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Technology Videos 160 videos

History of Technology 1: Windmills
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What's the deal with wind? And why does it have to be so...windy?

History of Technology 2: Wheels
213 Views

How did people move stuff around before the wheel was invented? More importantly, why didn't they take a break for a few minutes from moving stuff...

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History of Technology 5: Plastic 8 Views


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Description:

Time to learn about plastic, unoriginal Barbie jokes, and Ryan Gosling. All part of a typical Shmoop day.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:01

No In domestic technology the line between industrial and post

00:07

industrial is settled There are no giant a bombs no

00:11

massive information technology revolutions know Hey lookee there It's A

00:16

modern highway system thing These Yeah Instead the modernization of

00:21

domestic technology was a series of new materials and little

00:24

discoveries Plastic is at the top of the list of

00:27

stuff that suddenly altered our lives We bet there are

00:30

some skeptics out there So let's play a game let's

00:33

Imagine there's a giant magnet in the room that on

00:37

ly sucks up plastic Oops There goes the computer because

00:40

well that's ninety percent plastic Oh and there go most

00:44

of the other electronics too Whoa Now we've got rubber

00:47

erasers power chords old happy meal toys that we were

00:51

saving man are closed too well they were all polyester

00:55

rayon and spandex So now we're all naked and thankful

00:59

for the anonymity of the internet can sometimes provide all

01:02

right Well the point's been made abundantly clear Plastic is

01:06

everywhere But what is it exactly Well technically it's any

01:10

sort of material that could be moulded are shaped in

01:12

any form Our heart's desire There are some naturally occurring

01:15

Plastics but the vast majority of them are made by

01:18

humans It's a kind of our thing chemists can make

01:22

about a jillion different kinds of plastic We need a

01:25

much longer video to get into the nitty gritty of

01:27

how they do it but long story short they take

01:30

some oil rearrange the molecules in fun ways and glad

01:34

oh we've got plastic all right one of the more

01:38

useful things about most plastic is that it's chemically inert

01:41

All right well this means that when it comes into

01:43

contact with certain other chemicals it's like whatever this is

01:48

why we can store gas acid water alcohol soap and

01:52

all kinds of other things in plastic containers without those

01:55

containers dissolving The other thing that makes plastic as irresistible

02:00

as ryan gosling is that plastic can we molded in

02:03

a pretty much any shape we want name a thing

02:06

and we can probably figure out how to make it

02:08

out of plastic bottles cups utensils avengers action figures lifesize

02:14

replicas of ryan gosling Well we can make it all

02:17

out of plastic though some might question the Wisdom Of 00:02:20.918 --> [endTime] at least 1 of those things

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