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

The craziest part about this, is you can see at every step he had to use multiple other things that were already modernized to progress his work. The trash can and leaf blower being one of them.

This makes you realize how important teamwork is. If humans couldn't communicate and work together, we would still be walking on the Savannah.

"If you want to make a birthday cake from scratch, you must first create the universe." ~Carl Sagan

It's hard not to respect this guy for his dedication, and I appreciate the reminder of whats involved in the things we take for granted. But the first toaster was basically a few conductive coils and a wire frame. He'd have done better with asking "How would I build something to toast bread from scratch?"

"The smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back in time you have to go." Says something about our collective knowledge, when all we've come to understand is how to do things bigger.

"Modern day rock" is the cutest petname you can possibly give to worldwide plastic pollution.

The energy and resources it took just to make a one component. Got to appreciate what you have.

A great demonstration of how division of labour and the accumulation of capital goods makes our society possible.

One of the best talks in quite a while. I love it!

Best talk in a while. Makes you appreciate all that we have!

One of the best I ever saw at this TED channel...

@Chronosaur I think this video also demonstrates that we got to where we are today by working together. No one person can do it alone from scratch. That as a species, the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan Surely applies to toasters too.

makes you think about how vulnerable we are

This actually shows how vulnerable we are to collapse as a society. For our most basic needs we are dependent on most of the society working but fewer and fewer of us really understand how things really get made or what to do if key ingredients become unavailable. Even with his very low standards he was still very dependent on modern technology and didn't make something that worked. Once we reach a certain point of deterioration our society will simply fall apart.

I saw this video years ago, found it the most entertaining thing in a while, but never realized the deep significance of the message till now...

He didn't cheat, he set out to build this as if he were every single one of the laborers who contributed to a

I remember reading this book years ago. It completely changed the way I see the world. In a lot of ways, a $4 toaster is more impressive than a Mayan pyramid.

Brilliant. I love these videos that challenge the normal.

Only in the free market can all of these resources and tools that go into such ordinary products be made available exactly when they are needed and when it is cost effective. No one person had to delegate all of the labor that went into every piece of this keyboard; it was made possible all through the price system. Which I think is absolutely amazing.

Our confort life style depends on the intelectual legacy of generations and the tecnical capability of all the people that made the things we have... i think the greatest point of this talk is that "no man is an island"... we are highly social beings, a simple toaster requires the knowledge of hundreads, maybe thousands of people, spread all over the world... that's our greatness the ability to come together... even if it's only to toast some bread.

The important is the JOURNEY and PROCESS that his take to make that toaster!!

The book the quote is from - Mostly Harmless - actually has quite a few interesting points about the interdependency of humanity, if you discard half the story and squint really hard - about the philosophy behind the problems that this (rather inspired) guy ran into. Really god to think about, I think.

Rio Tinto is not in Portugal, but in Huelva, Spain.

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe" - Carl Sagan [same goes for your toaster]

This should be renamed to "how I was unable to build a toaster or any of it's components"!

日本人です。このプロジェクトを日本で書籍化した『ゼロからトースターを作ってみた結果』を読みましたが、まぁ面白いことｗ この動画を観ている日本人の皆さんも是非読んでみてください

When I read the title I thought, "that's pretty simple," but then I realized early in the talk that, when he says from scratch, he means from SCRATCH! We're not talking about going to buy plastic from the store & then fitting it for a toaster case, we're talking going to the mines to mine the original elements! This was a great talk!

Excellent exposition of the power of productive cooperation in our economy today.

What he should have done was use another form of insulation, like wrapping and tying tree bark around the wires. Or just use the plastic he created. That was the most impressive part to me--the plastic. I think he could have made a better cover if he'd reheated portions of it and smoothed it out after the molding process.

That's one very beautiful toaster he made - more beautiful than any elven armor made by the Elves in Rivendale.

Now this was humbling.

We learned, we don't really have to be an expert in each part of a process of doing something, just to know who knows to do It...we will save a lot of money and time. On the other hand, we don't have to have all the knowlegde of the specific things, just to know where to find It and the most important how to use It.

Fun fact related to the ad at the end. Cisco has built a great firewall for China to help the Chinese break free from the free flow of ideas.

If you get sent back into a time where it's essentially medieval Europe you might think like this guy. "I can change the world, but realize you can't." I remember stuff at school, but honestly not enough to just know all the materials nor could I just recreate most things. I might be able to come up with some do it yourself solutions for some issues and I would at least be aware that witches don't exist, and neither does magic. I think there are two easy things you could at least attempt to introduce to the world (Which might get you labeled as a witch) that would be realistic to implement. 1. The importance of hygiene and quarantining during sickness. If somehow you can implement that you could stop a plague. 2. The lightning rod, it's literally just a rod of metal, they had metal, you should understand at least the basic concept of grounding and also the metal being in a position to be struck first and it should be a success. Granted however that people don't see you as a devil for stopping Gods creation or what not. Other than that I think any invention that doesn't require an engine, electricity, and things of that nature could probably be recreated by trial and error as long as you've at least seen it before. It's a fun thing to think about, I like to imagine how fun it would be. Ever since I was a kid and watched a Kid in King Arthur's Court I always wondered what I would do if I was in a situation like that. Reality I'd probably die immediately because my accent and skin color wasn't the same and they would immediately assume I am a spy or an enemy. Lol

5:34 WHERE IS THAT AWESOME RIVER!? Oh it's where I live....

This is why I'm skeptical about a "self-sustaining civilization on Mars".

The BP burn is still funny 13 years later. RIP Gulf of Mexico.

douglas adams would be proud. that was the kind of talk i expect from TED.

A lot of people are going to struggle to understand the point of this video, finding his quest pointless - but there is an important message here. Despite the fact that we live in this age of information it is sometimes surprisingly hard to learn the basics of something from scratch. I encountered a similar problem when trying to learn the basic principles on which a CPU chip works. I kid you not, EVERY online resource simply says something to the effect of "the CPU goes there and does this".

is he the goat man

We truly stand on the shoulders of giants.

Came here from Tim Pool's conversation with Mike Rowe.

@kiddhitta its pretty much the same thing. the bread gets crunchy and dry. all you need is an open flame to toast or grill bread.

The more advanced a civilization gets, the more severe its collapse is.

This was very enjoyable. I will share this lesson with my children so that they can better understand how lucky they are that the live in the present.

A great lesson in the division of labor, if I remember correctly, chapter one of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.

Heaven forbid someone make a error in the heat of an argument. Don't make idiotic assumptions about one's knowledge because of one mistake. You were smart enough to see it, so you also should have been smart enough to consider that I might not have made it intentionally.

@christo930 But that's the point of the talk. He's showing us how dependent we are on the rest of society... if he would have made a perfect toaster, his point would have been ruined. It also strengthens his point even more that he had to use the leaf blower and the microwave etc. The toaster was a colossal failure, but the talk was an amazing success.

This would be an awesome idea for a tv series like scrapheap challenge but it would be for people who had only internet and some prepared resources for help. "Make a lightbulb" or an "electric motor". Held in Africa with top students.

@1010011010is29a It's an illustration of complexity; a demonstration that the world around us has a complicated history of technologies that depend on each other. He's not using rudimentary tech because he's trying to illustrate a low-tech way of doing this, he's using rudimentary tech because that's the easiest method to implement. It's not a challenge to build a toaster without using any modern tech, it's a challenge to build a toaster without premade components.

Great lecture, he is very animated in his movements lol

I am starting to be interested in game dev and some (odd) people recommend building your own game engine from scratch. I am going to be sending them this video from now on.

Awesome TEDtalk ... Hilarious too

@EqualAndFree Yes, that's a good point. But I think there is always gonna be potential for another society just like this after this one. Whether it is from garbage or from mines.

real life minecraft

I'm here in 2020 because I read about this man trying to remove the language part of his brain in an effort to become a goat.

What happens if we have to start again civilisation the majority of humanity don’t know anything don’t know how to survive even! This is quite an eye opening video

This is a great argument against the anti-society attitude of the libertarians and margaret thatchers of the world. I notice people saying that this is obviously biased and not the way you'd build a toaster if you absolutely had to from scratch, but that's rather missing the point as it's still a relatively simple device compared to everything else. A Computer Mouse was another good example.

It's true that if it's not farmed it's mined! Check out careers in Canadian mining by searching explore for more mining.

@mangoswiss He only set out to build a toaster from raw elements. He never said he couldn't use any technology to build it, a method which might be impossible. Toasters are a recent invention does demand at least SOME technology to build. It defeats the story that he mentioned at the beginning, but you get the idea.

My goal in life is to give every individual the ability to create their own infrastructure. The trick is self-propagating machinery and home agriculture

Which is why trying to jump straight to the toaster on day one is an idiotic move. Arthur *was* right to a degree, however, as knowledge of advanced technology (and the Guide to look it up in) would allow him to make the locals progress a lot *faster*--because all the hard theory and experimenting had already been done, and he just had to teach methods, step by step.

The leaf blower , how did you make that? 😂

Chad Primitive Technologies looking at this smiling

Many things may come from combined knowledge, but new knowledge always comes from the individual, not a group, just one person. One person created the toaster. One person created the lightbulb. One person developed the farming methods that allowed us to stop our nomadic lifestyle. To believe that, EVERYONE had a role in this development is a tad bit shortsighted.

Great!

I would totally buy that haha.

I like this guy

So Thomas Jefferson didn't invent the lightbulb that is the basis of all the lightbulbs we know and use today? Got ya. As for farming, no one who knows who started farming as we know it, but most of the popular and efficient techniques known today were developed by single people. As for the toaster, I'l give you that one. The point I'm making is that it isn't about a bunch of people sitting down together and making ideas. It's one person spreading their ideas. The individual. Not the group

TONY STARK - BUILT A TOASTER IN A CAVE!!! WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS!!!

awesome !

He should have tried to make a Toastmaster - that only takes a few years - but you have to keep still.

Love This. Great Project. Very Awesome. Even though he had to cheat.

@instereovideos that was my point, you haven't told me anything I didn't already know. I was being sarcastic.

epic win

The title should be: "How to build an Xbox One from scratch".

based on his original premise, he should have bought an OLD toaster. not to mention he was trying to do it with clearly no knowledge of electronics. if his talents lie elsewhere, if he ended up in the situation he mentioned, you make use of WHAT YOU KNOW, not what you USED in your technological society. and you don't make things from scratch, or atleast not entirely, you start with what THEIR society can make, and improve it, and assist THEM in INNOVATION.

He's amazing 😂

you gotta give it to him

5:33 - woah major pixellation??

Academia: travel around the world, fuck around, produce something which doesn't work, get invited to TED.

소재 책에서 이야기나와서 보러왔는데 진짜 대박이네

guys from econ 103, Hello!

Impressive -- and crazy :)

Ted talks used to be real research.

How Creative

I just stopped watching at 4:45. It just defeats the entire purpose of the project.

Well, he didn't have wikipedia, but he had a HItchhikkers Guide to the Galaxy.

@majob Individual acheivement is all well and good, but good luck inventing a toaster before iron or electricity has been invented. Everything is dependent on what came before. That's the point he was trying to make.

@kght222 oh and the biggest problem with making a toaster on a primitive world isn't the toaster itself, and its not even a big problem, it just takes a retarded amount of time: to generate energy you need magnets. magnetite aka load stones are very weak, so you have to start with them in a turbine generator, make slightly more powerful magnets, and repeat, thousands of times. and that probably wont be possible anyway, because if they are primitive they probably don't have magnetite,

dont mock his arm waving i ALWAYS DO THAT!

Hey he cheated! He used a leaf blower! And a bin! And a microwave! And a train!

@christo930 I think this was the subliminal point

£1200. Easy on the gesturing Tom. Thought you were gonna take off.

@gwapigs Man! You beat me to it.

uhh is this the guy who lived as a goat?

Simple--because it burns the bread faster, more evenly, and more efficiently than would could by doing it by hand over a fire. That said--stupid methodology to try to jump from zero to the modern device in one go. You have to build the tools to build the tools--and understand (pun intended) the core elements of the device in the first place. Assuming he had a power source to start with, all he really needed was the heating element, and something to keep him from burning *himself*.

@matt517472 Hahaha so true. Its TED's new theme these days.

What is this taster he keep talking about?