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It's "complex enough" to be notable for it's complexity and thus a good example for considering the character and economics of complex machinery.

It's kind of pointless to fret about whether it's "the most complex" like there's an objective 1-dimensional ranking that even has utility.

I just watched the Vertasium video[1] on ASML's EUV lithgoraphy machines over the weekend, and I think the qualifier they used was "most complex machine _you can purchase commercially_".

I can't remember if it was an ASML representative that said that, or if it was an overlaid asterisk that popped up on the screen at some point - but I definitely remember thinking about the space shuttle and Saturn V/Apollo and those sorts of things before I saw the qualifier.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUHjLxm3V0

I‘d probably call it the most complex commercially available machine. You can‘t buy a Space Shuttle, or an LHC. You can buy a TSMC lithography machine, and it‘ll be delivered to you in much the same way as other equipment.

Also, I think the axis it‘s probably most complex on is precision of individual parts and of their combination. Arguably chips themselves are more precise as their 'parts' are so small, but they are much more homogeneous compared to the EUV machine, where tons of different materials and part sizes need to combine.

> You can buy a TSMC lithography machine, and it‘ll be delivered to you in much the same way as other equipment.

Each one of these machines costs half a billion dollars and is protected by some of the most stringent export controls on the planet.

It does raise an interesting philosophical question: if I bolt two ASML lithography machines together, is the resulting machine more complicated?

Right but it still gets put into boxes and flown over by a 747. Of course it‘s more complicated than that, but most contenders for complex machines are much more built in-place, and not a complete 'product' being assembled.

I asked the ASML rep at KubeCon who they were there for as nobody I knew had a quarter billion to spare. He told me they were just interested customers, but if I didn't want the newest machine I could get one for 70 million euros.

I've heard that US nuclear subs actually take the crown, but the design is so secret, that there's no way to verify.

An aircraft carrier would like a word.

Depends. Are the aircraft counted?

In either case, the secret design has the same effect, but sub secrets are the top of the top of top secret. Spies that leak sub secrets, spend a long time in Leavenworth.

>> nuclear sub

>aircraft carrier

Having served on both, this is actually a pretty interesting comparison (at least to me).

Carriers are simply larger, so they likely win by scale, but im not sure on a more per-(sub)system basis.

Carriers have a lot of aircraft handling systems that subs dont, elevators and hangers. Also the carrier has group c&c stuff.

Subs have a lot of stealth systems carriers don't, being that they're visible from space. Lots of dive related stuff, o2/co2 handlers.

They both have weapons systems, hvac, propulsion, distillation, steam generators, reactors, air compressor, many others.

Not obvious to me which one is more complex!

Which did you enjoy serving on more? Submariners apparently eat better than anywhere else on the navy, but also don't get any sunlight for 6 months?

Wow, I could not imagine getting this response from someone with real experience! Thanks!!

I doubt that anything in the military is that advanced or complex, including nuclear subs.

A big part of it is the secrecy itself. Things get difficult when you can't communicate. Your pool of candidates for the job is limited: you may not want people with foreign connections, some people don't want to work for the military, don't like the paperwork, don't like the idea that they can't value their skills for another job, etc... In addition, military technology is supposed to work on the battlefield, you don't want delicate stuff there, you want rugged, repairable, proven, reliable.

I think the reason secret military stuff appear so advanced, besides the aura it projects, is that it deals with fields that are underrepresented outside of the military. Like stealth for instance. Stealth is of limited use outside of a conflict. So of course, the stealth package of a nuclear submarine will be much more advanced than the almost nonexistant civilian stealth technology. But for things that are relevant to civilians, like the reactors, engines, etc.., I am sure that what's in subs is relatively simple, and probably dated.

> But for things that are relevant to civilians, like the reactors, engines, etc.., I am sure that what's in subs is relatively simple, and probably dated.

It seems like submarine propeller designs are all classified past 1960, even though quiet and efficient propellers pretty relevant to civilian ship design:

https://n5dux.com/taming/

The thing about military stuff is that generally the budget is large and the goal is to design something better than what the enemy has. The civilian world for a long time wasn't willing to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars on ASICs to control phased-array radars; the military was. Now as a result of lots of military investment, the technology is so well-understood that Google put a phased array on a chip inside the front of the Pixel 5.

> In addition, military technology is supposed to work on the battlefield, you don't want delicate stuff there, you want rugged, repairable, proven, reliable.

What you want is stuff that wins fights, and it only needs to be repairable and reliable insofar as it wins fights. The US has the F-22, which is an ultra expensive jet that only has ~60% uptime. In war games, it achieves kill ratios of 100:1, so the military is more than happy to keep it around. When the US raided Osama bin Laden's compound they sent brand new stealth helicopters even though they knew the platform was less reliable.

> In addition, military technology is supposed to work on the battlefield, you don't want delicate stuff there, you want rugged, repairable, proven, reliable.

I used to work for a military contractor.

The stuff we would get back from the field looked like it had been fed through a wood-chipper, and this was peacetime (1980s). They had these special field racks, that had a rackmount suspended inside a huge plastic box (with front and back panels). Didn't save the units inside, though. A lot of time, they were torn off the racks, and rattling around, inside the container.

The kit was not cheap. Our standard units (a super Bearcat Scanner, basically) cost about $40,000 USD (1980s USD). They were 2-4U units, and the racks usually had five or six of them.

There's an urban legend about Admiral Rickover. His office was on the second floor of the Pentagon. If a salesgoblin came in, with sample kit, it was said that he walked over to his window, and dropped it outside. He then said "If it still works, we'll talk."

> I doubt that anything in the military is that advanced

So they are not Cloud-native and there is no Slack?

/s

:-D

2.5 million moving parts sounds unlikely. Parts, sure. Moving parts, I’m skeptical.

In a vehicle, all the parts are moving

I’m gonna go with the conventional frame of reference: parts moving with respect to each other.

Otherwise we might as well say the ASML machine is in orbit around the galactic center.

There are situations where vehicles have a lot of parts moving with respect to each other, especially rockets.

That claim is from NASA: https://www3.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/pdf/566250main_SHUTTLE...

I see that. And I see it repeated all over. Still skeptical.

Googling for total part count also comes up with the 2.5M number. They move WRT Earth, but the vast majority do not move with respect to each other, is my guess.

For a sanity check comparison: Saturn V estimates are ~5 million total parts, and "tens of thousands" of moving parts. A ratio that sounds sort of normal.

everything can be a moving part if you use enough hydrogen and oxygen

I guess that depends on what is considered moving. A latch is, but is a vibration dampener? On launch, I bet a lot of parts are moving that you probably would not otherwise want to be.

haha, I actually had exactly this question for myself and I asked Gemini in comparison to Falcon/Musk Rockets.

It said that from a complexity level to construct, the ASML Twin:EXE machine is much more complicated, esp. much more freh research was required to achieve their nanometer structures - a Falcon is a complex vehicle, but compared to "how much do we need to know to create it on an industrial scale",the ASML devices seems to be more complex.

> An orthogonal question is what makes sense as a measure of complexity.

I don't know, but number of parts doesn't seem good. I feel that complexity should be measured in bits, but how to tie it with something real idk. Maybe the amount of knowledge needed to reproduce the machine? It is hard to measure though, because knowledge in people heads can't me measured precisely, we can estimate it but it will be a very rough estimate.

But the knowledge by itself is not enough, because there difficulties when producing that pure knowledge can't solve, they need a specialized equipment or source materials, and arguably it adds to a complexity too.

Or we can try from completely different angle, how about the reaction of a machine to small perturbations? Like if I unscrew this bolt, how long it will take for a machine to explode? xD

I mean, I'm not an engineer really, but I have experience as a software developer, and subjectively complexity of a code is when you can't predict at all what will happen if you change this line of code. Maybe it can be taken as a basis for a measure?

Arguably and it can easily win

Or more complex than, you know, one of the CPUs it can produce, with four billion transistors, which is not "mostly the same thing repeated"?

Off topic: Does it blow anyone else's mind that a DRAM chip has more transistors on it than there are humans on the planet?

I mean, your brain has an order of magnitude more neurons than there are people on the planet. I think humans are just incapable of wrapping our heads around the sheer number of tiny things that fit in small macroscopic spaces.

>> Off topic: Does it blow anyone else's mind that a DRAM chip has more transistors on it than there are humans on the planet?

Yes.

Accepting these facts is one thing but "getting over the astonishment" never happens for me.

> NASA says the Space Shuttle has 2.5 million moving parts, while the article says the ASML machine has over 100,000 components.

I don’t know that many people would classify the Space Shuttle as a machine. It doesn’t make anything.

Why do machines have to "make" things? Is a car not a machine?

A lever is classified as a simple machine.

Wrt the space shuttle, I would take some issue because you could say it's not just one machine, but a collection of many, for example it probably has onboard computer systems that are not always in use. It would be a bit like saying that a whole factory is "a machine". Whereas the ASML devices serve one single clear purpose.

I've been reading Dashiell Hammett detective stories from the early 1920s and it seems like cars were almost exclusively referred to colloquially as 'machines' back then.

Steel machines of hell. That’s how I saw them in an editorial work dating back to the early 1900’s talking about the arrival of cars in the city.

Some languages still colloquially refer to cars with the same word used for machine.

Why would a machine need to make anything? Is a robot arm not a machine? How about a trash compactor? Are the 6 types of simple machines not machines?

A machine is a device that uses energy to perform work. Typically by applying or transforming force, motion, or both.

The space shuttle can be thought of maybe as a collection of machines working in concert, but thinking of it as ONE machines renders the meaning of machine less useful.

In my understanding a device has its origin in giving advice and does something specific for you (a pen is a writing device, a mixer is a cooking device, a phone is a communication device, a bus is a transportation device etc.).

A machine on the other hand has its roots in its mechanisms. It physically transforms something by applying mechanical power, and that's not necessarily done for you (e.g. printing device VS printing machine).

Whether a device can be composed out of many smaller devices, or whether a machine can be composed out of many smaller machines just doesn't seem to be relevant. That being said, language evolves with time and certain concepts find some overlap in general usage.

Device comes from Latin dividere, meaning "something which is divided". Later with old French devis (disposition, desire, purpose, or decorative emblem) and deviser (arrange, plan). A device is something planned, designed, potentially intricate. A device doesn't always need to be mechanical/physical as there are "literal devices" and one can be "left to their devices". I'd say "device" is more like "a planned thing" if giving a basic definition.

A machine is almost always a device, but a device isn't always a machine. A fancy earring can be a device, but it is clearly not a machine.