Transcript - Izzit.org

put together with one purpose in mind. And that purpose is: To reduce the amount of human muscle
needed to do any particular job. The next step was to eliminate it altogether by using animal muscle.
WOMAN: One horse or one ox has the strength of twenty men. It can do twenty times more work and
create twenty times more surplus. But it’s possible in the end to do away with all muscle power
altogether – animal or human.
MAN: And that’s by harnessing the forces of nature. Water power can grind corn…
WOMAN: …it can also power spindles and looms.
MAN: But there are more powerful and more useful sources of energy in nature…
WOMAN: …the wind…
MAN: …coal…
WOMAN: …oil…
MAN: …uranium.
WOMAN: It isn’t all that long since we were using simple machines combined with animal power to
produce surpluses.
MAN: Even today in some parts of the world animal muscle is still the main source of surplus. There are
places where animals are still used for freight, or carrying passengers…or for machine power.
WOMAN: Until the railways in the 1830s- a horse was still the fastest means of travel on the land, just
as it had been for tens of thousands of years. But in time, the way the machines were applied became
more complicated; but no matter how sophisticated they got, they were still a combination of very simple
machines.
MAN: The wheels and axles on this modern tractor enable it to tackle ground farmers would once never
have dreamed could produce any crops. And the gears that make it possible to go up and down steep
slopes are operated by levers.
WOMAN: Basic machines- combined together make it possible for us to turn nature’s energy into huge
surpluses. But it’s only possible to produce surpluses like these- when you can draw the energy you need
from one of nature’s great resources.
MAN: Until the end of the nineteenth century wind powered the fastest method of travel over water. But
there was something much more effective than either wind or water. That was the power of fire.
WOMAN: Fire transformed the world. First it boiled water for steam engines…then it ignited petrol in
combustion engines and generated power for steam turbines.
MAN: And more recently the controlled energy from nuclear reactors has been converted to electrical
energy. And what does it add up to – all this application of different forms of energy
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