Of course, you toast bread, but say you had a standard 2 slot toaster, nothing fancy and nothing industrial strenth - how much bread could you actually toast before the thing dies on you?
Running the thing 24/7, would it last a week, a few days, longer? Would the heating coils/bands start giving up one by one, or would it just burn out suddenly in one fatal, last toast…
Even if I had a signature, I doubt I’d have room for it.
My calculations suggest the answer is 4687. So you’d better be careful, 'cos if you want to make sandwiches, you’ll be left with one made from one toasted slice and one untoasted slice, which would be, if my other calculations are correct, carcinogenic.
i think you’re off by a factor of ten,Android. I get46,870. Thus avoiding the fatal piece of toast. I think you dropped a decimal, I bet it landed jelly side down too.
Ideally for maximum 24 hour a day toast production you’d want the coils to be on all the time,thus avoiding the flexing and resulting strain from the nichrome wires heating nd cooling. I think they’re nichrome. Depending on how those filaments are connected you’d either lose all toasting ability as soon as a coil snapped, toasting in one slot, toasting on one side of one slot, or possibly a gradual toast down as coil by coil snapped. Any way you’d have to have a timed toaster or bypass the temp sensor that turns it off and pops up the toast. And beware of pop tart fires. I like my tarts hot and juicy but not flaming.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
Do we give a prize for most inane question ?
I’ll be in the back slapping the big nosed rasta man.
This is just the kind of thing that Underwriters Laboratories Inc. thinks about all the time. They have done MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) analysis on thousands of products, and if anybody knows HMTCATT (How Much Toast Can A Toaster Toaster Toast), they do.
In fact, if you absotively, posilutely must know the answer to this question, you can order UL Standard #1026 which covers all kinds of small appliances. Unfortunately, it is not published online at this time; probably something tacky about a profit motive.
TT
“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
–James Thurber
Would seem like you’re toast, Powers. Nada on the subject at the Cyber Toaster Museum http:///www.toaster.org , and even Dr. Toast http://www.drtoast.com/philosophy.html doesn’t appear to have tackled the subject as of yet.
NothingMan: Define “inane”.
(((JUST A HUMOUR REPLY)))
Congratulations, you’ve just won!
One slash too many, sorry. Here’s the correct URL, in case you’re interested.
HOW MUCH TOAST
“How much toast
can a toaster toast?”
asked
a most
erudite member
of the Internet’s
“Straight Dope.”
With the depth of the
topic some members couldn’t cope,
while, still
as replies,
came two
incisive posts:
First:
“‘Is there a prize for the inane?’
I’m being rhetorical.”
Second:
“Congratulations,
you’ve won it;
just a humorous joke.”
Collectively these message-makers
amused
another bloke.
The four of them
illiterated
to and fro, in this mode.
Finally the administrators,
in hypertext,
wrote,
(and I offer the the quote),
“CENSORED! MEMBERSHIP FOREVER
AND PERMANINTLY REVOKED!”
How Much Toast © 2000 by ASPA
Inane question? It’s not like I asked why toasters don’t have some form of odometer or something (and THAT has been buggin’ me for years!)! 
Q: How much toast would a toaster toast if a toaster could toast toast?
A: The toaster would toast as much toast as a toaster could toast if a toaster could toast toast.
Jeremy…
Nobody ever calls me after they’ve done something smart.
Well, let’s see… My toaster turned 50 on January 27, 2000, and I’d say I probably toast an average of four pieces of toast a week (I’ve had this toaster for the last four years or so). Keep in mind, however, that this was the “family toaster” for something like 30 years and during at least 20 of those years, we toasted 20+ pieces of toast a week (family of four). I’ll leave the math to you.
The toaster still works exceptionally well, even after 50 years (it was a wedding gift to my parents). The little mechanism that lowers the bread in and raises the toast back out operates smoothly and completely every time. The only glitch is that after you do two runs, the toast gets lighter and lighter each successive time. No big, I just adjust the darkness gauge accordingly.
For the purposes of your test you should consider the following: are you talking about testing an OLD toaster like mine, or one assembled last week in [insert name of third-world country here]? The sad fact is, they just don’t build toasters like they used to. If your little experiment is to be run on one of today’s el cheapo toasters, I wager it wouldn’t last 5 years with just average usage (running it 24/7 would surely result in a fatal error within a week).
StoryTyler
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”
Sounds like Tyler might have the same type of toaster as I do:
Sunbeam Model T-35-1. Lighter/Darker knob on one end and the cord comes out of the other end. Two slots. The one nearest the L/D control is the one you load up first. Toast automatically lowers, and comes up slowly when done. Chrome & Black bakelite construction.
It was also a wedding gift to my parents, who were married in Dec of 1942.
It has always done very heavy duty, due to large families (theirs and mine), something on the order of 10 to 16 slices per day.
I replaced the cord once, when I first received it from my mom (1978), and it has been going full tilt ever since.
I have noticed the same thing with the successive batches of toast lightening up, and I too crank the knob clockwise to maintain that golden brown result…at least until I can’t crank the control any further, then it gets a rest.
After it’s cooled down a bit, I burn a couple of pieces of toast because I forget to turn down the control. :o
What can I say? I’ll probably never have to replace the darned thing, and I don’t really want too either. Everyone who see’s it in operation asks where they can get one too.
–Kalél
TheHungerSite.com
“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.”
“Well, there was that thing with the Cheese-Wiz…but I’m feeling much better now!” – John Astin, Night Court
That i toast bread
just isn’t a fact
I haven’t toasted it
since way far back
Ever since my toaster broke
(I remember the day; …still makes me choke)
I eat my bread
with a blow of air
to which I add selected spreads
Mind you, now, I won’t eat it plain
I eat my bread (preferring whole grain)
with jelly mixed with dyes
(and, admittedly,
that’s strange!)
but everso enjoyably
slice over slice
on Hamtrak train
I eat my bread with
sugar cane
that’s been dried—
then drenched, in ozone rain
I eat bread any way I like it
But right out the pack --NO!
I’d never bite it
So, before you state your claim again
I beg that you instead refrain
'Cause, please: to say, “of course”,
I toast it
is absolutely
incredibly
ridic-u-lisly
sorta
inane.
© 2000 by ASPA
Correct quote prompting above-posted dispute is this:
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Powers106:
**Of course, you toast bread,
I believe the answer is zero. You don’t toast toast you toast bread. However suppose you toast bread and it pops up and isn’t quite done. Then you put the TOAST (not bread) in the toaster. But now this can be considered retoasting not toasting so maybe the question is unanswerable.
Ummmm, max, I’m sorry, but I’m missing something in reading your answer. His question was actually ABOUT toasting BREAD. See correct quote of question in above-given post. Please comment, as we are having a vital discourse here. Of course, dis course is not the best, but if compared not to the rest, why, then, it seems to hurt much less.
[QUOTE]
Originally posted by ASPA:
**Ummmm, max, —I mean markxxx (I think; I don’t have the exact spelling at my sight)
ASPA - by God you are the Walt Whitman of our generation. (Those were mighty funny.)
But seriously, how many times can I post to this site before my computer breaks down ?
Oh, and how many times can I wash my car before it disappears ?
And how many licks before you get to the center of a Tootsie-Roll Pop ?
One… two-hooooo…
Pretty darned close. Mine’s a T-20 (why would the numbers go backward?), but you’re describing my toaster exactly. Does yours have a few clean Art Deco lines etched into the sides (upside-down T shape with circles at the intersection of the T)? We had to replace the original cord, as well. Other than that, it’s a peach!
BTW, my mother was throwing it away!!! I’d gone down south to visit my parents and saw it sitting in their garbage can. “You’re throwing this out!? Are you crazy!?” I yodeled at mom. She said she was tired of it and had bought herself a “modern” toaster. (Sheeeeeesh!)
“Great! It’s mine!” I didn’t care if it worked or not at that point, I just loved the look - turns out it did work (and still does) perfectly well.
One more way cool (and functional) Art Deco item for Ty’s pad. Yay!
StoryTyler, Cyb-Killer
“Not everybody does it, but everybody should.”