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Speaker 1: Hey, Katie, I'm thinking of starting a magazine all about electricity.

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Speaker 2: What are you gonna call it?

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Speaker 1: I was thinking Current Events.

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Speaker 2: Sounds like it should be free of charge.

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Speaker 1: But it's gonna be filled with all sorts of shocking news.

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Speaker 2: Gonna make my hair stand on end.

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Speaker 1: Only if the writers find their creative spark.

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Speaker 2: It's probably gonna get a lot of ads from volts Wagon.

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be resisting their money, that's for sure.

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Speaker 2: Who put you in charge?

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay neutral on that question.

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Speaker 2: I feel like you have an advantage when it comes

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Speaker 2: to electricity puns over me.

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Speaker 1: The physics PhD is good for something. Finally, Hi, I'm Daniel.

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Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine,

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Speaker 1: and I'm all here for the shocking puns.

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Speaker 2: I am Katie Golden. I am the host of a

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Speaker 2: podcast called Creature Feature all about animals, and I do

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Speaker 2: not know what is going on here.

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Speaker 1: And welcome to the podcast. Daniel and Jjorge explain the

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Speaker 1: universe in which we pun our way into understanding everything

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Speaker 1: that's out there in the universe, the biggest things, the

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Speaker 1: smallest things, the squishiest things, the positive things, the negative

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Speaker 1: things and everything in between. We think the universe, as

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Speaker 1: beautiful and complicated and mysterious as it is, deserves to

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Speaker 1: be understood and deserves to be explained to you.

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Speaker 2: I am excited to learn more about electricity because all

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Speaker 2: I know is there is a certain type of blanket

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Speaker 2: that makes my hair stand on end. And my dog

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Speaker 2: loves this blanket because it's warm, but it also makes

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Speaker 2: her hair stand on end. And I need your top

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Speaker 2: physicists to figure out why this blanket is causing this

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Speaker 2: to happen.

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Speaker 1: You need me to explain to you why your dog

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Speaker 1: loves you when you're using an electric blanket, or whether

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Speaker 1: it loves you or the blanket. You really want to

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Speaker 1: get into that.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah, maybe I don't want to know. No, but

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Speaker 2: this is like a microfiber blanket that just generates a

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Speaker 2: lot of static electricity. I feel like it should be

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Speaker 2: studied by like sern or bring your top scientists and

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Speaker 2: take a look at this blanket.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I see, it's not that your dog loves your

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Speaker 1: heated electric blanket. You seem to have a blanket which

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Speaker 1: violates the laws of physics and gathers up an incredible

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Speaker 1: amount of static electricity.

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Speaker 2: Something like that. I don't know if it's violating the

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Speaker 2: laws of physics or if it's just a superconductor. Maybe

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Speaker 2: we've found something.

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Speaker 1: I hope you don't open a portal into another dimension

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Speaker 1: using your blanket and kill us all.

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Speaker 2: You can't tell me what to do, no.

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Speaker 1: But I can give you some advice. I don't think

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Speaker 1: that Katie's blanket is going to kill us all. But

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Speaker 1: sometimes it does seem like electricity is the closest thing

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Speaker 1: we have to magic. I mean, you can levitate things,

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Speaker 1: it can shock things, it creates incredible light shows from

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Speaker 1: the sky to the earth. It's incredible to me that

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Speaker 1: physics can explain it. That this is just part of

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Speaker 1: the natural world sort of blurs the edge there between

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Speaker 1: things that should and can be explainable.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: No, it is kind of like magic, right because we've

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Speaker 2: all kind of, I guess, gotten used to it in

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Speaker 2: day to day life. We just take it for granted.

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Speaker 2: But if you showed this, say to an ancient human,

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Speaker 2: all of the things that we have manipulated electricity to do,

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Speaker 2: they would essentially think that we're wizards. Depending on the

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Speaker 2: era you're in, they would burn you or think you're

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Speaker 2: a god and I mean it really you only have

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Speaker 2: to look at like the sky right when there's like

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Speaker 2: a big thunderstorm to see how I mean, it looks

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Speaker 2: so mystical and so impressive that it can be so

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Speaker 2: impressively destructive. But the only time you see it is

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Speaker 2: when it's in that kind of like plasma form. But

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Speaker 2: otherwise you can't really see electricity unless it's being used

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Speaker 2: by something or funneled in some way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating because it is a part of our

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Speaker 1: natural world, but it's not a common experience, as you say,

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Speaker 1: like you go about your everyday life and mostly it's

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Speaker 1: just like walking around on the surface of the earth

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Speaker 1: and feeling gravity and trying to stay warm and fed

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Speaker 1: in this kind of stuff. Your everyday life, you don't

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Speaker 1: tap into these awesome powers. It's that incredible power of

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Speaker 1: electricity that makes it so almost mystical, because when you

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Speaker 1: do crack it open, you do get hit by lightning,

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Speaker 1: or when you can tap into it to like levitate

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Speaker 1: a train or whatever, it does seem awesome. It seems

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Speaker 1: like a power that maybe you should be beyond what

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Speaker 1: humans can tap into. And yet it's not even the

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Speaker 1: strongest force in the universe. So I love that these

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Speaker 1: things that sometimes seem magical to our ancient ancestors can

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Speaker 1: actually come across the line into the category of natural

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Speaker 1: into something we can explain using mathematics and physics and

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Speaker 1: learn how to manipulate.

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Speaker 2: And it's really interesting the history of us trying to

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Speaker 2: understand electricity, right, Like it's one of these things that

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Speaker 2: sure now we have a much more sophisticated view of it,

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Speaker 2: but that there are some experiments into electricity that were

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Speaker 2: quite early, and even though they were crude, we were

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Speaker 2: starting to learn how to actually store it, like long

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Speaker 2: before we had modern things like computers or even light

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Speaker 2: bulbs that could be powered by it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like it's a real triumph for reductionism.

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Speaker 1: It's an amazing success for the whole idea that you

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Speaker 1: can explain everything we see in the world in terms

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Speaker 1: of the microscopic story, like how do you understand what

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Speaker 1: lightning is? How do you understand why electric eels shock you?

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Speaker 1: How do you understand what magnets are? It turns out

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Speaker 1: it's all explained by the tiny particles and their properties

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Speaker 1: and what they're doing, and everything in our world in

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Speaker 1: the end bubbles up from the properties of those particles

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Speaker 1: and how those particles interact and dance together to make

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Speaker 1: our world. So if you see something weird and mysterious

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Speaker 1: and potentially mystical in the end, you can't explain it.

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Speaker 1: If you can zoom down to the tiny microscopic level

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Speaker 1: and see what's going on down there, that's where the

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Speaker 1: answers are.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean it's so interesting because even though

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Speaker 2: electricity is by science well understood, I think for most

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Speaker 2: of us myself definitely included, our understanding of how it

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Speaker 2: actually works is pretty limited. I'm like, I plug in

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Speaker 2: this cord to the wall, and things flow in from

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Speaker 2: the wall and make my Nintendo go make good games.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, and keep your rice cooker going. And even though

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Speaker 1: we can understand a lot of electricity in terms of

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Speaker 1: tiny particles, there are a lot of deep fundamental questions

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Speaker 1: remaining about those particles, why they have electric charge, and

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Speaker 1: what that even means. And so today on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: we're going to be tackling the question how does electricity work? Like,

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Speaker 1: what is electricity anyway? What's going on down there at

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Speaker 1: the tiny particle level? How do electrons and protons and

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Speaker 1: all those other charged particles make your rice cooker work,

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Speaker 1: and static electricity and electric eels and lightning and alternating

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Speaker 1: currents and electric cars. How does all that bubble up

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Speaker 1: from the tiny particles and their properties.

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to learn this because most of my knowledge

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Speaker 2: is that I should not stick a fork into a

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Speaker 2: toaster because something bad happens, it will be.

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Speaker 1: The last thing you ever do. So, yes, not stick

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Speaker 1: a fork into a toaster. If you learn nothing else

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Speaker 1: from this episode, remember that toasters are not friendly to forks.

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Speaker 2: There's worse ways to go out than being excited for

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Speaker 2: nice toast. But I won't do that, and neither should

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Speaker 2: you be careful around toasters.

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Speaker 1: You don't even get the toast in that scenario. That's

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Speaker 1: the worst part. You die toastless.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but you don't know that. You don't know that

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Speaker 2: you're dead.

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Speaker 1: That's true of everywhere you go out, though it's true.

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Speaker 1: Wouldn't you rather die with the taste of recently enjoyed

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Speaker 1: toast in your mouth?

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Speaker 2: I would rather live with the recently enjoyable taste of

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Speaker 2: toast in my mouth, Daniel, I'll toast that all right.

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Speaker 1: So we were curious if people out there knew how

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Speaker 1: electricity worked, and had an idea of how the particles

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Speaker 1: and their charges come together to make the phenomenon we

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Speaker 1: call electricity. So I went out there to ask our

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Speaker 1: team of volunteers, who are so generous with their time

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Speaker 1: and ideas about all these crazy physics topics. If you

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Speaker 1: would like to participate in this audience answer segment of THEO,

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Speaker 1: please don't be shy. Write to me two questions at

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Speaker 1: Daniel Ianhorge dot com and I will hook you up.

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Speaker 1: So think about it for a minute. Do you know

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Speaker 1: how electricity actually works? Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 3: I do not know, but we did build a fence

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Speaker 3: for the chickens that was electric, didn't we, Sophie, Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: and then I shocked myself with it by accident after

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Speaker 3: I made it. So I don't know how electricity works,

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Speaker 3: but I do know that it works.

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Speaker 4: I think electricity works by sending a current that's missing

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Speaker 4: one of its key components, like an electrical imbalance, through

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Speaker 4: a conductive means that will make it think that it's

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Speaker 4: going to ground.

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Speaker 2: I really enjoy when we humans get hoisted by our

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Speaker 2: own petard. We create an electric fence, you know, for

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Speaker 2: chickens and then we get shocked by our an electric fence.

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Speaker 2: I wonder if the chickens if they have any awareness

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Speaker 2: of this, and if they find it really funny.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the chickens manipulated him into building a fence to

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Speaker 1: keep him out because he's like always bothering them, and

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Speaker 1: they're just like, man, we just need some time to ourselves.

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Speaker 2: I like the idea of super intelligence manipulative chickens.

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Speaker 1: And when they see him getting shocked, they're like, look, band,

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Speaker 1: respect the fence.

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Speaker 2: I've seen chicken run. I know how these things work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So you were right when you said that

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Speaker 1: electricity is an ancient concept. It's something we've known about

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Speaker 1: since antiquity. And we haven't understood electricity in a microscopic picture,

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Speaker 1: of course, until very very recently. But electricity is something

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Speaker 1: humans have been experiencing at least since we've been humans,

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Speaker 1: since there's like a cultural memory we can draw on.

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Speaker 2: Since we first rubbed our prehistoric socks against a prehistoric mammoth,

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Speaker 2: for rug, we have known.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there's writing in like ancient Greek texts about electric fish.

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Speaker 1: Of course, about lightning, you know, there's gods of lightning

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Speaker 1: and this kind of stuff. But also even the ancient

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Speaker 1: Greeks knew that if you rubbed an amber rod with

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Speaker 1: a fur, you could get static electricity. This is not

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Speaker 1: something you need complicated devices for particle accelerators or anything.

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Speaker 1: You can like summon the quantum microscopic nature of the

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Speaker 1: universe just using a piece of amber and a cloth.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of incredible.

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Speaker 2: I mean, what is it about amber that makes it

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Speaker 2: particularly good at generating electricity? Are we going to talk

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Speaker 2: about that later. That's interesting to me that amber has

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Speaker 2: that versus just say, if you used I don't know,

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Speaker 2: soapstone or a rock.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to talk about static electricity in a minute.

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Speaker 1: And amber is just sort of historically like one of

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Speaker 1: the first things that humans discovered could do this. But

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff can do it. Glass rods can

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Speaker 1: do it, wax can do it. It just depends a

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Speaker 1: little bit on the electronic structure of the atoms at

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Speaker 1: the surface. But the cool thing about amber is that

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Speaker 1: it's influenced what we call electricity. Oh interesting because the

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Speaker 1: word electron actually comes from the Greek word for amber. Like,

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Speaker 1: the Greeks knew that you could use amber to create

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Speaker 1: static electricity, and then in the sixteen hundreds, an English

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Speaker 1: scientist wrote a book calling this phenomenon electricus, which means

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Speaker 1: like of amber from the Greek word for amber. So electron,

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Speaker 1: the word in Greek actually means amber. So all this

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Speaker 1: time we're talking about electricity, Greek people are hearing like

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Speaker 1: resonances with the word amber.

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Speaker 2: That's so interesting. I feel like puns and other languages

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Speaker 2: must be really different, like the electrical puns if your

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Speaker 2: English is a second language, are not going to make

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Speaker 2: any sense in our podcast.

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Speaker 1: But imagine if you're walking around and people are talking

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Speaker 1: about like tree sapicity, right, it must be really strange

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Speaker 1: to hear this remnant of the ancient world in this word.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, when words do not originate from our language, it's

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Speaker 2: hard to kind of connect the meaning that we have

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Speaker 2: ascribed to them now with what they used to mean.

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Speaker 2: But it's that's so interesting that all the way back

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Speaker 2: in ancient Greece there was this sort of awareness of

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Speaker 2: how to generate static electricity, and then all the way

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Speaker 2: until now we still use that build upon the knowledge.

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Speaker 1: I love these ancient clues about the quantum nature of

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Speaker 1: the world. You know, the world that we live in

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Speaker 1: is mostly like classical things move slowly. It's mostly just

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Speaker 1: defined by gravity. You can ignore the fact that things

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Speaker 1: are actually built out of tiny quantum objects because when

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Speaker 1: you put ten to the thirty of them together, they

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Speaker 1: act in a different way. They act in this weird

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Speaker 1: classical way where things move smoothly with paths and are

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Speaker 1: predictable and had trajectories and stuff. But we know that

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Speaker 1: deep down the world actually is quantum, and this is

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Speaker 1: fundamental mystery in physics about how you go from the

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Speaker 1: quantum nature of the world to the classical world this

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Speaker 1: connection between them. But electricity is awesome because it's like

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Speaker 1: a crack. It shows you, like directly that the world

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Speaker 1: has this other deep nature in it which is really different,

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Speaker 1: and it gives you this glimpse into the incredible power

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Speaker 1: of these particles. It's like this clear channel down to

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Speaker 1: the microscopic nature of the universe to show you that

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Speaker 1: something crazy is going on down there.

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Speaker 2: You mentioned earlier Zeus, like the god of thunder in

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Speaker 2: the Greek and Roman pantheon, and then there's also Thor,

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Speaker 2: who's like, you know, another god of thunder, And I

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Speaker 2: think that's really interesting that these sort of ancient cultures

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Speaker 2: maybe like gods and stuff, was a way for them

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Speaker 2: to start to describe how they are perceiving these kind

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Speaker 2: of random and capricious things happening, like a lightning storm

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Speaker 2: or this electricity that is disobeying sort of the rules

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Speaker 2: that we understand as humans in terms of simple physics

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Speaker 2: of throwing a rock or you know, jumping up and down,

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Speaker 2: and so yeah, I wonder if, like some of the

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Speaker 2: theology that that developed at this time was a way

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Speaker 2: to start to try to explain when we started to

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Speaker 2: see more evidence of the quantum nature of the universe,

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Speaker 2: more randomness, things that are harder to explain or that

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Speaker 2: you can't see with the naked eye.

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Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting it sort of tracks humanity's

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Speaker 1: attempt to understand the world, starting with like mythological explanations

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Speaker 1: of saying, we don't understand this, therefore it must be

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Speaker 1: some entity, something with intention that's making these decisions. It

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Speaker 1: can't just be explained with some mechanistic understanding. And then

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Speaker 1: in the sixteen hundreds and the seventeen hundreds, people doing

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Speaker 1: more experiments, people developing an understanding of it bit by bit,

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Speaker 1: and you know, electricity spans so many different kinds of

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Speaker 1: phenomena from static electricity to lightning to magnetism. All this

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff was investigated independently and then in the

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds researched by all sorts of people fair Day,

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Speaker 1: including Ben Franklin, all this kind of stuff to a

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Speaker 1: unified theory by James Clerk Maxwell of electromagnetism. How all

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Speaker 1: of these ideas are actually just reflections of one single concept,

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Speaker 1: this electromagnetic force, which can explain everything we see. Really

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Speaker 1: an incredible moment of unification of understanding, not just mechanistic explanation,

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Speaker 1: like oh, there's not people in the sky making these decisions,

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Speaker 1: we can actually predict it with mathematics, but bringing together

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Speaker 1: so many different concepts into one harmonious idea. It's like

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Speaker 1: really a triumph for the whole idea that physics can

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Speaker 1: simplify the universe.

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Speaker 2: It's like that whole a bunch of blind men trying

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Speaker 2: to describe an elephant, but the elephant is made out

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Speaker 2: of electricity, and it's a bunch of scientists all over

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Speaker 2: the world. That's yeah, that's really interesting how we have

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Speaker 2: it seems like with a lot of these discoveries in

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Speaker 2: physics and other sciences, you have these waves of parallel

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Speaker 2: discoveries or complementary discoveries that all kind of happen in

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Speaker 2: these bursts as we start to build on old knowledge

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Speaker 2: and our technology and scientific abilities improve. It's not just

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Speaker 2: one guy, right, Like Ben Franklin did not discover electricity,

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Speaker 2: Thomas Edison did not make electricity usable. They certainly contributed

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Speaker 2: to it, but it's a bunch of different scientists and

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Speaker 2: researchers and people who kind of like in these waves

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Speaker 2: of like, oh, now we have the technology to be

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Speaker 2: able to observe or study this. Now a bunch of

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Speaker 2: people are contributing to the research and coming up with

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Speaker 2: ideas at the same time.

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Speaker 1: And it seems like a burst, but it's only a

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Speaker 1: burst on historical time scales, Like you look back and

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Speaker 1: there's like decades between experiments and discoveries. So that's sort

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Speaker 1: of frustrating to realize, like, Wow, they could have figured

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Speaker 1: this stuff out much sooner.

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Speaker 2: Only I had cell phones.

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Speaker 1: We could have had iPhones like one hundred years earlier.

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Speaker 1: If people had been on top of this stuff.

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Speaker 2: We had Twitter back then, it would have either really

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Speaker 2: helped or doomed society, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: But then it's the late eighteen hundreds. After Maxwell has

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Speaker 1: understood what electromagnetism is, we have an idea of a charge.

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Speaker 1: JJ Thompson was the first person to figure out like

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the microscopic story of how this actually worked,

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Speaker 1: like what charge was and how it moved. When he

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Speaker 1: discovered the electron, he was studying cathode rays and playing

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Speaker 1: around with these tubes and putting electric fields and magnetic

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Speaker 1: fields near them and seeing how they bend the rays.

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Speaker 1: We have a whole podcast on the discovery of the electron,

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Speaker 1: and the key thing that he discovered was that the

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Speaker 1: mass and the charge were linked. If you were going

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Speaker 1: to bend this ray, there was some stuff to it,

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Speaker 1: and the charge and the stuff couldn't be separated. The

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Speaker 1: charge was attached to the stuff. This is like the

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Speaker 1: beginning of the modern concept of what a particle is.

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Speaker 1: That there was some tiny little bit that had these

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Speaker 1: labels and you couldn't pull those labels apart. They were

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Speaker 1: like deeply linked together mass and charge. He called this

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Speaker 1: thing actually a corpus crust, and there was only later

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Speaker 1: renamed into an electron.

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Speaker 2: I'm glad, so we should all be that could have

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Speaker 2: been disgusting.

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Speaker 1: Otherwise we'd have like corpuscular engineers running the world.

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Speaker 2: It is interesting because like there was I know that

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Speaker 2: throughout the history of science sort of the distinction between

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Speaker 2: the physical and the non physical got kind of confused

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Speaker 2: and modeled. Like it reminds you of sort of the

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Speaker 2: idea that the mind, right, our conscious experience is actually

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Speaker 2: connected to our physical brain. We didn't come out of

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Speaker 2: the gate knowing that, you know, we didn't know that

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Speaker 2: our brain was responsible for thoughts and feelings for a

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Speaker 2: long time. So that that sounds kind of similar to

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Speaker 2: this where it's like discovering that electrical charge has sort

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Speaker 2: of a physical manifestation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not something that we still really understand.

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Speaker 1: We'd like kicked the can down the road a long

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Speaker 1: way as we're saying, what are these electrical effects? Where

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Speaker 1: does charge come from? Oh, it's attached these things we

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Speaker 1: call particles, we can call them electrons. We can say

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Speaker 1: they have electric charge and they have mass and they

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Speaker 1: whizz around. And in the next segment of the podcast,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about all the amazing electrical effects and how

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Speaker 1: they come out of electrons. But we still don't really

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Speaker 1: understand what is an electron, and what is electric charge?

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Speaker 1: Like we can say that it's there. We can say

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Speaker 1: electrons have this property electric charge, and we can say

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Speaker 1: that what that means, But really it just means they

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Speaker 1: push on each other or they pull on each other.

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Speaker 1: It's a way to explain the things that we see

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Speaker 1: by creating this label and putting it on electrons. We

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Speaker 1: don't know, like what charge is? Why do some particles

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Speaker 1: have it and other particles don't have it? Like doutrinos

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Speaker 1: have no charge at all, but quarks and electrons certainly do.

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Speaker 1: Why is charge conserved in the universe? Like you can

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Speaker 1: do all sorts of chemical and physical processes, but you

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Speaker 1: cannot increase or decrease the amount of charge. That tells

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Speaker 1: us that charge is something really important to the universe.

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Speaker 1: It's deeply embedded somehow in the nature of reality. But

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Speaker 1: like if you ask me what is electric charge? I

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Speaker 1: can just describe it. I can't define it or really

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Speaker 1: explain it.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think if you and I put our heads together,

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Speaker 2: you with your knowledge of particle physics, me you know,

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Speaker 2: being here, I think we can figure it out. And

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Speaker 2: so let's take a quick break and when we come back.

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Speaker 2: I'm sure we will have discovered the mysteries of electricity.

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Speaker 2: So we are back, Daniel. We had a good think.

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Speaker 2: Mostly you any closer to solving the mysteries of electricity?

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Speaker 1: No, I took a little nap and I was hoping

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Speaker 1: they're a lightning bolt of inspiration, but nothing came. But

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Speaker 1: I do feel feel better and I'm ready to dig

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Speaker 1: in to understanding electricity. I think that's amazing how science

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Speaker 1: works in stages. You know, like there's a huge mystery

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Speaker 1: and you can explain it in terms of something smaller,

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Speaker 1: and then you can focus on that thing smaller. Then

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Speaker 1: you explain that, which turns out to reveal a smaller

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Speaker 1: mystery and a smaller mystery, and in some ways you

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Speaker 1: are developing an understanding. In some ways you're just sort

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Speaker 1: of like recursively kicking it down the road. This answer

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Speaker 1: depends on the next one, which depends on the next one,

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Speaker 1: and we hope eventually there is a deepest layer.

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Speaker 2: We're also using electricity to think about electricity because our

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Speaker 2: brains use electric potential charges to have the firing of

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Speaker 2: our neurons. When you take a nap to think about electricity,

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Speaker 2: your brain is manipulating the flow of electricity, so that

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Speaker 2: your body stops moving, but your brain to some extent

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Speaker 2: remains active only in certain areas. So it's electricity all

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Speaker 2: the way down.

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Speaker 1: It's meta electricity.

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Speaker 2: It's a good band name, good band name.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to copyright that when nobody take that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it takes these back seas.

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Speaker 1: So I do want to take the time to pull

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Speaker 1: apart some of the phenomena that we call electricity, the

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Speaker 1: day to day experiences we have of electric current and

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Speaker 1: bonds and lightning, and explain that in terms of electric

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Speaker 1: charges and electrons what's happening on the microscopic scale. But

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Speaker 1: I don't want people to forget that we don't understand

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Speaker 1: what's going on at that smaller level. Like we can

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Speaker 1: build this bridge between the microscopic and the microscopic, but

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Speaker 1: the microscopic remains a mystery that hopefully one day somebody

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Speaker 1: will understand, Like what charge is? Man?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, See, science isn't over yet. Everyone out there who's listening,

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Speaker 2: who wants to be a future scientist, there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of stuff left for you, a lot of scraps.

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Speaker 1: There is in the end charge just this label we

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Speaker 1: put on some quantum fields and not on others, and

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Speaker 1: it's something we see and describe in the world, but

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Speaker 1: that doesn't stop us from building up an understanding from

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Speaker 1: this microscopic picture of charge understood or not up to

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Speaker 1: the macroscopic experience of electricity. And electricity itself is like

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Speaker 1: this grab bag of related concepts, all of which come

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Speaker 1: out of the charge of electrons and of quarks. But

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Speaker 1: you got like electric bonds, you got electric currents, you

436
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Speaker 1: got lightning, you got static electricity, electric heating, you even

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Speaker 1: have a biological electricity. So let's dig in.

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Speaker 2: So let's start with electric bonds. I know there are

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Speaker 2: different types of forces and different types of bonds, and

440
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 2: there are like weak and strong forces. Like where do

441
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: electronic bonds sort of fall?

442
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're going to build the macroscopic world, our

443
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: experience of the world out of particles, you got to

444
00:24:45,080 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 1: click those particles together. And we know that there are

445
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: some fundamental forces in the universe. There's the strong force,

446
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,760
Speaker 1: the weak force, electromagnetic force, and then there's gravity. In

447
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: the particle world, gravity is irrelevant because it's so weak

448
00:24:57,560 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 1: and these particles have basically no mass, and so it's

449
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 1: just not really a player. The strong force is the

450
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:06,080
Speaker 1: most powerful, but it's so powerful that it locks itself

451
00:25:06,119 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: up and neutralizes itself really quickly. So a few quirks

452
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: will feel the strong force, but they tie themselves together

453
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: into like a proton. Once you step outside the proton,

454
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,440
Speaker 1: you can't really feel a strong force anymore. It's sort

455
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: of the same way that like an atom is made

456
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: of a positive electric charge and a negative electric charge,

457
00:25:23,119 --> 00:25:24,880
Speaker 1: but when you're far away from it, the whole thing

458
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: is neutral because those two charges balance. Then the same way,

459
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 1: a proton has the strong force inside of it, but

460
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: it's so powerful that it's locked itself up and it's neutralized.

461
00:25:34,760 --> 00:25:37,479
Speaker 1: And so then what you're left with is electromagnetism and

462
00:25:37,560 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 1: the weak force. And the weak force turns out to

463
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: actually be part of electromagnetism. Check out our podcast on

464
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:48,320
Speaker 1: the electro weak force. But essentially it's electromagnetism that then

465
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 1: builds our world. That takes protons and electrons, it symbles

466
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:55,320
Speaker 1: them together into atoms and then lets those atoms link

467
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 1: themselves together with electronic bonds to make chemistry and buy

468
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: elogy and everything that we experience.

469
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: So I've got a glass of water here, does this

470
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 2: glass of water need electricity to be a glass of water.

471
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, absolutely, the water needs electricity. You know, water

472
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 1: is H two oh, and the hydrogen and the oxygen

473
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: why do they stick together. It's the electrons around the

474
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: hydrogen and the electrons around the oxygen that are doing

475
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:27,359
Speaker 1: that bonding. The electrons are like the glue in chemistry, right.

476
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 1: Without them, the protons in the nucleus would not want

477
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 1: to hang out together. So it's electronic bonds. It's electricity

478
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,520
Speaker 1: at the particle level that builds water out of H

479
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: two and oh. And that's why they call it electrolysis,

480
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: the opposite of making water. Right, you break water down

481
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: into H and oh using electrolysis because it's in the

482
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 1: end electricity that is building our world.

483
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:52,199
Speaker 2: Well, I just drink some of it and it tasted

484
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:53,359
Speaker 2: normal to me, So.

485
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:55,760
Speaker 1: That's shocking.

486
00:26:56,640 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 2: That is interesting that the thing that makes stuff possible,

487
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 2: like physical stuff are bodies, biological processes, are these electronic

488
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 2: bonds and differences in charge?

489
00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, exactly. The reason, like some things are sticky

490
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:14,879
Speaker 1: and some things are shiny, and some things react and

491
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 1: some things don't, all comes out of his chemical properties,

492
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,639
Speaker 1: which are determined by the electrons in their orbitals and

493
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: whether they like to interact with other stuff or not.

494
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 1: So like, really, in a very concrete, tactile way, it's

495
00:27:27,600 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: electricity that determines your experience of the world. The reason

496
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:34,399
Speaker 1: you can't pass through the wall is because of the

497
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: electronic bonds linking those atoms together. The reason gelato tastes

498
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 1: delicious is because the interaction of those molecules on your tongue,

499
00:27:42,280 --> 00:27:46,959
Speaker 1: which are electromagnetic interactions, right, the electrons linking together or

500
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,920
Speaker 1: not clicking together into those receptors or not. Our whole

501
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:53,200
Speaker 1: world and our experience of it is electrical.

502
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like I said earlier, our ability to think

503
00:27:56,280 --> 00:28:00,000
Speaker 2: about it is also based on these differences in charge.

504
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 2: Just the ability for synapses to communicate with each other,

505
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 2: but also just for any cellular process, right, depends on

506
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:12,199
Speaker 2: different charges. It's very interesting because there's like I mean,

507
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 2: it's hard to call it a desire because these are particles,

508
00:28:14,800 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 2: but it almost seems like particles kind of seek out

509
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 2: this homeostasis, like this neutrality that you describe, which is

510
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 2: also very similar in biological processes, like a cell is

511
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,399
Speaker 2: going to try to the kind of osmosis of water

512
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,679
Speaker 2: through a cell membrane is due to this kind of

513
00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 2: behavior and physics of like you know, salt ions in

514
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,040
Speaker 2: water or the lack of salt to ions. There's this

515
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:45,160
Speaker 2: need to become stable where you have this homeostasis, and

516
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 2: so all of that, Like the nature of these particles

517
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 2: is also reflected in the nature of these biological processes exactly.

518
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: But electrons and electronic bonds and electronic orbitals leads to

519
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: all sorts of fascinating phenomenon beyond just like why gelato

520
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: is tasty and why water is transparent and all that stuff.

521
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: There's more, at least probably the most amazing and powerful

522
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 1: concept and electricity the one that people mostly think about,

523
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,880
Speaker 1: which is electric current. Right. You know, when you plug

524
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: your thing into the wall, it's creating electric current. When

525
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 1: you're charging your phone, it's using electric current. This is

526
00:29:20,920 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: about the motion of charges through materials.

527
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 2: And I mean this exists outside of just human inventions, right,

528
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,479
Speaker 2: Like there are currents that occur in nature.

529
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely, currents flow in nature all the time. You

530
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: can have like streams of particles. You know, the sun

531
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: for example, generates all sorts of charged particles electrons and

532
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:45,760
Speaker 1: protons and even some anti electrons and when you get

533
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,520
Speaker 1: down to it, like what is electrical current, It's just

534
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 1: the movement of charge. So if you have like a

535
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: beam of electrons moving through a vacuum, that is current, right,

536
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: charge in motion. That's all that current is. Talk in

537
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: a minute about how that happens inside materials and it

538
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: turns out to be more complicated and really fascinating, but

539
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: it's most basic level. Electric current is just the motion

540
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: of charges. So you take a single electron and you

541
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 1: like throw it through space, boom, you have electric current.

542
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 2: So it's the electron moving. So like the electron is

543
00:30:19,520 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 2: equivalent to charge, so it's the movement of electrons, which

544
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 2: is the same as the movement of charge.

545
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,000
Speaker 1: Well, electrons do have charge. You don't need electrons, Like

546
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: you could throw protons also and that would make an

547
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: electric current. But anything that's charged and in motion, that's

548
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: what electric current is. That's like very literally the definition

549
00:30:37,560 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: of electric current, and that can come out in a

550
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: more complex way from the interplay of all sorts of

551
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: complicated stuff inside metals, and it's a little bit more

552
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: subtle way. In its most pure form, the simplest kind

553
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: of electric charge is just electrons in motion.

554
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: I understand that metals. I mean, depending on the type

555
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 2: of metal is conductive. So I would assume there's some

556
00:30:58,360 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 2: kind of structural property of metal that allows this, and

557
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is. Probably to the horror

558
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 2: of my electrical engineering father.

559
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: The electricity in metals is super fascinating and people sometimes

560
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: try to describe electricity as like water flowing down a hose.

561
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: You know, think about like a tube of electrons flowing

562
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: down a hose. And that's almost right, but there are

563
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: important differences that will dig into. But essentially it is

564
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: the motion of electrons through a metal. And like, why

565
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:33,880
Speaker 1: can electrons move through a metal? If you imagine, like

566
00:31:34,360 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: your table, it's a bunch of atoms click together, and

567
00:31:37,320 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: you think, well, they're clicked together with those electrons, how

568
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: can those electrons jump around? Well, if you imagine your

569
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: basic picture of the atom, there's like energy levels, right,

570
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: you know, the electron can be the lowest level or

571
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:50,600
Speaker 1: the next level up, or the next level up. Our

572
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: idea of like the hydrogen or helium atom, there's all

573
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,720
Speaker 1: these different orbitals, the ladder the electrons allowed to live in.

574
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: And that picture works for one atom. But when you

575
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,120
Speaker 1: have that a bunch of atoms together in a lattice,

576
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: the energy levels become more complicated. Instead of having sharp

577
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 1: atomic orbitals for individual atoms, instead the interactions between the

578
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: atoms make these bands of allowed energy levels for the electrons.

579
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 1: So there's like these clusters of energy levels the electrons

580
00:32:19,480 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 1: are allowed to be in, rather than just these sharp

581
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: atomic hierarchies.

582
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 2: It's almost like creating a channel for this charge to

583
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 2: move through because the atoms are nested together. Is that

584
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 2: what you're saying, yeah, exactly, And.

585
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 1: So electrons can sort of slide back and forth between atoms.

586
00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 1: If an atom is totally isolated, the description of it

587
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: having these very precise energy levels is totally valid. But

588
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: bring another atom nearby, and now the nucleus of that

589
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: other atom is going to affect the electrons in the

590
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: first one. And so the right way to think about

591
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: it is that the whole like cluster of atoms have

592
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: energy levels for all of the electrons, and they're not

593
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: really individually assigned to one atom as much anymore, and

594
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:04,960
Speaker 1: so you just think of them as like they have

595
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: these bands of energy levels the electrons are allowed to

596
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,800
Speaker 1: be in, and they're called the valiance band, which is

597
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: the lowest level of electrons and then the conduction band,

598
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,080
Speaker 1: and the conduction band is where electrons can like hop around.

599
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: If there's empty energy levels in the conduction band, the

600
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,120
Speaker 1: electrons can easily just sort of like slide around the

601
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,280
Speaker 1: material from atom to atom.

602
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 2: So essentially, these atoms are just behaving like a bunch

603
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 2: of hippies, sharing food and stuff and letting sort of

604
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: the bruskis just flow freely, and you don't know who's

605
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: bruski it is really at this point, it's just this

606
00:33:41,360 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 2: free flowing hippie experience with these atoms and their bands

607
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 2: of energy levels.

608
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's like polyamory for electrons. You know, everybody

609
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: just in sharing.

610
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever heard of an atomic structure

611
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 2: described as a polycule, but I'm here for it.

612
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: They're just sharing the love. And of course, you know,

613
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: there's different kinds of atoms, and those different kind of

614
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: atoms have different energy levels because you know, the different

615
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,760
Speaker 1: number of protons different number of neutrons change those energy levels.

616
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,280
Speaker 1: And so, for an example, in a metal, these lower

617
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: level bands, the valiance bands, which are filled with electrons,

618
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: are very close to the conduction bands, so it's very

619
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: easy for an electron to like get enough energy to

620
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: get up to the conduction band and like fly around

621
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: the material, whereas in an insulator, like in a ceramic

622
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 1: for example, there's a big gap in those energy levels.

623
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 1: So the lower energy levels where all the cold electrons

624
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:40,120
Speaker 1: are really really far below the super highway where electrons

625
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:42,360
Speaker 1: can move around, So it takes a lot of energy

626
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:45,000
Speaker 1: to get the electron up in there. So a conductor

627
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:47,040
Speaker 1: is one where it's just easier for the electrons to

628
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: get up to this free flowing pathway where they can

629
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 1: jump around.

630
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,560
Speaker 2: So metal is like Dens Serb and planning like New

631
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 2: York City, and ceramic is like the boonies in the

632
00:34:58,320 --> 00:34:59,960
Speaker 2: most rural parts of America.

633
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. And you might wonder, like, well, why

634
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: can't those electrons at the lower energy levels also like

635
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:10,640
Speaker 1: flow around the material. The reason is that they're like

636
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:13,359
Speaker 1: densely packed in there. It's like the reason that it's

637
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: hard to move through a crowd because it's so crowded,

638
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: you know, there's no room for anyone to slide around,

639
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:20,640
Speaker 1: or it's like one of those puzzles, you know, where

640
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 1: you have to like get this piece over there, and

641
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,879
Speaker 1: there's only one hole, slide all these things around.

642
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:27,680
Speaker 2: So bad at them.

643
00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:29,800
Speaker 1: It's a pain, right, It's a pain to get anything

644
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: from one side to the other because there's always something

645
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:32,479
Speaker 1: in the way.

646
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd be a terrible conductor based on my performance

647
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 2: with those puzzles. I'd be like ceramic.

648
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so the valiance band is like that, it's

649
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:43,359
Speaker 1: packed really really full. It's like, why it's so much

650
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,760
Speaker 1: harder to get water to slosh in a full bottle

651
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: than in a half empty bottle, and a full bottle

652
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,080
Speaker 1: is nowhere for like the water to move, but in

653
00:35:51,080 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 1: a half empty bottle it's easy to slash things around.

654
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: So the conduction band tends to be more empty, which

655
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,720
Speaker 1: means there's room for those electrons to zoom around, whereas

656
00:35:59,719 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: the vain ban the lower ones usually packed full. The

657
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: conductor is a material where the electrons can jump up

658
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: into this like free roaming range where they can move around.

659
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:12,680
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's like if you've got a clogged freeway

660
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,120
Speaker 2: on ramp, you're not getting on, but if you can

661
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:19,280
Speaker 2: move and you can merge. We got a zipper, people,

662
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 2: we all got a zipper. We got to learn from

663
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 2: the electrons and learn how.

664
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: To zipper exactly. And so when current flows through a wire,

665
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: what's happening is the electrons are moving and the charge

666
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: is flowing. But it's not exactly right to think of

667
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: it like water flowing through a hose or remember that

668
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 1: picture we had a charge, or like electrons in a

669
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,800
Speaker 1: beam in a vacuum, because the motion of the electrons

670
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: here is more complicated. The electrons are not moving through

671
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:46,799
Speaker 1: the wire at the speed of light. They're just sort

672
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: of generally like flying around everywhere, and the electric field

673
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: that you impose tends to move them in one direction,

674
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: but it's still a busy area, so they're bumping into

675
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: each other and changing directions. So it's more like a

676
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:03,080
Speaker 1: wave moving through the electrons, and that wave is moving

677
00:37:03,120 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: at the speed of light, even if an individual electron

678
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:08,319
Speaker 1: is not. It's sort of like the way a wave

679
00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 1: can move through a crowd or like a mosh pit

680
00:37:10,440 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 1: or something, even if an individual person is still just

681
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: sort of like bouncing around a little bit.

682
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 2: Okay, So, like this charge is moving even if the

683
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:22,799
Speaker 2: electron itself is not just individually transporting it all the

684
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 2: way to its.

685
00:37:23,719 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: Goal exactly one individual electron, it's going to zigzag a bit,

686
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:29,800
Speaker 1: and it's going to pass that energy down to another electron,

687
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:32,680
Speaker 1: and another electron and another electron. So in effect, the

688
00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:35,919
Speaker 1: electric field and the charge is moving at the speed

689
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: of light, but no individual electron is like actually moving

690
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: through the wire at the speed of light. So this

691
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: is this difference between the speed of an individual electron

692
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: and the speed of the waves through the electrons, which

693
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:50,839
Speaker 1: is what is moving at the speed of light.

694
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. It's not as simple as like cars

695
00:37:55,040 --> 00:37:57,799
Speaker 2: moving on a road. I mean even in say like

696
00:37:57,840 --> 00:38:01,320
Speaker 2: you have crowd dynamics with people. Once you get people

697
00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: squished in enough, which is not good, it's very dangerous.

698
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 2: But you do start to see people moving as like particles,

699
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 2: and you see this thing where energy transfers from person

700
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 2: to person. Even though the people themselves aren't pushing the

701
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 2: people at the very front, the people at the very

702
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,760
Speaker 2: front will start to get shoved just by this force,

703
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: even if it was started by someone at the back.

704
00:38:22,520 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the traffic analogy is really helpful. Also, if

705
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: somebody along the freeway slams on the brakes, then the

706
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: pattern brake lights moves backwards through traffic much much faster

707
00:38:32,160 --> 00:38:34,880
Speaker 1: than any of the cars are moving right and so

708
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:37,320
Speaker 1: there you can see like the wave is moving faster

709
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,960
Speaker 1: than any of the individual cars. And that's exactly what's

710
00:38:40,960 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 1: happening with electricity and electrons. In metals, an individual electron

711
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: is mostly flying around randomly. You apply a field to

712
00:38:49,040 --> 00:38:50,960
Speaker 1: sort of like get the electrons to move in one

713
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,120
Speaker 1: direction to create a current, But the individual electrons are

714
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: mostly just zigzagging around. They're bouncing off each other, and

715
00:38:57,200 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: the net effect is to get some current down wire,

716
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: but no individual electron is actually moving at the speed

717
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: of light.

718
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 2: Is this why there are certain metals and certain things

719
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:11,280
Speaker 2: that are better conductors or worse because you've somehow optimized

720
00:39:11,360 --> 00:39:15,360
Speaker 2: the ability of the electrons to kind of zigzag in

721
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 2: the right direction.

722
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: Now, that has to do mostly with the difference between

723
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: the valance band and the conduction band. How easy it

724
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 1: is to get the electrons from the convalence band. It's

725
00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,439
Speaker 1: like jam packed creative electrons up into the highway where

726
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 1: they can move more freely, where it's like less traffic.

727
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 2: I see, Okay, the on ramp is very important.

728
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, it's all about the.

729
00:39:36,440 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to come up with some more driving

730
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,360
Speaker 2: metaphors during a quick break and then when we get back,

731
00:39:42,800 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 2: let's learn more about electricity and how to drive safely. Okay,

732
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:05,799
Speaker 2: So we are back in an electron traffic school. So

733
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,880
Speaker 2: I'm an electron and I'm part of this big party

734
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 2: moving through this wire, and I'm bonking into the electron

735
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 2: in front of me, and we're just kind of creating

736
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 2: this wave of charge that's moving through whatever conductive material

737
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 2: we are in exactly.

738
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:28,280
Speaker 1: And that motion happens because you have an electric field,

739
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: somebody's applied an external voltage, you have a battery or

740
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:35,520
Speaker 1: something putting an electric field on all those charges to

741
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: move them along. And it's very easy to move things

742
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,080
Speaker 1: along in a metal because there's all these electrons that

743
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: are free. But you could also try to do this

744
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: to something that's an insulator something where there aren't a

745
00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: lot of electrons. Very easy to move around, and then

746
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:52,280
Speaker 1: it takes a lot more energy to create a current,

747
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: but it is possible if you have a very strong

748
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: electrical field between the clouds and the ground. Eventually it

749
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: will those electrons off of those atoms and they will

750
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:05,560
Speaker 1: create a current between the cloud and the ground. And

751
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:06,879
Speaker 1: that's what lightning is.

752
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:11,240
Speaker 2: Okay, And is that why there's just so much energy

753
00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 2: in lightning.

754
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, because it takes a huge amount of electric

755
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: field to ionize the air, to rip those electrons off

756
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,880
Speaker 1: of those atoms inside the air, to create basically a

757
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: channel where that current can flow, because air is not

758
00:41:25,920 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: that easy to ionizing. A very strong electric field to

759
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: have to build up a lot of power, and then

760
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: once it's released, it's very dramatic.

761
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:37,439
Speaker 2: And is that all coming from these water particles that

762
00:41:37,600 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 2: are contained in these clouds that are all having a

763
00:41:42,120 --> 00:41:45,359
Speaker 2: bunch of activity, right, Like you know, the classic understanding

764
00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 2: of lightning is it comes from clouds kind of rubbing

765
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 2: up against each other. But it seems like maybe at

766
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,960
Speaker 2: the sort of particle level that would be more complicated.

767
00:41:55,320 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 1: No, I think that's basically it. It's cloud friction. You know,

768
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 1: air molecules and s bended water droplet, the collides, they

769
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: swirl around in these clouds, and then the warmer airs

770
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: and the water droplets rise, carrying those charges with them,

771
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: and so as a result, you get this excess of

772
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,279
Speaker 1: positive charge near the cloud tops and an excess of

773
00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: negative charge in the bottom layers of the clouds. So

774
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:20,239
Speaker 1: that's how you get like lightning within a cloud, and

775
00:42:20,320 --> 00:42:23,759
Speaker 1: so the friction basically between these droplets is creating an

776
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: electric field, and eventually you need lightning to sort of

777
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: smooth that out.

778
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 2: That's really interesting to me because I was not as

779
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 2: aware of like the lightning that just occurred within the clouds,

780
00:42:34,440 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 2: because when I lived in southern California, for some reason,

781
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 2: most of our lightning storms was the lightning where it's

782
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 2: the difference in charge between the cloud and the ground,

783
00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:47,480
Speaker 2: where it actually hits the ground. But here in northern

784
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 2: Italy there's a ton of lightning storms where the lightning

785
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 2: never actually hits the ground. It's all happening in the clouds,

786
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 2: and it's happening a lot, like very rapidly, which is

787
00:42:57,840 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 2: new to me, where it's just this constant kind of

788
00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 2: one after the other, but none of it is hitting

789
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:03,680
Speaker 2: the ground.

790
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really fascinating because the lightning inside the cloud

791
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: then helps build up and create lightning between the cloud

792
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:14,120
Speaker 1: and the ground. So you have like the top of

793
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:16,360
Speaker 1: the cloud becomes positively charged, and then bottom of the

794
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: cloud becomes negatively charged, and the ground is positively charged.

795
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,320
Speaker 1: And then when the negative charges on the bottom of

796
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: the cloud reach a level that's sufficient to overcome this

797
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:30,720
Speaker 1: insulation of the air. Then that's when the lightning strikes

798
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 1: from the bottom of the cloud to the ground.

799
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 2: Why is the ground positively charged? Is that just the

800
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,360
Speaker 2: nature of most sort of physical objects or is it

801
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 2: something specific about the Earth's ground.

802
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:45,319
Speaker 1: I think as these water droplets evaporate, they tend to

803
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: pull up the electric charges to the clouds, leaving the

804
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:50,000
Speaker 1: ground positively charged.

805
00:43:50,440 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 2: Oh. Interesting. If you're about to be hit by lightning, right,

806
00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 2: and you're you're a little human, what should you do?

807
00:43:57,719 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 2: Should you run around in a circle screaming? Should you

808
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 2: get under a tall tree? Should you curse at the heavens?

809
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 2: Or maybe like bow down to thor like, what's the

810
00:44:08,400 --> 00:44:12,000
Speaker 2: game plan for me a human? If I am caught

811
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: in a thunderstorm?

812
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,359
Speaker 1: You should take that last bite of toast and get

813
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:16,319
Speaker 1: your fears in order.

814
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take a raw bread and like holt it

815
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:21,720
Speaker 2: up over my head, so if I get struck by lightning,

816
00:44:21,719 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 2: I'll have some toast.

817
00:44:24,360 --> 00:44:26,879
Speaker 1: You should hope that there's a lightning rod nearby, something

818
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 1: that the lightning wants to zap instead of you, right,

819
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,040
Speaker 1: Because the lightning is going to choose the easiest path.

820
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:35,719
Speaker 1: It's going to find the channel that's easiest to ionize.

821
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: And if you watch a lightning strike in action, it's

822
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 1: actually really fascinating. Give this image in your mind that

823
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:42,920
Speaker 1: it's like a bolt from the heavens, right, it comes

824
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: from the top to the bottom.

825
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's Zeus throwing a zigzag down at Earth.

826
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:50,919
Speaker 1: Yeah. But if you watch it in super slow motion,

827
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. You can see the bolt exploring different options,

828
00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 1: like lightning coming down to the ground is splitting and

829
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,720
Speaker 1: exploring lots of different ways to potentially behind the ground.

830
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: And only when it makes that connection does the energy

831
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,480
Speaker 1: actually pass up from the ground to the cloud. So

832
00:45:08,520 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 1: in solmotion it's kind of slow and exploration on like branches,

833
00:45:11,760 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 1: and then once it connects to the ground, you see

834
00:45:13,480 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: this huge bolt pass up from the ground to the cloud.

835
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I have actually seen video of that, and

836
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 2: that's so interesting because it's like this sort of almost

837
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: vein like structure of the lightning. Another interesting thing is

838
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 2: that people who survive getting struck by lightning, which I

839
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 2: don't recommend, they actually sometimes have these scars, not like

840
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 2: Harry Potter with a zigzag, it's that same sort of

841
00:45:39,760 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 2: like reticulated like vein like pattern, because the way that

842
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 2: the electricity is moving in, you know, in the clouds

843
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:52,839
Speaker 2: or in the sky, is probably similar to the way

844
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:56,600
Speaker 2: that electricity is moving inside the human body.

845
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:59,880
Speaker 1: Creepy. That is creepy, isn't it it.

846
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 2: It's kind of cool though. I think that if I

847
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 2: got struck by lightning, I would want a cool lightning scar.

848
00:46:06,200 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: So people believe me, because if someone tells you I've

849
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 2: been struck by lightning, I think, well, okay, I don't know,

850
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 2: because you would be you'd be toast m m.

851
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:19,560
Speaker 1: Well. It's also just cool to think about the microphysics

852
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 1: of what's happening there. You know, these incredible electric field

853
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,240
Speaker 1: between the cloud and the ground are enough to pull

854
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: the electrons off the atoms in the air, making them charged,

855
00:46:29,800 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: turning this thing into a plasma. Plasma is just a

856
00:46:32,960 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: gas where the electrons have been pulled off of their atoms,

857
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,399
Speaker 1: and now those electrons are free to move because they're

858
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:40,880
Speaker 1: not bound to the atoms, and so now it's conducting.

859
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: It's like a wire of air, and then the electricity

860
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: passes through that in the same way. You know, the

861
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 1: electrons get pulled by that field and the ions move

862
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 1: in the other direction, and that's how the charge passes.

863
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,759
Speaker 1: And it's an incredible amount of energy in one of

864
00:46:55,800 --> 00:46:58,200
Speaker 1: these things. You know, a single lightning strike has a

865
00:46:58,440 --> 00:47:02,760
Speaker 1: billion jewels of energy, which is a lot of energy.

866
00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: I mean, like just to calibrate the rock when he

867
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:09,200
Speaker 1: punches somebody has about four hundred jewels of energy. So

868
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: getting hit by lightning is like getting punched by the

869
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:13,600
Speaker 1: rock two and a half million times.

870
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 2: I think I could take that on the chin.

871
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 1: You're pretty tough, kitty, but I'm gonna have to go

872
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: with a rock on this one. But lightning is not

873
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: something we even really fully understand because if you look

874
00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: at the field between the cloud and the ground, it's

875
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: not actually enough. They can calculate how big an electric

876
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:35,359
Speaker 1: field you need to make this ionization to create a

877
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: tube of plasma, and then they measure the electric field

878
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:41,240
Speaker 1: and it's not big enough, so they don't actually understand

879
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:44,360
Speaker 1: like where all that energy is coming from. One theory

880
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:48,160
Speaker 1: is that maybe it's cosmic rays, like particles through space

881
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: shooting through the cloud with incredible energy, are maybe like

882
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: sparking this lightning and making it happen. It's a field

883
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: of open research right now, and people are doing things

884
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: like trying to understand where in the world is there

885
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,480
Speaker 1: more lightning, because it turns out it varies a lot.

886
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: Like Europe lightning is much more rare than it is

887
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:08,160
Speaker 1: in like Florida, for example.

888
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: H Yeah, that's interesting because there are and it seems

889
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 2: like it depends on things like the environment, right, like

890
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 2: the type of biome that you're in. And I've heard

891
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 2: of things like ball lightning or something which I don't

892
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:27,960
Speaker 2: even know like if that's an actual thing that really exists,

893
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 2: because it's really hard to document, but you know, it's

894
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 2: something that people say they've seen, and it's always in

895
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 2: like these very very humid areas. So it seems like

896
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 2: having like a very different area, very different region, might

897
00:48:42,719 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 2: affect the way that these electric charge forces work.

898
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:50,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna have a whole episode on ball lightning.

899
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: That is a crazy Bonker story with a lot of

900
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:53,840
Speaker 1: really fun history.

901
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:55,280
Speaker 2: Oh I'm excited to listen.

902
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:58,920
Speaker 1: But next, let's talk about your dog and your blanket.

903
00:48:59,080 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I like my dog and I like my blanket.

904
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 2: I've got a photo of her hair standing on end.

905
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,600
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll share that with you all because it's very cute.

906
00:49:09,719 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 2: She doesn't seem to be bothered by it, and like

907
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:13,560
Speaker 2: I said, she loves this blanket.

908
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 1: So what's going on When you have like your hair

909
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:18,800
Speaker 1: standing on end, or when you're wearing a blanket and

910
00:49:18,920 --> 00:49:21,040
Speaker 1: you get a zap on the carpet or something like

911
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:25,840
Speaker 1: that. That's static electricity. It's basically a miniature form of lightning.

912
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:26,360
Speaker 4: You know.

913
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 1: Lightning occurs when you have a strong electric field across

914
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:33,120
Speaker 1: an insulator. So the insulator there aren't usually electrons that

915
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: want to move to create a current when you apply

916
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 1: a field, but if you make a big enough field,

917
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 1: it'll break down. It'll rip those electrons out of the atoms.

918
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: That's lightning right. Well, static electricity is the same phenomenon,

919
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,120
Speaker 1: just over a much shorter distance. So you don't need

920
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 1: a huge cosmic electric field to create static between like

921
00:49:52,000 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 1: your finger and the door knob, or between like you

922
00:49:55,239 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 1: and your dog. You need a much smaller field, and

923
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 1: so you can get a bunch of electrons like from

924
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:03,279
Speaker 1: one thing to another. You can create this imbalance, you

925
00:50:03,280 --> 00:50:06,719
Speaker 1: can create this electric field, and you can get static electricity.

926
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 2: So I can understand the little zamp I get from

927
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 2: like my fingertip to the door knob. But why do

928
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:15,840
Speaker 2: you things stick to me? Like if I rub my

929
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 2: socks on the floor, I can get a balloon to

930
00:50:18,920 --> 00:50:22,320
Speaker 2: stick to me. You shared a picture of this cat

931
00:50:22,440 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 2: covered in little pieces of styrofoam that are stuck to it,

932
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 2: which I love this picture. Thank you for that. So

933
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:32,200
Speaker 2: why does static electricity make us sticky?

934
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:35,680
Speaker 1: This picture is actually featured on the official Wikipedia page

935
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: for static electricity. Well suggests everybody go to this famous

936
00:50:40,239 --> 00:50:42,840
Speaker 1: cat that must must have had like the worst day ever,

937
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:45,520
Speaker 1: or maybe the best day diving around a bunch of

938
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: styrophoaming nuts.

939
00:50:47,200 --> 00:50:48,440
Speaker 2: Looks like he's having fun.

940
00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is static cling. If you move a

941
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: bunch of electrons from one object to another, then there's

942
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,520
Speaker 1: going to be a force of attraction between them. And

943
00:50:57,560 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 1: that's fundamentally what's happening here is that you're moving elects

944
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 1: from one thing to another. Like if you take a

945
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: piece of styrofoam and you rub it on your cat, right,

946
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: then the electron is going to move from one object

947
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: to another. And now one of these things is positive

948
00:51:10,640 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: and one of these things is negative, and so they're

949
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: going to attract each other. So now the styrofoam peanut

950
00:51:15,120 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: is attracted to your cat because of an electrical bond

951
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: between them.

952
00:51:19,280 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 2: And it's got to be light enough, right, because the

953
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 2: styrofoam and the balloon, these are both very light things.

954
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 2: If it's too heavy, then gravity is actually enough to

955
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,080
Speaker 2: pull that away from you. If you're in a space station,

956
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 2: is static electricity like more powerful than it is on Earth?

957
00:51:37,239 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 1: Like?

958
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:40,560
Speaker 2: Could you get something heavier to stick to you?

959
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:43,000
Speaker 1: Can you get bowling balls to stick to your space cat?

960
00:51:43,120 --> 00:51:47,680
Speaker 1: Is that what you're asking me? Yeah? Yeah, actually you could.

961
00:51:47,760 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 1: That's true. I don't think anybody ever tried that. I'm

962
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: going to try to get that listed on the official

963
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:54,439
Speaker 1: experiment we're going to do on then iss, that sounds great.

964
00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 2: We need a cat, some styrofoam, and some bowling balls.

965
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: And so this is also revealing like the microscopic nature

966
00:52:02,200 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: of charge. That charge is carried by these tiny, basically

967
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: invisible little particles that can move from one thing to

968
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: another but then have a visible effect. Right, It's this

969
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: way the universe is like cracking open and giving you

970
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: a clue that deep down there's something to learn about

971
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,920
Speaker 1: the tiny invisible world that makes up our visible world.

972
00:52:22,280 --> 00:52:25,040
Speaker 1: So I love about this effect. And some living things

973
00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:27,400
Speaker 1: of course, have figured out how to use this to

974
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: their advantage. They are, of course electrical eels, but they're

975
00:52:30,719 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: also like fish that can like sense electric fields, aren't there.

976
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, so electric eels are actually not true eels. They

977
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:45,319
Speaker 2: are knife fish. But there are multiple fish in the world,

978
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:49,440
Speaker 2: multiple like species in groups of fish that can sense

979
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:54,719
Speaker 2: and produce electricity. So one of these knife fish, which

980
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:56,799
Speaker 2: is sort of eel like, so we call it an

981
00:52:56,800 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 2: electric eel, produces its own sort of electric field, and

982
00:53:01,760 --> 00:53:05,360
Speaker 2: it's this electrophoress electricus, and that's the most famous one

983
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:09,840
Speaker 2: because it can really zap you because it produces quite

984
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:11,680
Speaker 2: a strong electric field.

985
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: So it's got some organ inside it that can make

986
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:15,360
Speaker 1: electric fields.

987
00:53:15,640 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. Which, so the way these organs work

988
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:21,799
Speaker 2: is it's similar to how our muscles work. So our

989
00:53:21,880 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 2: muscles actually produce a little bit of electricity when they

990
00:53:27,320 --> 00:53:32,879
Speaker 2: are activated. And so this is actually what enables electroreceptive

991
00:53:33,040 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 2: animals like sharks and platypuses. Actually, platypuses have electro receptors

992
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:42,520
Speaker 2: in their bills, and so they can hunt down earthworms

993
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 2: much like a shark can hunt down fish. Because both

994
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 2: of these animals have electro receptors, totally different species, totally

995
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 2: different evolutionary path So in these electric eels, which are

996
00:53:55,280 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 2: actually nine fish, they produce this electric field through an

997
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 2: organ that is basically like a really kind of powerful muscle,

998
00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,480
Speaker 2: where it's the power is through the ability to produce

999
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 2: this electrical charge, this electrical field, not in its ability

1000
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,319
Speaker 2: to say like lift weights, and so this is the

1001
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 2: case for a lot of species that produce this electric field.

1002
00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:24,439
Speaker 2: So what's interesting is a lot of these animals that

1003
00:54:24,840 --> 00:54:30,120
Speaker 2: produce electric fields also have electro receptors, so they are

1004
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 2: using their electric field to see their world. You know

1005
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:40,640
Speaker 2: how dolphins and bats will send something out into the

1006
00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:44,440
Speaker 2: world and then receive information back in order to see

1007
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 2: So bats to use sort of like a sonar where

1008
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,000
Speaker 2: they send out a ping, a little squeak and then

1009
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,279
Speaker 2: they receive it back so that they can see dolphins

1010
00:54:53,280 --> 00:54:57,120
Speaker 2: the same thing. They're doing this with electricity. So they

1011
00:54:57,160 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: are generating this electric field, and if things in their

1012
00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:05,240
Speaker 2: environment disrupt this electric field, they can sense that because

1013
00:55:05,280 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 2: they also have electro receptors. And it actually this is

1014
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 2: evolved in multiple types of fish. So like there's also

1015
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 2: a fun one which I think is less well known

1016
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 2: than the nine fish, which is the elephant nosed fish,

1017
00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:24,320
Speaker 2: which has a really long nose. It's very goofy looking,

1018
00:55:25,120 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 2: and it's actually not a nose. It's a protrusion of

1019
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 2: the lower jaw. And it's got the best name of

1020
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 2: any body part in all of evolutionary biology. It's called this.

1021
00:55:35,640 --> 00:55:36,520
Speaker 1: Is it safe for work?

1022
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 2: It is safe for work. Yes, it's called the Schnauzen organ,

1023
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 2: which I don't know. Maybe if you speak a German

1024
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 2: it's not safe for work, but it sounds fine to me.

1025
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:46,520
Speaker 2: The Schnauzen organ.

1026
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:49,480
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's very dignified. I'm sure it carries itself

1027
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 1: with great poise.

1028
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 2: It's very goofy looking. And yeah, that Schnauzen organ contains

1029
00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 2: all of these electro receptors. And then it also has

1030
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 2: on its posterior that at electric field generating organ. Now

1031
00:56:02,880 --> 00:56:06,880
Speaker 2: it's much weaker than in that electric eel that I mentioned,

1032
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 2: but again it uses the same sort of method where

1033
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:12,880
Speaker 2: it generates that field and if there's disruption in the field,

1034
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 2: then it can locate things. It's like human sonar that

1035
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 2: we use in terms of like sending out a ping

1036
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:21,960
Speaker 2: and receiving it back just using that electric field.

1037
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,400
Speaker 1: Wow, amazing It's incredible to me the humans have discovered

1038
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,240
Speaker 1: this in the world, but the animals have been using

1039
00:56:29,280 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 1: this for millennia. Right, It's something more natural intuitive. I

1040
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:35,799
Speaker 1: wonder if it would have been easier for us to

1041
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:39,320
Speaker 1: figure out how electricity worked if we had electrical organs,

1042
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: or if electricity played like a more tactile role in

1043
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,000
Speaker 1: our experience, not just like within our nervous system and

1044
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:46,200
Speaker 1: inside of our brains.

1045
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we had electro reception, you know, there could

1046
00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 2: be a whole different method of communication.

1047
00:56:52,680 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 3: Right.

1048
00:56:52,840 --> 00:56:55,560
Speaker 2: If we had both an ability to produce an electric

1049
00:56:55,600 --> 00:56:58,919
Speaker 2: field and electro reception, maybe we could have formed some

1050
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 2: kind of communication that is like similar to telepathy, where

1051
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:05,080
Speaker 2: we don't need to say anything, we just sort of

1052
00:57:05,120 --> 00:57:07,920
Speaker 2: detect the waves in our electrical fields.

1053
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:10,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you could get phone calls without needing

1054
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: a phone, right, or here radio stations in your mind.

1055
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:15,400
Speaker 2: Fun.

1056
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:18,800
Speaker 1: I think the bigger picture here is that electricity really

1057
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: is a product of the quantum particle nature of our world.

1058
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:25,480
Speaker 1: And this is not just something particle physicists think about.

1059
00:57:25,800 --> 00:57:28,439
Speaker 1: This is something that we can experience day to day,

1060
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,000
Speaker 1: the charge of particles, the forces between them. This is

1061
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:33,600
Speaker 1: part of our experience too.

1062
00:57:33,840 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 2: I really like how these patterns of how particles work

1063
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:40,720
Speaker 2: on this quantum level also seems to be kind of

1064
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:44,640
Speaker 2: reiterated in the more bigger picture, like on the macro level,

1065
00:57:44,800 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 2: in terms of cell processes and terms of like say,

1066
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 2: how a herd moves or how people move it.

1067
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 1: It's very interesting, it is fascinating, and of course huge

1068
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,600
Speaker 1: questions remain. What is the charge of an electron? Why

1069
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: does it exist? Why have charges? Why don't neutrinos have charge?

1070
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 1: Why does the universe respect charge so so deeply when

1071
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,040
Speaker 1: other symmetries and conservation laws are broken here and there

1072
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 1: and at the edges. These are mysteries. I hope one

1073
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:15,640
Speaker 1: of our listeners will one day figure out, and then

1074
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:17,840
Speaker 1: we'll invite them on the podcast to explain it.

1075
00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 2: All to you, and you'll write a paper titled what

1076
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 2: is going On?

1077
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 1: Thank you Katie for coming along and for delivering the

1078
00:58:28,680 --> 00:58:31,920
Speaker 1: very best and the very last electricity pun of the episode.

1079
00:58:32,560 --> 00:58:33,439
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.

1080
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: Tune in next time everyone. For more science and curiosity,

1081
00:58:41,800 --> 00:58:44,640
Speaker 1: come find us on social media, where we answer questions

1082
00:58:44,680 --> 00:58:49,080
Speaker 1: and post videos. We're on Twitter, Discord, Instant, and now TikTok.

1083
00:58:49,800 --> 00:58:52,600
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and remember that. Daniel and Jorge Explain

1084
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 1: the Universe is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

1085
00:58:56,680 --> 00:59:01,480
Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, podcasts, or wherever you

1086
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.