TheInternet Craftsmanship Museum Presents:

• The Do Nothing Machine Book
• Machines That Do Nothing
• Do Nothing Machine For Sale
• Do Nothing Machine Kit

Added to museum: 5/6/2013

1. The argument from consciousness proceeds as follows: No machine can have emotions, feel pleasure, grief, depression, etc. Intelligent humans clearly do. Therefore, machines cannot be intelligent. Turing's response is to claim that this argument is a denial of the validity of the Turing test itself.
2. Do-nothing Machine: Do you like to do nothing?Introducing the Do-nothing Machine. As the name suggest it does absolutely positively nothing useful. Sure it may entertain some people for a few minutes, last about an hour on me, but it still does nothing. This is a fairl.

Lawrence Wahlstrom with his 'Do Nothing' machine in the 1950's from an unknown newspaper. Care of the machine was later taken on by Earl Wolf, who bought it at an auction. (Click on photo to view a larger image.)

EASTBULL Pointless Box Dont Touch Useless Box or Wooden Useless Machine Do Nothing Box Tiger Toys, for Stress-Release and Perfect for Home & Office Desk (Tiger) Visit the EASTBULL Store. 4.2 out of 5 stars 106 ratings 4 answered questions Price: $21.88 & FREE Returns. 4140 steel, Bushings: 4140 steel. Note that 4140 is difficult to machine! Kentucky Do-Nothing SHEET 7 OF 8 REV. A A SIZE FILE NAME SCALE 1:1.5 Notes PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DRAWING IS THE SOLE PROPERTY OF MARTIN KENNEDY. ANY REPRODUCTION, FOR OTHER THAN PERSONAL USE, IN.

Built by Lawrence Wahlsrom starting in about 1948

The Do Nothing Machine Book

Purchased and preserved by Earl Wolf, and donated in his name by his family

A tongue-in-cheek look at a world growing ever more complicated

According to a newspaper article (paper unknown) from about the early 1960’s, the inventor of this engineering marvel was Lawrence Wahlstrom, a retired clock maker. He worked in the newspaper business and for the telephone company, while also acting as caretaker and landscape gardener for a Beverly Hills estate for 40 years. He always enjoyed tinkering with clocks and had attended a clock school to learn about their repair. Somewhere along the line he acquired a fascination for gears. After coming across a surplus WWII bomb sight containing a complicated cluster of gears, he got it working again. He also realized that people prefer to be entertained rather than educated, so he began adding more and more gears to his assembly over a 15-year period starting in about 1948. The first known publicity photo of it appeared in 1950.

Life magazine gave the machine and Mr. Wahlstrom a full page in the April 20, 1953 issue. (Click on either photo to view a larger image.)

A machine that kept growing in size and fame

Over the years, the number of gears continued to grow, reaching either 744 or 764 depending on which account you read. Like the motion of the machine, the actual figure is somewhat fluid. It attracted a lot of media attention over the years, appearing in magazine articles and on TV shows. It was seen on both the Art Linkletter show and the Bob Hope show. The family archives also contain a telegram arranging for Mr. Wahlstrom to appear on the Garry Moore show in November, 1954. Life Magazine gave it a full page in the April 20, 1953 issue, and Popular Mechanics gave it ½ page coverage in the February, 1954 issue. In February, 1955 it was also featured in Mechanix Illustrated magazine. There were also many other newspaper and magazine articles documenting its constant evolution.

Popular Mechanics cover and article from February, 1954 and the Mechanix Illustrated article from February 1955. (Click on any photo to view a larger image.)

One uncredited, tongue-in-cheek newspaper article noted the following:

This machine, which is undoubtedly the most complex assemblage of bi-cuspidary discs, was designed either by government engineers or a committee, which is why as you see it, it goes nowhere and does nothing. It was originally designed to be a striking mechanism for mantle clock, bu tit seems to have gotten carried away with delusions of grandeur.

The three electricaly powered motive forces are gravitationally free, non-syncronal, trapezoidal seclusion would and in the Delta configuration. This, of course, prevents total flocture in case of power failure during critical lunar phases. In the event this happens, the operator must search rapidly and diligently to find the cause of the escaping electrons so that there is no an excess of stray electrons massing in the immediate area, which would tend to create some inaudible sounds toward the lower brackets.

The spherical metal mass orbiting in the redundantly circular raceway is advanced rearward due to the three epicylic framatoidal cams, which are time in sequential order.

Due to the inherent possibility during startup of exceeding the torsional modulus of elasticity, from the polar moment of inertian prior to final assembly, all shafts except those which were castellated, were frenelized in an uncontrolled hydrostatic atmosphere to the equivalent of maximum kilopaschals on the circumareolar scale. There are 764 gears of all types connected to each other either by tooth, lever, chain, shaft or otherwise, all going round and round for the sole purpose of viewing by people who have nothing else to do except watch I go round and round.

The Do Nothing machine ready for action. (Click on photo to view a larger image.)

Called by its inventor variously a “Flying Saucer Detector” or other nebulous and facetious descriptions, his goal was to add at least 50 gears each year to the constantly growing project. As noted in Popular Mechanics in 1954, “We all know someone who works harder doing nothing than most of us work doing something, but we can’t possibly know anything that works harder at nothing that a machine built by a California hobbyist. The machine has over 700 working parts that rotate, twist, oscillate and reciprocate—all for no purpose except movement.”

Life Magazine in 1953 headlined its article, “Machine-Age Revenge—Californian’s mechanical clown is built to accomplish nothing.” It went on to say:

The good earth and green thumb are tools enough for Lawrence Wahlstrom of Los Angeles who, in his calling of landscape gardener, is more immune than most to the tyranny of efficient machine—machines that clamor to write his letters, eliminate distances, grind out his product or wake him with music. But for Mr. Wahlstrom, immunity is not enough. When he gets home he slips into his workshop and takes the offensive, working earnestly with piles of nuts and gears. The resulting machine is his own personal triumph over efficiency. It has no name but 700 moving parts. It is cheap to manufacture, economical to operate and it runs smoothly without a hitch or backlash. More important, Mr. Wahlstrom has made sure this one device will never speed or complicate his comfortable way of life; a captive mass of cogs, it will start and stop, but otherwise it accomplishes utterly nothing.

Earl and Patty Wolf is all set up to amaze people with the Do Nothing machine at a show in Congress, AZ in August 2006. (Click on photo to view a larger image.)