Hello. This is 6 Minute English
from BBC Learning English.
I'm Sam.
And I'm Neil.
In 1436 in Germany, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press
- a machine capable of making
many copies of the same page of text.
Ever since,
printing has been used around the world
to produce books, newspapers and magazines.
Printing technology has come a long way
since Gutenberg's time, but even today's most
advanced laser printers have only printed flat,
two-dimensional objects... until now.
In this programme, we're discussing 3D printers
– printers which can build solid,
three-dimensional objects out of
a variety of materials including plastic,
concrete and metal.
Now, Neil, when you say a printer that
can make solid objects, I guess you're not
talking about a normal printer...
That's right, Sam.
These large and
complex 3D printers work in a completely different way.
Unlike a sculptor who chips away at a block of stone
to reveal a shape underneath, 3D printers work in
the opposite way, building up physical objects by adding
material layer on layer.
And the ability to print objects
in this way is providing solutions to many problems,
as we'll be finding out...
But first I have a question for you, Neil.
Before Johannes Gutenberg invented his printing press,
copies of texts were made by block printing, using hand-carved
wooden blocks pressed into ink.
So - what was the oldest
known text to be printed this way?
Was it:
a) a religious teaching?, b) a cooking recipe? or,
c) a love letter?
I think it might have been a recipe.
OK, Neil.
I'll reveal the answer later in the programme.
The idea of printing solid objects is not new,
but it was only after the millennium that tech
companies began to realise how it could be done.
Here's Professor Mark Miodownik,
a material scientist at University College, London,
explaining more to BBC World Service programme,
People Fixing The World:
As the millennium turned, patents expired
and that meant people started making really
cheap 3D printers.
And people started mucking
about with them and going, 'Hold on a minute!
- it's not just an industrial tool...
You can put them in schools,
you can put them in universities...
Ohh, it's actually
really great for prototyping'.
And then people
got excited about it and it became
the answer to everything.
Everything
was going to be 3D-printed!
After the year 2000, 3D printers
suddenly got much cheaper and tech
companies started mucking about with them –
spending time playing with them in a fun way.
They realised that 3D printers had many uses
- for example, they discovered that 3D printers
were great at making prototypes –
models of a product that can be tested,
improved and used to develop better products.
Professor Miodownik thinks these tech companies
were surprised at how useful 3D printing was.
He uses the phrase Hold on a minute!
to express
this surprise or disbelief.
In fact, in turned out that 3D printers
were excellent at making bespoke things
– objects which are made specially for
a particular person.
One area which
3D printing dramatically improved was
medical prosthetics - artificial body parts
made specially for someone who has lost
an arm, a leg or a foot, for example.
In 2021, Stephen Verze, who lost an eye
in a childhood accident, became the first person
to be fitted with a 3D-printed prosthetic eye.
It's prosthetic, so the new eye doesn't restore
Stephen's sight, but it has boosted his confidence.
Surgeon Mandeep Sagoo, led the team at Moorsfield Hospital
that operated on Stephen's eye.
Here he is
explaining more to BBC World Service's,
People Fixing The World:
In many countries, particularly the developed world,
there are facilities for custom-making
a prosthetic eye to match the other eye,
and that's an artisan process which
is very time-consuming and requires real
artistry on the part of the ocularist –
the ocularist is the person who fits the prosthetic eye –
and so what we have been developing is
a technique to automate the whole process.
Even before 3D printers, prosthetic eyes
were custom-made, a word similar to 'bespoke'
which means specially made according to
a particular person's requirements.
But the traditional way of making artificial eyes
by hand is very time-consuming –
it takes a lot of time to do.
Nowadays, 3D printing can complete the
whole process in just thirty minutes.
It's great to see technology helping people,
and amazing how far new inventions like
3D printers have come since the days
of Johannes Gutenberg... speaking of which,
Neil, it's time to reveal the answer to my question.
Right.
You asked me about the earliest known text to
have been printed using wooden blocks,
and I guesses it was a cooking recipe...
So, was I right?
You were... wrong, I'm afraid, Neil!
The oldest known wooden block print was
actually a religious text –
the Buddha's Diamond Sutra.
OK, let's recap the vocabulary from this programme,
starting with mucking about, an informal way to say
playing with something carelessly, not for a serious reason.
A prototype is a model of a product
that can be tested, improved and used to
develop a better product.
The phrase Hold on a minute!
can be
used to express surprise or disbelief.
Prosthetics refer to artificial body parts
such as arms, legs, feet or eyes, which are
used to replace a missing natural part.
The words bespoke, and custom-made describe something
specially made for a particular person.
And finally, if something is time-consuming,
it takes a lot of time to do.
Goodbye for now!
Goodbye!