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
Other articles related to "machine":
... He developed and patented a "machine for carving wood and metal" on April 10, 1849 ... up his family and moved back to New York City, hoping to market his wood-block cutting machine there ... However, not long after the machine was built, the steam boiler blew up at the shop, destroying the prototype ...
... developing and building the first automatic teller machine (which didn't dispense cash) ... The rollout of this machine, called Bankograph, was delayed by a couple of years, due in part to Simjian's Reflectone Electronics Inc ... The Bankograph was an automated envelope deposit machine (accepting coins, cash and cheques) and did not have cash dispensing features ...
... An automaton (plural automata or automatons) is a self-operating machine ... The word is sometimes used to describe a robot, more specifically an autonomous robot ...
... first use of automobiles, and even earlier, to the horse-drawn tachankas mounting machine guns in eastern Europe and Russia ... in the deserts of Egypt, Libya and Chad using unarmored motor vehicles, often fitted with machine guns and cannon of various types ... the Willys Jeep, this time fitted with a single.50 caliber Browning machine gun ...
... that was based on the von Neumann architecture that had been pioneered on the IAS machine ... After two "rescues" from the scrap heap, the machine currently resides at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California ... Like the IAS machine, JOHNNIAC used 40-bit words, and included 1024 words of Selectron tube main memory, each holding 256 bits of data ...
Famous quotes containing the word machine:
“... in the fierce competition of modern society the only class left in the country possessing leisure is that of women supported in easy circumstances by husband or father, and it is to this class we must look for the maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes which can alone save society from degenerating into a huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love of sensual luxury.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)
“Psychiatric enlightenment has begun to debunk the superstition that to manage a machine you must become a machine, and that to raise masters of the machine you must mechanize the impulses of childhood.”
—Erik H. Erikson (1904–1994)
“The American people is out to get the kaiser. We are bending every nerve and every energy towards that end; anybody who gets in the way of the great machine the energy and devotion of a hundred million patriots is building towards the stainless purpose of saving civilization from the Huns will be mashed like a fly. I’m surprised that a collegebred man like you hasn’t more sense. Don’t monkey with the buzzsaw.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)