I am so proud of myself. I signed my first dated document today with the correct year … I think that’s a first for me. Not a first time to pen a year correctly, but rather, the first time I have signed the first date in January as the correct one, which is normally mistaken as the previous calendar year by my autopilot pen control system.
The good news is we survived yet another apocalypse. Hmm, what are we up to, about a thousand or so failed cataclysms since the dawn of time? I’m sure there are a few events predicted to bring about the end of humanity this year, and I’m even surer they’ll pass without incident. We plug along with the status quo, and if it weren’t for mass media, we’d be none-the-wiser these catastrophes were ever predicted.
I have a bold prediction, but just as you expect to be alive this time next year, my conjecture will be no more surprising. Okay, so let’s call it a shy prediction. I see in my crystal ball the continued strength of fluid power in all or most of the applications currently adopting hydraulics. This industry is ripe, and even if we leave it on the vine in glorious sunlight until it falls off, it will not achieve much more fundamental advancement.
Hydraulics is not going away. There are competing industries whose dream, focus and intention is to see hydraulics rot like a tomato in the dirt; sorry boys, that’s not going to happen! I am confident of this prediction for a couple solid reasons:
- Hydraulics is mature, refined and reliable. Millions of individuals can understand, apply and maintain fluid power machinery, and a dramatic change in machine execution would not be quickly swallowed.
- This reason is the single most compelling argument for the future of hydraulics: things can be done with hydraulics that simply cannot be recreated with any other system of force transmission and control. Period.
Let me elaborate on what hydraulics can do that other force transmissions systems cannot; power. Let me elaborate on my elaboration; other systems can be massively powerful, but hydraulic systems can be massively powerful within relatively miniscule spaces. No other system can create so much power in such small space, and because of this (or until something can match it), hydraulics will remain the number one choice for powerful, efficient, reliable and compact drive and control systems.
