360 Yale: Back in the 1920’s, the cartoonist Rube Goldberg became a household name by drawing a seemingly endless series of fanciful and absurd contraptions in which a simple action, such as pushing a lever, would lead to an unfolding mechanical drama. The lever might drop a ball into a chute, where it would roll to the bottom and knock a wheel into motion, which in turn would activate a scissors that would cut a rope… You get the idea. It’s no surprise, therefore, that when scientists began …