3 ms·

Why do machines have to "make" things? Is a car not a machine?

• snek_case 6mo ago
  A lever is classified as a simple machine. Wrt the space shuttle, I would take some issue because you could say it's not just one machine, but a collection of many, for example it probably has onboard computer systems that are not always in use. It would be a bit like saying that a whole factory is "a machine". Whereas the ASML devices serve one single clear purpose.
• warmjets222 6mo ago
  I've been reading Dashiell Hammett detective stories from the early 1920s and it seems like cars were almost exclusively referred to colloquially as 'machines' back then.
  • tedggh 6mo ago
    Steel machines of hell. That’s how I saw them in an editorial work dating back to the early 1900’s talking about the arrival of cars in the city.
  • SkiFire13 6mo ago
    Some languages still colloquially refer to cars with the same word used for machine.