alt Hacker NewsEver hear the phrase "Balls out" when referring to pushing something to the max? Comes form the balls of the centrifugal engine governor. At maximum speed the balls extended all the way outward giving us the term "Running balls out."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_governor
edit: I once said this phrase at a work meeting and someone objected to my use of a crude term which I then explained much to everyone's surprise. They thought it had something to do with testicles.
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Definitely a fun note :). I think I heard it first from a Jay Leno youtube video where he was showing his amazing collection of steam powered machinery.
This is from the article, but governors also played a role in kicking off modern control theory! """ In 1868, James Clerk Maxwell studied when these oscillations grow or die away in his paper “On Governors”[https://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gold/pdfs/teaching/old_lite...]. This became one of the beginnings of modern control theory. """
tbh, any time i've said it i've been referring to testicles, but thanks for the helpful excuse in future.
There is also a steam engineers term called "high-balling" which referred the little ball in the steam pressure gauge used in the early days. So high-balling was travelling at high speed.
Similar to balls to the walls (or similar). Coming from the analog aviation controls I believe.
I suppose this is also the less colorful true origin of "balls to the wall" than the phrase itself suggests?
> When the engine slows, the balls fall and open the cock again.
The choice of wording makes me suspect that they intended both entendres. ;)
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and i suppose “fuck” is actually an acronym for “fornicating under command of king,” right?
While fun and satisfying, this is extremely unlikely to be true.
The first attested use is from 1945, on the nose of a P-47 Thunderbolt flown by Captain Milton Thompson of the 509th Fighter Squadron. And his art was exactly what you'd expect: a charging bull with the words "balls out".