That googol machine. Can someone explain what the machine is trying to illustrate and why the final gear can’t turn. I know it takes more energy than exists in the universe or something but why how what?
In: Physics
You know how when you pedal a bike in first gear it feels like your legs are moving a lot and not really accomplishing anything? It might take 10 turns of the pedals to only achieve one rotation of the bike’s wheel. What’s happened in this machine is that someone has repeated this process over and over. Maybe 10 rotations of the first wheel turn the second wheel once. And 10 rotations of the second wheel turn the third wheel once. That means that you have to turn the first wheel 100 times in order to turn the third wheel once. Add a fourth wheel and you have to turn the first wheel a thousand times to get one rotation on the fourth wheel. Repeat over and over until you get to the number googol. Make sense?
EDIT: The claim that it would take more energy than is in the universe to turn the last wheel is false. It would just take a really, really, really, really, REALLY long time. More time than the universe is likely to exist
Latest Answers