# What is the most awesome machine ever built? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 17, 2003, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784 "2003-11-17T22:12:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Fuji\_Kitakyusho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f0a364/32.png) [@Fuji\_Kitakyusho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji_Kitakyusho)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/41 "2003-11-19T17:03:15Z")
The transistor. Not much to look at, but the consequences were nothing short of awesome. ---
**Author:** ![Spurious\_George](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Spurious\_George](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spurious_George)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/42 "2003-11-19T19:28:55Z")
No way. I vote for **El Machino** , the tortilla making thing at every Chevy’s Fresh Mex Restaurant. Those tortillas are totally farking delicious. [http://www.vargon.com/meets/ny/](http://www.vargon.com/meets/ny/) (can’t find a good picture of El Machino in action.) ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/43 "2003-11-19T22:14:51Z")
My first thought was of those giant mining machines, or the tunnelling machines they used on the Chunnel. Then I thought that our missile submarines would definitely qualify: able to launch nuclear missiles and virtually invisible underwater. But that brought me to this, which I am surprized no one mentioned: the Glomar Explorer. Not only a ship that was designed to recover a SUNKEN submarine, but to do so covertly as well ! Would have to be in the running. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/44 "2003-11-19T23:51:49Z")
**cormac262** how could [http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/canyon/canyon1.html](http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/canyon/canyon1.html) do anything covertly? Are there any awesome turbines, or earhquake machines that will topple full scale buildins in existance? ---
**Author:** ![MaryEFoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@MaryEFoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaryEFoo)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2003, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/45 "2003-11-20T04:45:14Z")
When I was a kid, we had a wood-splitting machine for firewood. Over on the right was a donkey engine, connected by a broad canvas belt to a big cast-iron wheel (6-8 foot diameter), mounted on a square waist-high concrete pedestal and connected to a cast-iron wedge that pointed straight down and went round once for every turn of the big wheel. The wedge was as big as a horse-head. There would be a load of tree-trunks sawed into about 18" lengths next it. You got it going and someone would grab each short log and stand it on the concrete under where the wedge was about to drop. Put log SPLIT move-log SPLIT get-new-log SPLIT, that thing kept you on your toes. Definitely in the Awsome category. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2003, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/46 "2003-11-20T06:30:05Z")
Well, for machines that have actually been built, I nominate Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The shear size alone, as well as the fact they can run for years before refueling their reactors. As for machines that where never built, I would have to go with [one of the Project Orion](http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/orion.htm) designs. Imagine a spacecraft that could have been built in the 1960’s, costing about the same as the Apollo Program, but capable of lifting a multi-thousand TON ship into orbit, and going to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in a matter of months. It got killed for political reasons, as well, as the minor fallout problem. (It was to be propelled via a series of nuclear bombs detonated behind a really thick steel plate, with some large shock absorbers to protect the crew.) ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2003, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/47 "2003-11-20T07:45:43Z")
The vibrator. They’re pretty awesome, and you don’t have to reciprocate the pleasure. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2003, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/48 "2003-11-20T08:02:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phlosphr \* > \*\ ***International Space Station** - probably one of the most complex machines in the solarsystem that we know of. \*\* IIRC, the ISS is no more complex than a modern airliner in terms of parts count and development effort. It costs something like $10 billion to develop a new airliner. Personally I’m not very impressed with the ISS - it’s not obvious why it takes so much complexity to do the job, which is to provide life support and infrastructure (power, communications and cooling) for several crew members and a bunch of experiments. I think the most “awesome” space projects were Sputnik and the Vostok 1 (Gagarin’s flight), followed closely by the Apollo moon landing. The Hubble Space Telescope should be near the top of the list too, IMHO. The [Eagle Nebula](http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/1995/44/) image is one of the most famous astronomical images now. ---
**Author:** ![Raymond\_Luxury\_Yacht](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raymond_luxury_yacht/32/4099_2.png) [@Raymond\_Luxury\_Yacht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raymond_Luxury_Yacht)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2003, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/49 "2003-11-20T08:19:11Z")
A 1920’s style death ray gun. ---
**Author:** ![woolly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ebca7d/32.png) [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2003, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/50 "2003-11-21T12:58:32Z")
The clocks H1/H2/H3/H4 produced by [John Harrison](http://home.clara.net/don.ainley/harrison.htm) between 1730 to 1759. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2003, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/51 "2003-11-21T13:24:41Z")
Well - as **LSLguy** said, it depends on how you define “awesome”. I like his choice of nuclear weapons, if you are defining awesome as “something that creates awe in the immediate observer”. However… If you choose to define awesome as “some that creates awe based on its impact over time” then you _must_ turn to the basic machines, such as: **The Wheel** **Agricultural Tools** **The Gun** and my personal nominee **The Printing Press** There is a reason that at least one list stated that Gutenburg was the most important person of the last 1,000 years because the advent of the printing press made the ability to share ideas relatively inexpensive and took that process out of the control of the rich and/or powerful, thus enabling the restructuing of governments, the rise of the capitalist economic model which dominates the world today (for better or worse), and has enabled the broadest dialogue on moral and ethical behavior ever conceived. The impact of any other machine on the fate of humanity pales in comparison (unless you look at something like the wheel, which is not only essential to the printing press, but to transportation and other machines, but you get the basic idea here…) ---
**Author:** ![Pablito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@Pablito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pablito)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/52 "2003-11-21T14:42:20Z")
Going along the lines of **Word Man** , I take your wheel and raise you one \*\* inclined plane\*\*. Or how about the **Hoover Dam** , or whatever the current biggest version of that awesome piece of machinery may be? It’s awesome for its sheer size, for the change it created to the landscape, and for enabling lots of people to live in a desert environment by providing a reserve of lots of water. Sure, it’s pretty static in appearance, as far as machines go, but you can’t ask it to do everything. If you’re looking for more action from your machines, I’d go with one of those already-mentioned mining machines or, since you don’t have to be underground to see what they’re doing, one of those massive, incredibly loud **roadmaking machines** (crushes boulders into gravel, pours in out onto flat surface, compacts it, and turns it into road. Or how about the **U.S. interstate system**? Hard to argue with the incredible impact it has had on our way of life in the past few decades. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/53 "2003-11-21T19:44:18Z")
Wow, great clocks **woolly**. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2003, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784/54 "2003-11-21T20:11:43Z")
Bippy: not sure if your link is the same Glomar Explorer, but check this out: [http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/jennifer.htm](http://www.fas.org/irp/program/collect/jennifer.htm) Agree with woolly that Harrison’s clocks are really amazing [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-most-awesome-machine-ever-built/213784.md?page=2)