As far as I know the purpose of gears in cars, bicycles and motorbikes are to increase efficiency as well as allowing the vehicles to attain higher speeds. Gears with a bigger radius provide more force but less revolutions per minute, whereas gears with a smaller radius to do exact opposite.
I was recently having thought, it is known that figure skaters (those people who perform acrobatics on ice) reduce their moments of inertia (make themeselves smaller) in order to increase their rotations (revolutions per minute).
Is it possible to incorporate this idea into car design?
Instead of having a set of fixed gears, have a set of gears that can vary in radius accordingly thus providing an almost infinite ratio of gears which in turn could lead to even more efficiency in a car?
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