ShmoopTube

Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.

Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos


Quotes Videos 176 videos

Quotes: Brave new world
13764 Views

Find out the meaning behind "brave new world."

Quotes: The be all and end all
79 Views

Find out the meaning behind "the be all and end all."

Quotes: Full circle
6831 Views

Find out the meaning behind "full circle."

See All

Quotes: Knock, knock, who's there? 20724 Views


Share It!


Description:

Find out the meaning behind "knock knock, who's there?"

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

the first successful steamship was built in the 1790s by an American named

00:07

John Fitch. it was bulky slow and if we're being [Fitch on steam ships]

00:11

honest pretty ugly. that's a face only a mother could love.

00:14

well uglier not Fitch's steamship could carry 30 people up and down a river at a

00:19

galloping 6 miles an hour. whoa hold on to your bonnets there ladies. as we

00:24

already know the steam engine was in need of revisions if it was gonna be an

00:27

efficient source of power. well by the early 1800s a standard kind of steamer

00:32

had been built using the new Watt steam engines and a giant paddle wheel. think [steam ship sinks a little]

00:38

about a classic Mark Twain kind of riverboat paddling up the Mississippi.

00:42

paddle boats looked awesome but they had some problems. the worst being that their

00:46

paddles operated best at a certain depth. if we loaded our boat down with heavy

00:51

goods or too many people the boat would sink a little and the paddles well

00:55

wouldn't work as well. it wasn't great especially in Gator country. yeah.

01:00

ventually a new kind of steam propulsion swooped in to save the day. these new

01:05

engines were called screw propellers which were giant underwater fans powered [men smile standing next to steamboat]

01:10

by a steam engine.. well screw propellers just rolls off the

01:14

tongue a little nicer don't you think? well propellers were smaller and more

01:18

efficient but they already had that over big clunky paddle wheels. but on top of

01:22

that they worked reliably no matter how deep they were in the water. great for

01:26

people not so great for Gators. one last step in steam engine evolution was the

01:31

steam turbine. aka high-pressure steam engines. these bad boys forced [kid smiles next to steam turbine]

01:36

high-pressure steam through a narrow channel where it turned a turbine

01:41

superfast. way more efficient way faster and probably way scarier for the Gators.

01:46

whatever the technical details steamers had a few things in common. like the fact

01:50

that they burn mountains of coal. they needed extra storage space and crews of

01:56

unfortunate workers to feed the coal into the boiler widow. no one's idea

02:01

of fun. working in a boiler room was kind of like sucking on a smokestack for a

02:05

living. they all took some pretty serious industrial scale equipment to build and [men build equipment]

02:10

assemble, including huge iron furnaces and gigantic welders. but they totally

02:15

blew sailing ships out of the water. no more waiting for the correct wind and

02:19

tide or current ,no more complicated rigging arrangements and no more 40 days

02:23

to get across the Atlantic. well by the early 1900's we can cross the Atlantic

02:28

in just nine days - and sure we can take a transatlantic flight in six hours these [airplane flies by]

02:33

days but to don't tell our ancestors. only depress them .though probably no

02:38

more than the whole being dead thing.

Related Videos

Quotes: Brave new world
13764 Views

Find out the meaning behind "brave new world."

Quotes: The be all and end all
79 Views

Find out the meaning behind "the be all and end all."

Quotes: Full circle
6831 Views

Find out the meaning behind "full circle."

Quotes: Wild Goose Chase
228 Views

What does it mean to go on a "wild goose chase"? The phrase comes from Romeo and Juliet, and has nothing to do with Mercutio's hunting habits. He w...

Quotes: All the world's a stage
620 Views

What does "All the world's a stage" mean? Well, it's talking about how all of life is... pretty much like a stage production. We wear costumes, pla...