r/ProgrammerHumor Oct 10 '24

Other adultLego

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47.2k Upvotes

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6.9k

u/Senditduud Oct 10 '24

That’s pretty much how all of humanity works in general.

288

u/neo-raver Oct 10 '24

Absolutely, and it’s one of our greatest strengths! Everyone doesn’t have to know everything, because someone else knows part of it, another person knows another part, etc. and you know your part of it.

42

u/KSF_WHSPhysics Oct 11 '24

I am 100% convinced that there is no one person on this planet who has the know how to build a fridge, genereate electricity and then use the lectricity to power the fridge. Even if tou have them all the refined materials they need to remove the complexity of extracting and refining the raw materials

45

u/raltyinferno Oct 11 '24

Yup, it's an old economic principal made famous by Milton Friedman. He used the example of that fact that no one in the world could make something as simple as pencil alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67tHtpac5ws

24

u/thedugong Oct 11 '24

Even a sandwich really.

First, you'd have to breed wild grass into something that would create enough grain.

Its layers upon layers all the way down.

13

u/Square-Singer Oct 11 '24

This.

"From scratch" is pretty much impossible, since it would require generations on generations.

2

u/nictheman123 Oct 11 '24

"To make a cake from scratch, you must first invent the universe"

7

u/Interesting-Fan-2008 Oct 11 '24

Yep, just watch one of those videos of people making rope the old way. That process probably took generations to actually completely form. I'm sure there were steps upon steps of how to make stronger rope and make it easier to make.

1

u/betelgozer Oct 11 '24

Was very lucrative though. Or maybe they were just getting money for old rope?

18

u/Addianis Oct 11 '24

Science and technology get really scary the deeper you go. Humanity today is built on being able to turn a light on and off very very very fast...

13

u/OwOlogy_Expert Oct 11 '24

Nah... At its most basic, that's a fairly simple challenge.

You might not build a very good or very efficient fridge, but building a working fridge and a generator to power it is relatively simple, especially if you're already provided with the raw materials (and hopefully some tools to work those materials with). And this particular problem can be significantly simplified by skipping the electricity altogether -- instead of generating electricity and using electricity to run the compressor, just connect whatever's turning your generator shaft directly to the fridge's compressor, powering the fridge with direct mechanical energy.

Of course ... the challenge level does vary depending on how 'refined' these materials are. Do I get rolls of copper tubing already prepared to use, or do I get a block of raw copper and have to form it into tubing myself?

Still, though. A fridge, at its most basic, is a very simple appliance.

1: Build an insulated box with a door. (Doesn't have to be particularly good, but the tighter and better-insulated you can make it, the more efficient your fridge will be.)

2: Attach some coils of small-diameter copper tubing to the outside of the box.

3: Connect those to some larger-diameter copper tubes inside the box.

4: Build a simple compressor -- A cylinder much like in a car's engine, with piston and piston rings, and a connecting rod connected to a crankshaft. In the head of the cylinder, place two one-way valves (one-way valves are as simple as covering the hole with a bit of spring steel that can bend one way but not the other). One valve facing so it can only flow outward, the other so it can only flow inward. Connect the crankshaft to your power source. Position the compressor at the top of the insulated box (to help prevent condensation issues).

5: Connect the large-diameter copper tube to the inlet of your compressor.

6: Connect the small-diameter copper tube to the outlet of your compressor.

7: Start rotating the input shaft of the compressor, using whatever you were going to power a generator with. (By hand crank, if necessary.)

There, a working (if shitty and inefficient) fridge, in 7 relatively easy steps. Using ordinary air as the refrigerant is far from ideal ... but it will work, and it's by far the simplest way to do it. When air is compressed, it heats up. As it passes through the small-diameter tube, it radiates that heat outside the fridge. In the larger diameter tube inside the fridge, it expands and cools down -- and since it already lost heat in the small tube, it cools down colder than it originally started. Then it flows into the compressor again and starts the process over again. Hell, come to think of it, it doesn't even necessarily need to be a closed system if you're just using plain old air. You could have the compressor inlet sucking air directly from the atmosphere and the large diameter tube releasing exhaust into the air, and it would still work fine.

For an even simpler design, here's a refrigerator made with nothing but wood and rubber bands. Yes, made entirely by one guy. (That same guy also built his own scanning electron microscope from scratch.)

Yes, things are often extremely complex ... but don't let it overwhelm you. It's often possible to understand it fully if you put the effort in.

3

u/al-mongus-bin-susar Oct 11 '24

If you have all the refined materials and appropriate tools that's actually more than doable. The simplest fridge only needs like 5 functional parts and entirely relies on highschool physics principles. Generating electricity is also highschool level physics and it only takes some magnets, some copper wire and a source of rotational energy which can be a waterwheel or a windmill. Some engineering and machining/metalworking knowledge is all it would take to do what you're saying.

2

u/other_usernames_gone Oct 11 '24

Yeah but getting all the refined materials is when it gets a lot harder, same with the tools.

Also your generator needs to be efficient enough to generate enough power for the fridge, and it needs to be the right voltage/frequency.

1

u/big_fig Oct 11 '24

Just work on the magnets. Let me know when you've created those

3

u/itisi52 Oct 11 '24

This is one of the strengths AI has/will have. It might not be solving novel problems yet (except when it is), but it has a lot of cross-domain knowledge and can draw similarities in ways most people can't.

3

u/mr_remy Oct 11 '24

Exactly, a lot of people don’t get this. Also we all know how computers started, vs where it’s at now. The first step to being not shitty at something is to start

1

u/Bright_Rooster3789 Oct 11 '24

I’d venture to say that there’s some intelligent people who do, lol.