WEBVTT - Listener Questions 3 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:09.440 Hey, Daniel, if you are the dictator of a country, 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:11.799 what would you do in terms of science? In terms 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.320 of science, I think I'd like to explore, like, what 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.320 is the biggest cookie that's possible to be you can 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:22.160 still be tasty. That's something physicists wonder about. I wonder 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.280 about that because you know, a cookie is a complicated thing. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:26.000 It has to be crispy, has to be soft on 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:28.360 the inside. You make it too big, then it's I'll 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.600 just gonna be gooey. How do you get the heat dispersed? 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:33.320 It's a hard physics problem. So you think you need 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:36.520 to all the resources of a country to figure out 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.720 the answer to this question. Hey, if you're gonna do something, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:41.040 do it ten billion dollars big right. That's the way 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.760 I rolled the ten billion dollar cookie. That it would 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.280 be your science project, your dream science project. How would 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.440 you would you? Would you aim higher? I would probably 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.839 do just make sure everyone understand science. You know, for 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.920 all that money to educating people about science, you should 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.920 fund like an awesome podcast about it. Yeah, oh man, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:02.560 you know, and maybe like get two people on it 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.200 and two really good looking at people. We eat a 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.759 lot of cookies with stay trim anyway. Yeah, and then 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.160 just give them the ten billion dollars. I'm sure they'll 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:15.400 be responsible with it. Yeah, totally, not spending on cookies 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:35.880 or anything like that. That's right, that's right. Hi. I'm Jorge. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:39.160 I'm a cartoonist and the creator of PhD Comics. And 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.720 I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist by day in a 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:45.640 podcaster by I don't know afternoon, and I'm a big 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:49.120 fan of cookies and science. And welcome to our podcast, 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.280 Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.960 Heart Radio in which we look around and wonder what 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.520 is weird, what is amazing, what is crazy about this universe, 0:01:58.560 --> 0:01:59.920 and then we talk about it in a way that 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.800 we hope you will understand. And we're also the authors 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.040 of the book We Have No Idea, a Guide to 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.560 the Unknown Universe. So if you would like to hear 0:02:08.840 --> 0:02:11.240 more from us or learn more about all these great 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:13.400 and amazing questions about the universe, go check it out. 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:15.960 That's right, and we also love to hear from you 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.440 about your questions about the universe. At the end of 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.040 every episode we tell people please write in if you 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:23.280 have something you'd like to hear us talk about if 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.720 you have a question you can't quite figure the out 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.200 the answer to, just using Google send it to us 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:30.160 will break it down for you. And a lot of 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.000 people write us, right Daniel, And we get a couple 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:34.760 of a dozen a day. Right, Oh yeah, we got 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:36.760 a lot of nice emails, and some of them are 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.520 just appreciation people saying, hey, thanks for the show. We're 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.960 enjoying it. It is wonderful to read. And then people 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.639 send us their crackpot theories of the universe, like, hey, 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:48.760 I figured out dark matter, and you know quantum gravity, 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.000 and you know why airline food tastes so bad? All 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:54.920 with my one theory? Daniel, Actually that that one was 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:57.680 for me. What do you mean it's a crack poc? 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.720 Didn't you read it? I read all the theories that 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.839 people send us, sometimes everything carefully. Sometimes I skimmed through them, 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:06.960 I'll admit, but I do love reading them, and I 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.840 love getting people's emails, and mostly I love the emails 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.120 where people ask questions. When people say, here's something I 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.600 don't understand, something i'd love to figure out. Could you 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.079 please explain something to me? Have you ever got a 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.080 question that you had never thought about before? Oh? For sure. Yeah, 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.040 lots of questions people ask I had never heard before. 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.120 I never even thought about, like how to answer that 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.600 question before. Those are my favorite ones, and so Daniel 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.679 will answer your emails. But every once in a while 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.119 we have an episode where we answer your questions on 0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.440 the podcast, and today is one of those episodes. Can 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:40.360 I tell you about one of the questions that we 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.520 got that totally blew my mind? Oh? Please? Somebody wrote 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:48.160 in and said, what if the sun is actually a 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:54.680 giant banana wrapped in hydrogen gas? Think about it? Think 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:56.800 about it? So I did that. I thought about it. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.840 You know, Yeah, that's a fascinating idea. I've never thought 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:03.360 of that idea before. I've never answered that question before. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.280 I don't know how to answer that question. So I thought, 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.880 maybe you're the banana expert. What would be preventing the 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.120 sun from being a banana wrapped in hydrogen? What would 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:17.080 exploding hydrogen? Well, I guess it'd be like a roasted banana, right, 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.920 because it's pretty hot there. So if you like, you know, 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.680 banana's flambay and then maybe they'd be good. But I'm 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:25.400 not sure how you would assemble all those hydrogen atoms 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:27.320 and fuse them in the right way, they get potassium 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:29.560 and all that stuff to make it into a banana. 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.120 So I think that was not a sincere question. Is 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:36.560 maybe actually a joke aimed at you. But technically is 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:40.280 it possible, like um, you know, just out of random 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.160 you know, fluctuations, somehow a banana forms for an instant 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:46.560 in time, So it could be true. Yes, And in fact, 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.520 if you believe in the multiverse, then there is some 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.400 universe in which the Sun spontaneously forms a giant space 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.880 banana in its core for you know, for an instant. Yes, yeah, 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:59.080 there you go, There you go, And that's the universe 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:02.560 I want to live in. We live This is an 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.640 aspirational podcast, folks. We talked about the universe we live 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.120 in, in in the universe we wish we lived in. That's right. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.920 And the answer is always in the multiverse, anything is possible. 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:16.719 So technically you can be optimistic about anything, even space bananas. 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:18.920 That's right. I feel good, people, because it's all possible. 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:22.120 It's all possible. And so today on the podcast will 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:30.320 be tackling listener questions. Some of them are questions that 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.240 I get a lot, and I thought people might be 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:34.760 interested to hear the answer. Maybe other people have these questions. 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.120 Some of them are questions I had never heard before 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.200 and had to do a bit of research, So mix 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:40.880 it up a little bit. Yeah, and so today we 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.760 have some pretty exciting questions. We have a question about 0:05:43.760 --> 0:05:47.840 a giant space gun. We have questions about photons, and 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:52.520 we have questions about why isn't everything exploding? Or is it? 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.560 Or is it? So we'll get into that today. So 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.640 buckle up, folks, it's going to be a crazy ride today. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.160 So today's first question comes to us from Paul, and 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:10.240 Paul had a question about how is there a better 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.640 way to get to space? So here is Paul's question. Hi, 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.640 Daniel and Jorge. When I was a kid, I remember 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.760 reading in an old Guinness Book of World Record about 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:23.200 a gun in Barbados sticking fire sixteen inch shell weighing 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:26.200 about three hundred and thirty pounds to an altitude of 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.240 two hundred and fifteen thousand feet. Now that's less than 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:32.720 half of the lowest orbital altitude, but that was fifty 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.200 seven years ago. So ken a gun put an object 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.840 into orbit? And if so, why aren't we doing it? 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:41.720 It has to be cheaper than rockets. Thanks all right, 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.120 thank you Paul for that awesome question. This has the 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.560 distinction to be you're the only person to ever write 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.600 in asking that question. Really, it's not a it's not 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:53.920 it's not a branding question in the in the public's mind. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:56.680 Apparently not. Not everybody is thinking about what they could 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.279 launch in the space using a really big gun. But 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.400 I love the end this question when he says, if 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:03.320 we can do it, why aren't we doing it all 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.120 the time? I mean, if this is within our grasp, man, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:08.720 I would be like shooting banana pies into space all 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.640 the time. I think, I think. I think it's interesting 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:16.440 because that the corollary to his question was what he 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.240 was sort of really asking was isn't this cheaper than rockets? 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:22.840 Because really, it seems anything should be cheaper than rockets. 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:26.160 That's true. Rockets are not cheap, right, and so a 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.000 lot of people spend a lot of time thinking about 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:31.400 other ways to get stuff into space because rockets cost 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.720 millions and millions of dollars, right, Yeah, So the question 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.239 really is like, can you build a giant space gun? 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.440 And and that's how you put things into orbit. You 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.760 just shoot them out as super fast and up. I 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:47.840 guess vertically up is how you would do it, or 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.680 maybe not, and then that would just go off into space. 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.000 It wouldn't stop, would go into space and get into orbit. 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:55.520 That's the question, right, Yeah, that's the question. And let's 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:57.480 unpack it a little bit because there's a couple of 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.440 problems with this idea. First is just stting it up 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:02.920 high enough, right, Like can you shoot something from the 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.520 ground and make it all the way into space? Right? 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.360 And if you just want to leave the Earth, it's 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.640 a whole separate question of could you shoot something from 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:12.560 the ground and get it into orbit. But let's just 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.880 say you want to escape the Earth, you're on a mission, 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:16.320 you want to flow down into space, and you just 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:19.160 want to leave Earth's gravity, right, meaning shoot something with 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:22.080 a gun and not have it fall back down exactly. Yeah. 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.400 So the question is then how fast does it have 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:27.840 to go? Right? That's called the escape velocity of the Earth. 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.240 And the escape velocity of the Earth is really high, 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.040 like if you're gonna leave the surface and not get 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:36.520 any more pushes, right, Remember, a rocket gets continuous pushes. 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.880 It brings the push the pusher with it as it's 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:40.559 going up in the air, keeps getting more and more 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.600 pushes keeps accelerating. Yeah, so you're going to get all 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:46.320 that push in the very beginnings. You have to have 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.640 your maximum speed is immediately after you leave the gun 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.160 because you're gonna lose it pretty quickly. So then the 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.360 question is how fast you have to be going to 0:08:54.480 --> 0:08:57.640 leave Earth's orbit? Okay, so like what's your the initial 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.200 velocity you need to have in order to keep going 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.160 on into space and not fall back down. That's right, exactly. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.880 And on the surface of the Earth, the escape velossity 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:10.520 you'd need is about eleven kilometers per second, So in 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.760 one second you'd have to be going you have to 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.800 cover eleven kilometers, yeah, exactly. And you know, for scale, 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.559 that's like thirty three times the speed of sound, so 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.480 you know, like jets can go like Mack one, Mack two, 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.719 Mock three. This is mock thirty three. Wow. How much 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:29.679 is that in in miles per hour? In miles per hour, 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.280 I think that's like twenty five thousand miles per hour. Wow, 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.600 So that's a pretty big h I think I don't 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.480 think that my prius has enough digits. I think in 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.600 its digital readA. Yeah, I don't think the digits is 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.600 the problem with your prius. But that's exactly the problem. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:47.679 Like number one is how do you get something going 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.600 that fast? Right? Like shooting stuff from a rifle doesn't 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.960 get anywhere near that speed. Um Like rifles can. They 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.000 can shoot a bullet fast in the speed of sound, 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.520 but not thirty three times the speed of sound. So 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.080 you need a really big gun. You need a lot 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.120 more explosive to get it up that speed. I say so, 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:07.200 even if you take a rifle and point it up 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.600 and you shoot, the bullet would eventually come back. Now, 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.040 do not do that, Yes, do not point a rifle 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:14.280 straight up, because that bullet will come right back down 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.000 at you or the guy standing next to you. This 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.400 happens every year in New Year's Eve. People fire guns 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:20.800 into the air and you think, like, where do you 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:23.720 think those bullets are go? And they're not going into space, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:26.880 not into space, not into space. Then they're coming back 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.800 down and maybe hurting somebody. Um, So do not fire 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.800 bullets into the air. Um, they will not go to space. 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.960 And the other problem is say you did manage to 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.520 shoot a gun, or you know, you had some payload 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.480 and you shot it at this incredible speeds, had enough 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.600 energy well, it's not easy to go through the atmosphere 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:46.160 at that speed. What happens when you go through the 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:49.439 atmosphere at high speeds is friction from the air air resistance, 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:52.319 So you heat up, just like you know how spaceships 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.200 when they land, they have to come through the atmosphere, 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:57.040 and you know there's all that fire and burning and stuff. 0:10:57.200 --> 0:10:59.559 That's because of the friction with the air. So this way, 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:01.760 you'd have so much speed, you'd have friction on the 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:04.360 way up. Oh so it's kind of like the re 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.160 entry problem, but in reverse exactly exactly, it's the re 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:10.880 entry problem on the way out. So if you build 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.520 like a three million dollar satellite and then want to 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.880 launch it into space when you don't want it's going 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:18.520 twenty five thousand miles per hour through the air because 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:22.000 it'll melt. What have you put shielding on it, you know, 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.319 like they do with the Shuttle and the landers. Yeah, 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.680 but the Shuttle doesn't re enter the atmosphere twenty five 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:30.120 thousand miles per hour, and that's on purpose, right. It 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:33.480 slows down a lot, and it does it very gradually, 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:35.800 so you need a lot of shielding. And then this 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.560 thing we get heavy and then it gets more expensive 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:39.880 and you're gonna get this thing. Plus it's shielding up 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.280 to twenty five thousand miles per hour. It's not easy. 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.840 Start to imagine that cold air can burn you to 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.920 a crisp right, Yeah, we'll imagine it's sandpaper. Right. Imagine 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:52.720 if somebody's gonna you're gonna do you're you have one 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:55.680 of those bananas slipping slides in your backyard, except instead 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:59.360 of slippery plastic, somebody puts sandpaper. Right, that's what it 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.600 would be like. Yeah, that is a horrific scenario, Daniel, 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:07.320 and trying to raise it from my mind there, right, Well, 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.600 that is why we don't do this. I mean there's 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:12.680 other problems too, right, but that's those are reasons number 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.800 one and two. Reason number three, this is why we 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.120 don't go on slip and slides of miles per hour, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:22.040 saying it's everything feels like sandpaper miles per hour. That's 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.920 the point. Okay, So it's really hard to do just 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.800 to just to accelerate any kind of mass or object 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:32.840 up to twenty miles per hour, and also it would 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.200 burn up with air. So what are some of the 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:37.800 other problems. The other problem is getting into orbit. I mean, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:39.800 what we talked about just now is getting it out 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.719 of Earth's atmosphere and out of Earth's gravitational pull. That's 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.280 actually harder than getting something in orbit because you have 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.680 to go higher. Right, So you might think, well, what 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:50.679 if we just wanted to go into like low Earth orbit, 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.360 we didn't want to actually leave Earth, And you think, well, 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.439 that might be easier. It's true, but you can't actually 0:12:56.480 --> 0:13:00.959 shoot something from the ground into orbit. You cannot. You 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.719 cannot because remember you're shooting it, you give it one push, right, 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.439 You can't land in a stable orbit has a fixed trajectory, 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:12.400 and that trajectory includes intercepting the ground, so eventually it 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:14.839 will re intercept the ground. The way to get into 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.960 orbit is you fly up into there and then you 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.040 adjust your speed so you have the right speed and 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:21.680 direction to be in orbit. But there's no way to 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.400 get there from the ground without additional pushes once you're 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:27.400 up in the atmosphere. But you're saying, is it you 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.840 need minor adjustments once you get up there, or you 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:31.800 need like a lot of adjustment. No, it could be 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.880 fairly minor adjustments. So, like one scenario is you have 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:37.400 stuff on the ground and you shoot it up to 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.199 fairly low Earth orbit or just below using your massive 0:13:41.240 --> 0:13:44.160 space gun that you built because you're a dictator. And 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:46.600 then you have something catch it something in low Earth orbit, 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:48.880 like catch it and then readjust it and shoot it 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.600 out into orbit, so that that kind of system might work. 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:54.200 But you can't just shoot something into orbit from the 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.680 ground because no, no trajectory that starts from the ground 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.200 will lead to a stable orbit. Like I know, if 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.920 you're a Superman, you could not put a football in orbit, 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:05.679 no matter how hard you try. That's right, that's right. 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.240 And and football and even Superman, if he threw a 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.320 football thousand miles per hour, it would melt right, like 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.760 unless it's a super football from his original planet or something. Yeah, 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:21.640 kryptonite football, that's right. But then he couldn't hold it, Yeah, exactly. 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:28.920 But that's just a detail. The thing is and and 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.440 and Paul mentioned this in his question, is that people 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.920 have tried this right, People have worked on this problem. 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.200 People have shot stuff pretty far up, so you know, 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:39.800 people are not daunted by the fact that this seems 0:14:39.840 --> 0:14:45.680 impossible slash in practice. Well wait, didn't they do the math? Yeah, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:48.040 you know, but these are dictators were talking about and 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:51.160 so sometimes you know they are not bothered by math. 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:53.800 You know they rules don't apply to them. These are 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.160 autocrats we're talking about. Math is just fake news, all right. 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.000 So that's a that's a pretty amazing thing to learn 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:03.960 that people have tried this, and they both people who 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.160 have tried it are are sort of pretty notorious. Yeah, 0:15:07.360 --> 0:15:09.280 this is not a community of folks you want to 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:11.560 go to conferences with. Because the first person to really 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:14.920 do this significantly was Hitler. And Hitler had this cannon 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:18.840 called the V three cannon, and he could launch projectiles 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:22.200 and nine away. Again, the Germans were also working in 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.800 rocket technology, but this is just launching it from the 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.080 ground with no more pushes. Well, I was wondering when 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.600 our discussions would eventually devolve into talking about Hitler. So 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.520 everything on the internet gets compared to Hitler eventually, right there, 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:38.960 eventually here we are. Um, so he tried, he tried 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.880 to build giant cannon that would launch things into space. Yeah, 0:15:43.920 --> 0:15:45.880 and I don't think his goal is to get into space. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:47.880 I think his goals be able to like launch shells 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:51.640 to France from Germany, right, they want to like really 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.880 long distance bombardment. I think that was their goal. I 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:57.800 don't think they cared that much about shooting stuff into space. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.840 Oh I see, just like, what's the biggest, uh missile 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.240 you can build? Yeah exactly. But it inspired another guy, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.520 a guy named Gerald Bull, and he convinced some combination 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:12.000 of American and Canadian governments to give him a bunch 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.120 of money for something called Project Harp, which is basically, 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.160 build a huge gun and see if you can launch 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.280 stuff into space. And he didn't do a terrible job, 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:23.960 really he um. He came up with a pretty good name, 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.040 Project Card, Project card project, that's build a giant gun 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:31.440 and she takes into space. Project crazy dictators fund this, 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:34.200 yeah exactly. So how far did he get? Well, his 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.440 record still stands today. He shot a four hundred pound 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.920 object a hundred and ten miles above the Earth's surface, 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:43.600 so that counts like he got something into space. Now 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:46.640 it came back down. It didn't escape the Earth, right, 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:48.240 he shot it up and it came back down. But 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.480 that's the record today for in terms of launching something 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.000 from the ground and not giving it any more pushes 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.680 is a hundred and ten miles. How did he do it? What? 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.120 What did this gun look like? It just looks like 0:16:58.160 --> 0:16:59.760 a really big gun. I mean, it's just like a 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.080 really big tube. I mean, there's not a whole lot 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.600 of cleverness here, right, It's just a big twoe but 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:06.840 a big explosive in it, you know. And the question 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:08.760 is can you get enough money to build a bigger, 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:10.960 bigger and bigger gun. And you know, some of these 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.919 things don't scale that easily, and the strength of the cylinder, etcetera. 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:17.080 You have to take into account. But basically it's just 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:19.199 spend more money, make it bigger. It's kind of like 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.399 particle physics, right, Spend more money, make a bigger accelerator. 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:24.120 I guess. The idea is that you sort of make 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.200 a like a rocket, but instead of having the propellant 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.239 in the fuel on the rocket on the missile, you 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.159 just keep it on the ground exactly, you know what 0:17:32.160 --> 0:17:34.720 I mean. Like, that's what a giant gun solves, is 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:36.960 the idea that you don't need to bring the fuel 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:40.000 with you. You just exploit it all here on Earth 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:42.439 and then that sends you into space. That's right. The 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.160 problem with the rocket is you're not just lifting your payload, 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.160 you're lifting the fuel. You need to lift the fuel. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.119 You need to lift the fuel, etcetera, etcetera, so it 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:52.919 gets by the time you're actually launching your fuel. So 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.520 this solves that problem by basically blowing up all the 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:57.600 fuel at once on the ground and seeing how far 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:00.800 it goes. Right. Um, but it does really solve the problem. 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.240 I think a more clever idea is like laser supported rockets, 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.879 like shoot the energy at it using beams basically so 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.359 you don't have to transport the fuel. You can send 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.840 it up from the ground as it goes wow, and 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.320 shoot it with lasers which would absorb the late and 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.760 they would absorb the laser and redirected to their propulsion. 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.359 Yeah exactly. I mean if I was a dictator and 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.120 I was funding crazy science projects getting stuff in the space, 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:29.280 I would definitely put some money in laser propulsion. You're like, 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.440 I'm not going to be one of those crazy dictators 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.199 and build giant gun. I'm just gonna be a dictator 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.480 that makes giant lasers. Yeah exactly. Um, But the story 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.919 doesn't end there. This guy Gerald Bull, he ran out 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.359 of money from the U. S. And Canada and didn't 0:18:42.359 --> 0:18:44.919 finish his gun, but then he sold the idea. He 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:49.560 sold the idea to Saddam Hussein right to what Yes, 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:52.399 inspired by Hitler and then employed by Saddam Hussein, and 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.960 he said, look, I'm gonna build you the biggest gun ever. 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.280 And I guess that sales pitch worked. You know, he 0:18:57.359 --> 0:19:01.919 must have a killer powerpoints slide deck, and he was 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.800 building the mother of all guns. Had three words, biggest 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:13.480 gun ever. And it's just like I wanted. Um. Yeah, 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:15.359 And so he was in the middle middle of building 0:19:15.480 --> 0:19:18.040 the biggest gun ever. Like I think Saddam called it 0:19:18.119 --> 0:19:20.800 the mother of all guns. And you know, Saddam probably 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:23.240 had the same idea that the Hitler had, like I 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:25.920 launched shells to Israel or launch shells to anywhere in 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:29.400 the Middle East or something nefarious. Um. But the Bull 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:33.560 was actually assassinated by we don't know who, um while 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.359 he was working on the project. So it didn't end 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:38.720 very well for the scientist. Wow. Yeah. And that's a 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:42.720 movie or a comic book right there, Yeah, exactly. Ben 0:19:42.720 --> 0:19:45.600 Affleck is probably writting the screenplay as we speak. Yeah, 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:50.640 he's the CIA agent task with assassinating the Big Gun. 0:19:51.200 --> 0:19:53.080 So Gerald Bull got a bunch of money from Iroq, 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:55.520 but he never matched his original high score that he 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:58.359 did on his own using Project Harp. So that stands today, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.880 um so and miles is the record. I don't think 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:03.840 it's a practical way to launch things because remember the 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:05.240 kind of things we want to launch in a space 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:10.040 are usually delicate, right, tele communications, satellites or people, um, 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:11.879 and you've got to be pretty careful. So the rocket 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:14.879