Thomas Thwaites: How I built a toaster -- from scratch

244,123 views ・ 2011-01-14

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:15
If we look around us,
0
15260
3000
00:18
much of what surrounds us
1
18260
2000
00:20
started life as various rocks and sludge
2
20260
3000
00:23
buried in the ground in various places in the world.
3
23260
3000
00:27
But, of course, they don't look like rocks and sludge now.
4
27260
2000
00:29
They look like TV cameras, monitors,
5
29260
3000
00:32
annoying radio mics.
6
32260
2000
00:34
And so this magical transformation
7
34260
2000
00:36
is what I was trying to get at with my project,
8
36260
3000
00:39
which became known as the Toaster Project.
9
39260
2000
00:41
And it was also inspired by this quote
10
41260
2000
00:43
from Douglas Adams,
11
43260
2000
00:45
and the situation is from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
12
45260
3000
00:48
And the situation it describes
13
48260
2000
00:50
is the hero of the book -- he's a 20th-century man --
14
50260
3000
00:53
finds himself alone on a strange planet
15
53260
3000
00:56
populated only by a technologically primitive people.
16
56260
3000
00:59
And he kind of assumes that, yes,
17
59260
2000
01:01
he'll become -- these villagers --
18
61260
2000
01:03
he'll become their emperor
19
63260
2000
01:05
and transform their society
20
65260
2000
01:07
with his wonderful command of technology
21
67260
2000
01:09
and science and the elements,
22
69260
2000
01:11
but, of course, realizes
23
71260
2000
01:13
that without the rest of human society,
24
73260
2000
01:15
he can barely make a sandwich,
25
75260
3000
01:18
let alone a toaster.
26
78260
2000
01:20
But he didn't have Wikipedia.
27
80260
2000
01:22
So I thought, okay,
28
82260
2000
01:24
I'll try and make an electric toaster from scratch.
29
84260
2000
01:26
And, working on the idea
30
86260
2000
01:28
that the cheapest electric toaster
31
88260
2000
01:30
would also be the simplest to reverse-engineer,
32
90260
2000
01:32
I went and bought the cheapest toaster I could find,
33
92260
3000
01:35
took it home
34
95260
2000
01:37
and was kind of dismayed to discover
35
97260
2000
01:39
that, inside this object,
36
99260
2000
01:41
which I'd bought for just 3.49 pounds,
37
101260
3000
01:44
there were 400 different bits
38
104260
3000
01:47
made out of a hundred-plus different materials.
39
107260
4000
01:51
I didn't have the rest of my life to do this project.
40
111260
3000
01:54
I had maybe nine months.
41
114260
2000
01:56
So I thought, okay, I'll start with five.
42
116260
2000
01:58
And these were steel, mica,
43
118260
2000
02:00
plastic, copper and nickel.
44
120260
3000
02:03
So, starting with steel: how do you make steel?
45
123260
3000
02:06
I went and knocked on the door
46
126260
2000
02:08
of the Rio Tinto Chair
47
128260
2000
02:10
of Advanced Mineral Extraction at the Royal School of Mines
48
130260
3000
02:13
and said, "How do you make steel?"
49
133260
2000
02:15
And Professor Cilliers was very kind
50
135260
2000
02:17
and talked me through it.
51
137260
2000
02:19
And my vague rememberings from GCSE science --
52
139260
3000
02:22
well, steel comes from iron,
53
142260
2000
02:24
so I phoned up an iron mine.
54
144260
3000
02:27
And said, "Hi, I'm trying to make a toaster.
55
147260
2000
02:29
Can I come up and get some iron?"
56
149260
3000
02:33
Unfortunately, when I got there -- emerges Ray.
57
153260
3000
02:36
He had misheard me
58
156260
2000
02:38
and thought I was coming up because I was trying to make a poster,
59
158260
3000
02:41
and so wasn't prepared to take me into the mines.
60
161260
3000
02:44
But after some nagging, I got him to do that.
61
164260
2000
02:46
(Video) Ray: It was Crease Limestone,
62
166260
3000
02:50
and that was produced
63
170260
2000
02:52
by sea creatures
64
172260
3000
02:55
350 million years ago
65
175260
3000
02:58
in a nice, warm,
66
178260
2000
03:00
sunny atmosphere.
67
180260
2000
03:02
When you study geology,
68
182260
2000
03:04
you can see what's happened in the past,
69
184260
3000
03:07
and there were terrific changes in the earth.
70
187260
3000
03:16
Thomas Thwaites: As you can see, they had the Christmas decorations up.
71
196260
3000
03:20
And of course, it wasn't actually a working mine anymore,
72
200260
3000
03:23
because, though Ray was a miner there,
73
203260
3000
03:26
the mine had closed
74
206260
2000
03:28
and had been reopened as a kind of tourist attraction,
75
208260
3000
03:31
because, of course, it can't compete
76
211260
2000
03:33
on the scale of operations which are happening
77
213260
3000
03:36
in South America, Australia, wherever.
78
216260
3000
03:39
But anyway, I got my suitcase of iron ore
79
219260
3000
03:42
and dragged it back to London on the train,
80
222260
2000
03:44
and then was faced with the problem:
81
224260
2000
03:46
Okay, how do you make this rock
82
226260
2000
03:48
into components for a toaster?
83
228260
2000
03:50
So I went back to Professor Cilliers,
84
230260
2000
03:52
and he said, "Go to the library."
85
232260
2000
03:54
So I did
86
234260
2000
03:56
and was looking through the undergraduate textbooks on metallurgy --
87
236260
3000
03:59
completely useless for what I was trying to do.
88
239260
3000
04:02
Because, of course, they don't actually tell you how to do it
89
242260
3000
04:05
if you want to do it yourself and you don't have a smelting plant.
90
245260
3000
04:08
So I ended up going to the History of Science Library
91
248260
2000
04:10
and looking at this book.
92
250260
2000
04:12
This is the first textbook on metallurgy
93
252260
2000
04:14
written in the West, at least.
94
254260
2000
04:16
And there you can see that woodcut
95
256260
2000
04:18
is basically what I ended up doing.
96
258260
2000
04:20
But instead of a bellows, I had a leaf blower.
97
260260
3000
04:23
(Laughter)
98
263260
2000
04:25
And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project,
99
265260
3000
04:28
was, the smaller the scale you want to work on,
100
268260
2000
04:30
the further back in time you have to go.
101
270260
3000
04:33
And so this is after
102
273260
2000
04:35
a day and about half a night
103
275260
2000
04:37
smelting this iron.
104
277260
2000
04:39
I dragged out this stuff,
105
279260
2000
04:41
and it wasn't iron.
106
281260
2000
04:43
But luckily,
107
283260
2000
04:45
I found a patent online
108
285260
2000
04:47
for industrial furnaces that use microwaves,
109
287260
3000
04:50
and at 30 minutes at full power,
110
290260
2000
04:52
and I was able to finish off the process.
111
292260
3000
04:57
So, my next --
112
297260
2000
04:59
(Applause)
113
299260
2000
05:03
The next thing I was trying to get was copper.
114
303260
3000
05:06
Again, this mine
115
306260
3000
05:09
was once the largest copper mine in the world.
116
309260
2000
05:11
It's not anymore,
117
311260
2000
05:13
but I found a retired geology professor
118
313260
2000
05:15
to take me down,
119
315260
2000
05:17
and he said, "Okay, I'll let you have some water from the mine."
120
317260
3000
05:20
And the reason I was interested in getting water
121
320260
3000
05:23
is because water which goes through mines
122
323260
2000
05:25
becomes kind of acidic
123
325260
2000
05:27
and will start picking up,
124
327260
2000
05:29
dissolving the minerals from the mine.
125
329260
2000
05:31
And a good example of this is the Rio Tinto,
126
331260
3000
05:34
which is in Portugal.
127
334260
2000
05:36
As you can see, it's got lots and lots of minerals dissolved in it.
128
336260
3000
05:39
So many such
129
339260
2000
05:41
that it's now just a home for bacteria
130
341260
3000
05:44
who really like acidic, toxic conditions.
131
344260
3000
05:47
But anyway, the water I dragged back
132
347260
2000
05:49
from the Isle of Anglesey where the mine was --
133
349260
2000
05:51
there was enough copper in it
134
351260
2000
05:53
such that I could cast the pins
135
353260
2000
05:55
of my metal electric plug.
136
355260
2000
05:57
So my next thing: I was off to Scotland
137
357260
3000
06:00
to get mica.
138
360260
3000
06:03
And mica is a mineral
139
363260
3000
06:06
which is a very good insulator
140
366260
3000
06:09
and very good at insulating electricity.
141
369260
3000
06:12
That's me getting mica.
142
372260
2000
06:15
And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic,
143
375260
3000
06:18
and, of course,
144
378260
2000
06:20
my toaster had to have a plastic case.
145
380260
2000
06:22
Plastic is the defining feature
146
382260
2000
06:24
of cheap electrical goods.
147
384260
2000
06:26
And so plastic comes from oil, so I phoned up BP
148
386260
3000
06:29
and spent a good half an hour
149
389260
2000
06:31
trying to convince the PR office at BP
150
391260
2000
06:33
that it would be fantastic for them
151
393260
2000
06:35
if they flew me to an oil rig
152
395260
2000
06:37
and let me have a jug of oil.
153
397260
2000
06:39
BP obviously has a bit more on their mind now.
154
399260
3000
06:43
But even then
155
403260
2000
06:45
they weren't convinced
156
405260
2000
06:47
and said, "Okay, we'll phone you back" -- never did.
157
407260
3000
06:50
So I looked at other ways of making plastic.
158
410260
3000
06:53
And you can actually make plastic
159
413260
2000
06:55
from obviously oils which come from plants, but also from starches.
160
415260
3000
06:58
So this is attempting to make
161
418260
2000
07:00
potato starch plastic.
162
420260
2000
07:02
And for a while that was looking really good.
163
422260
2000
07:04
I poured it into the mold, which you can see there,
164
424260
2000
07:06
which I've made from a tree trunk.
165
426260
2000
07:08
And it was looking good for a while,
166
428260
2000
07:10
but I left it outside, because you had to leave it outside to dry,
167
430260
3000
07:13
and unfortunately I came back
168
433260
2000
07:15
and there were snails eating the unhydrolyzed bits of potato.
169
435260
3000
07:19
So kind of out of desperation,
170
439260
3000
07:22
I decided that I could think laterally.
171
442260
3000
07:25
And geologists have actually christened --
172
445260
2000
07:27
well, they're debating whether to christen --
173
447260
2000
07:29
the age that we're living in --
174
449260
2000
07:31
they're debating whether to make it a new geological epoch
175
451260
3000
07:34
called the Anthropocene, the age of Man.
176
454260
3000
07:37
And that's because geologists of the future
177
457260
2000
07:39
would kind of see a sharp shift
178
459260
2000
07:41
in the strata of rock that is being laid down now.
179
461260
2000
07:43
So suddenly, it will become kind of radioactive from Chernobyl
180
463260
3000
07:46
and the 2,000 or so nuclear bombs
181
466260
2000
07:48
that have been set off since 1945.
182
468260
3000
07:52
And there'd also be an extinction event --
183
472260
3000
07:55
like fossils would suddenly disappear.
184
475260
3000
07:58
And also, I thought
185
478260
2000
08:00
that there would be
186
480260
2000
08:02
synthetic polymers,
187
482260
2000
08:04
plastics, embedded in the rock.
188
484260
2000
08:06
So I looked up a plastic --
189
486260
2000
08:08
so I decided that I could mine
190
488260
2000
08:10
some of this modern-day rock.
191
490260
2000
08:12
And I went up to Manchester
192
492260
2000
08:14
to visit a place called Axion Recycling.
193
494260
3000
08:17
And they're at the sharp end of what's called the WEEE,
194
497260
3000
08:20
which is this European electrical and electronic waste directive.
195
500260
4000
08:25
And that was brought into force
196
505260
2000
08:27
to try and deal with the mountain of stuff
197
507260
3000
08:30
that is just being made
198
510260
3000
08:33
and then living for a while in our homes
199
513260
2000
08:35
and then going to landfill.
200
515260
2000
08:37
But this is it.
201
517260
2000
08:46
(Music)
202
526260
5000
09:47
(Laughter)
203
587260
2000
09:49
So there's a picture
204
589260
2000
09:51
of my toaster.
205
591260
2000
09:53
(Applause)
206
593260
4000
09:57
That's it without the case on.
207
597260
3000
10:00
And there it is on the shelves.
208
600260
3000
10:03
Thanks.
209
603260
2000
10:05
(Applause)
210
605260
4000
10:09
Bruno Giussani: I'm told you did plug it in once.
211
609260
2000
10:11
TT: Yeah, I did plug it in.
212
611260
2000
10:13
I don't know if you could see,
213
613260
2000
10:15
but I was never able to make insulation for the wires.
214
615260
3000
10:18
Kew Gardens were insistent
215
618260
2000
10:20
that I couldn't come and hack into their rubber tree.
216
620260
3000
10:23
So the wires were uninsulated.
217
623260
2000
10:25
So there was 240 volts
218
625260
2000
10:27
going through these homemade copper wires,
219
627260
2000
10:29
homemade plug.
220
629260
2000
10:31
And for about five seconds,
221
631260
2000
10:33
the toaster toasted,
222
633260
2000
10:35
but then, unfortunately,
223
635260
2000
10:37
the element kind of melted itself.
224
637260
3000
10:40
But I considered it a partial success, to be honest.
225
640260
3000
10:43
BG: Thomas Thwaites. TT: Thanks.
226
643260
3000
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7