Rube Goldberg born in 1883 and lived through December, 1970 and his influence is still being absorbed and celebrated today. A few days ago I came across this advert for Google's Chrome browser made in the UK. I'm really digging their creativity and use of different angles and mediums like mercury to make their Rube Goldburg like effect look great.
Peter Fischli and David Weiss made this piece over 20 years ago based on this principle called the Way Things Go or Der Lauf der Dinge in German.
Some credit Peter Fischli and David Weiss with the inspiration for the advertisers including this famous Honda Cog ad:
There is also this popular Japanese children's show called ピタゴラ装置 pronounced Pitagora Suichi or Pythagoras Switch.
Also fun to watch is this baking of video for Google chrome: