Whitney turned back and saw it was one of the reviewers from earlier. Thinking the man had come to tell him his application had not passed, he immediately gave a dejected little bow. "Mr. Vaucanson, it's nothing..."
Vaucanson, however, was leafing through his application. "Well, I saw that you proposed the concept of a 'Rotary Milling Machine,' but there was very little content. If it's convenient for you..."
Whitney's eyes instantly lit up. "Of course. I have plenty of time, and I can introduce it to you in detail."
He followed Vaucanson into a room beside them and began speaking like a river bursting its banks. "Oh, it's an extremely flexible milling machine.
"As you know, current milling machines can only process one face of a workpiece, and it's very difficult to mill an inclined plane."
Vaucanson was an expert in machinery, and nodded. "Yes. That requires repeatedly removing the workpiece, changing the clamping angle, and then milling again."
Whitney said excitedly, "So I conceived a 'Multi-directional Feed Device.' The worktable would no longer be fixed. Instead, it would be mounted on three sets of axes, allowing movement laterally, longitudinally, and vertically.
"That way, after the worktable clamps the workpiece in place, it can make complex movements along the cutting tool. Oh, right—if an Indexing Device is designed as well, the workpiece can also rotate along its own axis!
"Wait, I need to write that idea down."
He took out a notebook and wrote as he continued, "You can imagine it. In the future, when processing a drill bit, one would only need to fix the workpiece once, then move and rotate the worktable, and the milling could be completed quickly.
"And the precision would no longer depend on the craftsman repeatedly measuring it. It would be more than ten