Rube Goldberg machine

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A Rube Goldberg machine performs a simple task in a complex way.
A Rube Goldberg machine performs a simple task in a complex way.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a deliberately overengineered apparatus that performs a very simple task in very indirect and convoluted fashion (thus absurdly violating the principle of parsimony). The term first appeared in Webster's Third New International Dictionary with the definition, "accomplishing by extremely complex roundabout means what actually or seemingly could be done simply." The expression has been dated as originating in the United States around 1930[1] to describe Rube Goldberg's illustrations of "absurdly-connected machines". Since then, the expression's meaning has expanded to denote any form of overly confusing or complicated system. For example, recent news headlines include "Is Rep. Bill Thomas the Rube Goldberg of Legislative Reform?",[2] and "Retirement 'insurance' as a Rube Goldberg machine".[3] It has been argued that fissioning uranium to boil water under tremendous temperature and pressure renders nuclear power a Rube Goldberg machine. [4]

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[edit] Similar expressions

  • The expression "Heath Robinson contraption", named after the fantastical comic machinery illustrated by British cartoonist W. Heath Robinson, shares a similar meaning but predates the Rube Goldberg machine, originating in the UK in 1912.[5]
  • in France a similar machine is called usine à gaz or Gas factory initially meaning an very complicated factory with pipes running everywhere, now it's mainly used among programmers meaning a very complicated program and also a very complicated law or regulation.
  • In Denmark, they are called Storm P maskiner (Storm P machines), after the Danish cartoonist Robert Storm Petersen.
  • In Bengal, the humorist and children's author Sukumar Ray in his nonsense poem Abol tabol had a character ('Uncle') with a Rube Goldberg like machine called 'Uncle's contraption'. This word is used colloquially in Bengali to mean a complex and useless machine.
  • In Spain, devices akin to Goldberg's machines are known as Inventos del TBO (tebeo) named after those which cartoonist Ramón Sabatés made up and drew for a section in the TBO magazine, allegedly designed by some Professor Franz from Copenhagen.
  • The Norwegian cartoonist and storyteller Kjell Aukrust created a cartoon character named Reodor Felgen who constantly invented complex machinery. Though it was often built out of unlikely parts, it always performed very well. Felgen stars as the inventor of an extremely powerful but overly complex car Il Tempo Gigante in the Ivo Caprino animated puppet-film Flåklypa Grand Prix (1975).
  • In Turkey, such devices are known as Zihni Sinir Proceleri, allegedly invented by a certain Prof. Zihni Sinir (Crabby Mind), a curious "scientist" character created by İrfan Sayar in 1977 for the cartoon magazine Gırgır. The cartoonist later went on to open a studio selling actual working implementations of his designs.
  • In Japan, they're called "pythagorean devices" or "pythagoras switch". PythagoraSwitch (ピタゴラスイッチ, Pitagora Suicchi) is the name of a TV show featuring such devices.
  • Another related phenomenon is the Japanese art of useful but unusable contraptions called chindōgu.
  • In the Indian film Apoorva Sagodharargal, the protagonist, a midget circus clown, uses a Rube Goldberg machine made out of circus components to kill a villain.
  • In Austria, Franz Gsellmann had built for decades on a machine that he named the "Weltmaschine" (world-machine) it has many similarities to a Rube Goldberg machine.

[edit] Machine contest

Many Designers of Rube Goldberg machines participate in competitions, such as this one in New Mexico.
Many Designers of Rube Goldberg machines participate in competitions, such as this one in New Mexico.

In early 1987, Purdue University in Indiana started the annual National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, organized by the Phi Chapter of Theta Tau, the National Professional Engineering Fraternity. The contest is sponsored by the Theta Tau Educational Foundation. It features US college and university teams building machines inspired by Rube Goldberg's cartoon. Judging is based on the ability of the machine to complete the tasks specified by the challenge using as many steps as possible without a single failure, while making the machines themselves fitting into certain themes.

[edit] Influence on popular culture

Humorously complex machines make appearances in a wide variety of media, and can be said to be Goldberg-esque, even if they are not specifically Rube Goldberg devices. However, given the predominantly US-centric nature of the expression, they could equally be said to be very Heath Robinson in a UK context, for example.

  • A feature film written by Rube Goldberg and featuring his machines and sculptures is "Soup to Nuts" (1930). This was also the film debut of the Three Stooges.
  • Kermit's What Happens Next Machine in Episode 89 of the Sesame Street.
  • Notable examples of devices in pop culture include Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit series of short and feature animations, Wallace's inventions may appear to be Goldberg-esque. A recurring joke throughout A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and Curse of the Were-Rabbit are the absurd contraptions that Wallace invents. The short Cracking Contraptions series focused entirely on several of these devices in action.
  • Rube Goldberg devices frequently appear in the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet. A recurring theme in Delicatessen is the character Aurore attempting to kill herself using such devices, which backfire and force her to live another day. In The City of Lost Children, similar machines abound, including a famous set piece in which a little girl's teardrop triggers a chain of events that ultimately causes a shipwreck. The films Amélie and A Very Long Engagement expand this theme further, moving from the physiological to the metaphysical. As noted by Philadelphia City Paper's Sam Wood, fate itself operates as a Rube Goldberg device, "an endless chain of tricky coincidences whose final result is utterly beyond prediction."
  • The Looney Tunes short "Hook, Line and Stinker" ends with the Wile E. Coyote character attempting to use a Rube Goldberg machine to capture the Road Runner. In "Tweetie Pie", Sylvester constructs a Goldberg-type device to try and catch Tweety Bird. Many other Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts employ similar devices.
  • On the animated series Animaniacs, the character Wakko creates a complex Rube Goldberg device that will both order pizza for him, and makes use of the ordered pizza to press a doll on a whoopee cushion. In another short that parodies World War II recruitment war films, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot create a literal "Rube Goldberg device" (with Goldberg himself working it) meant to literally "wring out" a lawn in order to supposedly "save water."
  • The Tom and Jerry short "Designs on Jerry" revolves around Tom's efforts to use a Rube Goldberg machine to drop a safe on Jerry. The mouse drawn on the blueprint changes a measurement on the plans, causing Tom to be hit with the safe after he builds the machine.
  • The 1987 installation The Way Things Go of a Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg-type machine, was filmed and resulted in a more than 29 minutes short film.
  • The Ideal Toy Company released the board game Mouse Trap in 1963 that was based on Rube Goldberg's ideas (now made by Hasbro).
  • The cartoon Scooby Doo often employed Rube Goldberg styled traps for catching the villain (but often caught Shaggy and/or Scooby instead).
  • The 1999 film Simply Irresistible features a Rube Goldberg device that makes martinis.
  • 1985 film The Goonies features an elaborate Rube Goldberg device that opens Brand and Mikey's front gate (the device involves a bowling ball, inflating balloon, the sprinkler system, and a live chicken). Many of the booby traps in the movie also contain similar elements.
  • The 1985 movie Back to the Future features a Rube Goldberg device which the character Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown uses to prepare his breakfast and feed his dog Einstein. Back to the Future III Features a similar machine, constructed using 1885 technology.
  • In the film Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) owns another breakfast machine which is seen in the first scene of the film.
  • The Family Guy episode "8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter" featured Peter Griffin recalling a worthless breakfast machine he'd bought. The machine was a Goldberg device, but as he explained in the show, "All it does is shoot you! It doesn't make breakfast at all!" The machine is actually a parody (down to the background music) of the Pee-Wee's Big Adventure machine.
  • During a special holiday episode of MythBusters that aired December 6, 2006, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman created a Rube Goldberg machine. It took them ten tries to get the entire system to work properly.
  • A segment of Jackass: The Movie known as "The Failed Ending" is described by Johnny Knoxville as "The Rube Goldberg Test". The scene involved each main cast member attempting to operate some kind of contraption which triggered the next part of the sequence, including Preston Lacy acting as a wrecking ball to knock a Port-a-Potty with Bam Margera down a slope, Wee Man sliding down a giant Plinko wall, Steve-O being dunked into a vat of decomposing meat, and weighing a nearby trigger bucket with vomit, and Dave England dressed as a giant penis skateboarding down a ramp chased by several bowling balls and crashing into a giant vagina. The stunt ended with Knoxville being launched into a lake where Rip Taylor was sitting in a boat throwing confetti. The entire scene is included in the DVD extras (and at the end of the video, beyond the credits).
  • In the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (based on Ian Fleming's novel of the same name), an inventor named Caractacus Potts (played by Dick Van Dyke) has several Rube Goldberg machines in his house. One that is shown several times is a machine that makes breakfast (fried eggs and bacon) and delivers it on wheeled plates on the table. The machine seems to work fine, but it malfunctions once or twice.
  • An episode of The X-Files was titled "The Goldberg Variation" and features several Goldberg machines.
  • The Final Destination series of films features "real life" Goldberg machines, in which seemingly harmlessly arranged everyday items can interact with each other and cause chain reactions which result in the characters' deaths.
  • In 2003 Honda released a 2 minute commercial called Cog showing a Rube Goldberg machine made out of Honda Accord parts.
  • The producers of LOST have described the TV show as "a massive Rube Goldberg device, in which all the components of the machinery are humans."[6]
  • In the movie Waiting... there is a Rube Goldberg machine seen at the end of the movie after the Andy Milonakis video and after the end credits. It is a video that involves dominoes, a stuffed bobcat and ends pouring a beer out of a bottle into a glass mug.
  • In the movie The Master of Disguise, starring Dana Carvey, he opens a secret room in his house with a Rube Goldberg type contraption.
  • In the movie Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest's home is filled and operated by various Rube Goldberg devices. Eventually when Ernest's evil twin enters the house, he is accidentally caught in the devices and later removes them.
  • In the Home Alone series of films, the protagonist uses a variety of Rube Goldberg type devices to thwart the two criminals after him.
  • The death traps in the Saw series of films are considered Rube Goldberg machines.[7][8][9][1][2]
  • In the Japanese TV Show PythagoraSwitch, the Rube Goldberg devices appear during the beginning, ending, and between each corner (segment). They are called Pythagorean Device (ピタゴラスイッチ Pitagora Suicchi?) in the program. More than 40 Pythagorean Devices are introduced so far, and makes the program attractive for not only children (the main target of the program) but also for many Japanese adults.
  • The music video for the single "An Honest Mistake", from indie rock band The Bravery, centers around a massive Rube Goldberg device which has the final effect of shooting an arrow at a target (and missing).
  • The role-playing game Godlike includes the ability 'Rube Goldberg Science', which allows a character to create devices that work in apparent defiance to the laws of physics.
  • The Half-Life 2 modification Garry's Mod allows players to manipulate objects in a virtual environment with realistic physics. As such, a popular activity within the game is to create complex machines out of common items that serve little or no purpose, and are often referred to as Rube Goldberg machines.
  • The Ed, Edd n Eddy episode "Pain in the Ed" includes a Rube Goldberg machine modeled after the Statue of Liberty intended to destroy Ed's violin.
  • In the game Elebits (or Eledees in the UK and Australia), in edit mode, it is possible to create Rube Goldberg type machines and dominoe set-ups, due to edit mode's wide variety of objects, and realistic gravity.
  • In the House episode, Spin, after the title credits, House sets off a Rube Goldberg machine to give him his Vicodin.
  • Physicist Leonard Susskind made heavy use of analogies between Rube Goldberg Machines and the complexity of universal laws in his book Cosmic Landscape to argue for a theory of the universe based on string theory and the anthropic principle.
  • Richard Dawkins referred to Rube Goldberg machines in a discussion of suboptimal biological adaptation in The Extended Phenotype, referencing also the work of Heath Robinson.
  • In I-Spy the book series. An elaborate Rube Goldberg machine is featured in which you have to find objects or images, some of which are part of the machine itself.
  • The Belgian comic book character Gaston Lagaffe invents a number of unnecessarily complex devices, including an apparatus that gears the force of visitors opening the door to his office to simultaneously grind coffee and squeeze oranges.
  • Most of the episodes of Pinky and the Brain revolve around a Rube Goldberg-style method for the titular characters to take over the world, such as constructing a second full-scale Chia-Earth out of papier-mâché (and obtaining the materials and funds to do so), and subsequently luring all the inhabitants of Earth over to Chia-Earth by offering free t-shirts. Or a plan, set in the 19th Century, to take over France and usurp Napoleon which is centered around Crêpe Suzette.
  • In 2000, British Satellite channel BBC Choice ran the game show SIMPLY COMPLICATED, in which two teams (equipped with identical garden sheds full of parts) raced to design and build a contraption to perform an household task, e.g. making the tea, spreading jam on bread etc, but make it as unnecessarily complicated as possible. Their efforts were then judged by the likes of Johnny Ball, Trevor Bayliss and Judith Hann, with point awarded for ability to complete the task, complexity, and artistic merit. Only one series was made.
  • In the Halo 3 Forge, players are able to move objects around to create custom maps which allow for elaborate rube machines. [10]
  • In Nicks iCarly Spencer used it to feed his goldfish.

[edit] References

  1. ^ World Wide Words: Heath Robinson
  2. ^ Economist's View: Is Rep. Bill Thomas the Rube Goldberg of Legislative Reform?
  3. ^ Reason Magazine - Social Security's Progressive Paradox
  4. ^ Questions on Energy at popular logistics
  5. ^ BBC - History - William Heath Robinson (1872 - 1944)
  6. ^ Lost | ''Lost'' producers answer your burning questions! | Lost | The Q&A | TV | Entertainment Weekly
  7. ^ Saw 2 not as sharp as original
  8. ^ CNN.com - EW reviews: Bad 'Weather,' grim 'Saw' - Oct 28, 2005
  9. ^ Current Movie Reviews, Independent Movies - Film Threat
  10. ^ Bungie.net : Community : Forum Topic Listing : Forum Reply Listing

[edit] See also

[edit] External links