After New Zealand, now Australia. Nice to hear what's under down there! Update: After watching this, I remembered Tom's video about the Basel reaction boats and the question on the end: what things we (as a humanity) missed?

I like vaguely Roald Dahl-esque titles

How about 'SPINNING SPIRAL GONE WRONG!!!'?

The inventor some call Archimedes II

The Innovative Lifting Device That was Unknown for a Century

Hahaa

I've heard it said that success is 90% spite

@@DragonJohn Markiplier in a nutshell and it's great.

Very true

@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket Oh really! Everyone kept doing it the same way as Archimedes by rotating the screw and no one thought to do it the other way around? If they did think of doing it with the outside cylinder rotating instead of the elevating screw then they kept it to themselves.

Thumbs up for Rex Garrod!

I couldn't have thought of this though, if the guy had shown me his sketch I would've said it either wouldn't work, be extremely inefficient, or wear out the tube really quickly.

That's the definition of genius !

It's so annoying too, like a screw and tube where the tube is rotated rather then the screw, I could have thought of that. (But I didn't and odds are neither did you)

@@dorusie5 next time you think of an idea like that maybe give it a shot (if it isn't to much of a hassle) and maybe you will be the next person to invent a geniusly stupid way of doing something. (Sometimes knowing how things work may actual backfire and harm your creativity, like the guy admitted to not believing it would work only for his son to get him to try it, had his son not said anything it could of never been invented)

It is absolutely likely that many inventions just went lost, by means of being obvious and self explanatory at the time they appeared, to the people around them.

@@viral_suppressor4154 a source on that would be interesting, i think you could be reight but the reasoning seems off to me, where did you get this info from would be oportunity for me to learn

​@@harstenstahl1367 I think Viral Suppressor is using the 'put yourself in other people's shoes to make a speculation' technique. It's a good one.

I’m sure someone thought of it or heck made it before probably didn’t see it as different enough or didn’t have a use for it

I suspect the "why didn't anyone think of this before" question is down to screw conveyors/elevators already existing and already working reasonably well. It's kind of like how you'll make do with a blunt kitchen knife for months before you finally replace it and wonder why you didn't replace it sooner because of how much easier it makes things.

CAl3vara exactly it's amazing

Having watched all of the Technical Difficoulties episodes. I'm fairly sure Tom has read and keeps reading every article on Wikipedia :)

That's what the world is like. :)

@@stumbling and Tom to show us :D

After awhile, the stories come to you ;)

Everything is obvious once you know it.

@@adamsbja "hindsight bias"

People have always thought that!

The list of simple machines usually doesn't include the hammer, which is weird because the multiplier is far better than anything else of comparable efficiency.

I know what you mean. Now I can see that there are still plenty of "easy" things to invent. Thinking of a good one though and then making it is really hard.

Good point. A tube is more robust than a spindly shaft.

except there would be friction on both sides of the tube unless you double walled it with the outside wall not turning.

@@victorhopper6774 huh?

@@bleughbloop8569 i think he's saying if you put a motor/drive source in the middle of the pipe that part would have friction occurring on both sides of it, not 100% sure what the problem is there other than that bit of pipe being more prone to damage and possible heat issues though that is more likely an issue for certain materials rather than the majority of the ones going through this

I wonder, does the greater radius and thus moment of inertia of a rotating outer tube, balance out with the need for more robust material in an internally rotating screw?

Spinning a screw is easier than spinning a tube.

@@ElectricityTaster You can spin a tube in its center, or on multiple points instead of just the ends, relieving the screw's center of stress.

@@nrdesign1991 yea, it's better, but also more complex. A screw is simpler.

"After a night of smoking dank weed I wrote down the sketch of this idea"

I would assume people have thought of this before, but never really seen any reason to use it. Why rotate the cylinder of you can rotate the screw would be the common conception.

A car that moves the planet under you rather than moving itself over the planet.

@@TheLeadhound I think you're on to something 🤔

A mechanism that reveals itself to humanity instead of being discovered?

@@TheLeadhound so reversing means spinning the planet backwards and you can go back in time like superman?

I wonder if people are so focused on the solution being complex that they miss a simple solution just because they never considered the solution could be simple.

This makes me wonder how many other little places may hide interesting stories.

everyone's got a story :)

this is brilliant and i love it

Isn't it an Olds twist though

I'd go with "an Old twist on an old idea" Just to confuse people.

Clever sir! Well played 😁

Ba dum tssss

Its not a bug, its a feature.

army6669990101 it just works

don't worry it's satisfactory

@@army6669990101 Found the programmer.

Go back to school kid, the internet doesn't need you.

Id still say the *main* advantage is it doesnt create dust. That is what made this thing so intriguin to so many and is its most important boon; as it grtly decreases risks of things like corn dust and sugar dust, which can create huge catastrophic injury lawsuits bcuz of how devastating, and hard to stop once they get started, they are. Ofc the cases where such happens are where the dust isnt maintained, but this makes it so they dont have to do nearly as much to maintain the dust bcuz they arent kickin up nearly as much. Also, if ya wanna see an example of such devastation, check out vids by the USCS which tells stories of industry accidents caused by things like this. They have one on a dust explosion that was caused by **several inches** worth of unmaintained dust allowed to buildup; they were even warned three times prior but failed to maintain the dust and it caused the whole place to go up in flames so damn fast that no one inside when it started was safe from it.

Wow. That too!

Thank you - I was wondering about this, the screw model seemed equally good but indeed I could imagine that with this you can keep any moving parts away from the material (or water!)

Put your bearings and rotating parts at the top of the screw not the bottom?

@@jl3423l4jsdf That's fine for a very short conveyor, but once it gets longer the central rotating screw will start to whip. The faster it rotates, the shorter/stiffer it has to be to avoid this.

Looking at this we should really invest in square tires.

......how old do you think civilization is?

@@iwanttwoscoops Archimedes invented the screw in 250BC, 2,272 years ago.

@@iwanttwoscoops 2200y since Archimedes wrote about the screw elevator

Maybe it sort of needed the kind of paradigm shift of thought that was popularized by the theory of relativity and the whole frame-of-reference thing? Also, how many people work with these kinds of things, in-depth, anyway? This is putting the dangerous moving part on the outside. You may need deep practical understanding to realize the advantages of doing it this way might outweigh the disadvantages vs. turning the screw.

Assuming they don't charge huge licensing fees. If they patented it to protect the concept from being locked down in patent litigation, then great! If they patented it to profit from patent litigation at a cost to technological progress (and potentially lives where this could prevent explosions), not so great. Which it is wasn't made clear in the video.

@@himselfe Profiting from your invention isn't evil. In fact, it encourages technological progress.

@@AllUpOns you might want to read what I said again.

That's just being an Aussie ;-)

@@himselfe Patents, in the US at least, only last 20 years. During that time, you can and should litigate any copy cats, those don't help technological progress. If you want to save lives you have to pay for your life-saving equipment like anyone else, infringing on someone else's property while doing it doesn't make you the good guy.

Just like most mathematical proofs (in my opinion)

That's how it goes with most very clever devices and principles, in my admittedly short experience

Galilean relativity, innit!

I'm still struggling to find out what the advantage is..🤔 Is it better, or just a clever different way? What's so bad about turning the auger screw, why is this better than a stationary tube and a spinning auger?

@@A-Milkdromeda-Laniakea-Hominid I agree, I also thought it would make little difference, but upon further thought, it allows you to have a more sealed system as there's nothing that needs to connect from the outside and in to move the screw, and the casing agitates the bulk better than a shielded screw, so I reckon it loosens the material more easily and packs better as a result. But I still think it's black magic, there has to be a limit to high tall you can make these things, as at some point the resistance in the bulk in the hopper can't overcome the resistance of pushing the material up the screw and will stop feeding into the case, no?

its all in those little fins at the bottom of the tube. Turn them one way and theyre forcing material into the thing and making it climb the screw, turn it the other way and it's actually pushing away the material in the bowl, giving the material in the screw space to fall into. If those fins werent on the bottom the thing would do nothing. Very cool invention and a very simple principle.

@@SpydersByte yes, that's the key that makes it easier to understand. When you're turning the screw, the bottom of the screw thread acts as a scoop, when you're turning the casing you need to replicate that part

Didja know even concrete dust can explode?

@@kurtsnyder4752 i mean even my ass explodes from time to time

cos 'straya maaate. no one cbf

They're too busy unpersoning undesirables and ret-conning history

@@New-zm5vu what

@@adora_was_taken rewriting history and feeding a certain narrative.

Because needs to be in too many news article to be allowed

As someone on a constant journey of experimenting and expanding experience by creating models that tell me things I wouldn't have known otherwise, I can state that the simplest ideas, which incidentally have the broadest range of benefits, generally take the longest time to get around to. Part of it is the habit of thinking one knew what would happen, so why bother. Those moments when one does finally get around to something of this kind and then gets thoroughly mind expanded by all the unforeseen sides of it, those are mighty fun...

Humans allegedly never once put wheels on luggage until the 70s!

Read the patents closer, it's related to specific uses. There is much old non protected prior art that related to transporting fluids at an angle by rotating the housing. It wasn't used much but was unsurprisingly found in train designs for a very short period. These guys have that sort of background so I'm not surprised that they made something along that train(haha) of thought for this purpose.

wait it really came out in 2003?

How do you know this wasn't the last undiscovered simple innovation?

it totally does hehe

Damn, now I want to read the BFG again.

Wow! You're right!!

@@LSPD1909 I love how that book basically ended with "And then the authorities were actually useful for once, and Britain did an X-COM."

Joshua Sweetvale I haven't played X-COM- do the villains just get dumped in a pit somewhere?

Thank you, I was wondering exactly why that was!

Clever...

Why does the turning screw system need to be the full length, though? Won't the screw continue imparting force on the grain, causing it to move upward and pushing up the grain above it that is not in contact with the screw?

@@Shadowmech88 Willing to bet because it has to work against the sides of the tube it's housed in as well as the weight of whatever it happens to be lifting.

@@Shadowmech88 I think part of it is that even if you didnt have the screw being full length, you would still need the center supporting pole to be full length, especially if it were spinning really fast. If it was only supported by the bottom it could easily be off balanced and be a disaster. And for long lengths you can support the outside for the tube with no internal obstructions like what may be necessary for the spinning screw.

Yes! Very clever

sorry if im misunderstanding, but can anyone explain how the planar horizontal centrifugal force contribute to the upward vertical movement of the particles? Is it because the net force is up after accounting for the normal force from the screws surface and adding that to the friction on the walls? also @SmarterEveryDay, you probably wont see this but been a big fan of your channel for a very long time, just playing devils advocate!

@@aruhtaz friction can be described as the normal force acting on an object multiplied for the coefficient of friction. the coefficient of friction between two object is constant, so you can mostly ignore it. the normal force, however, can change. force is mass times acceleration, so the faster the grain moves the harder it presses against the walls of the tube, and the harder it grips the tube, the more friction is generated. this creates a positive feedback loop where the faster the tube is spinning, the faster the tube can spin.

@林 No.

Centripetal force.

I was hella confused

It makes a lot more sense if you look at the bottom part, 4:55

@@MrYoursoup exactly.. It's the scoop that makes this work.. So it's not fair to call rotating the cylinder the same as rotating the screw.. As Tom did

Think of the screw as a spiral staircase. The scoops at 4:55 force grain (or whatever) into the bottom of the staircase and continue feeding more in, so the grain has nowhere to go but up!

@@ktaragorn Actually, I think it is fair to call it that - with a regular screw, you need some kind of casing and the screw forces the things you're lifting against the casing. In this case, the casing forces it against the screw, so it's just the other way around, as you'd expect.

May I ask how rotating the tube is so much different than rotating the screw?

William James wrote a whole book on it.

@@MoritzvonSchweinitz I believe it's due to the fact that the air in the tube remains static as opposed to a rotating screw. The gentleman in the video explained that this is beneficial when handling powder because less dust is kicked up.

@@MoritzvonSchweinitz Also the scoops in the bottom are efficient at packing the material

@@MoritzvonSchweinitz Less airborne dust production.

@@zhoutongyang5185 -_-

You’re sneaky. And lovely.

Methinks Tom has a new toy

@@pennywayne1531 Methinks I need this new toy.

Maryborough, where the locals invented inside out screwing :P It keeps the dust down, you see. (People must get so confused by this pub story)

Me too!

@@roidroid please elaborate, i'd like to hear more.

Ataready some say roiddroid still hasn’t elaborated to this day.

@@gatorz8610 The whole thread is probably bs. The size of the town is less than 30,000 and the place name isn't in the title so it would have have to be sheer coincidence. I go for the simplest explanation.

What's the bet something is physics, like anti gravity or FTL, is also something everyone just... missed?

@@SoMuchFacepalm eheheheeeheeeee 🤫😉

@@SoMuchFacepalm There's at least one sci-fi story like that, where other species figured it out in their version of the 1200s or so.

They might have but then went WTF was I thinking this won't work.

Which is why we want as many people as possible sound of mind and body.

Robert Skitch No they’d burn you at the stake for witchcraft if you show them this “technology”. ;-)

BBC600 no they’d probably not be that surprised by a spinning tube and cork screw. Just would need some explaining

All flammable fine grain materials are highly explosive as a matter of fact. Flour mills have been blowing up since they started using primitive machinery to grind it.

I was more surprised by Sugar.

@@neth77 sugar is commonly used as a fuel in explosive combustions

@@neth77 google "Sugar rocket"

It's not a high explosive, it's a low explosive. Are you not following Tom Scott's videos?

This. This is quality punnage.

My quite rage; I hope you're proud of yourself.

Ba dum tsss

Seems like it would work best with very dry material. The scoops at the bottom generate the compression to lift the material, and if it couldn't "flow" into the scoops you might run out of compression. Mumble, mumble, relationship between weight of material/ ease of "flow"/ rate of spin/ friction in tube... Anything sticky might not work as well, if at all. I'm an armchair engineer at best though, my two cents. .

@@jgcelliott1 Agreed, though there's another downside: you can never lift all of the product this way. Since the lower portions push up the higher ones, enough of it needs to always be accumulated at the bottom in order for the elevator to work.

The main use I can think of is for dredging bodies of water.

I think the general problem with archimedes screw is the same as with Wankel engine: sealing the moving surfaces is just too damn hard in practice. You either have too much friction, too much leaking or too short lifetime for the seals.

I've always said curiosity keeps you young.

@@soentrueman7944 curiosity can't protect you from being stabbed 48 times

@@orang1921 it can if you use your curiosity to learn self defence.

@@soentrueman7944 what about 49 stabs

@@orang1921 What *can* protect you from 48 stabs and more?

Also the screw doesn't have to go all the way to the top

Tbf the inventor did mention that when he was describing it regarding the part about explosive dust

If Archimedes II was so great why isn't there an Archimedes II II?

@@bamberghh1691 its a joke.

spectacledllama they know

@@llama_v2 whoosh

If Archimedes was ao great, why isn't there an Archimedes Archimedes.

I think it's because Archimedes took out a 3,000 year patent and no one wants to anger the ghost of a 2,300 year old brilliant inventor who used to be able to set fire to distant ships and pick up and throw around the ones closer to him.

yep. everyone else thought it was already done.

Nah, I'm almost certain this design would have popped up a few dozen times in the past except unlike Mr old here when told "that'll never work" they let the idea die.

@@FoxDren Whereas, i'm almost certain this design has never appeared before. What metric should we use to decide who is more likely to be right? I'm going on the fact that no one has applied for a patent on a similar design before, what are you using?

​@@maxnaz47 He's not saying that this has been done before, merely that someone has probably thought of it but never bothered to try it. It's just common sense. History is full of people discarding brilliant ideas because they didn't believe they would work. Even Albert Einstein was guilty of it with his cosmological constant. And that aside, citing patent law isn't a good way to argue that this design hasn't appeared before. Patent law as we know it has only been around for about 500 years. The Archimedes' screw has been around for over 4 times as long, meaning that for a majority of its existence, people couldn't patent variations on it even if they wanted to. For another, not every idea gets patented, especially something this simple. Most people may not even realize it's worth patenting to begin with. It's entirely possible that multiple people throughout the past 2,000+ years have come up with this design before, and that for one reason or another the idea just didn't spread. You can tell just from reading this comments section that the average person can't see what advantages it has over the traditional method.

@Avery St. Clair For some reason I read that in Big Clive's voice...

I'm an engineering student, but I fear that I lack the creativity and ingenuity to accomplish anything significant in my future career.

@@jacksonpercy8044 Well that's a reasonable fear to have. But you don't have to be very creative to work as an engineer. If you don't have a lot of creativity you can always work for standard stuff. You wont be a genius but you don't have to. You can also work on your creativity. It's a skill like any other, work and make it grow. You'll probably learn ingeniusity on your studies. Don't worry too much, just work on it and it will be fine.

Ian Cook Because the material being lifted is packed against the side wall there is less friction, dust and air mixed in when lifting. All of this is very important for materials, when their dust is present, are known to combust when heated in the presence of air.

Its a full flow system meaning that no air is inside the tube (other than the air between the grain, or sand etc...), this means that the material doesn't get agitated as it would in a traditional screw pump, causing massive amounts of dust which can be extremely dangerous depending on the material. So basically, dust reduction.

It’s explained from 2:50 onwards.

I'm not convinced. (ID: ?v=eiusOhH1dz0)

@@robertreitze3192 I dont think theres any difference. Thats why it doesnt make a lot of sense. The only benefit I see is that having the tube rotate its trivial to add those scooping side pieces on the button. if the spiral was the rotating part that might be harder.

Erm, absolutly basic Physics, "action and reaction", i.e. the weight must still be supported/moved/accounted for.

@@marcusgault9909 Yes, the weight has to be supported/moved/accounted for which is easier to do when the part supporting that weight isn't a moving part i.e. the spiral of the elevator.

@@xXWHO111Xx Perhaps I shall demonstrate by posting a video, where I lift myself by my bootlaces, being the same same logical fallacy, well kinda.

@@marcusgault9909 I really don't understand where you think I'm making a logical fallacy. What do you think I'm saying in my original comment? Like, I know what I'm trying to say but it obviously not communicating the same message to you. Can you explain where I'm wrong?

@@xXWHO111Xx Stephen, it is clear that since the rotating outer tube, through friction, drags the material around the inner helical "auger", and thus forcing it to rise up the endless incline, this same, equal and opposite force must therefore be transmitted "down" onto the inner auger, whether the inner flight or auger is stationary or rotating makes nary the bit of difference. The weight, or mass of the entire column of material being moved must be supported, and is still mostly supported by the inner auger or flight. If the inner auger flight were disconnected from the outer tube, and both were free to move freely and vertically, while either were rotated, the outer tube would rise against the inner flight, or the inner flight would fall relative to the outer tube. Simple mechanics at work, from my limited farm based and traditional using auger experience 40 to 50 year ago. I also studied Civil Engineering at Uni, dropping out in final year. But I kinda understand simple mechanics, simply put, there are no free lunches.

What is your homeland

@@muneebmalikvlogs4127 Australia :)

@@therese294776 Oh

Same feeling when I realized Tom was literally down the block from me at the Fascination game video from a couple months ago

I know the feeling, I live about halfway between the tree that owns itself and the high school with golf cart parking. Near the city where every household is required to have a gun. He's come close so many times

Just when you think there is nothing new under the sun someone like Peter Olds decides to reverse a 2000 year old engineering principle, by Archimedes no less!!, and guess what, it works. And it works in ways that Archimedes hadn't thought of. Check out some of the Olds Elevator licensees web sites around the world to see some of the most interesting and challenging applications for this truly unique technology.

YES! He really does need to revise Nickelodeons Mr. Wizard Show!

Why? Tom Scotts video are already high quality. What could "an oldschool TV network" do to improve it?

@@DarkNexarius Do you think every kid in the world uses youtube? More people watch television than youtube every single day of the year.

That's... what this is.

@@NoConsequenc3 It is a youtube video not a tv show now think monkey think

Wait so it isn't new?

@@magusperde365 yes and no, something like this has been used for a long time yes, but it's never been intentionally built if that makes sense, and it's never been so multi-purpose

Bruh

I wonder if the Hills elevator has been tried with liquids?

@@ThreadBomb I'm not aware that it ever has. I think it might prove too inefficient, since it would rely on viscosity to make it operate (just as the Olds elevator relies on the forces between the grains) and viscosity absorbs a lot of energy.

@@cr-yi7ep Maybe it would be a good solution for some thick gloopy, chunky liquid, but I don't want to think too much more about that. 🤢