Thread: Interesting, Odd or Funny Pics.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q-BH-tvxEg]Machine with Concrete - Arthur Ganson - YouTube[/ame]


Edit:

TIL that Arthur Ganson built a kinetic sculpture of connected gears called “Machine with Concrete.” The 1st gear turns at 200 rpm and the last gear is stuck in concrete. It can still run because each gear set reduces the turning speed, meaning that the last gear only revolves every 2 trillion years.

First (drive) gear: 200 RPM
Second:4 RPM
Third: 4.8 rev/hour
Fourth: 1 rev/10.4 hours
Fifth: 1 rev/3.1 weeks
Sixth: 1 rev/2.98 years
Seventh: 1 rev/149 years
Eighth: 1 rev/7452 years
Ninth: 1 rev/372,600 years
Tenth: 1 rev/18.6 million years
Eleventh: 1 rev/932 million years
Twelfth: 1 rev/47 billion years
Um, thirteenth: 1 rev/2.3 trillion years

even if you ignore the worm gear issue, if you turn the final gear at 1mm/s, the first gear will move at 814365469 times the speed of light. [5012 / (c * 1000) = 5012 / 299 792 458 000 = 814365469]
To make something move at the speed of light you need an infinite amount of energy. So if you try to turn the final gear there will be a high amount of resistance, infinite to be exact, because the first gear can't turn that fast. It's almost like the first gear is now also trapped in concrete (although this is a speed restriction and not a movement restriction), except that concrete is made of "Unobtainium" and cannot break. (The gears will also have to be made of Unobtainium because they will strip long before you reach the speed of light.)
Staying with the same scenario you should be able to turn the final gear at 0.12 picometers/second and the first gear will turn at only 0.1 times the speed of light. (The radius of hydrogen atom is 25 picometers.)

Originally Posted by korg20000bc

Horrible

please tell me that he is holding a carrot???

Originally Posted by digger

please tell me that he is holding a carrot???

And who bit the end off it?