WEBVTT - From the Vault: Pykrete 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.039 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:11.160 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:13.240 Time to go into the vault for an older episode 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.200 of the show. This one originally published on uh not October, 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.760 What was I gonna say? This is August six. This 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.560 is our episode on pie Crete. This was a good one. 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.680 I think it generated a lot of listener mail, and 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:28.360 it was It was a load of fun. All right, 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:34.199 let's jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:43.880 Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.360 Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.000 and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're gonna be talking about 0:00:49.120 --> 0:00:53.080 materials today. But this is a really fun materials episode 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.760 that will shatter like glass in our hands, or will it. 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:59.000 I guess it's a big question mark. Yeah, we're gonna 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.440 be talking a lot about ice, but a lot of 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.959 exciting stuff about ice. You're gonna learn some new things 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:07.320 about ice, I think, and you're also going to think, 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:11.240 uh a bit more deeply about what can be done 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.160 and also what perhaps cannot or should not be done 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.480 with ice. So if you've read any of George rr. 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.200 Martin's a Song of Ice and Fire. If you've read 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.480 that saga, or if you've viewed the TV adaptation Game 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.160 of Thrones, you're well acquainted with the Wall. But to 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.720 Reaquain everybody, this is a fantasy world that's based on 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.520 sort of a medieval European model, and in the Far 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.000 North you have this massive three hundred mile long, seven 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.120 hundred foot tall wall of ice that we're told has 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.640 stood there for eight thousand years as a barrier against 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.000 the people's and the supernatural horrors of the Far North. Yeah, 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:53.640 it's basically Hadrian's Wall, except much bigger and made of magic. Yes. Yeah, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.280 we're told it was built by Brandon the Builder, with 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:59.120 the aid of giants and the magical children of the forest. 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:01.880 So we're definitely to understand that there is actual magic 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.440 in its construction. But also there's this idea that Brandon 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.440 was a master engineer, that he's in the vein of 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:13.160 these various engineering cultural heroes that you see in various cultures. 0:02:13.480 --> 0:02:16.360 But of course, the real standout feature that makes this 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.080 wall unique is that it is built out of ice, 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.160 not out of stone, but out of frozen water. Yes, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.920 it is a wall of ice. So um, you know, 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.560 ignoring the magic for a second here, it sounds like 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.640 a great plan, right. I mean humans have been known 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:33.720 to make shelters out of ice, glaciers and snow have 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:37.639 served as natural barriers to travel. So why wouldn't it 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.359 be ideal to construct this far northern barrier which is 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.240 going to be dealing with, you know, with far northern climate, 0:02:45.680 --> 0:02:48.120 why not build it out of ice? Good question? Is 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:50.080 a block of ice not just as good as a 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.079 stone brick? Yeah? So I was looking around about this, 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.600 and fortunately there is already a great book out there 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.320 that dives into this very question. It's titled Fire, Ice 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:05.079 and Physics, The Science of Game of Thrones by Rebecca C. Thompson, PhD, 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:09.000 a physicist and author of the popular Spectra series of 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:11.400 comic books about physics. And I should also note that 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.200 Sean Carroll wrote the intro. Cool so she Uh. First 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:17.440 of all, this is just a really fun book if 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.160 you if if you're interested in Game of Thrones and science, 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:22.000 I encourage you to pick it up. But I love 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.639 books like this. Uh, you know, I have one about done, 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.080 I've been eyeing one about Star wars um. But she 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:33.040 goes through various aspects of the books and the world 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:35.760 of West Roast and breaks them about scientifically, and does 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:40.400 so in a very engaging, humorous but also um, you know, 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.360 wester Roast loving style. So so there's there's one section 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.520 in there where she tackles the wall and she points 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.520 out that ultimately this question would an ice wall work. 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.600 It's a lot more complex than you might think. So 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.600 for starters, there's not just one type of ice crystal. 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:00.320 There are seventeen types of crystalline ice that we oh off. 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:03.720 Plus there are three different types of a Morpheus ice 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.320 and three theoretically says there might be as many as 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.520 three hundred different phases of ice. Uh, you know, depending 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.320 on some of the research out there. Right. The different 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:15.800 phases of ice having different physical properties is something that's 0:04:15.800 --> 0:04:18.360 been explored in science fiction for a while. Actually, it's 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.680 in the novel Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, which invents 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.720 a fictional phase of ice. There is no actual phase 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:27.200 of ice that does this, but there's a fictional phase 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.240 of ice called ice nine, which acts as a seed crystal, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.400 and it is a it's a doomsday weapon because if 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.760 you drop a piece of this ice into regular water. 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.320 It will rearrange the structure of the regular water so 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.200 that it freezes at room temperature, basically killing earth. Oh, 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.600 you know, I've I've never read Cat's Cradle, but I 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.120 I remember now that you mentioned. I remember like reading 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.320 that on a summary or the back of the paperback 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:54.680 or something. Yeah. But but to clarify again, that's a 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:57.400 fictional phase of ice. There is no actual phase of 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.440 ice that does that that we know about. Yeah. The 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.160 phase of ice we're most familiar with is ice one H, 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:06.360 also known as ice phase one, and this is the 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.320 hexagonal crystal form of ordinary ice. And this is pretty 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:12.520 much all the ice you ever come into contact with. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:15.640 And therefore we can assume that this is the same 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.160 ice that we encounter in the world of West Ros. 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.080 I think that's a safe assumption. Yeah, of course, you 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:23.040 might say, well, what if it's not. What if somehow 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.040 this is an alternate universe or a different planet where 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.920 another form of ice is the predominant phase. I'm not 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.200 sure if that's even a reasonable question to raise though. Anyway, 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.039 Thompson does a great overview of ice and the physical 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.080 properties of ice, and I do want to throw in 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:39.960 that she has an excellent bit where she weighs in 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.720 on whiskey stones. Okay, so Robert explained the concept of 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:46.400 a whiskey stone. Well, I do not I do not 0:05:46.480 --> 0:05:49.359 own these, but I assume you do not either. But 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:51.600 I've heard of them. I guess I don't. I don't 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.359 know if I know anyone. I think I might know 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:55.840 one person who has them. But the idea is that 0:05:55.920 --> 0:06:00.320 you you're such an afficionado of bourbon or whiskey, and 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:02.279 you that you don't want anything to dilute it. You 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:04.880 want it cold, but you don't want to put some 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.679 ice in there which will kill the drink but also melt. 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.359 So apparently these have been marketed before. The whiskey stones 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.640 are like our rocks that somebody sells you, rocks that 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:16.760 you keep in your freezer, and then when you want 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:21.200 to have a cold glass of brown alcohol, you put 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.640 the cold rock in there, and the rock, of course 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.000 will not melt and dilute your beverage. Now, if you 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.640 actually enjoy whiskey stones, no judgment at all, more power 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.560 to you. But I would like to point out just 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:36.240 real quickly that this is you can get into how 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.720 it might be a little bit misguided from a physics standpoint, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:40.840 but it's also a little bit misguided, I think from 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.520 a culinary standpoint, because I mean, I think most people 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:47.760 believe that like whiskeys tend to kind of improve with 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:50.279 the addition of a small amount of water. So like 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:53.760 melting ice cools but also adds water to the drink, 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.080 And this is an important part of many spirit and 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:59.320 cocktail preparations. And this might be why if you've ever 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.240 tried to mix a cocktail that is supposed to be 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.440 shaken with ice, but then you make it without shaking 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.400 it with ice, it kind of tastes wrong. And that's 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.120 because one of the ingredients in this cocktail is actually water, 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:15.240 and you have left that important ingredient out by not 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.160 shaking it with ice that dilutes into the drink. Yeah. 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.560 I've definitely experienced this making cocktails before, where I'll end 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:25.040 up for whatever reason, you know, due to whatever kind 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:27.520 of ice I have on hand, I'll end up with 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:30.440 a drink that doesn't taste perfect. But once the ice 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.360 has melted a little bit, it's a different experience totally. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.559 And even with like a straight whiskey on on the rocks, 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:38.680 I mean that that's always been my experience of of that, 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.800 It's like the drink will change as the waking drinking 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.840 experience will change as the ice melt, which I think 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.200 is part of the experience. But then again, i'm i'm, i'm, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.440 I'm ultimately a novice when it comes to the appreciation 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.520 of fine whiskeys. But Thompson also makes a physics point 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:59.400 about the whiskey stones. Right right, she writes the following quote, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.200 The heat from the soda is used to melt the ice, 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.720 so the surrounding soda cools off. This is also why 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.480 whiskey stones are a total sham. Seriously, I can't stress 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.480 this enough. Don't buy whiskey stones. If you want to 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.360 keep your drink cold without watering it down, get yourself 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:19.880 some water filled plastic ice cubes. They're less stylish but 0:08:19.960 --> 0:08:23.200 a more useful. Now she continues from here and get 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:25.440 some more detail. What basically her point is that the 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:29.080 whiskey stone will only take away enough energy to raise 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.080 its temperature to the whiskey temperature. An ice cube will 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.319 take the same energy plus the energy needed to break 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.000 the molecular bonds which melts the ice. Right That phase 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.640 transition takes energy the same way that boiling water takes energy, Like, 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.480 why does your pot of water boiling on the stove 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.040 not just keep increasing in temperature and until it's the 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.280 same temperature as like the heating element below it. Uh, 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:54.880 it's because it takes enormous energy to turn that water 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:59.000 into steam, and that energy gets boiled off. Yeah. So anyway, 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:01.880 that that does directly relate to the building of a 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:03.560 giant wall made out of ice, But it was just 0:09:03.640 --> 0:09:05.960 too interesting in her writing on it was just too 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:09.520 humorous to pass over. Well, let's get back to why 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.720 exactly it is that ice is not a good building material. 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.920 All right, Well, she points out that quote ice on 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.440 a large scale is basically ketch up. So yeah, so, yeah, 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:23.280 I sent a large scale is a non Newtonian fluid. 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:26.520 In an ice wall or a glacier, the pressure of 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.400 the structure's own weight causes it to creep, and this 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.000 would occur even in low temperatures prevented the ice from 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:38.680 ever really melting. Dislocation small cracks that cause ice crystals 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.800 to move over each other would cause the creep even 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:45.040 in a you know, a pretty stable, chilly environment. So 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.400 this would be in play concerning the wall, along with 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.920 temperature changes. Yeah, that's right, and creep actually is the 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:55.880 technical term there. It comes up in a paper by 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.600 a chemist that we're gonna look at later in the episode. Yeah, 0:09:58.679 --> 0:10:00.679 she says that ultimately the wall all she said, the 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:02.600 wall would have probably been okay for like a year, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:05.800 but over the course of thousands of years, it would 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.000 end up being just more of an ice dome or 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.920 a plateau, depending on the temperature, So it would be 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.319 far less of an obstacle to certainly intelligent beings looking 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:20.959 to invade the South. Good thing. It's magic then, But 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.560 but there's more. There's another huge issue and one that's 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.280 key to the rest of the episode here. Ice tends 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.160 to have a lot of defects in it due to 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.520 the way the ice crystals are organized, and this leads 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:35.040 to cracks, And of course cracks mean that the ice 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.600 can ultimately fail, right, It can ultimately lose its structural integrity. 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.640 And it's not just that the ice fails. All materials 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.560 can fail, and we have to understand how they fail 0:10:45.800 --> 0:10:48.720 and what conditions cause them to fail. But with ice, quote, 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.280 there's no specific set of conditions that cause ice to fail. Rather, 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.520 it fails under a wide range of conditions. Yes. Another 0:10:56.520 --> 0:11:01.320 way of putting this is that ice is structurally unpre addictable. Uh. 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:03.880 You take two blocks of ice that are the same size, 0:11:03.960 --> 0:11:07.160 made of the same water, and one might fail trying 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.920 to hold up five pounds, while another one can hold 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:13.200 up twenty pounds. And that that kind of difference, that 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:17.079 variability is not a good characteristic of a building material. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.640 You could almost argue, I think that predictability is more 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.160 important than strength when you're selecting a building material. Yes. Now, 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:28.760 Thompson does point out that there are ways to strengthen 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.040 the ice, There are ways to make it more dependable, 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:36.000 more durable. And the interesting thing is the weird things 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.160 that you do to ice. Uh. To do this we 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.880 find fantastic examples of of this. Not in a fantasy 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.520 world like a Game of Thrones. Uh. Instead we find 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:51.320 these examples in the equally or perhaps even more bizarre 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.080 world of our own real history. Right. This brings us 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.400 to the subject of the rest of today's episode, which 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.920 is going to be this fantastic frozen material real known 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.960 as pike crete or ice that's about as strong as concrete. Yes, 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.120 and and again, let me just say that if you're 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.440 familiar with with this material and it's it's usage and 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.559 uh in the project we're going to talk about. Then 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.480 you know you're in for an exciting time. But if 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.079 you haven't, just let me assure you that everything is 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.440 about to get far stranger than a giant wall of 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.600 ice made to keep undead invaders out. Right, We're more 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.040 in the realm of a giant tub of ice used 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.360 to bomb Nazis. But first we're gonna have to take 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.319 a quick break, but we'll be right back with more ice. 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:42.400 Thank Alright, we're back. So we're gonna be dealing with 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.560 the Second World War here, a truly global war that 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.120 worked kind of like a black hole just pulling in 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:53.040 I mean, first and foremost human lives, but also human 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:57.240 ingenuity and of course funds and resources as well. So 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.640 there was more than enough room in all of this 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.880 for the occasional hairbrained scheme to pick up a lot 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.440 of steam. And this is one of them. I want 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:09.800 to say, I'm not sure exactly how hairbrained it is, 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:12.280 Like in some ways it's hair brained, and in other 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:17.040 ways it's quite ingenious. It's the strange mixture of of 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:21.840 genuine insight and good ideas with proposals so outlandish that 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:26.080 they're laughable in their face. Yes, yeah, I I should rephrase. 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.079 I guess that there are better examples of purely hairbrained 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.079 schemes that were brought up during War two. This one. 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:35.480 I guess it's just more of an idea that this is. 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.080 This is a real outside the box idea and one 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.800 that at least for a while, seemed like it might 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.559 be the best solution to the problem given the resources 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:49.839 at hand and the weight of the circumstances. Right, So, 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.719 what was the problem that we're going to start with here, Well, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.880 the basic problem was the Allied forces needed better aerial 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.880 coverage of the North Atlantic. Yeah. So to expand on this, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:01.520 I want to refer to a paper that we're going 0:14:01.600 --> 0:14:04.200 to be consulting extensively for the rest of this episode. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:09.080 It's called a Description of the Iceberg Aircraft Carrier and 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:12.520 the Bearing of the mechanical properties of frozen wood Pulp 0:14:12.880 --> 0:14:16.240 upon some problems of glacier flow. And this is a 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.320 report that was presented to a scientific organization called the 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.520 International Glaciological Society in nineteen forty six, and it was 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.680 written by a guy named Max Peruts. Now Max Peruts 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.360 lived from nineteen fourteen until two thousand two. He was 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:35.040 an Austrian born chemist and molecular biologist, and generally just 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.640 an extremely accomplished scientist. He won the nineteen sixty two 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.520 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and this was for his work 0:14:41.560 --> 0:14:45.440 on the structure of hemoglobin. But Peruts was really just 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:48.160 one of the great pioneers of molecular biology. I was 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.280 listening to an interview between Brian Cox and the molecular 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.880 biologist Vincy Rama Krishnan who was talking about Perutss work 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.760 explaining the structure of proteins, and Rama Krishnan says that 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:05.960 in many ways modern biology would be unthinkable without Peruts's contributions. 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:09.000 He he did some of the most important pioneering work 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.080 for the kinds of molecular biology that are you know, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.880 ubiquitous throughout the biology research and biotech world today. But 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.800 before all this, Peruts was involved in the British war 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.280 effort during World War Two, and specifically he was working 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.280 with the ice based technology that we are discussing today, 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:31.640 and in this paper he gives a firsthand account of 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.040 the project and some scientific discoveries that came out of it. 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.080 So to to establish the problem. Peruts writes that in 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:43.160 the autumn of nineteen forty two, Allied leadership recognized that 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.000 their war effort was really suffering from a lack of 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:50.640 air power range, especially in response to German U boat 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.119 attacks in the Atlantic, and this was affecting the transport 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:56.960 of cargo across the Ocean between Great Britain and their 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.360 allies in North America. So there's a U boat threat 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.280 throughout the ocean. You never know if your your cargo 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.920 resupply ships are going to be attacked, and you could 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:08.480 defend them if you had better air coverage, But how 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.600 are you going to get planes all the way out 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.560 there in the middle of the Atlantic where the U 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.040 boats can attack. That's right, you come down to the 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:19.000 limits of aviation technology at that time. Yeah, and Peruts writes, 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.000 quote it had been a common experience that the carrier 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.840 based aircraft of the Allies were inferior in armament and 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:29.520 speed to the land based planes of the enemy. And 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.160 so what he's talking about was that there were aircraft 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:34.680 carriers that the Allies had during World War Two, but 0:16:34.800 --> 0:16:38.280 these aircraft carriers at the time were relatively small, with 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:42.840 short runways and limited parking, and storage space. So the 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.400 kinds of planes that could take off from them tended 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.960 to have light armor and wings that would like collapse 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.640 and fold up to make them easier to store. The 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.960 kinds of planes that were better armored, more powerful, and 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:58.880 could do more damage. For example, I was reading an 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.720 article by PAULK. Hollands from two thousand two in the 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:08.360 magazine Cabinet about this project, and Collins mentioned spitfires and 0:17:08.600 --> 0:17:12.359 bomber planes as examples of these more powerful planes. Uh, 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:15.880 they couldn't fit on or take off from aircraft carriers. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:18.479 They had to be launched from the ground. And this 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:22.400 didn't only affect cargo transport and other operations in the Atlantic, 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:27.200 it also had implications for future ground invasions of access 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.840 occupied areas in say, continental Europe and in Asia. So 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:35.160 you know, given the existing limitations on aircraft carriers, if 0:17:35.160 --> 0:17:37.920 you were to try to land on a distant shore, 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.120 your airpower inland would be limited until you could capture 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.720 or establish air fields there from which you could launch 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.600 these more powerful land based planes like spitfires and bombers 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.400 and so peruts, writes quote. It was only natural, therefore, 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:57.400 that the proposal for the apparently cheap construction of gigantic 0:17:57.480 --> 0:18:02.480 aircraft carriers capable of opera rating land based aircraft thousands 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.480 of miles from their base was seriously considered. So so 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.520 that's the dilemma there, and they're trying to get more powerful, 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:13.760 bigger planes farther out into the ocean, farther from home, right, 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.199 and that that's a pretty tall order right there. But 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.439 then on top of that, now not only does it 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:23.480 have to be enormous and also inexpensive, it also would 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.720 really help if it were essentially torpedo proof, if all 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.880 these prowling U boats would be incapable of sinking it, right, Yeah, 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.000 you don't want to load a ship up with all 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.040 of your most important, most expensive aircraft and then launch 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:41.119 it out into the ocean to be sunk by a 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.200 U boat. Yeah. So you know, in defensive of everything 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.359 that comes after this, that is a that's a tall 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:50.240 order that really invites outside the box thinking, right, And 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.800 fortunately we had an outside the box thinker come onto 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:59.680 the scene. Yes, enter English journalist turned inventor Jeffrey Pike, 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.840 who of through nineteen Yeah, and so Paul Collins, writing 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.720 for that Cabinet magazine article I mentioned from two thousand two. 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.600 He quotes The Times of London calling Pike quote one 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:16.199 of the most original, if unrecognized figures of the present century. 0:19:16.359 --> 0:19:18.359 And I just want to read collins brief summary of 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:23.000 Pike's early life quote. His career began in nineteen fourteen, when, 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.440 as a teenager at Cambridge University, he landed a foreign 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.080 correspondent job by using a false passport to sneak into 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:34.480 wartime Germany. After getting tossed into a concentration camp, he 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.679 fled the country in a daring daytime escape. In the 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.479 nineteen twenties, he virtually created progressive elementary education in Great Britain, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.800 all for the sake of his own son's education. Pike 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:50.000 financed his own school by brilliantly writing futures markets and 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.639 controlling a quarter of the world's supply of ten employ 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:58.320 which brought him to financial ruin in nineteen twenty nine. 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:02.400 He lived on as an eccentric hermit, publishing prescient warnings 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.760 of Nazism and proposing one of the first media watchdogs. 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:10.120 After the war, his freelance genius helped propel the creation 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.960 of the National Health Service. That's quite a resume. So yeah, 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:19.680 foreign journalists escaped enemy capture. Uh we weird investment portfolio 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.920 huge Indo ten loses it all eccentric hermit, but then 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.919 pioneers uh progressive political causes, and Pike was known for 0:20:29.000 --> 0:20:33.360 having some extremely weird, you could say, outside the box ideas. 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.040 One that I was just briefly reading about was that 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:39.720 in ninety three, as a proposal for for the war effort, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.520 Jeffrey Pike got pipe fever and he started thinking, we 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.679 need more pipes. We can transport things and people through pipes, 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.320 and that's way more efficient than trying to transport them 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:53.560 just straightforwardly over land and vehicles and all that. So 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.280 he proposed the idea of transporting goods and soldiers like 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:02.880 from ship at shore too deep inside enemy territory through pipes. 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:06.800 And obviously this would have some drawbacks, especially when you're 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.399 trying to ship people through pipes. But in order to 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:12.960 combat claustrophobia and suffocation, the troops that were sent through 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:19.160 the pipe could be supplied with barbiturates and oxygen tanks. Wow. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.480 Um yeah, that's quite a quite an alternate reality to 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.360 try and envision, one in which you would have basically 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:30.240 like hot and cold running um armed reinforcements. Right. Yeah, 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:32.959 So during World War Two, the British military established an 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.400 office known as Combined Operations, and this was to coordinate 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.199 actions that required the cooperation of multiple branches of the 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:42.280 armed forces, so if you needed to combine naval and 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.960 air forces or army, etcetera. And in ninety two the 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.359 chief of Combined Operations was this guy named Lord Lewis 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.879 mount Batton. Lord mountain Batton was a big figure in 0:21:53.880 --> 0:21:56.680 in twentieth century British history. He's sort of all over 0:21:56.720 --> 0:22:00.960 the place. But Collins writes that Pike resented himself to 0:22:01.040 --> 0:22:05.560 mount Batton's Office of Combined Operations and he basically told him, hey, 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:08.320 you need to hire me quote, because I'm a man 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.160 who thinks. And so Pike was thinking, and he came 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.199 up with an idea a response to this problem of 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:19.040 limited air power range in the Atlantic and elsewhere. That's 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.679 right in October of Pike said, Hey, why don't we 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:27.520 get an iceberg, hollow it out and use that as 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.440 a floating base, because this would it would float, it 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:34.760 would it would be torpedo proof, and it would it 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.520 would certainly last long enough for us to then establish 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:40.840 better land bases, Right, So the idea was that a 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.399 platform capable of launching bigger, heavier planes like bombers and 0:22:45.440 --> 0:22:48.280 spitfires could be made out of ice, and and there 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:50.840