[HN Gopher] Lego Googol Machine
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       Lego Googol Machine
        
       Author : galfarragem
       Score  : 64 points
       Date   : 2023-04-30 11:06 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (brickexperimentchannel.wordpress.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (brickexperimentchannel.wordpress.com)
        
       | ndsipa_pomu wrote:
       | Very impressive! Now let's see the reverse googol machine where
       | the final wheel spins at an absurdly fast rate.
        
         | yowzadave wrote:
         | If only the lego gears (and your arm) could withstand the force
         | required to turn that crank!
        
         | ajsnigrutin wrote:
         | I'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 wrote:
         | saw this some time ago:
         | 
         | "Spinning a Lego wheel Over 100,000 RPM!"
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZHPXTd4xd0
         | 
         | it was posted on HN too, but no discussion:
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653532
        
       | jlebar wrote:
       | Prior art: https://www.arthurganson.com/concrete-1
        
         | elaus wrote:
         | To 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 wrote:
           | the article references this video too
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Plastics take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose ...
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | How many years worth of slop is there? Can it be estimated?
        
       | em-bee wrote:
       | discussed three years ago:
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23851200
        
       | infogulch wrote:
       | Very nice! Now make one with ratio googolplex : 1.
       | 
       | ;)
        
         | logi2mus wrote:
         | You need to consider relativistic effects, if you want to turn
         | the first wheel fully around in your life time.
        
         | prng2021 wrote:
         | Agreed. After that, Graham's Number:1
         | 
         | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number
        
       | lkjasdflkj wrote:
       | """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 34179630848733480099283280422288510477361149
       | 8499997696000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 feels
       | like it's not... that close.
        
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       (page generated 2023-04-30 23:00 UTC)