November 21, 2014

Reduction Gear to the Known Universe

A UW Math Grad student in my figure class forwarded this to me- it's an art piece in Boston by Arthur Ganson.

"Each worm/worm gear pair reduces the speed of the motor by 1/50th. Since there are 12 pairs of gears, the final speed reduction is calculated by (1/50)12. The implications are quite large. With the motor turning around 200 revolutions per minute, it will take well over two trillion years before the final gear makes but one turn. Given the truth of this situation, it is possible to do anything at all with the final gear, even embed it in concrete."

2 Comments:

Blogger VMM said...

My dad would protest that you're wasting electricity running that gizmo.

November 22, 2014 at 1:50 AM  
Blogger The Other Front said...

I was going to complain about the noise.

November 23, 2014 at 12:04 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home