or take an ipad with al the books and a solar powered charger. I really like this skit since I had actually been teasing some for years doing a 'where does the poo go when you flush the toilet civilian' or 'sure you can tighten the bolts and polish the paint but how are the parts made for a car' Another is 'we are one discovery channel show away from civilians (or Americans or Canadians) thinking my ipad was made by aliens'
They could at least tell you that the wall is powered by a mains electric circuit, and hopefully how electricity works... might come unstuck at that point though.
crojonphoenix In the future God isn't some faceless distant deity disinterested in the daiky travails of Mankind. In the future God is a wall. Which is why President Trump is building us the biggest baddest one ever
I thought that was an 'a slap on titan' joke for a moment there.
Před 6 lety+91
The microwave mention is a perfect example for Dara's point: it looks *so* simple: put in stuff, press a few buttons (don't expect the clock to not blink, of course), and hey presto, your food is done. BUT on the inside, it's one of the most complex machines we can build today. The magnetron (the thing that actual produces the microwaves the microwave oven is named after) is a product of the development of RADAR!
Reminds me that the microwave was the example used in the _Expanse_ books of a machine that would be unfathomable to beings that didn't know what it was for. Plug it in, and it's a light with a clock on it. Or is it a cupboard? Perhaps it's a musical instrument if you slam the door and open it again repeatedly.
It's not even close to being "one of the most complex machines we can build today". It's roughly equivalent to a CRT TV. By most measures of complexity it's far less complex than a smartphone, for example.
hooo damn if you think a microwave is complex.... don't pop the hood of a car, and definitely avoid Best Buy. 3/4 of the store would give you a heart attack of amazement.
@@raythe9264 I understand your point, but... I think it's more of the intelectual complexity that is talked about and not just mechanical parts. Car just has a thing that goes boom every fraction of a second to spin a stick around. Magnetron uses a strong electromagnetic force to emit electrons, that have their path curved by a permanent magnet, into a positively charged copper anode, radiating during their travel. On top of that, the pikes on the copper anode work as catode/anode pairs, and because they are connected with an inductor, they enter a state of LC oscillation. With an attached antenna, this oscillation is extracted into electromagnetic waves. The electrons are attracted to the moving oscillator, and accelerate, spinning in place. As long as electrons are replenished, the oscillator keeps going, and the electrons keep radiating. And that is the *easy* explanation, and I might have gotten something wrong. The renaissance people at least had a gun to compare with an engine, there is nothing comparable to a magnetron other than a spirit of god. Even in our modern era it's hard to explain it effectively.
"But we have horseless carts from a company called Tesla" "How does it work?" "Errrr..we have a cable that we put into the wall..." "Long cable is it?"
I actually had to look up how a refrigerator works, and it's a really cool trick! It's all about how increasing the pressure on a fluid increases its temperature, and vice versa - squeeze the fluid near a radiating surface to dump waste heat, then pump the cooler coolant up and decrease the pressure radically - which sucks the heat out of the pipe its in. Blow air from the refrigerator across that cooled pipe to cool the air. Then, the coolant is sent back down to the radiator and compressed again - and the cycle repeats, as long as there's electricity to drive the pump and blow the air. A toaster, on the other hand, is simple as hell. Forcing electricity through a resistor heats it up, easy to understand. A toaster has coils of skinny wire that provide a lot of resistance, which heats the wires, which heat the food. Of course, as for how you get the electricity...hard to understand, but easy to do if you know what a magnet is and can get your hands on some copper wire.
let me try. There's this particle called the electron which is a part of all matter. When moving it does work. When a conductor (a substance that these electrons can easily move through) passes perpendicularly through a magnetic field, it disrupts the electrons in the conductor, forcing it to move, generating something we call current. The more times this conductor passes through the field, the more electrons are made to move. This motion can be harnessed to do things like create light.
now let's move on to chemical batteries. As we know, every atom of a substance has a charge. if it's neutral, we call it an atom, if it's positive or negative, we call it a positive or negative ion. there are two kinds of reactions these things can go through, reductions, a process where it lowers the charge, and an oxidation reaction, the exact opposite. by constructing two half cells the components of which are empirically determined, one can make electrons flow through the conductor connecting these half cells. The movement of these electrons can then be harnessed to do things.
+Geoffrey Lim Try explaining that to someone who doesn't believe in atoms or kinetic theory. How do you explain that you can harness the motion of tiny invisible "things" to heat something up, to somebody who thinks heat is a fluid?
Either go to the future first and grab some brain implants, or take something like genetically engineered crops, which can by widely used even if you don't bring knowledge of genetic engineering.
Bits like this from comedians make me feel better. I may be down on my luck, sick and unemployed, but I have degrees in science and engineering. I can describe all the parts of a computer and what they do, and I know how the internet is put together ... that knowledge doesn't get me anything except in this hypothetical time travel scenario. Employers aren't exactly coming out and asking, "so, how (mechanically speaking) does the internet work", but dang it I could not make a fool out of myself in these heavily contrived time travel situations! (Edit: Refrigerator - extension and contraction of gases, governed by the Ideal Gas Law PV=nRT. The Hum is the turning of fan blades and moving of air pumps. Toaster - electrical resistance. All substances (except superconductors) resist the flow of electricity. As current flows the the uninsulated wire (which is made to be a poor conductor) it resists the flow of current. That resistance takes generates waist heat as the electricity forces it's way through, turning the wire red hot.)
And even more importantly, you (and I) could build a somewhat functional battery or a simple generator and actually power a toaster. They did have pretty pure metals and they did have copper wire and magnets back then.
@Lawsonomy you also need to make sure to speak the language of the place and time where you end up in your time travel. Chances are that even if you travel to the same country but 300-400 years ago, people won't be able to understand you. And the chances are you will be executed before you get an audience with the great science minds of that era :)
I think explaining mechanisms and theory is probably the easier bit to me. Building a prototype of any modern technology in the medieval era, however...
Señore Da Vinci, I want you to imagine a large rectangular building, essentially box rooms stacked upon box rooms. In every room of this building is a light. Now, if I stand outside this metaphorically building, from its side, I can see which rooms are lit and which are not. Now I suppose, then, that its possible to create a picture or spell a letter with the right combination of rooms lit, using only the light they emit. This building is a metaphor for what we in the future call a "transistor". A transistor helps us take the millions of "on/off" switches (the lights in the building) and turn it into a computers command, or a rendering of a picture. It is powered by thin wires of copper, which conduct electrical pulses toward the device and powers it.
Could any single one of us travel back 500 years and build a digital computer using what was available then? Well maybe if you had enough time, and built a wall first.
P Hampton I sort of doubt that the majority of Americans could start a fire without matches or a lighter. And then they'd probably let the fire burn down the wall.
+P Hampton You first need to know what you need to build into the wall to make the pictures change and to power your toaster from the power of flushing the toilet.
+P Hampton I could build one out of water, to prove the concept. Electricity would be more difficult. Hard to dope a transistor without a lot of processed materials.
True as it maybe if you are surrounded by the most intelligent people of the era, even if you are stupid you are a valuable gem to them. As long as you can explain a bit more than just saying "it goes in the wall...". It'll be like piecing a puzzle together, the only one who sort of knows the answer will be you, but even if you are wrong on some parts if it functions anything close to what how you explain it that is a big enough advancement.
gosh i never recognized how much all the walls in this world changed my life! i got nice breakfest or ice in the summer, i am able to use the internet and play video games everytime i want to. Even my stomach i can empty with the help of walls and i never said thanks to it...what a prick i am...feeling so bad right now thanks Dara xD
I like to think that if you explained this to them they would all become architects, believing wall-based technology is the future of mankind. Really,Donald Trump would love this.
"Grandma, out of all the modern conveniences here in your kitchen, what do you like the most?" Grandma answer, "Running water. Not having to lug it in from the well."
I feel like at least some basic high school education would blow some of their minds. And all a Time traveler needs to remember is that you get an electric current by spinning a magnet between some coiled copper wire. Connect it to a water wheel on a stream and you have constant electric current. Even the basic principles of the Periodic table would blow the minds of chemists during the renaissance. Explain the importance of sanitation. Don't believe me? Have two sets of doctors working on patients, one that washes their hands and one that does not, and find out how many infections go around. You can also introduce to them the idea that copper surfaces kill more bacteria than any other. Even the basic principle of not burying an armies waste nearby and away from drinking water would be a massive use to any army of your choice. Disease and infection would ravage other armies on the march but not yours. Astronomy, Any high schooler can craft a model of the Solar system that would predict the movement of the planets far better than any available during the renaissance. Though this can kinda be set aside since astronomy isn't really going to be useful for another 400 years.
I could explain refrigerator, air conditioner, toaster and the toilet.. If I don't mention the toilet and the toaster, we wouldn't seem so damned lazy to them.. XP
Good thing I have enough knowledge about electrical engineering and computer science to atleast answer the first few questions somewhat decently. This video showed me, however, that I need to delve deeper into toilets. :P
I suppose that’s true but in reality most people should be able to explain how a toilet works or where sewage goes. Same with the internet. 90% of kids can tell you how a computer works and how the internet sends a receives information.
I think about this a lot, I would probably just hand those Italian renaissance men books on mathematics, geology, biology and physics written in modern Italian. Probably give them some art history books too, 20,000 year old to modern paintings, some comics and music theory books showing our fully developed musical techniques and some sheet music containing blues, jazz, rock and funk. Give them some world maps too.
The thing to remember about art and music is that they're cultural, and should be intended to teach them about us, rather than trying to start rock music 400 years early. Otherwise you imply that their musical tastes are primitive and come across as a dick.
If anyone from the present day had shown up in Renaissance Italy claiming to be a time traveller from the future, I think they'd end up locked up in an insane asylum (or similar) *GASP* How many insane asylum inmates in history have been time travellers from the future?!
Dara trained as a physicist too (as did I, but that's less interesting). This is just a comment on society in general. Incidentally, I saw this performed at a university arts centre, and at least half the audience were trying to work out how those things worked.
I had to wonder if he paid those people to offer such perfect examples! I love how the questions are infinitely more intelligent than the answers, and utterly ashamed that my answers would probably be the same but take a lot longer to come after the initial "errrrrr...."
Well, sure, but we would know some stuff, wouldn't we? We'd know about the germ theory of disease, about how to sanitize and quarantine and pasteurize and all that. We'd know not to bleed people, not to sweat the fever out, and about blood typing and rudimentary antibiotics. We'd know the general principles behind powered flight, how to make a hot-air balloon, maybe even how to make a hydrogen balloon, if we could figure out how to produce a direct current. Maybe I don't know exactly how to construct a refrigerator, but I could figure it out if I had the time and the ear of Leonardo da Vinci.
Equals Four Great, so you can say "germ theory of disease". The majority of the population, assuming that they actually even knew the words, wouldn't have the faintest clue on how to explain it. Beyond that, if you can't do anything more than just say "Big airplanes can fly" you are doing nothing more than making an assertion. I know more about the Theory of Flight than 75% of the population but I'm not so pompous as to believe that I could build a working aircraft without access to modern tools and reference material.
Alex Kilgour You know that the lift and propulsion mechanisms are separate. You know Bernoulli's Principle, which means you know how to shape the wing's cross section. You know more than Da Vinci did, as does any modern food service worker when it comes to preventing the spread of contagions.
Equals Four You are giving too much credit to modern food service workers. Besides which, you would be expecting Da Vinci to take the word of an obviously unintelligent individual who can't explain WHY, just that they know they are supposed to wash their hands. When asked "Why" the answer would be "Because that's what they told us when they trained us" or if you were really lucky "Because there are bugs". There are a few people out there who would know enough that they could contribute some interesting tidbits of science, but most of the population, for instance, can turn a light bulb on by flicking a switch, but if you asked them to build a working power grid, including a power source, they would be at a complete loss as to where to start.
Alex Kilgour Okay, you're right. I've been considering myself an average person, but I've done college-level engineering courses. My perspective is askew.
Equals Four Bitch, please, most people don't even know how anything they use everyday works , if you ask them ''do you know how a website is made?'' most won't know that you need HTML and CSS to at least start. As Alex said, scientific knowledge, while available to anyone who knows how to read on the Internet, is of little interest or concern to most people. It's bloody interesting, but unfortunately most people don't know anything about technology. They just use it.
Fiction stories where someone goes back in time and kickstarts a technological revolution so frequently fall over because the author doesn't actually know how technology works and what was actually hard about inventing it in the first place.
Peter joy basically the hot rods are loops of wire with high resistance that causes them to emit energy as heat that toasts the bread out of all the things mentioned in the video this is by far the simplest.
I could explain refrigerator, air conditioner, toaster and the toilet.. If I don't mention the toilet and the toaster, we wouldn't seem so damned lazy to them.. XP
I’m surprised no one has suggested hallowing out a watermelon, setting up four sticks and inventing football. Might help avoid some conflicts here or there, you’d definitely become a hero. That and bikes.
I use this argument all the time with all those gonks who go "if you go back in time with a gun, you can take over the world!" Oh yeah, chief? You, alone are going to face down a whole army of people who were brought up around warfare since they were children and often fanatical in their devotion to a cause. People who only know how to kill by getting close and watching their enemies die. And you're going to terrify them all with a loud bang? Yeah, hero, go ahead. I'll go with you. I can't wait to see what they do when they realize this mystical power of long range death can run out...
That is Engineer porn, the problem is most of us would fail at it, because our knowledge depends on an existing infrastructure and a plethora of reference books, modeling and computational software - and the internet... But there is always en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Stargard
I could probably manage electric lighting, but that's about it. The tricky part is getting sufficient voltage from whatever electricity I get to make the resistor glow. Im sure a simple waterwheel and gearing system could produce enough DC power for a working demo, if nothing else.
Maybe inspired by the movie "Non ci resta che piangere" (1984) by the two great comedians Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi in which they are thrown back to 1492 and have the idea of making huge money by suggesting inventions to Leonardo da Vinci. And obviously - being just a primary school teacher and a janitor - they are totally unable to describe things to the great Leonardo.
I agree that a vast majority of people wouldn't have an idea how to explain electricity, but even i can do better than: it hums, or the thing that lives in the wall. just explain it as wires transporting lightning through the ground, and an airtight seal plus a fan to pump out the hot air or something. if they were truly intelligent they could probably take inspiration and come up with an alternative. indeed, principles like, keeping food cold and cleaning stuff as much as possible would improve life expectancy back then.
I believe Finny was simply stating that Minecraft isn't a good example (while not refuting that there are people who know how to build computers from scratch). Every reply in this thread is from a different person anyhow.
+Craig Simpson Well it's easy, the nega energy accumulator makes a rift in the time space continuum, in which the machine travels through but if I were to explain it in detail well it's about 13200 years of engineering, math, physics and bad fast food, I mean they didn't even have Chimichangas...
+Craig Simpson Well it's easy, the nega energy accumulator makes a rift in the time space continuum, in which the machine travels through but if I were to explain it in detail well it's about 13200 years of engineering, math, physics and bad fast food, I mean they didn't even have Chimichangas...
+Craig Simpson He specified a wormhole. So it's an Einstein-Rosen Bridge in which space-time is folded over on itself and a hole punched between the two areas, allowing far more rapid transit. There you go.
+ReddwarfIV *There goes nothing*. Show me your *stable* wormhole. Since you specified an *Einstein-Rosen bridge*, you are talking about a *Schwarzschild wormhole*, which is a maximally extended version of the Schwarzschild metric describing an *eternal* black hole with no charge and no rotation (i.e. an *idealized* black hole that exists eternally from the perspective of external observers). Can you show me such a black hole? Note that in 1962, John A. Wheeler and Robert W. Fuller published a paper showing that this type of wormhole is *unstable* if it connects *two parts of the same universe*, and that it will pinch off too quickly for light (or any particle moving slower than light) that falls in from one exterior region to make it to the other exterior region. Besides, Schwarzschild wormholes would not traversable in *both directions*. So, how did you solve the stability problem? Did Kip Thorne help you? Perhaps you meant to say it was a Morris-Thorne wormhole? If so, where did you get the exotic matter necessary to open said wormhole? Anyway, according to general relativity, it would not be possible to use a wormhole to travel back to a time earlier than when the wormhole was first created, so, as I said, THERE GOES NOTHING! ;-) I think that I just heard Dara O'Briain groan at your utter lack of comprehension of what you're talking about...
Your right, even if there was an engineer who knew enough to design...say, a microprocessor by himself. Which even by itself is kind of doubtful. He wouldnt know enough about everything that went into the entire manufacturing process to then turn that knowledge into a CPU. Then capacitors, circuitry, memory controller, memory, hard drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor.... Yup, PCs are where one of many of our modern technologies could no longer by replicated by any single human being.
I'd give good odds that anyone who has played minecraft and has done anything with redstone logic could (if hey found a mechanical engineer of the time) build clock work computing a few hundred years early. Digital technology is built on using electricity to determine a logic gate state. We used to use clock work physical gates, all we've done since is make them A LOT smaller.
You can build an adder (most basic computer) quite easily, even with dominoes if you must I could sketch out something more complicated at the logic level. Having done both these I'm pretty sure that the greatest minds of the time could find a way to implement this as some sort of machine, probably like the difference engine.
I could tell them about germ theory, and that's about it. I might be able to explain indoor plumbing well enough to duplicate it. I could tell them a great deal about astronomy (of course I couldn't prove any of it and they'd probably burn me as a witch). I think my best bet to get by using my knowledge of the future in olden times would be to find a troubadour and sell him some songs. I could be their Mozart.
LOL but you're smart and have a good sense of humor that's something :) well I'm off to google this stuff now though I doubt I'll ever be able to explain electricity or things like radio and wifi properly
Lemme just stop your high horse right here - I'm also from a small European country, and it's not like any of that stuff is hidden arcane knowledge. My point is that there's a difference between knowing roughly how stuff works and finding it interesting enough to remember.
Anywhere I can see this show online (without making an account with some shifty website)?... Or know where I can buy a DVD copy and get it shipped to me? I really want to see it but can't seem to find it... :(
This reminds me of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." It's a great book, but the absurdity of the Yankee knowing not only everything there is to know about engineering and medicine but even the dates and times of solar eclipses.can be a bit much.
The best idea in this scenario, is to describe things on a basic level, and let human development continue from there. If you travelled to the 1500's and vaguely described a basic steam engine (actually really simple) you would have advanced science by 200-300 years. Learn the earliest and most basic forms of technology: Steam engines (the early kind) Scientific method (rather than substance) Electricity (generation, basic storage) Drugs (natural plant-based ones) Tips and tricks for later on (to avoid making the same mistakes we did) Even if you could explain in detail how a modern computer worked, they would be unable to build it anyway
I am not convinced most of the advancement is in these few big tricks, as much as in 1000 of tiny tricks. For example, it's possible to make an iron smelter somewhat more efficient by first blowing the flue gasses over gravel to heat the gravel, and then blowing the input air through the gravel to heat the air, thus the fire starts with already hot air and gets hotter with less fuel. The first steam engines were really expensive and inefficient they were hardly used. It's 1000's of little tricks that are needed to get things from working at all to working well.
I LOVE this - but the closed captions are really really bad. I want my deaf friends to be able to appreciate this clip too... but at the moment, that isn't possible...
Actually, Leonardo did invent a kind of modern toilet, but the prince he was working for thought it was too expensive to install compared to the benefit.
It is actually a great idea to start by explaining how sewers work! Maybe also help out with some ideas on agriculture. Or bicycles..? No... study up on penicile and how to sterilizeoperation equipment and operating tables and stuff.
Just telling them "hey. Wash your hands in running water, with soap if you can manage it." Just explaining basic health to them would be really helpful. Really simple things are what you want to get normalized if you find yourself in the past. People jump to complex things, but those items require a lot of prep to actually make at all, or to make useful. Just really simple things take the longest to figure out while having the greatest benefit. If you just help people stay alive, they will invent things faster. We got to where we are by first figuring out how to stop dying so damn much so we had the time to think.
I am a Comp Sci Engineer, I can give a basic lesson on electricity and how to harness it and computational machines. Actually they had ideas on computational logic and building adding machines.
Sadly all you really need is the plans for a better gun. Though id read up on how to make copper wire too. Oh and a bingo contraption for the long evenings
I could explain a lot of modern technology well enough to not sound like an idiot, but I couldn't go into enough detail to allow re-creation of advanced stuff like computers. Still, I could start the Haber process and antibiotics and possibly refrigeration centuries early. That would help humanity a hell of a lot.
Considering what it was primarily used for, do you really want feudal lords to have access to the byproducts of the Haber process? I guess it would make feeding everyone much easier regardless, since the majority of the population would have died horribly last time a regional landowner got insulted at court.
That's the one situation where being an utter nerd would come in handy, because I could totally explain all of those things. (I'm a physicist, and also not very popular at parties.)
I don't think they'd be asking about how to build one, just how it works and a reasonably educated intelligent person can do that to the degree that it is useful. DC electricity generation is 6th grade science. You don't need to know all the nitty gritty about transformers and rectifiers to explain the concept. And computers are just masses of transistors. The idea of a transistor is really simple. You don't need to explain how semiconductors work since they can't use the information yet.
This is funny; however... I can explain how electricity is generated and could even create a mini-generator with a magnet, some copper wire, and some gears. I can explain how a refrigerator works. It works because expanding gas becomes colder. I know what a ballcock valve is and why it is important to modern toilets.
The take away message from this skit for me... time travel with an electrical engineer and a plumber.
or take an ipad with al the books and a solar powered charger. I really like this skit since I had actually been teasing some for years doing a 'where does the poo go when you flush the toilet civilian' or 'sure you can tighten the bolts and polish the paint but how are the parts made for a car' Another is 'we are one discovery channel show away from civilians (or Americans or Canadians) thinking my ipad was made by aliens'
Just imagine to have to explain to people what atoms are when they have no way to prove they exist.
+Wuxian
Well, they all believed in dozens of gods with no way of proving they existed, atoms should be a piece of cake.
They could at least tell you that the wall is powered by a mains electric circuit, and hopefully how electricity works... might come unstuck at that point though.
Ignaz Semmelweis tried to convince doctors about the existence of germs... and they all rejected his notions and continued to let people die.
All bow down and praise the mighty all knowing all powerfull Da'Wall.
crojonphoenix Our new God.
Well it worked for Trump.
crojonphoenix I
crojonphoenix In the future God isn't some faceless distant deity disinterested in the daiky travails of Mankind. In the future God is a wall. Which is why President Trump is building us the biggest baddest one ever
I thought that was an 'a slap on titan' joke for a moment there.
The microwave mention is a perfect example for Dara's point: it looks *so* simple: put in stuff, press a few buttons (don't expect the clock to not blink, of course), and hey presto, your food is done. BUT on the inside, it's one of the most complex machines we can build today. The magnetron (the thing that actual produces the microwaves the microwave oven is named after) is a product of the development of RADAR!
Reminds me that the microwave was the example used in the _Expanse_ books of a machine that would be unfathomable to beings that didn't know what it was for. Plug it in, and it's a light with a clock on it. Or is it a cupboard? Perhaps it's a musical instrument if you slam the door and open it again repeatedly.
@@ReddwarfIV it only lights up if you plug it into an electrical source of the correct frequency and voltage...
It's not even close to being "one of the most complex machines we can build today". It's roughly equivalent to a CRT TV. By most measures of complexity it's far less complex than a smartphone, for example.
hooo damn if you think a microwave is complex.... don't pop the hood of a car, and definitely avoid Best Buy. 3/4 of the store would give you a heart attack of amazement.
@@raythe9264 I understand your point, but... I think it's more of the intelectual complexity that is talked about and not just mechanical parts. Car just has a thing that goes boom every fraction of a second to spin a stick around. Magnetron uses a strong electromagnetic force to emit electrons, that have their path curved by a permanent magnet, into a positively charged copper anode, radiating during their travel. On top of that, the pikes on the copper anode work as catode/anode pairs, and because they are connected with an inductor, they enter a state of LC oscillation. With an attached antenna, this oscillation is extracted into electromagnetic waves. The electrons are attracted to the moving oscillator, and accelerate, spinning in place. As long as electrons are replenished, the oscillator keeps going, and the electrons keep radiating. And that is the *easy* explanation, and I might have gotten something wrong.
The renaissance people at least had a gun to compare with an engine, there is nothing comparable to a magnetron other than a spirit of god. Even in our modern era it's hard to explain it effectively.
"But we have horseless carts from a company called Tesla"
"How does it work?"
"Errrr..we have a cable that we put into the wall..."
"Long cable is it?"
Good one!
I actually had to look up how a refrigerator works, and it's a really cool trick!
It's all about how increasing the pressure on a fluid increases its temperature, and vice versa - squeeze the fluid near a radiating surface to dump waste heat, then pump the cooler coolant up and decrease the pressure radically - which sucks the heat out of the pipe its in. Blow air from the refrigerator across that cooled pipe to cool the air. Then, the coolant is sent back down to the radiator and compressed again - and the cycle repeats, as long as there's electricity to drive the pump and blow the air.
A toaster, on the other hand, is simple as hell. Forcing electricity through a resistor heats it up, easy to understand. A toaster has coils of skinny wire that provide a lot of resistance, which heats the wires, which heat the food.
Of course, as for how you get the electricity...hard to understand, but easy to do if you know what a magnet is and can get your hands on some copper wire.
let me try. There's this particle called the electron which is a part of all matter. When moving it does work. When a conductor (a substance that these electrons can easily move through) passes perpendicularly through a magnetic field, it disrupts the electrons in the conductor, forcing it to move, generating something we call current. The more times this conductor passes through the field, the more electrons are made to move. This motion can be harnessed to do things like create light.
now let's move on to chemical batteries. As we know, every atom of a substance has a charge. if it's neutral, we call it an atom, if it's positive or negative, we call it a positive or negative ion.
there are two kinds of reactions these things can go through, reductions, a process where it lowers the charge, and an oxidation reaction, the exact opposite. by constructing two half cells the components of which are empirically determined, one can make electrons flow through the conductor connecting these half cells. The movement of these electrons can then be harnessed to do things.
+Technodreamer TL;DR It goes into the wall
MsKittyGoesMeowMeow Bah, that's not interesting!
+Geoffrey Lim Try explaining that to someone who doesn't believe in atoms or kinetic theory. How do you explain that you can harness the motion of tiny invisible "things" to heat something up, to somebody who thinks heat is a fluid?
Meanwhile, a contractor from the 1600s would think: 'Damn, building walls sure is more sophisticated work 400 years in the future'.
he sure would think so, we barely use lime while making walls now
If we seem intelligent, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants
I'm the giant whose shoulders you'd have stood on if you could stand, ill give you a brief history of pain with the back of my hand
RagingFly You can't destroy matter or me, for serious! Ripping holes in you bigger than the hole in your black hole theory was!
We be dropping mad apples on their heads, from the shoulders of giants
ZachValkyrie not here at aperture science we make all our science fresh
@@briantorres5363 No hand holding.
The people of the future and their amazing walls!
My time travelling dreams have been smashed beyond all recognition. DAMN.
Solution: learn how the walls work.
To to the early 1900s, all the things will be built soon. That's where I'd travel.
Who said your time machine had to go backwards in time?
@@Liwet. So you'd want to go forwards in time and look like an even bigger idiot with the education level of a 10 year old?
Either go to the future first and grab some brain implants, or take something like genetically engineered crops, which can by widely used even if you don't bring knowledge of genetic engineering.
if I was in the past, my takeaway would be that walls are really important in the future.
Bits like this from comedians make me feel better. I may be down on my luck, sick and unemployed, but I have degrees in science and engineering. I can describe all the parts of a computer and what they do, and I know how the internet is put together ... that knowledge doesn't get me anything except in this hypothetical time travel scenario. Employers aren't exactly coming out and asking, "so, how (mechanically speaking) does the internet work", but dang it I could not make a fool out of myself in these heavily contrived time travel situations!
(Edit: Refrigerator - extension and contraction of gases, governed by the Ideal Gas Law PV=nRT. The Hum is the turning of fan blades and moving of air pumps.
Toaster - electrical resistance. All substances (except superconductors) resist the flow of electricity. As current flows the the uninsulated wire (which is made to be a poor conductor) it resists the flow of current. That resistance takes generates waist heat as the electricity forces it's way through, turning the wire red hot.)
... Maybe there's a book there. JK. Rowling was an unemployed single mom when she doodles on a napkin and imagined Harry Potter. Look it up👍
simple take all of your science-y know how and build a time machine dammit, if you're unemployed I'm sure you have nothing better to do....lol.
And even more importantly, you (and I) could build a somewhat functional battery or a simple generator and actually power a toaster. They did have pretty pure metals and they did have copper wire and magnets back then.
Dara has a degree in theoretical physics. He knows how a fridge works.
@Lawsonomy you also need to make sure to speak the language of the place and time where you end up in your time travel. Chances are that even if you travel to the same country but 300-400 years ago, people won't be able to understand you. And the chances are you will be executed before you get an audience with the great science minds of that era :)
"He is a traveller from a future time when everyone owns a magic wall!"
A Powerwall. 🤪
6 AM and I am laughing my ass off. Had to watch it several times.
Absolutely hilarious. Great comedic delivery.
I think explaining mechanisms and theory is probably the easier bit to me. Building a prototype of any modern technology in the medieval era, however...
Walls are our masters and we must not anger them
Señore Da Vinci, I want you to imagine a large rectangular building, essentially box rooms stacked upon box rooms. In every room of this building is a light. Now, if I stand outside this metaphorically building, from its side, I can see which rooms are lit and which are not. Now I suppose, then, that its possible to create a picture or spell a letter with the right combination of rooms lit, using only the light they emit. This building is a metaphor for what we in the future call a "transistor". A transistor helps us take the millions of "on/off" switches (the lights in the building) and turn it into a computers command, or a rendering of a picture. It is powered by thin wires of copper, which conduct electrical pulses toward the device and powers it.
Could any single one of us travel back 500 years and build a digital computer using what was available then? Well maybe if you had enough time, and built a wall first.
P Hampton I sort of doubt that the majority of Americans could start a fire without matches or a lighter.
And then they'd probably let the fire burn down the wall.
+P Hampton probably a relay computer, given some decades and enough money
+P Hampton You first need to know what you need to build into the wall to make the pictures change and to power your toaster from the power of flushing the toilet.
+P Hampton I could build one out of water, to prove the concept.
Electricity would be more difficult. Hard to dope a transistor without a lot of processed materials.
maybe a computer weaker than a simple pocket calculator
I remember I was taught how to make a battery out of an empty peanut butter jar, and for the longest time I thought that was what was in the wall.
This reminds me of Bob Newhart's routine about Sir Walter Raleigh explaining tobacco to someone back in England.
True as it maybe if you are surrounded by the most intelligent people of the era, even if you are stupid you are a valuable gem to them. As long as you can explain a bit more than just saying "it goes in the wall...".
It'll be like piecing a puzzle together, the only one who sort of knows the answer will be you, but even if you are wrong on some parts if it functions anything close to what how you explain it that is a big enough advancement.
What an amazing and absolutely hilarious comic!! I would love to see one of your shows Dara!! Any chance of you coming to Pittsburgh PA?!?!
gosh i never recognized how much all the walls in this world changed my life! i got nice breakfest or ice in the summer, i am able to use the internet and play video games everytime i want to. Even my stomach i can empty with the help of walls and i never said thanks to it...what a prick i am...feeling so bad right now thanks Dara xD
I like to think that if you explained this to them they would all become architects, believing wall-based technology is the future of mankind. Really,Donald Trump would love this.
"Grandma, out of all the modern conveniences here in your kitchen, what do you like the most?" Grandma answer, "Running water. Not having to lug it in from the well."
That one we can be done with surprisingly little technology. So much so that the Romans did it long before the middle ages.
I read that as lug it from the wall. 😂
Love this guy!
This is absolutely hilarious and true
Time travelers, beware to be declared a witch and reenact the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
😃😄😃
the joys of paying attention enough to have a better understanding than it plugs into the wall
The wall is a mystical place...
This is probably one of the best jokes ever
This is so damn funny i nearly pissed myself in the train
I feel like at least some basic high school education would blow some of their minds. And all a Time traveler needs to remember is that you get an electric current by spinning a magnet between some coiled copper wire. Connect it to a water wheel on a stream and you have constant electric current.
Even the basic principles of the Periodic table would blow the minds of chemists during the renaissance.
Explain the importance of sanitation. Don't believe me? Have two sets of doctors working on patients, one that washes their hands and one that does not, and find out how many infections go around. You can also introduce to them the idea that copper surfaces kill more bacteria than any other.
Even the basic principle of not burying an armies waste nearby and away from drinking water would be a massive use to any army of your choice. Disease and infection would ravage other armies on the march but not yours.
Astronomy, Any high schooler can craft a model of the Solar system that would predict the movement of the planets far better than any available during the renaissance. Though this can kinda be set aside since astronomy isn't really going to be useful for another 400 years.
I could explain refrigerator, air conditioner, toaster and the toilet..
If I don't mention the toilet and the toaster, we wouldn't seem so damned lazy to them.. XP
I could build a functioning steam engine from scratch and bring the secret of how to mass produce steel...
Good thing I have enough knowledge about electrical engineering and computer science to atleast answer the first few questions somewhat decently. This video showed me, however, that I need to delve deeper into toilets. :P
The benefit of being an engineer - you can explain most of these things atleast to a basic level.
That is just what I was thinking.
Sadly, it seems to have stunted your ability to grant a comedic premise.
ZeroSum23
It makes this even funnier!
I suppose that’s true but in reality most people should be able to explain how a toilet works or where sewage goes. Same with the internet. 90% of kids can tell you how a computer works and how the internet sends a receives information.
90% of kids can definitely not explain how a computer works to some degree of usefulness to at all replicate it or probably help advance technology.
I think about this a lot, I would probably just hand those Italian renaissance men books on mathematics, geology, biology and physics written in modern Italian.
Probably give them some art history books too, 20,000 year old to modern paintings, some comics and music theory books showing our fully developed musical techniques and some sheet music containing blues, jazz, rock and funk.
Give them some world maps too.
The thing to remember about art and music is that they're cultural, and should be intended to teach them about us, rather than trying to start rock music 400 years early. Otherwise you imply that their musical tastes are primitive and come across as a dick.
I wouldn't teach them anything, the butterfly effect would fuck things up royally for the future.
+Matt Allen That...OR you could make the world thousands of times more advanced than it is currently.
If anyone from the present day had shown up in Renaissance Italy claiming to be a time traveller from the future, I think they'd end up locked up in an insane asylum (or similar)
*GASP* How many insane asylum inmates in history have been time travellers from the future?!
No problem. Each of us just needs to hunker down and learn everything there is to know about _the wall_.
Dara trained as a physicist too (as did I, but that's less interesting). This is just a comment on society in general. Incidentally, I saw this performed at a university arts centre, and at least half the audience were trying to work out how those things worked.
I had to wonder if he paid those people to offer such perfect examples! I love how the questions are infinitely more intelligent than the answers, and utterly ashamed that my answers would probably be the same but take a lot longer to come after the initial "errrrrr...."
Well, sure, but we would know some stuff, wouldn't we?
We'd know about the germ theory of disease, about how to sanitize and quarantine and pasteurize and all that. We'd know not to bleed people, not to sweat the fever out, and about blood typing and rudimentary antibiotics.
We'd know the general principles behind powered flight, how to make a hot-air balloon, maybe even how to make a hydrogen balloon, if we could figure out how to produce a direct current.
Maybe I don't know exactly how to construct a refrigerator, but I could figure it out if I had the time and the ear of Leonardo da Vinci.
Equals Four Great, so you can say "germ theory of disease". The majority of the population, assuming that they actually even knew the words, wouldn't have the faintest clue on how to explain it. Beyond that, if you can't do anything more than just say "Big airplanes can fly" you are doing nothing more than making an assertion. I know more about the Theory of Flight than 75% of the population but I'm not so pompous as to believe that I could build a working aircraft without access to modern tools and reference material.
Alex Kilgour You know that the lift and propulsion mechanisms are separate. You know Bernoulli's Principle, which means you know how to shape the wing's cross section. You know more than Da Vinci did, as does any modern food service worker when it comes to preventing the spread of contagions.
Equals Four You are giving too much credit to modern food service workers. Besides which, you would be expecting Da Vinci to take the word of an obviously unintelligent individual who can't explain WHY, just that they know they are supposed to wash their hands. When asked "Why" the answer would be "Because that's what they told us when they trained us" or if you were really lucky "Because there are bugs".
There are a few people out there who would know enough that they could contribute some interesting tidbits of science, but most of the population, for instance, can turn a light bulb on by flicking a switch, but if you asked them to build a working power grid, including a power source, they would be at a complete loss as to where to start.
Alex Kilgour Okay, you're right. I've been considering myself an average person, but I've done college-level engineering courses. My perspective is askew.
Equals Four
Bitch, please, most people don't even know how anything they use everyday works , if you ask them ''do you know how a website is made?'' most won't know that you need HTML and CSS to at least start. As Alex said, scientific knowledge, while available to anyone who knows how to read on the Internet, is of little interest or concern to most people. It's bloody interesting, but unfortunately most people don't know anything about technology. They just use it.
Fiction stories where someone goes back in time and kickstarts a technological revolution so frequently fall over because the author doesn't actually know how technology works and what was actually hard about inventing it in the first place.
werent you listening? they're connected to the wall
Wait, people don't know how a toaster works?
Mark FitzSimmons no
Mark FitzSimmons Well there's hot rods which are heated and that roasts the bread? Idk I've never rly thought about it
Peter joy basically the hot rods are loops of wire with high resistance that causes them to emit energy as heat that toasts the bread out of all the things mentioned in the video this is by far the simplest.
Toilets aren't too hard to understand either, just the design is so genius (imo) so that you don't have problems with sewer smell
Asylum Gaming well relatively low resistance.
I could explain refrigerator, air conditioner, toaster and the toilet..
If I don't mention the toilet and the toaster, we wouldn't seem so damned lazy to them.. XP
I can build a steam engine from scratch... that's a pretty solid jump in tech...
Great. Just great.
A Microwave is simple. All you do is press the button and you wait, same as a toaster. The internal mechanics don't count.
It's good to finally know why we see so much shit on the interwebz.
+Krila Sounds ? Didn't understand your comment- as in you didn't like this piece?
+Krila Sounds It goes from the toilet into the wall, and comes out through the computer
Krila - beautiful
I’m surprised no one has suggested hallowing out a watermelon, setting up four sticks and inventing football. Might help avoid some conflicts here or there, you’d definitely become a hero. That and bikes.
I use this argument all the time with all those gonks who go "if you go back in time with a gun, you can take over the world!"
Oh yeah, chief? You, alone are going to face down a whole army of people who were brought up around warfare since they were children and often fanatical in their devotion to a cause. People who only know how to kill by getting close and watching their enemies die. And you're going to terrify them all with a loud bang? Yeah, hero, go ahead. I'll go with you. I can't wait to see what they do when they realize this mystical power of long range death can run out...
That is Engineer porn, the problem is most of us would fail at it, because our knowledge depends on an existing infrastructure and a plethora of reference books, modeling and computational software - and the internet... But there is always
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Stargard
he is so funny
i just about chocked on my water!
I could probably manage electric lighting, but that's about it. The tricky part is getting sufficient voltage from whatever electricity I get to make the resistor glow. Im sure a simple waterwheel and gearing system could produce enough DC power for a working demo, if nothing else.
One of few intellectual routines I've come across.
Very funny guy
Maybe inspired by the movie "Non ci resta che piangere" (1984) by the two great comedians Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi in which they are thrown back to 1492 and have the idea of making huge money by suggesting inventions to Leonardo da Vinci. And obviously - being just a primary school teacher and a janitor - they are totally unable to describe things to the great Leonardo.
Dara and Karl Pilkington should have a chat
Hopefully, if I get transported back in time, I have enough of a warning to run to the bookshelf and grab my copy of The Way Things Work.
I agree that a vast majority of people wouldn't have an idea how to explain electricity, but even i can do better than: it hums, or the thing that lives in the wall. just explain it as wires transporting lightning through the ground, and an airtight seal plus a fan to pump out the hot air or something. if they were truly intelligent they could probably take inspiration and come up with an alternative. indeed, principles like, keeping food cold and cleaning stuff as much as possible would improve life expectancy back then.
I, for one, would be absolutely delighted if I met you at a party!
I believe Finny was simply stating that Minecraft isn't a good example (while not refuting that there are people who know how to build computers from scratch). Every reply in this thread is from a different person anyhow.
I think I’d have a pretty good understanding of how a toaster works.. now how do I explain it in renaissance era Italian?
There are quite a few people who know about a computer in a fundamental way. They are usually called something like "Engineer".
Brilliant
To all of the "clever than thou" people boasting on this thread: would you first explain to them (and us) how your ***time machine*** worked? ;-)
+Craig Simpson you plug it into the wall! :D
+Craig Simpson Well it's easy, the nega energy accumulator makes a rift in the time space continuum, in which the machine travels through but if I were to explain it in detail well it's about 13200 years of engineering, math, physics and bad fast food, I mean they didn't even have Chimichangas...
+Craig Simpson Well it's easy, the nega energy accumulator makes a rift in the time space continuum, in which the machine travels through but if I were to explain it in detail well it's about 13200 years of engineering, math, physics and bad fast food, I mean they didn't even have Chimichangas...
+Craig Simpson He specified a wormhole. So it's an Einstein-Rosen Bridge in which space-time is folded over on itself and a hole punched between the two areas, allowing far more rapid transit.
There you go.
+ReddwarfIV *There goes nothing*. Show me your *stable* wormhole. Since you specified an *Einstein-Rosen bridge*, you are talking about a *Schwarzschild wormhole*, which is a maximally extended version of the Schwarzschild metric describing an *eternal* black hole with no charge and no rotation (i.e. an *idealized* black hole that exists eternally from the perspective of external observers). Can you show me such a black hole? Note that in 1962, John A. Wheeler and Robert W. Fuller published a paper showing that this type of wormhole is *unstable* if it connects *two parts of the same universe*, and that it will pinch off too quickly for light (or any particle moving slower than light) that falls in from one exterior region to make it to the other exterior region. Besides, Schwarzschild wormholes would not traversable in *both directions*. So, how did you solve the stability problem? Did Kip Thorne help you? Perhaps you meant to say it was a Morris-Thorne wormhole? If so, where did you get the exotic matter necessary to open said wormhole? Anyway, according to general relativity, it would not be possible to use a wormhole to travel back to a time earlier than when the wormhole was first created, so, as I said, THERE GOES NOTHING! ;-)
I think that I just heard Dara O'Briain groan at your utter lack of comprehension of what you're talking about...
4 am trying not to laugh and biting my hand so i dont wake my parents. my hand is hurting
Your right, even if there was an engineer who knew enough to design...say, a microprocessor by himself. Which even by itself is kind of doubtful. He wouldnt know enough about everything that went into the entire manufacturing process to then turn that knowledge into a CPU. Then capacitors, circuitry, memory controller, memory, hard drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor.... Yup, PCs are where one of many of our modern technologies could no longer by replicated by any single human being.
I would say a 1600's mechanical watch was already complicated enough that good luck replicating it if your stuck without any other humans.
I'd give good odds that anyone who has played minecraft and has done anything with redstone logic could (if hey found a mechanical engineer of the time) build clock work computing a few hundred years early.
Digital technology is built on using electricity to determine a logic gate state. We used to use clock work physical gates, all we've done since is make them A LOT smaller.
You can build an adder (most basic computer) quite easily, even with dominoes if you must
I could sketch out something more complicated at the logic level.
Having done both these I'm pretty sure that the greatest minds of the time could find a way to implement this as some sort of machine, probably like the difference engine.
my class is on western Civ, and if theres a Technology question on my final, you bet your sweet ass that im going to do this.
I could tell them about germ theory, and that's about it. I might be able to explain indoor plumbing well enough to duplicate it. I could tell them a great deal about astronomy (of course I couldn't prove any of it and they'd probably burn me as a witch).
I think my best bet to get by using my knowledge of the future in olden times would be to find a troubadour and sell him some songs. I could be their Mozart.
We're gods with remote controls :)
LOL but you're smart and have a good sense of humor that's something :) well I'm off to google this stuff now though I doubt I'll ever be able to explain electricity or things like radio and wifi properly
Lemme just stop your high horse right here - I'm also from a small European country, and it's not like any of that stuff is hidden arcane knowledge. My point is that there's a difference between knowing roughly how stuff works and finding it interesting enough to remember.
The Wall...most advanced thing we have in every house hold. It powers everything, it changes the picture in out screen and it takes our shit
All hail The Wall!
Anywhere I can see this show online (without making an account with some shifty website)?... Or know where I can buy a DVD copy and get it shipped to me? I really want to see it but can't seem to find it... :(
“Ah but this does two sides.”
This reminds me of Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." It's a great book, but the absurdity of the Yankee knowing not only everything there is to know about engineering and medicine but even the dates and times of solar eclipses.can be a bit much.
The best idea in this scenario, is to describe things on a basic level, and let human development continue from there. If you travelled to the 1500's and vaguely described a basic steam engine (actually really simple) you would have advanced science by 200-300 years.
Learn the earliest and most basic forms of technology:
Steam engines (the early kind)
Scientific method (rather than substance)
Electricity (generation, basic storage)
Drugs (natural plant-based ones)
Tips and tricks for later on (to avoid making the same mistakes we did)
Even if you could explain in detail how a modern computer worked, they would be unable to build it anyway
I am not convinced most of the advancement is in these few big tricks, as much as in 1000 of tiny tricks. For example, it's possible to make an iron smelter somewhat more efficient by first blowing the flue gasses over gravel to heat the gravel, and then blowing the input air through the gravel to heat the air, thus the fire starts with already hot air and gets hotter with less fuel.
The first steam engines were really expensive and inefficient they were hardly used. It's 1000's of little tricks that are needed to get things from working at all to working well.
Toasting bread over a fire makes it taste amazing. I actually prefer it to bread from a toaster.
I LOVE this - but the closed captions are really really bad. I want my deaf friends to be able to appreciate this clip too... but at the moment, that isn't possible...
Note to self: bring books on how these things work during time travels. Other note to self: google where the waste goes
Clearly the wall is the most advanced thing we have created.
Actually, Leonardo did invent a kind of modern toilet, but the prince he was working for thought it was too expensive to install compared to the benefit.
It is actually a great idea to start by explaining how sewers work! Maybe also help out with some ideas on agriculture. Or bicycles..? No... study up on penicile and how to sterilizeoperation equipment and operating tables and stuff.
Just telling them "hey. Wash your hands in running water, with soap if you can manage it."
Just explaining basic health to them would be really helpful. Really simple things are what you want to get normalized if you find yourself in the past. People jump to complex things, but those items require a lot of prep to actually make at all, or to make useful.
Just really simple things take the longest to figure out while having the greatest benefit. If you just help people stay alive, they will invent things faster. We got to where we are by first figuring out how to stop dying so damn much so we had the time to think.
@@haku8135 Yeah, the basics could be hard to figure out, despite being basics.
@@daddyleon Humanity spent thousands of years figuring out the basics, and about 200 making the thing we're typing on.
@@haku8135 The future can be bright indeed.
I am a Comp Sci Engineer, I can give a basic lesson on electricity and how to harness it and computational machines.
Actually they had ideas on computational logic and building adding machines.
I could explain most of those things, but I'm a chemist and I'm fun at parties
Charlie was a chemist,
but Charlie is no more.
What he thought was H2O,
was H2SO4.
many people can build computers and know how. but making the components is individual and the processes are quite hidden by manufacturers
Sadly all you really need is the plans for a better gun.
Though id read up on how to make copper wire too.
Oh and a bingo contraption for the long evenings
It hums.
And we have surfaces that create fire when you press a button!
How does it do that?
It burns gas.
Where does the gas come from?
...
*THE WALLS!*
I could build a still, a flush toilet, arc lights, open hearth steel furnace. But nothing requiring rubber or semiconductors.
I could explain a lot of modern technology well enough to not sound like an idiot, but I couldn't go into enough detail to allow re-creation of advanced stuff like computers. Still, I could start the Haber process and antibiotics and possibly refrigeration centuries early. That would help humanity a hell of a lot.
Considering what it was primarily used for, do you really want feudal lords to have access to the byproducts of the Haber process? I guess it would make feeding everyone much easier regardless, since the majority of the population would have died horribly last time a regional landowner got insulted at court.
I'm sorry. It was my friend who said that at the time; not me. I'll forward him your comments.
Same. We should have our own party
That's the one situation where being an utter nerd would come in handy, because I could totally explain all of those things. (I'm a physicist, and also not very popular at parties.)
I don't think they'd be asking about how to build one, just how it works and a reasonably educated intelligent person can do that to the degree that it is useful. DC electricity generation is 6th grade science. You don't need to know all the nitty gritty about transformers and rectifiers to explain the concept. And computers are just masses of transistors. The idea of a transistor is really simple. You don't need to explain how semiconductors work since they can't use the information yet.
Yeah. That's about my knowledge of technology. 🤔🤔🤣🤣🤣
My God... he has legs!
This is funny; however... I can explain how electricity is generated and could even create a mini-generator with a magnet, some copper wire, and some gears. I can explain how a refrigerator works. It works because expanding gas becomes colder. I know what a ballcock valve is and why it is important to modern toilets.