I know what it means to work hard on machines

[venta]

I need your help. Yes, yours.

Could you tell me - before you read what's under the cut - what you think constitutes a machine. Include any specific things it must or must not have. You may continue in comments if a textbox isn't long enough.

[Poll #1186515]

Recently I was involved in a guessing game. As games go, it wasn't a great one, it was "guess what Simon's second favourite sport is". Now, Simon is your typical pale, thin, smart indiekid who, in defiance of all stereotypes, plays a lot of football.

At the point at which I joined in the game, it had already been established that Simon's Second Favourite Sport (SSFS) involved a machine. Further questions established that the machine was not used for scoring, was integral to the sport...

Eventually, SSFS was identified as cycling. At which point I felt decidedly cheated. Firstly, because I don't think cycling is a sport - it's a means of getting from A to B, or at best a passtime. But I'm aware others don't agree on this one.

Secondly, I'd never call a bicycle a machine. I'm aware that they have been historically referred to as machines, but whenever I read it it strikes me as odd. After some thinking, I finally pinned down the problem: in my mind, a machine must be somehow powered (oil, gas, electricity, clockwork, but not human).

I feel it should also have moving parts, and perform some task which would otherwise be done laboriously by hand. However, the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that my definition wouldn't stand up in a court of law. My classification is much more arbitrary than I'd thought.

So...

[Poll #1186516]

When challenged, I insisted that bicycles should be categorised as "contraptions".

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

On reflection, although I'd refer to a PC as (say) "a desktop machine" I don't really think of PCs as actual machines.

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

I did wonder about the need for a machine to be "externally powered" - however I thought about an old fasioned push powered lawn mower and decided that's a machine.... Or a seweing machine that is powered through a peddle....

What's the difference between a tool and a machine?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes, I'd intuitively categorise a push-mower as a machine, too. And I really can't justify why that should be different from a push-bike.

I think of a tool as being much simpler. It may have moving parts but needs to be operated by a human to make it do anything - a ratchet screwdriver makes my life easier, but I'm still the one making it go round. Of course, power tools completely blow that theory out of the water.

I might consider arguing that a machine can basically be left running, but you have to be actively doing things with a tool at all times. But that would make a mower a tool, not a machine :(

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Is it perhaps that the definition of machines is a two part "or" thing - rather then a single definition that covers them all?

So a machine is either....

An externally powered device that can be left running
OR
A self powered device with moving parts that is used to perform a task quicker/easier/faster then unassisted

No sorry -that's not helping. Because that second part would make a bike a machine....

[venta.livejournal.com]

I think we're just going to have to accept that my use of the word "machine" is too capricious to be formalised :)

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

IMHO, some tools are also machines ... it's one of those Venn diagram situations ...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

a push-mower as a machine ... different from a push-bike

What about this chap?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

By washer I assume you mean the small metal disc that sits between a bolt head and the thing it's bolted to, rather than a washing-machine?

As a former physicist, to me a machine is pretty much anythng that converts, transmits or applies force. So eg. a bicycle transmits the force applied by your leg muscles to its wheel rims.

If you require the force to be "powered" and generally non-human in origin, I suspect that would be something more approaching the definition of "an engine"?

On another note, I think the folks at the Tour de France etc would be a bit sad to hear that what they're doing isn't a sport. I agree that cycling just to get from A to B isn't a sport, but cycle racing definitely should be I think.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Um, no, I meant washing machine - I was just trying to avoid using the word 'machine' where I could.

Cycle racing is a sport (I agree grudgingly), but he didn't say that. He said cycling, which I view as quite different (even if you're effectively "racing" against your own times).

I do not claim my approaches to machines or sport are consistent or even sensible :)

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Ah, I could only assume the other definition of washer... Never mind, eh? :)

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

As a former physicist, to me a machine is pretty much anythng that converts, transmits or applies force.

What he said, pretty much.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

That covers what I said in my answer as well.
Even if I didn't do any physics about a-level :-)

[ao-lai.livejournal.com]

Fourthed. What they said.

It's probably something to do with Mechanical Advantage, as well...

[ajntornj.livejournal.com]

maybe its because using a machine implies work/drudgery/slave-to-the-grind kind of stuff, whereas cycling is arguably fun (when it's not raining and if you aren't on your way to work whilst doing it..)

So by adding the fun definition then a bicycle isn't a machine, whereas a lawn mower is. It does however mean that a vibrator is demoted from its machine status... and it makes cars and chainsaws rather complicated as well.

However, I still stand by my 'pretty much everything is a machine of one sort or another, its just that it isn't always mankind which is operating or benefiting from the machinery' stance. It's both nauseatingly profound and a total cop-out at the same time...

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

I didn't tick "iron" because that can be electric or just a hunk of, um, iron.

[venta.livejournal.com]

So, does that mean that an electric iron is a machine, but a fire-heated flat iron is not ?

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Yup!

As you can see, I'm happy to define things as one or t'other with no angst whatsoever. Of course, I may be Wrong(tm).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Yup!

Seconded.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think that's the case.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

i supose i see them as things with moving parts and/or input->do something->output.

i see an iron more as a powered appliance, where as a washing machine as a machine, as it has moving parts. same for the cooker.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you mean a cooker is the same as an iron (powered appliance) or a washer (machine) ?

[hughe.livejournal.com]

same as the iron.

although i supose it would depend on what it does. i dont see heating as a feature of a machine.

a central heating cyctem i'd see as a machine, but that has water pumps, electric water valves etc.

but the oven/iron is on the line i think

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

What if it has a fan?

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Or a digital timer?

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

While I seem to have a wider definition of machine than you (a bicycle definitely is a machine - it has moving parts), I'm not quite sure how one distinguishes a machine from a tool. A spade probably is a tool rather than a machine, but a riveter is probably a machine. Nasty nasty edge cases.

[hughe.livejournal.com]

what about bolt croppers? are they tools or machines? they have levers and moving parts, they are human powered, like a bicycle, they have input and output forces.... hmm but somehow it doesnt seem like a machine...



maybe a machine has to "live" :P

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

I'd say an iron is a tool, while the rest are machines (more complex than tools). Computers are machines, even if the moving parts are electrons, IMHO. Some tools are also machines, but I suspect my 'machine' definition includes moving parts. Being self-powered isn't a requirement, though.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Additionally, machines are made things - there is no such thing as a 'naturally occurring machine' - at that point it's a process, or something like that.

[edling.livejournal.com]

The consensus up our way seems to be that a machine needs at least one internal moving part, so a pair of scissors is a machine, but a hammer is just a tool. Then again we're confused about kettles, cookers, and the like, and nasla's suggestion that mathematical formulae can be regarded as machines has some appeal to me too...

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Mathematicians and pooter people cannot be trusted with word definitions since they routinely use them in overloaded ways.

For example I'd happily use the word "engine" to describe part of a piece of software, but in doing so wouldn't want to imply it was therefore a machine just because the oilier, noisier kind in my car is a machine!

[davefish.livejournal.com]

Mathematicians and pooter people cannot be trusted with word definitions since they routinely use them in overloaded ways.

I certainly agree with the first half of this sentence. The second half is nice, as it makes it sound a bit more polite :)

[smiorgan.livejournal.com]

I take undyingking's definition.

The moving parts definition is quite convenient. By that virtue, a cooker is a tool if used for heating up food, but becomes a machine if, for example, you use it to bisect mice by slamming the door on them.

I thought of the ipod nano. That has no moving parts per se. Is it a machine? It causes the air to move in a pair of attached headphones, so I guess so. But, what about a passively cooled, solid state computer, i.e. zero moving parts?

I suppose it would exert a force on LiveJournal, in the right hands.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

You use a cooker for bisecting mice?

Haven't you got a microwave?

[pm215]

I answered on the basis of "what things would I call a machine?". I'm aware of the wider definition that encompasses everything from a pair of scissors upwards. Perhaps that's a handy thing to define a term for for descussions about physics or philosophy, but it's not how I (or, I suspect, most people) actually use the word "machine". This is why a car doesn't count, for instance.

[reddragdiva]

I answered "a device that does something." So ones with no moving parts count.

I'd call a steam iron a machine. I wouldn't call a flat iron a machine.