WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: It's All About The Polymers 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:14.600 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.560 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:20.520 and I love all things tech and it is time 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:25.640 for a classic episode. This episode originally published on February 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:30.120 two thousand fourteen. It is called It's all about the Polymers. 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.280 I don't, I don't even. I mean, I guess I 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:36.920 was going for and all about the Benjamin's thing there. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:39.480 I don't. It was a long time ago. I don't 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.200 remember coming up with that title. But yes, we're gonna 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.519 talk about polymers today, long chain molecules. Let's get into it. 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.239 This is a topic that was sent to us by 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:54.040 one of our beloved listeners. Correct, Yes, this is listener 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.480 Matt via Twitter. I who said to us, in time 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.480 for Australia Day on Sunday, how about a podcast for 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:03.920 Australia's polymer money. And you know what Australia Day was 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:07.000 several Sundays ago. Yes, this is This is not an 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.160 up to date and current podcast, so we apologize for 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.959 not managing to put it out before the day. We're 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:16.119 just really early for next year, is the thing? Yeah, 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.200 See here's the thing. Uh, time happens earlier in Australia 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.120 than it does over here. And that's the reason. I 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:25.560 don't think that's the reason. Let's just I'm trying to 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:27.680 cover our tracks here, okay. So yeah, we wanted to 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:31.000 talk about polymer currency and what is it? Uh? And 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.240 why is it important? Why are so many other places 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.640 looking into it or have already adopted it at least 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.360 in some measure. Yeah, because Australia was that the first 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.720 country to adopt an entire line of polymer notes to 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.320 completely switch over their paper currency to polymer currency. And 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.000 that was back in six although they had started using 0:01:52.040 --> 0:01:57.320 polymer notes way back, and other countries had had experimented 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:02.400 with it before, but no country had switched completely over 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.240 to polymer currency before Australia did it. Right, And now 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.640 more than twenty five other nations are are issuing some 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.560 polymer notes and and more adding themselves to the list 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.280 all the time. The UK, for example, has plans to 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.200 introduce both a five pound Winston Churchill note and a 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:23.959 ten pound Jane Austin notes starting in seen respectively. That's 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:27.480 pretty cool. And so yeah, we're looking at upwards of 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:32.160 a billion of these entering circulation right in three years 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.600 in the UK alone, right, Yeah, it's it's a pretty 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:37.160 big rollout. They're going to be withdrawing all of their 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:40.839 paper notes for those two current those two denominations, right right, 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.600 So that makes makes us wonder like, what's the big 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.480 deal here. So we're gonna set some some foundation before 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:50.320 we get into all the stuff about polymers, because you know, 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.520 it helps to actually understand bank notes in general, currency 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.960 in general before we jump into that. So a bank 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.040 note is just a unit of current currency. Most of 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.640 you out there probably very familiar with some sort of banknote. 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.720 Here in the United States, we talk about dollar bills, 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:05.680 five dollar bills, ten dollar bills, that kind of thing. 0:03:05.919 --> 0:03:08.320 As you were saying, in the UK, it's the pound, 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.400 you know, in a lot of European nations it's the euro, 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:13.799 that sort of stuff. Well, it's this is the These 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.160 are the actual physical bills that represent certain amounts of value. 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.880 It represents a specific amount of value for a given 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.480 nation exactly. So yeah, five dollar bill in the United 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.040 States represents five dollars pretty straightforward when you get down 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:31.240 to it, Which is nice because as you've listen to 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:33.480 this podcast, you know some of the topics we cover 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.360 not so straightforward, right. Also, I'd like to apologize on 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:40.720 behalf of myself for for amount of value. That was 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:44.880 just a really spectacular phrasing. Oh, I get so redundantly 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.120 repetitive that I have to reiterate it occasionally. So at 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:50.440 any rate, we want to talk also about what a 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.040 polymer is. Now, a polymer is a type of molecule. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.720 It's does not necessarily mean natural versus synthetic. That there 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:01.000 are actually both natural polymers and some etic polymers out there. 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:05.320 This is a specific classification of molecules. Now, a polymer 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.920 is made up of monomers. Not a big surprise there. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:12.400 Polymer means the poly means many, right, and mono means one. 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.120 So a monomer is kind of like the base unit 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.159 of a polymer, which you end up being these long 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:21.479 chains of of molecules. They tend to be pretty resilient 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.320 and flexible, at least on the molecular level, depending upon uh, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.200 what they're made out of. When you get it onto 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.600 the macro scale, they may be more or less flexible 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:35.080 in other materials. But if you're looking at natural polymers, 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:39.120 that includes stuff like silk or amber and synthetic polymers 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:43.040 include man made rubber. Natural rubber also a polymer, obviously 0:04:43.560 --> 0:04:47.039 not a synthetic one, thus the word natural um. But 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:51.560 another synthetic polymer would be plastics. So uh, these have 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:56.080 turned out to be incredibly useful materials for all sorts 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.000 of industries, the technology industry in particular. I mean, are 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.880 electronics wouldn't be what they are without these kind of 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.240 plastic polymers, right. Plastics make it possible, yeah, because I mean, 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.719 otherwise we'd have to find some other material to make 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.039 everything out of and it would be all the prices 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.120 would go up. Plastics cheap, it's easy to produce. So 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:16.760 these are all really important elements that you want in 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:20.680 any kind of material. And so some people started thinking, 0:05:20.680 --> 0:05:24.440 well maybe we could apply that to currency. So if 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.320 you look at it, we talked about what a bank 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.520 note does, we talked about what a polymer is, So 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:32.920 a polymer bank note is a banknote, mayor of Pombers Hey, 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.000 and we can end the podcast right here. Well we'll 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:39.080 keep going though, because you know me, I can't stop it. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:41.080 Just like whatever. It is like three and a half minutes. 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:45.560 So we're looking at these type of synthetic materials, mainly 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.040 the plastics family, that to be used as a bank 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:53.240 note UH. Using plastic. According to all the authorities who 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:58.440 are issuing these polymer currency UH denominations, it's actually cheaper 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.400 than using paper in the long run. I mean, you know, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.640 of course, the costs of setting up a program to 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.240 create these things, it's going to be pretty expensive in 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.000 the short term. But once once you get it going, 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.160 it should be cheaper per bill to create these things, right, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.200 And the idea behind that is, you know, you might say, well, 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:17.360 how is it cheaper per bill? And the thought is that, well, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.520 these things are durable, they last longer than paper currency, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.719 and paper currency you have to continuously replace. So you 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.040 may not be aware of this, but if you have 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.560 a paper bill and you use it, you actually go 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:32.360 out and you buy something with it, and someone else 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.599 goes out and buy something with it, and eventually those 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.719 bills make their ways to banks. And what happens is 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.240 when a bank gets bills, they look at the bills 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.920 and if the bills have reached a certain level of use, 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:46.280 if they're if they're basically about to disintegrate or otherwise 0:06:46.320 --> 0:06:51.840 become um unusable or um, you probably don't want to 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.680 touch them. Then super gross, I think is the those 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.920 dollar bills or five dollars whatever, those notes get take 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.680 and out of circulation and replaced with brand new, fresh notes. 0:07:04.279 --> 0:07:08.720 So when you hear about things like you know, a 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:13.280 treasury department printing up currency those bills, that doesn't represent 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.400 new wealth, right, that's not new as and that's not 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.240 adding wealth to the nation. What that's doing is that's 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:23.080 replacing old bills that were in circulation. The way you 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.200 create wealth is not by printing more money, because it's 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.920 as many countries have actually found in the past, and 0:07:28.920 --> 0:07:32.680 and and sometimes people are printing money in order to 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:36.040 increase the wealth. And there were huge quote marks around 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.440 that phase in case you couldn't hear them, because that 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.960 is not that that's called inflation. And that's different exactly exactly. 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:44.280 If you end up just printing currency and then dumping 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.520 it into an economy, you really devalue the currency. So 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.119 suddenly now everything costs more because the currency isn't worth 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.880 as much, it doesn't have as much buying power. So 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:57.240 when they're printing up these these these bills, it's really 0:07:57.280 --> 0:07:59.360 to replace the ones that are already in circulation that 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:01.600 need to be replace. That's the main reason. The way 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.520 you create wealth, by the way, in case you are wondering, 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:06.520 is through loans. You loan out money and you add interest. 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:11.320 That interest represents new wealth. That's kind of how in 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.320 a very high level, like all the economics majors out 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.160 there are just like he is oversimplifying this to the 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:20.800 point of ridiculousness, but that's basically how you create new wealth. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.000 Economics has never made a lick of sense to me, 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:27.520 like like like nanoparticles, sure totally back for economics, no idea, 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.080 exactly totally, but but at any rate, um So, these 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.680 polymer notes, in addition to being slightly less expensive to 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.880 manufacture and and more durable, so therefore you know able 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.320 to be kept in circulation longer, have a lot of 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.680 good benefits when it comes to anti counterfeiting measures. Right, 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:47.439 So let's talk about some anti counterfeiting measures. These are 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.480 ones that some of them you can find on on 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:54.800 paper currency, but it's important to run down the list 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:56.880 of it because a lot of the same techniques that 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.360 are used in paper currency are being used in polymer 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.400 currency as well. So some of these you're gonna hear 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:04.480 and you're gonna think well, how is that special e polymer? 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.719 Not all of them are so one of them, uh, 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:10.080 and it's pretty simple. One is just the idea of 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:15.560 creating things that are really finely detailed, like really really 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.960 tign elements and parts of the image. Um. I mean, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.400 that's that's why you'll see a lot of very fine 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:23.360 line work in many of the images. It's not just 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.760 like a big cartoony looking thing, right, And they'll be 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.360 like little curly cues and swirls and stuff and the 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.080 various designs that are on the bill. And the idea 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.839 here is that if you make those those details really precise, 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.679 it's difficult to copy that, right. It's difficult for a 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.840 counterfeiter to make a fake bill that has that same 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:45.120 level of detail in it, especially if you were let's 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.720 say that you have a copy machine that doesn't have 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.520 any sort of protection on it where you're able to 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.160 make copies of stuff. The more fine detail you include 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:56.000 on there, the harder it is for that copy machine 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.240 to reproduce it accurately. And so the hope for people 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.880 who are making the bills is that anyone who accepts 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.120 the bill will look at it and be able to 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.719 tell just by glancing at it, whether or not those 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.240 fine details match up against the real thing, or if 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.120 it's fakey fake. Okay, but even even fine detail can 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:15.560 be duplicated. I mean, I mean, I'm sure that some 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.280 of you are thinking, like, well, we I have like 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.280 a really high res scanner, and that could clearly duplicate. 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.079 And and you know, if I have a good enough printer, 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.600 then I could absolutely make a copy of that thing. Sure, 0:10:25.679 --> 0:10:30.080 but there's there's a specific ink line process. Yeah, so 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:35.040 intaglio printing, right, yes, it gets all. When I read intaglio, 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.720 I think like that sounds like a cologne to me 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:42.480 or something Intaglio. So what this is is that you 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.360 are right. You take like a roller, okay, the roller 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.720 is essentially like a stamp, okay, And you make fine 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.520 etchings in the rollers, so these are little indentations inside 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.679 the roller. You then coat the roller with inc. Now 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.440 more inc is going to go into those indentations, because 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.040 they're like little wells. Sure, and then you wipe the 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.360 ink off the roller, which does not surface exactly, just 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.960 into the etchings exactly. And then you can put a 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.400 piece of paper or whatever whatever you're printing on and 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.360 it will then just those little fine details that have 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:15.920 been etched into the roller will be transferred to whatever 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:18.520 you're printing on. And that's a way of creating this 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.560 incredibly finely detailed work so that you do it accurately 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.440 over and over every single time. It's going to come 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.960 out exactly the way you want it to because it's 0:11:27.160 --> 0:11:30.720 etched into whatever the printing mechanism is right, and it 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.360 will also create a design that is raised up off 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:37.240 of the paper very slightly, paper whatever other exactly. So again, 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.800 both of those things are indications that you've got the 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.000 real legit currency in your hands. But there are a 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:47.400 lot of other anti counterfeiting measures as well, including things 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.400 like um multicolor bills. So the idea here is that 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.520 you don't use just a single dye in the dying 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:58.960 of your currency, so that you have maybe a gradation 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.040 or a couple of different colors on each bill, because 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:06.720 that is also difficult to replicate. So if you know, 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:08.920 I remember when I think it was, I guess it 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.720 was the hundred dollar bill several years ago. Now, when 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.240 it when it was redone, it had kind of a 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.120 peach coloring to it besides the green. Yeah, yeah, like 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.720 a pinkish peach ish and and everyone's immediate reaction was 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.240 this looks like monopoly money. It was actually a very 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:28.800 clever way of cheaply integrating better security exactly. So yeah, 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:30.520 for a lot of us were suddenly thinking, like, why 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.840 why do we have play money? It's sort of the 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.200 arrogant American approach to whenever we go to a foreign country. 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:39.280 You know, it's not that every American does this, but 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.600 I'm sure anyone living in another country has had the 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:46.640 experience or at least has heard a story of American 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.080 tourists calling calling American currency quote unquote real money, and 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:53.719 then referring to whatever the local currency is as the 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.720 stuff that I have to use to buy things. I 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.840 don't mean to break the polymer chain, but we need 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:01.920 to take a break and listen to a couple of 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:13.079 messages from our sponsors. On behalf of all Americans, I 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.080 would like to extend an apology to you. Not all 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.240 of us are like that. Uh No, some of us 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.439 are much more subtly completely ignorant about your money. I 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:22.920 I still feel a little bit bad I had the 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:24.560 last time I was over in England. I had this 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:27.720 really hilarious experience with a shopkeeper where I just I 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.560 felt like Arthur Weasley holding this pile of British coins 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:33.960 and and like she was just trying to she she 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:36.080 was like, you know, there will be a pound five, 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:38.880 and I was like, how does it? I just held 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.520 my hands up to her, like how you you take? 0:13:41.559 --> 0:13:44.040 How much money? It is? The really sad part about 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.160 that story, Lauren, is you're not old enough to have 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.880 been around back when the when the English currency system 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.440 was not based off of base ten. When I was like, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.479 all right, I'm sorry, it's sixteen pennies to a furlong, 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.280 which is uh as fourteen furlongs to a half any 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:04.760 crown thing. Obviously my ignorance of the English monetary system 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.720 is also great, but yes, at any rate, I have 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.560 also had that same experience, so that those multicolor bills 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:16.439 obviously another step toward creating an anti counterfeiting strategy, but 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.280 it's not the only one. Again, there's also incorporating strips 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:23.440 of different colored material within a banknote itself. So in 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.560 this case you might have a completely different material than 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.960 what makes up the bulk of the bank note. The 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:31.400 bank note itself may be made out of some sort 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.920 of paper slash cloth type stuff with these other strips 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:40.520 incorporated into them. Again, very difficult to counterfeit. You know, 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.040 there's just really it's just about raising the difficulty so 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:48.160 that your average person can't really counterfeit this money. It 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.080 doesn't mean that it's impossible. It just means that you've 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.520 raised the difficulty so much that the people who are 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.560 attempting it, that number gets smaller and smaller because it's 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:02.040 hard to do. Another strategy is to use holy grams. Yeah. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.680 So holograms are obviously these little bit pictures that can uh, 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.080 they have a different you know, they shine in a 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:09.960 different way when you shine light on You also get 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:11.760 kind of a three D effect on them. You know, 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.240 it looks like you're looking at a three dimensional picture 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:18.080 as opposed to just a flat image. And these are 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.840 of course created with my favorite technology of all time, lasers. Yes, 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.920 we did an entire suite of episodes about holograms over 0:15:26.000 --> 0:15:28.360 and Forward Thinking a few months back. I failed to 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:31.320 look up when exactly that occurred, but but go to 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.920 the Forward Thinking website, Yeah thinking dot com. Please do 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:37.040 I mean the the episodes we did on holograms, We 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.880 actually explain how people make holograms and it does involve 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:45.000 using two different types of lasers in order to complete this. 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:46.840 You know, it's actually kind of crazy to think how 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.240 complicated is just to make us what what appears to 0:15:50.240 --> 0:15:53.160 be a simple image. But at any rate, again holograms, 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.200 it requires you to have some equipment that your average 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.680 counterfeiter probably doesn't have access to, I like really expensive lasers. 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.720 So then we've got including strips of phosphorescent material. So 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:07.280 then you've got you know, if you shine it underneath 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.080 like a black light and ultraviolet light, then you might 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.560 see that it glows. If it's a true bill obviously 0:16:13.680 --> 0:16:16.960 that where a counterfeit and it doesn't glow, you'd say, huh, nice, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.800 try now I'm calling the cops, all right. And there's 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.040 also all kinds of different inks that you can use 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.680 that are slightly harder to duplicate. Yes, yeah, including ink 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.440 that will change color depending upon the angle at which 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.560 light hits that ink. Right. This is due to a 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:37.160 process called uh iridescence. It's a physical process which works 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:40.280 by virtue of of micro structures, which are basically tiny 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.760 holes that reflect light at different angles and wavelengths than 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.520 the rest of the surrounding material. Yeah, this actually reminds 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.000 me a lot of how uh glass is free three 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:52.960 D works, and that you have these little tiny elements 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.200 inside a screen that direct light in specific ways, so 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.560 that one eye gets one set of light and the 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.160 other eye gets the other set of light, and that's 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.400 what creates the three D effect. Kind of similar here, 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.840 except instead of trying to direct light at your at 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.439 each eye independently, it's just changing that angle so that 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:10.920 you get a different color experience as you're as you're 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:14.399 moving the bill in relation to wherever the light sources. Sure, 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.200 it can even be used to create this multicolor look 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.680 without any ink at all. It can be a purely 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:24.080 physical structure. Yep, yep. Uh. Then there's also using ultraviolet 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:29.560 reactive fluorescent inks are metallic inks, again, stuff that's not 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:33.119 easy to come by, so again cutting down the likelihood 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.600 of counterfeiting. Uh. There's also micro printing that's kind of 0:17:36.600 --> 0:17:38.720 similar to the etching we talked about before. This is 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.960 where you're printing really really super tiny words or numbers 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.200 as a way of again foiling the efforts of people 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:49.720 to copy an image directly, right, because not everyone has 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.879 access to that kind of high definition printing yep. And 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.679 then there's also designing software that actually recognizes when you 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.920 are trying to manipulate some sort of banknote. Now, the 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.440 software could be anything from a scanner to a copier 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.360 to any kind of photoshops sort of material where once 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:11.959 it recognizes the elements of a bank note, essentially refuses 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.560 to help you out. You'll end up getting either an 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:17.760 error or if you're trying to copy something, you might 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.400 just get a solid block where there's no definition at all. 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:24.760 It's it's you know, kind of uh, you know, it's 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.760 another level of security that's outside the bill itself. This 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:29.760 is more on the end of the people who are 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.280 making these software and hardware all right, right, you would 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.400 have to depend upon those developers to create that for 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.199 you or to create it in conjunction with you. And 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.680 a big example of this is your RYE on Constellation. 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:44.720 So this can recognize a scan bank note based on 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.560 the patterns that are actually on these banknotes themselves. These 0:18:48.720 --> 0:18:52.080 have been put there by the various industries that create 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.000 the banknotes. If those marks are present on any kind 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.600 of image, like even if you included those marks on 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:00.720 some other form of image, this thing's gonna pick it 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:02.320 up and say all right, I can't work with this, 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:05.960 and uh, it's not likely that you're going to have 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.960 these specifically put on another image because they're tiny. They 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:12.920 look like little one millimeter sized circles, and they're usually 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:15.960 printed in yellow ink, so you're probably not going to 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.560 find it on anything else by accident. It's probably not. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.919 It's it's not like it's working off of facial recognition 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:25.480 of Jeffer Center something exactly. That would be poor. Now that, yeah, 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.960 that would not work out so well. So then there's 0:19:28.000 --> 0:19:31.800 also just using a material that's not just paper, right, 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.800 because paper is not very sturdy and it's also really 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:38.439 easy to reproduce, so most countries, including the United States, 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.680 use some other material. It's something that's closer to cloth 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.560 than it is in paper. Linen, in fact, is one 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:47.040 of the most popular additives yep, and in the United 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.240 States it's a mixture cotton and linen fibers, so it's 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.359 not really paper in the way we normally think of paper, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:56.520 which is why a bill can survive a run through 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:58.399 the washing machine. Yep. Yeah, if you want to do 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:03.680 some money laundering. Sorry, I didn't really like that joke either, 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.200 but I'm gonna keep it anyway. Also, the United States 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.600 government says that it takes four thousand double folds as 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.040 then you're you're folding it forward and backward against itself 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.600 before a bill will tear, you know, brand new bill 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:20.920 will tear. And also because of this mixture, that's also 0:20:21.000 --> 0:20:25.639 difficult to replicate. However, Uh, that doesn't mean people don't try. 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.879 So what do you do to try and detect a 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:33.160 counterfeit bill? One of the popular methods that is, Uh, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.000 I've seen it used, like I've I've paid for something 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:38.000 with like a fresh twenty dollar bill and seeing people 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:42.320 use these things, these counterfeiting pins. The pen is meant 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:45.360 to try and detect the counterfeit bill. It usually has 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:49.000 some sort of chemical in it, like iodine, and that 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:52.240 would react to starch. And if it reacts to starch, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.800 then will it'll actually stain whatever it is it's marking 0:20:54.840 --> 0:20:58.800 against start of course being a common ingredient in many papers, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.359 but something that you currency does not contain. Right, So 0:21:02.400 --> 0:21:04.439 the idea would be if you marked, if you use 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.520 this marker on a legitimate bill, there should be no stain. 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:10.159 If used it on something that had a paper that 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.639 had start in it, it would stain which sounds like 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.359 it be pretty effective, except for the fact that there 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.320 are a lot of ways of removing starches from paper 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:22.600 or actually just buying starch free paper, and in either 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.080 case those pens would not be effective, So you could 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:27.720 have a fake bill. In fact, you could just cut 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:29.960 out a sheet of paper on starch free paper and 0:21:30.000 --> 0:21:32.840 just write this is money on it and handed to 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:34.840 someone and if they ran the little marker on it, 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.879 there would be no stain. It clearly would not be 0:21:37.960 --> 0:21:41.160 a real bill, right right, unless you're using a doctor 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.840