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

English variants here. Cambridge on-line dictionary gives an additional meaning to the word, as the seeds of wheat or barley or oats. --Wtshymanski (talk) 03:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

China?

I looked in the actual Zhuangzi on the Heaven and Earth text and could find no mention of the waterwheel, only of the shadoof, and it does not credit Zigong with the invention, but rather with the mention of it to a passing gardener. All of the other references lead only to a last name and year which cannot be used, so for now, there is actually no evidence of the waterwheel being invented in China, only the shadoof. 2600:8802:3A0E:4300:613E:ABB1:DCFD:7CCC (talk) 02:40, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The shadoof is mentioned as a prototype of the waterwheel in the source cited. Several other examples of waterwheel mentions are also given regardless of the Zhuangzi but were deleted in your section blanking based on that reason. Qiushufang (talk) 22:36, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In what possible way is a shadoof a 'prototype' of a waterwheel? Do you know what a shadoof is? Andy Dingley (talk) 23:43, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you are asking me? I'm not working on what I know but what the source is telling me. This is what the source cited in the article says: https://books.google.com.tw/books?id=7teSDQAAQBAJ&dq=water+wheel+china+history&pg=PA139&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=water%20wheel%20china%20history&f=false

The earliest record on waterwheel in Chinese history comes from the book Zhuangzi On the Heaven and the Earth, an ancient Chinese text from the late Warring States (476-221 BC) which tells that an appliance named "Gao" (i.e., shadoof, or shaduf) was invented by Zigong, one of the 72 disciples of Concuficus in the fifth century BC. It is the earliest prototype of waterwheel working like a lever...

Multiple other sources on the waterwheel were also unjustifiably deleted as only the first sentence of the section blanked was related to the point made here on Zigong. Qiushufang (talk) 23:57, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A shadoof is not a waterwheel. This may be a translation error. Given the extremely lightweight level of the book cited (school level, no more) this is not an adequate source for a claim that shadoofs are waterwheels.

Given your recent blocking history for edit-warring on very similar matters, I strongly suggest that you self-revert here. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What am I supposed to self revert? None of the other content that was deleted (sanction blanking) is related to the reference to Zigong and the shadoof. I really do not think your response was appropriate for this situation. The original deletion was a section blanking deleting an entire section based on a problem with a single sentence. The source clearly made an equivalence between the water-wheel and the shadoof, which was not addressed in the reason given for the deletion. What I restored was completely in line with both the logic given by the IP as well as yourself, again deleting an entire section citing multiple sources on unrelated content based on a problem with a single sentence. Qiushufang (talk) 01:57, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm confused about what you mean by recent history of edit warring. What edit war do you have in mind? The last time this occurred was four months ago regarding Wikain, who you and I as well as many others all know have a penchant for liberal use of sources and OR.

You may think that a shadoof is not a waterwheel or that it is a translation error, but be that as it may, that is what the source says and that was what I was working off of. The IP who section blanked likely did not even check the source, or ignored its content, otherwise they would have known that it considered the shadoof a prototype of the waterwheel. Their reasoning for the deletion of the entire section being that the reference is only a "last name and year" is also wrong. The page number as well as full citations in the bibliography are both included.

Given the disingenuous arguments by the IP, I'm struggling to understand what you find wrong with my behaviour other than "edit warring". The restoration of unrelated content that was clearly cited, although not very well, is completely justified. Qiushufang (talk) 02:16, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]