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Speaker 1: H three rings for Elvin King's Under the Sky, seven

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Speaker 1: for the dwarf lords in their halls of Stone, nine

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Speaker 1: for mortal men doomed to die, and one for the

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Speaker 1: Dark Lord on his dark throne in the Land of Mordor,

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Speaker 1: where the shadows lie. One ring to rule them all,

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Speaker 1: wondering to find them, one ring to bring them all,

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Speaker 1: and in the darkness bind them in the Land of Mordor,

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Speaker 1: where the Shadows lie. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and nerd Alert. We're

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Speaker 1: doing a Tolkien episode today. That's right, of course. The

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Speaker 1: cold open there was from J. R. Tolkien's The Lord

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Speaker 1: of the Rings, which was written in stages between ninety

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Speaker 1: seven and nineteen forty nine. I imagine everyone listening to

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Speaker 1: this is familiar with the Lord of the Rings. Uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: pretty much. I mean we we'll try to make it

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Speaker 1: fun even if you're not. But yeah, Robert, you got

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Speaker 1: bit by the Lord of the Rings bug this week apparently,

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Speaker 1: and you wanted to talk about the One Ring of Power.

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Speaker 1: See if there's any way we could give it the

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Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind treatment. Yeah, yeah, I've been

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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about Tolkien recently, I mean until obviously.

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Speaker 1: You know, I read Tolkien when I was younger. I

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Speaker 1: watched the movies when they came out, I watched the

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Speaker 1: animated films when when they were around, and uh, and

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Speaker 1: then I kind of took a break, and then I

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Speaker 1: came back and read The Hobbit to my son. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: I hope to read The Lord of the Rings to him.

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Speaker 1: Uh wait, when did the classic quote? You were reading

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Speaker 1: it to him at some point, weren't you when he said,

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Speaker 1: is it the Lord of the Rings yet? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he kind of got a little bored with the opening,

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Speaker 1: but at this point, like he's, yeah, he's super into

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Speaker 1: Harry Potter. I think he's pretty much ready for the

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Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. But you know, the Hobbit is

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Speaker 1: better for younger readers as well. But it got me

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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about the Ring. Uh. And it's it's nature,

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Speaker 1: it's powers, and and also it is the task of

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Speaker 1: applying real world science to the One Ring and seeing

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Speaker 1: what we could potentially figure out. It'll have to be

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Speaker 1: a little bit of loosey goosey real world science. But

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Speaker 1: we'll do our best because obviously the one ring, the

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Speaker 1: Ring of Power, is an object of intense magical power

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Speaker 1: in the books, created by an intensely magical being in

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Speaker 1: an intensely magical fantasy world. And so our intent here

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Speaker 1: is not to you know, to cheapen all of that

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Speaker 1: or anything, or to or to myth busted or anything

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Speaker 1: like that, but you know, just to engage in the

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Speaker 1: fun exercise of saying, okay, okay, if if we had

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Speaker 1: to make this work with science, what would the ring

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Speaker 1: be made out of? What are the the you know,

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Speaker 1: what are the constraints involved that sort of thing. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings has

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Speaker 1: got to be one of the like ultimate ex examples

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Speaker 1: of a fantasy mcguffin. You know, an object that that

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Speaker 1: a plot can be built around that. There are a

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Speaker 1: lot of these story you end up with, like you know,

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Speaker 1: Wore Cruxes and Harry Potter and uh, there's very often

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Speaker 1: it's just convenient from a storytelling perspective to have a

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Speaker 1: magical object that must be uh, that must be managed,

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Speaker 1: and the logistics of which become the struggle for the

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Speaker 1: characters in the story. But the ring I think also

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Speaker 1: represents more than that. It's an interesting object in itself

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Speaker 1: because of its properties that to some people who own

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Speaker 1: it or where it, it confers these powers. And we

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Speaker 1: can discuss what the powers are alluded to be in

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Speaker 1: the story, uh in a minute. But also it has

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Speaker 1: this corrupting influence. So it actually I think does have

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Speaker 1: a kind of thematic commentary on the way that like

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Speaker 1: possessing great power has the tendency to corrupt people's motives

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Speaker 1: and way of seeing the world. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean

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Speaker 1: even even today, like certainly throughout human history, we can

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Speaker 1: look to the like the symbolic power of the um

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Speaker 1: like rings are used to to signify, you know, bonds

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Speaker 1: that have been made, social bonds, marriages, uh. They they

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Speaker 1: have long symbolized power or or wealth. The seal ring

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Speaker 1: that might be used as a stamp in wax to

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Speaker 1: show you the sigil of your authority. Right now, of course,

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Speaker 1: there's the super Bowl ring, right which and I mean

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Speaker 1: really it is as silly as the super Bowl ring

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Speaker 1: may be, it is it is you know, it is

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Speaker 1: drawing from this lineage of the ring as the symbol

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Speaker 1: of of power and accomplishment. And so yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: all that's wrapped up in the myth of the Ring

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Speaker 1: as well, you know, not even to get into some

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Speaker 1: of the various things that Tolkien was drawing on, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Ring cycle of etcetera. Another token note I want

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Speaker 1: to make is I do want to drive home. Even

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Speaker 1: though Joe and I are both uh, you know, quite

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Speaker 1: familiar with token, neither of us are like Tolken experts.

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Speaker 1: Please don't come swinging your sword at us because we

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Speaker 1: left out some Tolkien d right, I mean it's happened before. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and likewise we may not hit all the Tolkien

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Speaker 1: pronunciations in this. Uh, I can't wait, But but we're

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Speaker 1: gonna give it a shot. So first of all, let

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Speaker 1: me just run through the history of the One Ring

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Speaker 1: for everyone, okay, so that we can you know, fully

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. Here. So you're going beyond the Lord of

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Speaker 1: the Rings. You're going into the like the deep lore. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh and I cobbled this together from from from

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Speaker 1: rereading some segments of Tolkien's original work, but also from

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Speaker 1: rereading of segments from the Tolkien Encyclopedia, which is an

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Speaker 1: excellent book that came out I believe in like the

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Speaker 1: the nineties, I still have a copy of wonderful illustrations

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Speaker 1: throughout uh and uh So, anyway, without further ado, let

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Speaker 1: me tell you about the One Ring. So, the One

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Speaker 1: Ring was forged in the year sixteen hundred of the

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Speaker 1: second Age of the Sun by Sauron, forged within the

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Speaker 1: active volcano Mount Doom in the land of World War

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Speaker 1: So Saron was a former Maya spirit who served the

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Speaker 1: dark Lord Melkorp, who was defeated at the end of

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Speaker 1: the First Age of the Sun. And so then Saron,

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Speaker 1: in the guise of an atter, the giver of gifts,

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Speaker 1: he seduces the Alvin Smith's into forging the rings of power.

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Speaker 1: Uh these are the rings that from our opening reading

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Speaker 1: three rings for the Elvin King, seven for the dwarves,

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Speaker 1: nine for men, and you know, so that these may

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Speaker 1: be distributed among you know, the various intelligent species of

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Speaker 1: of the of the of the world. But then he

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Speaker 1: goes and he forges the one ring himself, the ring

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Speaker 1: that's going to control all of these rings, and and

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Speaker 1: also crackles with other powers will discuss. So it's a trick,

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Speaker 1: it's a trap. He's this godlike being who wants to

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Speaker 1: control the people's of Middle Earth, the elves, the dwarves,

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Speaker 1: the humans, and so he gives them these things that

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Speaker 1: are ostensibly like weapons or or sort of magical items

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Speaker 1: of power that allow them to increase their power and

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Speaker 1: dominance over the world. And once all, once all of

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Speaker 1: those people put the rings on and assume the power

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Speaker 1: for themselves, then he unlocks the trapdoor in the back

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Speaker 1: of the code, which is that he's got wondering that

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Speaker 1: gives him power over all the other people who are

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Speaker 1: wearing them exactly. Yeah, And and he take ends up

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Speaker 1: sort of taking various guys is the idea into different

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Speaker 1: forms throughout his history, you know, from the end the deceiver,

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Speaker 1: to the trickster, to the to the war lord, to

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Speaker 1: the seeker. So his fair form is destroyed in the

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Speaker 1: Fall of New Maniore and he arises again as this

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Speaker 1: dark lord in black armor. This is the one that

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Speaker 1: anyone who's even just set down to watch The Lord

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Speaker 1: of the Rings films probably remembers from the prologue. So

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Speaker 1: even if you only made it ten minutes in, you

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Speaker 1: saw this part. He saw the dark Lord in his armor.

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Speaker 1: But this too, this form too was destroyed at the

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Speaker 1: end of the Second Age of the Sun, and the

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Speaker 1: Ring was lost. But Saron did not perish because the

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Speaker 1: One Ring still existed, and his fate is bound to it. Um.

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Speaker 1: Even if you're more familiar with Harry Potter than Lord

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Speaker 1: of the Rings, you can think of the One Ring

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Speaker 1: is like is the horcrux, the single horcrux for Soron,

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Speaker 1: I suppose so in his in his reincarnated form, without

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Speaker 1: a body, he depends on this ring, or else he

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Speaker 1: cannot survive. Right. And so in the year one thousand

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Speaker 1: of the Third Age of the Sun, he rises again

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Speaker 1: as the Great Littless Eye Uh, seeking the Ring, waging

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Speaker 1: the War of the Ring. But his adversaries have found

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Speaker 1: it first, and they've hatched a plan to destroy it

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Speaker 1: by the only known means, casting it back into the

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Speaker 1: volcanic fires from which it was forged. Okay, so there

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Speaker 1: you've got the setting of the Lord of the Rings.

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Speaker 1: So you've got to take this ring back into enemy

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Speaker 1: territory to throw it into a volcano, which is the

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Speaker 1: only way it can be destroyed, the only way to

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Speaker 1: destroy this great enemy, God's sorcerer thing. Um. Now we

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Speaker 1: there are scenes in the movies, and I'm trying to

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Speaker 1: recall there in the book too. I mean we're like,

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Speaker 1: for example, Gimli the Dwarf played by John Ree Davies

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Speaker 1: and the Peter Jackson movies. Uh that you know, they're

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Speaker 1: getting the speech about how the Ring must be destroyed

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Speaker 1: in order to defeat Sauron. So he just whips out

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Speaker 1: his axe and he's like, all right, let's bust it.

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Speaker 1: And so he just swings his ax at the at

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Speaker 1: the ring. But it doesn't work right. He instead, I

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Speaker 1: think his ax breaks on it when he tries to

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Speaker 1: cleave the ring with it. So the ring is uh

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Speaker 1: portrayed as something that is completely indestructible except in the

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Speaker 1: fires of the volcano where it was forged. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: a there's a great passage in the Fellowship of the

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Speaker 1: Ring where Gandolf explains all this to Frodo after it's

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Speaker 1: been cast into the fireplace once and Frodo has has

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Speaker 1: tried to will himself to throw it once more into

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Speaker 1: the deepest part of the fire, but cannot, and so

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Speaker 1: Gandalf says the following, But as for breaking the ring,

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Speaker 1: force is useless, even if you took it and struck

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Speaker 1: it with a heavy sledge hammer. It would make no

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Speaker 1: dnt in it. It cannot be unmade by your hands

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Speaker 1: or by mine. Your small fire, of course, would not

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Speaker 1: melt even ordinary gold. This ring has already passed through

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Speaker 1: it unscathed and even unheeded. But there is no smith's

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Speaker 1: forge in this shire that could change it at all.

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Speaker 1: Not even the anvils and furnaces of the dwarves could

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Speaker 1: do that. It has been said that dragon fire could

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Speaker 1: melt and consume the rings of Power, but there is

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Speaker 1: not now any dragon left on Earth in which the

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Speaker 1: old fire is hot enough, Nor was there ever any dragon,

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Speaker 1: not even on Kalaghan the Black, who could have harmed

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Speaker 1: the one ring, the ruling Ring, for that was made

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Speaker 1: by Saron himself. There is only one way to find

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Speaker 1: the cracks of Doom in the depths of Oro Dron

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Speaker 1: the Fire Mountain, and cast the ring in there, if

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Speaker 1: you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond

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Speaker 1: the grasp of the enemy forever. Thus spoke Gandalf, and

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Speaker 1: off knew what he was talking about. By the way,

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Speaker 1: I've always thought Syrian McKellen made a great Gandalf, But

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Speaker 1: I do have a strong attachment to John Houston's Gandolf

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy seven animated version in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighties Return of the King. Um, so that you know

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Speaker 1: that that was the token of of my childhood, and

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Speaker 1: so so I was trying to summon a little John

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Speaker 1: Houston flavor there my limited ability to do so, the

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Speaker 1: ones that make saw Rouman in the Santa Claus like

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Speaker 1: his red robes. Um. You know, I I haven't rewatched

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Speaker 1: the Return of the King in a while, but but

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Speaker 1: I have rewatched the Hobbit at that it held up

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Speaker 1: pretty well. You know. Oh, I totally agree that Ian

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Speaker 1: mckelen is a great Gandalf. In fact, I would say

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Speaker 1: that even if you don't like the movies for any

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Speaker 1: other reason, the Peter Jackson films are great just for

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Speaker 1: Ian McKellen's performance. Oh yeah, And I mean Christopher Lee.

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Speaker 1: It's it's got a wonderful oh Christopher Lee. Of course

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Speaker 1: that goes without saying. Uh So another note on the ring,

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Speaker 1: just real quick. Not that it's very important to what

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Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about from to the episode,

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Speaker 1: but what happens when you wear the ring? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was actually trying to figure this out, even though

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Speaker 1: I know the story. I was last night, I was googling, like,

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Speaker 1: what does the Ring actually do you know, other than

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Speaker 1: we know it confers this kind of vague power, But

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Speaker 1: it actually does have some specified powers in the mythology.

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Speaker 1: I mean the big one of course, and this is

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Speaker 1: the one that comes up in the Hobbit as well,

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Speaker 1: is that when you put it on, you become invisible

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Speaker 1: to most creatures, though at the same time you become

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Speaker 1: highly visible to certain other beings, namely the Ring wraiths,

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Speaker 1: um and uh and saw On himself. But it's like

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Speaker 1: allows you to sort of shift into another plane of

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Speaker 1: existence and then doing so, become invisible. But I think

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Speaker 1: that's only for some creatures who wear it, right, Um,

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Speaker 1: I mean the making them invisible? Right, Yeah, I mean

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Speaker 1: it's I don't think it's it's implied that when saw

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Speaker 1: On himself wears that he is invisible. But then again,

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Speaker 1: it's a different matter when you know the dark Lord

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Speaker 1: himself wears the Ring as opposed to win a mortal

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Speaker 1: wears the Ring. Oh, and I guess another thing to

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Speaker 1: specifies that the Wonder Ring, the powers of the Wondering

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Speaker 1: maybe greater or different uh than the powers of the

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Speaker 1: other rings that were given off to the to the

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Speaker 1: kings of the Mortals and the elves. Yes, yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is the it is the great ring. It is the

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Speaker 1: one that the Master himself forged. Um. And you know,

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Speaker 1: one note again about the sort of the origins of

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Speaker 1: sro On is that in his like previous life, you know,

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Speaker 1: as like an unfallen entity, as one of these Maya spirits,

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Speaker 1: he originally served the the ann or forge god a

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Speaker 1: Uli if I'm saying that right, who is you know,

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Speaker 1: a god of the forge like a Festus. So you

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Speaker 1: know he would have had, you know, presumably had access

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Speaker 1: to all knowledge of metallurgy and uh and metal making

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Speaker 1: and crafting in general. Yeah, well, maybe we should take

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Speaker 1: a break and then when we come back we can

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Speaker 1: explore some questions about what the Ring of Power could

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Speaker 1: possibly be made of. All right, we're back, so you

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Speaker 1: know we're gonna again. We're gonna cherry pick a little

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Speaker 1: bit here. This is not going to be, you know,

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Speaker 1: a perfect dissection of everything. I don't think Tolkien was

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Speaker 1: going for hard sci fi and wanted him to, you know,

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Speaker 1: I mean, oh my god, wait, no, that's a brilliant idea.

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Speaker 1: So we've had various rewrites of Lord of the Rings. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, there is the rewrite of the story that

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Speaker 1: tells it from more Door's perspective that casts like Gandalf

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Speaker 1: and the Elves as as the villains and says, actually,

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Speaker 1: more Door is just a you know, it's just a

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Speaker 1: region of people who are trying to develop industrial technology

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Speaker 1: and they're being oppressed by these you know, ancient kingdoms

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Speaker 1: of magic users and they're fighting back. So that that's

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Speaker 1: like that, which is a wonderful treatment idea. I haven't

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Speaker 1: read it, but it's a wonderful idea because you see

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Speaker 1: that in plenty of like in plenty of myths and

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Speaker 1: and stories of old where he's got one side is

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Speaker 1: is cast as the heroes, the other side as the

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Speaker 1: demonic other, and the reality is is, you know, is

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Speaker 1: something different than that. There's something more balanced probably yeah,

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Speaker 1: uh so, so yeah, there's like that take. But here's

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Speaker 1: the take I want now, like the Arthur C. Clark

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Speaker 1: version of Whatever to the Rings that tries to tell

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Speaker 1: the same story but just imagines everything is like totally

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Speaker 1: mundane physics and chemistry and and how all that has achieved.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, well let's get into I guess some

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Speaker 1: of the chemistry here. Um, So let's just start by

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Speaker 1: talking about things you could throw a ring into in

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Speaker 1: an attempt to melt it. Okay, So, so to refresh again,

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Speaker 1: you've got this ring of power. You need to destroy

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Speaker 1: it to defeat the bad guy. But you can't just

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Speaker 1: throw it in a regular fire. The heroes can't do

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Speaker 1: anything about it except take it back to the volcano

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Speaker 1: where it was made. That's the only thing that will

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Speaker 1: destroy it. In terms of fire sources, Gandal says, fireplace

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Speaker 1: isn't gonna cut it, dwarf and furnace isn't gonna cut it.

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Speaker 1: Only the volcano can can cut it. So let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the temperatures involved here. So, Uh, first of all,

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Speaker 1: let's take the Hobbits fireplace. If you look for a

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Speaker 1: you know, you look at a maximum open wood fireplace temperature. Um.

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Speaker 1: I was looking around for sources on this. I found

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Speaker 1: a few different different ones that that more or less matchup.

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Speaker 1: Hearth dot com, which indeed is a place for people

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Speaker 1: who are just into fireplaces to talk about fireplaces. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They have like a message board. It definitely it's a

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Speaker 1: full message board, but it lists it lists an average

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Speaker 1: fireplaces being somewhere between uh one thousand, two hundred degrees

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Speaker 1: to dred degrees fahrenheit. I've also seen it as high

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Speaker 1: as sixteen hundred um again for the hottest part of

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Speaker 1: the fire, where Frodo never actually throws it because the

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Speaker 1: will of the Ring prevents it. Uh And as far

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Speaker 1: as Celsius, we'd be talking a range of roughly what's

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Speaker 1: six degrees And to clarify there, I guess this doesn't

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Speaker 1: really matter for the episode. But that's another thing about

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Speaker 1: the Ring is that the wing, the Ring sort of

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Speaker 1: has a will of its own, and so it even

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Speaker 1: when a character wants to destroy it, the Ring sort

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Speaker 1: of messes with their mind and and says, maybe you

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Speaker 1: shouldn't destroy it. So it's implied here that maybe Frodo

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Speaker 1: was trying to destroy it, but he hedged a bit

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Speaker 1: threw it into the cooler part of the fire. Is

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Speaker 1: that what you're saying, Um, I'm not sure about that,

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Speaker 1: Like the first time it goes into the fire. Yeah, perhaps,

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Speaker 1: though I mean really probably, because that's how the Ring works,

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Speaker 1: and that's how it works its will. Okay, So the

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Speaker 1: Hobbits fireplace, we'll come back to those. Uh that actual temperature. Again,

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Speaker 1: the Hobbits fireplaces get hotter than than other fireplaces, or

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Speaker 1: not as hot. I know, I would assume they're just

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Speaker 1: as hot as any fireplace. It's standard, you know, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's an open fireplace. Okay, now let's sit. You

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Speaker 1: know the dwarves they're really into working metal, right, Yes,

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Speaker 1: so dwarves are known for their metal work. So this

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Speaker 1: makes us wonder what is the maximum temperature of a furnace.

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Speaker 1: But specifically we should think about a medieval furnace, right,

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Speaker 1: because essentially the fantasy world of the Lord of the

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Speaker 1: Rings is as a medieval world. They're not in some

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Speaker 1: like steel foundry of today. Right. So a typical blast

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Speaker 1: furnace today that's going to reach temperatures of up to

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Speaker 1: three thousand degrees fahrenheit or uh one thousand, six hundred

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Speaker 1: and fifty degrees celsius. But during the Middle Ages, smelting

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Speaker 1: temps in Europe were not quite that high. So I

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Speaker 1: was looking around for a source on this, and I

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Speaker 1: ran across a website called our lima dot net. And

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Speaker 1: this is by Bert Hall from the Institute of for

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Speaker 1: the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the

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Speaker 1: University of Toronto, and he says the following quote. The

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Speaker 1: temperature inside the furnace is a critical variable. Most early

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Speaker 1: smelters in Europe could reach average temperatures of about seven

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Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius and uh that would be uh one thousand,

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Speaker 1: two d degrees fahrenheit. And he continues, Now, pure iron

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Speaker 1: has a very high melting point, about one thousand thirty

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Speaker 1: degrees celsius, and that would be two thousand, seven eighty

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Speaker 1: six degrees fahrenheit. So when the newly formed mass of

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Speaker 1: iron coalesces at seven hundred degrees, it remains a red hot,

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Speaker 1: slightly plastic solid called a bloom. The smith can hammer

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Speaker 1: on this hot mass to shape it and to make

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Speaker 1: it it's extrude lumps of impurities that it might otherwise

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Speaker 1: congeal around. So that would give us a basic temperature

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Speaker 1: to work with here, seven hundred degrees celsius or one

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Speaker 1: thogrees fahrenheit. Okay, So one thing that points out, which

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Speaker 1: might be relevant to what we're talking about here, is

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Speaker 1: you don't have to fully reach the melting point of

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Speaker 1: a metal in order to do something to it right.

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Speaker 1: You can you can work with metal that's not fully liquefied,

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Speaker 1: you can just get it up to a temperature where

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Speaker 1: its strength is reduced, and you can deform it to

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Speaker 1: hammer the cuss out of it. Once it's soft, don't

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Speaker 1: have to like reduce it into a liquid that you

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Speaker 1: pour into a mold or something. Um So and and

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Speaker 1: but one of the things that Gandalf mentions two is

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Speaker 1: you can't just beat this thing with a hammer and

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Speaker 1: expect to destroy it either. So my read on this

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Speaker 1: to sort of you know, uh, you know, underpin what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here is if we think of the ring,

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Speaker 1: think of it like a like a mythical magical creature

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Speaker 1: like a vampire or something where you can't just shoot it.

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Speaker 1: You have to beheaded or completely immolated like there must

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Speaker 1: you must reach a threshhold of absolute destruction to keep

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Speaker 1: it from you know, healing itself or or whatnot. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So maybe the idea is if you slightly deformed the ring,

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Speaker 1: it would kind of bounce back, because again, the ring

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Speaker 1: has a will of its own. Yeah, that's my imperfect

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Speaker 1: read on this, because some people might say, well, technically

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Speaker 1: Gandalf says, the ring doesn't even get hot in the fire. Okay, fine,

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Speaker 1: Oh I was also trying to look for things about that,

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Speaker 1: about like metals that don't get hot when heat. I

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Speaker 1: guess that would be poor thermal conductors. Uh, there are

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Speaker 1: some like like bismuth is a metal that is a

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Speaker 1: poor thermal conductor. I don't mean to suggest that the

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Speaker 1: Tolken had in mind that the ring was made out

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Speaker 1: of bismuth. Of course, bismuth has as a much lower

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Speaker 1: melting point, so that easily melted in a furnace. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm going to stick to my interpretation that

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Speaker 1: to destroy the ring of power, you would have to

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Speaker 1: destroy it absolutely. You would have to just completely either

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Speaker 1: shatter it into uh, into dust or even better and

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Speaker 1: more easily done in a in a world like this

401
00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 1: melted into nothing. But as we've discussed already, a fireplace

402
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Speaker 1: isn't gonna do it, and a dwarf and furnace isn't

403
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Speaker 1: gonna be able to do it either, assuming that it's

404
00:21:40,400 --> 00:21:43,480
Speaker 1: you know, more or less a parallel to medieval smelting technology.

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Speaker 1: All right, so apparently you've got to use volcano. But

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Speaker 1: that makes me wonder how hot the volcanoes get. Do

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Speaker 1: they actually get hotter than furnaces? Yes? Uh, they do.

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00:21:52,119 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: So I was looking into this. Um. You know, so

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Speaker 1: Mount Doom is a volcano. We have volcanoes, so uh,

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Speaker 1: luckily we can we and definitely, you know, we can

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Speaker 1: definitely look to that like that. The volcano isn't going

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Speaker 1: to change. You can't say, oh, it's a dwarf in volcano.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it would have been different now it's a volcano.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about the temperature of magma. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: there are a few different types of magma to consider. So,

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Speaker 1: for instance, there's a basaltic magma which is high and iron,

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Speaker 1: magnesium and calcium, but low and potassium and sodium. And

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Speaker 1: it ranges in temperature from about a thousand celsius to

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Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred celsius. And that's a between uh

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Speaker 1: one thousand, eight hundred and thirty two degrees fahrenheit and

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Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred and ninety two degrees fahrenheit UM

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Speaker 1: and uh. And as a specific example of this, fountaining

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Speaker 1: magma from Coupe Bay Anaha um uh it's a volcano

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Speaker 1: in Hawaii. UH. And this is uh basalts magma here. Uh.

425
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: The magma in the lake there has been recorded to

426
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:53,160
Speaker 1: reach temperatures of one thousand, one hundred fifty three degree

427
00:22:53,240 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 1: celsius or two thousand, one hundred seven point four degrees fahrenheit,

428
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: and that was on January nineteenth, nineteen ninety uh. This,

429
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:04,160
Speaker 1: according to Pinkerton, at all a hot ear for lava, right,

430
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: and this is thought to be a reasonable reflection of

431
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 1: the internal lava temperature. One thing to keep in mind

432
00:23:10,440 --> 00:23:13,399
Speaker 1: is that the lava, the lava at the surface, is

433
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,080
Speaker 1: going to cool off very quickly when it contacts the air,

434
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: dropping hundreds of degrees in a second. This pointed out

435
00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: in the next one article in The New York Times

436
00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 1: by c Clayborne Ray titled how hot can lava gate?

437
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 1: So I reckon question, Yeah, I recommend that for anyone

438
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:30,359
Speaker 1: wants a deeper dive. But now there are a few

439
00:23:30,400 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: other different types of magma as well, but I'm just

440
00:23:32,720 --> 00:23:35,399
Speaker 1: gonna skip over those because we've already touched on the

441
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:38,320
Speaker 1: hottest magma and and it's it's Mount Doomed, so it

442
00:23:38,359 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: should be the hottest magma. Maybe we should because the

443
00:23:41,200 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: other magma names has sound like Tolkien words and acidic magma,

444
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: you've got them here, rhyolitic magma, rhyolytics sounds very token.

445
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:56,120
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, dasite is the other one rhyolital. But

446
00:23:56,119 --> 00:23:58,199
Speaker 1: but these are these are all gonna have you know,

447
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 1: these are gonna be cool. There's still magna, they're still

448
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: very hot, but we're gonna stick with the with it

449
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:06,920
Speaker 1: with the hottest magma for our purposes here and again,

450
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: the hottest magma we've considered here is one thousand, two

451
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,560
Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius or two thousand onegrees fahrenheit, and the

452
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: medieval forge temperatures, uh, you know, are seemingly in the

453
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: range of seven hundred degrees celsius or one thousand two

454
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. So it's definitely a situation where the forage

455
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 1: is not as hot as the magma. Like we can

456
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:29,719
Speaker 1: at least we can at least say that, yes, this

457
00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: makes sense. That's something that could not be burned in

458
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: a dwarf, and forge could still be burned, could be

459
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,639
Speaker 1: still be melted away inside of a volcano. Now if

460
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:42,400
Speaker 1: we were talking about a modern furnace, that would would

461
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: be a significantly different issue. Yes, so a modern furnace

462
00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: is going to trump the mountain and and I think

463
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:54,359
Speaker 1: you know Againdalf mentions dragon fire, like nice, healthy, small

464
00:24:54,560 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 1: dragon fire could have done it. And if we think

465
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 1: of that as being more or less on par with

466
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: perhaps a modern last furnace, that would have been like,

467
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, the three thousand degrees fahrenheit, um, then than yeah,

468
00:25:06,920 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: that's that's that's another number to just sort of keep

469
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 1: in the back of our mind as we proceed here.

470
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: So what you should have done is just give somebody

471
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 1: the ring and then get them to go annoy a dragon.

472
00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: But there are no more dragons left, or at least

473
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: none that are healthy enough to do this. That's that's

474
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: Gandal's point, because Smag could have probably done it, but

475
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 1: you already killed off Smag in the first book, so

476
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: thanks Barred. Also, you know, Smag wouldn't have gone along

477
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: with that plan. He would have sniffed it out, too

478
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: clever for that. So so that leaves us to consider all, like,

479
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:42,200
Speaker 1: all the elements then, and which ones have a high

480
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: enough melting point that they would be beyond the melting

481
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: abilities of of the dwarve in furnace but within the

482
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: melting abilities of the volcano. Okay, that makes sense to me.

483
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: So again, the highest temperature we've reached here via magma

484
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:00,320
Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred ninety two degrees fahrenheit or one thousand,

485
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 1: two hundred degrees celsius. And when we start looking at

486
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,240
Speaker 1: the melting points of various elements, there there are elements

487
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: that are below that that melting point. There are also

488
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: elements that have a much higher melting point that that

489
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 1: you could you could not fully melt even within the

490
00:26:15,960 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: fires of Mount Doom, well unless you assume to the

491
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: Mount Doom is somehow magical in some way right now.

492
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: One of the one of the problems I guess here

493
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: is though, when you start looking at some just like

494
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: standard metals that could be uh you know, they could

495
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: you could forge a ring out of even some of them.

496
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: Like we're doing some pretty high melting points, like melting

497
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: point of iron is um two thousand, eight hundred degrees fahrenheit.

498
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:43,400
Speaker 1: Melting point of steel gets up that high as well.

499
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: Uh so like these are already, um, you know, these

500
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: are going to be beyond the ability of of Mount

501
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 1: Doom to fully melt, if that's indeed what we have

502
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: to depend on. And then you look at other things

503
00:26:55,960 --> 00:26:59,119
Speaker 1: like h like a palladium has a melting point of

504
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: two thousand, eight hundred and thirty point eight two degrees fahrenheit, uh,

505
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: Tungsten uh six thousand, one nine two degrees fahrenheit, uranium

506
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventy degrees fahrenheit. You know these are

507
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: again for for absolute melting to take place. Uh. So

508
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: you know that kind of muddies things a bit, I guess.

509
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: But but then again, one of the things to think

510
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: about sar And is that, like he's a powerful entity.

511
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: I wonder is he even limited by just going to

512
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:30,000
Speaker 1: the shores of the volcanic lake, Like maybe he can

513
00:27:30,040 --> 00:27:33,320
Speaker 1: go down within the volcano. Maybe he can you know,

514
00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: he can go to even you know, greater depths in

515
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: the earth, and and that's where the forging has taken place.

516
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 1: You know that, like this is something that is forged

517
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 1: not merely within a volcano, but within like the heart

518
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: of the earth, the depths of Mount Doom, not not

519
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: the surface of Mount Doom. Right now, I ended up

520
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: like making a whole list of different elements, and they're

521
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: melting points in both celsius and fahrenheit, which I am

522
00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to not read that entire list because it's

523
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: going it would if we get tedious fast. Uh. And also,

524
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 1: you know, when we throw a bunch of numbers at you,

525
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,080
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's not gonna necessarily do anything. But basically,

526
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: you know, there's a whole range here things with greater

527
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: and lesser melting points, but not all of them are

528
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 1: going to be quite suitable for crafting anything out of

529
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:22,439
Speaker 1: you especially a ring. Uh and and god bless the

530
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: Internet for this, but there are there are tons of

531
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: discussions online regarding whether you could make a sword out

532
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: of any given element. So there'll be a lot of

533
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: you know, some of these are are you know, fantasy

534
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: or sci fi or sometimes you know more they're more

535
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: like you know, sword nerd websites and someone will be like,

536
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: could I make a sword out of uranium? And people

537
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 1: be like, well, then not a very good sword. Yes,

538
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 1: you could make you could make a sword, but it

539
00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 1: would be heavy, it wouldn't the fact that it was

540
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: made out of uranium wouldn't really give you much of

541
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: an advantage in combat. That sort of thing, or you know,

542
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: titanium being another one where similar questions you're asked, uh,

543
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: you know where pure titanium sword? It sounds eight in

544
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: a you know, fantasy sense, but when you start looking

545
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: at the details there. Well, it would be you know,

546
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: it would it would be more, it would be brittle,

547
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: It wouldn't hold up to repeated use. That sort of thing.

548
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,200
Speaker 1: One of the more impressive elements that pops up, though,

549
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:18,080
Speaker 1: is tungsten um. Tungsten has a melting point of six

550
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: thousand onerees fahrenheit or three thousand, four hundred and twenty

551
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 1: two degrees celsius, and it has a number of industrial

552
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: uses due to its durability, and it's used in alloys

553
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: for this purpose as well, because it is very resistant

554
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,680
Speaker 1: to heat. Not only is tungsten potentially a great choice

555
00:29:34,720 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: for the one ring, uh you, you can actually go

556
00:29:37,800 --> 00:29:41,120
Speaker 1: online right now and you can order tungsten or tungsten

557
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 1: alloy replicas of the one Ring from the Lord of

558
00:29:44,120 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: the Rings movie. So I don't think we're breaking any

559
00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,200
Speaker 1: new ground by saying maybe tungsten um so you can

560
00:29:50,240 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 1: heat them up and they'll glow. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

561
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: There weren't any product images that show people taking them

562
00:29:56,840 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: up in their hobbit and their shire heart. But an

563
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: interesting thing about about something like tungsten, because because it

564
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: might you know, it forces you to ask, well, how

565
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: do you forge something with such a high temperature, so

566
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: it's it's not worked like other metals in a forge.

567
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: What you do is you take powdered tungsten and it's

568
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: generally mixed with small amounts of say powdered nickel or

569
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: other metals, and then it is centered or formed into

570
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,240
Speaker 1: a coherent mass by heating without melting. So this could

571
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 1: conceivably be the forging technology that that's saar On acquires

572
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,880
Speaker 1: from the you know, the smelting lords of old and

573
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: brings into his creation of the One Ring. Uh. You

574
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: know again, there's still some problems there when you started saying,

575
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: well then, you know, how how is it destroyed? Then?

576
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:49,800
Speaker 1: But I think tungsten is a you know, a reasonable guess.

577
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: If we're going to limit ourselves to the you know,

578
00:30:51,560 --> 00:30:54,320
Speaker 1: the scientific world for making guesses about uh, you know,

579
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: highly powerful magical objects, how about some crazier guesses. Yeah, well,

580
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: let's let's take a quick break and when we come back,

581
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: we'll get crazier with our guesses regarding the material that

582
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: was used to compose the One Ring. Than alright, we're back.

583
00:31:12,840 --> 00:31:16,000
Speaker 1: We're talking about the One Ring and what it could

584
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: conceivably be made of aside from magic Okay, I think

585
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: we're getting into weirder possible answers now, But I was

586
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out. You know, there's a there's

587
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: that scene where Gimle tries to smash it with his axe,

588
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: and you have to assume that since Gimle Gimli is

589
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,360
Speaker 1: a he's a tough dude, right, he should be able

590
00:31:33,360 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: to cleave just about any middle earthly material with a

591
00:31:36,360 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: swift blow of his mighty axe. Right, So what could

592
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 1: withstand his mind? And furthermore, I should point out in

593
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: the movie version with Peter Jackson, it's John Ree Davies,

594
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: And even if Gimley couldn't smash the ring, John Ree

595
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: Davies should be able to smash the ring. He I mean,

596
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:55,720
Speaker 1: he brings the slow energy. So whatever that is, I

597
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 1: have to assume it's got to be like the strongest

598
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: material in the entire world. So what is the strongest

599
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:04,840
Speaker 1: material in the entire world? I think it depends on

600
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: whether you're counting hypothetical materials that may exist somewhere in

601
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: the universe versus materials that we can actually touch here

602
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: in the lab. But maybe first we go to the

603
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: hypothetical materials somewhere in the universe, so it is the

604
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:25,600
Speaker 1: fate of some dying stars to become a neutron star.

605
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: Recently on the podcast also we've been talking about black holes,

606
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: and this is a similar story. You've got a massive star,

607
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,040
Speaker 1: maybe something with about ten times the mass of the Sun.

608
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 1: It grows old, it uses up its hydrogen fuel, it

609
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:43,320
Speaker 1: begins fusing heavier elements, and then it uses those up.

610
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:45,920
Speaker 1: It can't hold itself up with the energy of its

611
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: fusion anymore, and it eventually explodes in a supernova. So

612
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: the heavy core collapses, the outer structure of lighter materials

613
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: gets blown out into space in this enormous blast of

614
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: energy and matter, and what's left behind is this incredibly

615
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: dense core, and gravity causes it to collapse in on itself.

616
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: And if the core is dense enough, it can go

617
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: over the edge, of course and become a black hole.

618
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 1: But if it's not dense enough, it becomes a neutron star,

619
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: the densest non black hole object in the universe, so

620
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 1: basically the densest thing that doesn't break our theories of physics.

621
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: So these leftover star cores display bizarre nuclear chemistry because

622
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: of how dense they are. You can tell from the

623
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: name neutron star. They tend to have an overwhelming population

624
00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 1: of neutrons, the sub atomic particles that are electrically neutral,

625
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 1: and this is because the intense gravity of the object

626
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: presses positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons together and

627
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 1: they combine to form neutrons. And so neutron stars have

628
00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: physical properties that are amazing to read about and impossible

629
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:58,240
Speaker 1: to picture. That they can cram more than the mass

630
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: of the Sun into a sphere that's roughly just a

631
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 1: dozen miles or so across, like the mass of the

632
00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:07,560
Speaker 1: Sun inside a ball the size of a city. And

633
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 1: for a long time it's been a mystery of astrophysics

634
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: what exactly the inner layers of a neutron star are

635
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: made of. But more recently physicists have created these simulations

636
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: of what should be happening inside the flesh of a

637
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:25,080
Speaker 1: neutron star, and they show the strange types of ultra

638
00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: dense material probably living underneath the outer crust of neutron stars.

639
00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:34,280
Speaker 1: And these materials are known as nuclear pasta. They're named

640
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 1: that because in the simulations they sometimes resemble different pasta

641
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: shapes uh and like these different pasta shapes that would

642
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:44,200
Speaker 1: form a different strata of the neutron star. I think,

643
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: so you get nuclear spaghetti, you get no ki, you

644
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:53,160
Speaker 1: get buka tini or anti spaghetti, and you get lasagna sheets. Now, obviously,

645
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: because of the incredible density of this neutron swollen material,

646
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be hard to cleave it with an axe.

647
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: But how strong is it? While I was looking at

648
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 1: one study from eighteen by Kaplan, Schneider and Horowits called

649
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: Elasticity of nuclear Pasta in Physical Review Letters, and uh,

650
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: some of this nuclear pasta, they concluded, is probably the

651
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: strongest material in the entire universe. Ten billion times stronger

652
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:22,760
Speaker 1: than steel. That's strong enough for you. That's pretty strong.

653
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I

654
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: could tell the difference between ten billion times stronger than

655
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: steel and ten thousand times stronger than steel. I mean,

656
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 1: what what is the difference there? But yeah, I mean

657
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: it's it just places. It orders a magnitude beyond the

658
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: ability of a dwarf. And as to to deal with

659
00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 1: or a dwarf in furnace, I would have to say

660
00:35:39,719 --> 00:35:42,399
Speaker 1: that no matter how strong Gimli is, no matter how

661
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 1: sharp his acts, he probably cannot mess with a ring

662
00:35:46,520 --> 00:35:50,239
Speaker 1: made of nuclear pasta. So nuclear pasta that's over the edge.

663
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 1: You know, you can't destroy it unless you've got some

664
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: kind of magic working in Mount Doom. Obviously it wouldn't

665
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: melt in Mount Doom, right, Yeah, I mean this is

666
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 1: this is another one where it is forced me to

667
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 1: rethink what I said earlier about the about absolute destruction

668
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 1: of the ring being necessary to render it powerless. I

669
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,080
Speaker 1: feel like there's still a threshold of destruction that needs

670
00:36:10,120 --> 00:36:13,640
Speaker 1: to be wrought on the ring before it snaps and

671
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: leads its power and the dark Lords defeated. But I

672
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,400
Speaker 1: think that that threshold probably fall short of actually melting it.

673
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's a it's a moral defeat rather

674
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 1: than a physical destruction. Yeah, or whatever. Is like, it

675
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 1: has to become malleable enough for the magic to leave it. Uh,

676
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,879
Speaker 1: And for that to happen, it needs to it needs

677
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: to fall into a volcano or or or even the

678
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: depths of a volcano. Yeah. Now, there are a couple

679
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: of reasons why nuclear pasta is probably not a good

680
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:47,920
Speaker 1: candidate to make a ring out of. One is that

681
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 1: it is probably a bit too heavy, and other is

682
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:53,719
Speaker 1: that I assume it would not react well with the

683
00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:56,879
Speaker 1: atmosphere of an environment like Middle Earth. It might sort of,

684
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:00,840
Speaker 1: you know, become a big explosion or something. But but

685
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: all you know, just imagine you had a stable ring

686
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,759
Speaker 1: made of nuclear pasta. It's probably too heavy to make

687
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 1: an effective ring. A commonly cited figure is that about

688
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: a teaspoon of the material that makes up a neutron

689
00:37:11,719 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: star would weigh more than a billion tons. So that

690
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: would be a difficult ring to wear. Uh, you might

691
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 1: need some help carrying it. Uh, yeah, you know, it's believable.

692
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: I guess that you know, Sauron could could carry it.

693
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: I mean that he's such a powerful entity. But I

694
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,600
Speaker 1: don't know about a hobbit. Now, is there anything lighter

695
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: that is still strong with a high melting point? One

696
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: good candidate, I think here, though it is a modern

697
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: invention is graphine. Graphine is carbon. Of course, it's just carbon,

698
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,200
Speaker 1: but it's carbon with a special molecular formation. It's a

699
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: single layer of hexagonal rings of carbon carbon molecules locking

700
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 1: with other hexagons at every vertex, and it's one atom

701
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:57,879
Speaker 1: thick but sort of perfect on the molecular level. It's

702
00:37:57,880 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: often thought of as a kind of cutting edge super material.

703
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: It does have some amazing properties. It's electrically conductive, so

704
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 1: it has been singled out for potential uses in in

705
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: future electronics. It's extremely light well at the same time

706
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,600
Speaker 1: being stronger than steel. I've seen estimates including between two

707
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: hundred and three hundred times stronger than steel. The problem

708
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: with graphing is that it's difficult to produce on a

709
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:24,240
Speaker 1: large scale. Uh. Not that it's necessarily difficult to produce

710
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: in general. I was reading about one method that can

711
00:38:26,480 --> 00:38:29,760
Speaker 1: create layers of graphing just by heating up soybean oil,

712
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,879
Speaker 1: but you don't get a lot out of it. Now,

713
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: I like this idea that the ring is not just

714
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:38,080
Speaker 1: a material but a meta material, you know, I mean,

715
00:38:38,560 --> 00:38:40,759
Speaker 1: which it would makes perfect sense. And this is the

716
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,000
Speaker 1: product of a being that's studied at the at the

717
00:38:44,080 --> 00:38:48,680
Speaker 1: Forge of the Gods. So you know, therefore, like we're

718
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to limit him and his abilities

719
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: based on you know, medieval or even modern levels of

720
00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: of of metallurgical power and knowledge. Right, we're thinking about

721
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: him as like sort of a magical smith. Maybe instead

722
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 1: we should be thinking about him as some kind of

723
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: material scientists. Uh so, yeah, I was looking at one

724
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: paper dealing with the melting point of graphing, and I

725
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:15,600
Speaker 1: was wondering, what that is. It's really high. Uh, it was.

726
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,439
Speaker 1: So this was in physical chemistry chemical physics. I don't

727
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,680
Speaker 1: know if that's a double name. That was the journal

728
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: by Gans, Gans Yang and Dornfield in called the initial

729
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: Stages of Melting of graphing between four thousand K and

730
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:32,840
Speaker 1: six thousand K. That's really hot. The authors say graphing

731
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 1: has one of the highest melting points of any known substance. Basically,

732
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:40,959
Speaker 1: they they use these models to say, okay, what would

733
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: it look like if you heat it up graphing to

734
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 1: these temperatures for these lengths of time? And uh. They

735
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:48,919
Speaker 1: found that you could heat graphing up for a certain

736
00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:51,760
Speaker 1: amount of time to four thousand, five hundred degrees kelvin,

737
00:39:51,800 --> 00:39:55,440
Speaker 1: which is really hot, and it still wouldn't melt. It

738
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: would just sort of it would It would still be freestanding.

739
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: And they said on five thousand degrees kelvin the system

740
00:40:02,480 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: would start to melt. Five thousand degrees kelvin is roughly

741
00:40:05,960 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: forty s celsius or eight hundred fahrenheit. That's is that

742
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: hotter than any of the other stuff we looked at. Yeah,

743
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty hot. Okay, So the surface of the

744
00:40:15,560 --> 00:40:18,839
Speaker 1: Sun that roughly five thousand, eight hundred degrees kelvin could

745
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: probably melt this form of graphine, But a normal volcano

746
00:40:22,840 --> 00:40:25,439
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to melt the graphine one ring. So

747
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: is Mount Doom hotter than the surface of the Sun

748
00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,760
Speaker 1: or their special properties involved here? No, but this would

749
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 1: this would make me come back to the idea that

750
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: at least with the problem that it's forging. What if

751
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: Sauron had to go to the volcano, not to forge

752
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 1: it at the shores of the volcanic lake, but like

753
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: descended to the center of the planet where you would

754
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 1: have temperatures that would be you know, on par with

755
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. As for them destroying it

756
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: by casting it into the volcano, well that's that's where

757
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:57,480
Speaker 1: you end up in a problematic area again, because if

758
00:40:57,520 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: that's the case, if it needs to reach the center

759
00:40:59,440 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: of the plant it to be destroyed, well, then that

760
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: means the the end of the Lord of the Rings

761
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: is not an end at all, and that the dark

762
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:10,240
Speaker 1: Lord was never defeated, and is is you know, destined

763
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: to return time and time again the end question mark No,

764
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: this is a perfect explanation for why the end of

765
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,279
Speaker 1: the third movie went on for seven hours. They were

766
00:41:20,280 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: waiting for the ring to sink sink low enough to

767
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 1: really get hot enough to melt under all that pressure. Yeah,

768
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,799
Speaker 1: another main problem with graphine. I should say, oh, I

769
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: already mentioned this. It's it's so the problem is that

770
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to manufacture large amounts of it. But

771
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would be a problem for Saron,

772
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:38,840
Speaker 1: because what if he just needed enough for one little

773
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,239
Speaker 1: hobbit finger sized ring. That's true though of course when

774
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:44,440
Speaker 1: he's a when he's the Dark Lord, he's somewhat bigger

775
00:41:44,440 --> 00:41:46,359
Speaker 1: in it and it still fits around his finger. That's

776
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,040
Speaker 1: a good question. I was wondering about this very thing.

777
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 1: How does the ring fit a hobbit finger just fine,

778
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: but also fit the fingers of much larger creatures just

779
00:41:56,080 --> 00:42:00,040
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, may they address that? They and

780
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: it's just magic. That's what magical rings do. One size

781
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: fits all. Um. I don't know. I mean you could,

782
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:08,319
Speaker 1: I guess you could go really sci fi crazy and say, well,

783
00:42:08,320 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: the ring is actually composed out of like nano robotic

784
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: material that is you know, these these tiny nanobots that

785
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: that fused together and carry out all these various processes

786
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,440
Speaker 1: to you know, to to do all the things that

787
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:24,520
Speaker 1: the Ring does. But I don't know at that point,

788
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:27,239
Speaker 1: you're really you're really busting the magic out of it.

789
00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,479
Speaker 1: I like, I like the idea of keeping some level

790
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,400
Speaker 1: of magic in the Ring and not not describing it

791
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: all the way. Nope, you already ruined it. The Ring

792
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 1: is nanobots. That's what it is now and forevermore. All right,

793
00:42:39,440 --> 00:42:40,920
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Um, is one of those

794
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: episodes where I guess we don't really have a conclusive answer,

795
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 1: and you know, north should we. But hopefully we've given

796
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 1: some giving you some food for thought and uh, and

797
00:42:49,520 --> 00:42:53,160
Speaker 1: also provided an excuse and a means of of discussing

798
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: you know, some of the temperatures and melting points involved here. Um.

799
00:42:57,600 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: If if we'd love to hear from anyone out there

800
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 1: who is you know, a big Tolkien fan or someone

801
00:43:03,040 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: who is you know, certainly more experienced than us with

802
00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 1: with the use of forges, with with some of these materials. Uh.

803
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: You know, we'd love to get your thoughts on it

804
00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. And for that matter, are there other

805
00:43:16,280 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: Tolkien related topics you'd like us to to tease apart.

806
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 1: I think I wrote a piece for how Stuff Works

807
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 1: years ago about Hobbit metabolism, which which actually they're like,

808
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,200
Speaker 1: there were There were at least a couple of papers

809
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:32,919
Speaker 1: I was able to cite for their article where people

810
00:43:32,920 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, let's see how much I can breakfast?

811
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:38,800
Speaker 1: How much does the Hobbit eat? And then and so forth?

812
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:41,040
Speaker 1: So I look that up. It's on how Stuff Works

813
00:43:41,080 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: dot com. In the meantime, if you want more episodes

814
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 1: of stuff to blow your mind, he don't over the

815
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,240
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership.

816
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find them all. And if you're interested

817
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 1: in uh, you know, others, let's say, not magical inventions,

818
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,839
Speaker 1: but more mundane but equally amazing inventions, check out our

819
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,399
Speaker 1: other podcast, Invention. You can find it at invention pod

820
00:44:01,480 --> 00:44:03,719
Speaker 1: dot com. And you can find both shows wherever you

821
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: get your podcast. Wherever you do get it, just make

822
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review because that really helps us

823
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:12,400
Speaker 1: out in the long run. Huge thanks to our producers

824
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: uh Seth Nicholas Johnson, and Maya Cole. If you would

825
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

826
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

827
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 1: or just to say hello. You can email us at contact.

828
00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: That's Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to

829
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radios. How

830
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: Stuff Works For more podcasts from my Heart Radio is

831
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,680
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832
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:50,759
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