If we look around us, much of what surrounds us started life as various rocks and sludge buried in the ground in various places in the world. But, of course, they don't look like rocks and sludge now. They look like TV cameras, monitors, annoying radio mics. And so this magical transformation is what I was trying to get at with my project, which became known as the Toaster Project. And it was also inspired by this quote from Douglas Adams, and the situation is from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." And the situation it describes is the hero of the book -- he's a 20th-century man -- finds himself alone on a strange planet populated only by a technologically primitive people. And he kind of assumes that, yes, he'll become -- these villagers -- he'll become their emperor and transform their society with his wonderful command of technology and science and the elements, but, of course, realizes that without the rest of human society, he can barely make a sandwich, let alone a toaster. But he didn't have Wikipedia.
看看四周 身邊周圍很多東西 原先只是各種石頭或爛泥 埋在世界的各個角落 當然現在看起來並不像石頭或爛泥 而是像電視攝影機啦、螢幕啦 或惱人的無線麥克風 這樣驚人的轉變 正是我所著手的計畫 也就是--烤麵包機計畫 我也是受到亞當斯(Douglas Adams)的一句話 所啟發的 場景是來自小說《銀河便車指南》 內容是在描述 書裡的英雄--一個20世紀的人-- 發現自己處在一個陌生的星球 上面只住有原始技術的人 他有點假想自己 會變成這些居民的... 這些人的皇帝 並將其社會轉型 用他豐富的科技知識 加上科學及其他元素 但是,當然啦 他發現若沒有其餘人類社會的部分 他連三明治都做不大出來 更別說是烤麵包機了 但他沒有維基百科
So I thought, okay, I'll try and make an electric toaster from scratch. And, working on the idea that the cheapest electric toaster would also be the simplest to reverse-engineer, I went and bought the cheapest toaster I could find, took it home and was kind of dismayed to discover that, inside this object, which I'd bought for just 3.49 pounds, there were 400 different bits made out of a hundred-plus different materials. I didn't have the rest of my life to do this project. I had maybe nine months. So I thought, okay, I'll start with five. And these were steel, mica, plastic, copper and nickel.
所以我想說 那我就來從零開始做個烤麵包機 要實行這個想法 買台最便宜的烤麵包機 就是最簡單的逆向操作 我盡力去買了最便宜的烤麵包機 帶回家後 有點傻眼的發現 這個東西裡面 這個我才花3英鎊45便士(約170台幣)買的東西 竟然有400種不同的小零件 由100多種材料所製成 我不是要花一輩子的時間去研究 只有大概9個月 所以我想說,那就先從5個開始吧 有鋼、雲母 塑膠、銅和鎳
So, starting with steel: how do you make steel? I went and knocked on the door of the Rio Tinto Chair of Advanced Mineral Extraction at the Royal School of Mines and said, "How do you make steel?" And Professor Cilliers was very kind and talked me through it. And my vague rememberings from GCSE science -- well, steel comes from iron, so I phoned up an iron mine. And said, "Hi, I'm trying to make a toaster. Can I come up and get some iron?" Unfortunately, when I got there -- emerges Ray. He had misheard me and thought I was coming up because I was trying to make a poster, and so wasn't prepared to take me into the mines. But after some nagging, I got him to do that.
那先從鋼開始,如何鍊鋼? 我登門拜訪了 力拓礦業的主席 他在英國皇家礦業學校教「進階採礦學」 我問他要如何煉鋼 西里斯(Cilliers)教授人很好 他詳細的向我說明 我依稀記得國中的自然課教過 鋼來自於鐵 所以我就打電話給一家鐵礦場 我說:「哈囉,我想做一個烤麵包機(toaster)」 「可以過去跟你要一些鐵嗎?」 結果,我到那裡之後,雷(Ray)出現了 他聽錯我的意思 以為我去是要做海報(poster) 所以沒準備要帶我進礦場 我好說歹說之後終於說服了他
(Video) Ray: It was Crease Limestone, and that was produced by sea creatures 350 million years ago in a nice, warm, sunny atmosphere. When you study geology, you can see what's happened in the past, and there were terrific changes in the earth.
(影片) 雷:這是褶曲石灰岩 由海底生物 所產生的 在3億5千萬年前 有著舒適、溫暖 陽光的環境下 等你讀地質學之後 就能看見過去發生的事 中間有很多大變動
Thomas Thwaites: As you can see, they had the Christmas decorations up. And of course, it wasn't actually a working mine anymore, because, though Ray was a miner there, the mine had closed and had been reopened as a kind of tourist attraction, because, of course, it can't compete on the scale of operations which are happening in South America, Australia, wherever. But anyway, I got my suitcase of iron ore and dragged it back to London on the train, and then was faced with the problem: Okay, how do you make this rock into components for a toaster?
湯瑪士斯韋茨: 如你所見,他們還有聖誕節的裝飾 當然,這個礦場已經沒有在運作了 雖然雷曾是那裡的礦工 但這間礦場已經關閉 並以觀光為主重新開放 因為他的確無法 跟現在的南美、澳洲等地方的 經營規模相比 反正呢,我裝了整箱的鐵礦 坐火車拖回倫敦 然後問題來了: 要怎麼把這顆石頭 變成烤麵包機的元件?
So I went back to Professor Cilliers, and he said, "Go to the library." So I did and was looking through the undergraduate textbooks on metallurgy -- completely useless for what I was trying to do. Because, of course, they don't actually tell you how to do it if you want to do it yourself and you don't have a smelting plant. So I ended up going to the History of Science Library and looking at this book. This is the first textbook on metallurgy written in the West, at least. And there you can see that woodcut is basically what I ended up doing. But instead of a bellows, I had a leaf blower. (Laughter) And that was something that reoccurred throughout the project, was, the smaller the scale you want to work on, the further back in time you have to go. And so this is after a day and about half a night smelting this iron. I dragged out this stuff, and it wasn't iron. But luckily, I found a patent online for industrial furnaces that use microwaves, and at 30 minutes at full power, and I was able to finish off the process.
所以我又回去找西里斯教授 他說: 「去圖書館找」 我就去了 然後翻了一些關於冶金學的研究生教科書 -- 跟我要做的完全不相干 想也知道他們不可能真的教你怎麼做 如果是DIY,又沒有冶鍊廠 所以最後我去了科學史博物館 看到了這本書 這是西方在寫冶金學的 第一本教科書 你看到的木刻畫呢 基本上就是我後來做的事 只是我沒有風箱,但我有吹落葉機 (笑聲) 整個計畫在重現的就是 你想投入的規模越小 就要用越原始的方法來做 所以這就是在 大概一天又半個晚上之後 我把鐵礦融化了 然後我把它拉出來 結果不是鐵 幸好 我在網路上找到一個專利 就是工業用的微波融爐 火力全開30分鐘後 差不多就完成了
So, my next -- (Applause) The next thing I was trying to get was copper. Again, this mine was once the largest copper mine in the world. It's not anymore, but I found a retired geology professor to take me down, and he said, "Okay, I'll let you have some water from the mine." And the reason I was interested in getting water is because water which goes through mines becomes kind of acidic and will start picking up, dissolving the minerals from the mine. And a good example of this is the Rio Tinto, which is in Portugal. As you can see, it's got lots and lots of minerals dissolved in it. So many such that it's now just a home for bacteria who really like acidic, toxic conditions. But anyway, the water I dragged back from the Isle of Anglesey where the mine was -- there was enough copper in it such that I could cast the pins of my metal electric plug.
所以接下來... (鼓掌) 接下來我要找銅 一樣,這個礦場 之前曾是全世界最大的銅礦場 現在不是了 我找到一位退休的地質學教授 來帶我下去 他說: 「好,我讓你在礦場裡取些水」 我想要拿到水的理由是 因為流過整個礦場的水 會變得偏酸性 而且會帶走 和溶解礦物裡的礦物質 力拓礦業有個不錯的例子 這是在葡萄牙 你可以看到,有很多的礦物溶解在裡面 多到呢 現在變成細菌的滋生地 因為細菌喜歡酸又有毒的環境 總之,我從安格爾西島的礦場 帶回來的水裡 含有足夠的銅 能讓我鑄造出 插頭的金屬腳
So my next thing: I was off to Scotland to get mica. And mica is a mineral which is a very good insulator and very good at insulating electricity. That's me getting mica. And the last material I'm going to talk about today is plastic, and, of course, my toaster had to have a plastic case. Plastic is the defining feature of cheap electrical goods. And so plastic comes from oil, so I phoned up BP and spent a good half an hour trying to convince the PR office at BP that it would be fantastic for them if they flew me to an oil rig and let me have a jug of oil. BP obviously has a bit more on their mind now. But even then they weren't convinced and said, "Okay, we'll phone you back" -- never did. So I looked at other ways of making plastic. And you can actually make plastic from obviously oils which come from plants, but also from starches. So this is attempting to make potato starch plastic. And for a while that was looking really good. I poured it into the mold, which you can see there, which I've made from a tree trunk. And it was looking good for a while, but I left it outside, because you had to leave it outside to dry, and unfortunately I came back and there were snails eating the unhydrolyzed bits of potato.
所以再下來,我到蘇格蘭 去採雲母 雲母是一種 很好的絕緣體 隔絕電的效果很好 這是我拿到雲母的樣子 今天要講的最後一項材料是塑膠 當然啦 烤麵包機一定要有塑膠外殼 塑膠是便宜電器的 一個特點 塑膠來自石油,我就打給英國石油公司 花了半個小時 在說服公關 我說如果他們可以 帶我飛到油井去 取一罐石油的話就太好了 英國石油公司顯然地還有很多其他事要做。 但即使如此 他們還是無法接受 就說「好的,我們會再跟你聯絡」--根本沒有 所以我就尋求其他方法 其實要製造塑膠 可以從植物或是澱粉類食物中取得 所以我就試著做個 馬鈴薯澱粉塑膠 一開始看起來還不錯 我倒進模具裡,在那邊 我用樹幹做的 一開始看起來還不錯 但是我放在外面之後,因為要風乾 過了一會兒再回來 就出現好幾隻蝸牛在吃馬鈴薯未水解的部分
So kind of out of desperation, I decided that I could think laterally. And geologists have actually christened -- well, they're debating whether to christen -- the age that we're living in -- they're debating whether to make it a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, the age of Man. And that's because geologists of the future would kind of see a sharp shift in the strata of rock that is being laid down now. So suddenly, it will become kind of radioactive from Chernobyl and the 2,000 or so nuclear bombs that have been set off since 1945. And there'd also be an extinction event -- like fossils would suddenly disappear. And also, I thought that there would be synthetic polymers, plastics, embedded in the rock.
在絕望之後呢 我決定做橫向思考 地質學家有要命名-- 還在爭議當中啦-- 我們生活的這個世紀-- 到底要不要劃下一個新地質時代 稱之為「人類世」,即人類的時代 因為未來的地質學家 會在下沉的地層岩石中 發現急劇的變動 突然間,車諾比的輻射事件啦、 1945年後發射的 2千顆核彈啦 還有絕種的事件 像化石突然不見 還有,我想 還會有 很多合成聚合物 像是塑膠啦,嵌在石頭裡
So I looked up a plastic -- so I decided that I could mine some of this modern-day rock. And I went up to Manchester to visit a place called Axion Recycling. And they're at the sharp end of what's called the WEEE, which is this European electrical and electronic waste directive. And that was brought into force to try and deal with the mountain of stuff that is just being made and then living for a while in our homes and then going to landfill. But this is it.
所以我到處找 決定採一些 「現代」的石頭 我到曼徹斯特去 找一個地方叫「Axion回收場」 他們處在所謂WEEE的第一線 也就是「歐洲報廢電子電氣設備指令」 那是在實施 去處理一大堆的東西 才剛被製造出來 在我們家裡用了一陣子之後 就進了掩埋場 大概是這樣
(Music)
(音樂)
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So there's a picture of my toaster. (Applause) That's it without the case on. And there it is on the shelves. Thanks.
這就是我做的 烤麵包機 (鼓掌) 這是外殼拿掉的樣子 還有放在架上的樣子 謝謝大家
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
Bruno Giussani: I'm told you did plug it in once.
布魯諾吉桑尼: 我說你也插上一次插頭吧
TT: Yeah, I did plug it in. I don't know if you could see, but I was never able to make insulation for the wires. Kew Gardens were insistent that I couldn't come and hack into their rubber tree. So the wires were uninsulated. So there was 240 volts going through these homemade copper wires, homemade plug. And for about five seconds, the toaster toasted, but then, unfortunately, the element kind of melted itself. But I considered it a partial success, to be honest.
有阿,我有插 不知道你們有沒有發現 我沒有做電線的絕緣皮 皇家植物園的態度很硬 說我不能擅自取用橡膠樹 所以電線是不絕緣的 結果240伏特的電 流過整個手工的銅線 手工的插頭 大概有五秒鐘 麵包機有在烤 可是之後 那些原件感覺有點融化 可是我認為還是算成功啦,說真的
BG: Thomas Thwaites. TT: Thanks.
-湯瑪士斯韋茨 -謝謝