WEBVTT - From the Book of Sand 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:15.440 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:16.000 is Robert. 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.120 Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, if you're watching 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.160 on video, obviously we are not in our normal places, 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.400 not coming to you from the Gray Matt underworld or 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.360 the other world, I can't remember what we decided to 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.319 call it, the places we usually come from. Today we 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.519 are recording remotely at the studio at Baja Mar because 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.200 they are a sponsor of this episode. 0:00:37.360 --> 0:00:40.720 That's right, we're in the Bahamas. I made a point 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.680 of walking in the sand on the beach before I 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:45.280 came in here today because we are going to be 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:48.159 talking about sand. I kind of like to tie these 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:51.800 kind of things together when there's some travel involved. I'm 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.200 also you can't see it, but I am wearing flip flops. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:57.840 It felt appropriate. It felt like Jimmy Buffett would want 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:00.720 me to wear flip flops for this recording, so I 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:02.319 honor his spirit in doing so. 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:03.800 Stuff on a pop top. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.920 Yet fortunately not and you don't want to engineer that. 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:11.560 That's you know, it ruins the magic of it, of course. Yeah, 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:13.920 So yeah, we're going to talk about sand here today, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:18.360 and I think sand is a great topicause in in general, 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.399 I think a lot of people have certain feelings about it, 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.640 you know, in the imagination, but also very personal opinions 0:01:26.680 --> 0:01:30.080 about sand. I don't know about you, Joe. I enjoy 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.440 the sand. I don't like sand where it's not supposed 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.600 to be. But I like going into a region of sand, 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.200 experiencing the sand. I like the feeling of walking on 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.920 a beach and feeling it, you know, move beneath my toes, 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.440 getting the different consistencies of sand. I like digging in 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.160 the sand. But I also know plenty of people who 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.680 are like an absolute no to beach time because they 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.560 just don't like sand. I mean, Star Wars memes aside, 0:01:57.560 --> 0:01:58.680 They just they just don't like it. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.040 And it goes everywhere I feel about the sand the 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.680 way I feel about sweat, which is I like being 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.799 sweaty when you're supposed to be sweaty, and I hate 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.200 being sweaty when you're not supposed to be sweaty. There 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.280 you go, you know, working up a sweat when you're 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.240 exercising feels great. Working up a sweat when you're like 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.080 getting dressed ready to go out somewhere is like the 0:02:21.120 --> 0:02:24.320 worst feeling. Yeah, and sand. Yeah, it's like when you're 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.280 at the beach, there's nothing better. Actually, I like, literally 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.040 I love the feeling. Most of what I do at 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.680 the beach when I go is just like walk around 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:33.639 and feel the sand. 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:33.919 On my feet. 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:37.440 Yeah that's you know. I'm not a huge swimmer, but 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.520 I do love that. But yeah, getting like sand in 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.040 your shoes or sand in your underwear when you're not 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.120 at the beach, that's not so great. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.880 Yeah, where the bed is one of the reasons I've 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.240 never even much of a sand camper. I've done a 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.600 little of it, but it's not really my cup of tea, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.040 just because I have a harder time maintaining that that 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:01.320 line between the sand world and mine, a non sandy world. 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:04.480 But still I've had some great times camping on the 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:05.120 beach as well. 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.080 You know, I was just thinking about how in Dune 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:12.600 there is so much about the absence and preciousness of water. 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:18.400 But I was struggling to remember, are there equivalent sentiments 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:22.360 the characters express about the abundance or over abundance of sand. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:27.600 Hmmm, well, I'm trying to remember you've been reading Herbert 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:28.560 more recently than I have. 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:32.920 Yeah, though, so now I'm reading Dune Messiah, which I've 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:36.200 actually never read before, So I'm finally getting into the sequels. 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.000 I'm enjoying it, though I'm aware there are diminishing returns 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:41.640 as you continue, but. 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.640 It depends if you open your whole heart to it. 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:47.080 I'm of the opinion there there are gems to be 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.360 found in each of the books, but those the first 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.760 two books are special in my opinion. Well, I I've 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:55.760 enjoyed them all, but but yeah, there's it's it's different 0:03:55.760 --> 0:03:57.080 once you get into the later books. 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.000 The second book, I've noticed so far there is significantly 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:04.280 less ecology in it and it is more politics and conspiracy. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:04.880 Yeah. 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:08.600 Yeah, and it's a dark read in its own right. Yeah, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:10.520 we will be talking a little bit about done as 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:13.360 we proceed here. We'll talk a little bit about some technology, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:18.800 some FRIM and technology from the frimkit. But yeah, this 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.200 is where I guess we get more into the imagination 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:26.240 sphere for sand because it does bring up a lot 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:28.640 of ideas, and so I was thinking, like, what are 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:30.839 some of the core ideas I keep coming back to 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.279 and I keep seeing and in my readings and things 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.640 I'm watching things I'm thinking about. I think one of 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:40.200 the big ones that everyone's probably thinking of is, of course, 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.520 sand as the infinite, you know, uncountable grains of sand 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.880 and deserts that stretch beyond sight or on beaches that 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.719 just you know, vanish into the ocean unseen. I think 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:55.000 of sand through the hour glass. I think of the 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.240 excellent short story The Book of Sand from Hory Lewis 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:04.360 Borges about a tone of infinite random numbered pages. So 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:09.000 anytime you you open the book, you'll find different numbers, 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:11.600 and they might be it might be just a small number, 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:13.640 colossal number. I think at one point it's like a 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.560 number to the ninth power that the reader finds. And 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.839 and then the script itself is written in some language 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.719 that he can't decipher, and sometimes with a crude image, 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.559 but it is infinite, and you'll never find the same 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.159 page twice. And he fears that if he burns the book, 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.680 it will an infinite book will burn infinitely and just 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:37.160 you know, cloak the world and smoke smoke. Yeah, so 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:38.760 you know, I think about stuff like that. 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.400 I read this story last night. Actually, oh you were 0:05:42.400 --> 0:05:43.279 telling me about Yeah. 0:05:43.200 --> 0:05:46.080 It's like three pages long, it's it's it's great. One 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.400 of the things I love about Borhees, He's deep, he's 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:49.239 often very brief. 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.919 One thing I like about that story is that it begins, 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.159 as with so many Borhees stories, with a traveler arriving 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.960 strange traveler who has an artifact to share with you, 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.200 and then the protagonist greatly desires to acquire the artifact, 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.200 and so in this case, yeah, he becomes entranced because 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.560 he finds a page in the book that has a 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:11.719 tiny illustration of an anchor on it, and then he 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.120 like turns the pages and then can't ever find the 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.040 anchor again. But yeah, it describes like trying to get 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.920 to the first page and it's impossible because pages just 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.479 keep multiplying towards the covers. You know, it's gotten an 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:29.200 epigraph to a poem by George Herbert that refers to 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.640 the idea of ropes of sand, you know, a common 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.520 metaphor for something that is like unstable or not substantial. 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.880 But the other metaphor with sand in the story is 0:06:41.000 --> 0:06:43.880 like you're saying the idea of the infinite, that sands 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:46.599 are infinite, and therefore you know they could they could 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.880 just multiply forever, like the pages of this book. The 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.159 funny thing is, of course, grains of sand are not 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.640 actually infinite. Grains of sand are I perfectly finite. That 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:59.120 is a countable thing. It's not practically accountable by human beings, 0:06:59.160 --> 0:07:02.720 but in theory is countable. And in fact, you know, 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:07.799 mathematically speaking, any finite number is infinitely small than infinity. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.000 So the number of grains of sand in the universe 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.560 is infinitely less than an actual infinity. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.520 Yeah, yeah, some of you may be thinking of this. 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:18.640 We're not really going to get into this concept in 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:22.880 this episode, but Archimedes of course famously tried to figure 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:24.840 out what was the upper bound for the number of 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:29.000 sand grains in the universe, So it's you know, he 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:31.560 was of the mind it can be counted, or at 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:33.080 least estimated, Yeah. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.560 Which, you know, and whole like methods of estimation of 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.760 substances like that, I think are a really interesting topic. 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:41.760 We've talked about on the show before. Long ago we 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:46.040 did an episode on fermi estimation, remember that, which is 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:49.800 just like a sort of orders of magnitude based system 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:54.400 for estimating numbers of uncountable things. 0:07:54.960 --> 0:07:55.200 Yeah. 0:07:55.240 --> 0:08:00.320 Absolutely, And you mentioned sand falling through the fingers passing 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.160 through the fingers. The ephemeral nature of things made out 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:05.960 of sand, that is I think another major theme you 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:07.600 see over and over again. Of course, you see it 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:11.640 in things like sand mondolas or sand castles, you know, 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:14.520 where you can create this thing of beauty out of 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.520 the sand, but it will not last, and it's not 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.680 supposed to last, and of course neither do we. Let's 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.200 see other ideas. Sand is a varied substance. Of course, 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:25.560 not all sand is the same. Some of the things 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.640 we call sand, especially when we get off of our planet, 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:30.720 you get into various discussions about is. 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.120 It sand, is it soil? Is it soil? 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.079 Is it really sand? And you kind of go back 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:37.160 and forth, and then sometimes people just call it sand. 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.440 Am I correct in understanding that sand is not a 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.080 name for a substance. It's a name for a size 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.280 of particle. Sand is a grit size, right. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:49.400 But people can get a little particular, like, for instance, 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.840 we're not really going to get into the hourglass here. 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:54.079 We might come back and do a full episode in 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:56.880 the hour glass in the future, but some people will 0:08:56.880 --> 0:08:59.720 point out, well, actually it's not sand in an hour glass, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.560 it's this particular recipe of particles that works well with 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:03.320 an hour glass. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:06.320 And I guess there are things that might fit the 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.200 definition if you just go by grain size, but nobody 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:13.600 would call them sand, like would sugar be sand by 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:15.479 If you just go particles. 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:16.960 You would get you would get weird looks. If you 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:19.200 ask for it's like, give me the sweet sand, the 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.040 sand that goes in my coffee. People would ask, who 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.800 is this space aly? But uh, yeah, I mean the 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:27.640 other thing is, yeah, you have different colors of sand, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.600 different sistencies of sand, Like digging in the beach. I 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.280 know that like sometimes you have that sand it is 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:34.960 like a powder, or when it's compacted it's like a 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.520 it's almost like a clay that you can mold. And 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:41.200 then other times the bits of like shell in the 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.520 sand that it's so like coarse and rough that you 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.360 just like scrape your hands up digging in it, you know, 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:50.800 but you can't stop because it's what you do at 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:55.360 the beach. Likewise, digging in the sand, you quickly often realize, well, 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.960 this is this is a thing, this is a world 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:00.719 that creatures live in as well. You know, you might 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.480 encounter things like periwinkles or sand hoppers. Sand fleas whatever 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:06.559 you want to call them, or of course the mighty 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:09.280 sand crabs darting in and out of their little layers, 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.440 and then yeah, and then just back to sand castles 0:10:12.440 --> 0:10:17.000 as well. It's kind of like a very early experiment 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.760 with the idea of what large scale things can I 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.560 make out of the smallest visible pieces, you know, so 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:26.240 you're not really you know, I'm dealing with things in 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.200 an atomic level obviously, but especially as a child, like 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.760 the sand seems like the boundary of smallness, and it's like, 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.160 you bring these together, you make a clump, you make 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:40.240 a ball that becomes a tower. Towers are bridged together, 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.680 becomes a castle, and yeah, I think there's there's something 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.360 insightful there, Like we begin to sort of gaze into 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:50.040 these mysteries of sand at an early age. All right, 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.760 So for the majority of the section I'm taking in 0:10:53.800 --> 0:10:56.720 this episode, I wanted to talk about a couple of 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:02.040 ideas from science fiction concerning sand. And these are little 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:05.400 ideas that are in neither in either neither case or 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.640 they particularly key to the work. You could take them 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:09.880 out of each work and it would it would be fine. 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.080 But they've always stuck in my mind because they were 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:14.800 neat uses of sand, and so I'm kind of using 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.680 those as a place to jump off to briefly talk 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.760 about some other mostly space related topics, but also some 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.280 kind of like military world and infrastructure type topics. 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:28.119 So the first before. 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:29.480 I get to Doon, the one I want to mention 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.120 is a nineteen eighty four novel that fewer people have read, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:34.440 but it still has quite a following. 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:35.240 It's called Armor. 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.800 It's by an author by the name of John Stakley 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.360 st A. K. L. E. Y. If you're looking him up. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.760 This is the same guy who wrote Vampires with a 0:11:46.880 --> 0:11:51.280 Dollar Sign, which John Carpenter. Well, John Carpenter directed the 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:56.480 adaptation of it. As we've discussed before, probably not at 0:11:56.600 --> 0:11:58.960 anybody like the top of anybody's Carpenter list. 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:00.640 Still has some great moments in it. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:02.679 Uh, they're seeing the whole thing. 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:03.520 Actual, Oh you haven't. 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:05.719 I was not able to finish it at the time 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.400 I tried to watch it. I can't remember a huge 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.040 Carpenter fan, but I just didn't love this one. 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.880 It it has its moments, but the book, the book 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.880 was better in my memory. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:16.440 Arm the Dollar Sign. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.800 The dollar Sign was cool. Uh is it about money? 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:21.800 Yeah? 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:24.280 You know, the business of slaying vampires. I'm a little 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:26.360 foggy on that. The main thing that I that sticks 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.160 with me out of that book is just how scary 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.440 the vampires were, Like, they were just scary and nasty 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.560 in a way that they touched on a little bit 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.920 in the movie. But they're just really awful. You just 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.360 hate vampires in this book. Armor, however, is more in 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.680 keeping with like your Starship Troopers sort of world where 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:49.520 it's humans in power armor, like crazy powerful power armor, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.640 and they're battling insect aliens on the surface of a 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:59.600 distant desert world called Bansheet. And there are a lot 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.880 of interests twist and turns in this, and the writing's 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.880 really bombastic, and you know, you really feel the action. 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.480 But at one point, the human faction here with their 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:12.720 power armored soldiers, they use a large high tech, you know, 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:19.720 sci fi machine and a sand clotter called a Siliconite eighteen, 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:23.360 and they use this this combination to suck sand in 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:25.800 through the front of this machine and then it like 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:30.960 leaves behind it essentially prints a trail of five meter tall, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:35.800 perfectly smooth stone wall to fortify their makeshift base out 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:36.880 on this desert world. 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.800 Okay, so it sucks in sand and it adheres it 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.119 into a solid substance. 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:42.520 Yeah. 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:47.080 Yeah, it creates like a solid sand brick wall, which 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:48.840 I always thought was pretty cool. And I'm kind of 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.160 surprised I haven't seen that used in media elsewhere, in 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:54.240 video games or something. 0:13:54.280 --> 0:13:56.079 Maybe it is, but. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.719 This is this is really interesting because yes, we're talking 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:04.040 about sci fi far future warfare here, but of course 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.320 humans have been doing this in the real world for 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.319 quite a while, often in the form of sandbags. 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:15.599 Yeah, funny story. So this podcast started a lot of 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:18.720 people who listen probably don't even know this. This podcast 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:23.040 started originally when we were writers and editors for the 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:27.160 website HowStuffWorks dot com many many years ago, which was 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:31.840 like a encyclopedic informational website that had articles like, you know, 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.280 how a car engine works and stuff. So I was 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:37.760 hired on you were a writer at that website when 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:40.240 I joined as an editor and I don't know what 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:41.360 in twenty ten. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.720 Or something, and then be four times. 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.120 Yeah, that long long ago, and one of the first 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:52.440 articles I edited for the website was how sand bags work. Now, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:54.640 you wouldn't think that there's that much to say about 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.760 how a sandbag works, But I remember it being a 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.680 surprisingly rich and interesting topic. But all the things sandbags 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.080 can do and in fact to do better than other 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.359 more high tech solutions exactly. 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:08.760 Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. Like I grew up in a 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.200 household my dad was always into a lot of like 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.200 World War II stuff and did models of tanks, and 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.840 so I was familiar with pictures of tanks, and in 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:18.920 reading about sandbags here, I had to go back and 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.680 remind myself, Oh, yeah, they would off. You see all 0:15:21.720 --> 0:15:25.240 these images of World War two tanks with sandbags layered 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.160 on top of the metal armor of the tank to 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:33.800 add like additional in the field protection against ballistics. So 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:35.640 I was reading a bit more about this out like 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:39.520 why are sandbags good for this twenty sixteen study from 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:43.040 chin at all from the National University of Singapore, and 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.920 this was published by ASM International, and they conducted a 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:49.800 study and in the study pointed out that, yeah, of 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:52.520 course sand has been used in fortifications for a long time, 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:55.800 and we've known that it's great at absorbing energy. But 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:57.920 they looked into it a little bit more and they 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:01.640 found that sand can absorb more than eighty five percent 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:05.560 of the energy exerted against it, and its resistance actually 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.359 increases with the speed of the projectile, even at high velocities. 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.800 So they experimented by firing various projectiles at silica sand blocks, 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.600 and one of the really interesting things they point out 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.960 is that when a projectile hits a block of compacted sand, 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.440 such as I believe like in a compacted military sand 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:29.000 bag or a hesco bastion, which is a collapsible wire 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:32.600 mesh container that then gets filled up with sand or 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:37.200 soil or gravel. But the extreme frictional force of the 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.479 sand particles against the projectile passing through it can potentially 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:46.160 break that projectile into pieces. So think to your childhood, 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.560 perhaps if you were a beach going child digging in 0:16:49.600 --> 0:16:53.400 the sand and eventually feeling your hands becoming raw from 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.400 all those sand particles, you know, because it's sand. Now, 0:16:56.480 --> 0:17:00.720 imagine a projectile passing through compacted sand and high speed 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:05.040 and the friction of that. It's pretty fascinating like that 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.520 this could essentially destroy the projectile as it passes through. 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:10.679 Meanwhile, the same. 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.760 Projectile, if it is powerful enough to pass through a 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:17.880 metal barrier, it will just pass through and can continue 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.960 to you know, decimate somebody or something on the other side. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.399 So one of the things they end up arguing in 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.320 this paper is like we should be looking at more 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:31.359 ways to use sand, either in place of substances like 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:35.199 steel or figuring out how the best layer them with 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:39.199 steel or other materials. Like I guess it's it's just 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:41.600 fascinating to think. You know, we think about the armor 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.800 of the future. We think about things like power armor 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.040 and suits and steel and plate. Powerful plates are energy, yeah, 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.560 or plastic plastic steel, you know, some sort of crazy 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.359 plastic that's as strong as steel. But at the end 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:57.080 of the day, there's a strong case to be made 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.280 like that we should not forget sand, because sand again 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.560 is just an amazing you know, absorbent substance for these 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:07.320 sorts of projectiles and the sorts of this sort of energy. 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.600 Well, I know you were already talking about this. I 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:12.880 think maybe this came up when we were talking last night, 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.120 But you know, I recall seeing plenty of examples through 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.440 you know, world history, military history of like metal, plate, 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:24.000 armor and sand used in combination, like one one against 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:24.360 the other. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.000 Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, certainly you see a 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.520 lot of like makeshift you can pack up the sand 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.160 bags and you create a little wall. And then there's 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.160 the example of the tanks. But I don't know, there's 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.399 something about like I don't recall ever really putting it 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:38.440 together too much that oh yeah, I'm looking at sandbags 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.800 on those tanks. You know, it's one of those things 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.879 that's so mundane. You know, you see sand bags a lot, 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:49.600 you can kind of become blind to what's going on. 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.280 There, to the beauty of the sand bag. 0:18:52.480 --> 0:19:05.399 Yeah yeah, all right, Now, moving from the sandbag back 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:10.000 into the science fiction future, let's come at last to done. Okay, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.880 Frank Herbert's nineteen sixty five novel, and then the same 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:14.840 technology does come up a little bit at least in 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.120 one of the other books, but it does make it. 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:19.240 It does hit in the first one as well. So 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.760 the Friemen make use of a sand compactor as part 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.000 of the standard frim kit. You know, the frimekit is 0:19:25.040 --> 0:19:27.360 the thing, like you know, it's hidden away for Paul 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:29.240 and his mother, and you know, then they have to 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.000 use it on their own surviving out in the sands 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:32.719 of Aracus. 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:35.680 So that's also going to have still suit yep, still suit. 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:37.920 It goes on your body, it protects you it keeps 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.480 you from losing moisture to the environment. Does it have 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:45.000 a thumper the thumper, yeah, around kit it either is 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.160 it either a tract or it distracts the worm? Yeah? 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:48.760 Yeah, both. 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:51.480 Yeah, there's a yeah, depending on how you're using it. 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:53.960 There's the tent, I believe, and then there are probably 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.080 some things that aren't mentioned. There's probably I'm thinking there's 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:57.480 a mint in there, maybe a piece of gum. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:58.320 I don't know why not. 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.880 But the sand compact, Yeah, you want a little moisturizer, 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.720 you know, maybe a nice note. Oh there was a note, 0:20:06.760 --> 0:20:10.040 but I don't know how nice it was. It's like, hey, sorry, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:15.160 but I had to do this. But yeah, the sand 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:18.080 compactor is probably one of the weirder ones. And I 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.480 remember like thinking it was really cool when I first 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:24.359 read Dune, because it is described as a sand compaction 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.359 tool that realigns sand grains and allows you allows you 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:32.240 to effortlessly burrow out of a sand buried tint, and 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.400 presumably has other purposes. I think it's used slightly differently 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.280 in a later book, but I'm assuming you could also 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.480 use it to maybe blast the sand off of your feet, 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.879 And it seemingly involves binding sand grains together with an 0:20:44.920 --> 0:20:46.280 electromagnetic charge. 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:48.480