The Toaster Project

Here is an interesting piece of "research" by Thomas Thwaites. Its called the The Toaster Project (Link via Freakonomics blog).

In this research, he is trying to make a toaster all by himself by first searching for all the raw materials. Now if you did not know, raw materials include iron, plastic, etc. Iron has to be mined. Plastic has to be chemically produced. You need to mold the iron produced to bring it to shape of a toaster or a wire. It is an interesting read. I quote a line below from the article

I think our position is ambiguous - the scale of industry involved in making a toaster [etc.] is ridiculous but at the same time the chain of discoveries and small technological developments that occurred along the way make it entirely reasonable.

What he says is absolutely true.

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