WEBVTT - TechStuff Rides the Vacuum Train 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:08.880 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:17.640 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.079 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.160 and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com. 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:27.120 Sitting across from me as usual actually leaning as senior 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:33.560 writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey, there, very nice effect like that. 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.000 I didn't know why you really see, we we don't 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.560 talk about that. We you know, if there's a gimmick, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:40.839 we wait and find out what it is. It's more 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.800 fun that way. Yes, so we're today we're going to 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.680 talk about It was something that Chris actually suggested. He 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.120 had seen an article that the BBC had published upon 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:54.480 their website about pretty cool concept and it's not a 0:00:54.560 --> 0:01:00.640 new concept notes, but it's um an interesting one. Vacuum trains. Yeah, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:03.520 I um, I've always loved trains. I don't know what 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.200 it is exactly about them that I love you. And 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:09.720 Disney that's true actually a lot of it. Early Disney 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:13.319 engineers liked them and um yeah, they showed up a 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:17.399 lot in those uh and the Disney UH Wave of 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.160 the future sort of things and and others too. You know, 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.520 Jonathan and I have talked about this. Cartoons that talk 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.319 about what's going to happen in the future usually, um, 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.720 they throw in some funny twist about it, but um, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.080 uh yeah, tomorrow Land. This is kind of a tomorrow 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:36.480 landy concept. Too far off from the whole monorail, although 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:41.039 different different method of propulsion. Yeah yeah, And um, you know, 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:44.640 I've been interested in in magnetic levitation trains mag lev 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.000 trains for quite some time. Um. And it's one of 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:50.960 those things that, uh, you know, it's not that it's 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:52.960 so complex that it can't be done. It's more that 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:56.600 it's so expensive that it's just really hard to do. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.480 And and vact trains or vacuum trains or another they're 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.320 actually related. They're pretty closely related in some ways. You 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:09.520 don't necessarily have to have all right, Maglev trains are 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:13.880 not vacuum trains by definition, but necessarily that's right. And 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.160 vacuum trains do not necessarily have to be maglev trains, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:21.840 although they can be vacuum trains that are maglev. Yes, yes, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.240 you can't have you can't have both, but they're not 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.200 necessary for this. For this is not necessarily the same thing. Yeah, 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:31.160 so what is a vacuum train? Well, you know, the 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.120 name kind of gives gives it away. What you do 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:38.120 is the ideas you take a tube, you pump the 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.040 air out of that tube, creating a vacuum, and then 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.720 you allow a train to go through the tube. And 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.800 because you've pumped the air out, you have removed the 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:54.399 problem of air resistance. Because when a train travels normally 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.000 above ground or even below ground, if it's not a vacuum, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:03.720 it's pushing air ahead of it. Yes, that that requires work. 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.360 That air even though air does not feel like we 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.520 don't really necessarily think of air feeling like, there's a 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:12.840 lot of resistance there. If you've ever been outside a 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.920 heavy wind, you know that it takes work to just 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.639 stand up right. Yeah. Anybody who's skated or written their 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.640 bicycle at a brisk pace, Um, you know you feel 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:25.920 the wind in your hair and on your face. Or 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:28.760 somebody actually was written in a convertible, especially in the 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:33.280 back seat, you're gonna feel, um, the wind pushing on you. 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:35.800 It's it's like it's it's creating its own little wind. 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:38.440 So you know, you know wind rest, Yeah, you know 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.560 that of course, there are their companies that dedicate themselves 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.360 to finding new ways to reduce air resistance so that 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.600 uh so that various things can move faster with less 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.680 problems of the air impacting them. Well, well, bullet trains, 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:56.480 you know, we we've mentioned him a couple of times 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.400 to think on the the podcast before. They you know, 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:01.720 if you've seen one of these trains, they go very 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.920 very fast, but they are also extremely streamlined. The engine 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:07.880 is you know, and then that's I think why they 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:09.600 call them a bullet train is because they have a 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.880 pointy nose on the front which is designed to cut 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:14.960 down on wind resistance. Yeah, it's all, it's all part 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:19.920 of the plan. And so the by using a vacuum, 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:22.200 you remove the air so now you don't have to 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.840 worry about air resistance. There's also, by the way, a 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.920 tendency when a train is pushing air in front of it, 0:04:27.920 --> 0:04:32.200 it's also creating the sort of um vacuum effect on 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.479 its own. There's there's because it's pushing air out the 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:37.600 way and then the air has to rush into fill 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.520 up that space again. It actually starts to pull a 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:42.680 bit on the train. So the trains pushing air ahead 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.560 of it and being pulled by air behind it, So 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:48.760 it's doing work that way. By pumping all the air out, 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.920 you have removed that, um, that that force acting upon 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:55.760 the train, and it can move at a faster rate 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.840 than it could if air were a factor because all 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:02.919 that work that it would be putting towards pushing the 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:04.839 air out of the way can now just be put 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:10.080 towards speed and acceleration. So even if you had a 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:14.800 standard electric train in a vacuum, it could travel faster 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.000 than it would normally travel. Yeah, and that was one 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.120 of the things that it was interesting to me when 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.640 I really grab my attention when I read that article 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:27.599 on the BBC website was because, um, they were suggesting 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:34.240 that if there were a vacuum tube track from Europe 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:36.960 to the United States, you could make the trip and 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.960 a vac train in about an hour a little bit 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:43.840 more maybe, And and then that imagining that versus you know, 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:48.160 flying across even Yeah, that's the thing that got me 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:52.320 was the idea of leaving say London and arriving in 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.040 New York four hours before you left, Thank you times owns. 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.960 Just just because the time zones, you're not literally time traveling, 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.440 you're traveling through time, it would seem because it's still 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:04.560 progressing as you're sitting there on the train. It's just 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:07.159 that you're going back through the time zones. And so 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.360 because your your speed is faster than the uh than 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.479 the time zones can account for, you would actually you know, 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.000 you leave at nine am and you would arrive at 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:19.560 at four am or five am actually because it was 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.240 four hours or so five am, and uh, so you 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.160 have the whole day ahead of you. You know, it's 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:27.440 all relative, it is all relative. Um. But yeah, there 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.240 were a lot of experiments that were conducted over the 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:32.440 years to see if this would actually be the case, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.960 and it did seem to be so. And it did 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.000 seem that they would have that speeding up that would 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:40.720 cut down on wind resistance and make it a lot 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:42.960 faster as what you're saying right, Yes, yes, there were 0:06:43.000 --> 0:06:47.159 there were researchers with M I T that did some tests. 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.680 They created a vacuum tube and then they shot things 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.760 through it, like down the tube, not through the tube, 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:56.680 not by secting the tube, but down the tube along 0:06:56.839 --> 0:06:59.800 the length of the So they said they started with 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:05.320 the most um I think logical thing to shoot down 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.440 a vacuum tube. Ping pong ball No, hamsters would be 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:11.920 the first. No, no, no, no, you no, you don't 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.880 want to put an animal in a vacuum tube. It 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:19.040 would die. That's true. Plus natures a vacuum. Yes, yes, 0:07:19.080 --> 0:07:23.760 that's true. That's true because I have never once seen 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:29.640 a shrubbery do any darn vacuum anyway, So we both 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.360 love animals. Question, they don't do that? They started, yes, 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.120 do not build a tube an air steal tube and 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:38.800 then pump the air out of it. I think we're 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:41.480 all I think we're safe on that one. So guys 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:43.520 that m I T don't do that, don't um. But yeah, 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:45.640 they shot ping pong balls down the tube first. Then 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.360 they started creating these little mechanical models to travel down. 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.560 And what they do is they would, you know, measure 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.680 how fast the mechanical model could travel in a in 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:59.920 an air filled environment versus the vacuum environment. And they 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:06.360 figured that if they had a standard train, they could 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.200 probably you know, well actually a relatively fast trained they 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.760 could probably get up to about five hundred and eighty 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:15.520 miles per hour, which is about nine d and thirty 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:19.440 kilometers per hour. That seems reasonably quick that's pretty darn fast. 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:22.240 And they said that it would be about twice as 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:24.440 fast as it would be if the tube were filled 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.360 with air. So that gave the suggestion of why don't 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:30.720 we look into this further, Why don't we look and see, 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.080 you know, what could the upper limits of this be? 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:38.400 And theoretically, according to the BBC article, those upper limits 0:08:38.400 --> 0:08:41.360 would be about twenty five hundred miles per hour or 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.839 four thousand kilometers per hour. That's what allow you to 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:47.720 get from Europe to North America in an hour. Um, 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.320 and uh yeah, that's super fast. Now you have to 0:08:51.360 --> 0:08:54.240 do a couple of things. You need to remember that 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.680 even in these super fast systems, you don't accelerate to 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:03.080 top speed quickly because that would squish you. You would 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.480 be undergoing such tremendous g forces that it would be 0:09:06.520 --> 0:09:12.360 at least uncomfortable, if not uh deadly. So the way 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:14.720 these trains tend to work is they have a nice 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:19.360 gradual acceleration so that you feel the acceleration, but it's 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.439 a steady acceleration, so it's not increasing on you as 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.160 time goes by, and then once it hits its speed, 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.880 you coast at that speed for you know, top speed 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.400 for however long you need to, and then you do 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:35.800 a gradual deceleration. So in most so not like if 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.320 you you know, stopped from ludicrous speed then you end 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.520 up smashing into the console screen or whatever. Yeah, I know. 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.920 The way it works is that, Um, typically in most trips, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.640 you're you are not traveling at top speed for very 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:52.720 long because you're spending most of the trip accelerating and 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.320 then decelerating. It's you're only at top speed for a 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.800 little while. And because you're not accelerating at top speed, 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:03.200 it doesn't feel like like within the confines of the vehicle, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.720 you don't feel like you're going that fast. Now you 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:08.160 look outside and you see stuff whizzing by, and a 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:13.520 holy cow, we're going fast. But without that outside uh indicator, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.320 you feel like you're more or less staying still. Um. 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:20.200 Same sort of thing with this. Now, to get to 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:24.120 that incredible speed of twenty miles per hour or four 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.600 thousand kilometers per hour, you would need a special kind 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.200 of train. You know, you wouldn't necessarily be using a 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.680 train that has wheels, or at least not relying solely 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:37.760 upon wheels to get to where it's going. Where we're going, 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.319 we don't need roads, um, and you do need track 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:44.839 and uh in a vacuum. In that kind of environment too, 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:47.560 you'd have to it would it would be very critical 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:53.720 to have a form of um propulsion that would work 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:56.720 within that. I would imagine in a vacuum. Uh, it 0:10:56.720 --> 0:10:59.720 would be very difficult to operate a combustion engine, yah, 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:02.240 since you would need air or well, you would probably 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.439 use an electric engine, and you use like the third 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.880 rail type system that of subway trains and a a lot 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.280 of electrical trains used. I'm speaking from a you know, 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.480 it couldn't be like a diesel train. Um, couldn't. You 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:20.080 couldn't use You'd have to have it completely in. I 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:24.280 can't imagine how you would take care of the exhaust, Yeah, exactly, 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.480 because you would have to expose it. I mean you'd 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.040 have to have some sort of air airlock system where 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.720 you could pump exhaust into an airlock h unloaded to 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:39.040 the vacuum without compromising the whole system. Yeah, it would 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.160 be complicated. What we're saying so electric. Just for my 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.320 own thoughts, I can't imagine how you would do that, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:47.480 wouldn't It wouldn't be easy. Those steam engines would be 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:52.120 terrible in a vacuum. Yeah. Um. So anyway, the it's 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:58.000 more likely that you would use electric or electro magnetic propulsion. Now, 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:00.800 plus I'm sure it'd be a lot more fish. Yeah. 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.400 So so that brings us to the maglev trains. Magnetic 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:09.600 levitation trains. These are super cool and sometimes they're literally 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:16.920 super cooled. Cuts down a resistance, So the concept here 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:20.960 is pretty pretty interesting. The idea is that you use 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:26.599 some combination of magnets. They might be electro magnets or magnets, 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.720 magnets magnets, They might be electro magnets, or they might 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.120 be permanent magnets, or there could be a combination of 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:37.320 the two, uh, and you use them in such a 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:42.240 way as to make the train levitate so it's actually 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.080 off the surface of whatever the track is, and that way, 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:50.080 when it travels, there's no uh. It reduces all that 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:52.880 resistance as well, so you've reduced the friction that you 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:58.079 would have from the track, and so it also cuts 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.439 down on things like you don't have to worry about 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.160 maintenance as much because you aren't having that wear and tear. 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:08.880 You know that the train isn't rubbing against the track. 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:12.720 The there aren't wheels that are starting to wear down 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.839 over time. It's not wearing down the track over time. 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:20.599 So once you get the system in place, maintenance theoretically 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.720 should be pretty routine. You shouldn't have to worry about 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:26.120 wear and tear so much. Now there's going to be 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:29.080 somewhere in tear depending on the style of the train involved, 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:32.640 but we'll get into that. Yeah, the the magnets themselves 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.920 will be put in in something called a Halbach array. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.680 That's that's if they're using permanent magnets. Yeah, that's one method. Well, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.679 and and that's very cool. UM. I didn't really understand 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:48.120 exactly how this was done. UM, but apparently that the 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:50.840 scientist it's named after the scientists who came up with it, 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:52.880 and he was actually thinking about it in terms of 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:56.240 a particle accelerator. UM. But if you place the magnets 0:13:56.360 --> 0:14:00.320 in a certain position, it pushes, it concentrates the magnetic 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:04.440 field on one side of the magnets. UM. And instead, 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:06.280 so you know how you have a north and a 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:10.400 south pole. UM. If you line up the magnets in 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:16.440 the way that uh, the good professor came up with, UM, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.600 it would concentrate this force on one side, thus enabling 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:23.240 the to keep the train up. And that's so it's 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.520 it's uh, you know, toward the train and it it 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.880 pushes the magnetic field that way, which is a really 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:34.120 interesting application of a technology from one purpose to another. Yeah, 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:38.160 and there there's a couple of different ways of doing this. 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:44.560 Um you know. So so like pole repels like right, 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.560 So north pole and north pole push push push against 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:49.720 each other. North Pole and south pole opposites a track 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:55.080 pulled together. So depending on what sort of train you have, 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.400 um that will determine you know, what what sort of 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.200 magnets you using and how you use them. So for example, 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:10.240 there's a type of maglev train called electro magnetic suspension trains. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.800 So the way these work, uh So imagining you have 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:23.160 an elevated track and you have a concrete um guidance 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:26.120 beam that goes down the middle of the track, and 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:28.480 it looks like if you were to cut it, cut 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:30.680 that track in half and look down the length of it, 0:15:30.800 --> 0:15:33.600 like look at it from the cross section, you would 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:38.360 see that that that um that guidance uh beam is 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.360 shaped kind of like a t. There are edges that 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:45.080 extend out over either side the train itself, wraps around 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.480 that track, so it keeps it at the optimal distance 0:15:48.840 --> 0:15:51.800 away from the magnets and keeps it from you know, 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.600 going too far away from it. And the magnets in 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.920 this case are set north to south so that they 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.360 attract one another. So the magnet are on the underside 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.240 of the tea all right, So the you have magnets 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:07.160 that are along the guidance rail that are on the 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.120 underside of the T, and then on the train, the 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.840 magnets are at the point that wrap underneath the T, 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:18.000 so those magnets are attracting each other. And what happens 0:16:18.080 --> 0:16:20.560 is the magnets on the T are pulling against the 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.480 magnets that are on the train, which lifts the train 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:29.640 off the the rail. So you've got a floating train. Uh. 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:34.080 The big advantage of this train over um other systems 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.920 is that you do not need wheels for this train. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.800 It'll it'll just pull the train up once you start it. 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.440 And then you use an electro magnetic field to push 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.360 and pull the train down the track. So you know, 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:53.880 you use a opposite opposite magnetic field to pull the 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:58.680 train towards the front, use a identical magnetic field to 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.640 the train along the back to push it, and you 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:06.359 alternate the the pulsor the electro magnet magnets in order 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:10.400 to maintain this wave and to accelerate the wave because 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.000 when you first start, you wouldn't start slowly. Ah, it 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:20.120 tends to be pretty christi um so yeah, you've got 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:22.919 this traveling field. That's what moves the train down the 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.400 track and U and it's it's pretty cool. I mean, 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:30.240 that's a neat way of doing it. It's um not 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.520 that you know. Some trains in Europe use this. And 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:38.560 then there's another style called the electro dynamic suspension train 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:44.800 e d S, and these are suspended above the guide way, 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.879 but instead of using the attractive force of magnets to 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:55.240 pull the train toward this guidance column, it's using repulsive 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.120 the repulsive part of magnets. So it's north to north 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.760 yet not like that, but north to north. So so 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.240 in other words, you don't have the t there anymore. 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.840 You still have the guidance rail, but now the magnets 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.520 are set along the the side of the track, so 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.720 on either side of the guidance rail on the bottom. 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.399 And then you have magnets along the bottom of the 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:22.040 train and they repel one another, so the train will 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.000 float above the track that way. Now, and these you 0:18:25.160 --> 0:18:31.160 tend to need a uh wheels, And once you reach 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.200 a certain speed then you start to see the train 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:38.880 actually lift off, so the wheels are needed at slower speeds. 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:43.000 And in fact, the companies that use this suggest that 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:45.920 perhaps this is a safer system because should the entire 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:50.159 system lose power, then the train would come to a 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.800 gradual stop with these wheels, so you wouldn't have a 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:57.400 jarring crash, which you know, in general terms as far 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.359 as we're concerned, and travel is a bad thing, yes, 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.679 it's not so much the traveling, it's stopping at the 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:06.360 end there you go. So uh yeah. They the older 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:13.720 electrodynamic suspension trains used cryogenically cooled super conducting magnets. And 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:15.520 the reason for that is what I was saying before. 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:19.399 When you cool down an electro magnet, you reduce resistance, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.080 so you make it a much more efficient system because 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:25.359 you know, resistance means that you're losing a lot of 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:30.480 energy due to heat. So by cooling this really really low, 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.160 you've actually reduced the resistance within the system itself, makes 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.600 it very efficient, does make it very expensive is not 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:41.640 cheap too super cool stuff because you have to get 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:46.960 hold of pretty rare elements in some cases in order 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:51.399 to get the electromantics really cold. Now you're not getting 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:55.000 them as cold as say, in a particle accelerator like 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:59.280 the large Hadron collider. They use liquid helium to get 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:02.479 those electri o magnet magnets as cold as they possibly can, 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.280 So they're just they're just a little bit over zero 0:20:05.480 --> 0:20:09.359 kelvin where you have no molecular movement at all. Um, 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:13.000 they don't need liquid helium in these systems, doesn't need 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.879 to be quite that cold, so they probably use something 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.400 moral on lines of liquid nitrogen, which does not get 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:23.440 as cold as liquid helium does. Now. Uh. Then eventually 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.639 that system started to get replaced by the permanent magnet 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.640 system that you were talking about, the the the Halbach 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:33.680 array and uh, but it's using the same general principle 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:36.760 where it's using the repulsive force of the magnets in 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.679 order to make the train levitate as opposed to the 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:46.000 attractive force. And um, yeah, the that's the main difference 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.080 between the various kinds of maglev trains. The end result 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.439 is the same. You get the train levitating above the track, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.000 and your speed is really limited just by how quickly 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:03.879 you can manipulate the the magnetic wave that pulls and 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.560 pushes the train. Yeah. So the faster you can do that, 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.359 the faster the trains going to go. Uh. And if 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:13.919 you eliminate air resistance by putting it in a vacuum tube, 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:18.600 then you've suddenly created a really really fast means of 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:24.520 transport which could revolutionize not just consumer travel, but also shipping. Yeah, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:27.359 you know, you can imagine, you know, you've you've really 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:29.720 cut down the amount of time it takes to get 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.080 goods from one part of the world to another, assuming 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.400 that they are connected by these these um, these tubes. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.360 One would imagine too that the this mode of transportation 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.480 would be more environmentally efficient then using you know a 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:46.840 lot of fossil fuel to make this happen. It just 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.880 depends on how you're creating energy for the electromagnets exactly, exactly. Yeah, 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.720 if you do have to figure out, however, how the 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.560 the electro magnet magnets themselves are powered. Um And you know, 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.720 if you're using the halback array, then you've taken some 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:01.719 of that out by using a lot of permanent magnets. 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:04.800 You still have to create some sort of propulsion, so 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:08.040 you're probably still using electro magnets at least to propel 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.160 the train. But but yeah, you would you know, you're 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.760 not using you're not necessarily burning the same amount of 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.480 electricity that you would need or creating the same amount 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:19.480 of electricity you would need in order to power us 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:23.760 an electric train. Um. Now, there are other things that 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:26.239 we need to talk about as far as vacuum trains go, 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.560 like how do you create the vacuum? Uh? Now, you 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.399 would need some sort of pumping station in order to 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:35.840 pump air out of the tube. And the longer the 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.680 tube is, the more pumping stations you would need. Now, 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:41.920 the because you can't just have it at one end, well, 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:44.399 you could depends on how the length of the track. 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.760 If you're talking about something that's transatlantic, I can't imagine 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:49.800 a pumping station on one side of the Atlantic that's 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:52.119 going to pump all the air out of a transatlantic 0:22:52.160 --> 0:22:56.119 tube by itself. That would take an enormous amount of time. 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:59.159 That would be very inefficient. Yeah, it would take an 0:22:59.320 --> 0:23:02.520 enormous amount of power as well. Uh. Yeah, in general, 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.280 from what I've read, it sounds like you would need 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:10.400 a pumping station every I'll say twenty or thirty miles 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.720 along the tube. In order to maintain the vacuum at 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:20.000 a reasonable rate, you would also need to have an 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:24.000 airlock system in place, because you're going to have every time, 0:23:24.240 --> 0:23:27.159 every time the train pulls into a station, assuming there 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:29.520 are people on board who want to get on or off, 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:34.239 you can't have a vacuum unless unless everyone has some 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:38.040 sort of environmental suit on, which does not seem terribly 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:41.439 efficient as far as travel. Yeah, so you can't have 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:45.040 a vacuum at the destination or the origin of this 0:23:45.040 --> 0:23:48.760 this trip. It would be uh, it would be antithetical 0:23:48.800 --> 0:23:52.920 to the way we live life, mostly the breathing part. Uh. So, 0:23:53.000 --> 0:23:54.600 what you would have to do is have an airlock 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:57.560 system in order for these trains to pass in and 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.359