A question about perfect machines

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arturo7 said:
My chainsaw neither leaked, stalled nor snapped it's chain. It's job was to make firewood of three trees. It did this job flawlessly. It was perfect.
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But if it did snap it's chain, you'd be crying a different tune right now, right?
 
BobbiLynn said:
I didn't mean it like that, my apologies! And not sure why you are talking in prose.... even if I were a boy, you are not of age to be my father! All my love....
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OkAY. Thats true. Not writing now in prose to you. Just want to say hello cause I think you are a pretty good person.
 
Dan said:
OkAY. Thats true. Not writing now in prose to you. Just want to say hello cause I think you are a pretty good person.
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Just to add to the confusion? For our own pleasure? I like you too.
 
Okay, so I told hubby, the damn thing is busted. His first question, "What did you touch?". So now I'm going back to thinking it was operator failure. He's going to have an engineer friend of ours come out and look at it. Why build a perfect machine if you are the only one that knows how to operate it properly?? I'll ask him about adding the simple "on" and "off" switches, could have saved me a lot of hassle....
 
Also, if I do have to do it over again, which I hope is not the case, the design would be entirely different, a little more perfect, at least I think so.
 
BobbiLynn said:
Okay, I have a question and I really do want to have the answer. Maybe someone here knows the answer, if not, just please ignore this topic. Back to my drunken ramblings, scary part, I'm pretty sober.

So you build a perfect machine, it's perfect in every way. Everything is going along fine, then one day it springs a leak. Is it still a perfect machine? Was it a perfect machine in the first place? Do perfect machines spring leaks?

Maybe if you built it to be self-healing? Or it's a perfect machine that just requires a little upkeep?

Would you keep insisting that the machine was perfect if one day it springs a leak(starts leaking)? Would you try to fix it, or just stand back and watch it leak? Because, after all, it was the perfect machine. It must be able to fix itself?

How is something perfect if you have to go back and fix it? The thing I really want the answer to: Do perfect machines spring leaks? Or was it your own mistake to call it perfect in the first place?
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The "perfect machine" would not require maintainence, fuel, or outside control. It would be self sustaining. Not even stars are pefect, nor are they self sustaining forever, even they eventually die. Entropy is the only constant in the universe.
Regards, GF.
 
Homercidal said:
What is this mystery machine? Inquiring minds want to know.
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Homer i would think you would remember the mystery machine.

mystery-machine3.jpg
 
CreamyGoodness said:
If entropy worked at a constant, predictable, mathematic rate... would it indeed be perfect?
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Interesting, there MIGHT be an equation that would cover it, but that would have to be quite an involved & LOOOOOOONG equation. Different elements (and compounds) decay at different rates under the same conditions, but the equation would also have to include varying conditions under which the decay takes place or could take place, for each element & compound.

Such an equation is WAAAAAAYYY over my head; I'm niether a mathmetician, nor a physicist & I think both would have to be consulted, along with a chemist. Seems like Hawking touched on something like a "general entropy theory" a few years back, but I could be misremembering.
Regards, GF.
 
this thread is wacked, but it reminded me of my senior design project.

I was researching self-healing metal composites. we were essentially impregnating metal alloys with carbon nanotubes, then filling the nanotubes with an alloy that had a lower melting point than the base alloy. so if there was a crack, you would just heat up the point of failure, and the lower-melt would flow and solidify in the crack.
 
gratus fermentatio said:
The "perfect machine" would not require maintainence, fuel, or outside control. It would be self sustaining. Not even stars are pefect, nor are they self sustaining forever, even they eventually die. Entropy is the only constant in the universe.
Regards, GF.
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That's basically it. Without placing some kind of constraint on the problem, there is no "perfect" solution. Those constraints are what divides the machine from the rest of the universe. An eternal, idealized "perfect" can't exist because at some point something external will come along and screw everything up (to use the technical term).

You can't escape this by saying, "Oh, but my chainsaw will be so perfect it will survive anything you can throw at it," simply because as far as we know, there is no material that can withstand, e.g., the tidal forces near the horizon of a black hole. This isn't something you can work around unless you can change the laws of physics.

So the other alternative is to design your machine so it will avoid such situations. That's clearly silly, because now your chainsaw is also an intergalactic spacecraft.

A useful definition of perfect is a relative one. It depends on what resources you have, and what problem you are solving. If you have $100 and you need to cut down a tree, that $100,000 carbon fiber, diamond-toothed nuclear-powered chainsaw is of no value to you, no matter how technically perfect it may be.

Aha, you say, we're not worrying about things like cost, we're talking abstractly. That doesn't help. Money is simply one way of representating limited resources. Somewhere between accepting that there's a finite quantity of matter in the volume of space that is reachable within a human lifetime (or the lifetime of a civilization, if that civilization is wholly dedicated to building the perfect chainsaw) and accepting that the laws of physics place constraints on efficiencies, precision, etc, you run into something that limits what is possible.

So like I said before, you can muse about "perfection," but it's going to raise paradoxes. For example, try to imagine the perfect machine for breaking perfect machines.
 
zeg said:
So the other alternative is to design your machine so it will avoid such situations. That's clearly silly, because now your chainsaw is also an intergalactic spacecraft.
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How will the intergalactic chainsaw go with Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters?? :D
 
Golddiggie said:
Thought you were supposed to chuck wood, not split it. :eek:
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Well, hubby seemed a bit upset when he heard it was broken. I bet it split, chucked and piled the wood. That would be a "perfect" machine and a bit complex thereby requiring an engineer to be called in to fix it. I'm just trying to piece together the clues here...;)
 
lschiavo said:
Well, hubby seemed a bit upset when he heard it was broken. I bet it split, chucked and piled the wood. That would be a "perfect" machine and a bit complex thereby requiring an engineer to be called in to fix it. I'm just trying to piece together the clues here...;)
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Not much use for firewood in FL though... :D
 
Nope, Ischavio. I'm sure you're on to something. She mentions building a fire somewhere in a different thread, I think.
 
I thought I had told you what the machine was, Dan, but realize now that I never did. It does get cold here in North Florida in the winter, the wood burning stove at the house is going now, got a pot of soup on it. So that could be a good guess.

Hubby has built machines to do all kinds of things, all to make our lives self-sustainable. But only a few that he considers "perfect". This particular machine does not have a name, not exactly sure what you would call it. It would only raise more questions trying to explain and not sure if he wants people to know about his machines. He thinks the world may go all to hell in a hand basket later this week, if people knew we had the machines, they might come try to steal them...

This machine made me think about what really would be a "perfect machine".
 
Golddiggie said:
oh boy... Do you still believe in him?? Ever see "Badder Santa"?? :eek:
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I always try to be a good girl so he'll come to my house and bring me presents, but apparently year after year I make the naughty list...
 
BobbiLynn said:
I thought I had told you what the machine was, Dan, but realize now that I never did. It does get cold here in North Florida in the winter, the wood burning stove at the house is going now, got a pot of soup on it. So that could be a good guess.

Hubby has built machines to do all kinds of things, all to make our lives self-sustainable. But only a few that he considers "perfect". This particular machine does not have a name, not exactly sure what you would call it. It would only raise more questions trying to explain and not sure if he wants people to know about his machines. He thinks the world may go all to hell in a hand basket later this week, if people knew we had the machines, they might come try to steal them...

This machine made me think about what really would be a "perfect machine".
Click to expand...

When the $hit hits the fan, I know where I'm headed now:)
 

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