Streaming TV shows and movies directly to your home is a breeze. With Netflix. As a Netflix member, you can instantly watch TV and movies on your PC, mac, mobile device, or right on your television. Get a free thirty day trial membership. Go to Netflix dot com slash brain Stuff and sign up today. Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, how does a toaster work? If you eat bread? Chances are that you have a toaster. Nearly every household has one. It's a device with amazing market penetration. Have you ever wondered how your toaster works? And before answering that question, have you ever wondered why human beings like toast? What makes toasted bread so popular? Bread, of course is nice. It's soft, chewy, delicious, a good way to enjoy we But that softness creates a structural problem that toast can solve. Dipping a piece of normal white bread in soup usually results in a saggy mess. Toast is much stronger, so it can hold up to soup dipping without difficulty. The other reason for toast has to do with flavor. When you make toast, you're activating something called the mayor reaction on the surface of the bread. This reaction is what causes the browning to occur. The heat inside the toaster boils off the moisture from the surface of the bread, and then the surface gets hot enough for the reaction to take place. It is a reaction that appeals to the senses we see. The result of the reaction is browning, sugars and proteins combined together to create the pleasant flavors and smells that we associate with toast. A toaster gives us an automatic and convenient way to activate this reaction whenever we need it. The convenience is the key to a toaster's appeal. You could, if you were patient, just hold a slice of bread over a hot stove burner with a fork to toast it, but that would be a lot of bother So to make an automatic toaster, you need four things. First, you need a source of heat similar to a stove burner. Second, you need a switch that turns on that source of heat. Third, you need a timer to turn off the source of heat. And then you need a mechanism to hold and pop up the toast. The source of heat is almost always created by running electricity through something called nichrome wire. Nichrome wire is an alloy made of nickel and chromium, and it has two important features. First, when you pass electricity through this wire, the wire heats up red hot. When you look inside your toaster and see the glowing red coils, you are seeing the result of electricity running through nichrome wire. Second, nichrome wire does not corrode from the heat like many other metals would. The simplicity and durability of nichrome wire makes it a common source of heat and everything from blow dryers to space heaters. If you were to take a coil of nichrome wire and plug it straight into a wall socket, it would glow red hot. If you wrap it around something that can handle heat, like glass or ceramic, you have the heating element. In a toaster. A simple vertical tray in a spring can lower the bread down between the toasters heating elements. When the tray hits the bottom, it can flip a switch that turns on the electricity and starts the toasting process. Now, we need a way to keep the tray down. In most modern toasters, this involves an electromagnet. The same switch that activates the heating elements also turns on this electromagnet. It's magnetic field holds the tray down until the toasting process is complete. And finally, there's a timer. When you set the dial on the toaster, that dial controls the amount of time that the tray stays down. Once time is up, the timer flips the switch off. This takes the power away from the heating elements as well as from the electromagnet. Without the magnetic field to hold the tray down, the spring pops the tray up and your toast is served. The next time you make a slice of toast, you will now know what goes into it. A simple piece of wire is creating the heat. An electromagnet keeps the toast in place. A timer turns off both the heat and the magnetic field, so your toast pops up automatically with a spring, and it's all happening to activate the mayor reaction, a reaction that creates taste and smells that many people enjoy. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it hostof works dot com streaming TV shows and movies directly to your home is a breeze with Netflix. As a Netflix Member, you can instantly watch TV and movies on your PC, mac, mobile device, or right on your television. Get a free thirty day trial membership. Go to Netflix dot com slash brain stuff and sign up today.

Streaming TV shows and movies directly to your home is a breeze. With Netflix. As a Netflix member, you can instantly watch TV and movies on your PC, mac, mobile device, or right on your television. Get a free thirty day trial membership. Go to Netflix dot com slash brain Stuff and sign up today. Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com where smart happens. Hi Am Marshall Brain with today's question, how does a toaster work? If you eat bread? Chances are that you have a toaster. Nearly every household has one. It's a device with amazing market penetration. Have you ever wondered how your toaster works? And before answering that question, have you ever wondered why human beings like toast? What makes toasted bread so popular? Bread, of course is nice. It's soft, chewy, delicious, a good way to enjoy we But that softness creates a structural problem that toast can solve. Dipping a piece of normal white bread in soup usually results in a saggy mess. Toast is much stronger, so it can hold up to soup dipping without difficulty. The other reason for toast has to do with flavor. When you make toast, you're activating something called the mayor reaction on the surface of the bread. This reaction is what causes the browning to occur. The heat inside the toaster boils off the moisture from the surface of the bread, and then the surface gets hot enough for the reaction to take place. It is a reaction that appeals to the senses we see. The result of the reaction is browning, sugars and proteins combined together to create the pleasant flavors and smells that we associate with toast. A toaster gives us an automatic and convenient way to activate this reaction whenever we need it. The convenience is the key to a toaster's appeal. You could, if you were patient, just hold a slice of bread over a hot stove burner with a fork to toast it, but that would be a lot of bother So to make an automatic toaster, you need four things. First, you need a source of heat similar to a stove burner. Second, you need a switch that turns on that source of heat. Third, you need a timer to turn off the source of heat. And then you need a mechanism to hold and pop up the toast. The source of heat is almost always created by running electricity through something called nichrome wire. Nichrome wire is an alloy made of nickel and chromium, and it has two important features. First, when you pass electricity through this wire, the wire heats up red hot. When you look inside your toaster and see the glowing red coils, you are seeing the result of electricity running through nichrome wire. Second, nichrome wire does not corrode from the heat like many other metals would. The simplicity and durability of nichrome wire makes it a common source of heat and everything from blow dryers to space heaters. If you were to take a coil of nichrome wire and plug it straight into a wall socket, it would glow red hot. If you wrap it around something that can handle heat, like glass or ceramic, you have the heating element. In a toaster. A simple vertical tray in a spring can lower the bread down between the toasters heating elements. When the tray hits the bottom, it can flip a switch that turns on the electricity and starts the toasting process. Now, we need a way to keep the tray down. In most modern toasters, this involves an electromagnet. The same switch that activates the heating elements also turns on this electromagnet. It's magnetic field holds the tray down until the toasting process is complete. And finally, there's a timer. When you set the dial on the toaster, that dial controls the amount of time that the tray stays down. Once time is up, the timer flips the switch off. This takes the power away from the heating elements as well as from the electromagnet. Without the magnetic field to hold the tray down, the spring pops the tray up and your toast is served. The next time you make a slice of toast, you will now know what goes into it. A simple piece of wire is creating the heat. An electromagnet keeps the toast in place. A timer turns off both the heat and the magnetic field, so your toast pops up automatically with a spring, and it's all happening to activate the mayor reaction, a reaction that creates taste and smells that many people enjoy. For more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it hostof works dot com streaming TV shows and movies directly to your home is a breeze with Netflix. As a Netflix Member, you can instantly watch TV and movies on your PC, mac, mobile device, or right on your television. Get a free thirty day trial membership. Go to Netflix dot com slash brain stuff and sign up today.