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        riddles >> microsoft >> What machines make machines?
        
(Message started by: The_Beast on Nov 23^rd, 2002, 10:36am)

Title: What machines make machines?
Post by The_Beast on Nov 23^rd, 2002, 10:36am

Ok, we got talking about this in my hs Trig class. You have a car right? Some of it was made by machines, but where did those machines come from? Other machines, ok, but where did THOSE machines come from? It has to start somwhere, but how was that machine made? Thoughts?

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by jeremiahsmith on Nov 23^rd, 2002, 11:57am

Well, eventually, if you go back far enough, some machine or tool was designed completely by hand, without the aid of machines. Early knives and axes and hammers, for instance, were made by hand.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by The_Beast on Nov 23^rd, 2002, 9:58pm

yeah, but I'm talking about modern day.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by TimMann on Nov 24^th, 2002, 8:37pm

But you can't just talk about modern-day. A machine that is made today is made with the aid of machines that were made sometime in the past. Those machines were made with the aid of machines that were made sometime further back in the past. And so on. Eventually as you work backwards in this way, you must come to a machine with all handmade parts, but you might have to go very far back into the past.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by James Fingas on Nov 25^th, 2002, 9:48am

I also have thought about this. The real question is not how the first machine came about, but rather about how you get from nothing to a machine of great accuracy.

It is quite easy to create a large metal machine--start with a big block of wax, carve out your shape, then use the lost-wax casting process. Now you have a big lump of metal.

As for making the machine precise, that requires some extra fiddling. The most important thing you need to make the machine precise is a set of precision measuring tools. With adequate measuring devices, you can make a precise machine using only hand tools (it will just take a long time).

Therefore, maybe a better way to ask the question is: starting from nothing (ie. desert island, but with metal scraps--we won't worry about the complexities of metallurgy), how long would it take you to produce an accurate ruler? How would you create it? I'm sure that there are hundreds of different ways, but this is certainly an interesting question.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by Icarus on Nov 25^th, 2002, 10:25am

on 11/25/02 at 09:48:00, James Fingas wrote:

Therefore, maybe a better way to ask the question is: starting from nothing (ie. desert island, but with metal scraps--we won't worry about the complexities of metallurgy), how long would it take you to produce an accurate ruler? How would you create it? I'm sure that there are hundreds of different ways, but this is certainly an interesting question.

That depends on what you mean by accurate. If you want to measure meters accurately, then you need to build up a considerable amount of sophistication in your equipment, until you can measure the speed of light and the fine lines of Cesium atoms with good accuracy, and use that to figure out what a meter is.

However, if you just want accurate gradations on a ruler whose length you set to some arbitrary standard of your devising, it is considerably easier. (Indeed, this is a required first step in measuring the meter as above.) First, you make a straight-edge. To make sure the edge is straight, hang a piece of string with a heavy weight at the bottom. Compare your edge to the string. Then you build a compass (circle drawing kind of course). Use these to do the straight-edge-and-compass construction for dividing your ruler into equal increments.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by john on Dec 14^th, 2002, 9:27am

Nanomachines, of course!

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by Tex on Jan 13^th, 2003, 9:40am

Since the human body is actually a mysteriously well-arranged collection of structural supports, joints, fuel and waste management systems, all synchronized by a very sophisticated organic computer, couldn't I answer that all machines are made by the human machine?
(Of course this leads to the question, what machine made the first human machine? The mechanism of natural selection, or the mechanism of the infinite all-powerful? I think that would be over-analyzing the question. Or maybe, I already did. Is that the real riddle?)

Welcome my friends,
Welcome to the machine.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by Jie-Song Zhang on Jan 25^th, 2003, 2:33pm

If you want to get philosophical on that ass, could you not argue that man himself is a machine? A machine programmed with a genetic algorithm implemented to fulfill the endeavor of evolution?

You could even take it up another level in the hierarchy and argue that the entire construct of the Cosmos entails one huge machine.

Or maybe I should put this joint down.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by Sameer on Aug 18^th, 2003, 3:47pm

Maybe the Matrix directors can answer that ;D :P

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by maryl on Aug 18^th, 2003, 6:47pm

on 01/25/03 at 14:33:15, Jie-Song Zhang wrote:

I think Pink Floyd would agree with you.
But actually didn't Education and Intuition, as well as money and metal make all the machines.

Title: Re: What machines make machines?
Post by Lightboxes on Sep 24^th, 2003, 9:18am

Machines were, and are still, made from retrieving materials and resources from the earth. It could be easily argued that human labor did that specific work, way way back in the past. But they did not "create" the fire used to melt materials into a nice smooth piece of metal. So my conclusion is that physics, molecule properties, and the natural order of the universe created the machines we now have today.