All language subtitles for The.Secret.Genius.of.Modern.Life.S02E02.Vacuum.Cleaner.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

Take three.
SLATE CLAPS

I'll speak.

Do you ever stop to consider
just how lucky we are

to be completely surrounded

by genuine wonders
of human ingenuity?

All of these super clever
bits of tech

designed just to make our lives
a little bit better.

The problem is

we're now so used to these devices...

These are plug-ins?

...that we've forgotten to remember
how clever they are.

I'm Professor Hannah Fry.

But you can think of me as your

extremely qualified tour guide...

Oh, my gosh.

Don't mess with me.

...to the secret genius of everyday
objects.

How do I get myself
in these situations?

In each episode, I'll take one
seemingly ordinary item...

...and I'll look at it...

Oh, yeah. There we go.

...in frankly obscene detail.

This tiny little bit is the thing
that makes your microwave work.

Meet the people who helped make it...

We really like ears here.

We're kind of obsessed with them.

...and follow the twisty turny journey

through the history of its invention.

Here callousness could bring
instant tragedy.

And fire.

This time it's the vacuum cleaner.

There are some people who like this
more than others, I'll accept that.

But you've got to accept
that these things

definitely made our lives a lot
easier.

That's not from just now.

Is that from just now?

It's the story of a wheezy
janitor in the 1900s...

He wanted to make an electric
sucking device. Sure.

...a 1940s atomic bomb project...

...and some very creepy crawlies
that helped us fight the filth.

I want a vacuum cleaner, please.

Well, strap in, love.
You're in for a treat.

As a nation, we are quietly
enthusiastic

about vacuum cleaners.

Darling, the one we have now is
years behind the times.

From Henrys to Hoovers, vacs
with bags and bag less vacs,

hand-held and hands-free,

90% of us
have at least one in our homes.

And the other 10%,

well, frankly, you need
to have a word with yourselves.

Hidden deep in the English
countryside

are the makers of the
nation's most popular vacuums.

The 10,000,000th digital motor.

That's pretty impressive, isn't it?

I'm at the Dyson R&D campus.

I've come to see their latest tech
in action,

and I'm told they don't just let
any old TV crew wander around.

Yeah, don't do it for very long.
Ooh, I'm sorry. I broke it.

I broke it.

Yeah, that's probably why.

To reveal the appliance science
hidden in our humble vacuum

I'm going to take one apart

and look at four key components

from the dust collector
to the filter.

But first up, the sucky part.

In other words, the suction motor.

This is Dyson's latest cordless vac,

their most powerful yet.

And that is all down to the tiny
tech at its heart.

Are these all your babies?

These are my babies from here
onwards.

That is motorman Dr Andy Clothier.

And this is his newest
and tiniest baby -

sorry, I mean, motor -

the Gens.

This motor can spin at 135,000rpm.

135,000 revolutions per minute. Yeah.

What's a Formula One car?

About 15,000.

The air goes through there
incredibly quickly.

It's about three quarters
of the speed of sound.

Oh, that's absolutely wild.

I just think that people
don't realise

that they've got this in their
homes, right?

Something that is almost hitting a
sonic boom in their hand,

hoovering up their breakfast cereal.
Yeah.

Not hoovering, sorry.

Oops. I've said the bad word.

Dysoning. Dysoning, thank you.

Before I put my
foot in it any further,

maybe I should hotfoot it back
to mine

because I want to see
how that motor helps a vacuum suck.

And I don't think Andy needs
to see what I'm about to do next.

Find me here in my natural
habitat, in my kitchen with, um...

...with a vacuum cleaner in tow.

And this is quite a swanky model,
this one.

Looks quite high-tech,
but actually at the heart of it,

it's just doing exactly what vacuum
cleaners have been doing

for a little over a century,

which is a very good job at sucking.

And that's down to that powerful
pocket rocket of a suction motor

hidden somewhere inside here.

Some little screw all the way
in there.

When I did woodworking at school,

the teacher said
that I was very cack-handed.

HANNAH GIGGLES
Gently does it.

Ooh.

Ultimately, what it comes
down to is this little thing here.

The first thing this suction
motor needs is power.

I don't know if you saw the episode
that we did on the electric car,

but this is essentially

the exact same idea.

You've got a battery, some magnets,

and they're connected up in such
a way

that you can create a rotation.

Here's one I prepared earlier.

And let's give it a little push.

With the copper coil turned
into an electromagnet,

each side repels and then attracts
the permanent magnet underneath,

forcing the coil to spin.

That's an electric motor.

And in my vacuum, the motor
drives a rather

impressively named spinny thing.

In this the thing that is rotating
is called the impeller.

Unlike a propeller which propels
an object by forcing air away,

an impeller sucks air in.

That impeller spinning
around ends up drawing air in

through the nozzle of your device

which, of course, is the thing
that allows it

to suck up dust from your surfaces.

The suction motor looks high-tech,

but the basic principle
of how it works is pretty simple.

So simple I could do it myself.

So here goes.

I've got here my own personal supply
of dust,

some eco polystyrene balls.

I need air to be pulled in the nozzle

and thus expelled out of the end.

One way to do that is to just use
some centrifugal forces.

So here we go.
I'll just whack this around.

Ooh.
WHEEZY LAUGH

Spin this around, bit of centrifugal
force chucks air out that end,

automatically creates suction
at this end,

which you can use...

Look at that!

...just to suck it all up.

Spinning the nozzle around my head
pushes air out of the end of it,

creating a pressure difference
in the hose.

Nature likes things to be equal

and so as air gets expelled,

more gets sucked
in to fill its place.

You may have noticed one tiny flaw
with this home-made vacuum,

um, but nonetheless.

The faster I spin,
the more suction I can generate,

the more mess I make in my kitchen,

and the more I demonstrate
the importance

of an actual working vacuum.

Let's put this bad boy through her
paces.

To find out how we got the tiny,
powerful suction motors of today...

I'm having a lovely old time.

All right.

...we have to scoot back to a time
when carpet cleaners

didn't actually suck,

they blew.

Let me explain.

In the spring, a woman thoughts
turned to carpets and cleaning.

In the dark days before feminism
and vacuums,

rugs were generally given a
spring clean

and then left to gather dust.

Until...

...this weird looking thing came
along.

The carpet renovator invented
by John S Thurman,

blasted out compressed air.

A bit like a leaf
blower for your living room.

But it kind of just blew dust
everywhere.

Which didn't go
unnoticed by one British engineer.

In 1901, a guy comes along
by the name of Hubert Cecil Booth

and he's like, "Guys, I mean, this
thing's great, guys."”

"Just one thought."

“Instead of just blowing
all of the dust

"around the room for it to resettle,

"have you considered using
suction instead?"

And so he set about trying
to demonstrate

that suction
might actually be a good idea.

He placed a clean handkerchief
over some nearby upholstery.

And then...

DEEP INHALE

He proved that suction would work
to collect up dirt.

Now, I feel like it's important
just to, erm...

...just to really highlight that

all of my cushions
in my house are spotlessly clean.

We've deliberately put chalk
dust on this just to

mimic that Victorian filth vibe.

And there was a lot of Victorian
filth.

After proving with his hanky trick

that suction was the key to cleaning,

Booth formed
the British Vacuum Cleaner Company

and launched a new cleaning machine,

the Puffing Billy.

Booth used a piston pump
driven by a petrol engine

to create the sucking power
in his beast of a machine.

It had a very long hose
that was pulled through windows

to suck dirt out
into the carriage below.

A visit wasn't cheap.

The cost was about the same
as a maid's annual wages.

But the breakthrough in portable

and affordable vacuums came six
years later,

in 1907, when a wheezy
janitor in Ohio

nabbed the dainty electric motor
from a sewing machine.

And vacuuming would never
be the same again.

I want to tell you a story.

It's quite a cute story.

It's about a guy called
James Spangler.

Now, as well as having arguably one
of the greatest names to ever exist,

James Spangler was an inventor,

just unfortunately not
a particularly good one.

He'd had a few patents.

There was one for a multipurpose hay
rake

and another for a velocipede wagon,

a sort of bicycle powered cart.

There's the reason why you haven't
heard of them.

Because they were a bit of a flop.

Spangler needed money,

so he took a job as a janitor
in a department store.

But he was asthmatic

and sweeping up dust all
day played havoc with his lungs.

Things were not looking good.

Old Jimmy Spangler,

he had an idea.

He wanted to make an electric
sucking device.

That's Ruth Amos.

She doesn't have asthma,

but she does invent things,

and she's pretty handy
with a spanner.

I promise.

He though, "Right, I want to make
something that will electrically

"suck the dust up.”

"And so I don't get ill doing my job
every day."

But nothing like this existed at the
time.

And so Spangler really had to start
from scratch,

building his own portable electric
sucking device.

Obviously, I've asked Ruth
to have a go at building one, too.

I have a little demonstration
for you.

It takes only a few moments.
You'll love it.

Cable ties and gaffer tape. Oh.

Yeah, not sure Spangler
had those, but carry on.

And a lovely pillowcase. OK.
And a beautiful box.

I feel like I'm on Robot Wars. Yeah.

But what about that suction motor?

Legend tells of Spangler
using a motor from a sewing machine.

We didn't have one to hand,

so we've got a repurposed
desk fan motor.

If we turn over, we will see...

While underneath the bonnet,

well, crate...

...we have an impeller.

I am so impressed with you.

We haven't switched it on yet, so.

Sure.

As you go along like this,
this is turning around

and kicking up the dust.

Then this is creating airflow,

spinning around using the motor,

which turns electrical energy
into rotational energy.

These blades are angled
so that they suck the air

and chuck it out that way.

Yeah, into our lovely pillowcase.
Because that's the thing.

They're the three things that every
description is pretty much like,

yep, there was a box, there was
a pillowcase,

there was a broom handle,

and there was
some sort of sucking device, so.

OK, I cannot tell you the degree
to which I love this.

It's the excitement,
it's like the Spangler Wiggle.

Better get a wiggle on then.

Can you put that in there?
Yeah, sure. And then we can...

What do you reckon are the chances
of us electrocuting ourselves?

I'd like to say minimal.
But not zero.

No.

BLADES WHIR
It's on. I can hear it.

Whack it up, whack it up.

Yeah, there we go. Oh!

It's definitely making noises.

Oh, look! We've got a...

A billowing.

A sneak peek underneath
shows our suction motor spinning.

We just need to do the sucky
thing, too.

I can see little bits hitting
the side. Oh, are they actually?

Yeah, I think there are.
Yes, there's some in there!

Shall we have a look in the bag?
Yeah, let's see in the bag.

Oh, my gosh, look at that!

Look at that!

We made a vac...

"We." You made a vacuum cleaner.

He must've been so excited
when he first opened that bag.

Cos no-one had ever,
ever done this before.

This was it - Model I.

This model was plenty heavy,

but that shows
it had everything in it.

This was just the beginning
of a wonderful new world.

Spangler's suction sweeper
with its small suction motor

was the first portable electric
vacuum to fly off the shelves.

Now you might be wondering,

"Well, why haven't I heard
of this marvellous Mr Spangler?"

"How comes I haven't got a Spangler
sitting in my cupboard at home?"

Well, that is because James Spangler
realised

that to really get this
off the ground,

he needed a big injection of cash

and also some help.

And so he took his idea to a local
entrepreneur

by the name of William H Hoover.

Heard of him?

But there is a bit of a sad end
to James Spangler's story

because he died well before
he had the chance to really see

the impact that his one good
invention had on the entire world.

And Hoover renamed the company
after himself and from then on,

the word Hoover has become synonymous

with vacuum cleaners.

It seems a bit of a shame, really.

I think I might reword it
to Spanglering when I get home.

Just getting the Spangler out.

Doing a bit of Spangling.

Spangling downstairs.

SHE CHUCKLES

With portable suction motors,

the popularity of vacuum
cleaners exploded

through the 1920s and '30s.

I want a vacuum cleaner, please.

And by the 1940s, ads were promising
women

the end of housework as they knew it.

See how efficiently it cleans
and follows wherever you go

floating on its own cushion of air.

Now that woman's got the right idea.

The increase in demand drove
advances in suction motor technology.

ESP, Extra Suction Power.

Discover a better way with Eureka.

And space exploration helped a bit,
too.

There we are. Look at that.

NASA needed a cordless power drill
for its Apollo moon landings.

So Black and Decker designed
a special

battery powered space motor

that had to be lightweight
and portable.

It's lift-off. Automatic.

In 1974, that tech was then popped
into a vacuum cleaner,

the first-ever cordless cleaner.

This evolved into the Dustbuster,

which sold a million units
in its first year.

The suction motor
has come a long way,

to the moon and back,

to bring us today's
tiny digital motors

that weigh less than a chocolate bar.

But are a lot less tasty.

So the motor sucks stuff up,

but our next component traps

and stores that sucked up dirt.

In traditional vacuums,
it would be a simple bag,

but in a modern bag less vacuum,
this is known as the dust collector.

Oop. Oh.

Can't be the only one who
finds something deeply satisfying

about doing the vacuuming.

I think it's no coincidence
that they, uh,

they made this bit see-through.

They knew how disgusting we all were

and how much we wanted
to look at our own dirt.

Oh.

I think that was a paperclip.

It said that the average house
accumulates around 18 kilos of dust

every single year.

And you'll be delighted to hear

that over a kilo of that is
dead skin.

But all of that collects
in this bit here,

the dust collector.

Got some dust there from the hallway,

some fluff and
ginger hair from upstairs.

I think there's a Rice Krispie
there from the kitchen

and, um,

some Lego from the playroom.

You might think that dust collector
is doing kind of a simple job,

but actually making sure
that there is a continuous,

unobstructed airflow
through the vacuum

is quite a tricky challenge.

Dust has a habit of clogging things
up

and stopping this from being able
to clean.

And that is the reason
that this and a lot of other vacs

have a clever cyclone system
that uses centrifugal forces

to spin the dirt out of the way.

It may seem ultramodern,

but the story of this bag-free
cyclone system

begins over 150 years ago

in the dust and grind
of 19th century flour mills.

Being a miller back then was
as dangerous as working in the mines

because flour mills had a nasty
habit of blowing up.

In 1872, a massive explosion ripped
through a Glasgow flour mill,

killing 18 people.

What on earth was going on?

Here's something you maybe
didn't know about flour.

Sometimes it's actually
more explosive than gunpowder.

Just not like that.

It's not going to ignite in that way.

Your kitchen is safe.

But the thing is, is that once flour
is suspended in the air as dust...

...in that situation, there is so much
oxygen surrounding

every flour particle that it will
burn really, really quickly

and then can go on to ignite

other flour particles
that are also suspended

in the air around it.

If you have flour floating
around and a spark,

then you can see just how
quickly this stuff goes up.

I'm going to blow into it and set it
on fire.

You ready?

Whoa.

Oh, my God. Singed the boom.

I mean I did tell you it
was explosive.

Should I do it again?

That's satisfying, isn't it?

Oh, it smells like baking bread.

This is all fun and games when you've
only got enough flour

to singe a boom mic.

But when you have a mill full
of potentially explosive flour,

you need a way to suck it
all up safely.

OK, how do you get from this
to flour?

There's one stone on the bottom,
one on top,

and they're just spin
at an incredible speed,

just like a big pestle
and mortar, effectively.

That is Max Rudell,

flour aficionado and mill director.

And once upon a time, his job
would have been pretty hairy.

A flour mill on the wrong day,

you're creating your own bomb.

Yeah. Effectively, yeah.

Are you worried about it blowing up?

No, not at all.
Because fortunately,

we have technologies which help
keep us safe.

Mm.

So what are those technologies?

Well, the breakthrough came
in the 1880s

when a chap called Orville Morse

invented a centrifugal dust
collector.

A clever bit of cone-shaped tech

to separate
the deadly dust causing explosions.

This process is called cyclonic
separation.

The cyclone is a system of winds
rotating inwards

to an area of low barometric
pressure.

And what you're looking
at now is also a cyclone.

It's a cyclone dust extractor.

And these cyclones in Max's mill
are pretty much the same machines

that Morse invented 130 years ago.

So, OK, you've got the flour coming
in here. Yeah.

Comes up through the top.
Into the green one?

Yes. And then this is
spinning. Yeah.

Like the air in there spinning.

We create a centrifugal effect
which is where

the heavier particles
get spun around

and get pushed towards the outer
edge of the cyclone.

And then all the lighter particles,

which is the ones
that we're worried about... Yeah.

...that then gets sucked
out of the top of it

and removes it into an
exhaust system. Oh.

And so where does it go
when it comes out?

Goes up through that top pipe, down,

and then down into flour socks.

Sure.

Is that what they're called?

Yeah, they're called that.

Those little things down there?

Yeah. We've got about ten or 12
of them down there, I think.

Oh, wow, look.

So as you can see, it's the really,
really fine particles

that have accumulated like that.

And so then we can discard them once
the socks get a bit full.

Thanks, mate. Check you.

THEY LAUGH

BANG

Cyclonic separation technology
was so brilliant

it was used in all sorts
of dusty industries

of the 20th century, including
sawmills.

And then in the late 1970s,

it caught the attention of a young
British inventor called James Dyson.

I don't remember him doing much
vacuuming.

That's his wife, Deirdre.

And this...

I feel like I'm looking
inside of his mind.

...is his office.

Got some little impellers here.

What else we got?

I mean, I already really like him.

OK, Sir James Dyson's here.

Be cool. Be cool.

Yeah, OK. So I've been particularly
looking forward to this one, James,

because I actually have a PhD
in fluid dynamics...

Oh, right, OK, good. You're way
ahead of me. ..and so the aero-stuff.

No, no, no.

Oh, "I've got a PhD in Fluid
Dynamics."

Yeah, really cool.

How did it all start then,
you and vacuum cleaners?

Well, I was vacuuming one Saturday

and the vacuum cleaner wasn't
picking things up,

and I wanted to understand why.

Sorry, James, I'm just going
to pause you here.

Firstly, are you sure
that you were vacuuming?

But secondly, I need to explain
how the bag system works

in old-school vacuum cleaners.

In the more common upright cleaners

dirty air is sucked in at the front

and up into the fan.

It's then forced into the filter bag

and that air is then pushed out
through tiny holes in the bag.

When James took his vacuum
to bits and tore open the bag,

he discovered that those tiny holes
or pores were clogged with dust.

This was causing the dramatic
loss in suction.

Back to you, James.

So this was sort of lodged
in my mind.

And then I went to the sawmill
to get some timber

and saw this huge 30-foot cyclone
on top of the building

and suddenly realised
what it was doing.

It was collecting fine sawdust
all day long without clogging.

And I thought that's what vacuum
cleaners should have.

But I was looking at something
that was 30-foot tall. Yeah.

I had no idea whether it
would work on a small scale.

So James rushed home, built a mini
cyclone,

strapped it to his vacuum

and to his wife's surprise,

developed an enthusiasm for
housework.

I replaced the bag with a cardboard
cyclone that I made at home

and connected a hose
up to the top of it

from the air outlet at the bottom.

And it appeared to be collecting
everything.

After that, he moved on to metal
prototypes.

Back then, money was tight,

so he bent sheets of copper

and brass into cones with an
old-fashioned mangle.

When I got into roughly the conical
shape,

I'd rivet or glue the two
seams together

and put a container
at the bottom to collect the dust.

So the dust spins in like that
and collects here,

and the clean air
goes out a chimney at the top.

You can see what I'm trying to do.
Yeah.

At this point, James
had successfully harnessed

the science of cyclonic separation.

I could see the principle
that it was

separating dust out
by centrifugal force.

And what that means is that if
you drive your Porsche,

if you happen to have one...

If only, James. ..at a corner,
the tighter corner you go around,

the greater centrifugal force

and that's how a cyclone works,
essentially.

You're sending the dust
around a corner at very high speed

so it gets flattened against
the wall of the cyclone

and it spins around into the bottom

and collects in the bottom chamber.

Guiding it from this big space down
into this narrow space

where you can collect it.
Exactly. Exactly, yeah.

But was there ever a moment
when you had doubt

that you were onto something?

Of course.
I mean, doubt all the way through,

and even when I had done it,

still doubt because would people
buy it?

James designed his cyclone vac
G-Force in 1983,

but the world wasn't quite ready.

You think it's as good as that one,
as cleaning?

Oh, it's much better because it
has much better suction.

You're utterly convinced of that?
Oh, yeah.

Here he is, vacuuming white powder

off a Frank Bough's carpet.

But it wasn't a working model,

and he wasn't expecting
to demonstrate it.

So unsurprisingly, it wasn't quite
up to the task.

This gritty stuff here.
I don't really don't see it...

...it doesn't seem to do that
terribly well.

Don't worry, James. I nearly set
a boom mic on fire.

It took ten years

and over 5,000 prototypes to finally
get his first Dyson vacuum,

the DCO1 into shops.

The new Dyson has no bag.

So you get 100% of the power,
100% of the time.

Do you look back with fondness
on those years?

I thought I'd crack it in six
months and it took years.

So it was a long haul, but in a way
enjoyable.

And the funny thing is that when
you finish,

you've done your 5127th.

You don't go and crack a bottle
of champagne.

Um...

...you feel as though you've slightly
lost something.

I've done it now.
I've solved the problem

and I don't have that problem
to deal with.

Now that we're kind of like, if we
move up to date with this thing here,

um...

This thing?
This thing, this beautiful creature.

Ugh, I was doing so well.

When you look back at your first one,

it's quite clear that you got
the big cyclone in the centre.

Where is it in this one?

Well, one of the things we learned
was that the smaller the cyclone,

the tighter the bend and the
greatest the centrifugal force.

So we started making multi-cyclone
vacuum cleaners

and you can see them here.

There's each one.

What is the collective noun
for a group of cyclones?

A swirl?

Whatever it is, there's
15 of them on this vac.

From single to multi-cyclone,

super smart cyclonic separation
is now

a key component of the dust
collector in many modern vacs.

Our next component is a fiendishly
clever piece of tech

that rids your home of microscopic
particles that can make us...

Achoo!

You get the gist.

It's your vacuum's final
line of defence.

It's the filter.

So the cyclone is collecting
all the big dust particles.

This guy is for all of the teeny
tiny microscopic particles

that you otherwise wouldn't be able
to catch.

It's called a HEPA filter,
which stands for

high efficiency particulate
air filter,

and there's quite a lot of it in
there. Let me show you.

James Dyson, look away now.

Here we go.

You know those magician's tricks
with a hanky out of a hat?

Look at this.

There's nearly two metres
of this stuff

all concertinaed up inside -
145 folds -

forming this impenetrable barrier

that all of these minuscule
microscopic particles,

skinnier than the width of a human
hair, get caught by

to make sure that your air,
as well as your house,

is as clean as possible.

This filter paper is actually
a mesh of fibreglass threads

of all different sizes with billions
of dust trapping microscopic pores.

Apparently they're so effective
that they can trap up to 99.97%

of fine particles in the air.

Something I'm going to demonstrate
using my superhero alter ego,

Vacwoman.

Catchphrase - she totally sucks.

Yeah, OK.
I might need to work on that.

I have two particle counters
which are used

to measure air quality.

These counters track how many dust
particles are in the air.

I'm going to put one in each
of these tanks and add some smoke.

Set this thing going.

Smokey.

There we go.

Lovely.

I mean, that's quite the thing,
isn't it?

Airborne particles are measured
in microns.

This smoke has particles
between 0.1 and 1 micron.

Just watch that indicator jump
from a nice, safe green on the left

all the way to the danger
zone on the right.

We are already way into the red.

Huge numbers of microscopic
particles of smoke

billowing through... Oof!

...making it pretty pungent in there.

OK. Now, I'm going to do the same
thing over here on this side,

but this time I'm going to use

a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter
attached on the back.

So let's put this guy in here.

Another little smoke cartridge
in the corner.

There we go.
Let's get this guy going.

And now.
VACUUM WHIRS

Hm!

Look at that!

The particle counter is detecting
an immediate increase,

but the vac is doing a great job
at filtering the air.

Oh, my gosh, the filter's going
orange.

So now the smoke has stopped
billowing out

and look how quickly that's clearing!

Oh, my gosh.

It's completely clear.

If I take a little look on this guy.

Ha-ha! It's back down.

It's not detecting any tiny
little particles floating around

because they have all passed
through this vacuum cleaner

and been caught
by it inside this HEPA.

Look how orange it is inside.

Look, can you see in there?

And then on the outside, none
of it is escaping at all.

That concertina, that HEPA filter
has captured every last

microscopic particle of smoke.

I mean, that is very cool.

That is how good these things are
at trapping microscopic particles.

My orange smoke didn't stand
a chance.

Which is hardly surprising
given that HEPA filters

were invented to trap something
far more ominous.

To find out what we have to go back
to the 1940s

to a secret city built
in Oak Ridge, rural Tennessee.

Here, up to 80,000 people worked
on a highly classified operation

code-named the Manhattan Project.

Their job...

The field of atomic energy.

...to develop an atomic weapon.

To protect workers from radioactive
materials,

a special air filter unit
had to be developed.

These filters were based
on World War Il gas masks

and contained a complex paper made
from asbestos and cellulose fibres.

They were the early precursors
to today's HEPA filters.

Thankfully, the asbestos was dropped
and the tech declassified.

In the 1960s, the term HEPA
was coined

and the tech, no longer top
secret, found its way into home

and office air purifiers.

And then from the 1970s
into our vacuum cleaners.

Today, there are whole laboratories
dedicated

to vacuum filtration systems.

Stick around.
It's not as dull as it sounds.

So this is the Household Dust Lab.

This is your lair, is it?
This is my lair.

This is where I spend my days.

That's microbiologist Dennis
Matthews.

And I don't want to alarm you,

but this man keeps his colleagues'

dead skin in a fridge.

Hold on. Why are you
keeping this dust in the fridge?

The main reason for that is
if you leave that outside,

that's going to stink in a couple of
days.

The Dyson Dust Lab is, funnily
enough, full of household dust

donated by Dyson staff.

A fragrant potpourri of dead skin,
pollen, carpet fibres and hair.

Yeah, I could see some hair in there.

What Dennis doesn't know
about dust isn't worth knowing.

And what he does know,

he passes on to the engineers
who are constantly fine tuning

and improving the vacs' filters.

So this is the Household Dust
Chamber,

and this is where
we analyse our household dust.

It's also where Dennis harbours
millions of micro menaces.

So you can see these flasks
over here.

Yeah. These are dust mites.

No way!

Yeah, we keep colonies of
dust mites.

The reason we do that is that we can
understand their behaviour.

We can collect allergens from them,

which is quite important to our
testing

and our filtration system to see
if they can be picked up.

Let's have a look at that carpet
under the microscope.

Designing a filter system
for something so

incredibly tiny is a challenge.

Dust mites are invisible
to the naked eye,

which you'll be grateful for

because there's up to a thousand
in a square metre of carpet

and over a million
in a warm mattress.

Nice.

These dust mites love that high
humidity, high temperature.

If you lie in a mattress,
your temperature level goes up

so that dust mites come up to
feed on the skin flakes that you...

I think I'm going to start
sleeping standing up.

Standing up like that. Like a
vampire.

I've just had a really horrifying
thought.

If dust mites feed off human skin...
Yeah.

...how are you keeping that colony
alive in your farm?

We give them wheat germ, they
get yeast and dog biscuits.

Oh, OK. They love them.

They're the best fed dust mites
in the whole world, I would say. OK.

Genuinely, I thought there
would be a room through there

where Dyson colleagues were just,
like, grating their feet.

Have a look under the microscope
there. Yeah.

The only way to see these skin
munching dust mites

is through a microscope.

But I'll be honest, I'm not keen.

It's all yours.

Oh, my!

Oh, that is horrifying.

Dust mites don't bite,

but their faecal matter can trigger
allergic reactions and asthma.

So a vacuums filter has to be able
to trap dust mite poo,

which is around 20 microns.

Genuinely disgusting,

although the little tiny ones
are quite cute.

Now, a week ago I posted the contents

of my filthy filter to Dennis
to check I wasn't harbouring

any nasty allergens in my home.

This is your dust sample.
Is it? Is that my dust?

Yep, you can see a lot of skin
flakes, some hair fibres,

a couple of pollen.

Dust mite.

So some... What from my stuff?

Yes. Oh, no.

He looks really sad.

It's dead. I know.

It's not sad.
That's a dead dust mite by the way.

Is that a leg of a dust mite next
to it? That is a body part.

Yeah, my carpet's like a true
crime podcast.

Both amazing and horrific to see
what my vacuum filter had trapped.

So interesting that the filter
is like,

] mean, it's literally
like a mesh. Mesh, yeah.

And stuff gets caught in it.

This filter is so effective it can
even trap tiny virus particles.

The good news is that my

household dust allergen levels
are pretty normal.

It sounds like you're saying I live
in an exceptionally clean house.

Well, it looks like it.

While that's very reassuring,
it does make me want to go home

and vacuum every single inch
of my home.

Our final component is the tough
stuff

protecting the essential innards of
your vac.

The fantastic plastic that makes
it lightweight enough

to tote up the stairs,
but hardy enough

to handle even the
most aggressive cleaning strategy.

It's the casing.

Have you ever abused your vacuum
cleaner?

Been a little too heavy-handed,

taken frustrations out on your poor
old dust sucker.

Just me?

OK.

Vacuum casings have to be tough
cookies

to withstand what we chuck at them.

It's no wonder that Dyson has a
dedicated department of destruction,

otherwise known as product testing.

Is your job just to smash stuff?

That would be great, wouldn't it?

No, so my job is much more about
trying to understand

what the right materials are to
make our products robust. Ah.

That's Rachael Pink,

Head of Technology Development.

Her office is a vast torture chamber

designed to test the limits
of their materials.

Obviously I'm in my absolute element.

You've got fancy pants
vacuum cleaner in there.

Yeah, we're going to drop it.
It's going to be fine.

Are you sure? I'm sure.

Loving Rachael's confidence.

This is a one-metre drop test.

A sort of vacuum casing kamikaze.

Research shows that we are most
likely to drop a vacuum from around

one metre in height.

From the kitchen worktop,
for example.

So here goes.

I mean, there's some gusto in
it, isn't there? There's some gusto.

Can I check if it's OK?
Of course you can.

That properly whacked it.

This is made of polycarbonate.

Same thing they make riot
shields from.

Is it? Yep.

Can we go higher? We can go higher.

I'm so excited. Are you nervous now?

I am, actually. Are you?

Ah, Rachael's looking less confident.

Have you ever dropped anything from
this high before?

I've never dropped any product
from this height before.

Never, never? Never, never.

Oh, Rachael, you haven't lived.

Oh!

Oh, my gosh, it's completely fine.

Oh, come on. Please.

Please can we do three metres?

Can we do three metres?

Go on! Yeah!

Don't shake your head at me.

Got to admit, the decision to make
that vacuum casing

out of riot shields, well,
polycarbonate alloy, to be precise,

is seeming like a pretty good idea
right about now.

But three metres,

this is ground-breaking research.

You ready?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.
There it is, actually OK.

Aren't you amazed? I am very amazed.

Really, really? Yeah.

That is properly impressive.

Thank you for letting us do that.

Your job is fun, isn't it?

It's quite good fun.

I like to think I've done my bit
for the advancement

of applied material science.

But to get serious for a second.

Plastics aren't that sustainable,
though, are they?

We make our products to last,

so we're encouraging people
to use less plastics.

And this product has 24 parts
that we can make

from recycled plastics in it.

I guess in many ways the most
sustainable product

is the one that you hold on to for a
long time.

Absolutely. Even if you chuck
it down the stairs on the way.

Or drop it from three metres.

So how did we get to the lightweight

and unbreakable vacuum
casings of today?

Let's go back to 1909,

a couple of years after
Spangler changed the world

and Mr Hoover took all the credit.

In 1909, Hoover's heavy-duty Model O
was made from wood and aluminium.

It had a fighting weight of 20kg,

so that's pretty much like carrying
two car tyres up the stairs,

three bowling balls

or a Siberian husky.

HOWLING

Early Hoovers were hefty
because they were made

from a moulding technique
called sand casting

that produced thick metal casings.

But a lightweight breakthrough
would come from a revolutionary

new material invented to solve
an entirely different problem.

For a better understanding, let us
turn back the pages of history.

It's the early 20th century.

The dawn of the new age
of electricity.

Look up to where there rises yonder
an electric pylon

carrying the current of service into
every woman's life.

What a lot of wiring systems.

The demand for electricity sparked
a surge in demand for shellac,

a naturally occurring resin used
to insulate electrical wiring.

Shellac was non-conductive,
perfect for protecting wires

that were often prone to sparking.

The trouble is, shellac
is the natural by-product

of the female lac bug.

Here she is being crowned
Miss Ugly Bug 1903.

Anyway, it takes over 30,000 lac
bugs six months

to make enough resin
for just one kilo of insulation.

The race was on to find a cheaper
alternative

that could be made in a lab.

Are we filming now?

I think so. OK, yeah.

That's chemist Dr Jamie Gallagher.

He's a very serious scientist
who knows a lot about plastics,

and he's also available
for children's parties.

Who's the main character
in our story? Who's our protagonist?

Leo Baekeland is our main character,
the father of plastics.

And it was a very curious person.

He loved physics, he loved chemistry
but he had one guiding purpose -

make money, make as much
of it is he possibly could.

He made $1,000,000 in photographic
paper.

That's where he made his fortune big
enough fortune to buy a huge house,

to buy a stable with that house
and turn the stable into a lab

where you could try and make
more money.

Oh, wow. Old greedy, Mr Leo.

Baekeland believed
that he could make money by inventing

a new fire resistant material.

Now, plastic wasn't completely new.

A semi-synthetic plastic
had been around for about 50 years.

Remember the high celluloid
collars he used to wear?

Well, they were plastic.

Celluloid was made from chemically
altered cellulose.

It was tough, but a little bit burny.

And when made into billiard balls,
apparently a bit explody.

Hardly good for electrical
insulation.

Baekeland knew chemists had already
made a mysterious hard substance

by mixing formaldehyde, used
for preserving dead bodies,

and phenol, a by-product of coal.

Were they the key to a new fire
resistant material?

Let's do some science. Science, yes.

What we're going to do is to our
phenol and formaldehyde mix,

we're going to add in a strong acid.

So at the moment in here, you've got
these little teeny molecules

that are just floating around free.

And then once you add in the acid,
they're going to start linking up.

Exactly, yeah.

When two different molecules
come together in the right way,

a very interesting thing happens.

The phenol and the formaldehyde will
start linking up

and we might see slight colour
change, just a slight pink tinge.

Oh, yeah.

And if we just keep adding
a little bit more acid.

Oh, very...oh, that's cool! Cloudy.

It's like this sort of rose-tinted
cream just erupts from the centre.

It's a beautiful colour.

That pink stuff is the phenol
and formaldehyde rearranging to form

a brand new chain of molecules
called a polymer.

A new material is born.

And this is exactly
what Baekeland found.

One day when he went into the lab,
it was the first synthetic plastic.

Bakelite. Bakelite.

Baekeland discovered
by applying heat and pressure,

he could lock the plastic
in a permanent shape.

This was thermosetting plastic.

It was heat resistant

and this was the breakthrough
he needed.

This changed everything.

They were not having to farm
thousands of beetles

for a few grams of resin anymore.

We can do this on industrial scale,

produce something that is colourful,

insulating, hard wearing,
lightweight,

perfect for filling your house
with electrical devices.

By the 1920s and '30s,
Bakelite was everywhere.

The box is made of Bakelite.

Oh, yes.

While it was useful for housing,
electrical components,

light switches and fuse boxes,

it was, to quote their blurb, the
material of a thousand uses.

In 1936, we got the first
Bakelite Hoover,

durable and lightweight.

Which essentially makes it absolutely
perfect for a vacuum cleaner.

Exactly. If you think about all
the electrical components in there,

we've got something that's not going
to give people an electric shock,

which we would've had
if it was made of metal.

And we've got something
lightweight, that's portable.

Baekeland ushered in the age
of fully synthetic plastics

and transformed the way
that people lived.

Homes throughout will be bright
with colour,

with many contributions
of the kingdom of plastics.

Yes, this is a dream of the future.

OK, well, hang on a minute.

We all know now that the real
downside to this

is that it doesn't decompose.

Its blessing and its curse. Mm.

Once you have made Bakelite,

once you have made
any thermosetting plastic,

which is a particular type of
plastic, you've got it forever.

And this essentially is the beginning
of mass production, I guess.

Absolutely. This was the start of
our disposable economy.

And marketers had to teach
people to dispose of things

cos it wasn't natural. If you think
about the end of the Second World war,

people making do and mending.

That was what we did.

We kept objects. We repaired them.

As plastics and polymers came in

manufacturers needed people
to dispose of these.

They wanted them buying them more.

We were taught to dispose.

Ooh, that makes me feel slightly
uncomfortable. Yeah.

We know it's complicated now,
but back in the 1930s,

the plastic revolution meant the
beginning of modern vacuum design.

From 1936, Henry Dreyfuss at Hoover

took over the design
of the iconic Junior Range.

It ran right through to the 1980s.

It became so iconic that it even
starred in that Queen video

with Freddie Mercury.

Jog a few memories?

From heavy metal to plastic fantastic

and the unbreakable brilliance
of polycarbonate,

the evolution of our final component,

the casing, has been the pursuit
of material excellence.

The perfect blending of strength,
durability and style.

Sound like someone you know?

SHE LAUGHS

For 100 years, the humble
vacuum cleaner

has helped us fight the filth.

But the next big breakthrough
might mean you can do the housework

without even lifting a finger.

Because the future is robotic.

Finally meet the very latest
home help.

Britain's first domestic
robot goes on sale tomorrow.

Yeah, that was 1984, Jan,

and frankly, I'm still waiting.

We have been promised robots to help
us at home for decades now.

Unlike human housemaids,

Mabel never tires, never
grumbles, never takes a day off.

I'm back at Dyson in the hope
that the bright minds in robotics

are working on a robot butler.

Now, that would be the dream.

It's an actual house.
It is an actual house. Nice.

This is where we test our products

to make sure that they're going
to work in a real home.

That's Dr Mike Aldred.

He's been building robots at Dyson
for 25 years.

He loves his robots so much
he's even built a house for them.

I mean, you've gone to detail here,
though, because you've got a gas hob,

you've got an actual
oven and a microwave.

Did you deliberately get the cheapest
furniture that you could find?

I would say they're probably
not the best.

This is Mike's latest robot,

the 360 Vis Nav.

An all-seeing, all-sucking
autonomous floor cleaner.

Six years in the making,

hundreds of thousands of hours
in the testing.

These are very much my babies.

Wow.

Hi, Dad.

Where do I feel like I've seen
this before?

All the way from Sweden,

it's billed as the world's
first fully automatic

robot vacuum cleaner.

Back in 1997, Electrolux introduced
the Trilobite floor cleaner.

And viewing figures for tomorrow's
world mysteriously piqued.

The robot hasn't been given
any information

about the shape of the room,

but it can work its way
about the floor

using a couple of simple tricks.

Pop some togs on, Philippa, love.

You'll catch your death.

Outrageous.

Vis Nav, unlike its predecessor,

has 360 degree visual navigation,

making it much cleverer
at dodging potential pitfalls.

But come on, autonomous floor
cleaners?

They can't get up the stairs.

They can't clean your couch.

Aren't they just Uber for pets?

They're no robot butler.

Hoo-hoo.

This is more like it.

So this is the lab where we're now
thinking about

what we're going
to be doing in the future.

OK, number one on my robot butler
wish list -

it has to pick up my mess.

Like the shoes I kick off as soon
as I get home.

Developing a robot that
has the ability to have the joints

and the manipulation,
the manoeuvrability

and the sense

to actually know how to do those
things is incredibly difficult.

That'll be a no then.

Well, OK, can I at least have a robot
butler that vacuums the sofa?

So the idea is to be able to
SD-vacuum

a surface now in a safe way.

That's the key word. We have to do
it safely.

Yes, because the last thing you want
is to vacuum your grannie.

Or your cat.

As impressive as it is,
this is still a long, long,

long way away from being my robot
butler.

Yeah, our knowledge of robotics, our
expectations are so driven by

actual science fiction.

But the reality is it might
be better to have

lots of smaller robots able to do
specific tasks really well,

rather than one be a
jack-of-all-trades

and master of none.

I get the impression Mike is trying
to let me down gently here.

But hang on.

Who's this?

This is Max.

Oh, my gosh. This is like the science

fiction version of the future,

but it's now. It is.

So it has wheels, so it can go
around the house. Mm-hm.

And this is the arm to pick
up different objects and tidy.

Presumably with wheels,
Max can navigate around a room.

Yep. Can pick stuff up. Mm-hm.

Hold a vacuum or is a vacuum?

Those are really good questions

and the honest answer is
we don't know at the moment.

This is like very blue-sky thinking
then, in the way, right? Yeah.

Like, is it possible to create
something that can pick stuff up

and put it down? Exactly.

Work out what you can do
with it later. Yeah, and...

...it's such a new world
and there's so many complexities

that what we tend to do
is we set ourselves a really,

really difficult challenge.

But actually the blue-sky
research enables us to work out

where are those takeoffs,
where can we do something early

that's going to make a big
difference to an earlier product.

I'll be patient when it comes to
my robot butler. I will be patient.

OK, I get it.

Aim for a robot butler and you might
develop something very clever

and useful along the way.

Max here could hold the key
to the next generation

of super smart vacuum cleaners.

I love it so much.

See you in about a decade.

Vacuum cleaners
have been around for 120 years.

You made a vacuum cleaner!

There really is some sophisticated
tech

tucked away in our cleaning closets.

Decades of innovation, delivering us
from dust,

drudgery and outdated
domestic gender roles.

And I say amen to that.

I think in a lot of ways the history
of the vacuum cleaner

is actually quite a simple story,
right?

It's people trying to solve
the problem of removing dirt.

But I think when you stretch
out that question

over more than a century,

it ends up taking you in these
really unexpected directions,

like down to the microscopic.

This nano world of tiny dust
particles

and allergens
and viruses that we're now

hoping to be able to remove.

But then also off into the science
fiction view of the future

where you have robot butlers
cleaning and tidying for you.

And I think that you would be hard
pressed to find

a better illustration than
the humble vacuum cleaner

of just how far the human
mind can take you

when it's in search of solving a
problem.

Next time it's the smartphone.

Oh, hi.

Welcome to my phone shop.

It's the story of South Korean
sausages in the noughties...

Delicious.

...1940s comic book hero Dick Tracy...

...oh, and an unflattering snap

that kick-started
the digital camera revolution.

Sure, the face is completely screwed
up, but that's a detail, right?

HE LAUGHS

What makes me want to find things
out?

Hmm.

Do want to find out how I answer

or learn more about how technology
can impact sustainability practices?

You can go to:

and follow the links to the open
university.