WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: TechStuff Plays with Plasma 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.920 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.200 My name is Jonathan Strickland. I happen to be an 0:00:16.239 --> 0:00:19.599 executive producer with how Stuff Works and I hear radio 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.400 and today it's time to look at another classic episode 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.960 of tech Stuff. Yeah, the show's been going since two 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.280 thousand eight with more than a thousand episodes, and I'm 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:32.320 pretty sure most of you haven't heard all of them. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:37.600 So this one was originally published on February two thousand twelve, 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:42.680 is called tech Stuff Plays with Plasma and Chris Palette 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:46.360 and I end up talking about plasma and how it 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:52.680 works in technological applications. Enjoy courtesy of a little Facebook 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.320 feedback you be and this comes to us from our 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:01.880 friend Basu, who says, hey, Jonathan, our plasma ray guns possible. 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:04.920 I'm waiting for the next podcast on this. Well, here's 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.280 our next podcast on plasma reyguns. But before we get 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.160 into the idea of weaponizing plasma, let's talk a bit 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.000 about what plasma is and maybe some common or at 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:24.280 least more realistic applications for plasma that that we use today. Okay, So, 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:28.440 so plasma it is the fourth state of matter. Yeah, 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:33.679 it's funny to me because growing up, um, perhaps my 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.399 my school system was narrow minded, although I don't think so. 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:40.200 We we learned about solids, liquids, and gases. Those were 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.080 the three states of matter and that's all there were. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:48.120 And the Brontosaurus was a dinosaur exactly. You know, it's 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.560 probably because I would guess it's probably more because growing up, 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:57.360 plasma is a little hard to grasp. It's I figured out. Literally, 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:02.400 I figured out, yes, because if we did heard it hurts. Uh. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.280 I'll the way I figure the best explanation would be 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.520 look at it from the stance of molecular movement. Okay, 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:13.720 So with solids, the solids are made up of molecules, 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.840 and those molecules don't move a lot. They are moving. 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.919 So even in that granite table that you might see 0:02:19.919 --> 0:02:22.640 that the molecules within that granite table are actually in motion. 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.760 They're just not moving a lot. You can take it 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.160 for granite that they'll stay put. Yes, And then in 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.239 liquids you have a little more molecular movement, and the 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.800 the actual composition of the matter it acts differently. Right, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.480 So ice is a solid, water is a liquid, and 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:42.720 then if you add more energy into the system and 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.040 you create more molecular movement. You can make that liquid 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.840 turn into a gas, and then gas, you've got a 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.720 lot more molecular movement. The molecules aren't as packed closely 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:54.680 as close together as it would be in a liquid 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:56.919 or in a solid, and that's when you've got the 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.520 gas form. Well, plasma is the next step. It's when 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:05.280 you've added even more energy into that that element, and 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:10.280 this also tends to strip away electrons ionizing that gas. 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.520 So you've got free electrons flowing through the gas that 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.280 an ionized gas, that is plasma. So in a way, 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:19.480 you can think of plasma is sort of a subset 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:21.760 of gas, but it's really its own thing because it's 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:25.800 an ionized gas. Jonathan, it strips away electrons. Are you 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:31.079 sure well? It pushes electrons way out into the outer shells. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.720 I was. I was going for the joke there they 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.880 lose electrons. Are you sure? I'm positive? Okay? No. The 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.640 reason why I said that is because literally this week 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.720 phil Plate, the Bad Astronomer, wrote a post about ionizing 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.080 atmosphere conditions and how that creates are the auroras to 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.320 the Aurora borealis and the aurora estrallis, and he had 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.800 written about how it strips electrons away from oxygen and 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:02.080 then later corrected himself saying, all right, technically that is 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.880 not correct. What really happens is that the electrons are 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.520 pushed to the further energy shells around the nucleus of 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.720 the atom, and when the electrons come back down to 0:04:11.800 --> 0:04:16.800 their natural energy shell, photons are released. And that's the aurora. 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.640 So that's why I wanted to not do the I'm 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.440 positive off the bat okay okay, Um, you can tell 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:28.040 we don't we We sort of prepare, but we don't rehearse. Um. 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.479 It's funny too, that that we think about plasmas being 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.920 the fourth state of matter and the way it's uh 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:39.720 kind of strange because um plasma is far more prevalent 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:45.080 in our universe, most plentiful state of matter, of all 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:48.679 matter in the universe, all anything that's not dark matter, 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:53.640 whether or not that exists isn't isn't totally different subject matter, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:57.080 but it's really too many matters. But yes, of all 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:01.120 the matter that we have observed, plasma makes up. And 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:03.920 you might think, well, that's weird, because everything I encounter 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.120 tends to be either a solid liquid or a gas. 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:10.000 I very rarely encounter plasma. Well, that's because you don't 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:13.280 live on the Sun. I have encountered a couple of 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:18.200 people who have encountered plasma firsthand, um, more than once, 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.160 because they have been hit by lightning. Yes, and that's 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.559 what I was saying with my quote at the beginning 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:28.800 of the show. Lightning is something that can create plasmas. 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:32.120 One of the ways that we can find naturally occurring 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:36.440 plasma on Earth. The plasma does not last very long. Um. 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:38.560 But we'll get into that in a second, and I 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:43.520 would avoid coming into contact with plasma as often as possible. Now, 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:46.560 there are other plasmas that we encounter. Anything, any sort 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.920 of ionized gas is a plasma. There's some that are 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.760 considered cold plasmas. And by cold, we're talking in terms 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.839 of relativity here, right, you know, it's just it's colder 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:58.960 than say the plasma you would find shooting out of 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.640 the sun. And then they're blood plasma, right, which is 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:06.080 totally different, not the same stuff, but like a neon sign, 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.680 that's that's an ionized gas within the k neon is 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.480 ionized within that sign. That technically is a plasma. It 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.600 is just not the same quite quite the same thing 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.200 is what we would find, say a plasma cutter, which 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:19.119 is kind of what I wanted to talk about, because 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:22.159 plasma cutter, that's something that's it's a tool that we 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:27.320 use that can cut through really sturdy, thick sheets of metal. 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.080 And it's really impressive if you ever see one of 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.040 these in action, because you might look at a sheet 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:35.320 of metal and you think that, how the heck are 0:06:35.360 --> 0:06:38.240 you supposed to shape this so that you can use 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:42.000 it in various applications like building airplanes. In fact, building 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.359 airplanes is kind of where the idea for plasma cutters 0:06:45.360 --> 0:06:50.960 came into play. Yes, that's that's true. And they plasma 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.080 cutters not only cut through metal, they do it like butter. Yeah, 0:06:55.160 --> 0:07:00.720 like butter. I'll give you a topic. Plasma plasma cutters 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.720 are are really, if you'll pardon my again over simplification, 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.880 really really fancy because not only are they cutting their 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:14.960 cutting very precisely and they tend to uh basically the 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.760 way they cut through it, they do it uh in 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.600 a temperature so hot that it it steals off the 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:24.640 metal and prevents corrosion. Yes, um, but again that's an oversimplification. 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:27.400 Let's get into what's really going on here. Sure, so 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.600 back during World War Two, there was a demand for 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:37.800 building aircraft very very very quickly. Yes, and that's that's 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:40.600 kind of a problem because aircraft are very complex, very 0:07:40.680 --> 0:07:44.360 large devices. So that meant that, you know, you had 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:47.600 to find a new way to go into mass production. 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:52.640 And so there were different experiments being done about new 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:59.440 means of welding materials together. And uh, some folks discovered 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:04.559 that if they used a gas and inert gas fed 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.960 through an electric arc, so they create an electric arc 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.040 between a couple of electrodes and they shoot gas through 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:17.160 that arc, that they could create a very effective welding tool. Now, um, 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.800 so that was sort of the basis of the plasma cutter. 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:21.640 Now this was not used to cut. This was used 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:29.240 to weld, so welding different sheets of metal together, yes, exactly. So, uh, 0:08:29.600 --> 0:08:31.880 but that that started the foundation. What happened was in 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:35.400 the nineteen sixties some engineers figured out that they could 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:39.959 actually increase the temperatures of this this uh, this plasma 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:45.160 by speeding up the flow of gas and by controlling 0:08:45.320 --> 0:08:49.720 the diameter of the nozzle. So if they decrease the diameter, 0:08:49.760 --> 0:08:53.640 they're they're making it, you know, narrower, and they're increasing 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:56.560 the flow of gas and they're pushing it through this electrode. 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:02.040 It would actually increase the temperature quite a few orders 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:05.960 of magnitude. And this is where the idea of using 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.280 this to cut through metals started to come into play. 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:17.360 And uh, technically, the typical plasma cutter uses the sheet 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.840 of metal that it's cutting as part of a circuit. 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.400 So you've got to think about the parts of a 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.320 of a plasma cutter. You've got an electrode inside of it, 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:33.840 that's what that's what's providing the the the charge. You've 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:37.240 got the cutting gas that is inside of it. This 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.640 is the the inert gas that's going to be passed 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:44.520 through this electric charge and superheated to plasma. And then 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.600 you've got a controlling gas that's around that that actually 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:53.200 is used to help concentrate the flow of the cutting gas. 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:56.559 It's it's so you've got the nozzle that's helping concentrate 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.000 the flow, and if you've got a second gas that's 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.080 also sort of pushing against that cutting gas, keeping it 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:07.680 nice and tight. And then once you put the the 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:12.199 plasma cutter against the piece of metal, then that creates 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.480 a circuit. The shock from or the charge from the 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.200 electrode goes to the metal. The metal has sort of 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.640 a positive charge to it the and and we know 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:23.840 that the negative wants to go to positive, so the 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:28.040 electricity hits the metal. The gas flowing through the nozzle 0:10:28.360 --> 0:10:35.280 is ionized, becomes plasma and superheats and actually turns metal 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.160 into into molten material at the blink of an eye. 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:39.920 And that's when you can just start cutting through it 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.959 like it was as Chris said. But yeah, when you're 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:49.880 reaching temperatures of thirty degrees fahreneit that's se degrees celsius. 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.719 That's pretty hot. And when we're talking about increasing the 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.319 flow of the gas, we're talking this this gas is 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.520 flowing at a rate of around twenty thousand feet per second. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.800 Know how many meters per second? That is courting on 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.200 my fingers about six someone's been reading how stuff works 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.280 dot com. Excellent article. We do have an article on 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.040 how plasma cutters work at how stuff works dot com, 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:15.240 which is it's a good thing to read about. And 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.480 if any of this sounds familiar to you, guys, then 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.800 you've been listening to tech stuff for a really long time, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.000 because we did do an episode ages ago about plasma 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.439 waste converters and what a plasma waste converter is. It's 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:33.120 a really cool application of this technology. It's essentially using 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.720 a device similar to a plasma cutter, a plasma torch 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:42.120 to create this incredibly super hot ionized gas in order 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:47.480 to liquefy or gasify trash. So, depending upon what the 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.480 trash is made out of, it will either turn into 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.560 a gas because you know what's the plasma is applied 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.480 to it, or it will liquefy. Uh So essentially car 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:01.559 carbon based uh lment. It's anything that's carbon based within 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.520 the trash is going to gasify, uh and everything else 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:09.520 liquefies and um it's you can use that gas depending 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:12.000 on on what you're producing. You can actually use that 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:15.560 gas as fuel, and the liquefied stuff, once it cools, 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.000 turns into stuff that looks kind of like obsidian. In fact, 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.680 I have I haven't a sample of that because when 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:26.000 I did the article, I visited a engineer at Georgia 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:31.080 Tech who gave me a sample of this solidified waste 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.000 which looked like it was a volcano rock, which essentially 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.880 is what it is kind of so anyway, that's another 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.480 interesting use of plasma technology. Chris and I will continue 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.480 our discussion about plasma in just a moment, but first 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:56.280 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Now 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:01.400 let's kind of talk a little bit about the concept 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:07.800 of plasma weapons. So we had our our listeners specifically 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:11.600 asked us, like our plasma ray guns possible? Um In 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.560 a word, no, at least not without today's technology. And 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.480 there are a lot of different reasons for this. One 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:21.880 of those is that um plasma, if you were to 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:24.920 generate plasma at a at a temperature that would be 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.280 considered weaponized. So we're talking about you know, hot hot 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:33.439 plasma UM. You have the problem of heat dispersing too quickly, 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.120 so the the ionized gas would lose a lot of 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:41.240 energy as soon as it leaves wherever wherever you're generating it. Right, 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.319 so at the point of generation, it's going to be very, 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.880 very hot. So if I were point blank right up 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.280 against you and I pushed a weapon against you and 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:52.600 I pulled the trigger, then yeah, you're gonna get cut 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.960 in half, or you're gonna have a whole drilled through you. Essentially, 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.280 But if you're you know, twenty feet away, this ionized 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.240 gas is gonna be losing energy at a very fast rate, 0:14:03.360 --> 0:14:06.600 and as it loses energy, it's going to revert back 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:11.520 to a regular gas, and you can't really get it 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:15.800 to travel very far. And it also disperses. So if 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.040 you were to have this ionized gas come out of 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.200 the end of a ray gun, it's not gonna be 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.200 a ray or a beam, right, It's not gonna move 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:28.240 forward in a concentrated beam. It's going to disperse hour 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.640 it's gonna bloom. So in that sense, you also don't 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:34.880 really have much of a weapon because the further away 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:37.480 the person is, it's it's just like a shotgun in 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:41.320 a way. You know, a shotgun shoots shot and that 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.440 shot spreads as it goes out, So the further away 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:49.560 someone is, the less concentrated the impact will be right, right, So, 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:51.560 same sort of thing, except even on a bigger scale, 0:14:51.560 --> 0:14:56.240 because we're talking about individual atoms here, not just uh shot, 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:01.760 And so that's another problem. Um, there are various ways 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.960 of getting around this. If you had a gun that 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:08.640 somehow could create an electrical charge all the way down 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.080 to wherever your target is, it could ionize the gas 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:16.320 immediately around the electrode. But in that case you're talking 0:15:16.360 --> 0:15:20.560 about some sort of superpowered taser. Yeah. Now, if you'll remember, 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:22.240 if you think of it as as the plasma cutter, 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.360 you'll remember that in our discussion on how it worked, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.200 just a moment ago, UM Jonathan was pointing out that 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:34.240 the metal that's being cut requires uh IS is basically charged. 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:37.280 It's part, it becomes part of the circuit. So if 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:42.880 you were shooting at something five feet away, for example, UM, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.000 it's going to be very difficult. I mean, you can't. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.480 You have no circuit. You can't you don't have a circuit. UM. Also, 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.840 you'll remember that Jonathan was talking about the gas that's 0:15:53.840 --> 0:15:56.600 on the outside of the pressurized gas that is used 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:01.720 to cut UM, that's controlling the the cutting of the 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:06.280 plasma cutter. Without that UM, it's exactly what Jonathan says, 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:08.400 you don't have a real way to control it. And 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.280 you might say, well what about lightning, Well, lightning it 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.960 forks it's not controlled. UM. So yes, lightning can can 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.680 travel a long distance, but it also it's a charge. 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.040 We know that the ground and the clouds are charged differently. 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.680 Essentially a circuit. It's certually the only last a moment. 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:31.040 But you know it's not so if you had if 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.120 you somehow arranged it so that everyone on the enemy's 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:39.360 side war of particular suit that should positively charged clothing, 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.120 so that I could use this negatively charged electra to 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.360 create a circuit between me and you that I can 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.280 vaporize you, that would be great. M So, yeah, that's 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:51.120 a little tricky. Um. Yeah, there are a lot of 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.360 other issues with this, but there that's not the only 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.960 way to weaponize plasma. That's you know, that's if you 0:16:57.000 --> 0:16:59.240 were to have a gun, like in the Halo universe. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.080 In the Halo University, aliens have plasma weapons and they 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.600 shoot these kind of blobs of energy, which you know, 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:13.560 essentially it's like uh, blobs of of superheated gas and 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.399 they travel as if it were a solid projectile and 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:21.120 uh it's like little sunlits. Yeah, these little energy weapons 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.960 that can do massive amounts of damage, particularly literally to 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:29.720 your shields, right against shields. So yeah, supercharger plasma pistol 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.359 and then immediately switched to your regular pistol. It's in 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:37.159 a great way of anyway. So that's just not viable 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.840 right now. The equipment we would need to create plasma 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:42.879 is much larger than what you could have in a 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.040 handheld gun, and you just wouldn't have those results. But 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:49.800 that's not the only way. There are other ways. Like 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.679 there's an example, there's a weapon that's been worked on 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.359 by the US government over the last few years called 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:04.640 a pulsed energy projectile weapon or PEP. Now, this creates 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:08.560 a it uses it uses a very high powered um 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.240 laser style weapon. So it's not a plasma weapon at 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.760 its at its source, right, it's just create it's just 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.639 firing off energy. It's an energy weapon. And the idea 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:21.679 is that when the energy contacts something solid, then it 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:25.600 creates a plasma. It actually excites the material that it 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.879 contacts with and that's what creates the plasma. So the 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.280 plasma is not contained within the weapon. UH and it's 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.280 it's just it generates as soon as the ray hits 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.679 something solid and then at that point what happens is 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.760 the plasma that's generated quickly starts to expand because the 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:45.359 energy from the ray is continuing to hit it. Okay, 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.719 So that expanding plasma creates an electromagnetic magnetic pulse, and 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:55.640 this pulse is geared to UH kind of short circuit 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:59.520 our pain receptors, and the idea is that this weapon 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:01.879 would either or paralyze you. It would just make all 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:04.640 you know, your muscles contract kind of like a massive taser, 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:07.399 or would paralyze you with pain. You would feel so 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.080 much pain you would be incapable of doing anything else. 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.440 This is the pain ray that people have talked about, 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:17.040 and UH there's a lot of concern in the international 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.760 community that such a device would be used not to 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.320 stop a riot, but rather as a divisive torture, to 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.280 to really torture a person if you were trying to 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.600 interrogate them. And of course the whole torture thing has 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:37.280 its own issues beyond just the technical but that is 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:42.160 a way that people are weaponizing Plasma's just not using 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:45.119 plasma as a direct weapon. It's just part of the weapon. 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:47.760 We have a few more points to make about plasma 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:49.680 before it's all said and done, but before we get 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.680 to that, let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:05.800 There are ideas of creating UH plasma to act as 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.720 an antenna because they can be much more efficient than 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:12.840 metal antennas, and or even use them in anti missile 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.440 systems where the idea would be that if you had 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.720 missiles coming in, you could fire beams up into the 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:22.119 upper atmosphere ionized part of the upper atmosphere so that 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.800 when missiles were passing through them, they would detonate and 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.679 not land and hit you. Um. So those are ways 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.560 of weaponizing plasma. That's not not quite the same as 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.920 having a a cool ray gun. You know, you're Q 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.160 thirty five space modulator or whatever it's called. I'm sure, 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:42.960 I'm sure someone's gonna write in so they know it 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:47.800 was a Q thirty two space modulator. Sorry, that was 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:53.080 the obsolete person I thought I've upgraded. Yeah, it's also 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.840 hard to imagine something that shot plasma that would, you know, 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:01.760 stop at a certain person. It would, it would shoot 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.679 through schools, it would see really it would, yeah, if 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:10.520 it if it were really a superheated gas um. Yeah, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.040 I mean, if you were to find some way to 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.840 control it so that it maintained its integrity and could 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:20.880 travel best distances, then what would stop it from shooting 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:23.520 through whatever it was you hit and then going moving on. 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.440 I mean, it would lose energy every time it contests. 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.600 But if you're talking about superheated, if you're talking about 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.240 temperatures that that rival the temperature of the sun. Um, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.600 it's gonna take a while for that to to lose 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.080 enough energy for it to If you could keep it 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.000 concentrated like that, it would take a while for it 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.439 to lose enough energy for it to stop. Which just 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:46.359 reminds me of the documentary Real Genius where they fire 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.520 off the laser and it goes all the way through 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:52.040 the entire laboratory and shoots through the head of a 0:21:52.160 --> 0:22:00.240 statue on the quad. Yeah. So anyway, Yeah, that's that's 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.920 the basis for the whole idea about plasma weapons. I 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.000 think I'm not going to go so far as to 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:10.000 say they're impossible. It's just that with today's technology they 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:13.080 are not really possible, And it may be that they 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:17.960 could be possible but not practical. Yeah, it'll it may 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.320 very well be that by the time we could create 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:26.120 a plasma weapon, something even scarier is out there. So um, yeah, 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:28.800 it'll be interesting to see if there's there are further 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:33.720 developments in attempting to weaponize plasma technology. But really, when 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.359 it comes down to it, it's very useful tech for 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.800 things in manufacturing and and like I said, waste management 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.360 or potentially in waste management. There are very few plasma 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:47.399 waste converter facilities out there. There are only only a 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:49.400 couple in the United States, and there are a few 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.800 in Japan and UH and that's about it. But but 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:57.200 they have the potential to really change the way we 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.400 deal with waste. I mean they could. They could actually 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.919 help reduce landfills because most of them have capacity so 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:06.720 great that they would be able to serve not just 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:11.080 the community on a daily basis, but also take uh 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.679 garbage that has already been dumped in the landfill and 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:16.880 start using that as well. So every day it would 0:23:16.920 --> 0:23:18.760 be using a little bit more of the landfill as 0:23:18.760 --> 0:23:20.879 well as taking care of all the daily trash that 0:23:20.920 --> 0:23:25.520 was generated by the population, plus possibly creating energy as 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:30.080 a result through uh through using fuel. Um. You know, 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:35.160 it's a it's an attractive prospect, but it also requires 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:39.840 quite a bit of an initial investment. So anyway, this 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.879 look is going to be a short episode. So hey, guys, 0:23:43.280 --> 0:23:47.560 UH you're welcome. I hope you guys enjoyed that episode 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:51.280 about plasma. It's always fun to revisit these old topics 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:54.480 that Chris and I did back when we were young 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:58.920 and naive and only had a vague notion of what 0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:02.320 podcasting was all about, whereas now I have a slightly 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:05.159 less vague notion. If you guys have any suggestions for 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.119 future episodes of tech Stuff, please please write to me 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:11.920 and let me know what those might be. The address 0:24:11.960 --> 0:24:15.000 for the show is tech Stuff at how stuff works 0:24:15.080 --> 0:24:18.359 dot com, or drop on by our website that's text 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.159 stuff podcast dot com. 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