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I saw a neat one where they put the last gear in a block of cement while still spinning the first one quite fast.

Is the idea that it never moves, or that the cement will degrade by the time it does?

It moves slowly enough that the wheel will approximately never turn enough to generate significant torque.

I think the artist put it as "and then the last gear turns so slowly it doesn't really matter, so I cast it in concrete."

Assuming we're talking about Arthur Gansons "Machine with concrete"[0] of course. I quite like how a lot of his work seems to have a punchline to it.