A machine is a powered tool consisting of one or more parts that is constructed to achieve a particular goal. Machines are usually powered by mechanical, chemical, thermal or electrical means, and are frequently motorized. Historically, a powered tool also required moving parts to classify as a machine; however, the advent of electronics technology has led to the development of powered tools without moving parts that are considered machines.
The word "machine" is derived from the Latin word machina, which in turn derives from the Doric Greek μαχανά (machana), Ionic Greek μηχανή (mechane) "contrivance, machine, engine" and that from μῆχος (mechos), "means, expedient, remedy". The meaning of machine is traced by the Oxford English Dictionary to an independently functioning structure and by Merriam-Webster Dictionary to something that has been constructed. This includes human design into the meaning of machine.
A simple machine is a device that simply transforms the direction or magnitude of a force, but a large number of more complex machines exist. Examples include vehicles, electronic systems, molecular machines, computers, television and radio.
Read more about Machine: History, Types, Machine Elements, Design
Famous quotes containing the word machine:
“But a man must keep an eye on his servants, if he would not have them rule him. Man is a shrewd inventor, and is ever taking the hint of a new machine from his own structure, adapting some secret of his own anatomy in iron, wood, and leather, to some required function in the work of the world. But it is found that the machine unmans the user. What he gains in making cloth, he loses in general power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The machine is impersonal, it takes the pride away from a piece of work, the individual merits and defects that go along with all work that is not done by a machine—which is to say, its little bit of humanity.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)