WEBVTT - Pykrete: Ice Like Stone 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.360 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.080 Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.119 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.959 we're gonna be talking about materials today. But this is 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.680 a really fun materials episode that will shatter like glass 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:26.520 in our hands, or will it? I guess it's a 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:30.200 big question mark. Yeah, we're gonna be talking a lot 0:00:30.280 --> 0:00:33.800 about ice, but a lot of exciting stuff about ice. 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.000 You're gonna learn some new things about ice, I think, 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.440 and you're also going to think, uh a bit more 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.760 deeply about what can be done and also what perhaps 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.120 cannot or should not be done with ice. So, if 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:48.680 you've read any of George rr. Martin's A Song of 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.080 Ice and Fire, if you've read that soga, or if 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:55.040 you've viewed the TV adaptation Game of Thrones, you're well 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.440 acquainted with the wall. But to reacquain everybody, this is 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.760 a fantasy world that based on sort of a medieval 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:05.520 European model, and in the Far North you have this 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:09.400 massive three hundred mile long, seven hundred foot tall wall 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.320 of ice that we're told has stood there for eight 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.360 thousand years as a barrier against the people's and the 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.959 supernatural horrors of the far North. Yeah, it's basically Hadrian's Wall, 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.920 except much bigger and made of magic. Yes, yeah, we're 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.520 told it was built by Brandon the Builder, with the 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.160 aid of giants and the magical children of the forest. 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.959 So we're definitely to understand that there is actual magic 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:35.520 in its construction. But also there's this idea that Brandon 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.520 was a master engineer, that he's in the vein of 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:43.200 these various engineering cultural heroes that you see in various cultures. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.440 But of course, the real standout feature that makes this 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.160 wall unique is that it is built out of ice, 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.200 not out of stone, but out of frozen water. Yes, 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.000 it is a wall of ice. So um, you know, 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.640 ignoring the magic for a second here, it sounds like 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:00.720 a great plan, right, I mean, human have been known 0:02:00.760 --> 0:02:03.800 to make shelters out of ice, glaciers and snow have 0:02:03.920 --> 0:02:07.680 served as natural barriers to travel, So why wouldn't it 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.440 be ideal to construct this far northern barrier, which is 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:15.280 going to be dealing with, you know, with far northern climate. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.160 Why not build it out of ice? Good question, is 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.160 a block of ice not just as good as a 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:23.120 stone brick? Yeah, So I was looking around about this, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.519 and uh, fortunately there is already a great book out 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:30.000 there that dives into this very question. It's titled Fire, 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.200 Ice and Physics, the Science of Game of Thrones by 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.440 Rebecca C. Thompson, PhD, a physicist and author of the 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.720 popular Spectra series of comic books about physics. And I 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.760 should also note that Sean Carroll wrote the intro. Cool 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.000 so she, Uh, first of all, this is just a 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.960 really fun book if you if if you're interested in 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:51.320 Game of Thrones and science, I encourage you to pick 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:53.720 it up. But I love books like this. Uh you know, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.440 I have one about done, I've been eyeing one about 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.960 Star wars Um. But she goes through very aious aspects 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.120 of the books and the world of wester Roast and 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.080 breaks them about scientifically, and does so in a very engaging, 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:12.040 humorous but also um, you know, wester Roast loving style. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.160 So so there's there's one section in there where she 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.720 tackles the wall and she points out that ultimately this 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:21.160 question would an ice wall work. It's a lot more 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.080 complex than you might think. So for starters, there's not 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.560 just one type of ice crystal. There are seventeen types 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.440 of crystalline ice that we know of. Plus there are 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:35.520 three different types of amorphous ice, and three theoretically, she says, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:37.960 there might be as many as three hundred different phases 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.280 of ice. Uh, you know, depending on some of the 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.920 research out there. Right. The different phases of ice having 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:46.840 different physical properties is something that's been explored in science 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.440 fiction for a while. Actually, it's in the novel Cat's 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.640 Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, which invents a fictional phase of ice. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.720 There is no actual phase of ice that does this, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.520 but there's a fictional phase of ice called Ice nine, 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.520 which acts as a seed, a stole, and it is 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.520 a it's a doomsday weapon because if you drop a 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:08.440 piece of this ice into regular water, it will rearrange 0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:11.400 the structure of the regular water so that it freezes 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.840 at room temperature, basically killing Earth. Ah, you know, I've 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:17.640 I've never read Cat's Cradle, but I I remember now 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:19.640 that you mentioned. I remember like reading that on a 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:22.880 summary or the back of the paperback or something. Yeah. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.080 But but to clarify again, that's a fictional phase of ice. 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.280 There is no actual phase of ice that does that 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.479 that we know about. Yeah, the phase of ice were 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:34.120 most familiar with is ice one H also known as 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.560 ice phase one, and this is the the hexagonal crystal 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.280 form of ordinary ice. And this is pretty much all 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.960 the ice you ever come into contact with. And therefore 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.159 we can assume that this is the same ice that 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:48.480 we encounter in the world of West Ros. I think 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.680 that's a safe assumption. Yeah, of course you might say, well, 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:53.520 what if it's not. What if somehow this is an 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.080 alternate universe or a different planet where another form of 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.440 ice is the predominant phase. I'm not sure if that's 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.640 even a raise noble question to raise though. Anyway, Thompson 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.640 does a great overview of ice and the physical properties 0:05:05.640 --> 0:05:08.240 of ice, and I do want to throw in that 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.280 she has an excellent bit where she weighs in on 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.800 whiskey stones. Oh okay, so Robert explained the concept of 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.440 a whiskey stone. Well, I do not. I do not 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:19.440 own these, but I assume you do not either. But 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:21.680 I've heard of them. I guess I don't. I don't 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:23.440 know if I know anyone. I think I might know 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:25.920 one person who has them. But the idea is that 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:30.400 you you're such an afficionado of bourbon or whiskey and 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:32.359 you that you don't want anything to dilute it. You 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:34.919 want it cold, but you don't want to put some 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.760 ice in there which will kill the drink but also melt. 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.440 So apparently these have been marketed before. The whiskey stones 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.680 are like our rocks that somebody sells you, rocks that 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:46.839 you keep in your freezer, and then when you want 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.280 to have a cold glass of brown alcohol, you put 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.720 the cold rock in there, and the rock, of course 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.080 will not melt and dilute your beverage. Now, if you 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.719 actually enjoy whiskey stones, no judgment of all, more power 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:02.640 to you. But I would like to point out just 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.320 real quickly that this is you can get into how 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:08.760 it might be a little bit misguided from a physics standpoint, 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:10.920 but it's also a little bit misguided, I think from 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.599 a culinary standpoint, because I mean, I think most people 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.840 believe that like whiskeys tend to kind of improve with 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.360 the addition of a small amount of water, So like 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:23.800 melting ice cools, but also adds water to the drink. 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:26.159 And this is an important part of many spirit and 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:29.400 cocktail preparations. And this might be why if you've ever 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.320 tried to mix a cocktail that is supposed to be 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:35.520 shaken with ice, but then you make it without shaking 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.479 it with ice, it kind of tastes wrong. And that's 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.159 because one of the ingredients in this cocktail is actually water, 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.280 and you have left that important ingredient out by not 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.239 shaking it with ice that dilutes into the drink. Yeah. 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.640 I've definitely experienced this making cocktails before, where I'll end 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.160 up for whatever reason, you know, due to whatever kind 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:57.560 of ice I have on hand, I'll end up with 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:00.520 a drink that doesn't taste perfect. But once the ice 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.880 has melted a little bit, it's a different experience. And 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:06.640 even with like a straight whiskey on on the rocks, 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.760 I mean that that's always been my experience of of that, 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:12.840 it's like the drink will change as the making drinking 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.920 experience will change as the ice melts, which I think 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.280 is part of the experience. But then again, i'm i'm I'm, 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.480 I'm ultimately a novice when it comes to the appreciation 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:25.600 of fine whiskeys. But Thompson also makes a physics point 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.440 about the whiskey stones right right, she writes the following quote. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.280 The heat from the soda is used to melt the ice, 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:35.760 so the surrounding soda cools off. This is also why 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:39.560 whiskey stones are a total sham. Seriously, I can't stress 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:42.560 this enough. Don't buy whiskey stones. If you want to 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.440 keep your drink cold without watering it down, get yourself 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.720 some water filled plastic ice cubes. They're eighty percent less stylish, 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.840 but a hundred percent more useful. Now she continues from 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.200 here and get some more detail. Basically, her point is 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.600 that the whiskey stone will only take away enough energy 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:01.600 to raise its temperature. Of the whiskey temperature, an ice 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.760 cube will take the same energy, plus the energy needed 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.520 to break the molecular bonds which melts the ice. Right. 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.560 That phase transition takes energy the same way that boiling 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.480 water takes energy. Like, why does your pot of water 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:18.200 boiling on the stove not just keep increasing in temperature 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:20.800 and until it's the same temperature as like the heating 0:08:20.840 --> 0:08:24.120 element below it. Uh, it's because it takes enormous energy 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.760 to turn that water into steam, and that energy gets 0:08:26.800 --> 0:08:30.960 boiled off. Yeah. So anyway, that that doesn't directly relate 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.200 to the building of a giant wall made out of ice, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.360 but it was just too interesting In her writing on 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.840 it was just too humorous to pass over. Well, let's 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:41.000 get back to why exactly it is that ice is 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.319 not a good building material, all right, Well, she points 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.480 out that quote ice on a large scale is basically 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:51.200 catch up. So yeah, so, yeah, I sent a large 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.959 scale is a non Newtonian fluid. In an ice wall 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.960 or a glacier, the pressure of the structure's own weight 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.440 causes it to creep. And this would occur even in 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:05.240 if low temperatures prevented the ice from ever really melting. 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:09.320 Dislocation small cracks that cause ice crystals to move over 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.440 each other would cause the creep even in a you know, 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.640 a pretty stable chili environment. So this would be in 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:21.719 play concerning the wall, along with temperature changes. Yeah, that's right. 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.520 And creep actually is the technical term there. It comes 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:26.920 up in a paper by a chemist that we're gonna 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.200 look at later in the episode. Yeah, she says that 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.480 ultimately the wall. She says, the wall would have probably 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:34.480 been okay for like a year, but over the course 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.840 of thousands of years, it would end up being just 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:39.920 more of an ice dome or a plateau, depending on 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.880 the temperature, So it would be far less of an 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:47.520 obstacle to um certainly intelligent beings looking to invade the South. 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:52.240 Good thing. It's magic then, But but there's more. There's 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.320 another huge issue and one that's key to the rest 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.920 of the episode here. Ice tends to have a lot 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:00.280 of defects in it due to the way the ice 0:10:00.280 --> 0:10:03.840 crystals are organized, and this leads to cracks, And of 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.520 course cracks mean that the ice can ultimately fail, right, 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.520 it can ultimately lose its structural integrity. And it's not 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:13.640 just that the ice fails. All materials can fail, and 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.720 we have to understand how they fail and what conditions 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:19.440 cause them to fail. But with ice, quote, there's no 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.320 specific set of conditions that cause ice to fail. Rather, 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.559 it fails under a wide range of conditions. Yes, another 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.400 way of putting this is that ice is structurally unpredictable. Uh. 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:33.959 You take two blocks of ice that are the same size, 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:37.240 made of the same water, and one might fail trying 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.000 to hold up five pounds while another one can hold 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.240 up twenty pounds, And that that kind of difference, that 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.160 variability is not a good characteristic of a building material. 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:50.720 You could almost argue, I think that predictability is more 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:55.240 important than strength when you're selecting a building material. Yes. Now, 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:58.839 Thompson does point out that there are ways to strengthen 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.119 the ice. They're a way as to make it more dependable, 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:06.120 more durable. And the interesting thing is the weird things 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.200 that you do to ice, uh. To do this we 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.959 find fantastic examples of of this. Not in a fantasy 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.600 world like a game of Thrones. Uh. Instead we find 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.679 these examples in the the equally or perhaps even more 0:11:20.920 --> 0:11:24.960 bizarre world of our own real history. Right. This brings 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.280 us to the subject to the rest of today's episode, 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.960 which is going to be this fantastic frozen material known 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:36.040 as pike crete or ice that's about as strong as concrete. Yes, 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.199 and and again let me just say that if you're 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:42.520 familiar with with this material and it's it's usage and 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:44.600 uh in the project we're going to talk about, then 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:46.559 you know you're in for an exciting time. But if 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.160 you haven't, just let me assure you that everything is 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.480 about to get far stranger than a giant wall of 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.679 ice made to keep undead invaders out. Right, We're more 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.079 in the realm of a giant tub of ice used 0:11:59.080 --> 0:12:02.280 to bomb knots ease. But first we're gonna have to 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.640 take a quick break, but we'll be right back with 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:11.520 more ice. Thank thank thank Alright, we're back. So we're 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.640 gonna be dealing with the Second World War here, a 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:17.920 truly global war that worked kind of like a black 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.720 hole just pulling in I mean, first and foremost human lives, 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:26.079 but also human ingenuity, and of course funds and resources 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.320 as well. So there was more than enough room in 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.520 all of this for the occasional hairbrained scheme to pick 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.079 up a lot of steam. And this is one of them. 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.520 I want to say, I'm not sure exactly how hairbrained 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:41.920 it is, Like in some ways it's hair brained, and 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:45.440 in other ways it's quite ingenious. It's the strange mixture 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.880 of of genuine insight and good ideas with proposals so 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:55.080 outlandish that they're laughable in their face. Yes, yeah, I 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:57.520 should I should rephrase. I guess that there are better 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.679 examples of purely hairbrained schemes that were brought up during 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.600 War two. This one, I guess it's just more of 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.280 an idea that this is. This is a real outside 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.480 the box idea, and one that at least for a while, 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.240 seemed like it might be the best solution to the 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:18.040 problem given the resources at hand and the weight of 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.480 the circumstances. Right, So what was the problem that we're 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.720 going to start with here, Well, the basic problem was 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:28.480 the Allied forces needed better aerial coverage of the North Atlantic. Yeah. 0:13:28.640 --> 0:13:30.800 So to expand on this, I want to refer to 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.120 a paper that we're going to be consulting extensively for 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:36.400 the rest of this episode. It's called a Description of 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:40.679 the Iceberg Aircraft Carrier and the Bearing of the Mechanical 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:45.319 properties of frozen wood Pulp upon some problems of glacier flow. 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.319 This is a report that was presented to a scientific 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:52.960 organization called the International Glaciological Society in nineteen forty six, 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.960 and it was written by a guy named Max Peruts. 0:13:56.760 --> 0:14:00.760 Now Max Peruts lived from nineteen fourteen until two thousand two. 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:04.520 He was an Austrian born chemist and molecular biologist, and 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.000 generally just an extremely accomplished scientist. He won the nineteen 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.120 sixty two Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and this was for 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.800 his work on the structure of hemoglobin. But Peruts was 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.000 really just one of the great pioneers of molecular biology. 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:21.560 I was listening to an interview between Brian Cox and 0:14:21.640 --> 0:14:26.120 the molecular biologist Vinki Rama Krishnan, who was talking about 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.840 Perutz's work explaining the structure of proteins, and Rama Krishnan 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:34.120 says that in many ways, modern biology would be unthinkable 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:37.600 without Peruts's contributions. He he did some of the most 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.400 important pioneering work for the kinds of molecular biology that 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.480 are you know, ubiquitous throughout the biology research and biotech 0:14:45.520 --> 0:14:49.760 world today. But before all this, Peruts was involved in 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.600 the British war effort during World War two, and specifically 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.160 he was working with the ice based technology that we 0:14:57.200 --> 0:15:00.440 are discussing today, and in this paper he gives a 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.400 firsthand account of the project and some scientific discoveries that 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.600 came out of it. So to to establish the problem, 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.080 Peruts writes that in the autumn of nineteen forty two, 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.080 Allied leadership recognized that their war effort was really suffering 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:19.040 from a lack of air power range, especially in response 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:22.800 to German U boat attacks in the Atlantic, and this 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.040 was affecting the transport of cargo across the ocean between 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.480 Great Britain and their allies in North America. So there's 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.280 a U boat threat throughout the ocean. You never know 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.320 if your your cargo resupply ships are going to be attacked, 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.280 and you could defend them if you had better air coverage. 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.240 But how are you going to get planes all the 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:42.400 way out there in the middle of the Atlantic where 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:44.880 the U boats can attack. That's right, you come down 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.120 to the limits of aviation technology at that time. Yeah, 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:51.160 and Peruts writes, quote, it had been a common experience 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:55.000 that the carrier based aircraft of the Allies were inferior 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.520 in armament and speed to the land based planes of 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.040 the enemy. And so what are talking about was that 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:04.200 there were aircraft carriers that the Allies had during World 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.800 War Two. But these aircraft carriers at the time were 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:12.240 relatively small, with short runways and limited parking and storage space. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.560 So the kinds of planes that could take off from 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:19.400 them tended to have light armor and wings that would 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.120 like collapse and fold up to make them easier to store. 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:25.920 The kinds of planes that were better armored, more powerful, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:28.800 and could do more damage. For example, I was reading 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:32.640 an article by Paul Collins from two thousand two in 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:38.160 the magazine Cabinet about this project, and Collins mentioned spitfires 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:42.480 and bomber planes as examples of these more powerful planes. Uh, 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:45.960 they couldn't fit on or take off from aircraft carriers. 0:16:45.960 --> 0:16:48.560 They had to be launched from the ground. And this 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.480 didn't only affect cargo transport and other operations in the Atlantic, 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:57.240 it also had implications for future ground invasions of access 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.920 occupied areas in say, continental Europe and an Asia. So 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:05.200 you know, given the existing limitations on aircraft carriers, if 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.000 you were to try to land on a distant shore, 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.200 your airpower inland would be limited until you could capture 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.800 or establish air fields there from which you could launch 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.680 these more powerful land based planes like spitfires and bombers 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.480 and so Peruts writes quote. It was only natural, therefore, 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.480 that a proposal for the apparently cheap construction of gigantic 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:32.679 aircraft carriers capable of operating land based aircraft thousands of 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.880 miles from their base was seriously considered. So so that's 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.600 the dilemma there, And they're trying to get more powerful, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.000 bigger planes farther out into the ocean, farther from home, 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:46.280 right and that that's pretty tall order right there. But 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:48.480 then on top of that, now not only does it 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:53.560 have to be enormous and also inexpensive. It also would 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.439 really help if it were essentially torpedo proof, if the 0:17:57.600 --> 0:18:00.280 all these prowling U boats would be in cape bowl 0:18:00.320 --> 0:18:03.280 of sinking it, right. Yeah, you don't want to load 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:06.800 a ship up with all of your most important, most 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.119 expensive aircraft and then launch it out into the ocean 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.879 to be sunk by a U boat. Yeah. So you know, 0:18:12.960 --> 0:18:15.320 in defense of of everything that comes after this, that 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.560 is a that's a tall order that really invites outside 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.720 the box thinking, right, and fortunately we had an outside 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.320 the box thinker come onto the scene. Yes, enter English 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:33.400 journalist turned inventor Jeffrey Pike, who lived eight through nine. Yeah, 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:36.359 and so Paul Collins, writing for that Cabinet magazine article 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.000 I mentioned from two thousand two, he quotes The Times 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:42.919 of London calling Pike quote one of the most original, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:46.760 if unrecognized figures of the present century. And I just 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.959 want to read collins brief summary of Pike's early life quote. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.920 His career began in nineteen fourteen, when, as a teenager 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.840 at Cambridge University, he landed a foreign correspondent job by 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:01.920 using a false passport to sneak into wartime Germany. After 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:05.520 getting tossed into a concentration camp, he fled the country 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:08.879 in a daring daytime escape. In the nineteen twenties, he 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.159 virtually created progressive elementary education in Great Britain, all for 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.560 the sake of his own son's education. Pike financed his 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:20.760 own school by brilliantly writing futures markets and controlling a 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:25.040 quarter of the world's supply of tin, a ploy which 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.920 brought him to financial ruin in nineteen nine. He lived 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.360 on as an eccentric hermit, publishing prescient warnings of Nazism 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:37.560 and proposing one of the first media watchdogs. After the war, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:40.960 his freelance genius helped propel the creation of the National 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.000 Health Service. That's quite a resume. So yeah, foreign journalists 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:50.920 escaped enemy capture. Uh weird investment portfolio huge into ten 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:56.359 loses it all eccentric hermit but then pioneers uh progressive 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:59.959 political causes. And Pike was known for having some extreme, 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.680 really weird, you could say, outside the box ideas. One 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.280 that I was just briefly reading about was that in 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.760 nineteen forty three, as a proposal for for the war effort, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.600 Jeffrey Pike got pipe fever and he started thinking, we 0:20:13.640 --> 0:20:17.760 need more pipes. We can transport things and people through pipes, 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.359 and that's way more efficient than trying to transport them 0:20:20.400 --> 0:20:23.640 just straightforwardly over land and vehicles and all that. So 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:27.359 he proposed the idea of transporting goods and soldiers like 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:32.960 from ship at shore too deep inside enemy territory through pipes. 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.879 And obviously this would have some drawbacks, especially when you're 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.440 trying to ship people through pipes, but in order to 0:20:39.520 --> 0:20:43.040 combat claustrophobia and suffocation, the troops that were sent through 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:50.200 the pipe could be supplied with barbiturates and oxygen tanks. Wow. Um, yeah, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.600 that's quite a quite an alternate reality to try and envision, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.199 one in which you would have basically like hot and 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.840 cold running um armed reinforcements. Right yeah. Uh So during 0:21:00.840 --> 0:21:03.560 World War Two, the British military established an office known 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.000 as Combined Operations, and this was to coordinate actions that 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:10.439 required the cooperation of multiple branches of the armed forces, 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.120 so if you needed to combine naval and air forces 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.040 or army, et cetera. And in nineteen forty two, the 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.400 chief of Combined Operations was this guy named Lord Lewis 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:23.920 mount Baton, Lord mount Batton, is a big figure in 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.760 in twentieth century British history. He's sort of all over 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:31.040 the place. But Collins writes that Pike presented himself to 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:35.600 Mount Baton's Office of Combined Operations, and he basically told him, hey, 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:38.400 you need to hire me quote, because I'm a man 0:21:38.560 --> 0:21:42.240 who thinks. And so Pike was thinking, and he came 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.280 up with an idea a response to this problem of 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:49.360 limited air power range in the Atlantic and elsewhere. That's right, 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:53.639 in October of nineteen two, Pike said, hey, why don't 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:57.360 we get an iceberg, hollow it out and used that 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.320 as a floating base, because this would it would float, 0:22:01.440 --> 0:22:04.520 it would uh, it would be torpedo proof, and it 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:06.800 would it would certainly last long enough for us to 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.520 then establish better land bases. Right. So, the idea was 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:14.840 that a platform capable of launching bigger, heavier planes like 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.120 bombers and spitfires could be made out of ice and 0:22:18.119 --> 0:22:20.240 and there were two approaches to this actually. So one 0:22:20.320 --> 0:22:23.360 is the naturalistic approach, where you just take an existing 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.240 iceberg and you kind of plane it down and flatten 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.879 the surface and create a runway. The other would be 0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:32.440 to create from scratch a giant barge made of ice. 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.440