This is an old technology question. In a 2-slice toaster, one of the slice sections claims to be the place to put your bread if you're only toasting one slice. Why is that if both go down?
The mechanism that lowers the bread for both sides is one unit. One has to assume it was a cost cutting measure to maximize profit, as it would incur greater costs to have two seperate units. x
Having used "the wrong side" very recently, figuring "it really can't matter," yeah I've thought about it. I am going to resist the urge to google the answer (remember the pre-Internet world, when you had to keep lists of stuff like this to look up or verify, and then spend an entire day at the library? Kids are so lucky today!), and ponder it some more.
There used to be high-end toasters that automatically lowered the slices into the toasting chamber when they sensed the presence of the bread. For cost reasons, only one slot had a bread sensor, so a single slice had to be placed in that slot, which was marked. Imitating the higher end models, manual toasters began labeling one of the slots "Single Slice". The single slot marking is actually an aid to consumer satisfaction. Consider, if a person (with one piece of bread) wants to toast that slice, but failed to notice that the toaster is already toasting another single slice. Putting the untoasted bread in the unoccupied slot (of a hypotheical unmarked toaster) will under toast the bread, enraging the consumer. Its possible that the user would note that toaster was in use and would try to remove their bread. Poking a fork into a working toaster is a shock hazard. However, with one slot marked "Single Slice" the previous users toast will physically block the insertion of bread. Thus insuring that even inattentive users will be safe and receive properly toasted bread. The question I have is about the crumbs. Are there more crumbs below the single slice slot? If so, would a slanted crumb catcher disperse the crumbs more evenly? Would such a crumb catcher prevent fires by maximizing the crumb-pile-top to heating element distance. Or would it just allow more crumbs to accumulate before catching fire, resulting in a bigger fire than an un-slanted crumb catcher.
really? i thought he explained it pretty well. its just that the fact that he put that much thought and effort into something so trivial that makes me wonder. oh and about the slanted crumbs... If the toaster had a slanted bottom to counterract the diagonal crumb deposit, the crumbs would still only collect at the bottom of the slant due to the length of time that it sits. I think the crumbs would settle.
