By Jim Fitch
Machinery Lubrication Magazine
According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus and luminary tribologist Ernest Rabinowicz, there are three things that cause machines to lose their usefulness: obsolescence, accidents and surface degradation. Without question, obsolescence is fundamental to the evolution of engineering and technology. The old must make way for the new. Yet some inventions have long life cycles, the grease fitting for example. Its design has changed little since Oscar Zerk invented it in the early 1920s, yet is still widely used today. The automobile, on the other hand, is dynamic and in constant flux. While the classics cars live on into perpetuity, most automobiles face practical obsolescence long before they are functionally inoperable.