Inside a GIANT Tunnel Boring Machine - The Surprising Truth About How We Tunnel!

How did a tiny sea creature inspire the machines that dig massive tunnels under cities? In this episode of Wow! I didn’t know that, we go underground - literally and historically - to explore how the shipworm, a bizarre clam-like animal that once sank ships, sparked a tunnelling revolution. From the incredible story of Marc Brunel’s first tunnel under the River Thames to the monster machines boring through the earth for High Speed 2, this is the wild, unexpected history of how nature shaped one of the biggest engineering breakthroughs of all time. Chapters 00:00 We’re digging GIANT tunnels 00:57 HS2 is a Mega-Project on a huge scale 02:50 The sea creature that inspired TBMs 04:45 The Grandfather of tunnelling Marc Brunel 06:13 The Brunel Museum & The Thames Tunnel 08:08 How TBMs dug the London Underground 08:52 World’s first Tube tunnel – the Tower Subway 10:06 Inside an HS2 Tunnel Boring Machine 12:36 Driving a TBM 13:54 Building tunnel rings 16:04 What else could the Shipworm teach us? #Engineering #Tunnelling #HS2 #Shipworm #NatureInspired #Biomimicry #CivilEngineering #Brunel #Infrastructure #ScienceExplained #HistoryOfEngineering #WowIDidntKnowThat #ExplainerVideo #MegaProjects #LondonUnderground You can find me on... Instagram here -   / wow.idkt   TikTok here -   / wow.idkt   Produced by Green Signals Productions Ltd YouTube -    / @greensignals   Website - https://www.greensignals.org/ Additional resources... HS2 on YouTube -    / @hs2ltd   The Brunel Museum - https://thebrunelmuseum.com/ Reuben Shipway - https://explorers.nationalgeographic.... Thanks to HS2 Ltd, The Brunel Museum and Reuben Shipway for being so amazing in helping us to produce this video. Subscribe & hit the bell so you never miss a show:    / @wow-idkt   Show me you read the description by answering this question in the comments... Tunnel boring machines are traditionally given names. If you got to name one, what would you call it?