> Also... I thought the platters were glass? Last time I checked, glass 
> doesn't bend.

Of course glass bends, and if you have a thin bit (eg 0.3mm) it bends quite 
significantly without breaking.

> And finally, how many thousand tonnes of force does it take to bend 
> inch-thick steel?

For a start the steel is probably only 1mm thick, if that, and that sort of 
thickness you can usually bend over your knee with your bare hands.

> And how do you generate those kinds of forces with such a tiny machine?

Mechanical advantage:

power = input force * input speed = output force * output speed.

Example is having a tiny electric motor geared down by several orders of 
magnitude driving a press.

You could get a 100W motor (the sort in those hand-held food mixers), gear 
it down a huge amount and you could get pretty much whatever force you 
wanted (of course the higher the force, the slower it will move down).

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