Ball Bearing

A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses a set of balls to keep the moving parts of a machine separated and reduce friction between them, supporting both radial and axial loads with a much lower coefficient of friction than sliding surfaces produce. The Welsh inventor and ironmaster Philip Vaughan patented the first modern design for a ball bearing in Carmarthen in 1794, and the now-familiar radial ball bearing was designed decades later, in 1869, by the Parisian bicycle mechanic Jules Suriray, whose bearings were fitted to the bicycle that won the Paris-Rouen race that same year.