ShmoopTube

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The kinetic energy of the wind can be put to use if we can [The 'wind' dancing round]

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snatch it from the atmosphere. We tried to do that once and we looked pretty stupid, [The 'wind' is cuaght and put in a bag]

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luckily windmills were built for that task. But wind is a temperamental thing [Wind turbine]

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it might blow really hard one day then disappear for a week, also it's just [Boy holds on to a tree and then the wind stops]

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usually invisible good for it when it's having a bad hair day, bad for humans

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trying to harness it. Well still if winds all we got we might as well make do.

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People made many varieties of windmill in their quest to laze about and let [Man sat in a deckchair as 'mother nature' turns the windmill]

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mother nature do the work for them, and in their quest to make the best

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miniature golf courses ever. Post mills were the first kind of windmill in [Miniature gold course full of windmills]

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Europe appearing some time in the 12th century. Well a post mill was built above

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a central post so it could pivot. With a pivoting mill you could turn to face the [Wind changes sides and the mill follows]

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wind, well this was a seriously big deal in Northern Europe where wind patterns are

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constantly shifting. If folks couldn't turn their mills they had a really ugly lawn

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ornament that just sat there 75% of the time. Well post mills were the most common

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type of mill for centuries, they were cheap to build and they usually worked. [People building a post mill]

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Then the tower mill hit the scene with a bang. In a tower mill the main body of [Tower mill drops from the sky]

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the mill is fixed to the ground and only the very top section turns in the wind.

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They usually include a second smaller set of sails on the side of the mill and

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these would automatically turn the big sales to face the wind less work for

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human beings all you betcha, and isn't that always the goal.. but we're asking [Person in a hammock]

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Siri, come on, you thought we were gonna think about something... Anyway tower mills

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could be way bigger because they didn't have to spin around completely, the bigger [Much bigger tower mill next to a post mill]

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windmill is the more power it generates they definitely gave the old post mills the

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short meal syndrome. Well power mills were all that jazz until the Industrial [Post mill looks jealous]

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Revolution when wind and water got kicked to the curb in favor of steam and coal

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but windmills still had some uses. Well in the mid-1850s a new kind of windmill

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was born wind pumps which use wind power to pump water out of deep wells. [Metal windmill spinning]

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They were small metal and had lots of blades rather than three or four sails, in the

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mid 19th century Europeans made their way to some hostile environments, the [Europeans travelling across the world]

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American Southwest, Australia and South Africa. To farm the way they were used to

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farming they needed more water. Well old-school European windmills could pump [Man looking for pizza in the desert]

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water out of wells but what were they going to build those huge clunky

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mills out of... Cacti? Tumbleweeds? The shattered dream of the indigenous people

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they conquered and destroyed.. Well they probably would have tried that last one [Windmill made of hopes and dreams]

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if they thought it'd work instead the Halliday wind pump was invented. They were

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metal lightweight cheap and soon they were everywhere picture a scenic little [Halliday wind pumps appearing]

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farm in Texas with a squeaky old windmill turning gently in the wind.

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Yeah well those metal wind pumps were so common that they changed the landscape

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of the American West and the stage sets of many future productions of Oklahoma. [Halliday wind pump on stage]

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(Singing) "Oklahoma, blowing in the wind" all that. Yeah well theatre fact, all actors know

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they're only in a legit production if it features a Halliday wind pump.

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Yeah try harder there next time Hamilton. [Footage of a play]

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