3 ms·

You would need a tremendous amount of torque to move the last gear, because gears multiply the angular velocity on one side and multiply the torque on the other

You would need a tremendous amount of torque to move the last gear, because gears multiply the angular velocity on one side and multiply the torque on the other. If it took one newton-meter (about the weight of one apple on a lever a meter away from the gear) to move the first gear, it would take a googol newton-meters applied at the other end of the device.

kibwen 7y ago
> one newton-meter (about the weight of one apple on a lever a meter away Aside, but I'm delighted to learn that one Newton is approximately one apple's worth of force. :)
- iamaelephant 7y ago
  Maybe if you have a very big apple. 1 nM is the force of 1 Newton (1kg on Earth) at 1 meter.
  - devenson 7y ago
    you forgot g, 1kg weighs 9.8 newtons on Earth.
  - praptak 7y ago
    Newton is 0.1 kg on Earth. (Approximately)
pmorais 7y ago
It’s actually much worse than that because of reflected inertia. The inertia of the first gear as seen from the last gear is proportional to the square of the gear ratio