WEBVTT - Life on the 500th Floor 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.080 Works dot com. Hey, what this stuff to Blow your Mind? 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.560 This is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas and we're 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.159 joining you from the Radiation Proof podcast Chamber here at 0:00:21.160 --> 0:00:25.080 how stuff works dot com. Now for now, Julie, what's 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:30.080 your favorite vision of a futuristic city. I'm gonna have 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.440 to go super old school and say the Jetsons. The Jetsons, 0:00:34.680 --> 0:00:40.080 I love the domestic setup that they have and the 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.160 robot doing everything, yes, and then the the whole food 0:00:43.200 --> 0:00:46.800 being prepared. Um. And then you know, I love that 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:48.680 you're just flying around and you can go through your 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:55.120 drive throughs in your your own little spacecraft. Cool. Yeah, 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.360 well this is a this is the topic I could. 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:01.160 I could like the fashion sorry, the fashion, yeah, yeah, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:02.840 they had like I love a little like a little 0:01:03.200 --> 0:01:07.880 like Saturn rings around everything. Um. When it comes to, 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.360 you know, talking about futuris futuristic cities, I could. I 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:12.240 could probably go on too long, and I probably will 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:14.240 start going on too long and which guy's just beeper 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.720 had to jump in and stop me. But okay, I 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.680 mean there's so many classic visions. There's of course Metropolis, Yes, 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.000 the nineteen twenty nine or something thereabout the old black 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.880 and white silent Yeah, German expression is some film. Yeah, 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.160 I just showed this massive just you know today. It's 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.759 you know, kind of like a retrofuturist thing, I guess, 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:37.800 you know, just a massive city. It's like the city 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:45.440 Um on steroids, if you will, Um with the giant skyscrape, 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.040 the fat cats at the top, yeah, and the idea 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:51.160 everybody else toiling underneath exactly, almost kind of like a 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:53.800 more Locks kind of thing going on, you know. And 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.120 and it's you know, it's kind of a natural extrapolation 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:01.920 of population growth and technological advance. Buildings keep getting higher, 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:05.000 so they're just gonna keep getting higher, right, You're thinking 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:06.880 about that even back in the day, right right. Yeah. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:08.959 And so by the time like Blade Runner came out, 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.000 you know that that really set the standard for for 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.040 a lot of people's imaginations of what a just a 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.480 future city skate might look out look like. Well, I 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.839 think I finally revealed that replicants are among us. Yeah, yeah, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:24.040 it was actually it was a documentary actually, um little 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.480 man in fact. Yeah, And there's there's another example that 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.280 I personally really love and I have a love hate 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.960 relationship with this particular book. But there's a book called 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:37.720 The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson, and this was 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.200 like an early twentieth century book that dealt with like 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.480 a post apocalyptic world in which the the sun has 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.880 gone out and the world is cooled, and the last 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.680 remnants of humanity living this enormous pyramid called the Last 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:55.799 Redoubt and um, and so it's like that everybody lives 0:02:55.800 --> 0:02:58.320 on these different different floors and they grow food in there, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.840 and it's heated by geo thermal energies, and there's like 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:04.360 a whole there's like a second pyramid underneath the top 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:08.240 one where they grow like all the food. And it's 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.000 kind of a horribly written book. It's really a pain 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:16.200 to read. Um, really outrageous writing style where he's he's 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.400 you know, it's it's just it's rough. But the but 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.640 if you can you sort of pick through all the 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:25.200 bad writing, there's just a tremendous ahead of its time vision. 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.480 I mean, just telling me that right there is amazing, 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.640 because that's what futurists are planning for us not too 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:35.880 far off here. I mean, some people are thinking about 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.000 what you just describe happening for us within twenty years, 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:43.320 let alone like a hundred. There's there's actually an excellent, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:48.720 really kind of theoretical plan for something called the Shimazoo 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.360 Mega City Pyramid. And this is again very theoretical, but 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:56.440 it's it's partially inspired by Blade Runner. But this would 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:01.080 be a giant pyramid on Tokyo Bay, twelve times higher 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:04.520 than the Great Pyramid of Giza, with an occupancy of 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.680 seven fifty thousand. And again this is an example of 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.160 most of these these really large scale when we're talking 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.160 about like cities that are just like a city skate 0:04:15.280 --> 0:04:18.320 kind of situation, a Blade Runner type of situation. Um, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.160 we're talking about something that's called arcology, which is a 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:27.400 portmanteau or wordable if you like, of the words architecture 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.200 and ecology. So in other words, it's just architecture, um 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.880 and and design on a scale that is really more 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:38.359 like a landscape that can accommodate our enormous population and 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.800 to bring it down to brass tacks. I think the 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:43.960 reason why we're so interested in this topic is because 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.800 right now half of the world population six point eight 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:53.320 billion people live in cities, and it's estimated by fifty 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.800 that two thirds of the population will live in cities. 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:01.000 So obviously this trend is not stopping. And then just 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.440 to put this into context, think about in eighteen hundred 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.520 when less than three percent of the world lived in cities. 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.400 So what does that mean for us? I mean that 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:13.760 means obviously, besides a lot more people, a lot more 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.240 mouth to feed, we have less available land. We've got 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:21.960 all sorts of issues that we need to try to 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.840 to solve. And and I even think about it in 0:05:24.880 --> 0:05:29.080 this in this way, like the best uh d I 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:31.640 y Home show worth its salt will always tell you 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:35.200 when you run out of room, what do you do? Build? 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.479 You build up, build up, you go vertical. So we're 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:44.640 looking at a future where the sky, the landscape is 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.520 just gonna be completely populated with these superstructures. And again 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.000 it's not too far down the road that this is happening. 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:53.440 And in fact, there are a lot of construction projects 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.200 right now that are underway. Yeah, it's a it's a 0:05:57.600 --> 0:05:59.560 there there. There are even people who look into the 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.240 future and and start dreaming about I don't know if 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.480 it's a dream or it's really more like a nightmare, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.960 but um, the idea of the uk monopolis, which is 0:06:09.000 --> 0:06:11.760 a city made from an entire world. So if you 0:06:11.800 --> 0:06:15.840 can imagine, it's really like the concept that I think 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.800 Grant Morrison presented this in The Invisibles. But like the 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.760 city as it is is a is a cancer that 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:25.960 kind of takes over a whole planet, and and sort 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.640 of yeah, the city as as a cancer and the 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:33.000 city is this is the physical manifestation of humanity, uh 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.240 you know, all its worst properties. The city as a 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.440 character is a living, breathing thing. Yeah. Well, I mean 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.120 it's not just us thinking about this. The TED founder 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.120 Richard Saul Wurman, he actually has a project called nineteen 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:48.440 twenty one and that is a case study of nineteen 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.960 cities with populations that will meet or exceed twenty million 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:55.480 by the end of the twenty first century. And uh, 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.839 these most of these nineteen cities border oceans, and so 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.120 his thinking and that foundation is thinking, is that there's 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.800 going to be rising sea levels and there's going to 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:10.720 be all sorts of weird meteorological patterns happening, and so 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.400 the cities really need to be studied in terms of 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:18.520 how they're going to deal with food production, transportation, water resources, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:20.960 and all that good stuff so on. On a very 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.480 practical level, it's an issue that we need to look at. 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:26.280 And people just keep pointing up and saying, we're going 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.760 to be living in these crazy vertical structures and you know, 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:34.880 we may be on the floor. Yeah, it's easy to know. 0:07:35.120 --> 0:07:37.560 People look at these these giant megastructures and they're like, oh, 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.360 they'll be they'll be like a restaurant in there. There'll 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.640 be a restaurant every floor, you know. But but when 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:46.000 you look at the stats for you know, revolving around 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.920 the feeding the people on this planet, it gets pretty staggering. 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.320 I mean, for starters, demographics predicted the planet will host 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:56.640 nine point five billion people by at least according to 0:07:56.760 --> 0:08:00.880 one study we're looking at. And because each of us 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:05.040 require a minimum of fift calories a day. Uh, you 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:08.120 were pointing, this civilization would have to cultivate like a 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:11.400 Brazil's worth of land, right, it's like two point one 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:16.320 billion acres. And it relates directly to something that is 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.800 often referred to as the eco footprint analysis. And uh, 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:22.840 and that's the thing as you look at different parts 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:25.360 of the world, Uh, the amount of land required to 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.920 feed one given person ferries. So people in the developed 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.840 and developed countries such as United States and Japan, for instance, 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:34.920 each require an estimated ten to twenty five acres of 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.760 land to support their lifestyle. So that's that's a you know, 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:44.640 pretty staggering footprint. And and according to population ecologist of 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.200 William E. Rees, the global average breaks down to five 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.120 point four acres per person. And unfortunately, the planet only 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.480 has enough bioproductive surface area to a lot four point 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.040 four acres to each of its six point eight billion residents. 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:03.120 So um, human civilizations current eco footprint is already beyond 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:05.880 sustainable levels. Okay, So what you're saying is we just 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:08.400 we don't have the land. We don't have arable land 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.680 new arable land available to us. So again we're in 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.880 the same room. What are we gonna do? Go up? Um? 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:18.800 And I think it's interesting to look right now at 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:21.120 at a couple of current examples just so that we 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.320 can kind of get our footing on what this means 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.520 to us. And one of the examples is the Bionic 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.880 Tower in Shanghai is pretty staggering. Yeah, this is a 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:36.320 crazy structure. It's it's slated to start construction in and 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.600 it's going to take fifteen years to build four thousand 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:44.000 feet tall with three hundred floors, and the structural will 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:48.040 contain twelve vertical neighborhoods. And we're talking about green spaces, 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.320 urban spaces. I mean, just think about think about New 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:57.120 York sort of sandwich into building for instance. And the structure, 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.800 if I may, is a very fallic structure. And uh, 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.640 it is centered in an artificial lake. And the reason 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:07.440 for the lake is so that it could absorb any 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:12.400 shock waves from earthquakes. And uh, they proposed putting a 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:14.679 bunch of I guess you what, you'd say, regular size 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:18.640 buildings at the base that they'd have little trams to 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.720 go to. And I mean basically you would never ever 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:27.000 have to leave the structure your entire life, which is 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.000 just mind blowing. Yeah. Well, it reminds me again of 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.199 the Last re Doubt in the Night Land, where the 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.440 situation is there are people that live and die old 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.760 generations without leaving the structure, right, And then I mean 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.840 it begs the question for me, like, Okay, well, this 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.360 is this is something we're looking in the next years. 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:46.480 In five hundred years, are we just gonna all be 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.080 in like a little five by five pod up in 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.800 the sky, you know, living and dying in that same space, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:56.319 or you know, you know, not to get depressing. Well, 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.640 it's not depressing because you have to realize video games 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:00.920 are gonna be crazy good by time, you know. So 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.400 why would you believe you wouldn't even care about the 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:05.920 sunset looking so beautiful at that? Right? I mean they're 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.040 pretty great now, but you know by this point they're 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.559 gonna be like, I don't have to go outside. Great 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:16.320 just on the first level of that's right. Yeah, um so, yeah, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.320 maybe that's not so much of a concern, but you know, 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:22.160 in our minds right now, it's sort of inconceivable. And 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.760 then just from an engineering standpoint, you think about wind 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:28.520 and movement at that height, you know, you can't have 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:32.240 any structure move anymore than one four hundreds of its 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.199 height else it's too unstable. Yeah. I ran across some 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:42.120 interesting UM statistics on this. In numerical terms, the support 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.000 and state built and stability of a building translates to 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.400 an aspect ratio between six and eight. Okay, so bear 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:53.000 with me, um so you want Okay, So the aspect 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.320 ratio in this case is calculated by dividing the height 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:57.400 of the building by the width of its base. This 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.840 is kind of the if you've ever liked built anything 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:02.720 to play or something, and you want like a strong 0:12:02.800 --> 0:12:07.240 base to support heights. Okay, so um to achieve a 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:11.440 desirable aspect ratio of seven a bionic tower. And this 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.400 is based on a like you give a four thousand 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.720 foot height, and I've seen other height estimates that were lower, 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.400 like three thousand, two eighty one, so this might not 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:25.439 completely mesh with that with the four thousand number, but 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:28.280 if it worth, if the tower worth three thousand two 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:30.840 one ft tall, the base would then need to be 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.800 four dred and sixty nine ft wide. Whoa, Okay, alright, 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.679 so I mean we're talking about just an enormous structure, right. 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:41.720 And then the other thing that I'm thinking about too 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.559 is something called the stack effect, which is that the 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.080 wind moaning that you hear when you're up a really 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.520 really high space, and particularly in buildings where you get 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.440 that whistling effect with elevators. So yeah, you might have 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:56.720 a great view, but you won't be haunted. I like 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.240 this eraser head like noise all the time. Yeah, And 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:01.400 speaking of l a ators, Uh, the estimate that I 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.719 was looking at for the Balonot Tower, three dred and 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.439 sixty eight elevators. Okay, so you need to completely rethink 0:13:07.480 --> 0:13:10.520 elevator talk at this point, right, Yeah, I mean assuming 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.120 we canna assume that they have some good speed to them. 0:13:13.160 --> 0:13:16.080 But still, yeah, even if they're basically won clevators, I mean, 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.199 they're the three center and sixty eight is is pretty 0:13:19.200 --> 0:13:22.640 massive up and it's one of the the problems you 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.679 run into with with a lot of like super tall 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:31.200 skyscraper situations. For instance, Uh, how stuff works is located 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:36.520 in a what we're fifteen floors fourteen technically because is 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.160 taken out and then there's the secret floor with the 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.320 moment and you know. But but so we have two 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.600 banks of elevators to one one with four elevators going 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.480 up what like halfway and then four other elevators going 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:51.439 up the rest of the way. And that more or 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.560 less makes sense if you've ever been saying, like, like 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.240 the dorm that I was in in college had two 0:13:56.280 --> 0:14:00.520 elevators that serviced twelve floors, and it was one of 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.360 these situations where the the higher you were, the more 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.920 difficult it was to catch an elevator. So, uh, extrapolate 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.559 that to a five hundred floor of building, and it 0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:15.240 gets ridiculous, like you have to have elevators that that 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:17.880 that say, do you know floors one through tin, then 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:19.760 another has to do the next tin floors, the next 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:22.080 tin floors, etcetera. You have to make it to where 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:27.080 people aren't spending half their day just ascending. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:29.200 So I guess I would invert the paradigm to that 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:33.960 maybe that the best floor would be like the tenth floor. Yeah. Um, 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.280 But that's just something to think about. And and then 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.360 also talking about extrapolating if people were to be living 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.440 in these sort of mega cities with these structures, you 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:47.720 start to think about any sort of interlocking tunnels that 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:50.240 might run between the buildings. Oh yeah, because that's another 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.000 big staple of I mean, I'm a huge fan of 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.480 sky bridges. I see a sky bridge between buildings and like, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.800 I'm magine the like it goes back to the Yeah, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:00.080 like I'm thinking, like as a kid, it's like I 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.520 would always like dream up like fight scenarios between characters 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.520 and non existent action films, like where they would have 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:09.280 to fight on a on a on a sky bridge 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:10.920 in a sky bridge. And then of course the window 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:12.120 breaks and they have to find on top of the 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.760 sky bridge. They're amazing, you know, So I didn't know 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.640 that skybridge is like they they're pretty important to you. Well, 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:19.600 they're They're just great. I mean it's like it's this 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:21.880 man made little bridge on the top of like two 0:15:21.880 --> 0:15:24.560 man made mountains, are you know, bridging them together? Like 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.320 I almost wrecked the car anytime I drive under one. Wow, 0:15:27.960 --> 0:15:31.600 get to know if you're driving with you. So, I 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.760 mean that's bionic tower. That's one example. Well, a little 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.120 more about the ma bionic tower though, Um, I was 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.400 reading that. There's also a you're talking about the wind 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.200 going on, Well, it can actually turn a building into 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.840 a giant tuning fork. There's a phenomenon called vortex shedding, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.120 and basically it breaks down like this is the wind 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.880 blows around the corners of the building, spins off into 0:15:55.040 --> 0:16:00.480 eddies all right, or masses of whirling air, and the 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.160 frequency at which the eddies of air or shed increases 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.920 the wind speed. So, um, this can build up and 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:11.520 you end up with a dangerous effect called residents and 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.560 and so and this just causes the building to move 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:15.440 more and more to where you could pensually potentially have 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.040 windows shatter. Um, you know, stuff is cracking, things are 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.720 falling apart, right, Yeah, I haven't even thought. So that's 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.520 the tuning fork effect, So that the it's it's basically 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:28.640 conducting all of these vibrations to the point where it shatters. 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:31.000 Am I hearing you right on that? Okay? So you 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.320 end up having to you need to have like aerodynamic 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:35.840 features to a building a lot of times, or you 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:39.720 use a dampening system. And this is just something like 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:43.280 a or like a four hundred ton concrete blocks such 0:16:43.320 --> 0:16:46.600 as in New York City's City Core building to absorb 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.920 the vibrations like a giant shock absorber. Yeah, all right. 0:16:50.360 --> 0:16:52.360 I had to just make sure because as soon as 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.120 you said tuning forks, I was like thrown back to 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:56.640 Costa Rica where I was staying at this place unbeknownst 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.000 to me with a woman was a healer who was 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.520 trying to heal me with tuning forks. So I had 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:03.760 a little bit of a moment there. How to repress memory? 0:17:03.760 --> 0:17:07.520 I hope you don't mind. Um, So, I mean, obviously 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:11.080 there are there are some practical things that would hinder 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:12.960 us right now in terms of the technology at like 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:15.320 you would think so with bionic Tower like that that 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:18.240 sort of upkeep seems insane. Now, Bionic Tower is also 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.720 interesting in that they, I mean, the whole name comes 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.719 from bionic because in bio as in bio mimetics, as 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.960 in looking to nature to solve human problems, not the 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.679 bionic man. Well no, not really, but I don't know, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.080 I'm not. But you know, it's the idea that it's like, hey, 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.639 I need to design a um I need to design 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:40.440 an airplane. I need to design something that can fly 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.480 in the air. So I can either have a scientist 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:47.880 look at look at this problem and depend on human science. 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.320 It's you know, maybe been analyzing this problem for what, 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.719 you know, some few hundred years or something. I can 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.080 look to evolution, which has been tackling this problem for 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:59.199 a much longer period of time, looking to nature to 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:04.840 solve human engineering problems. So they make a big show 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:06.840 with the Bionic Tower of talking about how that the 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.240 how they have these ninety two vertical columns and the 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.560 design to you know, for energy and water and other supplies, 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.480 and that this is like the some of the transport 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:19.760 systems in a vascular plant. And they also talk about 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.000 the base of the tower would be kind of like 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.600 a root system and a tree, which on the surface 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:28.880 sounds great. But but but the if if you look 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:32.000 at some of the info out there about I'm just 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.960 thinking about. I recently went to Yosseminate National Park and 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.680 they have the giant sequoias there, which, you know, enormous trees, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.000 really interesting to look at, and on the service you 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:42.840 might think, yeah, if I wanted to build a super 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.120 tall building, I totally looked to a giant sekoia because 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:46.639 they have it all figured out. But the thing is, 0:18:46.640 --> 0:18:49.520 giant tekoias, though they live pretty long, they fall down 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:51.760 when they're when the wind blows too too strong or 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:54.840 there's like a really harsh winter, they collapse. They're not 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.000 reinforced with steel, right, and you know the whole um, 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:01.480 the whole you know, giant tree with the tunnel cut 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.840 out in the middle. No, tell me about you have 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:07.439 you seen this? I'm sure um in Yosemite is a 0:19:07.440 --> 0:19:09.719 great place. But but like a lot lot of parks, 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.480 and yeah, there was a time when it was like 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:18.040 totally fine to like feed garbage to bears and tout 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:19.840 a pathway through through the trees so you could drive 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:23.679 your car through, and uh, the tree eventually die, but 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.280 not because of the tunnel. Like the tree can survive that. 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.040 They're typically damaged by fire to the point where there's 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.920 a giant hole in the base anyway, but the cars 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:35.800 driving over the roots system like that. The root system 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.960 is pretty shallow, and that's one of the things that 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.080 really did it in. So that's one. You can't actually 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.159 walk up and, thank goodness, carved your name onto the 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.919 side of the giant Sekoya in Yosemite. So anyway, no, 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.000 I did not do that. I just respect very respectful name. 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:56.240 Um I spray painted it, so it's not so um. 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.400 So Yeah, when when I when I read about people 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.639 looking to trees, and obviously they're not gonna it's not 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.119 gonna be that simplistic situation. But I can't help but 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:06.879 think that it's like, well, this is this is not 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:08.800 really a problem that nature has solved. It's not a 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.960 problem nature wants to solve, you know, So that that's 0:20:11.960 --> 0:20:14.920 still there are the concept of looking to nature to 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:17.680 solve engineering problems is a really good one. Yeah, I 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:20.320 think it was it. But Minister Fuller, maybe I have 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.359 some memory of uh reading something once in which he 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.199 said that a structure can be perfect, but it's not 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:29.480 beautiful until it does have some sort of mimicry of 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:31.399 nature to it. Oh yeah, like you get into the 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:34.399 whole um um, you know, any kind of you know, 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.719 look at classical architecture. They were really big into the 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.040 the Golden mean and all that, you know, right right, Okay, 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.720 So bionic tower. There you go with that one. And 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.000 then another one in the works is Masdar City and 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:51.600 Abu Dhabi and that is going to be the first 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:56.200 carbon neutral city and it should be completed by and 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:58.639 what they're trying to do is to build a city 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:03.040 of fort abitants where of the water can be recycled 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:07.400 and cars will be banned and replaced by a personal 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.400 rapid trans transit system, which is a subterranean system using 0:21:11.400 --> 0:21:15.680 cars powered by solar batteries. And that they look really cool, 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.680 I have to say, but I'm kind of picturing like 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:20.600 a little casket that you climb into and it's like 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.679 shoot shoots your you know, from the restaurant to your apartment. 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.800 So dark. Well, I mean it's more like a pod, 0:21:28.920 --> 0:21:33.120 a casting pod, and it's white. Well that's not nightmarek 0:21:33.160 --> 0:21:35.960 at all, No, not at all. I mean just bolting 0:21:36.040 --> 0:21:39.280 you through a town, but it can carry somethinging three 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.040 to six people depending on the design and the ideas 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.879 that it could be shared by people. Um and asopp 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:46.320 as it could be sort of like a taxi cab 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:50.919 system too. But they actually have those in use at Pitha. 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.120 I believe they're testing them out, but they're not open 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.200 to the public. So that's one of the technologies that 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:58.040 we actually have in place right now, which is kind 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:01.120 of interesting to see that that's happening. Um. And then 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.560