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Simple Machine

A simple machine is a mechanical device that changes the direction or magnitude of a force. In general, they can be defined as the simplest mechanisms that use mechanical advantage (also called leverage) to multiply force. Usually the term refers to the six classical simple machines that were defined by Renaissance scientists:
  • Lever
  • Wheel and axle
  • Pulley
  • Inclined plane
  • Wedge
  • Screw
A simple machine uses a single applied force to do work against a single work load. Ignoring friction losses, the work done on the load is equal to the work done by the applied force. The machine can increase the amount of the output force, at the cost of a proportional decrease in the distance moved by the load. The ratio of the output to the applied force is called the mechanical advantage.

Simple machines can be regarded as the elementary "building blocks" of which all more complicated machines (sometimes called compound machines) are composed. For example, wheels, levers, and pulleys are all used in the mechanism of a bicycle. The mechanical advantage of a compound machine is just the product of the mechanical advantages of the simple machines of which it is composed.


Although they continue to be of great importance in mechanics and applied science, modern mechanics has moved beyond the view of the simple machines as the ultimate building blocks of which all machines are composed, which arose in the Renaissance as a neoclassical amplification of ancient Greek texts. The great variety and sophistication of modern machine linkages, which arose during the industrial revolution, is inadequately described by these six simple categories. Various post-Renaissance authors have compiled expanded lists of "simple machines," often using terms like basic machines, compound machines, or machine elements to distinguish them from the classical simple machines above. By the late 1800s, Franz Reuleaux had identified hundred of machine elements, calling them simple machines. Modern machine theory analyzes machines as kinematic chains composed of elementary linkages called kinematic pairs.

The idea of simple machines originated with the Greek philosopher Archimedes around the 3rd century BC, who studied the Archimedean simple machines: lever, pulley, and screws. He discovered the principle of mechanical advantage in the lever. Archimedes' famous remark with regard to the discovery: "Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth," expresses his realization that there was no limit to the amount of force amplification that could be achieved by using mechanical advantage. Later Greek philosophers defined the classic five simple machines (excluding the inclined plane) and were able to calculate their (ideal) mechanical advantage. For example, Heron of Alexandria (circa 10 - 75 AD) in his work "Mechanics" lists five mechanisms that can "set a load in motion": lever, windlass, pulley, wedge, and screw, and describes their fabrication and uses. However, the Greeks' understanding was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics, the tradeoff between force and distance, or the concept of work.

During the Renaissance the dynamics of the mechanical powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force that they could apply, leading eventually to the new concept of mechanical work. In 1586, Flemish engineer Simon Stevin derived the mechanical advantage of the inclined plane, and it was included with the other simple machines. The complete dynamic theory of simple machines was worked out by Italian scientist Galileo Galilei in 1600 in "Le Meccaniche" (On Machines), in which he showed the underlying mathematical similarity of the machines as force multipliers. He was the first to explain that simple machines do not create energy, only transform it.

The classic rules of sliding friction in machines were discovered by Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), but were unpublished and merely documented in his notebooks, and were based on pre-Newtonian science such as believing friction was an ethereal fluid. They were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons (1699) and were further developed by Charles-Agustin de Coulomb (1785).

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