So, unless you’ve been living under a rock or haven’t paid your interwebs bill then you probably have either stumbled across or been forced to watch the new OK GO video for “This Too Shall Pass”. We posted it here last week, as did many other sites, and it is rapidly approaching 7 million youtube views. It looks like another viral smash for our favorite treadmill walking alt-rock-popsters (?).
But, in all this forwarding and repeat viewing there is someone who for the most part has been completely overlooked: the inventor of the machine, Rube Goldberg. My man wore many hats: he was a cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Culturally, his biggest legacy is the series of cartoons he created “depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways – now known as Rube Goldberg machines.”
Rube Goldberg was so nice with it that in 1931 the good folks over at Merriam–Webster dictionary decided to make the man’s name synonymous with ”accomplishing something simple through complex means.”
In his wake people have been bringing his cartoon to life in their own quirky ways, and let’s not forget the child hood favorite board game Mouse Trap. Here are a few more amazing machines that while not set to a catchy tune are pretty spectacular in their own right.
