A lot of people have heard the name of Rube Goldberg used as an adjective, or as a noun to denote a needlessly complex machine. As some of them may know, that was the name of a great cartoonist whose comic strips often depicted odd contraptions. You can find out more about him at this website.
And I feel like I should include a link to the video of that great Honda commercial which may represent the all-time greatest application of Rube Goldberg Physics. If you haven't seen it and you have Flash installed, go see it. If you have seen it, you'll want to see it again. And either way, you'll want to read about how it was done.