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Speaker 1: Tornadoes always touched down on the plains. Is that because

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Speaker 1: hills block all the rains?

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Speaker 2: When we treat water, we rotate, filtrate, and aerrate. Tell

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Speaker 2: me more, but be careful how you pronounce floculate?

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Speaker 1: How large can a moon appear in our sky without

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Speaker 1: being shredded by gravity's tides?

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Speaker 2: Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's

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Speaker 2: answers will make it right.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Hello. I'm Kelly Windersmith. I study parasites and space, and

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Speaker 2: I am afraid of tornadoes.

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Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm afraid

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Speaker 1: of Zach's comments on our poetic introductions.

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Speaker 2: Oh? Are we going to let the listeners know that

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Speaker 2: Zach skips the introductions for the listener question episodes because

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Speaker 2: he is actually really good at poetry and finds our

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Speaker 2: poetry sort of nauseating.

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Speaker 1: It's not what we're famous for. Let's just put it

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Speaker 1: that way.

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Speaker 2: We're having fun.

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Speaker 1: But let me put it this way. At least your

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Speaker 1: spouse listens to our podcast.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Katrina dozen Oh no, Oh, I'm mortified. Oh do

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Speaker 2: we really want to keep having her on our show.

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Speaker 2: The answer is yes, we absolutely do.

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Speaker 1: This is my secret plan to pull her in to

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Speaker 1: hook her on the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Oh fantastic, this is we're talking about tornadoes today. Let's

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Speaker 2: share our scariest tornado story. Do you have any tornado stories?

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Speaker 1: Ooh, I do have a tornado story, though I wasn't

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Speaker 1: very scared. I was in my dorm room at Rice

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Speaker 1: in Houston and studying really hard for a test, and

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Speaker 1: I heard a bunch of shouting in the hallways and

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Speaker 1: I ignored it because I was busy. And then later

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Speaker 1: I just got there was a tornado that went right

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Speaker 1: through Houston and within about a mile of the campus.

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Speaker 1: And I didn't know anything about it. Yeah, and that's

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Speaker 1: not very typical for tornadoes to pass through cities, so

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Speaker 1: it was something of an event. How about you, what's

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Speaker 1: the closest you've been to a tornado?

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Speaker 2: So Zach and I moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, right after

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Speaker 2: like the big tornado that like knocked out a bunch

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Speaker 2: of the city, and we were in a hotel before

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Speaker 2: we got our keys to our place, and there was

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Speaker 2: a tornado warning in the area, and I was like,

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Speaker 2: oh my gosh, another tornado is going to take out

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Speaker 2: half the city. And Zach was not worried at all,

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Speaker 2: and I was panicking. And Zach's like, all right, well,

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Speaker 2: you're obviously not going to sleep, so well you're panicking.

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Speaker 2: I'm going to take a shower. And I was looking

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Speaker 2: up what do you do if there's a tornado and

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Speaker 2: you're supposed to like get in a tub. Oh, And

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Speaker 2: so Zach finishes the shower, he comes out, and I'm

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Speaker 2: panicking and I was like, I think we should get

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Speaker 2: in the tub. And Zach is like almost asleep already.

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Speaker 2: And I go into the tub and like the tub

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Speaker 2: is filled with water, like something can happen with the drain,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, now we're gonna drown. And I

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Speaker 2: was more worried about, like Zach hampering our ability to

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Speaker 2: survive the tornado. And anyway, we were totally fine, and

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Speaker 2: I am kind of nuts.

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Speaker 1: Is the point sounds like a swirling panic attack?

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Speaker 2: I'm known for those.

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Speaker 1: Actually yeah, yeah, well today you don't have to panic

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Speaker 1: because you are not going to experience a tornado. Instead,

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Speaker 1: you're going to experience an explanation of how tornadoes work

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Speaker 1: and where they form. Because we are answering questions from

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Speaker 1: listeners like you. People just like you who listen to

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Speaker 1: the podcast and want to know how things work out

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Speaker 1: there in the universe. They can't find answers online. They

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Speaker 1: ask JATGBT. They're not satisfied, so they write it to us,

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Speaker 1: and we are very happy to provide some answers.

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Speaker 2: Daniel, how can you know for sure they're not going

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Speaker 2: to be experiencing a tornado. They could be listening to

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Speaker 2: this at any time. There could be a tornado when

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Speaker 2: they're listening.

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Speaker 1: No, this is a tornado free podcast. I'm providing my guarantee.

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Speaker 2: I think you are violating the rules of physics, and

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Speaker 2: I I'm going to write the physicist board and they're

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Speaker 2: gonna going to lose your job. Man.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to hedge because everything is statistical in particle physics.

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Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give you my ninety five percent guarantee,

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Speaker 1: and that's my highest guarantee.

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Speaker 2: All right, Well, that that's a pretty high guarantee. It

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Speaker 2: sounds to me like you just pulled that number out

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Speaker 2: of us swirling thin.

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Speaker 1: Air all of statistics sounds like that, But really there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of rigorous calculations behind it. Trust me. All right, Well,

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Speaker 1: let's move on to more solid ground and answer some

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Speaker 1: questions from listeners. Here's a question from Patrick about tornadoes.

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Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel, and Kelly. We had some tornadoes touched down

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Speaker 3: outside of Cincinnati recently, and I've noticed tornadoes seem to

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Speaker 3: hit the flatter, more open areas outside the city more

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Speaker 3: often than the city itself. I was thinking about why

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Speaker 3: this might be and wondering if I'm on the right track. So,

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Speaker 3: the weather system builds up enough power to form a

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Speaker 3: tornado over the unobstructed flat land, but in hilly areas

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Speaker 3: and populated areas, the power is attenuated by the hills

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Speaker 3: and buildings or alter the tornado's oscillation is damped by

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Speaker 3: the obstacles. So thanks for taking my question and let

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Speaker 3: me know if I'm on the right track.

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Speaker 2: Whoa tornado's in Cincinnati. I grew up in Ohio, and

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Speaker 2: I don't feel like tornado should be allowed in Ohio.

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry you had to go through that. Patrick.

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Speaker 1: Well, Cincinnati's like kinda on the border, isn't it's like

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Speaker 1: partly in Ohio, partly in Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: Right, No, it's in Ohio.

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Speaker 1: Isn't it a river that runs through it.

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Speaker 2: Oh, maybe maybe I'm wrong. It might be a little

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Speaker 2: bit in Kentucky.

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Speaker 1: What I think technically, you're right because the part of

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Speaker 1: the city that's north of the Ohio River is Cincinnati,

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Speaker 1: but there's definitely lots of city on the other side,

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Speaker 1: whether or not you officially call it Cincinnati.

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Speaker 2: Daniel, I am gonna have to actually, I'm given this

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Speaker 2: point to you. I'm sorry I did not carefully study

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Speaker 2: Ohio geography because I was trying real hard to get

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Speaker 2: out of there.

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Speaker 1: Sorry, Ohio, let me tell you about your home stance.

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Speaker 2: All right, Kelly's betten oh for one? So far?

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Speaker 1: All right?

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Speaker 2: What is the tornado? Daniel? What am I so afraid of?

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Speaker 1: So we've all seen tornadoes in movies, et cetera. They're

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Speaker 1: essentially rotating columns of air in contact with the cloud

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Speaker 1: and the ground. So you see this tube and it's

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Speaker 1: like twisting and flailing around, and they can be very

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Speaker 1: very powerful. The winds can be like up to four

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty kilometers per hour, super incredible.

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Speaker 2: What is that in freedom units?

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Speaker 1: Fast? It's fast units? Okay, it's destructive. Yeah. And they

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Speaker 1: can be quite narrow or they can be really wide,

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Speaker 1: like big monster tornadoes up to three kilometers wide, and

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Speaker 1: for it to be class as a tornado has to

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Speaker 1: come from the cloud and make contact with the ground,

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Speaker 1: and that's where the destruction happens. These powerful winds, the

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Speaker 1: funnel touching the ground, and that funnel travels across the

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Speaker 1: ground and tear stuff up, and it can go for

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Speaker 1: like up to one hundred kilometers, tearing a path of

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Speaker 1: destruction across Kansas or Ohio or wherever Alabama.

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Speaker 2: Man, do tornadoes always go from the clouds to the ground.

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Speaker 2: They never go from the ground to the clouds, that's

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Speaker 2: right there.

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Speaker 1: Always start in the cloud and then descend to the ground.

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Speaker 1: There are other similar patterns like dust devils you might

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Speaker 1: have seen, which looks similar to tornadoes, but aren't officially tornadoes.

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Speaker 1: Those just are whirling patterns of wind on the ground

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Speaker 1: that touch only the ground and there's no cloud above them,

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Speaker 1: so they're not officially tornadoes. And if it's over water,

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Speaker 1: they can be called a water spout. So there's a

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Speaker 1: few variants of them.

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Speaker 2: Okay, And are those things ever as damaging as tornadoes

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Speaker 2: or they're like tornadoes baby sisters and baby brothers.

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Speaker 1: Well, they can be as powerful because the storms can

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Speaker 1: be powerful, but unless you're living on the water, and

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Speaker 1: they're not damaging houses, right, So the most damaging ones

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Speaker 1: are the ones that touch the ground, because that's where

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Speaker 1: the houses are.

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Speaker 2: Got it, okay? All right? And where so we've noted

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Speaker 2: that they do sort of tend to be like aggregated

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Speaker 2: in certain geographic regions. Why is that.

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Speaker 1: This is something that really America is best at. American

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Speaker 1: exceptionalism has data to back it up. In the case

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Speaker 1: of tornadoes, most of the tornadoes in the world are

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Speaker 1: in the United States. We have like eight hundred per year,

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Speaker 1: and most of them are in a slice of the

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Speaker 1: US in central and southeast corners of the country, which

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Speaker 1: we affectionately call tornado Alley. So there's like four times

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Speaker 1: as many tornadoes in the US as there are in

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Speaker 1: all of Europe. You have a few in like South Africa,

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Speaker 1: some in Europe, Australia, Eastern India, but primarily it's a

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Speaker 1: thing the US is best at.

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Speaker 2: The wind really likes us, all right, So why are

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Speaker 2: we cursed with these tornadoes?

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Speaker 1: Yes, So to understand why tornadoes happen here and less

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Speaker 1: often elsewhere, you have to understand how they form and

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Speaker 1: This is not something where the science is totally settled.

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Speaker 1: People are still working on this. It's a great example

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Speaker 1: of complex city. You're studying a system which has lots

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Speaker 1: of components which interact very strongly. Pulling a simple story

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Speaker 1: out of that is not always possible, but people are

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Speaker 1: working on it. We think that the ingredients are number one,

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Speaker 1: a huge thunderstorm, but not just like a normal thunderstorm,

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Speaker 1: one with like really powerful strong winds, hailstones, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: And in particular a thunderstorm called a super cell, which

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Speaker 1: is a set of tower and clouds up to fifteen

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Speaker 1: kilometers tall, so like a really massive cloud. So that's

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Speaker 1: ingredient number one. It's like a really powerful thunderstorm, a

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Speaker 1: very tall one. And then below that you need warm,

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Speaker 1: moist air on the ground, and we'll talk about how

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Speaker 1: these come together into a tornado in a minute. And

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Speaker 1: the third ingredient is sheer. You need strong changes in

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Speaker 1: the wind speed as you go up or down in altitude,

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Speaker 1: and so these things how they come together and make

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Speaker 1: a tornado. Again, it's not fully understood. There's a bunch

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Speaker 1: of different theories out there. One is that it starts

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Speaker 1: in the storm. You have these pockets of rotation in

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Speaker 1: the storm and then they somehow intensify and touch the ground.

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Speaker 1: And one way this might happen is that the warm

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Speaker 1: moist air on the ground is rising up and there's

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Speaker 1: already like pockets of rotation in the storm, and the

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Speaker 1: rising air connects with those and creates like a horizontal

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Speaker 1: rotation or as you have this rising pattern, sort of

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Speaker 1: like in a hurricane, you have like rising air in

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Speaker 1: the center, which then moves out to the edges, so

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Speaker 1: you get these horizontal rotation which then gets tilted into

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Speaker 1: a vertical column somehow. So that's sort of one cartoon explanation.

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Speaker 2: But that kind of sounds like it's starting from the

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Speaker 2: bottom and like meeting the hurricane halfway, like it's coming

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Speaker 2: from the top and the bottom. So what am I

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Speaker 2: missing there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, And again simple stories are never going

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Speaker 1: to describe the complexity. What's happening there is that you

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Speaker 1: have this rising air which is coming up and contributing

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Speaker 1: and helping pull the cloud down. But still a cloud

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Speaker 1: is moving down towards the ground. It's not like there's

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Speaker 1: a tornado forming on the ground and reaching up to

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Speaker 1: the cloud. It's really the cloud coming down to meet

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Speaker 1: the ground. Yes, being pulled down and contributing by stuff

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Speaker 1: on the ground. Okay, there's another idea that maybe there's

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Speaker 1: a sudden down draft, a special kind of downdraft in

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Speaker 1: the cloud that reaches down and squeezes a column of

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Speaker 1: air which happens to be spinning. And now because you've

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Speaker 1: squeezed it, its spinning faster, and that instigates the tornado.

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Speaker 1: And this is a third theory that maybe there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of small vortices on the ground, like a

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Speaker 1: bunch of little random ones, which merge together and then

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Speaker 1: start spinning and pull the cloud down. And so there's

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Speaker 1: lots of different explanations. And one reason that we don't

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Speaker 1: have an answer is that it is a complex situation.

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Speaker 1: Even if you have all the data, even if you

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Speaker 1: take lots of measurements, answering the question of like well

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Speaker 1: why did this happen? Is complicated. It We touched on

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Speaker 1: this in our episode on causality, like is there a

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Speaker 1: single reason why it happens? One of the necessary ingredients.

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Speaker 1: Even thinking about like what an explanation would look like

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Speaker 1: is a little bit fuzzy because it's a really complicated environment.

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Speaker 1: It's not like a single Rube Goldberg machine where you say,

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Speaker 1: like A causes B, which causes C, which causes D. Right,

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Speaker 1: you have to have a lot of ingredients in place,

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Speaker 1: and maybe there's ranges of requirements. A lot of people

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Speaker 1: are doing simulation studies where they try to create tornadoes

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Speaker 1: in simulations to see like what ingredients are necessary and

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Speaker 1: how often does it happen. It's very expensive simulations because

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Speaker 1: you have to assimulate like all the rain drops and

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Speaker 1: all the different areas of wind here and there. So

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Speaker 1: it's something people are definitely working on, but not something

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Speaker 1: we fully understand.

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Speaker 2: Well, I love that you've been covering the weather lately,

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Speaker 2: and so now I feel like I can ask you

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Speaker 2: any weather related questions. So this is great for me.

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Speaker 1: So and I'll give you a ninety five percent confident

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Speaker 1: answer on anything.

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Speaker 2: I don't feel great about that. But so, do we

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Speaker 2: understand why you get very strong thunderstorms in some area

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Speaker 2: since that's like ingredient number one that you need. Do

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Speaker 2: we understand that?

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Speaker 1: Not fully weather? It's of course chaotic, but we can

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Speaker 1: model storms reasonably well, the formation of storms, like we

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Speaker 1: can predict when it's going to rain and when it's

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Speaker 1: going to hail. Check back to our episode about predicting

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Speaker 1: the weather we did recently to hear all about that.

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Speaker 1: So those ingredients are reasonably well understood. But why they

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Speaker 1: come together and make a tornado sometimes and not others.

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Speaker 1: It's a bit of a mystery. You have like storm

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Speaker 1: watchers on the ground and they'll be watching a storm like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it feels like it's going to come together, and then

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Speaker 1: it just like fizzles out and no tornado happens, And

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Speaker 1: we don't have a clear understanding of why that is. Sometimes,

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Speaker 1: but these rough ideas that you need a combination of

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Speaker 1: thunderstorms and then warm air on the ground and wind shear,

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Speaker 1: they can help us answer Patrick's question about why tornadoes

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Speaker 1: tend to form in the plains and your question about

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Speaker 1: why Tornado Alley exists.

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Speaker 2: Well, those things that you said, those seem like there

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Speaker 2: are things that happen just about anywhere, right, severe storms,

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Speaker 2: warm moist air, and shear, Like you should be able

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Speaker 2: to get that anywhere, right, Yeah you.

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Speaker 1: Can, and there are tornadoes all over the place. But

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Speaker 1: in lots of places there are mountains which block warm

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Speaker 1: moist air from coming in from the ocean, whereas in

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Speaker 1: the United States. For example, you got the Gulf of Mexico,

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Speaker 1: which is a lot of warm water, and there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of warm moist air that comes in from the

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Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico, and there's no major mountain range there

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Speaker 1: to block it. Like Louisiana, no mountains there. That whole

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Speaker 1: state is totally flat, right, So that warm moist air

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Speaker 1: just rolls up into the center of the United States

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Speaker 1: and combines with Midwestern thunderstorms to give you tornadoes. And

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Speaker 1: the reason it doesn't extend like further west is we

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Speaker 1: have the Rocky Mountains like running through New Mexico and

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Speaker 1: Colorado and Wyoming and Idaho. The Rockies block a lot

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Speaker 1: of that warm moist air, and so you don't get

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Speaker 1: tornadoes in Utah, for example, as often as you do

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Speaker 1: in Missouri because they're blocked from the warm moist air

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Speaker 1: from the Gulf of Mexico.

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Speaker 2: Yes, California's got something going for it.

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Speaker 1: We got two lines that defense, the Rockies and then

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Speaker 1: the Sierras. So yeah, absolutely, I mean we got earthquakes

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Speaker 1: over here, but yeah, we don't have very often tornadoes.

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Speaker 2: And I just realized we are maybe taking a political

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Speaker 2: stance by calling it the Gulf of Mexico, and I

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Speaker 2: support it on.

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Speaker 1: We're taking a stance on facts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well I just looked up Google maps and it

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Speaker 2: says Gulf of America. Now what, Oh my gosh.

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Speaker 1: So the answer to Patrick's question is that we have

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Speaker 1: tornadoes on flat land because you need that warm moist

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Speaker 1: air and mountains blocket and so you need flat land

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Speaker 1: and you need like an open corridor to a warm

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Speaker 1: body of water that's going to provide that warm moist air.

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Speaker 1: So that's why we have Tornado Alley, and that's why

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Speaker 1: you have tornadoes in the city of Cincinnati in Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: And I hope this is but I hope this is

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Speaker 2: the last tornado that hits Cincinnati, Ohio or Cincinnati, Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: And we're back. We're transitioning from tornadoes to biology. Yay. Biology,

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Speaker 2: And I get to talk about parasites a little bit,

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Speaker 2: so that's exciting.

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Speaker 1: But we have a connection. Also, this is all about

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Speaker 1: flowing water, isn't it. Warmth and moist are going to

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Speaker 1: be relevant also for your question.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, But also there's some chemistry and I

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Speaker 2: feel like this was kind of a trick chemistry question.

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Speaker 2: But I'm going to forgive John because parasites were tied

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Speaker 2: in and so that's okay, all right, So.

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Speaker 1: Let's hear the question from John.

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Speaker 4: This is John from New Mexico. A topic for biology

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Speaker 4: and a smattering of physics is how do you make

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Speaker 4: water safe to drink without OD and on chlorine? You

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Speaker 4: could compare Los Angeles Rural Virginia background through methods and

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Speaker 4: A word of the day in water treatment I understand

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Speaker 4: is floculation, and I bet Kelly Kent state it fast

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Speaker 4: enough without making the shows rating in R instead of

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Speaker 4: a G.

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Speaker 2: All right, So I have practice saying floculation so that

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Speaker 2: this show can remain G instead of R or PG thirteen.

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Speaker 2: So when you're trying to clean water, you've got a

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Speaker 2: couple goals. So one, you want to remove debris like

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Speaker 2: sticks and rocks and rags and stuff like that because

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Speaker 2: you don't want to be drinking that. Of course, you

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Speaker 2: want to kill parasites, viruses and bacteria, and you want

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Speaker 2: to remove toxic stuff like pesticides.

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Speaker 1: So where is this water coming from. We're drawing it

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Speaker 1: from like random rivers, or we're recycling water that's been used,

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Speaker 1: or we're gathering rain water or what.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so John wanted to know how you get water

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Speaker 2: for for example, a big city, a rural area and

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Speaker 2: if you're back country hiking and so, but I did

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Speaker 2: do a deep dive into how we treat our sewage.

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Speaker 2: So if Daniel wants to know about treating sewage, I'm

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Speaker 2: happy to tell you because I found that fascinating when

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Speaker 2: I got to that.

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Speaker 1: Well, I happen to know that Orange County leads the

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Speaker 1: world with their toilet to tap system.

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Speaker 2: Oh WHOA, that's excited.

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Speaker 1: Katrina is a big fan. She's always visiting the Orange

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Speaker 1: County sewage treatment plant to get samples.

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Speaker 2: Well that's because she wants the phages that are in there, right,

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Speaker 2: because yes, everyone should check out our episode with Katrina

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Speaker 2: on phage therapy. That was amazing. All right, well let's

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Speaker 2: start with Let's imagine that you are pulling water from

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Speaker 2: a lake or a river or something like that. Okay,

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Speaker 2: and so you've you've got this water. It might have dirt,

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Speaker 2: it might have sticks, it might have parasites, and so

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Speaker 2: the first thing you're gonna do is just like filter

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Speaker 2: out the big stuff. So if there's like a stick

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Speaker 2: in there, you just you get that stuff out. And

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Speaker 2: so now what you've got is water that has a

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Speaker 2: bunch of little tiny particles in there that you don't

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Speaker 2: really want in there anymore. And because they're so small,

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Speaker 2: they're going to take a really long time to settle out.

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Speaker 2: And so what you want to do is figure out

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Speaker 2: a way to get them to settle out faster. And

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Speaker 2: so the first step is called coagulation, because you're trying

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Speaker 2: to get all of these tiny particles to stick together

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Speaker 2: so they'll settle to the bottom. And so these tiny

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Speaker 2: little particles often have charges, and because they're charged, when

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Speaker 2: they get close to one another, they don't tend to

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Speaker 2: stick together because they might repel each other. And so

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Speaker 2: what they do, and this is where the chemistry comes in.

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Speaker 1: H and so I know, gosh, bracing myself.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're not going to get that detailed, so don't worry.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, so they tend to dump stuff in there,

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Speaker 2: like salts or kinds of aluminium or kinds of iron.

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Speaker 2: And essentially the goal is to binds to these charge

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Speaker 2: particles and make them neutral so that when these tiny

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Speaker 2: little particles bump into one another, they're more likely to

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Speaker 2: stick together and form bigger chunks.

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Speaker 1: I see all right, so neutralize their charges, let them

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Speaker 1: happily clump up together so they're easier to filter out.

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Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. Okay, so now you've got these clumps, but

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Speaker 2: you want to make those clumps even bigger actually, because

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Speaker 2: that would make it easier for them to fall down

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Speaker 2: to the bottom so that you can get them all

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Speaker 2: out of there. And so the next step is the

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Speaker 2: step that John mentioned, which is floculation. And essentially what.

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Speaker 1: You're doing is it sounds like a punishment.

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Speaker 2: It does flagellation or something like that, but but no

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Speaker 2: focus on flock. So flock is like a group of things.

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Speaker 2: And the goal here is that you are very gently

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Speaker 2: mixing the water so that the tiny clumps that you've

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Speaker 2: made start bumping into other clumps. And now they start

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Speaker 2: making much bigger clumps. You know. It's like a flock

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Speaker 2: of birds, you know, as they merge in the sky

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Speaker 2: together and all head to their migration site. But here

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Speaker 2: it's junk that you don't want to be drinking, and

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Speaker 2: so they bump into each other form big chunks, and

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Speaker 2: then you bring them to another area like another big pool.

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Speaker 2: And this is the sedimentation step. So you basically just

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Speaker 2: let the heavy stuff fall out by letting the water

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Speaker 2: sit for a while, and you draw the water off

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Speaker 2: the top.

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Speaker 1: And so we've added salts and aluminum and iron in

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Speaker 1: order to help the stuff clump together. And what is

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Speaker 1: the stuff that we're gathering up? What is the stuff

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Speaker 1: that's clumping? Where does it come from? Why is it

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Speaker 1: there anyway?

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean we're collecting from a natural system, and

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Speaker 2: so it could be little bits of poop or little

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Speaker 2: bits of sand, or you know, could it could be

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Speaker 2: just about anything. There's a lot of things in the river.

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Speaker 1: The technical term I think is dirt.

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Speaker 2: Does dirt also cover poop? And that's news to me.

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Speaker 1: I think a big fraction of dirt is poop, isn't it.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Yeah, you should ask your what I.

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Speaker 1: Think I will, okay, and then we'll ask your husband

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Speaker 1: to write a poem about it.

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Speaker 2: Oh fantastic. Oh this is a family affair. I love

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Speaker 2: it all right. So you let the heavy stuff settle

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Speaker 2: to the bottom. You draw the water from the top

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Speaker 2: because all the heavy stuff is now down at the bottom,

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Speaker 2: and now you start running it through different kinds of filters.

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Speaker 2: So what you've done is you've removed like you know,

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Speaker 2: the poop, the dirt, whatever, the heavy stuff. But now

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Speaker 2: you want to make sure that there's no bacteria, parasites

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Speaker 2: or viruses in there anymore. These things are kind of tiny,

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Speaker 2: and so now you need to start passing the water

437
00:21:43,760 --> 00:21:46,359
Speaker 2: through different kinds of filters that are going to catch

438
00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:47,280
Speaker 2: these tiny things.

439
00:21:47,400 --> 00:21:50,120
Speaker 1: Wow. So even for those super tiny stuff, you're still

440
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:54,399
Speaker 1: using physical filters like super tiny meshes to block like viruses.

441
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:55,359
Speaker 1: That's insane.

442
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:57,639
Speaker 2: Well, we're also going to get to a disinfection step

443
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 2: and so they get a little bit more serious eventually.

444
00:22:00,680 --> 00:22:03,879
Speaker 2: But here we're still trying to remove like the bigger stuff, like,

445
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 2: for example, parasites probably get stuck if you make it

446
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,639
Speaker 2: go through like a big thing of sand, and the

447
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:11,639
Speaker 2: water has to sort of like filter through the sand.

448
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:14,640
Speaker 2: So you get some of that stuff out that way.

449
00:22:14,640 --> 00:22:17,879
Speaker 1: But it's basically still the pasta strainer strategy.

450
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 2: With a very very fine hole in the pasta strainer. Yeah.

451
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,639
Speaker 2: So I mean think about like passing water over sand

452
00:22:24,760 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 2: or gravel and in some cases charcoal and charcoal is

453
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:32,480
Speaker 2: using like Vanderwall's forces to capture stuff and then you

454
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:36,639
Speaker 2: know it, whatever trickles out the bottom is probably pretty clean.

455
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 2: But viruses are really tiny, and so the viruses and

456
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:43,320
Speaker 2: stuff probably got through there, and so the next step

457
00:22:43,400 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 2: is disinfection, where they usually add like chlorine, chlorine, chlorine dioxide,

458
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,439
Speaker 2: chlorine stuff to try to kill whatever is left in

459
00:22:52,480 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 2: there that might be alive. They can also pass it

460
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 2: through like some UV light to try to like break

461
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:00,679
Speaker 2: up the DNA in these organisms to kill them. But

462
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:03,600
Speaker 2: most places, as far as I can tell, use some

463
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:07,400
Speaker 2: version of like you know, bleach, some version of like chlorine.

464
00:23:08,280 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 2: And the other benefit of using chlorine is that it

465
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 2: continues to kill things as the water is passing through

466
00:23:14,440 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 2: your local like municipal pipes to get to your house well.

467
00:23:17,840 --> 00:23:20,000
Speaker 1: At the Orange County Water Treatment plant, they walk you

468
00:23:20,040 --> 00:23:21,639
Speaker 1: through the whole process and at the end they have

469
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:23,360
Speaker 1: a tap and they like pour you a glass of water,

470
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:25,520
Speaker 1: and they're like here you go, and you've seen it

471
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,560
Speaker 1: come from like raw sewage, oh man, and it's crystal clear,

472
00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: beautiful water and you and you drink it. Oh yeah.

473
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 1: A lot of our water comes from toilets, which is

474
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: actually the connection with our first question, because you know,

475
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:41,120
Speaker 1: how does that water get to the seward treatment plant

476
00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: will flush it down the toilet. We create a little

477
00:23:43,480 --> 00:23:44,440
Speaker 1: toilet tornado.

478
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't see where that was going until you

479
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 2: got there.

480
00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 1: But it's a bit of a reach, ye, all right.

481
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,479
Speaker 1: So does that mean that the water that's coming out

482
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:55,800
Speaker 1: of our tap has chlorine and these chemicals in it

483
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: and also like destroyed carcasses of bacteria and by because

484
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: they can't actually remove it, right, it's still in there.

485
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And according to the Center for Disease

486
00:24:05,640 --> 00:24:10,320
Speaker 2: Control or the CDC, low levels of disinfectants like chlorine

487
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 2: in your water don't make people sick, but some people

488
00:24:12,760 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 2: are more sensitive to this kind of stuff than other people.

489
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,919
Speaker 2: If you're worried, you should talk to your physician. But

490
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,359
Speaker 2: we have been treating water like this for about one

491
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 2: hundred years and for most people it's not a problem.

492
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 1: And are these strategies different from what you might do

493
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: in a rural region or if you're like in the

494
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: back country.

495
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:30,919
Speaker 2: Super different?

496
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: Really?

497
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 2: Yeah? So for example, I live in a very rural region.

498
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,440
Speaker 2: I say that I live in Charlottesville, but I actually

499
00:24:37,520 --> 00:24:40,480
Speaker 2: live on a farm, you know, a bit away from Charlottesville,

500
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 2: and what we use is groundwater. So we talked about

501
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 2: how in a city you'd go through a bunch of

502
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 2: different kinds of filtration methods, but here the filtration method

503
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 2: that we use is nature. You know, rain water falls

504
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 2: on the ground and it has to trickle through loads

505
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,600
Speaker 2: of dirt and sand and stuff, and a bunch of

506
00:24:59,600 --> 00:25:01,640
Speaker 2: the stuff that you don't want to be drinking sort

507
00:25:01,680 --> 00:25:04,320
Speaker 2: of gets stopped by the sand on the way down

508
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 2: to become part of the groundwater. So the groundwater is like,

509
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 2: you know, there's like a hard rock underneath groundwater accumulates

510
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:12,719
Speaker 2: on top of it, and then you can dig a

511
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 2: well that goes into the area where water is stored

512
00:25:15,720 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 2: underground and you can pump that up into your house.

513
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?

514
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 1: It's sort of amazing. I mean, you're talking about using

515
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: nature to filter out nature.

516
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,199
Speaker 2: Yes, but it doesn't always work fantastically. So if you

517
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 2: live in a city, then your water has to pass

518
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 2: a bunch of tests before it gets to you, or

519
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:37,920
Speaker 2: like the facility needs to regularly do monitoring to make

520
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:39,960
Speaker 2: sure that like the levels that it has to hit

521
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:44,360
Speaker 2: are being achieved, whereas me I have to collect water

522
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:46,879
Speaker 2: samples every year and pay somebody to test our water

523
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:50,160
Speaker 2: to make sure that, for example, our septic system isn't

524
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 2: leaking bacteria into the groundwater or you know, I live

525
00:25:54,320 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 2: around a lot of farms. If they were using a

526
00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:58,440
Speaker 2: bunch of pesticides, maybe some of them could seep down

527
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,560
Speaker 2: into the groundwater and end up in our drinking water.

528
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 1: So your groundwater has no filters other than this natural system,

529
00:26:04,400 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: like you just pump it up and drink it.

530
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, yeah it does. It goes through like a

531
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 2: sedimentation step just to make sure that any dirt has

532
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:13,960
Speaker 2: fallen out of it. But we don't do anything after that.

533
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,400
Speaker 1: And when people visit your farm, you don't ask them

534
00:26:16,400 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: to like sign a waiver or anything. I mean, I've

535
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: drunk this water.

536
00:26:19,200 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I didn't ask you to sign

537
00:26:20,600 --> 00:26:22,120
Speaker 2: a Katrina.

538
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: I wish i'd heard this podcast episode before I visited.

539
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 2: But like I said, we get our water tested, and

540
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 2: our water always has pristine levels of everything. So country living.

541
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:34,600
Speaker 1: It was delicious.

542
00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:39,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, country living at its best.

543
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:43,199
Speaker 1: Wow. All right, button up your overalls and have a

544
00:26:43,240 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 1: glassy It always sounds good.

545
00:26:44,920 --> 00:26:45,960
Speaker 2: Well I don't know why I had to go to

546
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:47,360
Speaker 2: the overalls, but anyway, all.

547
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: Right, country living, No, you don't wear overalls around the farm.

548
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 2: Not yet, not yet. I'll get there. I'll get there,

549
00:26:52,520 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 2: But so maybe next year when I start with my dairy.

550
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,679
Speaker 1: Goats and don't misinterpret me. Overalls was a positive comment.

551
00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: I'm not anti overalls.

552
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 2: No, they do look very comfy, all right.

553
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 1: So what about if you're hiking in the back country

554
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: and you don't have access to any of these things?

555
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:06,959
Speaker 1: What do you do?

556
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, first all, note that not everybody is as

557
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 2: lucky as I am. They don't always live in an

558
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,080
Speaker 2: area where the groundwater is clean, and which case they

559
00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 2: do have to use extra filters or disinfectants and stuff

560
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: like that. So we're lucky we don't have to add

561
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 2: extra steps, but depending on where you are, you might

562
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 2: have to. If you are in the back country, maybe

563
00:27:24,160 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: what you're doing is you pull up to a river

564
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:28,679
Speaker 2: and you pull some water out, and that is the

565
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 2: only water you have to drink. So what are you

566
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:32,280
Speaker 2: going to do? The first thing you're going to do

567
00:27:32,320 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 2: for all the methods we're going to talk about is

568
00:27:33,880 --> 00:27:36,360
Speaker 2: strain the big junk out of it. Yeah, take out

569
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,200
Speaker 2: the rocks, take out the leaves, maybe pass it through

570
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 2: a handkerchief or something. And then I check the CDC

571
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 2: website and actually have pretty good, pretty detailed instructions for

572
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 2: what you're supposed to do, and the best thing to do,

573
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 2: if you're able, is to boil it. Boiling will kill

574
00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:53,480
Speaker 2: the bacteria, it'll kill the viruses, it'll kill the parasites.

575
00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,679
Speaker 2: And if you bring it up to boiling for just

576
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: one minute, that's usually all it takes. But if you're

577
00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: at high elevation, like above sixty five hundred feet, you

578
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 2: need to boil it for three times as long. And

579
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 2: that is because of chemistry. So you can blame chemistry.

580
00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,040
Speaker 1: Because water boils at lower temperatures at high.

581
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, so you need to do it for longer.

582
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: And I love how thorough they are in their warnings.

583
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: They say, to avoid burns, allow the water to cool

584
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: before using it, don't drink boiling water people.

585
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Remember to breathe while you're

586
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 2: doing this process, and do.

587
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: Not take a shower in boiling water, thank you, CDC.

588
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 2: Right, don't stick knives in your eye. Yeah, but you

589
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 2: know they're covering their tails.

590
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 1: Anytime you read one of these, I imagine that there

591
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: was some instance where somebody needed that warning, you know,

592
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: and they're responding to them. They're like, all right, we

593
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:45,960
Speaker 1: didn't think we had to say this, but apparently here.

594
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 2: We are exactly.

595
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 5: Yeah.

596
00:28:48,640 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 2: I do feel like anytime there's a tenus like that,

597
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 2: there's a story that you probably would want to hear.

598
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: But anyway, all right, so what if for whatever reason,

599
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 2: you can't boil you are hiking and it's raining and

600
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 2: you can't startifire or something. In that case, you can

601
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:06,240
Speaker 2: hope that you thought ahead to bring a couple different

602
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 2: kinds of filters with you. And the problem with filters,

603
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 2: or the difficulty with filters, is something we talked about earlier,

604
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 2: which is that viruses are really really small, so getting

605
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:21,720
Speaker 2: a filter that can filter out viruses is really difficult,

606
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 2: very teeny diny little holes that stuff needs to pass through.

607
00:29:25,120 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: You can use a reverse osmosis system, where essentially they're

608
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: like pushing water through a very very very very very

609
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:36,280
Speaker 2: fine mesh and just about anything that isn't water doesn't

610
00:29:36,320 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 2: make it through to the other side, and so you

611
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 2: end up with like one side that has all the

612
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 2: gross stuff mixed with some water, and one side that

613
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: has clean water. I feel like I got mixed answers

614
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:47,080
Speaker 2: on whether or not this will remove parasites. This might

615
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 2: work if you're like really in a pinch, but you know,

616
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 2: I think you pretty much always want to boil it

617
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 2: or maybe use one of these filters followed by a

618
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 2: disinfectant that's more likely to kill the viruses, and so

619
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 2: disinfectants is another option. This doesn't work as well against parasites.

620
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 2: Parasites are like bigger and a little bit harder to kill,

621
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: so like chlorine or iodine is maybe less likely to

622
00:30:08,400 --> 00:30:10,800
Speaker 2: kill them, although it might kill some of them. But

623
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 2: you can add chlorine or iodine, but if you're pregnant

624
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 2: or have some other issues with iodine, you might want

625
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 2: to skip iodine. Check the CDC website. But basically you

626
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 2: can add some chemicals to also kill parasites. Finally, if

627
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 2: you're really in a pinch and all you have is

628
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 2: a plastic bottle with no filters, no disinfectants, you can

629
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: still try to filter it to get the big stuff out,

630
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 2: and you want that water to be as clear as

631
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 2: possible because you're going to be trying to use the

632
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 2: sun's UV radiation to kill stuff that's in there.

633
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: Particle physics is our last line of defense.

634
00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 2: Oh this counts as particle physics.

635
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:45,680
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

636
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: All right, I'll give it to you.

637
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: These are high energy photons exactly zapping those viruses.

638
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 2: I was wondering why you looked like you were getting

639
00:30:53,880 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 2: excited about something, and I realized, now you were getting

640
00:30:56,440 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 2: excited because we were about to get to particle physics.

641
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: But I'm learning to read you. I should have known

642
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 2: particle physics was coming.

643
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: That's how you know.

644
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 2: That's how you know, all right, So anything that makes

645
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,080
Speaker 2: the water cloudy you want to get out because any

646
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 2: suspended particle in there is going to stop UV radiation

647
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 2: from hitting the bacteria and viruses that you're trying to kill.

648
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 2: If it's a super sunny day and your water super clear,

649
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 2: then you can leave a plastic bottle filled with water

650
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 2: under the sun for about six hours and that will

651
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 2: probably kill everything hopefully.

652
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: Amazing.

653
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, amazing, totally. And if it's cloudy, you might want

654
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 2: to wait, like as much as two days. I think

655
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,720
Speaker 2: I'd still feel better if I did some other additional

656
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: treatments to it.

657
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: What if you launched your water into space so it's

658
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: exposed to radiation in space? Would that make it safer?

659
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: How did you not prepare for that question? You're an

660
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: expert on space.

661
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 2: So what I'm wondering is so okay. So we talked

662
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,000
Speaker 2: about how space can even kill tartar grades, which are,

663
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:55,719
Speaker 2: like I supposably indestructible. But what I'm wondering is if

664
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 2: you launched it to space, would that, like if there

665
00:31:57,720 --> 00:32:01,560
Speaker 2: were pesticides in the water, would solve the problem of

666
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 2: the chemicals? And so I do think that would kill

667
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:08,479
Speaker 2: bacteria and viruses and parasites, But I don't know if

668
00:32:08,480 --> 00:32:11,040
Speaker 2: it would remove pesticides the same way as like a

669
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 2: charcoal filter would. And so I think for any of

670
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 2: these things, it's important to keep in mind, like what

671
00:32:15,720 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 2: are my goals? You know, if you're drinking from a

672
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 2: waterway and there's a bunch of farms upriver, you might

673
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,960
Speaker 2: want to worry about pesticides, and maybe you want something

674
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 2: like a charcoal filter. But if you're just worried about

675
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 2: you don't want to get giardia beaver fever, then maybe

676
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:32,760
Speaker 2: disinfecting is the way to go beaver fever.

677
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that.

678
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 2: Oh no. I think Giardia became famous when some people

679
00:32:38,600 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 2: were camping downstream of a beaver dam and the beavers

680
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:46,479
Speaker 2: gave them giardia, which gives them massive diarrhea and had

681
00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 2: a friend who got giardia once. She called it muddy

682
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 2: butthole disease.

683
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: But the good news is, if you're an astronaut and

684
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: you're in space, your water is probably not going to

685
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:56,520
Speaker 1: give you beaver disease.

686
00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 2: That's probably true, but you are probably drinking yesterday's coffee.

687
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 2: You're drinking recycled urine and sweats.

688
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:05,920
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's hear if we have muddied the

689
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:09,680
Speaker 1: waters or clarified everything. For John, Oh, that.

690
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 2: Was bravo, Daniel, bravo.

691
00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 4: Thank you Kelly for the insightful answer. You floculated all

692
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 4: the little bits and pieces into really understandable podcast. Thank

693
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 4: you again.

694
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 2: So we've established that you can probably get clean water

695
00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 2: in space by just exposing it to how horrible space is.

696
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 2: Another horrible thing that could happen in space would be

697
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: if your moon broke into many pieces.

698
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,800
Speaker 1: But one of the amazing things about space is that

699
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: it exposes us to other kinds of environment and other

700
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: kinds of vistas. And we've all seen movies where you

701
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,280
Speaker 1: have like two stars in the sky or huge moons.

702
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: And one of our favorite listeners, Joe, has a question

703
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:12,440
Speaker 1: about what extremes are possible.

704
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,000
Speaker 5: Hi, Daniel and Kelly, this is Joe from Florida. Loving

705
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 5: the show, but even more really appreciate your willingness to

706
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 5: answer random questions from any one of us. To that point,

707
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 5: I'm playing games and other imagery of sci fi planets

708
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:32,080
Speaker 5: and worlds. It's really common to see a massive planetary

709
00:34:32,120 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 5: body taking much of the sky, kind of like a

710
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 5: moon of a gas giant, where it's just the whole

711
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 5: thing creates a very alien appearance. So I got to

712
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 5: thinking after the Parker solar probe quote touched the Sun,

713
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 5: I ran those numbers, and even at closest approach, I

714
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 5: think it was only about a twelve degree of the

715
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 5: sky field of view, so it'd be big, but not

716
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 5: completely taking up your vision big. So my question is,

717
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 5: is based on Roch limits and assumptions of standard planetary compositions,

718
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:05,359
Speaker 5: what's the largest a body can appear in the sky. Well,

719
00:35:05,760 --> 00:35:07,840
Speaker 5: your own world is still kind of in a stable

720
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 5: orbit and you're not being torn apart or coming into

721
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,600
Speaker 5: any of those majora's mass kind of situations. Thanks a lot,

722
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 5: guys love the show.

723
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,960
Speaker 1: All right, So this is a super fun hypothetical question.

724
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 1: He's essentially asking how close can we get to science fiction?

725
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: How big in the sky can something appear and still

726
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: obey the laws of physics?

727
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,359
Speaker 2: Love it? And so did this require you to do

728
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,280
Speaker 2: some actual math or was this answer available somewhere.

729
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: No, I had to do a little bit of calculations here.

730
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:40,160
Speaker 1: This is very cool. I liked thinking about this because

731
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: it's super awesome to have big features in the sky.

732
00:35:42,840 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 1: There's something really powerful about that because you're connected to them.

733
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: You're like seeing the scale of the Solar System and

734
00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:52,840
Speaker 1: the universe in the sky. And you know, we're lucky

735
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 1: that our moon is so big and so close, and

736
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 1: a lot of people aren't aware, but there are bigger

737
00:35:57,680 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: things in the sky than the moon. For example, Androma

738
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 1: the galaxy is bigger in the night sky than the moon.

739
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: We think of it as super distant, and it is,

740
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 1: but it's also incredibly big. The reason that's a surprise

741
00:36:11,640 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 1: is that most of the time you can't see it

742
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: because it's dim. But if you train a camera on

743
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:18,919
Speaker 1: it and follow it and accumulate light, you can see

744
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: Andromeda in the sky. So not with your eyes, unfortunately,

745
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,640
Speaker 1: but it's there, dominating the night sky.

746
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 2: Still kind of feels like cheating to compare an entire

747
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 2: galaxy to a moon.

748
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we're just talking about angular sizes, right,

749
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 1: It's just for a reference. Obviously, the Moon is much

750
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: smaller than Andromeda, but so much closer, and that's really

751
00:36:38,600 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 1: the trade off here. What we're talking about is the

752
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: size in the sky, which is what we call angular distance.

753
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:48,040
Speaker 1: And the way you calculate this is there's a formula,

754
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,920
Speaker 1: but essentially it depends on the radius of the object

755
00:36:51,239 --> 00:36:53,760
Speaker 1: and on the distance from the object. So the bigger

756
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:55,319
Speaker 1: the object, the bigger it is in the night sky.

757
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 1: The further away it is, the smaller it is in

758
00:36:57,719 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 1: the night sky. So to be big in the night sky,

759
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:02,640
Speaker 1: you can be pretty small but very very close, or

760
00:37:02,719 --> 00:37:06,080
Speaker 1: you can be far away but absolutely enormous. And so

761
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: that's how you calculate it.

762
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 2: Okay, So I haven't stared at the Sun for very

763
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 2: long because I've been told not to. Yes, but if

764
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: I were to stare at the Sun, would the Sun

765
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 2: in the moon? Would they be about the same size?

766
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 2: How different in size would they be if I stared?

767
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: Well we know this because we have eclipses. Right, the

768
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: Moon is almost exactly the same size as the Sun

769
00:37:25,080 --> 00:37:28,719
Speaker 1: in the sky. They're both about half a degree, which

770
00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,960
Speaker 1: is the unit we use, and that's just an incredible coincidence.

771
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,879
Speaker 1: Often in science, when we see coincidences, we're like, hmm,

772
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Is that a clue? Why is that?

773
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: But sometimes they're just coincidences, like there's no reason that

774
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,800
Speaker 1: the Moon and the Sun have to take up almost

775
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,879
Speaker 1: exactly the same amount of sky. But it does lead

776
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,280
Speaker 1: to very spectacular eclipses. So we're very grateful for this coincidence.

777
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 2: Maybe the aliens knew we would really enjoy eclipses, so they,

778
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 2: you know, they work some stuff out for us.

779
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that or the programmers of the simulation. Oh, I

780
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 1: don't know, but it works out.

781
00:38:00,640 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: Pretty well, all right, thanks whoever.

782
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: So, the biggest easily visible thing in our night sky

783
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: are the Sun and the moon about half a degree,

784
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: and Joe's wondering about how big things can get. And

785
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: the physics we have to understand here are the physics

786
00:38:12,360 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 1: of tidal forces. That is, the Earth pulls on the

787
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: Moon with its gravity, and we tend to think about

788
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: the Earth as a point and the Moon is a

789
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 1: point and forces between those two points, but they're not

790
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,560
Speaker 1: really points. The Moon has a side that's closer and

791
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: a side that's further away. It has an extent to it,

792
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: and the side of the Moon that's closer feels the

793
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:33,919
Speaker 1: Earth's gravity more powerfully than the side of the Moon

794
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: that's further away, because gravity depends on distance, and so

795
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:41,080
Speaker 1: because there's a difference in those forces, effectively, it's like

796
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,239
Speaker 1: the Earth is trying to pull the Moon apart. It

797
00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: is and actually squeezes the Moon and makes it a

798
00:38:45,719 --> 00:38:46,760
Speaker 1: little bit like a football.

799
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 2: And this reminds me of the book Seven Eves.

800
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,959
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, Neil Stevenson's really fun novel about what would

801
00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: happen if the Moon was destroyed. And in that novel,

802
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:58,439
Speaker 1: it's not really much of a spoiler to say it's

803
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: destroyed by some like alien impactor, But in reality, the

804
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:04,080
Speaker 1: Moon would be destroyed if it got too close to

805
00:39:04,120 --> 00:39:06,479
Speaker 1: the Earth, because the closer you get to the Earth,

806
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: the greater the difference between the forces on your edges,

807
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 1: and so effectively, the greater the force trying to pull

808
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: you apart, and eventually you approach what we call the

809
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:18,440
Speaker 1: Roche limit, which is the closest you can get without

810
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: being pulled into little bits, and essentially form a ring,

811
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:24,360
Speaker 1: and for two objects of equal density of a planet

812
00:39:24,400 --> 00:39:26,880
Speaker 1: and a moon, that radius is about two and a

813
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: half times the radius of the planet, which is actually

814
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 1: quite close. That would be like eighteen thousand kilometers from

815
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: the center of our planet, but the moon currently is

816
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: like three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers away, So the

817
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 1: Moon could get a lot closer and be a lot

818
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: bigger in our sky without being torn into rings.

819
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 2: I am feeling like I'll sleep better tonight knowing that

820
00:39:49,520 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 2: it's not close to the roach limit.

821
00:39:51,160 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: That's good, not at all. And so if you somehow

822
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 1: engineered the moon, you put a rocket on it, and

823
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: you brought it in closer to the Earth and all

824
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:01,440
Speaker 1: the way to the roach limit, it would be about

825
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:05,399
Speaker 1: twenty times bigger in the sky than it is currently. Wow, right,

826
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: about ten angular degrees, about the size of one or

827
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 1: two outstretched hands. It would be pretty big. It would

828
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: be awesome.

829
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,319
Speaker 2: Would that really mess up astronomy because it would be

830
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 2: all right, so Daniel and I both have our hands

831
00:40:16,040 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 2: out stretched right now and we're looking at that. Yeah,

832
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 2: So how bad would that be for astronomy?

833
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:23,440
Speaker 1: That would be pretty bad because it would make moonlit

834
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:27,840
Speaker 1: nights much brighter, right, you'd have much more powerful moonshadows.

835
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: And already moonlit nights are bad for astronomy because that's

836
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: light pollution. Right, It's like having a big light in

837
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 1: the sky. It's like a second sun. You are reflecting

838
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 1: the sun, a mini version of it. So this would

839
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: be twenty times as powerful, So it would be bad

840
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: for astronomy.

841
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 2: I thought you were going to say moonlit nights are

842
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,480
Speaker 2: bad for astronomers because they're not very romantic or something

843
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 2: like that, because the rest of us love moonlit nights.

844
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: Well, a moonlit night is romantic because the light is dim, right,

845
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: It's like why you turn down the lights to make

846
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:58,799
Speaker 1: them romantic. And so at some point cranking that thing

847
00:40:58,880 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: up by factor twenty no longer as romantic.

848
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:03,799
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I could see that. You're gonna need much

849
00:41:03,840 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 2: better curtains.

850
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, but let's do a little bit more engineering to

851
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: try to make this bigger. What if we didn't just

852
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 1: use our moon. What if we took a bigger object,

853
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,919
Speaker 1: Like what if we somehow pulled Mars into our orbit,

854
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: then we used it as a second moon, and we

855
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:22,000
Speaker 1: brought it in just outside Mars's roach limit. Well, that

856
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:24,799
Speaker 1: would be about twice as big in the sky as

857
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 1: the Moon at the roach limit, because Mars is bigger

858
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: than the moon, so it'd be about forty times the

859
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:32,760
Speaker 1: size our moon currently is in the sky, an angular

860
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: distance of about twenty degrees.

861
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:36,439
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just that I grew up with the Moon

862
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: being so far away, but I'd feel like a little crowded,

863
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 2: you know, like you need to give me some space. Mars.

864
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,479
Speaker 2: You're getting too close. You're kind of freaking me out.

865
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: All right, Well, then you're not gonna like the next scenario.

866
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,479
Speaker 1: I did a calculation to try to think about how

867
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 1: close you could bring any object, forget the Moon, forget Mars.

868
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 1: What if we're engineering something that we want to fill

869
00:41:55,960 --> 00:41:58,239
Speaker 1: our sky and you could make it out of some

870
00:41:58,360 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: natural material. Roach limit depends on density, because something that's

871
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 1: denser holds itself together better. So if you make it,

872
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: for example, out of iron, you can get it closer.

873
00:42:08,400 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: But then iron is also denser, and so the object

874
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: becomes smaller, so it doesn't take up as much in

875
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: the sky. So I imagined, what if we had a

876
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: object the mass of the Earth, And my calculation suggests

877
00:42:20,440 --> 00:42:22,439
Speaker 1: that if you make it about three times as dense

878
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 1: as the Earth, so use like pure iron. Then its

879
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: roch limit would be about one and a half times

880
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,040
Speaker 1: the Earth's radius. And this new moon we build because

881
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: it's denser than the Earth but it still has the

882
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:37,560
Speaker 1: same mass, would have a radius of about one half

883
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: of the Earth's radius. So this thing would be orbiting

884
00:42:41,040 --> 00:42:42,080
Speaker 1: just above the ground.

885
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:44,680
Speaker 2: What just above the Earth?

886
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 1: Just above the ground on Earth, you'd have to like

887
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: duck as this thing goes by.

888
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's no way to live.

889
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:56,279
Speaker 1: But you know, and these are simplified calculations that we're

890
00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:59,560
Speaker 1: really pushing to the extreme. We're assuming that the Roch

891
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: limit formula applies here, and I'm not sure it really does.

892
00:43:04,080 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 1: And of course, you know you've got any mountains, those

893
00:43:06,120 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: are gonna get rubbed right off. But about your answer. Sure,

894
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 1: So if you're out there and you have an earth

895
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 1: mass worth of iron, and you're thinking about building this

896
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: moon and having an orbit just above the surface, you

897
00:43:19,880 --> 00:43:22,319
Speaker 1: should know that I only give you my ninety five

898
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,000
Speaker 1: percent guarantee, which is my highest guarantee, by the way,

899
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 1: But if you did this, it would fill half the sky.

900
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 2: Please don't listen to Daniel. Everyone look at he would

901
00:43:32,719 --> 00:43:34,680
Speaker 2: sell us all out to the aliens if it would

902
00:43:34,719 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 2: explain gravity, like, absolutely, we can't depend on Daniel for

903
00:43:38,120 --> 00:43:39,800
Speaker 2: our safety, everyone.

904
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: Ninety five percent, you can't. Now you can also imagine

905
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: the opposite scenario. What if you're on the Moon, right,

906
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: and you're not on the planet. So in our Solar system,

907
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: if you were to land on Io and look up

908
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:57,560
Speaker 1: at Jupiter in the sky, it already fills twenty angular degrees, right,

909
00:43:57,960 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: that's the size we're talking about of having like Mars

910
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: in our sky. So that's already the case. Jupiter is

911
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: huge in the sky above Io, and in comparison, like

912
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: if you're on Titus, Saturn is only like five and

913
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,560
Speaker 1: a half degrees, which is still big, right, a lot

914
00:44:11,600 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: bigger than the Moon is in our sky, but not

915
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,840
Speaker 1: as dramatic. But I calculated what would happen if you

916
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 1: brought Io close to its roch limit with Jupiter, and

917
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: then it would be like sixty degrees in the sky,

918
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: So that would be like, wow, what of you a Jupiter? Right?

919
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: And then if you made Io out of like something

920
00:44:29,239 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 1: incredibly tough like diamond, it could get much closer without

921
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:36,200
Speaker 1: being torn apart. So the roach limit depends on what

922
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,399
Speaker 1: the object is made out of. And then you could

923
00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 1: get Jupiter to be ninety five degrees across in the

924
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: sky before it's going to tear apart your diamond.

925
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 2: Moon hotly cow. I mean, you'd be dead long before that,

926
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 2: but wow.

927
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: What a way to go, right way to go. You'd

928
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 1: be sitting on your diamond Moon, sipping super clean water

929
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:00,879
Speaker 1: from your waste water treatment facility, watching torn play out

930
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 1: on the surface of Jupiter.

931
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,799
Speaker 2: You know what that sounds. If you've got to go,

932
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:07,440
Speaker 2: that's high up there on my list of ways to go.

933
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 1: And this episode will have prepared you to understand the

934
00:45:10,239 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: science of each of those elements.

935
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 2: That's right, You're welcome.

936
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's hear if Joe is satisfied with

937
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 1: our answer to his science fiction inspired question.

938
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 5: Thank you so much Daniel and Kelly for that answer.

939
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,480
Speaker 5: It will please you and other listeners to know that

940
00:45:24,520 --> 00:45:27,120
Speaker 5: I do not have an Earth's massive iron ready to

941
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:30,279
Speaker 5: put in dangerously close orbit. While giant objects in the

942
00:45:30,280 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 5: sky may look pretty epic, sounds like for all our

943
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 5: survival better, they remain comfortably distant. I guess the first

944
00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 5: human on Aisle will have quite the view. But for

945
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 5: those of us remaining earthbound. I'm so eager for that

946
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:45,880
Speaker 5: binary sunset portrait, so alien engineers, when you have a moment,

947
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,319
Speaker 5: that'd be great. Thank you again and keep looking up.

948
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 2: All right. Well, thank you everyone who submitted questions. If

949
00:45:59,239 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 2: you'd like to ask ask us a question, you can

950
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,839
Speaker 2: write us at questions at Daniel and Kelly dot org,

951
00:46:04,040 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 2: or you can join us on our discord channel. You

952
00:46:06,719 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 2: can find an invitation to our discord channel at danielant

953
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 2: Kelly dot org, or you could send us a message

954
00:46:13,239 --> 00:46:16,040
Speaker 2: to our social media pages. Although answers there are slightly

955
00:46:16,120 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 2: less reliable, so I suggest email or discord.

956
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: We really do reply to every email. People continue to

957
00:46:22,160 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 1: be shocked when we actually replied. We will write back

958
00:46:25,200 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 1: to you with an answer to your question. Try it.

959
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 2: Yep. We love hearing from y'all.

960
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone, have a great day and stay curious.