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A Rube Goldberg machine, named after American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is a chain reaction–type machine or contraption intentionally designed to perform a simple task in an indirect and (impractically) overly complicated way. Usually, these machines consist of a series of simple unrelated devices; the action of each triggers the initiation ...
Simple machines provide a "vocabulary" for understanding more complex machines. The idea that a machine can be decomposed into simple movable elements led Archimedes to define the lever, pulley and screw as simple machines. By the time of the Renaissance this list increased to include the wheel and axle, wedge and inclined plane.
A compound machine is a machine formed from a set of simple machines connected in series with the output force of one providing the input force to the next. For example, a bench vise consists of a lever (the vise's handle) in series with a screw, and a simple gear train consists of a number of gears ( wheels and axles ) connected in series.
This orrery is a planetarium in both senses of the word: a complex machine showing planetary orbits, and a theatre for depicting the planets' movement. Eisinga house was bought by the Dutch Royal family who gave him a pension. A 1766 Benjamin Martin Orrery, used at Harvard
The ribosome is a complex cellular machine. It is largely made up of specialized RNA known as ribosomal RNA (rRNA) as well as dozens of distinct proteins (the exact number varies slightly between species). The ribosomal proteins and rRNAs are arranged into two distinct ribosomal pieces of different sizes, known generally as the large and small ...
These machines and their nanoscale dynamics are far more complex than any molecular machines that have yet been artificially constructed. [81] Biological machines have potential applications in nanomedicine. [82] For example, they could be used to identify and destroy cancer cells.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to machines: Machine – mechanical system that provides the useful application of power to achieve movement. A machine consists of a power source, or engine, and a mechanism or transmission for the controlled use of this power.
To this day, an overly complicated and/or useless object is known as a Storm P.-machine in Denmark. Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931) Goldberg's work was commemorated posthumously in 1995 with the inclusion of Rube Goldberg's Inventions , depicting his 1931 "Self-Operating Napkin" in the Comic Strip Classics series of U.S ...