WEBVTT - What's Inside The Earth? 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.160 Hey, Daniel, what's your favorite part of the pizza. Oh, 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:12.560 I'm all about the crust. The crust makes the pizza. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:16.040 You're crust guy. Huh, Well, it turned out that's just 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:18.799 like a planet. All the interesting stuff in a planet 0:00:18.880 --> 0:00:22.000 like ours happens on the crust. That's where the good 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:24.440 stuff is, right. You know that totally makes sense because 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:26.920 I can't count the number of times I've burnt my 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.800 tongue on the hot lava of tomato sauce on pizza. 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:36.480 It's like a molten core, all that cheese exactly exactly, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.320 and you always want to bite it before it's cooled 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:40.239 off and turned into a nice place to live. You know, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.000 you always got to get in there. But you know, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:45.519 you're right, the crust is very important, and you know 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:47.519 that's where you hold the pizza. That's where we hold 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.640 onto our planet. So it's it's a big deal. Yeah. 0:00:50.920 --> 0:00:55.120 What about what about the cheese stuff crust? It's like 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:59.720 a crust in a crust. Yeah, what is the what 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:05.200 is the geological analogy of cheese stuffed crust? Right, that's 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:09.520 like underwater, that's like a sub subterranean lakes or something 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:30.280 of cheese. Yeah, well, I'm like those intolerant. So Hi, 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.680 I'm Orge and I'm Daniel, and welcome to our podcast, 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.680 Pizzas in the Universe. Daniel and Jorge explain what makes 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:40.400 a pizza a pizza and what doesn't make a pizza. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.960 We have no idea. We do have some idea based 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.680 on my deep expertise of being a particle physicist. I'm 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:50.000 here to expound on what's a pizza and what's not 0:01:50.080 --> 0:01:53.840 a pizza. Now, welcome to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.480 Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio in 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.600 which we find topics here, there, everywhere and break them 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.280 down so that you can understand them while you enjoy 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.880 your pizza. That's right. We're also the authors of the 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.160 book We have No Idea, which you can find in 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.919 bookstores and online or just borrow from your grandma because 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.240 she read it and she loved it. She loved it, 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:18.399 she told us. Are you in touch with everybody's grandma? 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.440 I'm in touch with the cosmic grandma. Like the you 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.880 like the idea of imagining all of a sudden imagining 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.680 some like you know underground Internet Grandma network that you've 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:33.120 typed into. It's just a giant book. Club. Basically, can 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.760 you mobilize them in emergencies to do something important? Yes, 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.040 there's I have a big red button here, he says, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:48.320 Raise grandma army. Yeah, somebody's hungry quick, somebody hasn't had lunch, 0:02:50.440 --> 0:02:55.480 somebody's looking thin. Cook. Cook. But not today, We're going 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.000 to not talk about something that's out there in the 0:02:58.120 --> 0:03:01.560 universal mystery. But today we're going to focus on a 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.640 question very near us and actually underneath you. That's right. 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.320 Today we're going to talk about where we all live, 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:17.440 the place that you call home. Today's topic is what's 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:21.360 inside the Earth or what is the Earth made out of? 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:23.400 We we live on it, we walk in it, we 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:25.919 running it, we swim in it. But do how many 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:31.880 people know what this giant ball that we're riding around 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:35.640 space on is made out of? Yeah? It's a special place. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.240 I mean, as far as we know so far, it's 0:03:38.280 --> 0:03:41.880 host to all life that we've ever seen. Right, everything 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.360 anybody has ever touched or tasted has been on Earth. 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:48.320 So it's an important place. You know. It's the spaceship 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.120 we are riding through the universe on, and there's a 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:53.560 lot going on, right, you can't just ignore it, especially 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.520 for those of us living in California. You know, we're 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.840 wondering about like earthquakes and all sorts of crazy stuff, 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.400 So it's important to know what's going on inside the earth. Yeah, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:06.200 magnetic fields and having to move around and shielding us 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:09.800 from cosmic rays. It's all because of what's going on inside. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:15.280 Mm hmmm um. You know, continental drift and super volcanoes 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:17.760 and all sorts of stuff. If the Earth was just 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.080 a quiet lump of rocket, wouldn't be quite so exciting 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.120 to live on. Yeah. And lava, of course, lava. Who 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.320 doesn't love a lava? Who doesn't love a love a lamp? 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.520 You know? I was teaching ones and I usually like 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.880 to open my class with asking people for random questions, 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:37.599 you know, get them warmed up, and who's gonna totally 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.920 random question? Right? And somebody wants to asked me what 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:48.000 does lava taste like? That is a good random question. 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.760 I said pain, Pure pain tastes like pain, tastes like 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:58.520 charred tongue. No, I said pineapples. It tastes like pineapples, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.359 does it? I have no idea what lava tastes like. No, 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:09.120 in like the bill of second between lava, like scorching 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:13.960 your tongue. Um it probably you just taste like rock, right, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:19.440 It's just probably like living a rock, salty, salty, exactly metallic. Yeah, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:22.360 So people out there, do not do this investigation. Do 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:25.080 not approach lava, do not play with lava, do not 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:29.279 lick lava. Um I probably doesn't taste like pineapple maybe 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:32.440 in Hawaii actually, And so we got into this question 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.360 a little bit, Daniel, because we were wondering, we were 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.359 thinking about ideas with this up for an episode, and 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:39.919 we were wondering, what would happen if you dug a 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:43.800 hole through the entire Earth and jumped into it? Right, 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.320 that's a that's a pretty weird question. Yeah, And you know, 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:48.120 this is the kind of thing you see in science 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.159 fiction all the time, you know, journey to the Center 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.360 of the Earth, and um I was watching gravity falls 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.159 and they have the bottomless pit, you know, they jump 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.000 in and fall forever. And so it's a trope that 0:05:58.040 --> 0:05:59.679 you see a lot of times. You know, people wonder 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.400 like can you get into the center of the Earth, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.000 And so it's a fun It's also a fun physics 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.080 question I ask in my freshman physics class sometimes, like 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:08.960 what would happen if you drill the hole all the 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:11.200 way through the earth and then jumped inside. You know, 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:13.680 so for from the point of view of like gravitation. Yeah, 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:15.200 but you know, I'm an engineer, so I kind of 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.240 got hung up on the question of how you would 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:19.719 even make that whole or could you have a tunnel 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.040 that goes through the center of the earth? And would 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.800 you let us to the question what what is inside 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:26.359 the earth? What's going on? What would you drill a 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:29.160 hole through? Yeah? Exactly is it hard or easy? Do 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:31.719 you like dig down a hundred meters and then you 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:34.000 know it's just like a big pile of soft stuff, 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:36.880 or is it like diamond down there, or you know 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.400 it's impossible to dig into? Yeah, this is pretty interesting stuff. Yeah, 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.760 so we might get to that question of what would 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.080 happen if you jump through a whole the go through 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:48.159 the entire earth. But but today's episode, we'll we'll talk 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.760 about the earlier question, which is what is the earth 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.359 made out of? That's right, We'll take you on a 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:54.960 tour from the very top all the way to the 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.839 very center of the earth. Yeah, and as usual, we 0:06:57.839 --> 0:06:59.599 were wondering how many of you out there know the 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.560 answer to this question? How many people know what's inside 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:05.320 to earth? And so Daniel went out there as usual, 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.719 out into the street and ask people, random strangers what 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:12.040 they thought was inside to Earth. Here's what people had 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:14.400 to say. Is the Earth just one big rock or 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.000 is it more complex under our feet? There are more 0:07:18.040 --> 0:07:23.440 complex features below our feet and something fel like the mantle, 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:30.840 um core, cross shoe as lissile spear, messile scree or 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:34.600 something like that. I know that there's it's not just 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:36.960 a big rock, but yeah, I don't know the components 0:07:37.000 --> 0:07:40.600 of what they send it. Well. I think there's like 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:47.000 different layers of rocks. But that's it, okay, like different, 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:52.280 just different layers and different just difficult that the Earth 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:54.800 it's not just one of big rock, Okay, it's like 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:59.680 layers and like there's like dirt rock, gravel, and thought 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:04.320 it's up and they're like for some reason, like my 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:11.080 mind went to like minecraft. So then like the should 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:13.720 be like lava area across is like made out of 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:19.840 like different minerals, like different rocks. And well around the earth, 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:24.800 the first layers the crust, then um there's soft softer 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.800 more hot rock um and there are two layers of 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.760 magma um at the center of the core of the Earth. Well, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.360 it sounds like most people, um just sort of guess 0:08:35.559 --> 0:08:37.800 that they just made out of rock and dirt and 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.199 some lava. Yeah, a lot of people know there's like 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:42.200 rock and dirt and gravel. And I love the people 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.439 who refer to Minecraft as their their reference. But you know, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.360 there's there's some evidence they're like, you know, Minecraft is 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.800 a little bit educationally, you dig down deep enough in 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:54.600 Minecraft and you get to Magma, So yeah, good job Minecraft. Yeah, 0:08:54.840 --> 0:09:01.360 and zombies, and that's what that's what I know about minecrafts. Also, Minecraft, 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.400 you know, says that the universe is pixelated, and I'm 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:05.199 pretty sure they get that right. Also, so you know, 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.760 the physics of Minecraft is really pretty solid, interesting, just 0:09:09.120 --> 0:09:12.920 maybe a few orders of magnitude exactly. They need a 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:14.720 few more bits, you know, it's not an eight bit 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.800 universe we live in. Well, there's the idea that we 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.600 maybe we are all in a video game, right, that's true. Yeah, 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.680 we could certainly be in a simulation. Um My kids 0:09:23.760 --> 0:09:26.200 watched Ready Player one last week and they looked at 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.000 it and they were like, whoa, that's pretty cool. He 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:30.920 can almost live inside that game. And then you could 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.640 see the idea of being formed in their minds. Wait, 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.600 what if we were inside a game right now? Really? 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:41.360 Whoa And they weren't even stoned. I promise they weren't 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:46.559 even stone. They came up with that question totally sober. Well, 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.120 that's a that's a topic of a podcast we already recorded, 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.280 is that are we living in a video game? But 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.520 today's we're going to focus on what's in what's in 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.200 the earth. So take us through, Dannuel. If we start 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:00.160 where we are now, sitting or standing or right on, 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.360 and we go down, what what do we hit first? Well, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:07.120 the thing to remember is that the Earth is huge, right, 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.920 So it seems like almost flat because the curvature is 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:12.960 so small. That's just because the Earth is enormous, right, 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:16.079 And so remember as we take our tour down to 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.679 the center of the Earth, the scale of things from 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.080 us all the way down to the center is thousands 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:24.559 of kilometers, right. So that amazes me already when I 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:26.959 learned that the crust, this part that we stand on, 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.400 you know, the part that's like rock and whatever, that's 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:34.280 only like fifty kilometers thick, and it varies under the ocean, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:36.439 it's even thinner, you know, the top amount everest. Of 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.360 course it's thicker, but it's like a tiny little shell. 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:43.160 It's like an eggshell around a yoke. And that's the 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:44.800 part that we live on. What do you mean, So 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:48.320 the first layer underneath our feet is called the crust? 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.480 Is that the official physics name? The crust, that's the 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.120 official physics slash pizza name. Yeah, it's the crust. That's 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:56.160 when you grab onto the planet from you know, what, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.760 what what could you have instead of a crust? Well, 0:10:58.800 --> 0:11:00.720 if you were like on you put her. For example, 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.480 Jupiter doesn't have a crust. It has like a metallic 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.240 hydrogen core and then like helium rain and then like 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:10.439 you know, liquid hydrogen oceans. And you know, there's no 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:12.920 like firm place you can really land. There's no rock 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.920 on Jupiter. It's just we're pretty lucky to be a 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.680 rocky planet that has some crust to it. Yeah, Jupiter 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:21.559 is just kind of like a big blob of wet stuff. 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.839 It's it's like a sun that never took off right um. 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.800 And and you know, earlier in Earth, in the life 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:30.800 of Earth, when it was really really young, it was 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.640 just basically a ball of magma, and so the surface 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.360 was all you know, hot molten rock. There was no 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:40.000 cold crust to walk on Earth, and so the Earth 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.240 yeah verver early on. Oh we form from but I 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.120 thought we formed from like bits of stuff out there 0:11:47.520 --> 0:11:50.600 in space. How did it try into a big ball 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.560 of lava? Yeah, so we did form from big from 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:56.520 bits of stuff. Right, that's rewind a few billion years, 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:59.120 and you have like a huge cloud of gas and dust, right, 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:02.240 and rubble that's all left over from other stars that 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:05.000 have that you know, had you know, billions of years 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.760 to burn and and then explode and spew their stuff 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.640 into space, and then gravity gradually gathers it back together. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:13.240 And then gravity made the Sun, and he gathered all 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.080 the extra bits together into the planets. And the gravitational pressure, right, 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:19.679 the collision between the stuff and the pressure pulling this 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.439 stuff together, that's what That's what creates a lot of 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.760 the heat. Also, there's when you have a really hot 0:12:25.840 --> 0:12:28.160 stuff inside the Earth and you have things like uranium 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.040 and all sorts of other stuff emitting radiation. So it 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.280 makes the Earth hot. Right. The gravitational pressure and the 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.200 radiation from the core made the young Earth very very 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:39.920 nasty and hot and wet. So no place you can 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:43.920 go for a nice walk. It's it's being squeezed down in. Okay. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.360 So the first layer is this good thing you call 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:49.000 the crust, and it's made out of just like rocks, 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.679 and like the same rocks we see on the surface. Yeah, 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:53.960 I mean it is the surface, right, and it goes 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.680 down about you know, thirty five kilometers fifty kilometers depends 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.760 on exactly where you are. And people have tried I 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.360 love this. People have tried to dig through the crust 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:05.520 right to see like how far could we go? How 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.640 deep could we can we dig? You know? And um, 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:12.000 the Russians actually have won that race back when there 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.280 was a Soviet Union. They dug a shaft which was 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.120 I think twelve kilometers down, so it's like, you know, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:19.319 maybe a third or a fourth of the way through 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:22.240 the crust. It was almost like a pin preak. It did. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.000 They didn't really get through the crust. Yeah, And you know, 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:27.800 all of these things, these little holes we're talking about 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:29.760 the size of the crust, even like the peak of 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:33.199 Mount Everest, all these things are tiny features compared to 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.079 the size of the earth. As you're saying, it's like 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.319 a pin prick. And you remember if you held the 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:39.920 Earth in your hand. None of the features on the 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.920 Earth would even be recognizable. They might not even be observable. 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.360 You could probably run your thumb over the Earth and 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.800 not even tell where Mount Everest was. It would be 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:53.319 like it would look shiny, like a shiny marble, Yeah, shiny, 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.319 slightly wet marble exactly, um and so, and and the 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.920 outer layers this crust which is only you know, thirty 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.920 to fifty kilometers thick, so it's really pretty thin. So 0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.959 we would see like just regular dirt and rocks and 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.960 stuff for fifty kilometers. That's a lot that I mean, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.439 that's like from yeah, I know, and it's it's this 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.400 conflict in scales, right, Like fifty kilometers seems like a lot, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.839 and we try to dig through it and it's too far, right, 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:19.800 and so on one hand, it feels like a lot. 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.400 On the other hand, it's a tiny little fraction. But 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:24.120 this is the kind of thing you discover when you 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.680 were exploring physics and space and the universe, right, all 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:29.280 these conflict in scales, Like the Earth is huge, but 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:32.840 actually it's tiny compared to the Sun, which is huge good, 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.240 which is actually tiny you compared to the galaxy, right, 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:37.680 It's one of the things I love about physics. Yeah, 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.560 and maybe you can drive fift kilometers in your car 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.480 in less than an hour, but if you try to 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:47.360 dig fifty kilometers down, it would take you a little 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.400 bit longer. Yeah. I don't even know how they did it. 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.720 This this hole that they dug in the Soviet Union, 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.760 that's twelve kilometers deep. It's only like twenty something centimeters wide, right, 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.320 so they have to have like a crazy drill bit 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.120 and you know, they probably had a really long extension chord, 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.440 like a twelve kilometer extension chords, you know what I mean, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:10.560 probably had like Christmas lights and everything. They're using every 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.440 extension chord. And then probably they were in the Soviet Union. 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.600 That's why they went broke. They're like, everybody, don't use 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:21.720 any electronics, give us your chord. In Russia, whole drills 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:26.120 you I don't even know what that means exactly. So 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.680 the crust is fifty kilometers thick. We've only barely pricked 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.320 the like the outer bits of it, right, the deepest 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.600 minds hardly scratched the surface. And it's a tiny fraction 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:37.760 of the size of the Earth. Wow, it's just like 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:42.560 a little x X shell really exactly. It's like if 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.000 you ordered a pizza and the crust was like almost invisible, 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:47.960 like you could just barely grab it before you got 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.000 the tomato sauce, right, it would be like a I 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.760 hate it when they cut pieces and squares because then 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.400 you get pieces without crust. You hate that. That's the 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.440 best way to cut pizza. What are he's talking about? No, 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.520 they you don't get any crust. I thought you were 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.840 a crust man. Oh yeah, but you have crust on 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:05.800 the bottom. I mean that's how the crust is for 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.280 to hold up the pizza. The part of the crust 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.240 without tomato and cheese is wasted to dry. I thought, okay, well, 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:21.480 well there'll be another episode. Daniel and Horry argue, aby pizza. Okay, 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.440 so let's say you you dig through fifts down and 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.040 you break through the crust. What what what do you? 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:28.920 What do you find? Then you get to something they 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.200 call the mantle, and the mantle is basically rocks that 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:35.640 are being squeezed really hard, you know, by gravitational pressure 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.760 by the crust on top of it, and they're like 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.600 not fluid but not exactly solid. It's like a bunch 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:47.080 of rocks that are rubbed together really hard and and um, 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.320 they can slide around a little bit. Wait, what do 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:53.320 you mean fluid? They're like, um, like grains of sand 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.560 is fluid or or like really the rocks themselves deform 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.360 and and and flow. I think it's a little bit 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.160 of both. I think it's a little bit like the 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.000 way glaciers flow. Right. You hear about glaciers like flowing 0:17:06.040 --> 0:17:08.679 across the surface of the earth and carving out mountains, right, 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:10.440 and then you go visit a glacier and it's just 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.080 a big piece of ice and you're like, how is 0:17:12.119 --> 0:17:15.800 this thing flowing? Right? Well, it flows very slowly, um, 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:18.879 you know, like uh, like glass flows or something like 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:20.800 if you went up to it and touch it, it 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:25.400 would look feel solid, but over time it would be deforming. 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:27.920 And you know, I think there's elements of it that 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:30.320 are more liquid and elements elements of it that are 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:32.960 more solid. Right. That's why we have magma that creeps 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:35.280 up through holes in the crust and turns into lava 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.080 when it's abused out in volcanoes. By the way, huge 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:41.639 Internet debate over whether what to call magma and what 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.480 to call lava. Is there really that's what you mean. 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:45.960 People are you? You mean? People are you in the 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:50.720 internet over things that are not that important? Someone on 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.360 the internet was wrong. I can't go to sleep. It's 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.399 magma when it's still underground, and as soon as it 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.000 comes above ground, then you call it lava. So if 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.400 you say that a volcano pews out magma, you're gonna 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.120 go like a thousand people online telling you you're wrong, 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:11.320 that's actually lava or underground. Well, let's let's be sure 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:15.560 here to to not anger anyone on the internet. That's 0:18:15.600 --> 0:18:17.440 not the point of this podcast is to annoy people 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:21.040 and piss them off. So the dismantle, this kind of 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:25.560 liquid rock um is super thick, you're telling me earlier. Yeah, 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.959 it's like almost three kilometers thick. So it's a huge 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.439 chunk of the earth. Right, it's much much thicker than 0:18:31.480 --> 0:18:34.520 the crust. So if you were to somehow be able 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.400 to dig all the way through the crust, right, which 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.240 seems almost impossible, you can get to the mantle, and 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.920 the mantle is like, is really thick. So that's a 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:43.720 huge part of the drilling. If you wanted to get 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:45.040 down to the center of the earth, you'd be like 0:18:45.160 --> 0:18:48.960 drilling from Florida to California. Yeah, but it'd be super 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:51.680 hot and super high pressure the whole time, right, So 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.760 it's not just like a nice drive across country, right, 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:59.280 it's really difficult environment. You need a lot of extension 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:04.639 cords air conditioning, that's right. And it's because the mantle 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.040 is not actually solid that we have earthquakes and tectonic 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:11.520 activities and mountains and stuff like that. It's always shifting 0:19:11.600 --> 0:19:14.760 and moving mm hmmm. Yeah. You can sort of think 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:18.000 of the crust has broken into pieces that are floating 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.879 in slow motion on top of this, you know, semi liquid, 0:19:22.000 --> 0:19:26.600 semi solid mantle magma business, right, slide around and bang 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:28.760 into each other. And all the interesting stuff that happens 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.240 on the surface is because of that action. I see, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.439 because you're saying it's like the crust is pretty solid, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.840 so we are kind of like floating icebergs kind of, right, 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.520 so that the crust is solid, but the rocks underneath 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.919 is fluid. And so when you move these like solid pieces, 0:19:44.000 --> 0:19:46.879 that's when you get the crunching and the earthquakes. M 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.600 And it's pretty thick, which is good because you wouldn't 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.680 want to drive, you know, an entire tectonic plate through 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.399 something like you know, as as thin as water, um 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.760 and things, we get pretty crazy. This mantle is really thick. 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.879 It's like ten to the ten times thicker than tar, right, 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.680 so it's not something that you can easily sluice through 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.480 like dancer. Yeah, they have some measure of thickness, you know, 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.080 the viscosity. Basically, it's more viscous than tar by a 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.240 factor of ten to the ten. Oh, I see, I 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.600 see viscus. Okay, it's it's not um. If you had 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:19.840 a bowl of it, how long would it take a 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.720 drop to form and drop out? Actually, that's fascinating. Have 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.760 you seen this experiment, the tar pitch experiment. Yeah? Yeah, 0:20:26.040 --> 0:20:28.520 like it it um. It's like something so thick it 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:30.920 just hangs there for a long time. Yeah. It takes 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.119 like a you know, two decades for a drop to 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.760 form and fall. And they've been doing the experiment for like, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:37.800 I don't know, eighty years or something, and in eighty 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.600 years they had like four four drops fall, and every 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.000 time one is about to fall, everybody's like super excited 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:47.000 about it. Anyway, this stuff is is much thicker. We 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:49.640 take billions of years for a single drop to form Oh. 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.239 So let's say so we were we're digging our our 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:55.120 tunnel through the center of the Earth. We would dig 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.880 a tunnel and we would be safe. We wouldn't move 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.760 with it, like with the tunnel closing on itself or something. Well, 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:03.800 there's a lot of pressure, right, Yeah, it's really thick, 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:05.520 you're right, so it might hold itself up. But there's 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.320 also a huge amount of pressure. Right, there's tons and 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.200 tons and tons of stuff bearing down. So I think 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:13.959 that that tunnel would have to be really strong to survive. 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.480 And that's my bone with like all those movies about 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:18.639 Journey to the Center of the Earth, I'm like, where's 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:20.879 all the stuff? You know? It always seems to be 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.880 like fluffy empty space, like they're just like digging through 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:28.479 styrofoam peanuts or something. But in reality, if you if 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.399