Made Of

Everything is made of something.
About

Everything comes from somewhere.

A shirt needs thread, thread needs cotton, cotton needs a plant, and the plant needs sunlight from a star. Made Of maps those connections for 399 things, from the big bang to the internet, so you can follow any of them back to where it came from.

How the map works

Every item sits on a scale from raw to refined, and every link says what kind of connection it is. Most things can be made more than one way, so items can have several recipes.

  • Evolved from: Birds evolved from dinosaurs. 42 links.
  • Made from: Wool is made from sheep. 869 links.
  • Made with: Fabric is made with a loom. 115 links.
  • Needs: A tree needs sunlight. 94 links.
  • Comes from: Coal comes from a mine. 27 links.
From raw to refined
FundamentalHHydrogenStarAuGold34
NaturalSheepQuartzTree89
MaterialSteelWoolGlass95
ComponentMicrochipTyreScrew38
ProductPencilBreadSmartphone129
SystemFarmFactory14

Explore

Pick anything and see what it takes and what it leads to. Follow a thread as far as you like.

Start exploring

Link

A new puzzle each day: get from one thing to another in as few links as you can.

Play today’s puzzle

Craft

Start with only the big bang and build your way to a pencil, a phone or a city.

Start building

How we know

Links carry evidence: what supports them, what argues against them, and the sources behind it. Each link gets a confidence level, so you can tell settled science from open questions. Where scientists genuinely disagree, like where life began, the map shows each idea side by side.

The evidence was researched with the help of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, using real published sources. It has not yet been reviewed by experts, so it may contain mistakes.

Evidence across the map
824of 1147 links have evidence, from 413 sources
Established735
Strong79
Debated10
Hypothesis0

What’s simplified

Any map leaves things out. These are the biggest simplifications in this one:

  • It’s small. 399 items stand in for millions of real things, and some chains are much deeper than others.
  • The tree of life is a single line. Fish “evolved from early animals” rather than from a specific ancestor, and real family trees branch far more.
  • Materials are generalised. “Steel” stands for hundreds of grades, and many links pick the most common way something is made.
  • Dates are first appearances, and many are approximate. Where nobody knows, the map says so.

Inspired by

  • “I, Pencil” (1958), Leonard Read’s essay pointing out that no single person knows how to make a pencil.
  • The Toaster Project, in which Thomas Thwaites tried to build a toaster from raw materials.
  • Every child who has asked “but where does that come from?” one more time.

Get in touch

Spotted a mistake, or want to suggest something for the map? A way to report it is coming soon, along with contact details for teachers, parents and sponsors.