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