Hacker News Reader

Comment by sytelus | Hacker News Reader

What is cool about this is how much of technology required for all little tiny parts of modern devices. Who knew a camera lens is made up of Sapphire? I wonder how many elements from periodic tables would be checked off when making an iPhone. Just thinking about this, there were probably 100s of innovations just to mine and purify and machine sapphire in past 100s of years so that in 2000s we can finally produce acceptable quality tiny camera lens. Same thing goes for Gorilla glass, motion sensors and so on. I would probably bet that if we needed to make a document that describes every technology required to make an iPhone starting from how to make a fire so that a caveman can follow it by the line and produce an iPhone, it would probably a 100 million pages.

View on HN

On that vein, an essay on how a pencil is made: http://www.econlib.org/library/Essays/rdPncl1.html

«I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be, merit your wonder and awe, a claim I shall attempt to prove. In fact, if you can understand me—no, that's too much to ask of anyone—if you can become aware of the miraculousness which I symbolize, you can help save the freedom mankind is so unhappily losing. I have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple.

Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me. This sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Especially when it is realized that there are about one and one-half billion of my kind produced in the U.S.A. each year.»

I seem to recall there's a similar essay for Coca-Cola.

Yep, this: https://medium.com/editors-picks/221d449929ef

Better than the pencil thing, imho, since it actually focuses on the can of coke itself, rather than the coffee cup the bauxite miners might be drinking.

Alternatively, here's an excellent video based on the essay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYO3tOqDISE

Except that essay doesn't tell you how to actually make a pencil... it tells you how to make a market where the components of a pencil could be bought.

I think it would be more interesting (well, unless you're an economist) to describe the composition of the various parts of the pencil, how they are formed, and ultimately how the pencil is physically manufactured.

Then again, I also like watching How It's Made.

it tells you how to make a market where the components of a pencil could be bought

As I recall, the point of the essay is that you simply can't make a "market" that would produce a pencil at all. No one can. It happens organically, or not at all.

The strength of markets is that they are self-organizing to a large degree (given the right conditions, e.g. political stability and preservation of capital), and that the sum is greater that the parts—in the essay, the 'sum' being the pencil, which no single organization (or government) can produce on it's own.

> I wonder how many elements from periodic tables would be checked off when making an iPhone.

I'm not sure why this should be a particularly large number. Obvious candidates:

Au - circuitry

C, H - plastic

Si - glass, chips

Al, O - corundum

Whatever powers the battery.

Whatever else goes into the chips and circuitry.

> there were probably 100s of innovations just to mine and purify and machine sapphire in past 100s of years so that in 2000s we can finally produce acceptable quality tiny camera lens

"Purifying" sapphire doesn't make much sense. You'd want to melt it, get the iron (or whatever colorant) out, and reform it. It's easier to just start with pure aluminum oxide, which is what they're doing.

As far as I'm aware (and I'd love to be corrected, since gems are a personal interest), the general method of machining gemstones is to abrade them against a surface coated in invisibly small diamonds. How many innovations you want to count in the process is, as always, somewhat flexible; but it's fairly cool technology.

Al - the case

S - probably a component of the Al alloy, it helps with machinability

Li - the battery, possibly also the case alloy

B, P - semiconductor doping

Cu - Almost certainly used somewhere

Pb, Sn - solder

Anything else?

Ga and As for doping too

Not much Pb in modern solders (in fact in the EU you can't add lead to any solder, I think you can have trace amounts if they are "naturally" there).

Modern solder is pretty crappy compared to the stuff I used to work with in the 80's and 90's, it's much trickier to work with, whiskers are more of a problem and I've found (the few times I've used it) that it seems to require more heat.

You left out a lot of the phone's components. The screen, the speakers / mic, other electrical components. Most components use alloys, not pure elements.

http://www.mining.com/infographic-the-periodic-table-of-smar... rounds up the rare earth elements and where they are used

Mined sapphire is not useful for using as a lens as you can't purify it - it must be made pure.

Have you seen this talk? http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toast...

Have it on my desk Monday morning.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com