Engines Are Our Friends
Engines Are Our Friends
Why the Engine Matters Beyond Feeding the World
We could explain the importance of the engine by saying that it's what powered the huge increase in global food production. That's certainly an important way to look at it. But of course, the value of the engine is not limited to that.
We humans are not plants, we are animals.
And the biggest difference between animals and plants is, I think, that animals can move.
From the point of view of a plant, that ability to move would be something almost unimaginable.
And it's the power of the engine that dramatically extends this essential ability to move for us animals.
Plants, a hydrogen-powered motorcycle, and iB Lady Taiko
The Motorcycle Engine as an Extension of the Human Body
Even when we talk about traveling long distances, there is a huge difference between being carried by a train or an elevator, and moving under your own control by riding a motorcycle and working the engine yourself.
On a motorcycle, it feels as if you are extending your own physical abilities.
It's like you've become a beast that can run at incredible speed.
It's not just that the engine makes physical movement possible. At the same time, it feels like it expands your bodily senses.
You don't only control the motorcycle with your hands and feet; you also change direction by shifting your body weight. That is a very direct, physical kind of sensation.
It's the same sense of balance you need when you sprint on your own legs and lean into a turn.
How Engines and Motorcycles Awaken Our Animal Instincts
Even in a sports car-although not as strongly as on a motorcycle—there is, when you cut through the wind, a kind of thrilling stimulus that seems to awaken your animal instincts.
You could dismiss all this as nothing more than a matter of feeling, but I don't think we should take it lightly.
I can't help thinking that in the connection between people and engines, there is some special quality that no other machine, or even the finest works of art, can achieve—a quality that can reach and stimulate the instincts of human beings as animals.
There are many different angles from which we could try to explain where that quality comes from. But here, I just want to say this: engines really do have something special.
Keeping the Motorcycle Engine Alive in a Greener Future
And I'd also like to point out that this "something" may be important enough that, even though fossil fuels currently have a negative impact on our planet’s environment, we should work to improve that impact and keep engines—especially the motorcycle engine—alive, rather than simply letting them disappear.
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
1. How did engines change the world?
Engines powered trains, ships, and airplanes and paved the way for mass mobility and the steadily rising exchange of people and goods worldwide. As mentioned earlier in this article, one of the engine’s greatest achievements is that it supported humanity’s remarkable prosperity by enabling the dramatic expansion of food production.
2. What country invented the engine?
The modern engine was not invented by a single country or individual, but rather developed and improved by numerous inventors across various nations during the 19th century. Belgian inventor Étienne Lenoir created the first commercially successful internal combustion engine, which saw use in France and England in the 1860s. It is also noteworthy that the world’s first internal combustion engine was actually hydrogen-powered: the charette of de Rivaz, built in 1807 by François Isaac de Rivaz.
Written by:
Sotaro Inoue
The head engineer / Inoue Boring CEO