Thomas Thwaites wondered if he landed on a planet populated by less advanced people than us would he be able to show them how to make the wonderful technological advances we had made on earth – all on his own? Here are some of the things he needed along the way before he was able to make a toasted cheese sandwich.
“Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.”
Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams, 1992
The above quote by Douglas Adams (author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) gave him the idea that became The Toaster Project.
This was where he took an Argos Toaster and tried to build one from scratch. He took the toaster apart and found over 400 individual parts – made from all sorts of materials – he took the main ones: Steel, Mica, Iron, Copper and Plastic and tried to make these. It would have been much easier to make the toast on an open fire but valuable lessons were learnt along the way.
Lesson Number One : On our own, we are pretty much useless.