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Ask HN: What are the most complicated machines humans have built?

3 points by rishikeshs ↗ HN
I'm researching for a blog post on humanity's most complex machines. JWST, EUV lithography, and LHC come to mind.

What other engineering marvels should I look into?

23 comments

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oulipo
Our social machines. A judiciary, political, health, social system which works relatively smoothly
rvrs
Really? I feel exactly the opposite, that as a species we are extremely primitive in that regard. We underinvest into social "technology." Systems of collaboration and alignment aren't widespread, and research into it isn't taken seriously

Don't get me wrong, what we have is working (so far? Political happenings around the world don't inspire confidence)

mikewarot
Look into the changes wrought by Henry Maudslay. He changed the world from one where a single threaded screw took a week's work by an apprentice, to one where you could make them with a lathe. He changed the best tolerance from a 10th of an inch to a 10,000th of an inch. He's best known for the first practical screw cutting lathe.

Also see the 3 plate method of Whitworth, who made it possible to make accurate flat surfaces.

Also see the work of Carl Edvard Johansson, the Gage Block system. Without it, Ford couldn't have mass produced the Model T, and life would be completely different.

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farseer
There was also a cold war era icbm ins with over 15000 parts with accuracy within a few hundred meters anywhere on the globe. Can't remember the exact model number.
mikewarot
The fascinating thing about later model ICBMs is that their gyros have been spinning since they were installed. As part of the alignment process, the first models had to be very carefully aligned with true north. The later models would detect the rotation of the earth underneath them, and determine true north on their own.
davis
I think electricity grids are very very impressive. Even the US' which is considered out of date works in that it spreads across the entire country, needs to meet demand and supply down to milliseconds, has do many points that withdraw power and points that add power to the grid. Crazy stuff
rishikeshs
I mean the scale is impressive, but are they complex?
cjoy
our corporate jira
Dracophoenix
For a certain definition of complicated, I would say atomic clocks.
msanlop
One thing that keeps on giving for me me is being able to watch some random youtube video like its nothing. I can click on a random 200 view video from 12 years ago and scrub through it basically no latency. Thinking about how every little packet goes up and down the stack and around the world... The whole infrastructure to make it so seamless.

Meanwhile watching a video from an external drive or my wired SMB NAS fails half the time :|