5 ms·
Lego Googol Machine
- lkjasdflkj 3y ago"""1.0342 x 10^100 to 1 The ratio is almost exactly the size of a googol, which is 10^100.""" Somehow being off by 341796308487334800992832804222885104773611498499997696000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 feels like it's not... that close.
- arnarbi 3y agoAt the 350 rpm of the input gear it’d be early by only 1.3x10^80 times the age of the universe.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y agoVery impressive! Now let's see the reverse googol machine where the final wheel spins at an absurdly fast rate.
- yowzadave 3y agoIf only the lego gears (and your arm) could withstand the force required to turn that crank!
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoI'm sure there is a physics professor somewhere just typing a homework for students to calculate the required turning speed for the last wheel to reach lightspeed on the outer edge and what kind of energy would be needed to spin all those wheels up (ignoring any friction, etc.) :)
- em-bee 3y agosaw this some time ago: "Spinning a Lego wheel Over 100,000 RPM!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHPXTd4xd0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHPXTd4xd0 it was posted on HN too, but no discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653532
- vitiral 3y agoI think theoretically this machine would work in reverse. Relativistically this is not the case.
- jagged-chisel 3y agoAlso realistically. Lego are not designed to deal with the stress required.
- xwdv 3y agoPretty sure if that was possible the resulting transfer of energy would destroy the entire universe.
- infogulch 3y agoVery nice! Now make one with ratio googolplex : 1. ;)
- logi2mus 3y agoYou need to consider relativistic effects, if you want to turn the first wheel fully around in your life time.
- prng2021 3y agoAgreed. After that, Graham’s Number:1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number
- GuB-42 3y agoIt is an interesting problem. You obviously can't do it with gear reduction as you would need more gears than is material for making them in the universe. The idea would be to make a mechanical computer that spins the last wheel based on some computation, but then, there is the problem that the state would be googol-sized, which wouldn't fit in our universe either. Is there a way? We probably need fancy physics for that. Quantum effects, maybe?
- infogulch 3y agoI suspect a googolplex would outscale even the total number of possible quantum states that could exist in a volume the size of the observable universe.
- jlebar 3y agoPrior art: https://www.arthurganson.com/concrete-1 https://www.arthurganson.com/concrete-1
- elaus 3y agoTo be fair, this is neither done in LEGO, nor has it anything to do with googol. But you're right that there are many similar machines. I've seen them in two different museums and it's always great to make you think about time and "infinity".
- em-bee 3y agothe article references this video too
- Waterluvian 3y agoHow many years worth of slop is there? Can it be estimated?
- hahajk 3y agoOr, if you attached the last piece to a concrete wall, how long would it take the machine to break?
- em-bee 3y agodiscussed three years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23851200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23851200
- amelius 3y agoPlastics take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose ... Also the wear on the first gears will be tremendous. This design will not work.
- CaesarA 3y agoNeat.