WEBVTT - Pew! Pew! Plasma! 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with tech stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.480 stuff works dot com. Hey what everyone, and welcome to 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.360 text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Volkslam. And 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.720 today we want to talk about a science fiction ee 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.520 kind of thing. This is not our our promised Independence 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:26.880 Day extravaganza. It seems that people are really into the 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:29.520 idea of us kind of taking a movie and just 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.720 deconstructing all the technical issues that we have with it. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:34.879 But we just want to talk about something else, some 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:39.400 science fiction e kind of technology that maybe is not 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:43.879 so practical. That's plasma weapons, right, And this is partially 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.360 because I am still really bitter that I cannot end 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.400 conversations that I don't like having by sticking a plasma 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.080 grenade down someone's face and running away giggling. Is it 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:54.640 a spider? Get it off? No, it's not spider, it's 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.600 glowing blue. Is a blue spider? Get it off? It's 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.760 for my red versus Blue fans out there. Yeah, so 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.039 plasma weapons is one of those staples in science fiction. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.600 But before we kind of talk about what plasma weapons are, 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.000 it helps for us to actually think about what plasma is. Yes, 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.600 here in the reality world, that we live in. Yeah, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.720 the place where you and I spend all our time, well, 0:01:16.840 --> 0:01:19.600 well most of our time, not half and half of 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:23.800 our time, Okay. In this world, plasma is one of 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.640 the four phases of matter, the others being solid, liquid, 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.640 and gas. And in fact, plasma is the most plentiful 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:33.680 of all these stages of matter. Just not here on Earth, no, 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:36.560 not not so much. But when you look at things 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.560 like stars which are many, many, many times larger than Earth, 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:45.039 that's what those are made out of. That's that's all plasma. Yeah, 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.000 So it's ionized gas. Now that doesn't necessarily mean anything 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:50.960 to you if you haven't had a science course in 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.240 a really long time, or maybe you just haven't gotten 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:55.920 to that one yet, since we have listeners of all 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.320 ages up there. So an ionized gas means that those 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.520 atoms that are in the gas are made up of 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:07.000 neutral particles. Uh. Then you have ions, which are atoms 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.560 that have either gained or lost electrons. In the case 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:12.519 of plasma, we're talking about losing electrons, and then you've 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:15.639 got electron zipping around. So the ions are positively charged, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:19.080 the electrons are negatively charged um, and it's all moving 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:23.400 around in this high energy gas. That also means that 0:02:23.560 --> 0:02:28.280 electricity can actually flow through plasma. Plasma itself is a conductor. Yes, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.120 they're also affected by magnetic fields. Yeah, because whenever you 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:35.040 have charges, then that means that it can respond to 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.480 some sort of magnetic field. We've talked many, many times 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:41.840 about the relationship between electric and magnetic fields. Uh, this 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:44.000 is the case with plasma. So if you have a 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.359 plasma and you have a strong magnetic field, you can 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.200 actually guide that plasma in a way or or or 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.400 immobilize it or compress it, which is really important in 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:55.960 some of the applications. But we'll talk about the applications 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.760 in a in just a minute. So, plasma stars make 0:02:59.800 --> 0:03:02.400 it through huge amounts of heat. I mean you have 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:06.520 to you have to really take gas and add energy 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:08.960 to it to turn gas into a plasma. And energy 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.000 doesn't have to be heat. Uh. You know, for example, 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.440 have florescent bulbs have have plasma in them, and they 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:17.600 are obviously not that hot, so certainly not as hot 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.560 as the surface of the sun or even an incandescent bulb. 0:03:21.000 --> 0:03:25.080 So how do we make plasma? So it does require 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.560 that we add energy, uh, and like you said, it 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:29.200 doesn't have to be heat. It can be in the 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.799 form of electricity, which is what we see with fluorescent 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.640 light bulbs. It's also what we see with things like 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.800 plasma torches, and we'll explain more about how those working 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.560 a little bit. But um, I want to read this 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:42.560 out because I got a little silly when I was 0:03:42.560 --> 0:03:45.280 writing my notes. Already enjoyed. I enjoyed this note. Yes, 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.360 and I don't know what was in my coffee when 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:51.200 I started writing this one, but what I specifically wrote 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:53.760 my notes was you make plasma by adding energy to 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.240 a gas until electrons strip free of the atoms in 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.240 the gas, and you've got ions and electrons having a 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:01.600 sub atomic janet Reno dance party. So that's all my 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.640 for all my Starday Night Live friends out there who 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.440 watched in the nineties like I did. Yes, yeah, it's 0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.360 it's it's basically just the nuclei of these atoms and 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:13.200 and the electrons all going we yeah, especially if it's 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.720 something like hydrogen, because then all you have our protons, 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.840 which are positively charged subotomic particles, and electrons, which are 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:23.640 the negatively charged subatomic particles zipping around. Now, uh, plasma 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.200 does not necessarily have to just be hydrogen gas. It 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:29.120 can really be any gas if you add enough UH 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:31.840 energy to it to turn it into a plasma. It's 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:33.640 just hydrogen is the one we think of because that's 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.920 what the Sun is made out of. Sun is actually 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.520 using hydrogen gas. It's got this this plasma hydrogen that 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.760 then fuses into helium. And that's the fusion process that 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.000 we see in the Sun that we hope one day 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:52.080 we can harness here on Earth or yes, harness, Yeah, 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:57.080 not replicate. We already replicate it right inefficiently. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, Unfortunately, 0:04:57.120 --> 0:04:59.520 the amount of energy we have to pour into replicating 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:01.200 it is more than what we get out of it. 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.880 So therefore it's not a good energy source. But it's 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.520 a pretty light show. We are hoping that we can 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:08.480 make the energy source. And if you've listened to our 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.400 fusion episode, you know what we're talking about. Well, we'll 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:12.719 cover it a little bit more in a in a 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.440 second too. So, yeah, we use UH an electric current 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.960 apply to the gas to get that energy that's necessary 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:24.479 to make the electrons pop off these these uh atoms, 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:26.919 turning them into ions. So in the case with like 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:29.680 a plasma torch, you've got these electrodes that create the 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.160 negative charge when you bring that torch in contact with 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.080 positively charged metal surface. So for example, a big old 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:39.800 hunk of iron, you complete the right and then that 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.120 allows the negative particles to move towards the positive particles. 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.080 In the process, you're injecting the torch with compressed air. 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.240 That compressed air comes into contact with this incredibly powerful 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:57.159 electric charge, turns into a plasma, burns super super hot, 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.800 and that's what allows you to cut through like a 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:03.839 and uh. And that's just one example of how we 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.080 use the the plasma here on our planet. Not all 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.480 of them are so violent that one is actually kind 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.160 of awesome. There are other uses for plasma torches. We'll 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.320 talk about two. So when we're talking about a plasma 0:06:17.400 --> 0:06:19.640 like that, like in the case of a plasma torch, 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:25.200 you're talking about creating a a ionized gas there's actually 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.880 hotter than the surface of the sun in some cases. 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.600 So how do you contain something like that very carefully? Right, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:39.120 because if you don't, you just burn everything up? Well? Actually, fortunately, uh, 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.120 once once plasma gets away from its energy source, it 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.960 cools down very rapidly. Yeah, because you have to keep 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.240 pouring energy in to maintain that plasma state. You know 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.960 with the sun, it's just it's got that heat going 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.280 for it. That's what keeps it going. Here on Earth. 0:06:53.320 --> 0:06:56.560 We would have to continue either applying heat or electricity 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.480 to maintain that plasma. If we didn't, it would start 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:02.000 to lose energy, and as it lost energy, it would 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.719 start to convert into a normal gas as opposed to 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.799 a plasma um. And also if we wanted to maintain 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:12.080 that that energy and keep the plasma going, we could 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:16.400 control it with magnetic fields. Not the band which you know, 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:18.680 I love Book of Love, great song, but that's not 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.480 what we're talking about. We're talking about actual magnetic fields. 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.160 You could use those like electro magnets. You could use 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:28.280 electromagnets to control and contain plasma because as we said before, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.760 the electrical charge of the plasma reacts to the magnetic field. Right, 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:34.640 So if you just create it so that you are 0:07:34.680 --> 0:07:37.720 repelling the plasma from all sides, you can contain it 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.800 into a little ball of plasma if you if you will, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.120 or you know, various shapes. It's not really a ball necessarily, 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.280 but that's something that you would have to do because 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:52.120 otherwise it sort of blooms outward blooming is is one 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.720 of those those terms that can be used in multiple 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:59.600 ways depending upon what specific technology referring to. So with lasers, 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:02.080 it's slight be different than with plasma. What I mean 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.320 with plasma is that it does tend to to spread out. 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:10.120 It kind of dissipates. So let's say that you decide 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.560 that you're gonna hop into the shower, take a nice 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.360 hot shower, and in the process you're generating a lot steam. 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.120 That steam will just essentially go everywhere to fill up 0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:20.280 the volume of the room you are in, assuming that 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.320 the room you are in is not palatial, and that 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:27.080 the steam can eventually cool down enough to condense into water. So, uh, 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:29.000 you know, that's that's the same short thing with plasma. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.800 It's gonna spread out. It behaves the way of gas. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.600 What it doesn't just uh maintain its shape. So that's 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.200 why you would need something like a magnetic field to 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.839 keep it in a specific shape if that was your goal. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:44.720 And again, if it were spreading out, then that would 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:47.319 also mean to be losing energy fairly rapidly, and cooling 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.120 down doesn't necessarily mean that you want to stand too 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.120 close to a plasma torch as it's going off, But 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.400 it does mean that it's not going to you know, 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.840 when we talk about something that can burn hotter than 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.720 the surface of the sun, we don't mean that if 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.440 you turn it on and immediately starts to burn a 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:03.640 hole straight down through the through the earth, you know, 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:05.520 a couple of feet away, it's gonna kind of cool 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:08.080 down enough that it's nothing. Yeah, yeah, and at least 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.760 not enough for it to cause massive problem, like a 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:14.400 structural integrity problem. That being said that, if you do 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:16.920 have a plasma furnace, you have to have lots of 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.559 cooling mechanisms in place to keep that operational if you're 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.480 going to maintain a plasma burn. And we'll talk about 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.200 that in a second. I like that we keep on 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:29.280 hinting the stuff we're gonna talk about teasers. We're actually 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.400 kind of getting into it right now, so don't worry. 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.839 It's not like we're holding off that far. So we've 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:35.880 already kind of talked a little bit about what we 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:39.160 use plasma for. For instance, plasma torches. We talked about that, 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:42.839 and you mentioned fluorescent lights, but how exactly do fluorescent 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.600 lights work, Like what is the the plasma application there. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:49.800 What's what's happening inside of fluorescent Okay, so fluorescent bulbs 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:54.280 are sealed tubes and they inject current into them through 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.840 electrodes um. They're the tubes. The tubes are filled without 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.079 with an inert gas, usually classical. They are gone and 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.600 uh and a little bit of liquid mercury and um. 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.120 So so when the current flow flows through these electrodes um, 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.040 it causes the inert gas in the tube to plasma 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:12.800 ify um. And I'm not sure if that's a real word. 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:17.840 Is excellent it is right now anyway, it's real enough 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:22.720 for me. We are the music makers of dreams. Um. 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:24.760 And and when when that when that gas plasma I 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.920 fis um. The electrons begin migrating through the tube due 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.560 to this electric charge. Okay, um, this this energy makes 0:10:34.640 --> 0:10:39.920 liquid mercury gasify. And then those uh, those those little 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:46.200 gasified mercury atoms um collide with the argon plasma and 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.520 the the electrons in the in the mercury atoms start 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:54.120 getting excited by these collisions and and jumping up a level. 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:57.240 And now now that this this, this is basically how 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.520 photons are formed. When um, when something flides with a 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:03.120 particle and it gets those electrons excited, it jumps up 0:11:03.120 --> 0:11:06.080 a level, and then when it contracts back down to 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:09.000 its former position, a photon is given off. Right, Because 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:11.560 what's happening is you're pouring energy into the atom, which 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.240 is allowing the electron to move to further out from 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.600 the nucleus. When the electron starts coming back into the nucleus, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.120 that means it has to release that the energy that 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.800 was used to push it out in the first place. 0:11:23.120 --> 0:11:25.760 That release tends to be in the form of a photon. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.080 So a light particle on the keys with mercury. Most 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.560 of those light particles are actually ultra violet correct um, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:34.559 which which is invisible to the human eye. So it 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.839 wouldn't be a very useful light bulb if that's all 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.120 it did, I mean, apart from you know, maybe you 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:41.079 wanted to have a wicked black light kind of thing 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:43.960 going on, right, And that is how black lights work. Um. 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.000 But but the the inside of most flash bulbs that 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.240 are not black lights are covered with them with a 0:11:49.320 --> 0:11:53.880 powdered phosphor coating, and um this, these these phosphor atoms 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.720 get bombarded by the UV photons. Uh, go through one 0:11:57.720 --> 0:12:01.160 of those fancy electron jumps and in the process release 0:12:01.280 --> 0:12:04.000 a visible light photon. Right, So you're you're actually having 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:08.120 two incidents of the same process going on within a 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.480 fluoresce evolved. It's just one of them is what is 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.959 giving us the light that we can see within the 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.800 visible spectrum and uh and and the other is the 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.679 more practical from a energy conversion and um. And also, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.079 I mean it's stuff like our goon gas is pretty 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:26.880 common and inexpensive. By the way, the fact that there 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.439 is mercury and floresce involves is one of those reasons 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:31.880 why you want to be very careful with fluoresce involves, 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:36.400 especially and lick them. Yeah, when you're disposing of fluoresce involves, 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.079 you need to be very careful because mercury is very toxic. 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.120 Uh and it can make you go crazy and not 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.679 in a fun Las Vegas kind of way. Science fact. Yes, 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.320 So so that's one way that we use plasma along 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:50.520 with torches. Yeah. And and this this brings us actually 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.079 to plasma TVs because plasma TVs are are essentially um made. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:57.440 A plasma display is made up of a bunch of 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:01.760 very small colored fluorescent light right. Um. By altering the 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:04.520 kind of phosphors that you're using in a florescent lights coating, 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:08.240 you can alter the kind of visible light that comes 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:10.760 out of it, right, so what color you actually receive? 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:14.800 And uh? And these are are our gp uh green 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.040 blue red green blue lights. Right. So uh And here's 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.080 an interesting thing. So one of the things that you 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.880 know people who are home theater enthusiasts, and you know 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.160 they either subscribe to l E D, l c D 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:31.160 or plasma TVs. Uh. One of the things they talk 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.280 about is contrast ratio, which is the difference between the 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.320 whites that you can display on a screen versus the 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.080 the shades of black that you can display on a screen. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.319 And if you have a true black, that means that 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:44.640 if you were to turn off all the lights in 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.280 your room and look at your TV, it should just disappear. 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:50.560 It should not even be noticedab glowing. Right. If you 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:53.280 have an l c D television, chances are is that 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.240 if you have all the lights off and you have 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:57.720 a black screen on your TV and the TV is on, 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.840 you can actually see more like a re really deep 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.199 gray color. And it's because it has a back light, 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:06.679 whereas plasma televisions do not have that backlight. It's just 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:10.240 relying upon that excitation of the gas. Yeah. There, it's 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.760 just all of these little pixels of of red grit 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.199 and blue light that are that are very small and uh, 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.720 contributing to a larger picture. Right. So when it's when 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.040 the screen is black, it's because there's nothing active. It's 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.840 not that you know, there's like a little tiny shield 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:26.360 between the back light and you, which is technically what's 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.400 going on with most l c d s. The shield 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:33.800 is very tiny, but it is what it is, uh. 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.720 And there were a lot of other like differences between 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.840 plasma and l c d s, especially early early on. 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 In fact, if you really want to experience the joy 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:44.000 of learning about the differences, you can listen to one 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.160 of the very first episodes of tech Stuff. We're talking 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.000 like back, I think when it was five minutes. You 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.320 would have to go to our RSS feed to find it. 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.480 But if you went to our RSS feed and scrolled 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.280 all the way down and then looked a couple of 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.640 episodes up from the very first one, you would see 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:01.600 that Chris and I did an episode all about the 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.920 difference differences between plasma TVs and l c ds. But 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:08.720 in this case, plasma is um you know, one of 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:11.560 the exactly what we're talking about, this ionized gas. Now, 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:13.600 keep in mind, both with four essence and with the 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.640 plasma TVs, these are not gases that are burning at 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.040 hotter than the surfaces right now. No, they're not. However, 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.120 our next application will be Okay, well, are you talking 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.360 about plasma waste converters? Um? I was going to talk 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.360 about plasma torches, but we can also talk about plasma 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.600 wast converters, right because we kind of talked about plasma 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.720 torches already, did we did? I? I wanted to mention 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:36.840 that they they've actually been around since World War Two, 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:40.960 when when factories working on military aircraft started adopting welding 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.440 techniques that they that they realized were um uh, we're 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:49.440 much more efficient because they um when when you're feeding 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:52.120 that inert gas through through the electrical arc um, it 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:55.040 creates a barrier around the world with the with with 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:58.640 the airflow and um that that protects it from oxidation, 0:15:59.000 --> 0:16:01.360 which is very use well when you're trying to make 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.440 things stick together like metal, right, especially if it's metal 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.960 that's going to be under tremendous stress, like poor conditions, 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:12.560 you know, like like having salty water being tossed at it. Sure, Sure, 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.080 but plasma waste converters are a little different. It's using 0:16:15.080 --> 0:16:18.680 the same technology as plasma torches in the sense that 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:21.560 you have a plasma torch at the heart of the 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:24.160 plasma waste converter. And anyone who's listened to tech stuff 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:26.280 long enough knows that I'm crazy about this idea because 0:16:26.280 --> 0:16:28.720 I just think it's so cool. The idea is that 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.760 you are using plasma in the case, in the sense 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.120 of a plasma torch to break down the molecular bonds 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.800 of garbage. So you bring garbage in and the garbage 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.040 gets exposed to a plasma torch within a furnace. The 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:45.360 furnace itself is lined with lots of protective material to 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:49.680 keep it at a workable temperature, so it doesn't, you know, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.760 break down. But the garbage itself, when it's exposed to 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.160 this intense heat, the molecules that hold it together, that 0:16:57.240 --> 0:16:59.920 those bonds that hold the molecules together rather they break 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:05.240 and it turns. It's called molecular dissociation. Yeah, I've dissociated 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.240 with some molecules in my time, and let me tell you, 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.159 it's a violent process. And so In this case, what 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.200 happens is the material breaks down into one of two forms. 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.000 Either if it's carbon based, it then turns into gas, 0:17:18.920 --> 0:17:21.400 or if it is not combon based, if it's not organic, 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:24.879 it then melts down into slag. And usually before you 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:27.359 would even go through this process, you would actually sort 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.720 through this garbage, you know, take out anything that's metal 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:32.600 that you could recycle that kind of stuff. And so 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:34.720 what you what you're left with is a gas that 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.760 if you treat it chemically, you could actually make a 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.200 synthetic fuel out of it, which is one of those 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:44.800 promising future fuels that people talk about sometimes, right, And 0:17:44.800 --> 0:17:46.600 it's not that this is a fuel that would it's 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.600 not that we would create enough of this to make 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.840 it our primary source of fuel, but it could help 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.359 offset some of our gasoline. Yeah, and or even if 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.399 you just had it on site, if you had energy 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.040 production on site along with plasma waste converter, then you 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.879 could actually generate electricity. Yeah, you can fuel a converter, 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:05.320 and if you made enough electricity from the fuel, then 0:18:05.320 --> 0:18:07.320 it all depends on what the garbage is made out of. 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:10.560 But if you made enough, you could even feed electricity 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:14.440 back into the pad so, but then the other stuff, 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:17.120 the slag just melts off and it if you let 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.720 it cool by air, it becomes uh, this rocky substance 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.280 looks like volcanic glass, and you can use that in 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.520 construction materials. If you cool it with compressed air, it 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:30.560 turns into what's called rock wool, which is very uh 0:18:30.600 --> 0:18:34.480 effective insulator. Uh. If you cool it by water, it 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:37.320 turns into this little pebbly kind of substance that you 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.200 can use for multiple purposes. It's just a neat idea, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.680 and it's you know, it comes at several different problems 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:48.600 all at once. Energy production, although on a very small scale. Again, 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:50.480 it's not like this is going to it's not like 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:52.600 it's gonna be Mr fusion, right, it's not gonna power 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:55.560 in your car um but energy production as well as 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.400 getting rid of garbage in a way that it would 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.000 mean that we turn our garbage into fuel sources and 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:04.320 eventually we could even if the if the facilities were 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:07.760 large enough, get rid of landfills, we would eventually mind 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:11.560 the landfills from fuel plus taken all incoming garbage now. 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:13.720 And this is in a relatively clean way, by the way, 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:17.000 because it doesn't use oxidation. In the burning process, You're 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.160 not you're not actually burning stuff. You're applying so much 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:23.120 energy that it just breaks it down. So yeah, it's 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.440 different from burning garbage and then releasing toxins into the air. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.240 Keeping in mind that the gases that you are getting 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.520 from this process would be pretty toxic in some cases. 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:35.560 But that's why you have to have the chemical scrubbing 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:40.000 part where you use uh special You cool the gas 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.240 down in several in several steps, and once it's cool enough, 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.560 you then combine it with other gases that will allow 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.560 the useful stuff to pass through and become synthetic fuel, 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.159 and the other stuff, the toxic stuff would mind with 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.720 other agents to become essentially inert material that you could 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:59.520 then dispose of safely. At least that's the ideal. Um. 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.840 All I've being said really expensive proposition, which is why 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.760 we don't see it everywhere, right right, But but pretty 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.920 cool though, um and uh and and this is possibly 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.560 why people in science fiction decide that, hey, you know 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.359 this thing where we're literally breaking down the molecular structure 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:20.840 of atoms, Yeah, why don't we use that as a weapon? Weapad? 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:22.280 I mean, if this is if this is something that 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:27.560 can turn stuff into just gas or molten slag. Wouldn't 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.879 that make an amazing weapon? And in theory, sure, and 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.280 that's probably one of the reasons why it's so popular 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:35.720 in science fiction. But we'll we'll take a closer look 0:20:35.720 --> 0:20:37.480 at that before we get into the science fiction e 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:40.359 part and the actual weapon part. Let's take a quick break, 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:42.879 all right, So we touched on it why you would 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.560 want a plasma weapon because plasma is the stuff of stars, 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:48.679 and if you were able to wield that in a 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:53.760 weaponized way, you would be the biggest, baddest monster in 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:55.879 the universe. You were looking at me to see how 0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:58.399 it was going to end that, weren't you, Because you're thinking, like, 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:00.000