Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's
Speaker 1: Saturday Vault time, folks. Uh. This episode originally published on
Speaker 1: September nineteen nineteen, and it is about the One Ring.
Speaker 1: Is this the one where we talk about the metallurgy
Speaker 1: of the One Ring? Yeah, we we break down, well, okay,
Speaker 1: given the properties that are described in in the books,
Speaker 1: what could the One Ring have potentially been about? So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a way of making a metallurgical episode
Speaker 1: a whole lot of fun and and at times I
Speaker 1: think humorous. And the other cool thing is, since you
Speaker 1: know we're re running this episode on the nineteen uh,
Speaker 1: they of coming twenty two is going to be Hobbit Day,
Speaker 1: which is a holiday that has been invented by Tolkien fans.
Speaker 1: So that's exciting. This will help you get ready for
Speaker 1: Hobbit Day. And hey, maybe maybe we'll have a Hobbit
Speaker 1: Day episode. I don't know yet. We're recording this allD
Speaker 1: intro like a month or two ahead of time, but
Speaker 1: I think we might be able to do it. We'll see,
Speaker 1: you'll find out on They all will be revealed three
Speaker 1: rings for Elvin King's Under the Sky, seven for the
Speaker 1: dwarf lords in their halls of Stone, nine for mortal
Speaker 1: men doomed to die, and one for the Dark Lord
Speaker 1: on his dark throne in the Land of Mordor, where
Speaker 1: the shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all, one
Speaker 1: ring to find them, one ring to bring them all,
Speaker 1: and in the darkness, find them in the Land of Mordor,
Speaker 1: where the Shadows lie. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: A production of I Heart Radios has to work. Hey,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and nerd Alert. We're
Speaker 1: doing a Tolkien episode today. That's right, of course. The
Speaker 1: cold open there was from J. R. Tolkien's The Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, which was written in stages between ninety
Speaker 1: seven and nineteen forty nine. I imagine everyone listening to
Speaker 1: this is familiar with the Lord of the Rings. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. I mean, we'll try to make it fun
Speaker 1: even if you're not. But yeah, Robert, you got bit
Speaker 1: by the Lord of the Rings bug this week apparently,
Speaker 1: and you wanted to talk about the One Ring of Power.
Speaker 1: See if there's any way we could give it the
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind treatment. Yeah, yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about Tolkien recently, I mean until obviously.
Speaker 1: You know, I read Tolkien when I was younger. I
Speaker 1: watched the movies when they came out, I watched the
Speaker 1: animated films when when they were around, and uh, and
Speaker 1: then I kind of took a break, and then I
Speaker 1: came back and read The Hobbit to my son. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I hope to read The Lord of the Rings to him.
Speaker 1: Uh wait, when did the classic quote? You were reading
Speaker 1: it to him at some point, weren't you when he said,
Speaker 1: is it the Lord of the Ring yet? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of got a little bored with the opening,
Speaker 1: but at this point, like he's, yeah, he's super into
Speaker 1: Harry Potter. I think he's pretty much ready for the
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. But you know, the Hobbit is
Speaker 1: better for for younger readers as well. But it got
Speaker 1: me thinking a lot about the Ring. Uh, and it's
Speaker 1: it's nature, it's powers, and and also the task of
Speaker 1: applying real world science to the One Ring and seeing
Speaker 1: what we could potentially figure out. It'll have to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of loosey goosey real world science. But
Speaker 1: we'll do our best because obviously the one ring, the
Speaker 1: Ring of Power, is an object of intense magical power
Speaker 1: in the books, created by an intensely magical being in
Speaker 1: an intensely magical fantasy world. And so our intent here
Speaker 1: is not to you know, to cheapen all of that
Speaker 1: or anything, or to or to myth busted or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but you know, just to engage in the
Speaker 1: fun exercise of saying, okay, okay, if if we had
Speaker 1: to make this work with science, what would the ring
Speaker 1: be made out of? What are the the you know,
Speaker 1: what are the constraints involved that sort of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: the Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings has
Speaker 1: got to be one of the like ultimate examples of
Speaker 1: a fantasy mcguffin. You know, an object that that a
Speaker 1: plot can be built around that. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of these in the story you end up with, like
Speaker 1: you know, Wore Cruxes and Harry Potter and uh, there's
Speaker 1: very often it's just convenient from a storytelling perspective to
Speaker 1: have a magical object that must be uh, that must
Speaker 1: be managed, and the logistics of which become the struggle
Speaker 1: for the characters in the story. But the ring I
Speaker 1: think also represents more than that. It's an interesting object
Speaker 1: in itself because of its properties that to some people
Speaker 1: who own it or where it, it confers these powers.
Speaker 1: And we can discuss what the powers are alluded to
Speaker 1: be in the story, uh in a minute. But also
Speaker 1: it has this corrupting influence. So it actually I think
Speaker 1: does have a kind of thematic commentary on the way
Speaker 1: that like possessing great power has the tendency to corrupt
Speaker 1: to people's motives and way of seeing the world. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean even even today, like certainly throughout human history,
Speaker 1: we can look to the like the symbolic power of
Speaker 1: the ring. Um like rings are used to to signify,
Speaker 1: you know, bonds that have been made, social bonds, marriages, uh.
Speaker 1: They they have long symbolized power or or wealth. The
Speaker 1: seal ring that might be used as a stamp in
Speaker 1: wax to show you the sigil of your authority. Right
Speaker 1: of course, there's the super Bowl ring, right, which I mean,
Speaker 1: really it is as silly as the super Bowl ring
Speaker 1: may be, it is it is you know, it is
Speaker 1: drawing from this lineage of the ring as the symbol
Speaker 1: of power and accomplishment, and so yeah, I mean all
Speaker 1: that's wrapped up in the myth of the Ring as well,
Speaker 1: you know, not even to get into some of the
Speaker 1: various things that Tolkien was drawing on, you know, the
Speaker 1: Ring cycle, etcetera. Another token note I want to make
Speaker 1: is I do want to drive home. Even though Joe
Speaker 1: and I are both uh, you know, quite familiar with token,
Speaker 1: neither of us are like Tolken experts. Please don't come
Speaker 1: swinging your sword at us because we left out some
Speaker 1: Tolkien detail, right, I mean, it's happened before uh Inland. Likewise,
Speaker 1: we may not hit all the token pronunciations. This I
Speaker 1: can't wait, but but we're gonna give it a shot.
Speaker 1: So first of all, let me just run through the
Speaker 1: history of the One Ring for everyone so that we can,
Speaker 1: you know, fully appreciate it. Here. So you're going beyond
Speaker 1: the Lord of the Rings. You're going into the like
Speaker 1: the deep lore. Yes, yeah, and uh. And I cobbled
Speaker 1: this together from from from rereading some segments of Tolkien's
Speaker 1: original work, but also from rereading segments from the Token Encyclopedia,
Speaker 1: which is an excellent book that came out I believe
Speaker 1: in like the the nineties, I still have a copy
Speaker 1: of wonderful illustrations throughout uh and uh So, anyway, without
Speaker 1: further ado, let me tell you about the One Ring. So,
Speaker 1: the One Ring was forged in the year sixteen hundred
Speaker 1: of the second Age of the Sun by Sauron, forged
Speaker 1: within the active volcano Mount Doom in the land of
Speaker 1: word War. So Saron was a former Maya spirit who
Speaker 1: served the dark lord Melkorp, who was defeated at the
Speaker 1: end of the First Age of the Sun. And so
Speaker 1: then Saron, in the guise of an atter, the giver
Speaker 1: of gifts, he seduces the Alvin Smith's into forging the
Speaker 1: rings of power. Uh. These are the rings that from
Speaker 1: our opening reading, three rings for the Elvin king, seven
Speaker 1: for the dwarves, nine for men, and you know, so
Speaker 1: that these may be distributed among you know, the various
Speaker 1: intelligent species of of the of the of the world.
Speaker 1: But then he goes and he forges the one Ring himself,
Speaker 1: the ring that's going to control all of these rings,
Speaker 1: and and also crackles with other powers will discuss. So
Speaker 1: it's a trick, it's a trap. He's this godlike being
Speaker 1: who wants to control the people's of Middle Earth. The elves,
Speaker 1: the dwarves, the humans, and so he gives them these
Speaker 1: things that are ostensibly like weapons or or sort of
Speaker 1: magical items of power that allow them to increase their
Speaker 1: power and dominance over the world. And once all, once
Speaker 1: all of those people put the rings on and assume
Speaker 1: the power for themselves, then he unlocks the trap door
Speaker 1: in the back of the code, which is that he's
Speaker 1: got wondering that gives him power over all the other
Speaker 1: people who are wearing them exactly. Yeah, and and he
Speaker 1: take ends up sort of taking various guys. Is the
Speaker 1: idea into different forms throughout his history, you know, is
Speaker 1: from the end the deceiver, to the trickster, to the
Speaker 1: to the warlord, to the seeker. So his fair form
Speaker 1: is destroyed in the Fall of New Maniore and he
Speaker 1: arises again as this dark lord in black armor. This
Speaker 1: is the one that anyone who's even just set down
Speaker 1: to watch The Lord of the Rings films probably remembers
Speaker 1: from the prologue. So even if you only made it
Speaker 1: ten minutes in, you saw this part. You saw the
Speaker 1: dark Lord in his armor. But this too, this form
Speaker 1: too was destroyed at the end of the Second Age
Speaker 1: of the Sun and the Ring was lost, but Saron
Speaker 1: did not perish because the One Ring still existed, and
Speaker 1: his fate is bound to it. Um. Even if you're
Speaker 1: more familiar with Harry Potter than Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: you can think of the One Ring is like is
Speaker 1: the horcrux, the single horr crux for Saaron. I suppose
Speaker 1: so in his in his reincarnated form, without a body,
Speaker 1: he depends on this ring, or else he cannot survive, right,
Speaker 1: And so in the year one thousand of the third
Speaker 1: Age of the Sun, he rises again as the great
Speaker 1: Littless Eye Uh, seeking the Ring, waging the War of
Speaker 1: the Ring. But his adversaries have found it first, and
Speaker 1: they've hatched a plan to destroy it by the only
Speaker 1: known means, casting it back into the volcanic fires from
Speaker 1: which it was forged. Okay, so there you've got the
Speaker 1: setting of the Lord of the Rings. So you've got
Speaker 1: to take this ring back into enemy territory to throw
Speaker 1: it into a volcano, which is the only way it
Speaker 1: can be destroyed, the only way to destroy this great
Speaker 1: enemy God sorcerer thing. Um. Now, we there are scenes
Speaker 1: in the movies, and I'm trying to recall there in
Speaker 1: the book too. I mean we're like, for example, Gimli
Speaker 1: the Dwarf played by John Ree Davies and the Peter
Speaker 1: Jackson movies, uh that you know, they're getting the speech
Speaker 1: about how the Ring must be destroyed in order to
Speaker 1: defeat Sauron. So he just whips out his axe and
Speaker 1: he's like, all right, let's bust it. And he just
Speaker 1: swings his axe at the at the ring. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't work right. He instead, I think his ax breaks
Speaker 1: on it when he tries to cleave the ring with it.
Speaker 1: So the ring is uh portrayed as something that is
Speaker 1: completely indestructible except in the fires of the volcano where
Speaker 1: it was forged. Yeah, there's a there's a great passage
Speaker 1: in the Fellowship of the Ring where Gandolf explains all
Speaker 1: this to Frodo after it's been cast into the fireplace
Speaker 1: once and Frodo has has tried to will himself to
Speaker 1: throw it once more into the deepest part of the fire,
Speaker 1: but cannot, and so Gandalf says the following, But as
Speaker 1: for breaking the ring, force is useless. Even if you
Speaker 1: took it and struck it with a heavy sledge hammer,
Speaker 1: it would make no dent in it. It cannot be
Speaker 1: unmade by your hands or by mine. Your small fire,
Speaker 1: of course, would not melt even ordinary gold. This ring
Speaker 1: has already passed through it unscathed and even unheeded. But
Speaker 1: there is no smith's forge in this shire that could
Speaker 1: change it at all. Not even the anvils and furnaces
Speaker 1: of the dwarves could do that. It has been said
Speaker 1: that dragon fire could melt and consume the rings of power,
Speaker 1: but there is not now any dragon left on Earth
Speaker 1: in which the old fire is hot enough, Nor was
Speaker 1: there ever any dragon, not even on Callaghan the Black,
Speaker 1: who could have harmed the one ring, the ruling Ring,
Speaker 1: for that was made by Saron himself. There is only
Speaker 1: one way to find the cracks of Doom and the
Speaker 1: depths of Oro Dron the fire Mount, to cast the
Speaker 1: ring in there, if you really wish to destroy it,
Speaker 1: to put it beyond the grasp of the enemy forever.
Speaker 1: Thus spoke Gandalf, and Gandalf knew what he was talking about.
Speaker 1: By the way, I've always thought Serena McKellen made a
Speaker 1: great Gandalf, but I do have a strong attachment to
Speaker 1: John Houston's Gandolf. In the nineteen seventy seven animated version
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties Return of the King. Um, so
Speaker 1: that you know that that was the token of of
Speaker 1: my childhood, and so I was trying to summon a
Speaker 1: little John Houston flavor there my limited ability to do so,
Speaker 1: the ones that make saw Rouman in the Santa Claus
Speaker 1: like his red robes. Um. You know, I haven't rewatched
Speaker 1: the Return of the King in a while, but but
Speaker 1: I have rewatched the Hobbit. I that it held up
Speaker 1: pretty well. You know. Oh, I totally agree that Ian
Speaker 1: mckelen is a great Gandalf. In fact, I would say
Speaker 1: that even if you don't like the movies for any
Speaker 1: other reason, the Peter Jackson films are great just for
Speaker 1: Ian McKellen's performance. Oh yeah, and I mean Christopher Lee.
Speaker 1: It's it's got a wonderful oh Christopher Lee. Of course
Speaker 1: that goes without saying. Uh So another note on the ring,
Speaker 1: just real quick. Not that it's very important to what
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about for most of the episode,
Speaker 1: but what happens when you wear the ring? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually trying to figure this out, even though
Speaker 1: I know the story. I was last night I was googling, like,
Speaker 1: what does the Ring actually, do you know, other than
Speaker 1: we know it confers this kind of vague power, but
Speaker 1: it actually does have some specified powers in the mythology.
Speaker 1: I mean the big one of course, and this is
Speaker 1: the one that comes up in the Hobbit as well,
Speaker 1: is that when you put it on, you become invisible
Speaker 1: to most creatures, though at the same time you become
Speaker 1: highly visible to certain other beings, namely the Ring wraiths,
Speaker 1: Um and Uh and saw On himself. But it's like
Speaker 1: allows you to sort of shift into another plane of
Speaker 1: existence and doing so become invisible. But I think that's
Speaker 1: only for some creatures who wear it, right, Um, I
Speaker 1: mean the making them invisible? Right, Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: I don't think it's it's implied that Winn saw On
Speaker 1: himself wears that he is invisible. But then again, it's
Speaker 1: a different matter when you know, the dark Lord himself
Speaker 1: wears the ring, as opposed to when a mortal wears
Speaker 1: the ring. Oh, and I guess another thing to specifies
Speaker 1: that the Wonder Ring, the powers of the Wondering maybe
Speaker 1: greater or different than the powers of the other rings
Speaker 1: that were given off to the to the kings of
Speaker 1: the Mortals and the Elves. Yes, yeah, it is the
Speaker 1: it is the Great Ring. It is the one that
Speaker 1: the Master himself forged. Um. And you know, one note
Speaker 1: again about the sort of the origins of saar On
Speaker 1: is that in his like previous life, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like an unfallen entity as one of these Maya spirits.
Speaker 1: He originally served the the ann or forge god a
Speaker 1: Uli if I'm saying that right, who is you know,
Speaker 1: a god of the fords, like a Festus. So you
Speaker 1: know he would have had, you know, presumably had access
Speaker 1: to all knowledge of metallurgy and uh and metal making
Speaker 1: and crafting in general. Yeah, well, maybe we should take
Speaker 1: a break and then we come back. We can explore
Speaker 1: some questions about what the Ring of Power could possibly
Speaker 1: be made of. All right, we're back. So you know
Speaker 1: we're gonna again. We're gonna cherry pick a little bit here.
Speaker 1: This is not going to be, you know, a perfect
Speaker 1: dissection of everything. I don't think Tolkien was going for
Speaker 1: hard sci fi no, and what I wanted him to,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, oh my god, wait, no, that's
Speaker 1: a brilliant idea. So we've had various rewrites of Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings. Uh, you know, there is the rewrite
Speaker 1: of the story that tells it from more Door's perspective
Speaker 1: that casts like Gandalf and the Elves as as the
Speaker 1: villains and says, actually, more Door is just a you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a region of people who are trying to
Speaker 1: develop industrial technology and they're being oppressed by these you know,
Speaker 1: ancient kingdoms of magic users and they're fighting back. So
Speaker 1: that that's like that, which which is a wonderful treatment idea.
Speaker 1: I haven't read it, but it's a wonderful idea because
Speaker 1: you see that in plenty of like in plenty of
Speaker 1: myths and stories of old where he's got one side
Speaker 1: is is cast as the heroes, the other side as
Speaker 1: the demonic other, and the reality is is, you know,
Speaker 1: is something different than that. There's something more balanced probably, yeah.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, there's like that take. But here's the
Speaker 1: take I want now, like the Arthur C. Clark version
Speaker 1: of The Rings that tries to tell the same story
Speaker 1: but just imagines everything is like totally mundane physics and
Speaker 1: chemistry and and how all that has achieved. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's get into I guess some of the chemistry here. Um,
Speaker 1: so let's just start by talking about things you could
Speaker 1: throw a ring into in an attempt to melt it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so to refresh again, you've got this ring of power.
Speaker 1: You need to destroy it to defeat the bad guy.
Speaker 1: But you can't just throw it in a regular fire.
Speaker 1: The heroes can't do anything about it except to take
Speaker 1: it back to the volcano where it was made. That's
Speaker 1: the only thing that will destroy it. Right. In terms
Speaker 1: of fire sources, Gandalf says, fireplace isn't going to cut it.
Speaker 1: A dwarf and furnace isn't gonna cut it. Only the
Speaker 1: volcano can can cut it. So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: temperatures involved here. So, uh, first of all, let's take
Speaker 1: the Hobbits fireplace. If you look for a you know,
Speaker 1: you look at a maximum open wood fireplace temperature. UM.
Speaker 1: I was looking around for sources on this. I found
Speaker 1: a few different different ones that that more or less
Speaker 1: match up. Hearth dot com, which indeed is a place
Speaker 1: for people who are just into fireplaces to talk about fireplaces. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have like a message board, definitely, it's a full
Speaker 1: message board, but its it lists an average fireplaces being
Speaker 1: somewhere between uh one thousand, two hundred degrees to d
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. I've also seen it as high as sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred um again for the hottest part of the fire,
Speaker 1: where Froto never actually throws it because the will of
Speaker 1: the Ring prevents it. Uh. And as far as Celsius,
Speaker 1: we'd be talking a range of roughly what's six degrees okay? Uh?
Speaker 1: And And to clarify there, I guess this doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter for the episode. But that's another thing about the
Speaker 1: Ring is that the wing, the ring sort of has
Speaker 1: a will of its own, and so it even when
Speaker 1: a character wants to destroy it, the Ring sort of
Speaker 1: messes with their mind and says, maybe you shouldn't destroy it.
Speaker 1: So it's implied here that maybe Frodo was trying to
Speaker 1: destroy it, but he hedged a bit threw it into
Speaker 1: the cooler part of the fire. Is that what you're saying? Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that, Like the first time it
Speaker 1: goes into the fire. Yeah, perhaps, though I mean really probably,
Speaker 1: because that's how the Ring works, and that's how it
Speaker 1: works its will. Okay. So the Hobbits fireplace, we'll come
Speaker 1: back to those. Uh. That actual temperature again, the Hobbits
Speaker 1: fireplaces get hotter than than other fireplaces are not as hot.
Speaker 1: And I was just say, they're just as hot as
Speaker 1: any fireplace. It's standard, you know, I mean it's an
Speaker 1: open fireplace. Now, let's u sit. None of the dwarves
Speaker 1: they're really into working metal, right, Yes, so dwarves are
Speaker 1: known for their metal work. So this makes us wonder
Speaker 1: what is the maximum temperature of a furnace, But specifically
Speaker 1: we should think about a medieval furnace, right, because essentially
Speaker 1: the fantasy world of the Lord of the Rings is
Speaker 1: as a medieval world. They're not in some like steel
Speaker 1: foundry of today. Right. So a typical blast furnace today
Speaker 1: that's going to reach temperatures of up to three thousand
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit or uh one thousand, six hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. But during the Middle Ages, smelting tempts in
Speaker 1: Europe were not quite that high. So I was looking
Speaker 1: around for a source on this, and I ran across
Speaker 1: a website called our lima dot net. And this is
Speaker 1: by Bert Hall from the Institute of for the History
Speaker 1: and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the University of Toronto,
Speaker 1: and he says the following quote, the temperature inside the
Speaker 1: furnace is a critical variable. Most early smelters in Europe
Speaker 1: could reach average temperatures of about seven hundred degrees celsius
Speaker 1: and uh, that would be one thousand two d degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: And he continues. Now, pure iron has a very high
Speaker 1: melting point, about one thousand, five thirty degrees celsius, and
Speaker 1: that would be two thousand, seven eighty six degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: So when the newly formed mass of iron coalesces at
Speaker 1: seven hundred degrees, it remains a red hot, slightly plastic
Speaker 1: solid called a bloom. The smith can hammer on this
Speaker 1: hot mass to shape it and to make it it's
Speaker 1: extrude lumps of impurities that it might otherwise congeal around.
Speaker 1: So that would give us a basic temperature to work
Speaker 1: with here, seven hundred degrees celsius or one thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred degrees fahrenheit. Okay, So one thing that points out,
Speaker 1: which might be relevant to what we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: is you don't have to fully reach the melting point
Speaker 1: of a metal in order to do something to it right.
Speaker 1: You can. You can work with metal that's not fully liquefied.
Speaker 1: You can just get it up to a temperature where
Speaker 1: its strength is reduced and you can deform it to
Speaker 1: hammer the cuss out of it. Once it's soft, you
Speaker 1: don't have to like reduce it into a liquid that
Speaker 1: you pour into a mold or something. Um So. And
Speaker 1: then but one of the things that Gandalf mentions two
Speaker 1: is you can't just be this thing with a hammer
Speaker 1: and expect to destroy it either. So my read on
Speaker 1: this to sort of you know, uh, you know, underpin
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here is if we think of
Speaker 1: the ring, I think of it like a like a
Speaker 1: mythical magical creature like a vampire or something where you
Speaker 1: can't just shoot it. You have to be headed or
Speaker 1: completely immolated like there must you must reach a threshold
Speaker 1: of absolute destruction to keep it from you know, healing
Speaker 1: itself or or whatnot. Okay, so maybe the idea is
Speaker 1: if you slightly deformed the ring, it would kind of
Speaker 1: bounce back, because again, the ring has a will of
Speaker 1: its own. Yeah. That's my imperfect read on this, because
Speaker 1: some people might say, well, technically Gandalf says, the ring
Speaker 1: doesn't even get hot in the fire. Okay, fine, that's true.
Speaker 1: I was also trying to look for things about that
Speaker 1: about like metals that don't get hot when heat. I
Speaker 1: guess that would be poor thermal conductors. Uh, there are
Speaker 1: some like like bismuth is a metal that is a
Speaker 1: poor thermal conductor. I don't mean to suggest that the
Speaker 1: token had in mind that the ring was made out
Speaker 1: of bismuth. Of course, bismuth has a has a much
Speaker 1: lower melting point, so that easily melted in a furnace. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm going to stick to my interpretation that
Speaker 1: to destroy the ring of power, you would have to
Speaker 1: destroy it absolutely. You would have to just completely either
Speaker 1: shatter it into uh, into dust or even better and
Speaker 1: more easily done in a in a world like this
Speaker 1: melted into nothing. But as we've discussed already, a fireplace
Speaker 1: isn't gonna do it, and a dwarf and furnace isn't
Speaker 1: gonna be able to do it either, assuming that it's
Speaker 1: you know, more or less a parallel to medieval smelting technology.
Speaker 1: All right, so apparently you've got to use volcano. But
Speaker 1: that makes me wonder how hot the volcanoes get. Do
Speaker 1: they actually get hotter than furnace? Yes? Uh, they do.
Speaker 1: So I was looking into this, Um, you know, so
Speaker 1: Mount Doom is a volcano. We have volcanoes, so uh,
Speaker 1: luckily we can we can definitely, you know, we can
Speaker 1: definitely look to that like that. The volcano isn't going
Speaker 1: to change. You can't say, oh, it's a dwarf in volcano,
Speaker 1: maybe it would have been different. No, it's a volcano.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the temperature of magma. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there are a few different types of magma to consider. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's a basaltic magma which is high and iron,
Speaker 1: magnesium and calcium, but low and potassium and sodium, and
Speaker 1: it ranges in temperature from about a thousand celsius to
Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred celsius. And that's between one thousand,
Speaker 1: eight hundred thirty two degrees fahrenheit and two thousand, one
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety two degrees fahrenheit. Um and uh and
Speaker 1: that's a specific example of this fountaining magma from Coupe
Speaker 1: Bay Anaha um Uh it's a volcano in Hawaii. Uh.
Speaker 1: And this is uh basalt magma here, uh, the magma
Speaker 1: in the lake. There has been a record to reach
Speaker 1: temperatures of one thousand fifty three degrees celsius or two thousand,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seven point four degrees fahrenheit, and that
Speaker 1: was on January nine, nineteen ninety uh. This, according to Pinkerton,
Speaker 1: at all a hot ear for lava, right, and this
Speaker 1: is thought to be a reasonable reflection of the internal
Speaker 1: lava temperature. One thing to even mind is that the lava,
Speaker 1: the lava at the surface, is going to cool off
Speaker 1: very quickly when it contacts the air, dropping hundreds of
Speaker 1: degrees in a second. This pointed out in an excellent
Speaker 1: article in The New York Times by c Clayborne Ray
Speaker 1: titled how hot can lava gate? So I reckon question? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I recommend that for anyone wants a deeper dive. But
Speaker 1: now there are a few other different types of magma
Speaker 1: as well, but I'm just gonna skip over those because
Speaker 1: we've already touched on the hottest magma and and it's
Speaker 1: it's Mount Doomed, so it should be the hottest magma.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should because the other magma names has sound
Speaker 1: like Tolkien words and acidic magma you've got them here,
Speaker 1: rhyolitic magma rhyolytics sounds very token. It is. Yeah, Dasite
Speaker 1: is the other one. Ryotel. But but these are these
Speaker 1: are all gonna have you know, these are gonna be cool.
Speaker 1: They're still magma, they're still very hot. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: stick with the with it with the hottest magma for
Speaker 1: our purposes here and again, the hottest magma we've considered
Speaker 1: here is one thousand, two hundred degrees celsius or two
Speaker 1: thousand one hugrees fahrenheit, and the medieval forge temperatures, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, are seemingly in the range of seven hundred
Speaker 1: degrees celsius or one thousand two degrees fahrenheit. So it's
Speaker 1: definitely a situation where the forage is not as hot
Speaker 1: as the magma. Like we can at least we can
Speaker 1: at least say that, yes, this makes sense that something
Speaker 1: that could not be burned in the dwarf and forge
Speaker 1: could still be burned, could be still be melted away
Speaker 1: inside of a volcano. Now, if we were talking about
Speaker 1: a modern furnace, that would would be a significantly different issue. Yes,
Speaker 1: so a modern furnace is going to trump the mountain.
Speaker 1: And and I think you know, Gandalf mentions dragon fire
Speaker 1: like nice healthy smog. Dragon fire could have done it.
Speaker 1: And if we think of that as being more or
Speaker 1: less on par with perhaps a modern blast furnace. Uh,
Speaker 1: that would have been like, you know, the three thousand
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit um than than Yeah, that's that's that's another
Speaker 1: number to just sort of keep in the back of
Speaker 1: our mind as we proceed here. So what you should
Speaker 1: have done is just give somebody the ring and then
Speaker 1: get them to go annoy a dragon. But there are
Speaker 1: no more dragons left, or at least none that are
Speaker 1: healthy enough to do this. That's that's Gandalf's point, because
Speaker 1: Smag could have probably done it, but you already killed
Speaker 1: off Smog in the first book. Also, you know, Smag
Speaker 1: wouldn't have gone along with that plan. He would have
Speaker 1: sniffed it out too clever for that. So so that
Speaker 1: leads us to consider all, like all the elements then,
Speaker 1: and which ones have a high enough melting point that
Speaker 1: they would be beyond the melting abilities of of the
Speaker 1: dwarve in furnace but within the milt abilities of the volcano. Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me. So again, the highest temperature
Speaker 1: we've reached here via magma two thousand, one hundred ninety
Speaker 1: two degrees fahrenheit or one thousand, two hundred degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: And when we start looking at the melting points of
Speaker 1: various elements, there there are elements that are below that
Speaker 1: that melting point. There are also elements that have a
Speaker 1: much higher melting point that that you could you could
Speaker 1: not fully melt even within the fires of Mountain Doom,
Speaker 1: well unless you assume to the Mountain Doom is somehow
Speaker 1: magical in some way. Right now. One of the one
Speaker 1: of the problems I guess here is though, when you
Speaker 1: start looking at some just like standard metals that could
Speaker 1: be uh you know, they could you could forge a
Speaker 1: ring out of even some of them, Like we're doing
Speaker 1: some pretty high melting points, Like melting point of iron
Speaker 1: is um uh two thousand, eight hundred degrees fahrenheit. Melting
Speaker 1: point of steel gets up that high as well. Uh
Speaker 1: So like these are already, um you know, these are
Speaker 1: gonna be beyond the ability of of Mount Doom to
Speaker 1: fully melt, if that's indeed what we have to depend on.
Speaker 1: And then you look at other things like like a
Speaker 1: palladium has a melting point of two thousand, eight hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty point eight two degrees fahrenheit. Uh tungsten uh
Speaker 1: six thousand, one nine two degrees fahrenheit, uranium two thousand
Speaker 1: and seventy degrees fahrenheit. You know, these are again for
Speaker 1: for absolute melting to take place. Uh. So you know
Speaker 1: that kind of muddies things a bit, I guess. But
Speaker 1: but then again, one of the things to think about
Speaker 1: Saron is that, like he's a powerful entity. I wonder
Speaker 1: is he even limited by just going to the shores
Speaker 1: of the volcanic lake, Like maybe he can go down
Speaker 1: within the volcano, maybe he can he can go to
Speaker 1: even greater depths in the earth, and and that's where
Speaker 1: the foraging is taking place. You know that, like this
Speaker 1: is something that is forged not nearly within a volcano,
Speaker 1: but within like the heart of the earth, the depths
Speaker 1: of Mount Doom, not not the surface of Mount Doom.
Speaker 1: Right now, I ended up like making a whole list
Speaker 1: of different elements, and they're melting points in both celsius
Speaker 1: and fahrenheit, which I am I'm going to not read
Speaker 1: that entire list because it's if we get tedious fast. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also, you know when we throw a bunch of
Speaker 1: numbers at you, I know it's it's not gonna necessarily
Speaker 1: do anything. But basically, you know, there's a whole range
Speaker 1: here things with greater and lesser melting points, but not
Speaker 1: all of them are going to be quite suitable for
Speaker 1: crafting anything out of you especially a ring. Uh and
Speaker 1: and god bless the Internet for this, but there are
Speaker 1: there are tons of discussions online regarding whether you could
Speaker 1: make a sword out of any given element. So there'll
Speaker 1: be a lot of you know, some of these are
Speaker 1: are you know, fantasy or sci fi or sometimes you
Speaker 1: know more they're more like you know, sword nerd websites
Speaker 1: and someone will be like, could I make a sword
Speaker 1: out of uranium? And people be like, well, then not
Speaker 1: a very good sword. Yes you could make you could
Speaker 1: make a sword, but it would be heavy, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: the fact that it was made out of uranium wouldn't
Speaker 1: really give you much of an advantage in combat. That
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Or you know, titanium being another one
Speaker 1: where similar questions are asked. Uh, you know where pure
Speaker 1: titanium sort. It sounds great in a you know, fantasy sense,
Speaker 1: but when you start looking at the details there, well,
Speaker 1: it would be you know, it would it would be more,
Speaker 1: it would be brittle. It wouldn't hold up to repeated use,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. One of the more impressive elements
Speaker 1: that pops up, though, is tungsten um. Tungsten has a
Speaker 1: melting point of six thousand one dgrees fahrenheit or three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred and twenty two degrees celsius, and it has
Speaker 1: a number of industrial uses due to its durability, and
Speaker 1: it's used in alloys for this purpose as well, because
Speaker 1: it is very resistant to heat. Not only is tungsten
Speaker 1: potentially a great choice for the one ring, uh you
Speaker 1: you can actually go online right now and you can
Speaker 1: order tungsten or tungsten alloy replicas of the one Ring
Speaker 1: from the Lord of the Rings movie. So I don't
Speaker 1: think we're breaking any new ground by saying maybe tungsten
Speaker 1: um so you can heat them up and they'll glow. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There weren't any product images that show
Speaker 1: people taking them up in their hobbit and their shier hearts.
Speaker 1: But an interesting thing about about something like tungsten, because
Speaker 1: because it might you know, it forces you to ask, well,
Speaker 1: how do you forge something with such a high temperature?
Speaker 1: So it's it's not worked like other metals in a forge.
Speaker 1: What you do is you take powdered tungsten and it's
Speaker 1: generally mixed with small amounts of say, powdered nickel or
Speaker 1: other metals, and then it is centered or formed into
Speaker 1: a coherent mass by heating without melting. So this could
Speaker 1: conceivably be the forging technology that that's saar On acquires
Speaker 1: from the you know, the smelting lords of old and
Speaker 1: brings into his creation of the One Ring. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know again, there's still some problems there when you started saying, well, then,
Speaker 1: you know, how how is it destroyed? Then? But I
Speaker 1: think tungsten is a you know, a reasonable guess. If
Speaker 1: we're to limit ourselves to the you know, the scientific
Speaker 1: world for making guesses about uh, you know, highly powerful
Speaker 1: magical objects, how about some crazier guesses. Yeah, well, let's
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get crazier with our guesses regarding the material that
Speaker 1: was used to compose the One Ring. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the One Ring and what it could
Speaker 1: conceivably be made of aside from magic. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: we're getting into weirder possible answers now, but I was
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out. You know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: that scene where Gimli tries to smash it with his ax,
Speaker 1: and you have to assume that since Gimle Gimli's a
Speaker 1: he's a tough dude, right, he should be able to
Speaker 1: cleave just about any middle earthly material with a swift
Speaker 1: blow of his mighty acts. Right, So what could withstand
Speaker 1: his mind? And furthermore, I should point out in the
Speaker 1: movie version with Peter Jackson, it's John Ree Davies. And
Speaker 1: even if Gimli couldn't smash the ring, John Ree stay
Speaker 1: v should be able to smash throing. He I mean,
Speaker 1: he brings the solid energy. So whatever that is, I
Speaker 1: have to assume it's got to be like the strongest
Speaker 1: material in the entire world. So what is the strongest
Speaker 1: material in the entire world? I think it depends on
Speaker 1: whether you're counting hypothetical materials that may exist somewhere in
Speaker 1: the universe versus materials that we can actually touch here
Speaker 1: in the lab. But maybe first we go to the
Speaker 1: hypothetical materials somewhere in the universe. So it is the
Speaker 1: fate of some dying stars to become a neutron star.
Speaker 1: Recently on the podcast, also we've been talking about black holes,
Speaker 1: and this is a similar story. You've got a massive star,
Speaker 1: maybe something with about ten times the mass of the Sun.
Speaker 1: It grows old, it uses up its hydrogen fuel, it
Speaker 1: begins fusing heavier elements, and then it uses those up.
Speaker 1: It can't hold itself up with the energy of its
Speaker 1: fusion anymore, and it eventually explodes in a supernova. The
Speaker 1: heavy core collapses, the outer structure of lighter materials gets
Speaker 1: blown out into space in this enormous blast of energy
Speaker 1: and matter, and what's left behind is this incredibly dense core,
Speaker 1: and gravity causes it to collapse in on itself. And
Speaker 1: if the core is dense enough, it can go over
Speaker 1: the edge, of course and become a black hole. But
Speaker 1: if it's not dense enough, it becomes a neutron star,
Speaker 1: the densest non black hole object in the universe, so
Speaker 1: basically the densest thing that doesn't break our theories of physics.
Speaker 1: So these leftover star cores display bizarre nuclear chemistry because
Speaker 1: of how dense they are. You can tell from the
Speaker 1: name neutron star. They tend to have an overwhelming population
Speaker 1: of neutrons the sub atomic particles that are electrically neutral,
Speaker 1: and this is because the intense gravity of the object
Speaker 1: presses positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons together and
Speaker 1: they combine to form neutrons. And so neutron on stars
Speaker 1: have physical properties that are amazing to read about and
Speaker 1: impossible to picture. That they can cram more than the
Speaker 1: mass of the Sun into a sphere that's roughly just
Speaker 1: a dozen miles or so across, like the mass of
Speaker 1: the Sun inside a ball the size of a city.
Speaker 1: And for a long time it's been a mystery of
Speaker 1: astrophysics what exactly the inner layers of a neutron star
Speaker 1: are made of. But more recently physicists have created these
Speaker 1: simulations of what should be happening inside the flesh of
Speaker 1: a neutron star, and they show these strange types of
Speaker 1: ultra dense material probably living underneath the outer crust of
Speaker 1: neutron stars. And these materials are known as nuclear pasta.
Speaker 1: They're named that because in the simulations they sometimes resemble
Speaker 1: different pasta shapes. Uh and like these different pasta shapes
Speaker 1: would form a different strata of the neutron star. I think,
Speaker 1: so you get nuclear spaghetti, you get no key, you
Speaker 1: get buka tini or anti spaghetti, and you get lasagna sheets. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: because of the incredible density of this neutron swollen material,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be hard to cleave it with an AX.
Speaker 1: But how strong is it? While I was looking at
Speaker 1: one study from eighteen by Kaplan, Schneider, and Horowitz called
Speaker 1: Elasticity of nuclear pasta in Physical Review Letters and H
Speaker 1: some of this nuclear pasta, they concluded, is probably the
Speaker 1: strongest material in the entire universe, ten billion times stronger
Speaker 1: than steel. So that's strong enough for you. That's pretty strong.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: could tell the difference between ten billion times stronger than
Speaker 1: steel and ten thousand times stronger than steel. I mean,
Speaker 1: what what is the difference there? But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it just places it in orders a magnitude beyond
Speaker 1: the ability of a dwarf and AX to to deal with,
Speaker 1: or a dwarf in furnace. I would have to say
Speaker 1: that no matter how strong Gimli is, no matter how
Speaker 1: sharp his acts, he probably cannot mess with a ring
Speaker 1: made of nuclear pasta. So nuclear pasta that's over the
Speaker 1: you know, you can't destroy it unless you've got some
Speaker 1: kind of magic working in Mount Doom. Obviously it wouldn't
Speaker 1: melt in Mountain Doom, right, Yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is another one where it is forcing me to
Speaker 1: rethink what I said earlier about the about absolute destruction
Speaker 1: of the ring being necessary to render it powerless. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's still a threshold of destruction that needs
Speaker 1: to be wrought on the ring before it snaps and
Speaker 1: leases power and the dark Lords defeated. But I think
Speaker 1: that that threshold probably fall short of actually melting it.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's a it's a moral defeat rather
Speaker 1: than a physical destruction, yeah, or whatever. Is like, it
Speaker 1: has to become malleable enough for the magic to leave it. Uh,
Speaker 1: And for that to happen, it needs to it needs
Speaker 1: to fall into a volcano or or or even the
Speaker 1: depths of a volcano. Yeah. Now, there are a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons why nuclear Pasta is probably not a good
Speaker 1: candidate to make a ring out of. One is that
Speaker 1: it is probably a bit too heavy, and other is
Speaker 1: that it would I assume it would not react well
Speaker 1: with the atmosphere of an environment like Middle Earth that
Speaker 1: might sort of you know, become a big explosion or something.
Speaker 1: But but all you know, just imagine you had a
Speaker 1: stable ring made of nuclear pasta. It's probably too heavy
Speaker 1: to make an effective ring. A commonly cited figure is
Speaker 1: that about a teaspoon of the material that makes up
Speaker 1: a neutron star would weigh more than a billion tons.
Speaker 1: So that would be a difficult ring to wear. Uh,
Speaker 1: you might need some help carrying it. Uh. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: it's believable. I guess that you know, Saon could could
Speaker 1: carry it. I mean that he's such a powerful entity.
Speaker 1: But I don't know about a hobbit. Now, is there
Speaker 1: anything lighter that is still strong with a high melting point?
Speaker 1: One good candidate I think here, though it is a
Speaker 1: modern invention is graphine. Graphine is carbon, of course, just carbon,
Speaker 1: but it's carbon with a special molecular formation. It's a
Speaker 1: single layer of hexagonal rings of carbon carbon molecules sucking
Speaker 1: with other hexagons at every vertex, and it's one atom
Speaker 1: thick but sort of perfect on the molecular level. And
Speaker 1: it's often thought of as a kind of cutting edge
Speaker 1: super material. It does have some amazing properties. It's electrically conductive,
Speaker 1: so it has been singled out for potential uses in
Speaker 1: in future electronics. It's extremely light well at the same
Speaker 1: time being stronger than steel. I've seen estimates including between
Speaker 1: two hundred and three hundred times stronger than steel. The
Speaker 1: problem with graphing is that it's difficult to produce on
Speaker 1: a large scale. Uh, not that it's necessarily difficult to
Speaker 1: produce in general. I was reading about one method that
Speaker 1: can create layers of graphing just by heating up soybean oil,
Speaker 1: but you don't get a lot out of it. Now,
Speaker 1: I like this idea that the ring is not just
Speaker 1: a material but a meta material, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: which it would makes perfect sense. And this is the
Speaker 1: product of a being that's studied at the at the
Speaker 1: Forge of the Gods. So you know, therefore, like we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to linn him and his abilities
Speaker 1: based on you know, medieval or even modern levels of
Speaker 1: of of metallurgical power and knowledge. Right, we're thinking about
Speaker 1: him as like sort of a magical smith. Maybe instead
Speaker 1: we should be thinking about him as some kind of
Speaker 1: material scientists. Uh so, Yeah, I was looking at one
Speaker 1: paper dealing with the melting point of graphing and I
Speaker 1: was wondering what that is. It's really high. Uh, it was.
Speaker 1: So this was in physical chemistry chemical physics. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a double name. That was The journal
Speaker 1: by gans, gans Yang and Dornfield in called the initial
Speaker 1: stages of Melting of graphing between four thousand K and
Speaker 1: six thousand K. That's really hot. The authors say graphing
Speaker 1: has one of the highest melting points of any known substance. Basically,
Speaker 1: they use these models to say, Okay, what would it
Speaker 1: look like if you heat it up graphing to these
Speaker 1: temperatures for these lengths of time? And uh, they found
Speaker 1: that you could heat graphing up for a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time to four thousand and five hundred degrees kelvin,
Speaker 1: which is really hot, and it still wouldn't melt. It
Speaker 1: would just sort of it would It would still be freestanding.
Speaker 1: And they set around five thousand degrees kelvin the system
Speaker 1: would start to melt. Five thousand degrees kelvin is roughly
Speaker 1: forty seven celsius or eight hundred fahrenheit. That's is that
Speaker 1: hotter than any of the other stuff we looked at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty hot. Okay, So the surface of the
Speaker 1: Sun at roughly five thousand, eight hundred degrees kelvin could
Speaker 1: probably melt this form of graphine, But a normal volcano
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to melt the graphine one ring. So
Speaker 1: is Mount Doom hotter than the surface of the Sun
Speaker 1: or their special properties involved here? No, but this would
Speaker 1: this would make me come back to the idea that
Speaker 1: at least with the problem that it's forging. What if
Speaker 1: Sauron had to go to the volcano, not to forge
Speaker 1: it at the shores of the volcanic lake, but like
Speaker 1: descended to the center of the planet where you would
Speaker 1: have temperatures that would be you know, on par with
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. As for them to scrowing
Speaker 1: it by casting it into the volcano, well that's that's
Speaker 1: where you end up in a problematic area again, because
Speaker 1: if that's the case, if it needs to reach the
Speaker 1: center of the planet to be destroyed, well then that
Speaker 1: means the the end of the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: is not an end at all, and that the Dark
Speaker 1: Lord was never defeated and is you know, destined to
Speaker 1: return time and time again the end question mark No,
Speaker 1: This is a perfect explanation for why the end of
Speaker 1: the third movie went on for seven hours. They were
Speaker 1: waiting for the ring to sink sink low enough to
Speaker 1: really get hot enough to melt under all that pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and another main problem with graphine, I should say, oh,
Speaker 1: I already mentioned this. It's it's so the problem is
Speaker 1: that it's it's hard to manufacture large amounts of it.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if that would be a problem
Speaker 1: for Saron, because what if he just needed enough for
Speaker 1: one little hobbit finger sized ring. That's true, of course
Speaker 1: when he's a when he's the Dark Lord, he's somewhat
Speaker 1: bigger in it, and it still fits around his finger.
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I was wondering about this very thing.
Speaker 1: How us the ring fit a hobbit finger just fine,
Speaker 1: but also fit the fingers of much larger creatures just
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, may they address that. They don't.
Speaker 1: It's just magic. That's what magical rings do. One size
Speaker 1: fits all. Um. I don't know. I mean you could,
Speaker 1: I guess you could go really sci fi crazy and say, well,
Speaker 1: the ring is actually composed out of like nano robotic material.
Speaker 1: That is, you know, the these tiny nanobots that that
Speaker 1: fused together and carry out all these various processes to
Speaker 1: you know, to to do all the things that the
Speaker 1: Ring does. But I don't know at that point, you're
Speaker 1: really you're really busting the magic out of it. I like,
Speaker 1: I like the idea of keeping some level of magic
Speaker 1: in the Ring and not not describing it all the way. Nope,
Speaker 1: you already ruined it. The Ring is nanobots. That's what
Speaker 1: it is now and forevermore. All right, So there you
Speaker 1: have it. It is one of those episodes where I
Speaker 1: guess we don't really have a conclusive answer, and you know,
Speaker 1: north should we. But hopefully we've given some giving you
Speaker 1: some food for thought, and and also provide did an
Speaker 1: excuse and a means of discussing, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the temperatures and melting points involved here. Um, if if
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from anyone out there who is
Speaker 1: you know, a big Tolkien fan or someone who is
Speaker 1: you know, certainly more experienced than us with with the
Speaker 1: use of forges, with with some of these materials. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd love to get your thoughts on it
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. And for that matter, are there other
Speaker 1: Tolkien related topics you'd like us to to tease apart
Speaker 1: I think I wrote a piece for how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: years ago about hobbit metabolism, which which actually they're like
Speaker 1: there were There were at least a couple of papers
Speaker 1: I was able to cite for the article where people
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, let's see how much I can breakfast?
Speaker 1: How much does the hobbit eat? And then and so forth?
Speaker 1: So I look that up. It's on how stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. In the meantime, if you want more episodes
Speaker 1: of stuff to blow your mind, I don't know the
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind dot com that's the mothership.
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find them all. And if your interest
Speaker 1: it in uh, you know others, let's say, not magical inventions,
Speaker 1: but more mundane but equally amazing inventions, check out our
Speaker 1: other podcast, Invention. You can find it at invention pod
Speaker 1: dot com. And you can find both shows wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast. Wherever you do get it, just make
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review because that really helps us
Speaker 1: out in the long run. Huge thanks to our producers
Speaker 1: uh Seth Nicholas Johnson, and Maya Cole. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
Speaker 1: this episode or any other to suggest topic for the future,
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