Cars were invented 19 years after Faraday died, the first flight 36 years, Einstein came up with E=mc2 after 38 years, and Boer war started after 13 years. This video is now 14 years old.
A lot of parents have been through this. I remember when my 7 year old asked me how the voice came out of the phone. I was humiliated to realize I actually had no idea. I had to look it up.
Liked your comment for admitting that we don't all know everything (unlike most comments which amount to, "Cha, what an idiot!". We'd all hopefully fill in a few more details than the guy in the spacesuit did but I'd be rubbish without google.
caro1ns the amazing thing is, that I am sure the real Michael Faraday would have suggested the question which was asked by Ben Miller in this sketch. He would have phrased his question probably in the same way - 'by what means does this engine turn?' Suggesting that he would have known such an engine would have turned in a rotational manner, or at the very least, had rotational momentum, given his knowledge of mechanics and rudimentary physics. If indeed the real Michael Faraday phrased his question in that manner, all you would have had to do, by way of an answer, is introduce the words 'refined petrochemical, suck, squeeze, bang, blow..' And I'm sure it wouldn't have taken long for Faraday to work out the rest. But I agree with your sentiments.
I was a radio engineer and it keeps changing when i started in 1974 It was analogue AM (voice audio added to the carrier) and FM (voice Audio wobbles the carrier) now's its Pulse coded, audio Packets of data time shifted. done by fairies using pixie dust
Oh this is brilliant even if a tad depressing! I've thought about this aspect myself. We may be surrounded by the products of technological advancement but it doesn't make us good at understanding it.
I think I know just enough to be helpful*, but there's a limit to how much technology one could meaningfully convey, as there are certain problems, such as making suitable materials needed for some things. For example, how many people know how to manufacture the blades for jet engine turbines? How many people know how to manufacture computer chips (one 22 year old, in his garage, is managing it, and has got as far as the 1970s, but just look at the equipment he's got, you can't get that in even the 1920s). Still, how cars work, and, therefore, basic aircraft , the Bessemer Convertor, the basics of cracking oil, and a smattering of other things would get some things rolling, but I think Faraday knew more about electricity than I know now. However, just knowing that something is possible could well inspire scientists. *Then again, knowing about tanks and atom bombs might not be as helpful as warning people not to use nerve gas in wars, and, ideally, not to have the wars in the first place.
You don't necessarily need technical knowledge to have an impact, though. Sometimes you just need to point researchers in the right direction. And with other things, even if you have perfect knowledge, you still won't be of much use, because setting up the production lines for certain materials, or achieving the level of precision necessary to make something viable can take decades.
@@RFC3514 exactly this. So many lines of inquiry in science end in failure. Knowing for certain what is and isn't possible would be hugely beneficial, even if you don't know how to get there.
I recall reading the Lois Bujold books where a newly colonized planet essentially lost all tech including information records and had to build back up by artisans figuring out things like smelting and making black powder again.
@@JessicaMiller-pc4dj Longer than that if you literally had to find sources of copper or other suitable metal for wire, develop an infrastructure capable of large-scale smelting operations...I use copper all the time and I wouldn't want to try and smelt it from scratch. And you need a well-developed agriculture to feed everyone trying to do this stuff.
@@JessicaMiller-pc4dj There are only two manufactures of custom power Transformers in the world and it can take 6 months to make one. A Carrington event could Knock out hundreds of them world wide
I have often thought about this. If I went back many years in time how much would my knowledge of modern tech actually be of any use. The knowledge and skills of hundreds if not thousands of people more skilled than the average human goes into designing and making cars and aircraft for example. We would have to send back very many highly, and specifically skilled people for it to work; our civilisation almost. I concluded that the average person in times long gone would be far better at existing there than we would in that time. The best contribution that most modern humans could make would be our knowledge of disease, hygene, medicine, health, human physiology:: even a small amount of knowledge could be a game-changer then. Must write "green mould" on the back of my hand just in case it happens.
I reminds me of the end of The Time Machine movie. The hero comes back to his library and takes 5 books, all with the basics of different scientific principles, to return to the future and rebuild the fallen human race. His friends, on discovering this, ask something like "What 5 books would you take? Knowledge needed to rebuild an entire civilization, which would you choose?". Smelting, mining and metal working techniques would need to be one there I think but I've a real hard time picking the rest!
@@jonnydarkfang2816 I’d get one book on metallurgy (for obvious reasons), one on geology (which would help with clay and mining), two on pharmaceuticals and one on medicine. I need to take daily medication to not feel awful all the time for no apparent reason, I’m not saving humanity like that. Besides, even if I can only make a few drugs that can make a huge difference in my lifespan.
I think when I really became interested in physics was when I read "Connecticut Yankee" and realized about all the things I couldn't build if I was trapped in the past. xD I'm not too ashamed about my ignorance -we're all pretty specialized in the modern world-but such amazing effort was put into even small tidbits of information historically that you could learn in 10 minutes now with minimal effort and know for the rest of your life,like lemons curing scorbut or the first 10 decimals of pi.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was a contemporary of James Maxwell (1813-1879). Maxwell provided the foundations Einstein built upon. Faraday looks to be about 45 in this sketch, which would place him in 1826, when Maxwell was 23. Faraday lived in London, while Maxwell came from Edinburgh, but spent time in Cambridge and London. They met regularly from 1860, although Faraday was by that time an old man.
Einstein did not build on Maxwell. Relativity started with the Michelson-Morley-experiment, Hendrick Lorentz, Henri Poincaré... It only turned out in hindsight that Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism matches to the theory of relativity. These theories support each other, but they were discovered independently.
Jules Verne's Mysterious Island novel has an engineer member of the casterways start from scratch and make great technological progress over several years such as blacksmithing and even an electric telegraph system.
Cool sketch! Does anybody have any idea if the sketch from The Armstrong and Miller show where they were space explorers? The joke is that Ben Millers character keeps being dealt a rubbish hand, culminating in him having to sleep with a hairy man in a bikini?
@rlinfinity I think I could be of more use then he was and I am only a high schoo graduate. I still could fully expane anything. but I could tell them what "e=mc^2" stands for and I could explane the very basic consepts of an internal cobustion engin.
In this context, yes. It also stands for other things in other contexts. For instance, since we're in a Faraday context, c can stand for capacitance (which is measured in Farads, named after Faraday). It can also stand for concentration of a solution. Or it can simply mean an indeterminant constant in a "pure" algebraic expression. Or the angle of a triangle at the origin, or the side opposite that angle. Or...
@@g4wwk-k2f - Actually, no. Lift in modern planes is mostly achieved as a reaction force due to the wings' angle of attack. It stays in the air basically the same way that a water-skier stays on top of the water (the skis deflect the water down, and the reaction force pushes them up).
If anyone is interested E=MC2, energy is equal to matter times the speed of light squared. I don't know if it's speed of light squared first or if matter x C speed of light, then square the answer. I do know light speed is a constant, but light can change speed due to gravity. This has my ted talk.
@@-Untitled- If your keyboard has a number pad on it, press and hold Alt, then 0178 on the number pad (doesn't work using the numbers above the letters) c²
ShoeLube always thought it was a shame that Ben Miller didn't complete his PhD in _quasi-zero dimensional mesoscopic electron systems_ , seeing as he was only about a year away from finishing his thesis. He said on QI that he was reading for a Masters in astro-physics concurrently, and the workload just got too much, so took a sabbatical, and during this period turned his hand to comedic theatre, and loved it. So it's safe to assume Ben Miller is pretty clever and clued up when it comes to physics. But by the end of the sabbatical had given up hope of ever going back to University, so left to pursue a career in comedy and theatre.
i would hazard to guess that if he had a working laptop with internet access (since he was browsing porn sites) then he could have just shown Wiki to maxwell and have all of human knowledge/history more or less acururatly enough at their finger tips
Of course the scientist didn’t understand the equation, the M and C are capitalised, when they should be in the lower case. That equation there means that energy is equal to magnetisation times the square of capacitance.
Jonathan Nicholls would you imagine that Michael Faraday would have understood that? I mean Faraday was a very clever man and all that, but I doubt he would have grasped Einstein's theory of relativity given his early or rudimentary understanding of of electromagnetism. I'm sure, if Einstein had travelled back through the pod, it wouldn't have taken him long to explain the Theory to Faraday in such a way that his brain would have understood it. Einstein's thorough knowledge of Faraday would have allowed him to craft the Theory in such a way, that he would have been sure Michael Faraday at least grasped the fundamentals, if not the deep intricacies. At the very least, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during _that_ conversation.
Partly, but not just that. Suppose all the scientists of today were put on a country devoid of technology, and wanted to build a computer. Despite their scientific knowledge, they wouldn't be able to do it because a computer requires integrated circuits, and what machine would they use to make those? And what machine would they use to make that machine? They could do it EVENTUALLY, but it would take them many decades to do so, even starting off with all the knowledge we have now.
johnsmithbsc that's simply not true at all. Firstly, you have to define what you mean by computer. Secondly, if you've got all sorts of scientists on the country, then many of those scientists would know how to produce iron, copper, and tin ore from a mine. Once that has been achieved, then it would be pretty simple to make metal thread which is all you would need for a basic circuit. As long as you could produce tin and copper, then you would be able to produce solder. Then once you had refined glass, it would be pretty simple to create vacuum tubes, and then you wouldn't need to produce some of the other complex metals and rare elements needed to produce basic transistors. Obviously, you might need some for some discrete components, but nowhere near the scope of today's complex computers. You simply build a basic vacuum tube Matrix like they did 80 years ago with the earliest computers like Colossus in World War II. Once you've got that sorted, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a paper tape and feeding mechanism, with simple bi or hex programming switches - and hey presto, a simple electronic programmable computer. I reckon they could all do it in less than a year or two.
@@RB747domme Knowing how to do it, and having the materials, equipment and ability to do it, are not the same thing. A year or two is wildly optimistic.
Quantum theory would have been a good step forward for Faraday something about a cat in a box. DNA and molecular biology would have been an easy breakthrough for the 19th century.
Even if the guy could have explained all the science it would have made no difference. The steam engine was developed before Faraday's time, and the combustion engine works on a very similar principle. The first computers (like the Difference Engine) were being designed around that time too. People then weren't lacking the scientific knowledge so much as the materials and technological precision to put it into practice.
well true but still, the knowledge cuts out the whole trial and error phase, saving a lot of time and streamlining the process. It does prevent accidental discoveries during that phase, but if you already know the outcome it's not necessary anyway.
This reminds me slightly of their Crazy Paving sketch (where an English chap on holiday tries to explain the concept of crazy paving to a German where neither speaks the other's language). We'd all hope we'd have done better as the Time Traveller than the bloke in the shiny suit, and we all know how a car works, how a plane works and what the equation means. But knowing it well enough to give useful information to Faraday? I doubt I'd have done it as well as they did in Star Trek IV.
today progress is being slowed down by a lack of understanding of the need (or the need itself). if the scientists on a land devoid of technology were told just to build the computer, they'd achieve it in a few years i think (given the needed workforce). still, boosting the technology is a different thing. you'd need not pure scientists, but technologists. Thus, in general, you're right)
Well, Big Ben (atop which The Internet resides, as we all know) was completed (eight years) before Faraday died, so there's a small window of opportunity.
@Panthur6502 Momentum is part of the equation, Energy = Mass * velocity squared. the calculation simply means that the energy of a particle is proportional to its relativistic mass.
Are you sure he wasn't educated in USA? cause' yea that's about the extent of most HS grads knowledge. They know the name of the starfish in Sponge Bob, but not the capital of France.....or where it is.
This is a great sketch however the concept of travelling backwards in time and treating it as a dimension was not conceived until H G Well’s brilliant novel 30 years after Faraday’s death and it was a further 10 years before Einstein scientifically theorised time as such. Edit : Ben Miller with his BSc and unfinished PhD in Solid State Physics should know this!
Yeah but anyone with a decent education in any significant field will. Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, economics (though difficult to convince people ), etc etc.
I've got a 1st class Master's Degree in Mathematics and I love the subject but I'm just sure how much help I could be in speeding the development of mankind. Don't get me wrong I could talk about number theory until the cows come home but I'm struggling to think where that would help. I guess introducing calculus early might be useful, or writing something like Euclid's elements before Euclid might help. But you'd have to go further back than Faraday for that. My point is, as much as I love my subject I feel on this occasion you're better off sending back a physicist. Also you would need to think about who you're going to and when. Euclid could probably understand calculus but trying to explain transistors to him would be pretty pointless.
One has to wonder what was the game plan here sending a scientifically illiterate guy (or a normal one) to teach Faraday. To be fair, just telling someone what is possible might inspire and direct research to more profitable ways (imagine someone telling Newton his religious research is not made much of even by religious people and his alchemical/metaphysical writings are seen as an excentricity) and give interesting insights. I really like how they averting the old trope (is it a trope) of any random member of a civilization/time being on top of its science knowledge and history. (Yes, I know, that IS the joke).
@Theodorus5 I'm sorry, but "layperson" sounds absolutely ridiculous. I don't know if that's what you're supposed to say now or what, but i'm certainly not.
If I was a time traveller who had to advance scientific development by talking to someone like Faraday I would probably start with atomic structure and the different types of energy.
@@globalincident694 atoms are the building blocks of the universe. They consist of a positively charged nucleus that negatively charged electrons orbit. The nucleus contains neutrons that have no charge and positively charged protons whose charge are equal to electrons. Neutrons and protons have roughly the same mass and their mass is greater than the mass of an electron.
Although now that I think about it explaining the photoelectric effect may lead to solar panels being invented earlier. I would also explain other types of renewable energy
This isn't really very funny. Did they send the wrong person? Will they really have time travel? This whole sketch is based on conjecture and error. I do not find it credible.
You got to be trolling us. This _is_ a comedy show and if you paid attention being so clued in, the time traveller explained why he was there. Comedy sketch show dude, not a documentary or Christopher Nolan movie.
I love the exasperation when he says: "We already have hot air balloons!"
Cars were invented 19 years after Faraday died, the first flight 36 years, Einstein came up with E=mc2 after 38 years, and Boer war started after 13 years. This video is now 14 years old.
only supposed to blow the doors
Michael Caine and Zulu I love this
Just as well you explained, as no one got that one...
The quote was from the Michael Caine movie 'The Italian Job'.
A lot of parents have been through this. I remember when my 7 year old asked me how the voice came out of the phone. I was humiliated to realize I actually had no idea. I had to look it up.
Liked your comment for admitting that we don't all know everything (unlike most comments which amount to, "Cha, what an idiot!". We'd all hopefully fill in a few more details than the guy in the spacesuit did but I'd be rubbish without google.
caro1ns the amazing thing is, that I am sure the real Michael Faraday would have suggested the question which was asked by Ben Miller in this sketch. He would have phrased his question probably in the same way - 'by what means does this engine turn?'
Suggesting that he would have known such an engine would have turned in a rotational manner, or at the very least, had rotational momentum, given his knowledge of mechanics and rudimentary physics.
If indeed the real Michael Faraday phrased his question in that manner, all you would have had to do, by way of an answer, is introduce the words 'refined petrochemical, suck, squeeze, bang, blow..'
And I'm sure it wouldn't have taken long for Faraday to work out the rest.
But I agree with your sentiments.
It's got an engine.
I was a radio engineer and it keeps changing
when i started in 1974 It was analogue AM (voice audio added to the carrier) and FM (voice Audio wobbles the carrier)
now's its Pulse coded, audio Packets of data time shifted. done by fairies using pixie dust
I always marvelled at how a phone could translate any language to electricity and back again. 😂😂😂
A reminder of our level of education
Only supposed ... the bloody doors ... that is timeless brilliance :-)
And we have these things called "computers". And they're, err, basically magic.
I swear, if I was transported back two hundred years, I couldn’t provide the evidence to prove it! 😂
Pretty good internet connection in the 1830s I would say.
He had it all cached.
"Hot singles in your era!"
Oh this is brilliant even if a tad depressing! I've thought about this aspect myself. We may be surrounded by the products of technological advancement but it doesn't make us good at understanding it.
Yes, but we have these devices that instantly turns anyone into an expert on any subject...
hahahha brilliant! Exactly how it really is. a Layperson would be of no use to an olden day scientist. they just would have no technical knowledge.
I think I know just enough to be helpful*, but there's a limit to how much technology one could meaningfully convey, as there are certain problems, such as making suitable materials needed for some things.
For example, how many people know how to manufacture the blades for jet engine turbines? How many people know how to manufacture computer chips (one 22 year old, in his garage, is managing it, and has got as far as the 1970s, but just look at the equipment he's got, you can't get that in even the 1920s).
Still, how cars work, and, therefore, basic aircraft , the Bessemer Convertor, the basics of cracking oil, and a smattering of other things would get some things rolling, but I think Faraday knew more about electricity than I know now.
However, just knowing that something is possible could well inspire scientists.
*Then again, knowing about tanks and atom bombs might not be as helpful as warning people not to use nerve gas in wars, and, ideally, not to have the wars in the first place.
You don't necessarily need technical knowledge to have an impact, though. Sometimes you just need to point researchers in the right direction. And with other things, even if you have perfect knowledge, you still won't be of much use, because setting up the production lines for certain materials, or achieving the level of precision necessary to make something viable can take decades.
@@RFC3514 exactly this. So many lines of inquiry in science end in failure. Knowing for certain what is and isn't possible would be hugely beneficial, even if you don't know how to get there.
Well, a lay person was the only one that could fit in the pod, so...
I actually think the premise as to why he travelled in time is genius.
Yes!
The other guy knew it all... but was too fat to fit in the pod. :D
@@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV I knew it. The level of obesity is really gonna be the bane of our existence, just not in the way we
thought.
I recall reading the Lois Bujold books where a newly colonized planet essentially lost all tech including information records and had to build back up by artisans figuring out things like smelting and making black powder again.
It would take about 20 years to turn lights back on if we had to start again apparently.
What are they called?
@@Hazzar595 The Vorkosigan series. First in the series is "Shards of Honor", I believe.
@@JessicaMiller-pc4dj Longer than that if you literally had to find sources of copper or other suitable metal for wire, develop an infrastructure capable of large-scale smelting operations...I use copper all the time and I wouldn't want to try and smelt it from scratch. And you need a well-developed agriculture to feed everyone trying to do this stuff.
@@JessicaMiller-pc4dj There are only two manufactures of custom power Transformers in the world and it can take 6 months to make one. A Carrington event could Knock out hundreds of them world wide
There was a serious science fiction story which basically had this plot.
Sounds interesting! What’s the name of the story?
@@MK-ew7eo Hollyoaks
I have often thought about this. If I went back many years in time how much would my knowledge of modern tech actually be of any use. The knowledge and skills of hundreds if not thousands of people more skilled than the average human goes into designing and making cars and aircraft for example. We would have to send back very many highly, and specifically skilled people for it to work; our civilisation almost. I concluded that the average person in times long gone would be far better at existing there than we would in that time. The best contribution that most modern humans could make would be our knowledge of disease, hygene, medicine, health, human physiology:: even a small amount of knowledge could be a game-changer then. Must write "green mould" on the back of my hand just in case it happens.
I reminds me of the end of The Time Machine movie. The hero comes back to his library and takes 5 books, all with the basics of different scientific principles, to return to the future and rebuild the fallen human race. His friends, on discovering this, ask something like "What 5 books would you take? Knowledge needed to rebuild an entire civilization, which would you choose?". Smelting, mining and metal working techniques would need to be one there I think but I've a real hard time picking the rest!
@@jonnydarkfang2816 I’d get one book on metallurgy (for obvious reasons), one on geology (which would help with clay and mining), two on pharmaceuticals and one on medicine. I need to take daily medication to not feel awful all the time for no apparent reason, I’m not saving humanity like that. Besides, even if I can only make a few drugs that can make a huge difference in my lifespan.
I think when I really became interested in physics was when I read "Connecticut Yankee" and realized about all the things I couldn't build if I was trapped in the past. xD
I'm not too ashamed about my ignorance -we're all pretty specialized in the modern world-but such amazing effort was put into even small tidbits of information historically that you could learn in 10 minutes now with minimal effort and know for the rest of your life,like lemons curing scorbut or the first 10 decimals of pi.
"Our planet is dying. Here, let me tell you about cars."
Reminds me of that Dara O'Braian bit :)
I don't know who did it first, but Dara definitely did it better
it is what it is is really!
Those Eton boyz telling it like it is. #Cool
It plugs into the wall.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) was a contemporary of James Maxwell (1813-1879). Maxwell provided the foundations Einstein built upon.
Faraday looks to be about 45 in this sketch, which would place him in 1826, when Maxwell was 23.
Faraday lived in London, while Maxwell came from Edinburgh, but spent time in Cambridge and London.
They met regularly from 1860, although Faraday was by that time an old man.
Show less
1791+45=1836
Einstein did not build on Maxwell. Relativity started with the Michelson-Morley-experiment, Hendrick Lorentz, Henri Poincaré... It only turned out in hindsight that Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism matches to the theory of relativity. These theories support each other, but they were discovered independently.
Jules Verne's Mysterious Island novel has an engineer member of the casterways start from scratch and make great technological progress over several years such as blacksmithing and even an electric telegraph system.
"You put petrol in it, and it goes"
Ironically the Internet is totally relied upon now for knowledge rather than the brain.
how does he goto websites on the laptop during the time of faraday when there arent even telephones
Cached.
@@SPUDS4077 what, the whole fucking internet?
@ Didn't he just have Nuts?
@@SPUDS4077 oh who knows what all sorts of deep and dark stuff was held on his craptop
Whatever it was, I don't think it constituted "the whole fucking Internet", darling.
Cool sketch! Does anybody have any idea if the sketch from The Armstrong and Miller show where they were space explorers? The joke is that Ben Millers character keeps being dealt a rubbish hand, culminating in him having to sleep with a hairy man in a bikini?
@rlinfinity
I think I could be of more use then he was and I am only a high schoo graduate. I still could fully expane anything. but I could tell them what "e=mc^2" stands for and I could explane the very basic consepts of an internal cobustion engin.
Celestial Salamander I think you have bigger fish to fry than technical knowledge my friend..
In this context, yes. It also stands for other things in other contexts. For instance, since we're in a Faraday context, c can stand for capacitance (which is measured in Farads, named after Faraday). It can also stand for concentration of a solution. Or it can simply mean an indeterminant constant in a "pure" algebraic expression. Or the angle of a triangle at the origin, or the side opposite that angle. Or...
That is only 4 C's I was told there were 7.
@@Karen1963Yorksthere are seven and that’s just of Rye.
Eggs.
Duh.. he's obviously using a time displacement wireless modem.
@Panthur6502 Ahh but, there is still the possibility of anomalous results due to computer error on the part of the faster than light neutrinos
So how does a jet plane stay in the air?
aerodynamics, Forward motion generates less air pressure on top of a wing (Lift) than below
@@g4wwk-k2f yeah i know that. I studied it in high school physics. So how does it stay in the air?
@@zapkvr Magic Fairys hold it up, but dont upset them or they'll drop it
@@g4wwk-k2f - Actually, no. Lift in modern planes is mostly achieved as a reaction force due to the wings' angle of attack. It stays in the air basically the same way that a water-skier stays on top of the water (the skis deflect the water down, and the reaction force pushes them up).
The best well known fact about people from the future is that they all wear aluminium coveralls
That comment just shows you know nothing about the workings of a Time Machine. 🙄
@@Chafflives Jokes on you, I travelled here from the future. Ha!
It's like a clothes-customized emergency blanket.
Tell me more of Lily Allen
@Reaperdoctor thankyou for that :) i had actually forgotten that
E: Energy Transfer/Change
M: Mass Change
C: Speed of Light
You couldn't fit in the time travelling pod, could you?
I always thought that E=MC Hammer.
@@TheVickersDoorter Ahaha!
It’s lower case m and c in the equation.
/\E = /\m(c^2)
If anyone is interested E=MC2, energy is equal to matter times the speed of light squared. I don't know if it's speed of light squared first or if matter x C speed of light, then square the answer. I do know light speed is a constant, but light can change speed due to gravity. This has my ted talk.
It's just the c².
@@garjian0 how did you make a small 2? I tried for ages knowing someone would correct me but couldn't find it.
@@-Untitled- If your keyboard has a number pad on it, press and hold Alt, then 0178 on the number pad (doesn't work using the numbers above the letters) c²
@DD-qq8sn I'm on phone, not PC.
I often think if I could go back, I’d be useless. I don’t think I’d be able to teach anything
The interesting thing is that Maxwell didn't even need a peek into the future.
I like how he used an upper case 'M' instead of 'm'. Given that Ben Millar started a PHD in Quantum Physics, this would have been intentional.
ShoeLube always thought it was a shame that Ben Miller didn't complete his PhD in _quasi-zero dimensional mesoscopic electron systems_ , seeing as he was only about a year away from finishing his thesis.
He said on QI that he was reading for a Masters in astro-physics concurrently, and the workload just got too much, so took a sabbatical, and during this period turned his hand to comedic theatre, and loved it. So it's safe to assume Ben Miller is pretty clever and clued up when it comes to physics.
But by the end of the sabbatical had given up hope of ever going back to University, so left to pursue a career in comedy and theatre.
He used all capitals and it's Miller not Millar.
@@markfox1545 Is this how you spend your time, criticising ten year old TH-cam comments? Get a life mate 🙂
@@RB747domme Oh, that does sound pretty involved. Quite the different path he took in the end.
@celestialsalamander You have a real talent for it
i would hazard to guess that if he had a working laptop with internet access (since he was browsing porn sites) then he could have just shown Wiki to maxwell and have all of human knowledge/history more or less acururatly enough at their finger tips
I didn’t get the last drawing on the board…CK one
Calvin Klein. It's perfume.
Of course the scientist didn’t understand the equation, the M and C are capitalised, when they should be in the lower case. That equation there means that energy is equal to magnetisation times the square of capacitance.
Jonathan Nicholls would you imagine that Michael Faraday would have understood that?
I mean Faraday was a very clever man and all that, but I doubt he would have grasped Einstein's theory of relativity given his early or rudimentary understanding of of electromagnetism. I'm sure, if Einstein had travelled back through the pod, it wouldn't have taken him long to explain the Theory to Faraday in such a way that his brain would have understood it. Einstein's thorough knowledge of Faraday would have allowed him to craft the Theory in such a way, that he would have been sure Michael Faraday at least grasped the fundamentals, if not the deep intricacies.
At the very least, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during _that_ conversation.
And just imagine the amazing physics we could have if he based it on that!
Partly, but not just that. Suppose all the scientists of today were put on a country devoid of technology, and wanted to build a computer. Despite their scientific knowledge, they wouldn't be able to do it because a computer requires integrated circuits, and what machine would they use to make those? And what machine would they use to make that machine? They could do it EVENTUALLY, but it would take them many decades to do so, even starting off with all the knowledge we have now.
I disagree if you mean all sorts of scientists
@@joons3374 Plus, they could order from Amazon from a country with, um.. Amazon.
johnsmithbsc that's simply not true at all. Firstly, you have to define what you mean by computer. Secondly, if you've got all sorts of scientists on the country, then many of those scientists would know how to produce iron, copper, and tin ore from a mine.
Once that has been achieved, then it would be pretty simple to make metal thread which is all you would need for a basic circuit. As long as you could produce tin and copper, then you would be able to produce solder.
Then once you had refined glass, it would be pretty simple to create vacuum tubes, and then you wouldn't need to produce some of the other complex metals and rare elements needed to produce basic transistors. Obviously, you might need some for some discrete components, but nowhere near the scope of today's complex computers. You simply build a basic vacuum tube Matrix like they did 80 years ago with the earliest computers like Colossus in World War II.
Once you've got that sorted, it shouldn't be too difficult to create a paper tape and feeding mechanism, with simple bi or hex programming switches - and hey presto, a simple electronic programmable computer.
I reckon they could all do it in less than a year or two.
@@RB747domme who's going to mine the minerals? the scientists? without any knowledge of mining?
@@RB747domme Knowing how to do it, and having the materials, equipment and ability to do it, are not the same thing. A year or two is wildly optimistic.
How many people today would be similarly unable to answer the most basic questions about our technology, let alone history?
Anyone with blue hair, for example
I am mildly curious as to what you acheived with that nit-picking rant, but I shall chuckle and accept your points
Quantum theory would have been a good step forward for Faraday something about a cat in a box. DNA and molecular biology would have been an easy breakthrough for the 19th century.
Even if the guy could have explained all the science it would have made no difference. The steam engine was developed before Faraday's time, and the combustion engine works on a very similar principle. The first computers (like the Difference Engine) were being designed around that time too. People then weren't lacking the scientific knowledge so much as the materials and technological precision to put it into practice.
the microchip...
well true but still, the knowledge cuts out the whole trial and error phase, saving a lot of time and streamlining the process. It does prevent accidental discoveries during that phase, but if you already know the outcome it's not necessary anyway.
Pointless celebrities 20:10 15/01/22
Me too!
Not just me then.
C is the speed of light. 300,000 km / second
Isnt the ability to produce the needed materials scientific knowledge?
@rlinfinity
actualy I'm quite good at " writing sentences that make fuck all sense".
Pretty much.
This sketch is what it would be like, if we sent back any of the millions of people that have "done my own research", in the past few years! 😂
This reminds me slightly of their Crazy Paving sketch (where an English chap on holiday tries to explain the concept of crazy paving to a German where neither speaks the other's language). We'd all hope we'd have done better as the Time Traveller than the bloke in the shiny suit, and we all know how a car works, how a plane works and what the equation means. But knowing it well enough to give useful information to Faraday? I doubt I'd have done it as well as they did in Star Trek IV.
today progress is being slowed down by a lack of understanding of the need (or the need itself). if the scientists on a land devoid of technology were told just to build the computer, they'd achieve it in a few years i think (given the needed workforce). still, boosting the technology is a different thing. you'd need not pure scientists, but technologists. Thus, in general, you're right)
so that's where the meme comes from
How the hell did he managed to get a signal?
And the Internet works in 1820...how?
Maybe the pages were cached.
Funnilly enough the equation is not E=mc² but rather E²=(mc²)²+(pc)²
Well that's ruined the entire sketch now.
It is what it is.
æ
Then you should carve that underneath your signature on the fjords.
Your reply had a bit of a "duh..." tone to it.
Funny, but sadly true. The average person is pig-ignorant. We live in an idiocracy.
Paul Jackson Great film
And let me guess, you're one of the smart ones?
@@Wanderer628 Yes, that's right. Smarter than you I'd bet.
@@pauljackson2409 If you were smart, I don't think you would have responded like a 3rd grader.
@@Spaced92 Why hide your light under a bushel? I'm not going to apologize, for being smart and well educated.
what came first? the sketch or the dara o'briain bit?
He was too fat to fit in the pod!!! lol!
He is somehow able to access the internet.
Well, Big Ben (atop which The Internet resides, as we all know) was completed (eight years) before Faraday died, so there's a small window of opportunity.
This is what home schooling looks like
So, you're admitting your parents are idiots.
Funny, lol. Although I did see a light bulb on the wall, which of course would have post dated Faraday.
Gas light.
@celestialsalamander Though I'd imagine spelling, grammar and writing sentences that make fuck all sense would've been the problem if they'd sent you.
@Panthur6502 Momentum is part of the equation, Energy = Mass * velocity squared. the calculation simply means that the energy of a particle is proportional to its relativistic mass.
1:59 .
I think most people do know how a car engine works more or less.
Stormwern sadly, I'm afraid that it's the last of the epithets you assigned to this theory that is true.
Probably most men over about 45.
The biggest problem would be the extraction of the oil to produce petrol
I find it ironic how he's a time traveller and he's talking about E=MC2.
Good point
What exactly is _ironic_ about it?
Okay so doesn't the laptop itself help a little bit?
BUT.... How did he open a web page on the computer?
Computer from the time machine - Yes. Internet from the time machine - NO!
He had all the websites cached on the local computer ;) Computers from the future may have that capacity.
He got the Internet on a floppy disc from Chuck Norris.
Are you sure he wasn't educated in USA? cause' yea that's about the extent of most HS grads knowledge. They know the name of the starfish in Sponge Bob, but not the capital of France.....or where it is.
I know E=mc2, I also know a section of an asteroid accretion equation.
And...
I can't help but notice he wrote E=mc^2 wrong...
I'll show myself out.
OfficiallyANerd 123456789101112131415161718
Ed Shanahan 1920212223242526272829303132333435363738
42
I'm stupid. I know E is energy and M is mass, but forgot what C was...Oh! I know. Chile ( would you like chili on your fries, sir?).
Just the speed of light, the number indicates that it is squared.
A genius and a stooge
'c' represents the speed of light in a vacuum
This is a great sketch however the concept of travelling backwards in time and treating it as a dimension was not conceived until H G Well’s brilliant novel 30 years after Faraday’s death and it was a further 10 years before Einstein scientifically theorised time as such.
Edit : Ben Miller with his BSc and unfinished PhD in Solid State Physics should know this!
Why is that a problem? Alexander Armstrong was going in time and presumably from a bit more than 30 years after the scene was set.
@@DD-qq8sn it was a problem that Faraday accepted it without question, maybe Miller should have played Einstein.
Because the internet would work in the past lol.
Very funny.
Thanks to Richard Osman for mentioning this skit.
any one notice the one guy looks a hole lot like ray park ?
Energy=Mass x The Speed of light squared
Energy equals Mass multiplied by the speed of light squared.
Most people? Nope i don't think they do actually. You can say "plenty" may know but "most" i doubt it.
The dude had wifi lol
Yeah but anyone with a decent education in any significant field will. Biology, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, economics (though difficult to convince people ), etc etc.
I've got a 1st class Master's Degree in Mathematics and I love the subject but I'm just sure how much help I could be in speeding the development of mankind. Don't get me wrong I could talk about number theory until the cows come home but I'm struggling to think where that would help. I guess introducing calculus early might be useful, or writing something like Euclid's elements before Euclid might help. But you'd have to go further back than Faraday for that.
My point is, as much as I love my subject I feel on this occasion you're better off sending back a physicist. Also you would need to think about who you're going to and when. Euclid could probably understand calculus but trying to explain transistors to him would be pretty pointless.
One has to wonder what was the game plan here sending a scientifically illiterate guy (or a normal one) to teach Faraday. To be fair, just telling someone what is possible might inspire and direct research to more profitable ways (imagine someone telling Newton his religious research is not made much of even by religious people and his alchemical/metaphysical writings are seen as an excentricity) and give interesting insights.
I really like how they averting the old trope (is it a trope) of any random member of a civilization/time being on top of its science knowledge and history. (Yes, I know, that IS the joke).
There's this one guy in the future called Trump
funny
@Theodorus5
I'm sorry, but "layperson" sounds absolutely ridiculous. I don't know if that's what you're supposed to say now or what, but i'm certainly not.
If I was a time traveller who had to advance scientific development by talking to someone like Faraday I would probably start with atomic structure and the different types of energy.
Go on, then.
Faraday: I already know what energy is, but what are these "atoms"?
@@globalincident694 atoms are the building blocks of the universe. They consist of a positively charged nucleus that negatively charged electrons orbit. The nucleus contains neutrons that have no charge and positively charged protons whose charge are equal to electrons. Neutrons and protons have roughly the same mass and their mass is greater than the mass of an electron.
That sounds amazing! And how could we use this information to help us?
@@globalincident694 at that point I wouldn't know what to say next other than explain how nuclear power and the photoelectric effect work.
Although now that I think about it explaining the photoelectric effect may lead to solar panels being invented earlier. I would also explain other types of renewable energy
This isn't really very funny.
Did they send the wrong person?
Will they really have time travel?
This whole sketch is based on conjecture and error.
I do not find it credible.
So you're saying you find things funny based on their _factual accuracy?_ You must think WW2 was hilarious.
You got to be trolling us.
This _is_ a comedy show and if you paid attention being so clued in, the time traveller explained why he was there.
Comedy sketch show dude, not a documentary or Christopher Nolan movie.
C= the speed of light, c comes from the fact that it is a universal constant.
May be this sketch is set in North Korea...