Speaker 1: H three rings for Elvin King's Under the Sky, seven
Speaker 1: for the dwarf lords in their halls of Stone, nine
Speaker 1: for mortal men doomed to die, and one for the
Speaker 1: Dark Lord on his dark throne in the Land of Mordor,
Speaker 1: where the shadows lie. One ring to rule them all,
Speaker 1: wondering to find them, one ring to bring them all,
Speaker 1: and in the darkness bind them in the Land of Mordor,
Speaker 1: where the Shadows lie. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick and nerd Alert. We're
Speaker 1: doing a Tolkien episode today. That's right, of course. The
Speaker 1: cold open there was from J. R. Tolkien's The Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, which was written in stages between ninety
Speaker 1: seven and nineteen forty nine. I imagine everyone listening to
Speaker 1: this is familiar with the Lord of the Rings. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. I mean we we'll try to make it
Speaker 1: fun even if you're not. But yeah, Robert, you got
Speaker 1: bit by the Lord of the Rings bug this week apparently,
Speaker 1: and you wanted to talk about the One Ring of Power.
Speaker 1: See if there's any way we could give it the
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind treatment. Yeah, yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about Tolkien recently, I mean until obviously.
Speaker 1: You know, I read Tolkien when I was younger. I
Speaker 1: watched the movies when they came out, I watched the
Speaker 1: animated films when when they were around, and uh, and
Speaker 1: then I kind of took a break, and then I
Speaker 1: came back and read The Hobbit to my son. Eventually,
Speaker 1: I hope to read The Lord of the Rings to him.
Speaker 1: Uh wait, when did the classic quote? You were reading
Speaker 1: it to him at some point, weren't you when he said,
Speaker 1: is it the Lord of the Rings yet? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he kind of got a little bored with the opening,
Speaker 1: but at this point, like he's, yeah, he's super into
Speaker 1: Harry Potter. I think he's pretty much ready for the
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. But you know, the Hobbit is
Speaker 1: better for younger readers as well. But it got me
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about the Ring. Uh. And it's it's nature,
Speaker 1: it's powers, and and also it is the task of
Speaker 1: applying real world science to the One Ring and seeing
Speaker 1: what we could potentially figure out. It'll have to be
Speaker 1: a little bit of loosey goosey real world science. But
Speaker 1: we'll do our best because obviously the one ring, the
Speaker 1: Ring of Power, is an object of intense magical power
Speaker 1: in the books, created by an intensely magical being in
Speaker 1: an intensely magical fantasy world. And so our intent here
Speaker 1: is not to you know, to cheapen all of that
Speaker 1: or anything, or to or to myth busted or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but you know, just to engage in the
Speaker 1: fun exercise of saying, okay, okay, if if we had
Speaker 1: to make this work with science, what would the ring
Speaker 1: be made out of? What are the the you know,
Speaker 1: what are the constraints involved that sort of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: the Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings has
Speaker 1: got to be one of the like ultimate ex examples
Speaker 1: of a fantasy mcguffin. You know, an object that that
Speaker 1: a plot can be built around that. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of these story you end up with, like you know,
Speaker 1: Wore Cruxes and Harry Potter and uh, there's very often
Speaker 1: it's just convenient from a storytelling perspective to have a
Speaker 1: magical object that must be uh, that must be managed,
Speaker 1: and the logistics of which become the struggle for the
Speaker 1: characters in the story. But the ring I think also
Speaker 1: represents more than that. It's an interesting object in itself
Speaker 1: because of its properties that to some people who own
Speaker 1: it or where it, it confers these powers. And we
Speaker 1: can discuss what the powers are alluded to be in
Speaker 1: the story, uh in a minute. But also it has
Speaker 1: this corrupting influence. So it actually I think does have
Speaker 1: a kind of thematic commentary on the way that like
Speaker 1: possessing great power has the tendency to corrupt people's motives
Speaker 1: and way of seeing the world. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean
Speaker 1: even even today, like certainly throughout human history, we can
Speaker 1: look to the like the symbolic power of the um
Speaker 1: like rings are used to to signify, you know, bonds
Speaker 1: that have been made, social bonds, marriages, uh. They they
Speaker 1: have long symbolized power or or wealth. The seal ring
Speaker 1: that might be used as a stamp in wax to
Speaker 1: show you the sigil of your authority. Right now, of course,
Speaker 1: there's the super Bowl ring, right which and I mean
Speaker 1: really it is as silly as the super Bowl ring
Speaker 1: may be, it is it is you know, it is
Speaker 1: drawing from this lineage of the ring as the symbol
Speaker 1: of of power and accomplishment. And so yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: all that's wrapped up in the myth of the Ring
Speaker 1: as well, you know, not even to get into some
Speaker 1: of the various things that Tolkien was drawing on, you know,
Speaker 1: the Ring cycle of etcetera. Another token note I want
Speaker 1: to make is I do want to drive home. Even
Speaker 1: though Joe and I are both uh, you know, quite
Speaker 1: familiar with token, neither of us are like Tolken experts.
Speaker 1: Please don't come swinging your sword at us because we
Speaker 1: left out some Tolkien d right, I mean it's happened before. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and likewise we may not hit all the Tolkien
Speaker 1: pronunciations in this. Uh, I can't wait, But but we're
Speaker 1: gonna give it a shot. So first of all, let
Speaker 1: me just run through the history of the One Ring
Speaker 1: for everyone, okay, so that we can you know, fully
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Here. So you're going beyond the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. You're going into the like the deep lore. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and I cobbled this together from from from
Speaker 1: rereading some segments of Tolkien's original work, but also from
Speaker 1: rereading of segments from the Tolkien Encyclopedia, which is an
Speaker 1: excellent book that came out I believe in like the
Speaker 1: the nineties, I still have a copy of wonderful illustrations
Speaker 1: throughout uh and uh So, anyway, without further ado, let
Speaker 1: me tell you about the One Ring. So, the One
Speaker 1: Ring was forged in the year sixteen hundred of the
Speaker 1: second Age of the Sun by Sauron, forged within the
Speaker 1: active volcano Mount Doom in the land of World War
Speaker 1: So Saron was a former Maya spirit who served the
Speaker 1: dark Lord Melkorp, who was defeated at the end of
Speaker 1: the First Age of the Sun. And so then Saron,
Speaker 1: in the guise of an atter, the giver of gifts,
Speaker 1: he seduces the Alvin Smith's into forging the rings of power.
Speaker 1: Uh these are the rings that from our opening reading
Speaker 1: three rings for the Elvin King, seven for the dwarves,
Speaker 1: nine for men, and you know, so that these may
Speaker 1: be distributed among you know, the various intelligent species of
Speaker 1: of the of the of the world. But then he
Speaker 1: goes and he forges the one ring himself, the ring
Speaker 1: that's going to control all of these rings, and and
Speaker 1: also crackles with other powers will discuss. So it's a trick,
Speaker 1: it's a trap. He's this godlike being who wants to
Speaker 1: control the people's of Middle Earth, the elves, the dwarves,
Speaker 1: the humans, and so he gives them these things that
Speaker 1: are ostensibly like weapons or or sort of magical items
Speaker 1: of power that allow them to increase their power and
Speaker 1: dominance over the world. And once all, once all of
Speaker 1: those people put the rings on and assume the power
Speaker 1: for themselves, then he unlocks the trapdoor in the back
Speaker 1: of the code, which is that he's got wondering that
Speaker 1: gives him power over all the other people who are
Speaker 1: wearing them exactly. Yeah, And and he take ends up
Speaker 1: sort of taking various guys is the idea into different
Speaker 1: forms throughout his history, you know, from the end the deceiver,
Speaker 1: to the trickster, to the to the war lord, to
Speaker 1: the seeker. So his fair form is destroyed in the
Speaker 1: Fall of New Maniore and he arises again as this
Speaker 1: dark lord in black armor. This is the one that
Speaker 1: anyone who's even just set down to watch The Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings films probably remembers from the prologue. So
Speaker 1: even if you only made it ten minutes in, you
Speaker 1: saw this part. He saw the dark Lord in his armor.
Speaker 1: But this too, this form too was destroyed at the
Speaker 1: end of the Second Age of the Sun, and the
Speaker 1: Ring was lost. But Saron did not perish because the
Speaker 1: One Ring still existed, and his fate is bound to it. Um.
Speaker 1: Even if you're more familiar with Harry Potter than Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings, you can think of the One Ring
Speaker 1: is like is the horcrux, the single horcrux for Soron,
Speaker 1: I suppose so in his in his reincarnated form, without
Speaker 1: a body, he depends on this ring, or else he
Speaker 1: cannot survive. Right. And so in the year one thousand
Speaker 1: of the Third Age of the Sun, he rises again
Speaker 1: as the Great Littless Eye Uh, seeking the Ring, waging
Speaker 1: the War of the Ring. But his adversaries have found
Speaker 1: it first, and they've hatched a plan to destroy it
Speaker 1: by the only known means, casting it back into the
Speaker 1: volcanic fires from which it was forged. Okay, so there
Speaker 1: you've got the setting of the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: So you've got to take this ring back into enemy
Speaker 1: territory to throw it into a volcano, which is the
Speaker 1: only way it can be destroyed, the only way to
Speaker 1: destroy this great enemy, God's sorcerer thing. Um. Now we
Speaker 1: there are scenes in the movies, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: recall there in the book too. I mean we're like,
Speaker 1: for example, Gimli the Dwarf played by John Ree Davies
Speaker 1: and the Peter Jackson movies. Uh that you know, they're
Speaker 1: getting the speech about how the Ring must be destroyed
Speaker 1: in order to defeat Sauron. So he just whips out
Speaker 1: his axe and he's like, all right, let's bust it.
Speaker 1: And so he just swings his ax at the at
Speaker 1: the ring. But it doesn't work right. He instead, I
Speaker 1: think his ax breaks on it when he tries to
Speaker 1: cleave the ring with it. So the ring is uh
Speaker 1: portrayed as something that is completely indestructible except in the
Speaker 1: fires of the volcano where it was forged. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a great passage in the Fellowship of the
Speaker 1: Ring where Gandolf explains all this to Frodo after it's
Speaker 1: been cast into the fireplace once and Frodo has has
Speaker 1: tried to will himself to throw it once more into
Speaker 1: the deepest part of the fire, but cannot, and so
Speaker 1: Gandalf says the following, But as for breaking the ring,
Speaker 1: force is useless, even if you took it and struck
Speaker 1: it with a heavy sledge hammer. It would make no
Speaker 1: dnt in it. It cannot be unmade by your hands
Speaker 1: or by mine. Your small fire, of course, would not
Speaker 1: melt even ordinary gold. This ring has already passed through
Speaker 1: it unscathed and even unheeded. But there is no smith's
Speaker 1: forge in this shire that could change it at all.
Speaker 1: Not even the anvils and furnaces of the dwarves could
Speaker 1: do that. It has been said that dragon fire could
Speaker 1: melt and consume the rings of Power, but there is
Speaker 1: not now any dragon left on Earth in which the
Speaker 1: old fire is hot enough, Nor was there ever any dragon,
Speaker 1: not even on Kalaghan the Black, who could have harmed
Speaker 1: the one ring, the ruling Ring, for that was made
Speaker 1: by Saron himself. There is only one way to find
Speaker 1: the cracks of Doom in the depths of Oro Dron
Speaker 1: the Fire Mountain, and cast the ring in there, if
Speaker 1: you really wish to destroy it, to put it beyond
Speaker 1: the grasp of the enemy forever. Thus spoke Gandalf, and
Speaker 1: off knew what he was talking about. By the way,
Speaker 1: I've always thought Syrian McKellen made a great Gandalf, But
Speaker 1: I do have a strong attachment to John Houston's Gandolf
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventy seven animated version in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties Return of the King. Um, so that you know
Speaker 1: that that was the token of of my childhood, and
Speaker 1: so so I was trying to summon a little John
Speaker 1: Houston flavor there my limited ability to do so, the
Speaker 1: ones that make saw Rouman in the Santa Claus like
Speaker 1: his red robes. Um. You know, I I haven't rewatched
Speaker 1: the Return of the King in a while, but but
Speaker 1: I have rewatched the Hobbit at that it held up
Speaker 1: pretty well. You know. Oh, I totally agree that Ian
Speaker 1: mckelen is a great Gandalf. In fact, I would say
Speaker 1: that even if you don't like the movies for any
Speaker 1: other reason, the Peter Jackson films are great just for
Speaker 1: Ian McKellen's performance. Oh yeah, And I mean Christopher Lee.
Speaker 1: It's it's got a wonderful oh Christopher Lee. Of course
Speaker 1: that goes without saying. Uh So another note on the ring,
Speaker 1: just real quick. Not that it's very important to what
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about from to the episode,
Speaker 1: but what happens when you wear the ring? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually trying to figure this out, even though
Speaker 1: I know the story. I was last night, I was googling, like,
Speaker 1: what does the Ring actually do you know, other than
Speaker 1: we know it confers this kind of vague power, But
Speaker 1: it actually does have some specified powers in the mythology.
Speaker 1: I mean the big one of course, and this is
Speaker 1: the one that comes up in the Hobbit as well,
Speaker 1: is that when you put it on, you become invisible
Speaker 1: to most creatures, though at the same time you become
Speaker 1: highly visible to certain other beings, namely the Ring wraiths,
Speaker 1: um and uh and saw On himself. But it's like
Speaker 1: allows you to sort of shift into another plane of
Speaker 1: existence and then doing so, become invisible. But I think
Speaker 1: that's only for some creatures who wear it, right, Um,
Speaker 1: I mean the making them invisible? Right, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's I don't think it's it's implied that when saw
Speaker 1: On himself wears that he is invisible. But then again,
Speaker 1: it's a different matter when you know the dark Lord
Speaker 1: himself wears the Ring as opposed to win a mortal
Speaker 1: wears the Ring. Oh, and I guess another thing to
Speaker 1: specifies that the Wonder Ring, the powers of the Wondering
Speaker 1: maybe greater or different uh than the powers of the
Speaker 1: other rings that were given off to the to the
Speaker 1: kings of the Mortals and the elves. Yes, yeah, it
Speaker 1: is the it is the great ring. It is the
Speaker 1: one that the Master himself forged. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: one note again about the sort of the origins of
Speaker 1: sro On is that in his like previous life, you know,
Speaker 1: as like an unfallen entity, as one of these Maya spirits,
Speaker 1: he originally served the the ann or forge god a
Speaker 1: Uli if I'm saying that right, who is you know,
Speaker 1: a god of the forge like a Festus. So you
Speaker 1: know he would have had, you know, presumably had access
Speaker 1: to all knowledge of metallurgy and uh and metal making
Speaker 1: and crafting in general. Yeah, well, maybe we should take
Speaker 1: a break and then when we come back we can
Speaker 1: explore some questions about what the Ring of Power could
Speaker 1: possibly be made of. All right, we're back, so you
Speaker 1: know we're gonna again. We're gonna cherry pick a little
Speaker 1: bit here. This is not going to be, you know,
Speaker 1: a perfect dissection of everything. I don't think Tolkien was
Speaker 1: going for hard sci fi and wanted him to, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my god, wait, no, that's a brilliant idea.
Speaker 1: So we've had various rewrites of Lord of the Rings. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, there is the rewrite of the story that
Speaker 1: tells it from more Door's perspective that casts like Gandalf
Speaker 1: and the Elves as as the villains and says, actually,
Speaker 1: more Door is just a you know, it's just a
Speaker 1: region of people who are trying to develop industrial technology
Speaker 1: and they're being oppressed by these you know, ancient kingdoms
Speaker 1: of magic users and they're fighting back. So that that's
Speaker 1: like that, which is a wonderful treatment idea. I haven't
Speaker 1: read it, but it's a wonderful idea because you see
Speaker 1: that in plenty of like in plenty of myths and
Speaker 1: and stories of old where he's got one side is
Speaker 1: is cast as the heroes, the other side as the
Speaker 1: demonic other, and the reality is is, you know, is
Speaker 1: something different than that. There's something more balanced probably yeah,
Speaker 1: uh so, so yeah, there's like that take. But here's
Speaker 1: the take I want now, like the Arthur C. Clark
Speaker 1: version of Whatever to the Rings that tries to tell
Speaker 1: the same story but just imagines everything is like totally
Speaker 1: mundane physics and chemistry and and how all that has achieved.
Speaker 1: All right, well, well let's get into I guess some
Speaker 1: of the chemistry here. Um, So let's just start by
Speaker 1: talking about things you could throw a ring into in
Speaker 1: an attempt to melt it. Okay, So, so to refresh again,
Speaker 1: you've got this ring of power. You need to destroy
Speaker 1: it to defeat the bad guy. But you can't just
Speaker 1: throw it in a regular fire. The heroes can't do
Speaker 1: anything about it except take it back to the volcano
Speaker 1: where it was made. That's the only thing that will
Speaker 1: destroy it. In terms of fire sources, Gandal says, fireplace
Speaker 1: isn't gonna cut it, dwarf and furnace isn't gonna cut it.
Speaker 1: Only the volcano can can cut it. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about the temperatures involved here. So, Uh, first of all,
Speaker 1: let's take the Hobbits fireplace. If you look for a
Speaker 1: you know, you look at a maximum open wood fireplace temperature. Um.
Speaker 1: I was looking around for sources on this. I found
Speaker 1: a few different different ones that that more or less matchup.
Speaker 1: Hearth dot com, which indeed is a place for people
Speaker 1: who are just into fireplaces to talk about fireplaces. Uh.
Speaker 1: They have like a message board. It definitely it's a
Speaker 1: full message board, but it lists it lists an average
Speaker 1: fireplaces being somewhere between uh one thousand, two hundred degrees
Speaker 1: to dred degrees fahrenheit. I've also seen it as high
Speaker 1: as sixteen hundred um again for the hottest part of
Speaker 1: the fire, where Frodo never actually throws it because the
Speaker 1: will of the Ring prevents it. Uh And as far
Speaker 1: as Celsius, we'd be talking a range of roughly what's
Speaker 1: six degrees And to clarify there, I guess this doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter for the episode. But that's another thing about
Speaker 1: the Ring is that the wing, the Ring sort of
Speaker 1: has a will of its own, and so it even
Speaker 1: when a character wants to destroy it, the Ring sort
Speaker 1: of messes with their mind and and says, maybe you
Speaker 1: shouldn't destroy it. So it's implied here that maybe Frodo
Speaker 1: was trying to destroy it, but he hedged a bit
Speaker 1: threw it into the cooler part of the fire. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're saying, Um, I'm not sure about that,
Speaker 1: Like the first time it goes into the fire. Yeah, perhaps,
Speaker 1: though I mean really probably, because that's how the Ring works,
Speaker 1: and that's how it works its will. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: Hobbits fireplace, we'll come back to those. Uh that actual temperature. Again,
Speaker 1: the Hobbits fireplaces get hotter than than other fireplaces, or
Speaker 1: not as hot. I know, I would assume they're just
Speaker 1: as hot as any fireplace. It's standard, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean it's an open fireplace. Okay, now let's sit. You
Speaker 1: know the dwarves they're really into working metal, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: so dwarves are known for their metal work. So this
Speaker 1: makes us wonder what is the maximum temperature of a furnace.
Speaker 1: But specifically we should think about a medieval furnace, right,
Speaker 1: because essentially the fantasy world of the Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings is as a medieval world. They're not in some
Speaker 1: like steel foundry of today. Right. So a typical blast
Speaker 1: furnace today that's going to reach temperatures of up to
Speaker 1: three thousand degrees fahrenheit or uh one thousand, six hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty degrees celsius. But during the Middle Ages, smelting
Speaker 1: temps in Europe were not quite that high. So I
Speaker 1: was looking around for a source on this, and I
Speaker 1: ran across a website called our lima dot net. And
Speaker 1: this is by Bert Hall from the Institute of for
Speaker 1: the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology at the
Speaker 1: University of Toronto, and he says the following quote. The
Speaker 1: temperature inside the furnace is a critical variable. Most early
Speaker 1: smelters in Europe could reach average temperatures of about seven
Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius and uh that would be uh one thousand,
Speaker 1: two d degrees fahrenheit. And he continues, Now, pure iron
Speaker 1: has a very high melting point, about one thousand thirty
Speaker 1: degrees celsius, and that would be two thousand, seven eighty
Speaker 1: six degrees fahrenheit. So when the newly formed mass of
Speaker 1: iron coalesces at seven hundred degrees, it remains a red hot,
Speaker 1: slightly plastic solid called a bloom. The smith can hammer
Speaker 1: on this hot mass to shape it and to make
Speaker 1: it it's extrude lumps of impurities that it might otherwise
Speaker 1: congeal around. So that would give us a basic temperature
Speaker 1: to work with here, seven hundred degrees celsius or one
Speaker 1: thogrees fahrenheit. Okay, So one thing that points out, which
Speaker 1: might be relevant to what we're talking about here, is
Speaker 1: you don't have to fully reach the melting point of
Speaker 1: a metal in order to do something to it right.
Speaker 1: You can you can work with metal that's not fully liquefied,
Speaker 1: you can just get it up to a temperature where
Speaker 1: its strength is reduced, and you can deform it to
Speaker 1: hammer the cuss out of it. Once it's soft, don't
Speaker 1: have to like reduce it into a liquid that you
Speaker 1: pour into a mold or something. Um So and and
Speaker 1: but one of the things that Gandalf mentions two is
Speaker 1: you can't just beat this thing with a hammer and
Speaker 1: expect to destroy it either. So my read on this
Speaker 1: to sort of you know, uh, you know, underpin what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here is if we think of the ring,
Speaker 1: think of it like a like a mythical magical creature
Speaker 1: like a vampire or something where you can't just shoot it.
Speaker 1: You have to beheaded or completely immolated like there must
Speaker 1: you must reach a threshhold of absolute destruction to keep
Speaker 1: it from you know, healing itself or or whatnot. Okay,
Speaker 1: So maybe the idea is if you slightly deformed the ring,
Speaker 1: it would kind of bounce back, because again, the ring
Speaker 1: has a will of its own. Yeah, that's my imperfect
Speaker 1: read on this, because some people might say, well, technically
Speaker 1: Gandalf says, the ring doesn't even get hot in the fire. Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: Oh I was also trying to look for things about that,
Speaker 1: about like metals that don't get hot when heat. I
Speaker 1: guess that would be poor thermal conductors. Uh, there are
Speaker 1: some like like bismuth is a metal that is a
Speaker 1: poor thermal conductor. I don't mean to suggest that the
Speaker 1: Tolken had in mind that the ring was made out
Speaker 1: of bismuth. Of course, bismuth has as a much lower
Speaker 1: melting point, so that easily melted in a furnace. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm going to stick to my interpretation that
Speaker 1: to destroy the ring of power, you would have to
Speaker 1: destroy it absolutely. You would have to just completely either
Speaker 1: shatter it into uh, into dust or even better and
Speaker 1: more easily done in a in a world like this
Speaker 1: melted into nothing. But as we've discussed already, a fireplace
Speaker 1: isn't gonna do it, and a dwarf and furnace isn't
Speaker 1: gonna be able to do it either, assuming that it's
Speaker 1: you know, more or less a parallel to medieval smelting technology.
Speaker 1: All right, so apparently you've got to use volcano. But
Speaker 1: that makes me wonder how hot the volcanoes get. Do
Speaker 1: they actually get hotter than furnaces? Yes? Uh, they do.
Speaker 1: So I was looking into this. Um. You know, so
Speaker 1: Mount Doom is a volcano. We have volcanoes, so uh,
Speaker 1: luckily we can we and definitely, you know, we can
Speaker 1: definitely look to that like that. The volcano isn't going
Speaker 1: to change. You can't say, oh, it's a dwarf in volcano.
Speaker 1: Maybe it would have been different now it's a volcano.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about the temperature of magma. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there are a few different types of magma to consider. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, there's a basaltic magma which is high and iron,
Speaker 1: magnesium and calcium, but low and potassium and sodium. And
Speaker 1: it ranges in temperature from about a thousand celsius to
Speaker 1: one thousand, two hundred celsius. And that's a between uh
Speaker 1: one thousand, eight hundred and thirty two degrees fahrenheit and
Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred and ninety two degrees fahrenheit UM
Speaker 1: and uh. And as a specific example of this, fountaining
Speaker 1: magma from Coupe Bay Anaha um uh it's a volcano
Speaker 1: in Hawaii. UH. And this is uh basalts magma here. Uh.
Speaker 1: The magma in the lake there has been recorded to
Speaker 1: reach temperatures of one thousand, one hundred fifty three degree
Speaker 1: celsius or two thousand, one hundred seven point four degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: and that was on January nineteenth, nineteen ninety uh. This,
Speaker 1: according to Pinkerton, at all a hot ear for lava, right,
Speaker 1: and this is thought to be a reasonable reflection of
Speaker 1: the internal lava temperature. One thing to keep in mind
Speaker 1: is that the lava, the lava at the surface, is
Speaker 1: going to cool off very quickly when it contacts the air,
Speaker 1: dropping hundreds of degrees in a second. This pointed out
Speaker 1: in the next one article in The New York Times
Speaker 1: by c Clayborne Ray titled how hot can lava gate?
Speaker 1: So I reckon question, Yeah, I recommend that for anyone
Speaker 1: wants a deeper dive. But now there are a few
Speaker 1: other different types of magma as well, but I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna skip over those because we've already touched on the
Speaker 1: hottest magma and and it's it's Mount Doomed, so it
Speaker 1: should be the hottest magma. Maybe we should because the
Speaker 1: other magma names has sound like Tolkien words and acidic magma,
Speaker 1: you've got them here, rhyolitic magma, rhyolytics sounds very token.
Speaker 1: It is. Yeah, dasite is the other one rhyolital. But
Speaker 1: but these are these are all gonna have you know,
Speaker 1: these are gonna be cool. There's still magna, they're still
Speaker 1: very hot, but we're gonna stick with the with it
Speaker 1: with the hottest magma for our purposes here and again,
Speaker 1: the hottest magma we've considered here is one thousand, two
Speaker 1: hundred degrees celsius or two thousand onegrees fahrenheit, and the
Speaker 1: medieval forge temperatures, uh, you know, are seemingly in the
Speaker 1: range of seven hundred degrees celsius or one thousand two
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit. So it's definitely a situation where the forage
Speaker 1: is not as hot as the magma. Like we can
Speaker 1: at least we can at least say that, yes, this
Speaker 1: makes sense. That's something that could not be burned in
Speaker 1: a dwarf, and forge could still be burned, could be
Speaker 1: still be melted away inside of a volcano. Now if
Speaker 1: we were talking about a modern furnace, that would would
Speaker 1: be a significantly different issue. Yes, so a modern furnace
Speaker 1: is going to trump the mountain and and I think
Speaker 1: you know Againdalf mentions dragon fire, like nice, healthy, small
Speaker 1: dragon fire could have done it. And if we think
Speaker 1: of that as being more or less on par with
Speaker 1: perhaps a modern last furnace, that would have been like,
Speaker 1: you know, the three thousand degrees fahrenheit, um, then than yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's another number to just sort of keep
Speaker 1: in the back of our mind as we proceed here.
Speaker 1: So what you should have done is just give somebody
Speaker 1: the ring and then get them to go annoy a dragon.
Speaker 1: But there are no more dragons left, or at least
Speaker 1: none that are healthy enough to do this. That's that's
Speaker 1: Gandal's point, because Smag could have probably done it, but
Speaker 1: you already killed off Smag in the first book, so
Speaker 1: thanks Barred. Also, you know, Smag wouldn't have gone along
Speaker 1: with that plan. He would have sniffed it out, too
Speaker 1: clever for that. So so that leaves us to consider all, like,
Speaker 1: all the elements then, and which ones have a high
Speaker 1: enough melting point that they would be beyond the melting
Speaker 1: abilities of of the dwarve in furnace but within the
Speaker 1: melting abilities of the volcano. Okay, that makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: So again, the highest temperature we've reached here via magma
Speaker 1: two thousand, one hundred ninety two degrees fahrenheit or one thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred degrees celsius. And when we start looking at
Speaker 1: the melting points of various elements, there there are elements
Speaker 1: that are below that that melting point. There are also
Speaker 1: elements that have a much higher melting point that that
Speaker 1: you could you could not fully melt even within the
Speaker 1: fires of Mount Doom, well unless you assume to the
Speaker 1: Mount Doom is somehow magical in some way right now.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the problems I guess here
Speaker 1: is though, when you start looking at some just like
Speaker 1: standard metals that could be uh you know, they could
Speaker 1: you could forge a ring out of even some of them.
Speaker 1: Like we're doing some pretty high melting points, like melting
Speaker 1: point of iron is um two thousand, eight hundred degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: Melting point of steel gets up that high as well.
Speaker 1: Uh so like these are already, um, you know, these
Speaker 1: are going to be beyond the ability of of Mount
Speaker 1: Doom to fully melt, if that's indeed what we have
Speaker 1: to depend on. And then you look at other things
Speaker 1: like h like a palladium has a melting point of
Speaker 1: two thousand, eight hundred and thirty point eight two degrees fahrenheit, uh,
Speaker 1: Tungsten uh six thousand, one nine two degrees fahrenheit, uranium
Speaker 1: two thousand and seventy degrees fahrenheit. You know these are
Speaker 1: again for for absolute melting to take place. Uh. So
Speaker 1: you know that kind of muddies things a bit, I guess.
Speaker 1: But but then again, one of the things to think
Speaker 1: about sar And is that, like he's a powerful entity.
Speaker 1: I wonder is he even limited by just going to
Speaker 1: the shores of the volcanic lake, Like maybe he can
Speaker 1: go down within the volcano. Maybe he can you know,
Speaker 1: he can go to even you know, greater depths in
Speaker 1: the earth, and and that's where the forging has taken place.
Speaker 1: You know that, like this is something that is forged
Speaker 1: not merely within a volcano, but within like the heart
Speaker 1: of the earth, the depths of Mount Doom, not not
Speaker 1: the surface of Mount Doom. Right now, I ended up
Speaker 1: like making a whole list of different elements, and they're
Speaker 1: melting points in both celsius and fahrenheit, which I am
Speaker 1: I'm going to not read that entire list because it's
Speaker 1: going it would if we get tedious fast. Uh. And also,
Speaker 1: you know, when we throw a bunch of numbers at you,
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's not gonna necessarily do anything. But basically,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a whole range here things with greater
Speaker 1: and lesser melting points, but not all of them are
Speaker 1: going to be quite suitable for crafting anything out of
Speaker 1: you especially a ring. Uh and and god bless the
Speaker 1: Internet for this, but there are there are tons of
Speaker 1: discussions online regarding whether you could make a sword out
Speaker 1: of any given element. So there'll be a lot of
Speaker 1: you know, some of these are are you know, fantasy
Speaker 1: or sci fi or sometimes you know more they're more
Speaker 1: like you know, sword nerd websites and someone will be like,
Speaker 1: could I make a sword out of uranium? And people
Speaker 1: be like, well, then not a very good sword. Yes,
Speaker 1: you could make you could make a sword, but it
Speaker 1: would be heavy, it wouldn't the fact that it was
Speaker 1: made out of uranium wouldn't really give you much of
Speaker 1: an advantage in combat. That sort of thing, or you know,
Speaker 1: titanium being another one where similar questions you're asked, uh,
Speaker 1: you know where pure titanium sword? It sounds eight in
Speaker 1: a you know, fantasy sense, but when you start looking
Speaker 1: at the details there. Well, it would be you know,
Speaker 1: it would it would be more, it would be brittle,
Speaker 1: It wouldn't hold up to repeated use. That sort of thing.
Speaker 1: One of the more impressive elements that pops up, though,
Speaker 1: is tungsten um. Tungsten has a melting point of six
Speaker 1: thousand onerees fahrenheit or three thousand, four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: two degrees celsius, and it has a number of industrial
Speaker 1: uses due to its durability, and it's used in alloys
Speaker 1: for this purpose as well, because it is very resistant
Speaker 1: to heat. Not only is tungsten potentially a great choice
Speaker 1: for the one ring, uh you, you can actually go
Speaker 1: online right now and you can order tungsten or tungsten
Speaker 1: alloy replicas of the one Ring from the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings movie. So I don't think we're breaking any
Speaker 1: new ground by saying maybe tungsten um so you can
Speaker 1: heat them up and they'll glow. Yeah. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 1: There weren't any product images that show people taking them
Speaker 1: up in their hobbit and their shire heart. But an
Speaker 1: interesting thing about about something like tungsten, because because it
Speaker 1: might you know, it forces you to ask, well, how
Speaker 1: do you forge something with such a high temperature, so
Speaker 1: it's it's not worked like other metals in a forge.
Speaker 1: What you do is you take powdered tungsten and it's
Speaker 1: generally mixed with small amounts of say powdered nickel or
Speaker 1: other metals, and then it is centered or formed into
Speaker 1: a coherent mass by heating without melting. So this could
Speaker 1: conceivably be the forging technology that that's saar On acquires
Speaker 1: from the you know, the smelting lords of old and
Speaker 1: brings into his creation of the One Ring. Uh. You
Speaker 1: know again, there's still some problems there when you started saying,
Speaker 1: well then, you know, how how is it destroyed? Then?
Speaker 1: But I think tungsten is a you know, a reasonable guess.
Speaker 1: If we're going to limit ourselves to the you know,
Speaker 1: the scientific world for making guesses about uh, you know,
Speaker 1: highly powerful magical objects, how about some crazier guesses. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's let's take a quick break and when we come back,
Speaker 1: we'll get crazier with our guesses regarding the material that
Speaker 1: was used to compose the One Ring. Than alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the One Ring and what it could
Speaker 1: conceivably be made of aside from magic Okay, I think
Speaker 1: we're getting into weirder possible answers now, But I was
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out. You know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: that scene where Gimle tries to smash it with his axe,
Speaker 1: and you have to assume that since Gimle Gimli is
Speaker 1: a he's a tough dude, right, he should be able
Speaker 1: to cleave just about any middle earthly material with a
Speaker 1: swift blow of his mighty axe. Right, So what could
Speaker 1: withstand his mind? And furthermore, I should point out in
Speaker 1: the movie version with Peter Jackson, it's John Ree Davies,
Speaker 1: And even if Gimley couldn't smash the ring, John Ree
Speaker 1: Davies should be able to smash the ring. He I mean,
Speaker 1: he brings the slow energy. So whatever that is, I
Speaker 1: have to assume it's got to be like the strongest
Speaker 1: material in the entire world. So what is the strongest
Speaker 1: material in the entire world? I think it depends on
Speaker 1: whether you're counting hypothetical materials that may exist somewhere in
Speaker 1: the universe versus materials that we can actually touch here
Speaker 1: in the lab. But maybe first we go to the
Speaker 1: hypothetical materials somewhere in the universe, so it is the
Speaker 1: fate of some dying stars to become a neutron star.
Speaker 1: Recently on the podcast also we've been talking about black holes,
Speaker 1: and this is a similar story. You've got a massive star,
Speaker 1: maybe something with about ten times the mass of the Sun.
Speaker 1: It grows old, it uses up its hydrogen fuel, it
Speaker 1: begins fusing heavier elements, and then it uses those up.
Speaker 1: It can't hold itself up with the energy of its
Speaker 1: fusion anymore, and it eventually explodes in a supernova. So
Speaker 1: the heavy core collapses, the outer structure of lighter materials
Speaker 1: gets blown out into space in this enormous blast of
Speaker 1: energy and matter, and what's left behind is this incredibly
Speaker 1: dense core, and gravity causes it to collapse in on itself.
Speaker 1: And if the core is dense enough, it can go
Speaker 1: over the edge, of course and become a black hole.
Speaker 1: But if it's not dense enough, it becomes a neutron star,
Speaker 1: the densest non black hole object in the universe, so
Speaker 1: basically the densest thing that doesn't break our theories of physics.
Speaker 1: So these leftover star cores display bizarre nuclear chemistry because
Speaker 1: of how dense they are. You can tell from the
Speaker 1: name neutron star. They tend to have an overwhelming population
Speaker 1: of neutrons, the sub atomic particles that are electrically neutral,
Speaker 1: and this is because the intense gravity of the object
Speaker 1: presses positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons together and
Speaker 1: they combine to form neutrons. And so neutron stars have
Speaker 1: physical properties that are amazing to read about and impossible
Speaker 1: to picture. That they can cram more than the mass
Speaker 1: of the Sun into a sphere that's roughly just a
Speaker 1: dozen miles or so across, like the mass of the
Speaker 1: Sun inside a ball the size of a city. And
Speaker 1: for a long time it's been a mystery of astrophysics
Speaker 1: what exactly the inner layers of a neutron star are
Speaker 1: made of. But more recently physicists have created these simulations
Speaker 1: of what should be happening inside the flesh of a
Speaker 1: neutron star, and they show the strange types of ultra
Speaker 1: dense material probably living underneath the outer crust of neutron stars.
Speaker 1: And these materials are known as nuclear pasta. They're named
Speaker 1: that because in the simulations they sometimes resemble different pasta
Speaker 1: shapes uh and like these different pasta shapes that would
Speaker 1: form a different strata of the neutron star. I think,
Speaker 1: so you get nuclear spaghetti, you get no ki, you
Speaker 1: get buka tini or anti spaghetti, and you get lasagna sheets. Now, obviously,
Speaker 1: because of the incredible density of this neutron swollen material,
Speaker 1: it's probably gonna be hard to cleave it with an axe.
Speaker 1: But how strong is it? While I was looking at
Speaker 1: one study from eighteen by Kaplan, Schneider and Horowits called
Speaker 1: Elasticity of nuclear Pasta in Physical Review Letters, and uh,
Speaker 1: some of this nuclear pasta, they concluded, is probably the
Speaker 1: strongest material in the entire universe. Ten billion times stronger
Speaker 1: than steel. That's strong enough for you. That's pretty strong.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: could tell the difference between ten billion times stronger than
Speaker 1: steel and ten thousand times stronger than steel. I mean,
Speaker 1: what what is the difference there? But yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's it just places. It orders a magnitude beyond the
Speaker 1: ability of a dwarf. And as to to deal with
Speaker 1: or a dwarf in furnace, I would have to say
Speaker 1: that no matter how strong Gimli is, no matter how
Speaker 1: sharp his acts, he probably cannot mess with a ring
Speaker 1: made of nuclear pasta. So nuclear pasta that's over the edge.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't destroy it unless you've got some
Speaker 1: kind of magic working in Mount Doom. Obviously it wouldn't
Speaker 1: melt in Mount Doom, right, Yeah, I mean this is
Speaker 1: this is another one where it is forced me to
Speaker 1: rethink what I said earlier about the about absolute destruction
Speaker 1: of the ring being necessary to render it powerless. I
Speaker 1: feel like there's still a threshold of destruction that needs
Speaker 1: to be wrought on the ring before it snaps and
Speaker 1: leads its power and the dark Lords defeated. But I
Speaker 1: think that that threshold probably fall short of actually melting it.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe it's a it's a moral defeat rather
Speaker 1: than a physical destruction. Yeah, or whatever. Is like, it
Speaker 1: has to become malleable enough for the magic to leave it. Uh,
Speaker 1: And for that to happen, it needs to it needs
Speaker 1: to fall into a volcano or or or even the
Speaker 1: depths of a volcano. Yeah. Now, there are a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons why nuclear pasta is probably not a good
Speaker 1: candidate to make a ring out of. One is that
Speaker 1: it is probably a bit too heavy, and other is
Speaker 1: that I assume it would not react well with the
Speaker 1: atmosphere of an environment like Middle Earth. It might sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, become a big explosion or something. But but
Speaker 1: all you know, just imagine you had a stable ring
Speaker 1: made of nuclear pasta. It's probably too heavy to make
Speaker 1: an effective ring. A commonly cited figure is that about
Speaker 1: a teaspoon of the material that makes up a neutron
Speaker 1: star would weigh more than a billion tons. So that
Speaker 1: would be a difficult ring to wear. Uh, you might
Speaker 1: need some help carrying it. Uh, yeah, you know, it's believable.
Speaker 1: I guess that you know, Sauron could could carry it.
Speaker 1: I mean that he's such a powerful entity. But I
Speaker 1: don't know about a hobbit. Now, is there anything lighter
Speaker 1: that is still strong with a high melting point? One
Speaker 1: good candidate, I think here, though it is a modern
Speaker 1: invention is graphine. Graphine is carbon. Of course, it's just carbon,
Speaker 1: but it's carbon with a special molecular formation. It's a
Speaker 1: single layer of hexagonal rings of carbon carbon molecules locking
Speaker 1: with other hexagons at every vertex, and it's one atom
Speaker 1: thick but sort of perfect on the molecular level. It's
Speaker 1: often thought of as a kind of cutting edge super material.
Speaker 1: It does have some amazing properties. It's electrically conductive, so
Speaker 1: it has been singled out for potential uses in in
Speaker 1: future electronics. It's extremely light well at the same time
Speaker 1: being stronger than steel. I've seen estimates including between two
Speaker 1: hundred and three hundred times stronger than steel. The problem
Speaker 1: with graphing is that it's difficult to produce on a
Speaker 1: large scale. Uh. Not that it's necessarily difficult to produce
Speaker 1: in general. I was reading about one method that can
Speaker 1: create layers of graphing just by heating up soybean oil,
Speaker 1: but you don't get a lot out of it. Now,
Speaker 1: I like this idea that the ring is not just
Speaker 1: a material but a meta material, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: which it would makes perfect sense. And this is the
Speaker 1: product of a being that's studied at the at the
Speaker 1: Forge of the Gods. So you know, therefore, like we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying to limit him and his abilities
Speaker 1: based on you know, medieval or even modern levels of
Speaker 1: of of metallurgical power and knowledge. Right, we're thinking about
Speaker 1: him as like sort of a magical smith. Maybe instead
Speaker 1: we should be thinking about him as some kind of
Speaker 1: material scientists. Uh so, yeah, I was looking at one
Speaker 1: paper dealing with the melting point of graphing, and I
Speaker 1: was wondering, what that is. It's really high. Uh, it was.
Speaker 1: So this was in physical chemistry chemical physics. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a double name. That was the journal
Speaker 1: by Gans, Gans Yang and Dornfield in called the initial
Speaker 1: Stages of Melting of graphing between four thousand K and
Speaker 1: six thousand K. That's really hot. The authors say graphing
Speaker 1: has one of the highest melting points of any known substance. Basically,
Speaker 1: they they use these models to say, okay, what would
Speaker 1: it look like if you heat it up graphing to
Speaker 1: these temperatures for these lengths of time? And uh. They
Speaker 1: found that you could heat graphing up for a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time to four thousand, five hundred degrees kelvin,
Speaker 1: which is really hot, and it still wouldn't melt. It
Speaker 1: would just sort of it would It would still be freestanding.
Speaker 1: And they said on five thousand degrees kelvin the system
Speaker 1: would start to melt. Five thousand degrees kelvin is roughly
Speaker 1: forty s celsius or eight hundred fahrenheit. That's is that
Speaker 1: hotter than any of the other stuff we looked at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty hot. Okay, So the surface of the
Speaker 1: Sun that roughly five thousand, eight hundred degrees kelvin could
Speaker 1: probably melt this form of graphine, But a normal volcano
Speaker 1: wouldn't be enough to melt the graphine one ring. So
Speaker 1: is Mount Doom hotter than the surface of the Sun
Speaker 1: or their special properties involved here? No, but this would
Speaker 1: this would make me come back to the idea that
Speaker 1: at least with the problem that it's forging. What if
Speaker 1: Sauron had to go to the volcano, not to forge
Speaker 1: it at the shores of the volcanic lake, but like
Speaker 1: descended to the center of the planet where you would
Speaker 1: have temperatures that would be you know, on par with
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. As for them destroying it
Speaker 1: by casting it into the volcano, well that's that's where
Speaker 1: you end up in a problematic area again, because if
Speaker 1: that's the case, if it needs to reach the center
Speaker 1: of the plant it to be destroyed, well, then that
Speaker 1: means the the end of the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: is not an end at all, and that the dark
Speaker 1: Lord was never defeated, and is is you know, destined
Speaker 1: to return time and time again the end question mark No,
Speaker 1: this is a perfect explanation for why the end of
Speaker 1: the third movie went on for seven hours. They were
Speaker 1: waiting for the ring to sink sink low enough to
Speaker 1: really get hot enough to melt under all that pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another main problem with graphine. I should say, oh, I
Speaker 1: already mentioned this. It's it's so the problem is that
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to manufacture large amounts of it. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if that would be a problem for Saron,
Speaker 1: because what if he just needed enough for one little
Speaker 1: hobbit finger sized ring. That's true though of course when
Speaker 1: he's a when he's the Dark Lord, he's somewhat bigger
Speaker 1: in it and it still fits around his finger. That's
Speaker 1: a good question. I was wondering about this very thing.
Speaker 1: How does the ring fit a hobbit finger just fine,
Speaker 1: but also fit the fingers of much larger creatures just
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, may they address that? They and
Speaker 1: it's just magic. That's what magical rings do. One size
Speaker 1: fits all. Um. I don't know. I mean you could,
Speaker 1: I guess you could go really sci fi crazy and say, well,
Speaker 1: the ring is actually composed out of like nano robotic
Speaker 1: material that is you know, these these tiny nanobots that
Speaker 1: that fused together and carry out all these various processes
Speaker 1: to you know, to to do all the things that
Speaker 1: the Ring does. But I don't know at that point,
Speaker 1: you're really you're really busting the magic out of it.
Speaker 1: I like, I like the idea of keeping some level
Speaker 1: of magic in the Ring and not not describing it
Speaker 1: all the way. Nope, you already ruined it. The Ring
Speaker 1: is nanobots. That's what it is now and forevermore. All right,
Speaker 1: So there you have it. Um, is one of those
Speaker 1: episodes where I guess we don't really have a conclusive answer,
Speaker 1: and you know, north should we. But hopefully we've given
Speaker 1: some giving you some food for thought and uh, and
Speaker 1: also provided an excuse and a means of of discussing
Speaker 1: you know, some of the temperatures and melting points involved here. Um.
Speaker 1: If if we'd love to hear from anyone out there
Speaker 1: who is you know, a big Tolkien fan or someone
Speaker 1: who is you know, certainly more experienced than us with
Speaker 1: with the use of forges, with with some of these materials. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we'd love to get your thoughts on it
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. And for that matter, are there other
Speaker 1: Tolkien related topics you'd like us to to tease apart.
Speaker 1: I think I wrote a piece for how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: years ago about Hobbit metabolism, which which actually they're like,
Speaker 1: there were There were at least a couple of papers
Speaker 1: I was able to cite for their article where people
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, let's see how much I can breakfast?
Speaker 1: How much does the Hobbit eat? And then and so forth?
Speaker 1: So I look that up. It's on how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. In the meantime, if you want more episodes
Speaker 1: of stuff to blow your mind, he don't over the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's the mothership.
Speaker 1: That's where you'll find them all. And if you're interested
Speaker 1: in uh, you know, others, let's say, not magical inventions,
Speaker 1: but more mundane but equally amazing inventions, check out our
Speaker 1: other podcast, Invention. You can find it at invention pod
Speaker 1: dot com. And you can find both shows wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcast. Wherever you do get it, just make
Speaker 1: sure you rate and review because that really helps us
Speaker 1: out in the long run. Huge thanks to our producers
Speaker 1: uh Seth Nicholas Johnson, and Maya Cole. If you would
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on
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