In this calm and deliberately boring episode, you'll listen to hundreds of quiet facts about old water wheels, the large wheels turned by moving water that once did much of the world's work. We take a slow and unhurried look at what a water wheel actually is and how it worked, since the weight or push of water against its paddles and buckets was enough to set it slowly turning and drive the machines inside a mill. Along the way, we cover the different kinds, from undershot wheels that dip into a passing current to overshot wheels fed by water pouring over the top, and how shafts, gears, and heavy millstones carried that turning into the grinding of grain. We look gently at the mills and millers who depended on the wheel, at the mill pond and millrace that stored and steered the water, at the many other uses of water power, from sawing wood to pounding cloth to pumping mines, and at the long history that ran from Roman times through the medieval world. There are many overlooked details, including why the wheel was one of the first machines to replace human muscle, how a miller controlled the flow to speed or slow the wheel, why water wheels turned so slowly and yet so powerfully, and how the same simple idea lives on today in the turbines of hydroelectric power. Nothing here is dramatic, and nothing needs to be remembered. Tonight, as you listen, you can simply rest inside the thought that even the most ordinary subject contains more quiet details than anyone could ever notice at once.
