Ultimate Reduction is a concatenation of three stages of Grinder-Gears-style gear reductions. Each stage provides a reduction of 1024 to 1, which is 32 squared. So three stages achieve 1024^3 = 1073741824 to 1. That is a bit over a billion to one. The purpose of this object is to demonstrate the extreme compactness of this type of mechanism. The volume of this gearing system is 81 cm^3, about half of which is the big hole in the center.

Whereas a billion to one may be a bit too much, a single stage of 1024:1 may have some useful applications. People have suggested precision telescopes and microscopes.

Watch the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_pbOCIg_nI