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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech

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Speaker 1: are you? It is time for a classic episode of

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff. This episode originally published way back on July sixth,

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Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. Really, I probably should have published this one

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Speaker 1: on Valentine's Day now that I look at the topic.

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Speaker 1: The topic is how tech could make better chocolate. Let's listen.

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Speaker 1: In so, a consulting firm working on behalf of Mars Incorporated,

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Speaker 1: which is a giant candy company that makes a lot

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Speaker 1: of different chocolate products. This consulting firm went to a

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Speaker 1: group of physicists at Temple University, and physicist is one

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Speaker 1: of those words I have difficulty pronouncing. I think I

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Speaker 1: might just say scientists. Scientists at Temple University. Hey, that's

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Speaker 1: way better. And these guys had developed a method to

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Speaker 1: make crude oil flow more easily through pipes using electric fields.

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Speaker 1: So the question that the consulting firm had was could

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Speaker 1: you do the same thing you did for crude oil

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Speaker 1: for chocolate? And here's a spoiler alert, yeah they could,

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Speaker 1: but I want to talk more about what they did

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Speaker 1: and how they did it because it's a really interesting story.

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Speaker 1: So I'm going to go into a bit more detail

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Speaker 1: about the physics and the technology behind the scientist solution

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Speaker 1: for this problem. It's pretty cool, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: it was stuff I had no idea about before I

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Speaker 1: began to research the story. So today's episode is going

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Speaker 1: to be about chocolate. It's going to be about viscous fluids,

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Speaker 1: about electroreological fluids and how an electric field can change

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Speaker 1: their fluidic properties, specifically viscosity. So yeah, this episode's going

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Speaker 1: to be science heavy, but there's also chocolate, so stick around.

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Speaker 1: You know, everyone loves chocolate. So let's get into the

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Speaker 1: physics first. Now, fluid dynamics is pretty complicated, and also

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Speaker 1: there's some stuff that's related to this that falls into

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Speaker 1: the category of misinformation about viscosity. So I'll be talking

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Speaker 1: a lot about not just the principles in general, but

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Speaker 1: some specific myths that I would like to bust as

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Speaker 1: some of my former coworkers used to do on a

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Speaker 1: regular basis. So, first of all, viscosity is a property

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Speaker 1: of fluids or semi fluids, and it can be described

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Speaker 1: as a fluid's thickness or stickiness, and its resistance to

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Speaker 1: flowing due to internal friction. More accurately, viscosity is a

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Speaker 1: measure of the resistance of a fluid's deformation due to

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Speaker 1: tensile or shear stress. Now, sheer stress is mechanical stress

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Speaker 1: that's parallel to the surface of that substance. So you

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Speaker 1: could think of sheer stress as it's not perpendicular. It's

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Speaker 1: not like an impact, right, It's more of a tearing

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Speaker 1: tenstyle stress is a pulling stress rather than a compression stress,

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Speaker 1: So again, instead of compressing stuff closer together, it's about

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Speaker 1: pulling stuff further apart. And water has a pretty low viscosity.

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Speaker 1: Honey has a very high viscosity. So we actually measure

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Speaker 1: viscosity in units called poises poises. Water at room temperature

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Speaker 1: twenty degrees celsius or so has a viscosity of zero

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Speaker 1: point zero one poises or acenti poise. In other words,

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Speaker 1: a thick oil might have a viscosity of one point

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Speaker 1: zero poise. Now we measure viscosity with a viscometer. I'm

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Speaker 1: not making that up. It's actually the name of the

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Speaker 1: tool used to measure fluid's viscosity. Now, typically we will

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Speaker 1: call a liquid viscous if its viscosity is higher than

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Speaker 1: that of waters, and if the viscosity is lower than

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Speaker 1: that of waters, because water is not the least viscous

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Speaker 1: material that we know of, if it has a lower viscosity,

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Speaker 1: then water we call that fluid mobile. So some fluids

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Speaker 1: are so viscous that they can actually seem to be

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Speaker 1: a solid, And this leads us to that misinformation I

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Speaker 1: was talking about. It's one of those things that I

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Speaker 1: hear bandied about pretty well, not as frequently as it

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Speaker 1: used to, but it's one of those mis understandings that

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Speaker 1: gets passed around as fact every now and again. And

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Speaker 1: that is the idea that glass is one of these fluids,

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Speaker 1: that glass is actually a fluid that is so viscous

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Speaker 1: that it appears to be a solid, And that is

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Speaker 1: not true. Glass is not a very, very viscous fluid.

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Speaker 1: It's a little more complicated than that. So here's the

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Speaker 1: basic idea. People have noticed that if they look at

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Speaker 1: windows and very old buildings like medieval churches, they see

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Speaker 1: that the base of the window is thicker than the

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Speaker 1: top of the window. And this has led some people

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Speaker 1: to conclude to jump to a conclusion that the reason

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Speaker 1: why the base is thicker than the top is that glass,

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Speaker 1: over the course of centuries has been flowing downward, and

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Speaker 1: that it's so slow that it's not detectable under normal situations.

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Speaker 1: It's only over the course of centuries that you can

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Speaker 1: see the difference. Here's the problem is that that's just

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Speaker 1: not that's not the case. That's not true, it's not

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Speaker 1: what's happening. If you look at the glass making approach

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Speaker 1: in the Middle Ages, you'll see why there's a thicker

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Speaker 1: part of the paine of glass. Glass was created generally

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Speaker 1: speaking in the Middle Ages through something called the crown

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Speaker 1: glass process. It's a pretty neat idea pretty neat way

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Speaker 1: of making glass windows. Here's how it worked in general. First,

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Speaker 1: you get your raw materials to make glass, and in

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages that was essentially sand and potash, and

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Speaker 1: you mix it together and you melt them in a

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Speaker 1: very hot furnace. Then you would get a glass blower

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Speaker 1: with a pipe and they would get a roll out

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Speaker 1: a lump of molten glass put on the pipe, blow

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Speaker 1: out the glass, so they expand the glass outward before

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Speaker 1: flattening it. So they don't just you know, create a

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Speaker 1: globe of glass, They actually flatten it back out. Then,

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Speaker 1: with the flat glass, which is still hot and still malleable,

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Speaker 1: it hasn't cooled to the point where it is really solidified,

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Speaker 1: you would put that on a disc, a spinning disc,

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Speaker 1: and the disk spins around to draw out the glass

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Speaker 1: to flatten it further. Sort of like how a pizza

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Speaker 1: maker will toss and spin dough in the air in

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Speaker 1: order to make that circular pizza. It's kind of similar

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Speaker 1: to that. So the disk spins and the centripetal force,

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Speaker 1: if you like, is pushing the glass outward toward the edges.

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Speaker 1: So then once that's done, you would cut the glass

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Speaker 1: into panes so that you could fit them in a window. Now,

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Speaker 1: that would mean that when you would get anywhere close

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Speaker 1: to where the edge of the glass was, the outer edge,

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Speaker 1: because you put the glass on that disk and you

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Speaker 1: spun it around, the outer edge was thicker than the

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Speaker 1: rest of the glass, just because that's where the excess

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Speaker 1: was accumulating as it was being pushed outward due to

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Speaker 1: the spinning motion. So typically window makers would cut panes

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Speaker 1: so that a thicker edge would only be on one

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Speaker 1: side and they'd put that side at the bottom at

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Speaker 1: the base of the window, so glass didn't flow to

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Speaker 1: the base. Hundreds of years it started out like that.

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Speaker 1: It was like that from the beginning. That being said,

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Speaker 1: glass is a really interesting substance. It's what we would

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Speaker 1: call an amorphous solid, so saying that it's a fluid

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Speaker 1: or a liquid is not accurate. But it is an

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Speaker 1: amorphous solid, which is a little hinky compared to other

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Speaker 1: materials that you might be familiar with. So typically not everything,

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Speaker 1: obviously metals and glass being exceptions, but a lot of

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Speaker 1: solids have an ordered crystalline structure, so that means the

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Speaker 1: molecules are organized in a pretty regular lattice. They form

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Speaker 1: a nice repeating pattern that goes throughout the entire material.

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Speaker 1: When you heat up this solid, those molecules start to

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Speaker 1: shimmy and shake, some of the molecular bonds might start

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Speaker 1: to break down a little bit, the bonds between one

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Speaker 1: molecule and another. The essentially the crystalline order breaks down,

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Speaker 1: and if you heat a solid beyond its melting point,

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Speaker 1: the crystalline structure completely breaks down and molecules will begin

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Speaker 1: to flow freely, or as freely as the viscosity of

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Speaker 1: that fluid allows and there's a very clear delineation between

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Speaker 1: the solid and liquid stages. You can see the difference

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Speaker 1: molecularly from the way this substance looks when it's in

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Speaker 1: solid form versus in liquid form, and we call that delineation,

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Speaker 1: that border between the two the first order phase transition.

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Speaker 1: It's obvious when you look at it from a microscopic standpoint.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's obvious from a macroscopic standpoint two, because

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Speaker 1: a solid behaves one way and a liquid behaves another way. Now,

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Speaker 1: when you cool a liquid down, its viscosity tends to increase.

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Speaker 1: If you introduce a nucleation site into the liquid, crystals

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Speaker 1: can form and you get that nice solid structure again

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Speaker 1: once you get down below what the melting point was.

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Speaker 1: But glass doesn't do this. Glass doesn't form a crystalline structure.

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Speaker 1: Glass's viscosity increases, so it does what other fluids do

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Speaker 1: at that point. But since it doesn't crystallize, it solidifies

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Speaker 1: in a different way. The molecules actually form an irregular arrangement,

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Speaker 1: not that nice ordered structure that you see in other solids.

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Speaker 1: But that irregular arrangement is still cohesive enough to maintain rigidity.

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Speaker 1: So glass does become a solid, it's just not a

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Speaker 1: crystalline solid. It's an amorphous solid. We'll be back with

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Speaker 1: more about how technology could make better chocolate after these messages. Now,

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Speaker 1: there's no first order phase transition here. It's not like

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Speaker 1: if you looked at the liquid form of glass and

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Speaker 1: the solid form of glass, you would a massive difference

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Speaker 1: in the molecular structure. But there is a second order transition.

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Speaker 1: Now that transition is a little more subtle than first

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Speaker 1: order transitions. It involves the thermal expansion and heat capacity

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Speaker 1: of a material, so it wouldn't be as obvious to

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Speaker 1: casual observation on a microscopic level, but there would still

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Speaker 1: be differences with the thermodynamics of the material, so we still

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Speaker 1: would say the glass is a solid, not a liquid.

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Speaker 1: All right, I'm done with glass now, I promise. I

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Speaker 1: had to go on that little track just because it

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Speaker 1: was related to the stuff I was talking about, and

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Speaker 1: I get really irritated seeing that one myth passed around

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Speaker 1: as fact. So now you know, if you ever go

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Speaker 1: through a tour and the tour guide says and the

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Speaker 1: reason that the windows are thicker at the bottom is

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Speaker 1: because glass flows over the course of hundreds of years.

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Speaker 1: You can raise your hand and say, well, actually and

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Speaker 1: tell them Josh Clark sent because I don't want that

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Speaker 1: kind of burden on me. I like being able to

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Speaker 1: take tours. Anyway, Let's get back to viscosity in general. So,

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Speaker 1: like I said earlier, viscosity is due to internal friction

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Speaker 1: of a liquid. And you might think that that sounds weird,

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Speaker 1: like how can a liquid have friction inside of it?

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Speaker 1: But we're talking about liquid specifically that have like molecules,

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Speaker 1: and those molecules can have a tendency to resist getting

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Speaker 1: by each other. So some molecules are more resistant to

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Speaker 1: slip and by each other than others. Or a liquid

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Speaker 1: could actually have particles that are suspended in it. It could

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Speaker 1: be a suspension, which is different than just a pure liquid.

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Speaker 1: But if it's a suspension, it's got particles suspended within

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Speaker 1: the liquid at some level of density, right, Like some

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Speaker 1: may be a pretty weak suspension where you don't have

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Speaker 1: a whole lot, but others could have a greater density

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Speaker 1: of particles inside a suspension of fluid. Make chocolate bars, say,

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Speaker 1: and you're laying out melted chocolate into the mold for

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Speaker 1: the chocolate bars, and it clogs up, and you have

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Speaker 1: to stop production and clean out the clog and get

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Speaker 1: everything back up to temperature and start it all over again.

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Speaker 1: It's time consuming and expensive when that happens. So one

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Speaker 1: solution to preventing it from happening is dilute the cacao

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Speaker 1: more so that those particles don't clump up as much

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Speaker 1: because there's a less dense CACW component in the fluid.

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Speaker 1: That essentially means replacing CaCO with something else, typically something

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Speaker 1: that is less viscous, like that oil that fat essentially,

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Speaker 1: so you usually add more fat to the recipe so

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Speaker 1: you get the more fat but less cacw. However, it

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Speaker 1: ends up flowing better and creates the chocolate bars that

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Speaker 1: you want without creating the clogs. But it's not necessarily

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Speaker 1: the best product you could create. It's just the most

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Speaker 1: convenient upon the method of production. So that's where this

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Speaker 1: alternative solution comes in. If you could change the shape

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Speaker 1: of those cacal particles in the fluid so that they

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Speaker 1: packed together more effectively, you would reduce that viscosity, that

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Speaker 1: internal friction of the fluid. So imagine you've got one

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Speaker 1: of those inflated rubber balls, like a kickball or something. Now,

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Speaker 1: imagine that you're able to grab hold on either side

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Speaker 1: of this ball and pull it outward so that you're

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Speaker 1: elongating it. Now it would become a more of an

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Speaker 1: oval shape, or as the researchers at Temple University called them,

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Speaker 1: prolate spheroids. Now, the interesting thing about these prolate spheroids

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Speaker 1: is if you align them in the direction of the

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Speaker 1: flow of chocolate, you can pack more of them together.

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Speaker 1: They have these elongated sides, and they will fit together

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Speaker 1: much more snuggly. You can create chains of them, and

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Speaker 1: chocolate would flow much more readily. But how do you

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Speaker 1: change the shape of those cacal particles. What is it

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Speaker 1: that you could do to make them actually assume a

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Speaker 1: different shape than their natural globular ball like shape. This

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Speaker 1: is where electric fields come in. We're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about applying magnetic or electric fields to a fluid to

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Speaker 1: change its viscosity. But first, this doesn't work with every fluid.

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Speaker 1: Not every fluid reacts to electric fields and magnetic fields

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Speaker 1: in a way that will alter its viscosity. But it

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Speaker 1: does work in fluids that have certain non conducting or

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Speaker 1: weakly conducting particles suspended in an electrically insulating fluid. Now

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Speaker 1: we call this a special type of liquid electroreeological fluid

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Speaker 1: electroheological fluids. That essentially means that when you apply an

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Speaker 1: electric or magnetic field to such a fluid, it changes

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Speaker 1: its viscosity. Sometimes we also call them smart fluids, but

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Speaker 1: more about that in a bit. Now. Interestingly, the property

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Speaker 1: was completely discovered by chance. There was an inventor named

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Speaker 1: Willis Winslow who observed the effect in the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: and he actually patented it in nineteen forty seven. Now,

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Speaker 1: for this reason, we sometimes call this effect of changing

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Speaker 1: an electroheological fluids viscosity the Winslow effect, And I'll mostly

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Speaker 1: be using that term from here on out, because there's

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Speaker 1: only so many times I'm going to be able to

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Speaker 1: say electroreeological before my mouth just decides to rebel against

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Speaker 1: the rest of me and march out the door. And

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Speaker 1: as entertaining as that would be, I kind of need it. Well,

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Speaker 1: we know that the candy man can make better chocolate,

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Speaker 1: but how could tech make better chocolate? I guess we'll

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Speaker 1: conclude that when we come back from these messages. All right,

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Speaker 1: So Applying an electric or magnetic field to such a

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Speaker 1: fluid changes that fluid's viscosity within melliseconds like it's practically instantaneous,

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Speaker 1: And if you remove the field, the particles in the

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Speaker 1: fluid will snap back to their original shape, to the

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Speaker 1: fluid's viscosity will return to what it normally would be.

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Speaker 1: So the change isn't permanent. It only persists as long

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Speaker 1: as the respective field persists, which is super cool because

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Speaker 1: you can do these temporary changes that are really useful

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Speaker 1: in specific situations and then have it go back to

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Speaker 1: normal and it's like it never happened in the first place.

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Speaker 1: But one thing to keep in mind is the direction

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Speaker 1: of the electric or magnetic field is critically important when

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Speaker 1: you want to make a particular effect. So in the

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Speaker 1: case of chocolate, if you apply the electric field perpendicular

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Speaker 1: to the direction of flow, you will actually increase the

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Speaker 1: viscosity of the chocolate. You will make it thicker, more

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Speaker 1: like a gel. Melted chocolate will turn into this kind

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Speaker 1: of thick gel. It'll otherwise have all the same properties

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Speaker 1: that had before, but that viscosity will increase dramatically. However,

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Speaker 1: if you were to apply that electric field in the

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Speaker 1: direction of the flow of chocolate. Then you would decrease

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Speaker 1: the viscosity of chocolate and it will flow more freely

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Speaker 1: at that point. Now this makes some sense because imagine

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Speaker 1: that you have these elongated ovals, these prolate spheroids. Right.

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Speaker 1: If you stand them vertically, then you could imagine them

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Speaker 1: slipping through a pipe very easily. If you laid them

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Speaker 1: out horizontally, you could imagine them ending up like blocking

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Speaker 1: pipe easily. Because it's like trying to fit a long

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Speaker 1: stick through a narrow doorway. If you don't turn it

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Speaker 1: the right way, you're just gonna hit against the door.

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Speaker 1: This is making me think of my dog, Timbalt, who

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Speaker 1: has done this on numerous occasions. He just he can't

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Speaker 1: get it through his little doggy mind that he needs

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Speaker 1: to turn the stick vertical in order to move it

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Speaker 1: through a doorway. He just wants to charge ahead full

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Speaker 1: steam with the stick horizontal. In many other ways, He's

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Speaker 1: an intelligent dog, so we forgive him this lapse of judgment. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: the chocolate on a molecular level is essentially the same thing.

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Speaker 1: If you are applying this electric field perpendicular to the

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Speaker 1: flow of chocolate, then you get this much thicker mixture.

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Speaker 1: And an interesting side note, the electro rheological properties of

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Speaker 1: chocolate aren't a new discovery, right. I mean, I covered

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Speaker 1: this story for house Stuffworks now because there was a

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Speaker 1: new application of this property with chocolate. But we actually

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Speaker 1: knew that chocolate would react this way already, at least

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Speaker 1: to the point of increasing the viscosity, because back in

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six there was a Michigan State University grad

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Speaker 1: student who observed the Winslow effect on chocolate. And his

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Speaker 1: name is doctor Christopher R. Daubert, and as professor, doctor

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Speaker 1: James Steph worked with him. They both conducted experiments on

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Speaker 1: liquid chocolate and observed the Winslow effect. Now, in that experiment,

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Speaker 1: Daubert was again increasing the viscosity, not decreasing it, so

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Speaker 1: he was turning chocolate into that thicker gel. That the

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Speaker 1: liquid chocolate into thick gel. It wasn't until recently that

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Speaker 1: we saw someone try and do the opposite. So that

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Speaker 1: brings us to the Temple University experiment. So you had

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Speaker 1: these researchers. They had worked on crude oil and decreased

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Speaker 1: the viscosity of crude oil, which is a huge thing

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Speaker 1: for the oil industry to be able to move oil

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Speaker 1: more effectively without the fear of clogs or viscosity screwing

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Speaker 1: up things that had been planned ahead of time. They

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Speaker 1: wanted to see if they could, in fact use a

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Speaker 1: similar approach to have liquid chocolate move more smoothly through

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Speaker 1: a system, so that manufacturers could save money by not

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Speaker 1: having to worry about cleaning up clogs and shutting down

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Speaker 1: production for maintenance. So they had to test this hypothesis

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Speaker 1: that an electric field directed in the flow of liquid

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Speaker 1: chocolate would reduce viscosity. So they built a cool chocolate

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Speaker 1: zapping gadget. It's not really a zapper, it's a it's

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Speaker 1: kind of not entirely accurate, but I like the idea

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Speaker 1: of using electricity to zap chocolate to make it better.

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Speaker 1: That's just an oversimplification of what happened, but that's okay.

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Speaker 1: I'll explain to you what was actually going on. They

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Speaker 1: built this thing where it starts with a bit of

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Speaker 1: a melting chamber. You can just think of it as

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Speaker 1: like a a pot. It could even be a glass vial. Really,

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Speaker 1: it could just be any little container that can hold chocolate.

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Speaker 1: They put the chocolate in the container, and they cover

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Speaker 1: the container, sealing it shut. They added compressed nitrogen gas

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Speaker 1: into the chamber simply really to just increase the pressure

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Speaker 1: inside the chamber itself. The chamber was heated so that

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Speaker 1: you had chocolate melting into a liquid. There was a

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Speaker 1: therma couple in there to make sure that the temperature

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Speaker 1: was correct so that the chocolate would not overheat or

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Speaker 1: cool down so much that it becomes solid again. And

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Speaker 1: then the base of this container was essentially a drain,

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Speaker 1: so there's like a hole at the bottom of the

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Speaker 1: container that liquid chocolate could flow through. Attached to that

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Speaker 1: was a tube, and inside the tube they put a

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Speaker 1: series of metal mesh screens, and the screens were what

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Speaker 1: generated the electric field. They had electricity running to those

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Speaker 1: screens and creating electric field that way in the direction

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Speaker 1: of the flow of chocolate, so the chocolate would end

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Speaker 1: up flowing very smoothly through the tube and didn't have

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Speaker 1: any issues. At the other end, they had another vessel

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Speaker 1: container that the liquid chocolate would flow into, it would

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Speaker 1: cool down solidify. So once that liquid chocolate flowed through

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Speaker 1: into the collecting vessel and once it was free of

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Speaker 1: the electric field, the cacal particles they went back to

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Speaker 1: their original shape immediately. Again, they didn't have to transform

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Speaker 1: or anything. It wasn't a gradual process. They boop moved

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Speaker 1: back into those globe shapes that they typically are in,

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Speaker 1: and the chocolate cooled and solidified and was, to all

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Speaker 1: intents and purposes, indistinguishable from the chocolate that was being

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Speaker 1: fed through at the top at that top chamber. So

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Speaker 1: they were able to reduce the viscosity of the flowing

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Speaker 1: chocolate and to the point where it was no there

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00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:07,240
Speaker 1: were no issues of clogging, it was perfectly fine. So

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Speaker 1: they were able to prove that their hypothesis was correct,

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Speaker 1: that in fact, this electric field applied in this way

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Speaker 1: would decrease chocolate's viscosity. Hooray. But there's more to it

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Speaker 1: than that. So this experiment was not just a success.

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Speaker 1: The researchers actually realized that it had a lot more

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Speaker 1: implications than just having chocolate flow freely through a machine.

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Speaker 1: That again, the reason why chocolate has such a relatively

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Speaker 1: high fat content is to create that oily fluid to

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Speaker 1: reduce viscosity, to have the cacao particles suspended within it

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Speaker 1: at a density that's low enough so that you're not

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Speaker 1: likely to clog up the machines. But if you use

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Speaker 1: this approach, if you use the electric fields to reduce viscosity,

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Speaker 1: you don't need as much oil or fat in your

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Speaker 1: chocolate content. You could actually start with a recipe that

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Speaker 1: has less fat in it, and the electric fields would

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Speaker 1: take care of the viscosity problem, so you don't have

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Speaker 1: to have as much fat there. That also means you

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Speaker 1: could have more cacal in your mixture. It could be

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Speaker 1: a higher proportion of the overall recipe. So they found

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Speaker 1: that they could reduce the fat content in certain types

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Speaker 1: of chocolate by as much as twenty percent and still

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Speaker 1: have no negative impact on the fluid's viscosity. Now, it

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Speaker 1: depends on what type of chocolate they were using. They

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Speaker 1: were actually using name brand chocolates, you know, like chocolate bars.

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Speaker 1: They would try different types and depending on the type,

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Speaker 1: they could actually end up removing up to twenty percent

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Speaker 1: of the fat in the mixture and still have the

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Speaker 1: chocolate flow without any problems. And beyond that, the researchers

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Speaker 1: said that people who are tasting the chocolate afterward, because

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Speaker 1: keep in mind, other than the fact that there was

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Speaker 1: less fat in it, there was really no difference between

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Speaker 1: the original chocolate and the end result. They said that

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Speaker 1: the end result chocolate actually tasted better to them. He said,

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Speaker 1: I had a more intense cacw flavor. It was more

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Speaker 1: chocolatey than the original chocolate. Now that could be just subjective,

398
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 1: or it could be purely psychological, but it's not outside

399
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: the realm of possibility that by increasing the proportion of

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Speaker 1: chocolate of cacao in your mixture because you've removed some

401
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: of the fat, so you've got more cacal per unit

402
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:45,879
Speaker 1: of chocolate than you would previously, that you would also

403
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: affect the taste. It is entirely possible that that is true.

404
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: It hasn't really been tested on a scientific level. It's

405
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: mostly people saying, hmm, this tastes really good. Also, I

406
00:26:57,600 --> 00:26:59,960
Speaker 1: should mention this is not the same as fat free chocolate.

407
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: Fat free chocolate is essentially using some different type of

408
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: fluid other than oil to suspend cacal particles. So fat

409
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:14,560
Speaker 1: free chocolate has that particular weird taste. It's not the

410
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: same as the stuff that Temple University was producing. So

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00:27:19,960 --> 00:27:22,119
Speaker 1: I just want to clear that up. It's not like

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00:27:22,160 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: you would take a bite of a brand new chocolate

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Speaker 1: bar that was made using this procedure and think, oh,

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00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 1: this tastes like fat free chocolate. No, So the end

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00:27:32,880 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: result here is that we could end up with better

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Speaker 1: tasting chocolate with less fat in it in the future,

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Speaker 1: which seems pretty awesome to me. Now, earlier I mentioned

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Speaker 1: that electroheological fluids are also called smart fluids. That's because

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00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: these fluids can change their viscosity almost instantly in the

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Speaker 1: presence of an electric or magnetic field, and then go

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00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 1: right back to what they were before once the field

422
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: is turned off, and they become really important in ways

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00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: be on making superior chocolate. For example, car manufacturers have

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00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,679
Speaker 1: been using smart fluids and suspension and braking systems. The

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00:28:07,720 --> 00:28:10,640
Speaker 1: fluid can actually go from relatively thin to thick in

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00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: just a moment's notice, which makes it superior to a

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00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,680
Speaker 1: lot of mechanical solutions that would take time to propagate

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00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,800
Speaker 1: through a system. And you can have a variable suspension

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00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,880
Speaker 1: in this way. Imagine that you have a suspension, it's

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Speaker 1: a fluid suspension, like literally, it's a suspension for a

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00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:28,920
Speaker 1: car with fluid in it, not that it was a

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00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: fluid that has a suspension in it. It's kind of confusing,

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00:28:32,080 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: so car suspension's got fluid in it. Very high end

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00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,640
Speaker 1: sports cars have these, and you can set your suspension

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00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: to different modes, like you can predetermine which mode you

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00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: want at any given time. So let's say you're going

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00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: to be driving on like a racetrack, a nice smooth racetrack,

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00:28:48,880 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: and you're really going to push the car to its limits.

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00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:56,440
Speaker 1: You might want a pretty stiff suspension for that to

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00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,040
Speaker 1: really be able to feel the car as you're driving

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00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: along this very smooth surface. But that stiff suspension would

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00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 1: be a torture device. If you were driving down a

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00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:11,479
Speaker 1: normal everyday road that had some bumps and maybe some

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00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: potholes in it, that would be very jarring. You would

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00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: feel every single little bump. So in that case, you'd

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00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:22,720
Speaker 1: want a more loose suspension, a little spring in it.

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00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: So you might want to reduce the viscosity of the

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00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:31,120
Speaker 1: fluid inside the suspension to allow for more give really,

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00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: and you could do that with a smart fluid and

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00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,719
Speaker 1: just change the electric or magnetic field that ends up

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00:29:39,720 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: affecting the viscosity of the fluid. So you can actually

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00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: have settings and say I want a very stiff suspension

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00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: in this circumstance and so it generates the electric field,

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00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: the viscosity increases and you get your stiff suspension, or

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00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: you might say, oh, I want it to be a

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00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: more forgiving suspension, and it turns off that electric field.

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00:29:57,800 --> 00:30:02,480
Speaker 1: The viscosity decreases and you have your more your suspension

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00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: when more given it. It's a pretty cool idea. I

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Speaker 1: chatted with Scott Benjamin about this before I came in here.

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Speaker 1: He was very interested when I started talking about chocolate,

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00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: but then when I started talking about smart fluids, he

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00:30:13,200 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: really lit up because he knew exactly what I was

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00:30:15,040 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: talking about. I mean, Scott is a car genius and

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00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: knows everything there is to know about cars, it seems.

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Speaker 1: So we had a good discussion about, you know, the

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Speaker 1: physical properties of smart fluids and why they behave the

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Speaker 1: way they do. So this technology could be used in

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00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: lots of different applications moving forward. When you can induce

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00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: some mechanical change in a fluid with something as simple

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00:30:36,440 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 1: as an electric or magnetic field, a lot of different

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00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:42,719
Speaker 1: opportunities open up. But for me, you know, I'm happy

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00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: with the chocolate thing. I'm going to settle for that

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00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: because I do love me some chocolate that wraps up

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00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: the classic tech episode of How Tech Could Make Better Chocolate.

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00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,120
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoyed it. If you have suggestions for topics,

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00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: I should cover future episodes of tech Stuff a couple

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00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:00,440
Speaker 1: different ways you can let me know. One you can

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00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: go on over to Twitter and you can send me

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00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 1: a message. The show's handle is tech Stuff hsw or

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00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,040
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00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:15,160
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00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: to tech Stuff by putting that into the little search

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00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:19,960
Speaker 1: field that I'll take it to the tech Stuff podcast page.

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00:31:20,120 --> 00:31:22,960
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00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 1: you can leave a voice message out, but thirty second

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00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: ten length either way. I hope you're doing well and

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00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is

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00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:42,480
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00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:46,160
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.