1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,760 Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:14,360 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:14,440 --> 00:00:17,079 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 4 00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:20,160 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and today we're going 5 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,040 Speaker 1: to listen to another tech Stuff classic episode. This episode 6 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:27,360 Speaker 1: originally published on June five, two thousand thirteen, and it 7 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:30,040 Speaker 1: has the title It's a bird, it's a plane, It's 8 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:34,120 Speaker 1: a superconductor. Yep, we're gonna talk about superconductors, those super 9 00:00:34,159 --> 00:00:37,239 Speaker 1: cool literally pieces of technology that allow us to do 10 00:00:37,360 --> 00:00:41,479 Speaker 1: all sorts of really advanced stuff. I hope you guys enjoy. 11 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:47,440 Speaker 1: Let's listen in. So, here's a fundamental problem with electronics, 12 00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:50,760 Speaker 1: with with any sort of circuitry, with any kind of system. Really, 13 00:00:50,800 --> 00:00:54,080 Speaker 1: it's not just electronics. That's that's one way we can 14 00:00:54,120 --> 00:00:56,560 Speaker 1: look at it. But there's this problem where you pour 15 00:00:56,720 --> 00:00:59,880 Speaker 1: energy into a system and because of things like entropy, 16 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:03,120 Speaker 1: the output you get is less than the energy you 17 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:05,640 Speaker 1: put in. Now, of course, we know we cannot create 18 00:01:05,959 --> 00:01:09,199 Speaker 1: or destroy energy, correct, Yeah, it's one of those laws 19 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,080 Speaker 1: of thermodynamics, and if you try and break them, then 20 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:15,600 Speaker 1: the thermodynamics police show up. So actually, it just means 21 00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:18,440 Speaker 1: that you cannot break that law. So if you can't 22 00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:20,960 Speaker 1: break that law, if you pour energy into a system 23 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:24,000 Speaker 1: and you're not getting as much output as you're getting input, 24 00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:28,680 Speaker 1: it's because you're losing energy through some other action. Normally 25 00:01:28,880 --> 00:01:33,800 Speaker 1: in almost every system that we're really familiar with, that's heat. Right, 26 00:01:33,880 --> 00:01:37,440 Speaker 1: Heat becomes a byproduct. Energy goes to produce heat, which 27 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:40,360 Speaker 1: means that whatever you were trying to do is slightly 28 00:01:40,440 --> 00:01:43,440 Speaker 1: less effective than what you had intended. So we see 29 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,720 Speaker 1: this with things like car engines are a great example. 30 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:49,880 Speaker 1: You pour in fuel, the engine burns up the fuel 31 00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:52,600 Speaker 1: and converts that into power, but you don't get as 32 00:01:52,680 --> 00:01:55,520 Speaker 1: much power out as you're getting energy in from the 33 00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:57,720 Speaker 1: source of that fuel. So the same sort of thing 34 00:01:57,760 --> 00:02:00,200 Speaker 1: is true with electronics. And in this case, the thing 35 00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:03,120 Speaker 1: we talk about when we're talking about losing energy is 36 00:02:03,200 --> 00:02:07,920 Speaker 1: called resistance. That's the resistance of any particular material to 37 00:02:08,120 --> 00:02:12,880 Speaker 1: the flow of electricity through that material. So with that 38 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:15,880 Speaker 1: basic information there, now we're going to really dive into 39 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:20,440 Speaker 1: the very very basic building blocks of electronics. Yes, because 40 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:24,280 Speaker 1: the thing is that superconductors lose no energy to resistance, right, 41 00:02:24,320 --> 00:02:29,280 Speaker 1: They have no resistance exactly. However, they require extraordinarily cold temperatures, 42 00:02:29,320 --> 00:02:31,799 Speaker 1: like on the magnitude of thirty nine kelvin's which is 43 00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:36,680 Speaker 1: that's cold. Yeah, when you remember, zero kelvin is zero 44 00:02:36,760 --> 00:02:40,079 Speaker 1: molecular movement. That's absolute zero. That's that's like if you 45 00:02:40,120 --> 00:02:42,280 Speaker 1: were to go into the deepest reaches of space and 46 00:02:42,320 --> 00:02:46,079 Speaker 1: there are no molecules moving around, everything is perfectly still. 47 00:02:46,400 --> 00:02:50,960 Speaker 1: That's zero kelvin equivalent to negative two and thirty four 48 00:02:50,960 --> 00:02:55,600 Speaker 1: degrees celsius or negative nine degrees fahrenheit. Right, So that's 49 00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:59,639 Speaker 1: that's that's pretty cold. But to understand again about resistance, 50 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:02,440 Speaker 1: let's let's take this this this tour through the building 51 00:03:02,440 --> 00:03:07,760 Speaker 1: blocks of electronics. So now, the early early understanding we 52 00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:13,079 Speaker 1: had about electricity, uh gave us some ideas that we 53 00:03:13,200 --> 00:03:16,880 Speaker 1: kind of have to work around these days. Like specifically, 54 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,160 Speaker 1: the idea of current. Current is a confusing thing for 55 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:24,520 Speaker 1: someone who has doesn't understand electricity because it run the 56 00:03:24,560 --> 00:03:27,800 Speaker 1: direction of current runs counter to the actual flow of electrons. 57 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:30,240 Speaker 1: Right when all of these terms were being created, we 58 00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:33,200 Speaker 1: didn't know as much about sub atomic particles a k a. 59 00:03:33,880 --> 00:03:37,840 Speaker 1: Much at all anything so so today, so before we 60 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: understood anything about electricity, we began to learn things about 61 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:46,400 Speaker 1: about charge and the idea of opposite charges attracting one 62 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:50,880 Speaker 1: another and like charges repelling one another. Now we could 63 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:54,480 Speaker 1: have called electrons positive charge. We could have done that. 64 00:03:54,800 --> 00:03:57,160 Speaker 1: There's no reason why we would have said electrons are 65 00:03:57,200 --> 00:04:01,040 Speaker 1: negatively charged. It's just a word, right, But that was 66 00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:03,560 Speaker 1: what was considered a negative charge, and then you would 67 00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:06,680 Speaker 1: have the opposite would obviously be a positive charge. We 68 00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:08,880 Speaker 1: could have called these left and right, are are up 69 00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:12,760 Speaker 1: and down or anything really, but banana and obo would choices. 70 00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:16,960 Speaker 1: Everyone knows the obo is nature's opposite to the banana. 71 00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:20,880 Speaker 1: So the the these opposite charges, the negative and the positive, 72 00:04:21,080 --> 00:04:25,080 Speaker 1: attract one another. Now, if you were to have a 73 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:29,839 Speaker 1: negatively charged material and a positively charged material, uh, you know, 74 00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:33,799 Speaker 1: within the same general area of each other. The potential 75 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:38,960 Speaker 1: that separated those opposite electric charges would be called voltage, 76 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:41,840 Speaker 1: all right. So that's when someone's talking about voltage, they're 77 00:04:41,839 --> 00:04:45,480 Speaker 1: talking about this potential that's separating the opposite electric charges, 78 00:04:45,839 --> 00:04:48,000 Speaker 1: and it's it's the capacity that they would have for 79 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:53,040 Speaker 1: doing work if those opposite charges were connected together somehow. 80 00:04:53,520 --> 00:04:55,640 Speaker 1: So you would have to have something that would allow 81 00:04:56,040 --> 00:05:01,080 Speaker 1: these charges to mix together. So back in early days 82 00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:03,920 Speaker 1: of electricity before we really understood the mechanics of it. 83 00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:06,400 Speaker 1: You would think that all right, well, all the positively 84 00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:10,240 Speaker 1: charged particles would leap over to the negative side and 85 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,440 Speaker 1: the negative charge particles would lead to the positive side 86 00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:16,000 Speaker 1: until the charges had equalized. Right, And even if you 87 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:19,640 Speaker 1: had one material that was more negatively charged than the 88 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:23,559 Speaker 1: other material was positively charged, the actual negative charge would 89 00:05:23,600 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 1: also even out. Actually, like osmosis, it would kind of 90 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:28,680 Speaker 1: work itself out, so you would you would end up 91 00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:31,960 Speaker 1: with a larger amount of material that had a negative charge. 92 00:05:32,040 --> 00:05:34,279 Speaker 1: It would just be a lower negative charge than the 93 00:05:34,320 --> 00:05:39,359 Speaker 1: original material you started with. Right. So here we were 94 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:42,400 Speaker 1: still thinking about this as these little charged bodies, these 95 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:46,400 Speaker 1: charged particles, both of positive and negative zipping across um. 96 00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:50,320 Speaker 1: And you can you can measure voltage by measuring the 97 00:05:50,320 --> 00:05:54,480 Speaker 1: the two different points. So for example, if you have 98 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:58,040 Speaker 1: one on the positive node and one the electric node 99 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:01,120 Speaker 1: are negative node rather uh, you then look at those 100 00:06:01,120 --> 00:06:03,560 Speaker 1: two contact points. That's where you get your voltage. If 101 00:06:03,560 --> 00:06:06,400 Speaker 1: you're using the same point of contact and you're checking 102 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:10,320 Speaker 1: different other electrodes, uh, that same contact though contact you're 103 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:13,400 Speaker 1: using for all of them. We usually call the ground, right, 104 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:20,000 Speaker 1: that's the ground contact. Now, a material that does conduct 105 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:23,320 Speaker 1: electricity is called a conductor for that very reason, right, 106 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:25,920 Speaker 1: so convenient and there, and there are some materials that 107 00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:28,320 Speaker 1: are very good conductors. A lot of the metals, for example, 108 00:06:28,360 --> 00:06:31,560 Speaker 1: are great conductors. How how conductive material is depends on 109 00:06:31,640 --> 00:06:35,839 Speaker 1: how easily it's component atoms donate electrons, right, right, You 110 00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,720 Speaker 1: need to have these free electrons. Free electrons are this 111 00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:42,880 Speaker 1: when you have an atom obviously have an electron shell 112 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:46,000 Speaker 1: or several shells, depending on how how large the atomist. 113 00:06:46,240 --> 00:06:50,000 Speaker 1: Right and uh, and if you have free electrons that 114 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,640 Speaker 1: aren't tied down to anything on the outer shells, then 115 00:06:53,760 --> 00:06:57,159 Speaker 1: that allows electricity to pass more freely because what happens 116 00:06:57,240 --> 00:06:59,840 Speaker 1: is a new electron comes in. This is over simple, 117 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:02,880 Speaker 1: but a new electron comes in and essentially bonks out 118 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:05,799 Speaker 1: one of the other electrons in that outer shell, which 119 00:07:05,839 --> 00:07:08,920 Speaker 1: then will bonk out one further down the line. So 120 00:07:09,080 --> 00:07:11,440 Speaker 1: if you've got a lot of free electrons, then that 121 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:16,119 Speaker 1: allows this this passage to happen fairly easily. And uh, 122 00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:19,800 Speaker 1: that's what allows you to connect these these differently charged 123 00:07:19,880 --> 00:07:25,200 Speaker 1: uh materials to equal that out. We call this current. 124 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,600 Speaker 1: But again, the current is the idea of positively charged 125 00:07:28,680 --> 00:07:32,440 Speaker 1: particles passing from one material to the other. As we 126 00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,560 Speaker 1: learned later, it's actually electrons that are passing through, not 127 00:07:35,720 --> 00:07:41,160 Speaker 1: positive charges. But we we consider it stuck with the terminology, 128 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:44,000 Speaker 1: which means which means that when you say current, you're 129 00:07:44,040 --> 00:07:47,520 Speaker 1: actually talking about the opposite direction as what the electrons 130 00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:50,480 Speaker 1: are really going through. So if you're talking about a 131 00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:54,520 Speaker 1: circuit's current, you are looking at it going positive to negative, 132 00:07:54,560 --> 00:07:57,280 Speaker 1: when in reality the electrons are going negative to positive, 133 00:07:57,400 --> 00:08:00,440 Speaker 1: basically proving that Benjamin Franklin was not a time traveler, 134 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, there are a lot of jokes on 135 00:08:03,160 --> 00:08:05,800 Speaker 1: the Internet saying that we have Benjamin Franklin to blame 136 00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:09,640 Speaker 1: for this misunderstanding. That again is oversimplifying it. Franklin was 137 00:08:09,960 --> 00:08:16,080 Speaker 1: one of but not the only, kind of kind of point. Yeah, 138 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:19,000 Speaker 1: he was like the mascot for electricity before we knew 139 00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:21,880 Speaker 1: what we could do with it. Now, current we measure 140 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:25,040 Speaker 1: in ampiers or amps and an emperor is the rate 141 00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:28,760 Speaker 1: of flow of one coolmb of charge in one second 142 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:32,520 Speaker 1: past some given point. And so that raises the question, 143 00:08:32,559 --> 00:08:36,040 Speaker 1: what is a coolmb. It's a whole bunch of charge. Yeah, 144 00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:37,840 Speaker 1: it's a lot of charge. It's actually quite a bit 145 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:41,080 Speaker 1: of charge. But you know, we won't boil. It's not 146 00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:45,120 Speaker 1: technically important, no, not for not for this discussion, but 147 00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:48,040 Speaker 1: just know that it's a lot of charge. So if 148 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:50,000 Speaker 1: you hear someone talking about a cool lomb, that's a 149 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:52,720 Speaker 1: lot of charge. Now, current, of course does have the 150 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:55,120 Speaker 1: direction as the flow of positive charges. You can think 151 00:08:55,160 --> 00:08:59,320 Speaker 1: of positive charge in a way as vacancies holes, positive 152 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:03,200 Speaker 1: holes that could accept an electron. Right, because if you 153 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:05,760 Speaker 1: have even if you have a build up of negative particles, 154 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:10,199 Speaker 1: if there's no positively charged part if there's no if aren't, 155 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:14,560 Speaker 1: if there are no vacancies at another point, then those 156 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:16,760 Speaker 1: that charge is just gonna keep building up. It doesn't 157 00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:22,080 Speaker 1: the electronwhere, right, So that brings us to the concept 158 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:24,560 Speaker 1: of an insulator. Now, an insulator is sort of the 159 00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:27,280 Speaker 1: opposite of a conductor. This is a material that charge 160 00:09:27,480 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: cannot flow through those those component atoms out there. Their 161 00:09:31,360 --> 00:09:34,640 Speaker 1: electrons just want to stay put. Yeah, yeah, they usually 162 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:39,040 Speaker 1: the usually you don't have any free electrons on the outside. 163 00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:43,480 Speaker 1: They're all uh, they're all bonded together. So that means 164 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:46,760 Speaker 1: that an incoming electron has nowhere to go. So with 165 00:09:46,800 --> 00:09:49,560 Speaker 1: nowhere to go, then this stuff just halts the flow 166 00:09:49,559 --> 00:09:54,280 Speaker 1: of electricity. And this includes things like air is an insulator. Now, granted, 167 00:09:54,800 --> 00:09:56,679 Speaker 1: if you were to pour enough energy into air, you 168 00:09:56,720 --> 00:10:00,280 Speaker 1: could ionize it and then it becomes a conductor. But 169 00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:02,880 Speaker 1: you have to pour energy into air for that to happen. 170 00:10:02,960 --> 00:10:05,040 Speaker 1: That's what happens with lightning strikes, that kind of thing. 171 00:10:05,760 --> 00:10:08,160 Speaker 1: Otherwise it's more commonly it's it's it's all those things 172 00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:12,640 Speaker 1: you know, like like rubber or glass. Exactly exactly. Now 173 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:17,720 Speaker 1: we've covered conductors, we've covered insulators. That brings us to 174 00:10:18,200 --> 00:10:22,360 Speaker 1: semi conductors. Now, this is a term that a lot 175 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:25,360 Speaker 1: of people are familiar with because semiconductors we talk about 176 00:10:25,360 --> 00:10:28,400 Speaker 1: that all the time. We talk about electronics like microprocessors, 177 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:33,640 Speaker 1: semiconductor plants, or a silicon wafer. That's what silicon chip 178 00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:37,160 Speaker 1: that has a microprocessor on it. So what exactly is 179 00:10:37,200 --> 00:10:40,560 Speaker 1: a semiconductor, Well, if you're looking at the name, it 180 00:10:40,679 --> 00:10:43,040 Speaker 1: kind of gives it away. It's a material that can 181 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:48,400 Speaker 1: act like a conductor or connect like an insulator. Now, naturally, 182 00:10:48,880 --> 00:10:51,800 Speaker 1: if you were to just make a if you were 183 00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:54,800 Speaker 1: to make like a wafer of silicon it was pure silicon, 184 00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:57,960 Speaker 1: it would be an insulator. Because those those electrons are 185 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:01,439 Speaker 1: all tied up, right, so you an't push more electrons 186 00:11:01,480 --> 00:11:05,120 Speaker 1: through it. However, if you were to start introducing impurities 187 00:11:05,160 --> 00:11:08,120 Speaker 1: into the silicon on purpose, this isn't right right right Yeah, 188 00:11:08,160 --> 00:11:11,000 Speaker 1: Like I like phosphorus or boron are two typical ones exactly, 189 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:14,160 Speaker 1: Then you are doing a process that's called doping, and 190 00:11:14,360 --> 00:11:17,760 Speaker 1: the semiconductor business that's not a bad thing. You won't 191 00:11:17,760 --> 00:11:20,320 Speaker 1: get thrown out the Hall of Fame of Semiconductors for doping. 192 00:11:20,640 --> 00:11:24,839 Speaker 1: In fact, doping is necessary to make a semiconductor work. Now, 193 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:29,120 Speaker 1: if you were to dope a semiconductor with atoms that 194 00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:33,360 Speaker 1: have extra electrons, extra being free electrons in that that 195 00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,320 Speaker 1: outer shell, I don't mean that they're actually carrying around 196 00:11:36,840 --> 00:11:41,440 Speaker 1: more electronic electrons, right yeah, like phosphorus exactly, free electrons. 197 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:43,800 Speaker 1: Phosphorus has a free electrons. Then you would get what 198 00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:48,040 Speaker 1: it's called in type semiconductor material because it has more 199 00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:55,600 Speaker 1: negatively charged particles type. Now, boron has what we would 200 00:11:55,600 --> 00:11:59,280 Speaker 1: call vacancies or holes that what electrons could flow into. 201 00:11:59,559 --> 00:12:02,880 Speaker 1: So if you boron, if you introduce boron into silicon, 202 00:12:03,240 --> 00:12:08,360 Speaker 1: it would have availability to accept electrons. A positively charged 203 00:12:08,480 --> 00:12:11,600 Speaker 1: or p type exactly. And if you were to take 204 00:12:12,120 --> 00:12:15,240 Speaker 1: both of these types of doping and apply them to 205 00:12:15,400 --> 00:12:18,720 Speaker 1: one silicon wafer, so that let's just say on the 206 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:22,200 Speaker 1: left side you have N type silicon and on the 207 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:26,040 Speaker 1: right sidea of P type silicon, that would allow electrons 208 00:12:26,080 --> 00:12:30,559 Speaker 1: to flow across in the direction from negative to positive. Correct, correct, 209 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:33,760 Speaker 1: And it would prevent the flow of electrons to go 210 00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:36,920 Speaker 1: from positive to negative because again those negative electrons in 211 00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:41,520 Speaker 1: the N type silicon will will repel any incoming electrons. 212 00:12:42,320 --> 00:12:46,400 Speaker 1: This is the basis of a very specific type of 213 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:50,520 Speaker 1: electronic component called the diode. Diodes are important. They're kind 214 00:12:50,559 --> 00:12:55,360 Speaker 1: of a one way street in electronics and uh. And 215 00:12:55,559 --> 00:12:57,560 Speaker 1: one of the reasons this is important is when you 216 00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:02,200 Speaker 1: have something like alternating current. Alternating current, it's exactly what 217 00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:05,559 Speaker 1: sounds like. It alternates direction. Remember I was saying before. 218 00:13:05,600 --> 00:13:09,800 Speaker 1: Current is the flow of positive charge in a circuit. 219 00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:12,199 Speaker 1: If you have alternating current running through it, then that 220 00:13:12,240 --> 00:13:14,280 Speaker 1: current is running one way and then the other way, 221 00:13:14,320 --> 00:13:18,079 Speaker 1: and it alternates at thousands of times per second. We 222 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,160 Speaker 1: call it hurts. That those cycles per second, So it's 223 00:13:21,200 --> 00:13:24,240 Speaker 1: usually like twenty hurts, so twenty thousand times a second. 224 00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:27,240 Speaker 1: It's going pooh back and forth. Now I like that 225 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:32,360 Speaker 1: sound effect. Yeah, that's the sound of electrons just zig zagging. 226 00:13:32,559 --> 00:13:37,400 Speaker 1: But a lot of our electronics don't run on alternating current. 227 00:13:37,480 --> 00:13:41,079 Speaker 1: They need to run on direct current. So diodes are 228 00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:44,959 Speaker 1: a good way of addressing that because they will only 229 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:49,120 Speaker 1: allow charge to pass through in one direction. So even 230 00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:51,120 Speaker 1: if you have an alternating current, then it's going to 231 00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,440 Speaker 1: prevent current from passing through one way and allow it 232 00:13:54,480 --> 00:13:57,240 Speaker 1: to pass through the other way. That's one of the 233 00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:01,520 Speaker 1: ways we use to to transform altering current into direct current. 234 00:14:01,920 --> 00:14:03,959 Speaker 1: So right, and this problem is why you get those 235 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,800 Speaker 1: little um those little boxes on your electric plugs to 236 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,920 Speaker 1: transform the alternating current coming in through your through your 237 00:14:11,920 --> 00:14:17,120 Speaker 1: system to be yea through through that the pluggy thing, outlets, outlets. 238 00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:20,160 Speaker 1: It's been a long day, it has, it has. I'm 239 00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:24,280 Speaker 1: giggling more than usual. So also, we've been in a 240 00:14:24,400 --> 00:14:28,240 Speaker 1: meeting for a long long time. If you need to 241 00:14:28,320 --> 00:14:31,880 Speaker 1: know how long, just a quick aside, check out Josh 242 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:35,120 Speaker 1: and Chuck's series Trapped in a Meeting. It's very good, 243 00:14:35,280 --> 00:14:38,680 Speaker 1: it's very funny, and it's very real. It's it's so real, 244 00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:41,640 Speaker 1: it's it's it's my video debut, So check that out. 245 00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:45,040 Speaker 1: That's right. You can see Lauren blocking me for almost 246 00:14:45,080 --> 00:14:47,480 Speaker 1: every episode. I can just see like either the front 247 00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:49,080 Speaker 1: on my face or the back of my head and 248 00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:53,280 Speaker 1: almost every shot. But uh, that's just me complaining. That's fine. 249 00:14:53,520 --> 00:14:56,440 Speaker 1: So let's move on to we we've we mentioned resistance. 250 00:14:56,480 --> 00:15:00,720 Speaker 1: Resistance is this property that resists the flow of a charge, 251 00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,240 Speaker 1: and it depends on the material of the conductor, uh 252 00:15:04,280 --> 00:15:08,000 Speaker 1: and the flaws that that conductor might have that create resistance. Uh. 253 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:11,480 Speaker 1: The gauge of the conductor, so example, the gauge of wire, 254 00:15:11,840 --> 00:15:13,760 Speaker 1: So how how much of it there is? Right, The 255 00:15:14,120 --> 00:15:16,800 Speaker 1: thinner the wire, the greater the resistance in general. So 256 00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:19,840 Speaker 1: if you're talking about copper wire and you're talking about 257 00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:24,200 Speaker 1: smaller gauges which are actually larger wires. I don't know 258 00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:27,200 Speaker 1: why that is. I'm sure someone out there understands why 259 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:32,680 Speaker 1: the gauge and size are inversely related things. There's something 260 00:15:32,760 --> 00:15:34,720 Speaker 1: out there, I'm sure, and I bet I could have 261 00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:36,360 Speaker 1: found it out easily if I looked it up. I 262 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:38,960 Speaker 1: didn't think too, but I'm sure some of our electron 263 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:43,080 Speaker 1: attrician friends out there know exactly why. Anyway, the larger 264 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:47,200 Speaker 1: the diameter of the wire, the lower the resistance. Uh. 265 00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:49,920 Speaker 1: And the other thing is the temperature of the material itself. 266 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:52,400 Speaker 1: In fact, if you lower the temperature of the material, 267 00:15:53,440 --> 00:15:57,880 Speaker 1: then you can decrease the resistance. And that's the vary 268 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:02,400 Speaker 1: basis of conductors. So and and that that that temperature 269 00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:06,200 Speaker 1: comes in because uh oh, you know, he heat makes 270 00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:09,360 Speaker 1: atoms bang around into each other more, which which is 271 00:16:09,640 --> 00:16:13,000 Speaker 1: part of what causes resistance. And and on the flip side, 272 00:16:13,920 --> 00:16:17,400 Speaker 1: resistance causes heat, right, those atoms are starting to bang around. 273 00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:21,000 Speaker 1: That actually creates heat. It's essentially friction on an atomic 274 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:23,960 Speaker 1: level or sub atomic level because you're talking about electrons, 275 00:16:24,000 --> 00:16:27,040 Speaker 1: but it still creates heat. And that's where you get 276 00:16:27,040 --> 00:16:30,640 Speaker 1: this loss of energy in your system or loss of output, 277 00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:32,920 Speaker 1: where you're not really losing energy in the sense that 278 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:35,680 Speaker 1: you know it's still going somewhere, it's just no longer 279 00:16:35,760 --> 00:16:38,200 Speaker 1: contained within the system that you have created. Right, So, 280 00:16:38,240 --> 00:16:40,520 Speaker 1: what does Owns law have to do? Right? Owns law 281 00:16:40,680 --> 00:16:44,640 Speaker 1: is the relationship between voltage and resistance, all right, So 282 00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: it is explained as voltage equals current times resistance, or 283 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:55,520 Speaker 1: because we can switch these around, current equals voltage divided 284 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:59,760 Speaker 1: by resistance. So you look at the voltage across whatever 285 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:03,760 Speaker 1: the resistor itself is, whether it's a specific component in 286 00:17:03,880 --> 00:17:07,439 Speaker 1: electronic circuit or the overall circuit or just a wire, 287 00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:10,440 Speaker 1: and uh, that way, you can if you know the 288 00:17:10,520 --> 00:17:13,440 Speaker 1: voltage and the current, you can determine what the resistance is. Actually, 289 00:17:13,480 --> 00:17:15,359 Speaker 1: as long as you know any of those two, you 290 00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:17,600 Speaker 1: can determine the third because you know what how they 291 00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:22,560 Speaker 1: relate to one another. UM. Now, on top of all 292 00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,240 Speaker 1: of this, we then have the concept of power. This 293 00:17:25,320 --> 00:17:28,720 Speaker 1: is that output that you're getting. And power is we 294 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:32,720 Speaker 1: measure that in watt's w A T T S, and 295 00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:37,439 Speaker 1: power released into a resistor equals the voltage times the 296 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:42,680 Speaker 1: current or voltage squared divided by resistance or current squared 297 00:17:42,920 --> 00:17:46,199 Speaker 1: multiplied by resistance. The point we're getting to is that 298 00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:52,000 Speaker 1: these basic concepts of electronics are all very very closely 299 00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:55,160 Speaker 1: related to one another, and the more we understand about them, 300 00:17:55,440 --> 00:18:00,000 Speaker 1: the greater potential we have to uh creating new stuff 301 00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,760 Speaker 1: that really takes advantage of Right, it was our eventual 302 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,639 Speaker 1: understanding of these basic principles that has allowed us to 303 00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:12,200 Speaker 1: kind of break the physics that that or or twinge 304 00:18:12,280 --> 00:18:17,040 Speaker 1: the physics make them go what happened was we understood things, 305 00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:22,400 Speaker 1: how we understood how things worked in kind of our normal, 306 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:27,800 Speaker 1: under normal room temperature kind of situation. Because because you know, 307 00:18:27,960 --> 00:18:32,640 Speaker 1: early early people working in electronics, early people early electronics work, 308 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:37,520 Speaker 1: you know, and they were trying to plug in their xbox. No. No, 309 00:18:37,920 --> 00:18:40,320 Speaker 1: the people who are working on electricity, very early on, 310 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:43,320 Speaker 1: when we were just learning about the principles of electricity 311 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:47,359 Speaker 1: and and what it is, how these different elements relate 312 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:51,800 Speaker 1: to one another, they didn't necessarily have the capacity to 313 00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:55,680 Speaker 1: alter things enough to really see like, gosh, what would 314 00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:58,439 Speaker 1: happen if we super cool super cool that. Yeah, they 315 00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:01,200 Speaker 1: didn't have the ability to do it early early on, 316 00:19:01,520 --> 00:19:05,520 Speaker 1: but it wasn't too late when they started to to 317 00:19:05,640 --> 00:19:08,719 Speaker 1: really experiment with it. But we'll get into that, all right. 318 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:14,240 Speaker 1: So that is our down and dirty basic electronics coverage there, 319 00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:18,240 Speaker 1: and now we can actually look at superconductors and explain 320 00:19:18,320 --> 00:19:20,760 Speaker 1: exactly what they are, how they work, and why they're 321 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:24,040 Speaker 1: so amazing. We're gonna take a quick break from this 322 00:19:24,080 --> 00:19:35,080 Speaker 1: classic episode about superconductors to thank our sponsors. All right, 323 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:41,040 Speaker 1: back to superconductors. So we've covered conductors, insulators, we've covered semiconductors, 324 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:45,359 Speaker 1: we've heard about resistance. What exactly is a superconductor? All right? 325 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:49,679 Speaker 1: Technically this is some sort of material that will conduct 326 00:19:49,720 --> 00:19:55,200 Speaker 1: electricity without resistance below a certain temperature. And you don't 327 00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,600 Speaker 1: want that resistance obviously, because again you have that loss 328 00:19:57,600 --> 00:19:59,720 Speaker 1: of energy. You wanted to be as efficient as possible. 329 00:19:59,760 --> 00:20:02,000 Speaker 1: So if you could find a material that does not 330 00:20:03,040 --> 00:20:07,280 Speaker 1: convert any of that energy into heat and it's all output, 331 00:20:07,760 --> 00:20:11,440 Speaker 1: then you've just dramatically increased the efficiency of your system. 332 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:14,360 Speaker 1: It's about as close to perpetual motion as we can 333 00:20:14,440 --> 00:20:17,399 Speaker 1: ever expect to get, which is really exciting, you know, 334 00:20:17,480 --> 00:20:19,720 Speaker 1: for cost purposes and all kinds of all kinds of 335 00:20:19,720 --> 00:20:22,080 Speaker 1: fun research bits which will get into in a minute sure. 336 00:20:22,160 --> 00:20:25,680 Speaker 1: And uh. In fact, the according to superconductors dot org, 337 00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:28,480 Speaker 1: which has a lot of really fun information about superconductors 338 00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:33,000 Speaker 1: by the way, Uh, scientists call it a quote macroscopic 339 00:20:33,280 --> 00:20:38,160 Speaker 1: quantum phenomenon in the quote, which is huge literally because 340 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:41,080 Speaker 1: you're talking about macroscopic But but that's the things that 341 00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:44,920 Speaker 1: quantum phenomena. We normally think of quantum mechanics quantum phenomena 342 00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:48,719 Speaker 1: as happening on a subatomic scale, right, so small that 343 00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:51,840 Speaker 1: even our most powerful light microscope couldn't see it. You'd 344 00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:55,160 Speaker 1: have to use something like an electron telling microscope. It's 345 00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:58,560 Speaker 1: highly theoretical and and all very tricky. It's really interesting 346 00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:01,080 Speaker 1: because our laws of physics we know it starts breaking 347 00:21:01,080 --> 00:21:04,040 Speaker 1: down at that point. But right, but it's really hard 348 00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:06,080 Speaker 1: to figure out what's going on there because it's so 349 00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,960 Speaker 1: dark and tiny. Right, Yeah, it's it's a totally different 350 00:21:08,960 --> 00:21:10,960 Speaker 1: set of rules than what we're used to on the 351 00:21:10,960 --> 00:21:14,640 Speaker 1: classic level. And to have something on the macroscopic level 352 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:18,840 Speaker 1: that seems to behave under these quantum phenomena is pretty amazing. 353 00:21:18,920 --> 00:21:21,320 Speaker 1: So exactly what's going on, Well, let's go back a 354 00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:25,399 Speaker 1: little bit and look at the history of learning about this. Right, so, 355 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:29,600 Speaker 1: way back in nineteen eleven, a Dutch physicist whose name 356 00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:32,000 Speaker 1: I am now going to butcher, and I apologize to 357 00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,120 Speaker 1: anyone out there who is from the Netherlands who's going 358 00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:41,320 Speaker 1: to WinCE at everything. I say, um, hi k Kummerling 359 00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,480 Speaker 1: on this of Leighton University, and I bet it's Leyden 360 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:46,600 Speaker 1: University too as soon as I say it's Laden because 361 00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:53,199 Speaker 1: Leyden jars. But anyway, uh, this physicist discovered super conductivity, 362 00:21:53,280 --> 00:21:55,119 Speaker 1: or at least observed it for the first time as 363 00:21:55,160 --> 00:21:59,160 Speaker 1: far as we know, looking at solid mercury. They had 364 00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:02,600 Speaker 1: made a solid artery wire and cooled it to the 365 00:22:02,640 --> 00:22:07,239 Speaker 1: temperature of about four kelvin using liquid helium, and that 366 00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:10,240 Speaker 1: is about negative four hundred fifty two degrees fahrenheit or 367 00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,960 Speaker 1: negative two d sixty nine degrees celsius. And he noticed 368 00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,280 Speaker 1: that when he did this, its resistance suddenly disappeared. Right, 369 00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,480 Speaker 1: So this was interesting. This is the sort of thing 370 00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:24,320 Speaker 1: that I thought I always imagined scientists doing, sitting around 371 00:22:24,320 --> 00:22:26,680 Speaker 1: the lab and just saying, huh, I got this stuff. 372 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,120 Speaker 1: I wonder what happens if I do X to it. 373 00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:33,440 Speaker 1: You know, let's drop the temperature down to almost absolute 374 00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:36,359 Speaker 1: zero and see if that does anything interesting. Uh. I 375 00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:38,320 Speaker 1: know it's way more complicated than that, but I like 376 00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:41,000 Speaker 1: to think that that's what scientists are doing. Yeah, And 377 00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,959 Speaker 1: what's what was really going on there was that the 378 00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:49,320 Speaker 1: mercury at that temperature underwent a phase transition. But we'll 379 00:22:49,359 --> 00:22:51,480 Speaker 1: get more into that in a second. Right, So then 380 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:54,080 Speaker 1: we skip ahead a little bit. That was nineteen eleven 381 00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:59,199 Speaker 1: and nineteen thirty three some German researchers Walter Meisner, not 382 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:03,399 Speaker 1: the aimed theater mentor because I have a lot of 383 00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:09,679 Speaker 1: Meisner technique different sharing. Guyisner and Robert Oceanfeld discovered that 384 00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:14,000 Speaker 1: a super conducting material will repel a magnetic field. Now, 385 00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,919 Speaker 1: this is super cool as well. I keep using that. 386 00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,280 Speaker 1: I didn't mean to, and I should have caught myself. 387 00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,680 Speaker 1: It's it's really interesting. It's really interesting. If you've ever 388 00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,520 Speaker 1: seen there's lots of videos on YouTube, right of people 389 00:23:26,720 --> 00:23:31,720 Speaker 1: using magnets and super cooled super conductor material and they 390 00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:37,280 Speaker 1: can lock the material in a levitating state above the magnet, right. 391 00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,720 Speaker 1: Or sometimes they have a super conducting base that is 392 00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:44,880 Speaker 1: super cooled and then they put a magnet on top 393 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:48,320 Speaker 1: of it and it seems to just hang in the air. Now, technically, 394 00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,680 Speaker 1: if you if you actually listen to the physicists who 395 00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,600 Speaker 1: talked about this, there's a great Ted talk where a 396 00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:56,760 Speaker 1: guy demonstrates this. Town it's will link it on social 397 00:23:56,920 --> 00:23:59,240 Speaker 1: I mean everyone's seen it, but we'll we'll link it 398 00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:02,880 Speaker 1: anyway because it's still fun to watch. Uh. He explains 399 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:08,400 Speaker 1: that technically it's not levitation, it's what they call quantum lock. Uh, 400 00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:10,760 Speaker 1: And so it's a little different from that that we'll 401 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,200 Speaker 1: we'll get more into that in a little bit. And 402 00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:18,320 Speaker 1: then you skip ahead to nineteen seven, when a trio 403 00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:22,840 Speaker 1: of scientists leon In Cooper, John Bardine, and John Robert 404 00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:28,280 Speaker 1: Schreefer proposed the first successful model that explained super conductivity. 405 00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:30,240 Speaker 1: This might be a good time to mention that while 406 00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:35,520 Speaker 1: we talk about models that explain super connectivity, honestly, scientists 407 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,120 Speaker 1: are still learning about the properties of super conductors and 408 00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:42,880 Speaker 1: how they do what they do, and why they operate 409 00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:47,480 Speaker 1: at certain temperatures better than other temperatures. So while we're 410 00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,720 Speaker 1: describing this stuff, and while we have super conductors in 411 00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:54,560 Speaker 1: actual use around the world in thousands of different applications, 412 00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,400 Speaker 1: we still don't understand everything about precisely how it's right. 413 00:24:58,680 --> 00:25:00,439 Speaker 1: And when I say we, I'm not talking about just 414 00:25:00,480 --> 00:25:03,560 Speaker 1: me and Lauren. I'm talking about super smart people that 415 00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,159 Speaker 1: that's their job. We're still learning. This is one of 416 00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,119 Speaker 1: those things that I always find exciting. It's just, you know, 417 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:11,119 Speaker 1: when you know that you don't know everything, that always 418 00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:13,800 Speaker 1: gives you that kind of tingle to right you want 419 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:18,280 Speaker 1: to learn more. So their theory became known as the B. C. 420 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,080 Speaker 1: S Theory, and it earned them the Nobel Prize in 421 00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:26,160 Speaker 1: Physics in nineteen seventy two. Now we kind of need 422 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:29,480 Speaker 1: to sort of talk about what this theory says. Okay, 423 00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:32,119 Speaker 1: the atoms in a conductive material that have given up 424 00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:38,080 Speaker 1: electrons are are are then positively charged ions, right right, okay, um, 425 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,879 Speaker 1: and when electrons are flowing through them, they're attracted to 426 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:47,399 Speaker 1: those negative negatively charged electrons. Cool. Right, Cool, that's a 427 00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:49,760 Speaker 1: really bad word to use me in this podcast. Okay, 428 00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:53,960 Speaker 1: already having made three or four times under usual circumstances, Uh, 429 00:25:54,200 --> 00:25:58,199 Speaker 1: those ions kind of crunching together towards the electrons that 430 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:01,239 Speaker 1: are flowing through them would cause for existance, but not 431 00:26:01,280 --> 00:26:04,160 Speaker 1: in superconductors. And what we kind of didn't realize until 432 00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:07,200 Speaker 1: we started getting into quantum mechanics is that that resistance 433 00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:10,840 Speaker 1: happens because electrons have properties of both particles and waves, 434 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:14,960 Speaker 1: right this, this is that duality thing that always got 435 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:17,440 Speaker 1: me confused when I got to that point and learning 436 00:26:17,480 --> 00:26:21,200 Speaker 1: about science was the idea that something can behave as 437 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:23,439 Speaker 1: both a wave and a particle. We see this a 438 00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,200 Speaker 1: lot in quantum mechanics, and it's part of the reason 439 00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:31,520 Speaker 1: why it's such an interesting and counterintuitive field. Absolutely yeah, 440 00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,560 Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, my brain kind of just goes, well, well, okay, 441 00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,480 Speaker 1: that's that's fine to be fair. I think a lot 442 00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:41,080 Speaker 1: of string theorists have that same reaction to their work. 443 00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:43,679 Speaker 1: I mean, I'm being honest. I've seen interviews where they say, 444 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:45,920 Speaker 1: there comes a point where you just have to say, 445 00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,600 Speaker 1: this is how it works, because it's how it works. 446 00:26:48,760 --> 00:26:50,840 Speaker 1: It always feels a little bit like double think to me. 447 00:26:50,920 --> 00:26:55,479 Speaker 1: But yeah, So we've got electrons acting like particles and waves, 448 00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,760 Speaker 1: and um, those excited ions that are in the conductive 449 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:04,440 Speaker 1: areal kind of create counter ripples in this this flowing 450 00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:09,400 Speaker 1: lake or river of electrons, and and that winds up 451 00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:14,080 Speaker 1: causing that resistance I see. But in superconductors, the electrons 452 00:27:14,080 --> 00:27:17,840 Speaker 1: assume a nearly identical speed and direction, forming a kind 453 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:23,000 Speaker 1: of single organized wave that resists that disruption from the 454 00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:25,600 Speaker 1: ions I see. So instead of having let's let's let's 455 00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:27,520 Speaker 1: put this on a macro scale. And keep in mind 456 00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:30,080 Speaker 1: that whenever you change anything from the quantum scale to 457 00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:33,000 Speaker 1: the macro scale and you're using an analogy, it's imperfect 458 00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,400 Speaker 1: to say the right. And this is also an extreme 459 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,720 Speaker 1: oversimplification that I'm presenting to you. So, but let's imagine 460 00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,120 Speaker 1: that you have a room full of people, and you 461 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:44,359 Speaker 1: have one doorway leading out of the room. And someone 462 00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,439 Speaker 1: walks into the room and says free cake and then leaves, 463 00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,280 Speaker 1: and then everyone just tries to rush the door. All right, Well, 464 00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,320 Speaker 1: the fact that people could only fit through the door 465 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,240 Speaker 1: a few at a time, but everyone's trying to get 466 00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:57,560 Speaker 1: through there, that kind of represents resistance in a way. Now, 467 00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,879 Speaker 1: let's say that someone comes in and says, uh, you know, 468 00:28:01,040 --> 00:28:03,760 Speaker 1: free cake, but there's plenty for everyone, so just come 469 00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,240 Speaker 1: in the same order that you you know, walked into 470 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:08,840 Speaker 1: the room, and everyone obeys the rules and they all 471 00:28:08,880 --> 00:28:12,359 Speaker 1: just smoothly exit. That's kind of the idea of superconductors. 472 00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,680 Speaker 1: You've created this experience where everything's happening in a very uh, 473 00:28:17,440 --> 00:28:20,560 Speaker 1: very ordered, controlled right. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of like 474 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:23,000 Speaker 1: if all those people were members of a dance troupe 475 00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,600 Speaker 1: and they just kind of fell into line and danced 476 00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,800 Speaker 1: quietly out. In fact, that as analogy I've seen several 477 00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,800 Speaker 1: times when looking at superconductors. Now, the BCS theory that 478 00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,520 Speaker 1: we had mentioned explains that the electrons travel in ever 479 00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,880 Speaker 1: changing Cooper pairs, named after leon In Cooper, one of 480 00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:47,239 Speaker 1: the three of that and that uh so you have 481 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,440 Speaker 1: that leading electron. The pairs have a leading electron and 482 00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,480 Speaker 1: a following electron. They're both going down this pathway. Keeping 483 00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:57,800 Speaker 1: in mind electrons do repel one another. Yeah, so which 484 00:28:57,840 --> 00:29:00,080 Speaker 1: is way that where the ever changing comes in. They 485 00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:02,479 Speaker 1: they kind of swap around a whole bunch, right. So 486 00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:06,400 Speaker 1: you've got this pair going down, swapping places occasionally. Uh, 487 00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:10,520 Speaker 1: And the positively charged ions start to be attracted to 488 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,480 Speaker 1: that leading electron, which means that you have a growing 489 00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:17,719 Speaker 1: positive charge, which starts pulling that second electron even harder. 490 00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:22,520 Speaker 1: That creates this increased pressure if you will of poll 491 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:26,160 Speaker 1: really right, it's pulling those electrons even harder than it 492 00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,560 Speaker 1: normally would because the positive charges growing and all of this, 493 00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:33,160 Speaker 1: all of these different opposing forces essentially end up canceling 494 00:29:33,160 --> 00:29:36,000 Speaker 1: each other out so that you don't end up with resistance, right, 495 00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,680 Speaker 1: And this is opposite to the way that resistance normally works, 496 00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:44,320 Speaker 1: which is so cool, not cool, so interesting. Now, keep 497 00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,680 Speaker 1: in mind this was the first working model of super conductivity, 498 00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,240 Speaker 1: and uh, then future study would end up kind of 499 00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,440 Speaker 1: tweaking this and changing our understanding a little bit. Uh. 500 00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,160 Speaker 1: In fact, in nineteen sixty two, we then had Brian D. 501 00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,600 Speaker 1: Josephson who predicted that electrical current would flow between two 502 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:09,960 Speaker 1: superconducting materials, even if they were separated by non superconductors 503 00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,760 Speaker 1: or even insulators. Now, that prediction that he made was 504 00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,400 Speaker 1: later on confirmed and he earned the Nobel Prize in 505 00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:22,160 Speaker 1: Physics in ninety three, so one year after the BCS 506 00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:26,160 Speaker 1: team won the Nobel Prize in Physics. So clearly superconductor's 507 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:30,160 Speaker 1: big important thing in physics from the fifties through the 508 00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,160 Speaker 1: seventies and up through to today. Oh sure, sure, what 509 00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,680 Speaker 1: more research conducted in the eighties would change the field 510 00:30:35,680 --> 00:30:37,880 Speaker 1: all over again. But we will talk more about that 511 00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:40,240 Speaker 1: in a moment. Yeah, yeah, we have to. We have 512 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:46,000 Speaker 1: to then discuss the different major types of superconductors, and uh, 513 00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,400 Speaker 1: there are different ways you can divide them up, but 514 00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,480 Speaker 1: the most common way is to refer to them as 515 00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,640 Speaker 1: type one and type two, which not that helpful upon 516 00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:59,760 Speaker 1: the surface. So lists actually define these type one superconductors. Uh, 517 00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,640 Speaker 1: made out of pure metal, right, So you get this 518 00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:06,560 Speaker 1: pure metal material, whatever the metal is, and then you 519 00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,760 Speaker 1: have to cool it to a point where the metal 520 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:16,240 Speaker 1: exhibits zero electrical resistivity and perfect dia magnetism. So we're 521 00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:19,360 Speaker 1: talking now about any particular metal. It doesn't matter which 522 00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,480 Speaker 1: one it is. The temperature will well vary depending upon 523 00:31:22,560 --> 00:31:26,640 Speaker 1: the actual metal you're using, right, So lead is different 524 00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,000 Speaker 1: from copper, that kind of thing. But they all have 525 00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:34,520 Speaker 1: this they have they all have this specific critical temperature, right, 526 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,880 Speaker 1: and most of them are pretty cold, so you have 527 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,400 Speaker 1: to use something really really cold to cool them. Light 528 00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,120 Speaker 1: liquid helium, which is hard to get. It's it's very 529 00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:47,400 Speaker 1: it's expensive, yes, and there's not that much left of it. 530 00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,680 Speaker 1: I mean, in the grand scheme of things, we don't 531 00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,160 Speaker 1: we don't have enough helium for all the stuff we 532 00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,840 Speaker 1: would like to do with helium. For one thing, they're 533 00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:57,960 Speaker 1: all those children's parties and you think I'm joking, but 534 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:01,760 Speaker 1: I'm not. Helium is actually being used in those helium 535 00:32:01,760 --> 00:32:04,040 Speaker 1: balloons that you see that you can go out and buy. 536 00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:07,200 Speaker 1: There are scientists who say it's a real shame that 537 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:09,960 Speaker 1: we're using helium to entertain children when we could be 538 00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,000 Speaker 1: using it to run m R I machines or a 539 00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:18,160 Speaker 1: super collider or one of a thousand other devices. So 540 00:32:18,160 --> 00:32:21,080 Speaker 1: so that's one of the downsides of the type one 541 00:32:21,120 --> 00:32:23,320 Speaker 1: superconductors is that they do need to be cool to 542 00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:27,160 Speaker 1: these very very low temperatures, and if they go above 543 00:32:27,240 --> 00:32:32,040 Speaker 1: that temperature, the superconductivity is broken. You can get it 544 00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,840 Speaker 1: back by cooling it back down again, but the actual 545 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,480 Speaker 1: properties it exhibits as a superconductor go away if the 546 00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:43,400 Speaker 1: temperature goes over whatever it's critical temperature is for being 547 00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:46,040 Speaker 1: a superconductor. Another thing that will cause the breakdown of 548 00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,240 Speaker 1: the superconductive state is if you subject it to what's 549 00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:53,160 Speaker 1: called a critical magnetic field. Right, So remember we talked 550 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:58,200 Speaker 1: about diet magnetism. This means that magnetic fields cannot penetrate 551 00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:02,480 Speaker 1: this superconductor met all while it's in the superconductor state, 552 00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:07,280 Speaker 1: so you can't make It's what allows a superconductor to 553 00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:13,200 Speaker 1: kind of uh float above a magnet, although with type 554 00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,600 Speaker 1: one superconductors that always tends to be wobbly. If you've 555 00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:20,920 Speaker 1: ever seen a demonstration of this, the whatever the materials 556 00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:24,440 Speaker 1: is going to be kind of kind of spinning and shaking. 557 00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:26,960 Speaker 1: It doesn't hold it doesn't hold a position very well. 558 00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:29,760 Speaker 1: It does tend to wobble quite a bit. But uh, 559 00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,120 Speaker 1: if you were to introduce a magnetic field that is 560 00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:38,000 Speaker 1: stronger than what that superconductor can land, yeah, yeah, the 561 00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:41,960 Speaker 1: expel really because it's expelling magnetic field. But yeah, if 562 00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,240 Speaker 1: it's too strong a magnetic field, it again will break 563 00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,840 Speaker 1: down that superconducting state and it will just become a 564 00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:52,440 Speaker 1: regular conductor as opposed to a superconductor. So you have 565 00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,080 Speaker 1: to maintain its critical temperature and make sure it is 566 00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:58,880 Speaker 1: not subjected to a magnetic field above that critical limit. 567 00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,920 Speaker 1: All right. So that's Type one superconductors, which then raises 568 00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:05,640 Speaker 1: the question, what is a Type too superconductor. Now these 569 00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:09,560 Speaker 1: are made up of alloys, uh, and they have a 570 00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:13,880 Speaker 1: much more complex diamagnetic feature to them. Right, They're not. 571 00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:17,080 Speaker 1: They're not as simple as Type one. They actually have 572 00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:21,239 Speaker 1: two thresholds for critical magnetic fields. All right. So if 573 00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,640 Speaker 1: it's if the magnetic field is below the primary threshold, 574 00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,080 Speaker 1: the type two uh superconductor x more or less like 575 00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:31,840 Speaker 1: a type one. So in other words, if you super 576 00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:36,399 Speaker 1: cool this down to below that that threshold, it will 577 00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:38,920 Speaker 1: behave just like it would be just as if it 578 00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:43,400 Speaker 1: were a Type one superconductor. Now, um, if if that 579 00:34:43,520 --> 00:34:48,280 Speaker 1: magnetic field goes above that threshold but still is below 580 00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:52,839 Speaker 1: the second threshold, you then have a superconductor entering into 581 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,239 Speaker 1: what is called a vortex state, which to me just 582 00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,840 Speaker 1: sounds like it's some sort of science fiction ee like 583 00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,640 Speaker 1: pulled through the portal into another dimension. But that's not 584 00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,799 Speaker 1: exactly what's happening. It's it's pretty science fiction. It's what's 585 00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,600 Speaker 1: what's going on here is that um uh currents or 586 00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:14,320 Speaker 1: or whirlpools of of superconducting material will flow around spots 587 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:17,840 Speaker 1: of normal material. So you have these islands of conducting 588 00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:23,040 Speaker 1: material and these vortices of super conducting materials. So within 589 00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:27,520 Speaker 1: the same substance, some of it is acting like a superconductor, 590 00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:30,040 Speaker 1: some of it's acting like a conductor. And this creates 591 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,800 Speaker 1: really interesting properties that will that will cover in a 592 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,240 Speaker 1: secure right, So that's what really makes it different. Now, granted, 593 00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:39,200 Speaker 1: if you were to again increase that magnetic field so 594 00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:43,440 Speaker 1: that it goes above that second threshold, the superconductivity properties 595 00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:46,760 Speaker 1: breakdown down, so and and you do have to cool 596 00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,359 Speaker 1: down the type two superconductors. Although there's been some amazing 597 00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:53,840 Speaker 1: work fairly recently, and that that that eighties stuff that 598 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:55,879 Speaker 1: I was talking about, right that will that will cover 599 00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:59,040 Speaker 1: in a minute. That really kind of give us some 600 00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:03,640 Speaker 1: hope for future applications. We'll be right back with more 601 00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:06,520 Speaker 1: on superconductors in just a moment, but first let's take 602 00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:17,000 Speaker 1: another quick break, all right, So we talked a little 603 00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:20,920 Speaker 1: bit earlier about this levitating effect that you can see 604 00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:24,160 Speaker 1: with superconductors. It's not really levitating. It's called quantum lock 605 00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:26,680 Speaker 1: or flux pinning. Right, And this has to do with 606 00:36:26,719 --> 00:36:29,279 Speaker 1: that vortex state that we mentioned a second ago. Right. 607 00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:33,000 Speaker 1: This is for type two, specifically Type one superconductors can 608 00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,480 Speaker 1: do this too, but as we said, they're very unsteady. 609 00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:38,600 Speaker 1: But type two, if you keep it within that critical 610 00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:43,319 Speaker 1: boundary between those two thresholds we talked about, where it's 611 00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,799 Speaker 1: above the type one threshold but below the type two threshold, 612 00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:51,200 Speaker 1: you can have this quantum lock where you can put 613 00:36:51,400 --> 00:36:55,880 Speaker 1: a magnet above a superconducting base or a super super 614 00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:59,600 Speaker 1: cooled superconductor over a magnet and lock it into a 615 00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,160 Speaker 1: position shin where it's seemingly just floating. Really it is 616 00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:08,399 Speaker 1: floating above the magnet or no, for the magnets, floating 617 00:37:08,400 --> 00:37:10,640 Speaker 1: above the superconductor. However you've had it arranged. And that 618 00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:12,879 Speaker 1: and that that Ted talk that we mentioned from from 619 00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:15,759 Speaker 1: two thousand eleven that probably you've seen a call that 620 00:37:15,760 --> 00:37:18,399 Speaker 1: that was calling it quantum levitation. You know, it's it's 621 00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:20,520 Speaker 1: the dude just just pushed a magnet around and it 622 00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:22,560 Speaker 1: kind of float in a circle when it was what 623 00:37:22,920 --> 00:37:24,359 Speaker 1: he had was he had a I think he had 624 00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:28,160 Speaker 1: a big circular magnet. Like yeah, it was exactly like 625 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,440 Speaker 1: a doughnut in the sense that had a band of 626 00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:34,319 Speaker 1: magnetic material that runs in a circle. But was it 627 00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:37,080 Speaker 1: was just a band. It wasn't a disk or anything. 628 00:37:37,080 --> 00:37:38,839 Speaker 1: It was a band of this magnetic material. So yeah, 629 00:37:38,880 --> 00:37:41,280 Speaker 1: like a donut. And then had this super cooled super 630 00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:45,720 Speaker 1: conducting material that he put He put it in place 631 00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,640 Speaker 1: above the band, so it's not touching the band at all, 632 00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,120 Speaker 1: it's floating above it. And he could actually change the 633 00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:55,239 Speaker 1: orientation of the superconductor so it could be flat, or 634 00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:57,800 Speaker 1: he could tilt it so suddenly it was at a 635 00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:00,680 Speaker 1: forty five degree tilt, and then he could just give 636 00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:03,799 Speaker 1: it a little push and it would float around the 637 00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,520 Speaker 1: circle of this magnetic band, just floating as though we're 638 00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:10,000 Speaker 1: on a track, but not touching anything. Right, So there's 639 00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,480 Speaker 1: there's no real apart from air resistance, there's no real 640 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:17,760 Speaker 1: force acting against it. So in other words, it's about 641 00:38:17,800 --> 00:38:20,600 Speaker 1: as close to perpetual motion as you can get. It 642 00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,120 Speaker 1: would just keep going around and around and around until 643 00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:27,440 Speaker 1: the air resistance finally would make it stop, and he 644 00:38:27,480 --> 00:38:32,280 Speaker 1: even demonstrates that, uh, it is completely independent of gravity 645 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:35,200 Speaker 1: as well. If you were to turn the whole thing 646 00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:39,760 Speaker 1: upside down, it would, yes, which it is pretty awesome. 647 00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:44,400 Speaker 1: It then floats underneath the band. But again you can 648 00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:49,160 Speaker 1: change the orientation of the superconducting material. And it's it's 649 00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,920 Speaker 1: kind of a mind blowing video. It's it's really terrific. 650 00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:55,879 Speaker 1: And what's what's going on in it is that UM. 651 00:38:56,080 --> 00:39:00,800 Speaker 1: So as superconductors UM cool down, they increase recently expel 652 00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,879 Speaker 1: magnetic fields. And when you when you get a type 653 00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,759 Speaker 1: two superconductor into that vortex state, UM electrons can can 654 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:13,040 Speaker 1: form these kind of eddy currents that produce a counter field, right, Yeah, 655 00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,279 Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy. And and so you've got this, 656 00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:20,279 Speaker 1: you've got this expelling of fields out from the super 657 00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:23,560 Speaker 1: conducting material. You also have the norm the quote unquote 658 00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,520 Speaker 1: normal islands of material in there that are attracted to 659 00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:32,040 Speaker 1: whatever the magnet is UM. And so it's the balance 660 00:39:32,120 --> 00:39:35,800 Speaker 1: of those two that make that type to superconductor stable 661 00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,279 Speaker 1: as opposed to the type ones that are all wobbly. UM. 662 00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,200 Speaker 1: There's there's also been you might remember background the year 663 00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:46,480 Speaker 1: two thousand, uh, some some people got a whole lot 664 00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:49,080 Speaker 1: of attention for levitating a frog, and you know water 665 00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:52,560 Speaker 1: and hazelnuts and all kinds of fun stuff. It was 666 00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,040 Speaker 1: along the same principles and and works because although technically, 667 00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:57,799 Speaker 1: you know, what we think of things like water in 668 00:39:57,880 --> 00:40:02,520 Speaker 1: organic tissue like frogs is being non magnetic um, they 669 00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:06,040 Speaker 1: will exhibit a very weak repulsive effect when placed in 670 00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,520 Speaker 1: a very strong magnetic field. I know that I can 671 00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:12,399 Speaker 1: be repulsed by frogs quite easily. However, if you want 672 00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:15,640 Speaker 1: to have a fun experiment with frogs and magnetism, you 673 00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:17,520 Speaker 1: take a frog and you go up to your little 674 00:40:17,520 --> 00:40:20,279 Speaker 1: sister and you rub it against her hair and then 675 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:24,640 Speaker 1: you run. It doesn't actually do anything scientific, but it 676 00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:28,160 Speaker 1: can be quite amusing. Now over how stuff works. We 677 00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:30,520 Speaker 1: have articles that cover all sorts of stuff, and we 678 00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:34,480 Speaker 1: even have one on superconductors. And there was one particular 679 00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:37,920 Speaker 1: section of that article I wanted to quote the sidebar 680 00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:40,160 Speaker 1: that was that was just very effective. Right, This comes 681 00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:44,520 Speaker 1: straight from our article on superconductors. Superconductors boast more than 682 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,760 Speaker 1: zero resistance. They also offer extremely high current carrying density, 683 00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:54,320 Speaker 1: exceptionally low resistance and high frequencies, very low signal dispersion, 684 00:40:54,440 --> 00:41:00,080 Speaker 1: and high magnetic field sensitivity. They exclude externally applied magnetic fields, 685 00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,040 Speaker 1: exhibit unusual quantum behaviors, and are capable of near light 686 00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,480 Speaker 1: speed signal transmission. This combination of factors effectively rewrites the 687 00:41:08,560 --> 00:41:13,680 Speaker 1: rules for electromagnetic industries and suggests numerous possible innovations, including 688 00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:18,960 Speaker 1: improved electric power transmission, generation and storage, smaller, more powerful 689 00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:23,960 Speaker 1: magnets for motors, cutting edge medical equipment, improved microwave components 690 00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:28,719 Speaker 1: for communications and military applications, vastly boosted sensors, and using 691 00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,520 Speaker 1: magnetic fields to contain charged particles. So that's that's you know, 692 00:41:32,680 --> 00:41:34,560 Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit more about some 693 00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:38,080 Speaker 1: of the applications, but the potential is phenomenal. Yeah. And 694 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,719 Speaker 1: and thank you to Nicholas Jervis or Gurbous, depending on 695 00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,520 Speaker 1: how you pronounce that for for writing that excellent little 696 00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:46,680 Speaker 1: bit for that article on superconductivity for us. Yes, yes, 697 00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,640 Speaker 1: it's a great read. I do recommend it. Uh. And 698 00:41:50,400 --> 00:41:55,359 Speaker 1: there are lots of different substances that can exhibit superconductivity. Uh. 699 00:41:55,520 --> 00:41:57,960 Speaker 1: Some of them were you know, the pure substances we 700 00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:00,920 Speaker 1: talked about, the metallic elements and do this if you 701 00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,439 Speaker 1: cool them to the correct temperature. Uh. Some of them. 702 00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:10,719 Speaker 1: Some of them that are not metals can exhibit superconductivity Uranium, yeah, 703 00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:14,160 Speaker 1: or selenium or silicon. If you if you lower the 704 00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:19,040 Speaker 1: temperature enough, you have to pressure. Yeah, that's they don't. 705 00:42:19,239 --> 00:42:22,279 Speaker 1: If it's at just a normal one atmosphere pressure, you 706 00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:24,040 Speaker 1: can't get it cold enough to do that. But if 707 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:27,440 Speaker 1: you increase the pressures, uh, then that the combination of 708 00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:30,799 Speaker 1: the pressure and the temperature will have them exhibit this 709 00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:35,520 Speaker 1: superconductive property, and then that you have hot superconductors. All right, 710 00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:37,880 Speaker 1: this is that recent, more recent research that was begun 711 00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,400 Speaker 1: in the eighties. And so so tell us, tell us 712 00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:43,719 Speaker 1: what hot superconductors do. Okay, So you know, we've talked 713 00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,800 Speaker 1: about the idea of cold fusion, the idea of having 714 00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:50,239 Speaker 1: a fusion reactor that could operate at temperatures that are 715 00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:53,720 Speaker 1: much lower than what we would expect a fusion reactor 716 00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,319 Speaker 1: to to perform at. Right A hot superconductor is kind 717 00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,719 Speaker 1: of the opposite idea. And while we don't know if 718 00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,880 Speaker 1: cold fusion will ever really work, we do know that 719 00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:07,640 Speaker 1: hot superconductors are a thing. Right Well, when we say hot, 720 00:43:08,239 --> 00:43:13,680 Speaker 1: we're talking relative terms. It's still very, very very cold. 721 00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:16,879 Speaker 1: It's still cold enough to kill you if you were 722 00:43:16,920 --> 00:43:20,360 Speaker 1: to be exposed to it. But it's not so cold 723 00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:24,239 Speaker 1: as to require liquid helium to cool it. Um. So 724 00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:28,680 Speaker 1: this was something that that lots of different people were 725 00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:32,160 Speaker 1: working on throughout the years, and you know, just sort 726 00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:35,440 Speaker 1: of experimenting with different combinations and materials. Again, getting back 727 00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,280 Speaker 1: to that scientist in the lab saying, Huh, I wonder 728 00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,960 Speaker 1: what would happen if we did this to this. Uh. 729 00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:44,160 Speaker 1: That first one was, I believe it was discovered by 730 00:43:44,280 --> 00:43:51,600 Speaker 1: IBM researchers. They presented a a superconductor of barium lanthenom 731 00:43:51,760 --> 00:43:55,520 Speaker 1: lanthanum and copper oxide um and and it could achieve 732 00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:59,319 Speaker 1: zero resistance at thirty five kelvin, right, which is what 733 00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:04,000 Speaker 1: minus two hundred and thirty eight celsius and minus three 734 00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,560 Speaker 1: d and ninety seven fahrenheit. Wow, Lauren does some wicked 735 00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:11,439 Speaker 1: math in her head. Yeah. And so instead of using 736 00:44:11,480 --> 00:44:14,280 Speaker 1: liquid helium, that meant that you could use liquid nitrogen, 737 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:17,359 Speaker 1: which is much more plentiful and inexpensive, right, Yes, you can, 738 00:44:17,440 --> 00:44:20,760 Speaker 1: you know, compare to liquid helium. Liquid nitrogen we're lousy 739 00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:22,279 Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, yeah, and you can pick it up 740 00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:25,160 Speaker 1: at the supermarket if you really. The point being that 741 00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,960 Speaker 1: it is much. It really lowered the bar for what 742 00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:31,839 Speaker 1: you could make a superconductor out of, which meant that 743 00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:34,359 Speaker 1: suddenly you could use them for a lot more applications. 744 00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:39,120 Speaker 1: You know, before only the most well funded applications could 745 00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:42,880 Speaker 1: ever afford any source of superconductor material because everything we 746 00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:45,920 Speaker 1: had needed to be cooled down so far that you 747 00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,080 Speaker 1: had to have liquid helium to do it. And there 748 00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:50,799 Speaker 1: are there are plenty of places out there that are 749 00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,080 Speaker 1: using that kind of material, like the Large Hadron Collider, 750 00:44:54,120 --> 00:44:58,799 Speaker 1: for example, uses superconductors and it's and it's electronics in 751 00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:02,520 Speaker 1: order for it to increase the speed of proton beams 752 00:45:02,520 --> 00:45:06,400 Speaker 1: so that they can collide at massive, massive speeds and 753 00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:12,120 Speaker 1: create a situation that looks like a tiny microcosmic version 754 00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:15,439 Speaker 1: of the Big Bang or shortly ameliate following the Big Bang. 755 00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:18,520 Speaker 1: I guess I should say the world record for the 756 00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:22,920 Speaker 1: hottest quote unquote superconductor was that and that it was 757 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:27,440 Speaker 1: at thirty eight calvin, which is only a mirror negative 758 00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:33,600 Speaker 1: celsius and negative two eleven fahrenheit. Right, so again still 759 00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:38,080 Speaker 1: really cold to us, but downright bal mecause yeah, it's 760 00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:40,880 Speaker 1: like a it's like a vacation in the tropics, really 761 00:45:41,440 --> 00:45:46,120 Speaker 1: and they were using thallium doped mercuric cuprate, which was 762 00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,160 Speaker 1: comprised of the following elements. So this is what you 763 00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:50,680 Speaker 1: have on your shopping list if you want to make 764 00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:54,279 Speaker 1: one of these. It's not easy. And most of these 765 00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:58,719 Speaker 1: things are poisonous. Mercury which is poisonous, thallium which is 766 00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:04,080 Speaker 1: also poisonous, barrier, calcium, copper, and oxygen. It's not something 767 00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,040 Speaker 1: that you can actually go and put together on your own. 768 00:46:06,160 --> 00:46:09,959 Speaker 1: I wouldn't recommend trying. No, no, Now, your average science 769 00:46:10,040 --> 00:46:11,600 Speaker 1: lab is not gonna be able to produce that kind 770 00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,920 Speaker 1: of superconductor. But then we can talk a little bit 771 00:46:14,960 --> 00:46:18,480 Speaker 1: about what we would use this stuff for, what's being 772 00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,680 Speaker 1: used already, how it's being already used. Yeah, m R 773 00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,560 Speaker 1: I I think is the probably most common that that's 774 00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:28,080 Speaker 1: magnetic resonance imaging. Yes, so MR eyes are used to 775 00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,759 Speaker 1: look at soft tissues, right, because X rays are very 776 00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:34,440 Speaker 1: good at looking at things like like your skeleton, but 777 00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,160 Speaker 1: they don't they don't pick up soft tissue very well. 778 00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,200 Speaker 1: M R eyes, however, are very good at looking at 779 00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:42,960 Speaker 1: soft tissue, so they became very important in the field 780 00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:46,920 Speaker 1: of medicine. And superconductors are a great component for m 781 00:46:47,040 --> 00:46:50,400 Speaker 1: r I machines, as Jonathan mentioned a moment ago, super 782 00:46:50,400 --> 00:46:53,440 Speaker 1: colliders such as the Large Hadron collider YEP, and there, 783 00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,120 Speaker 1: of course there are more than just that. That's just 784 00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:58,560 Speaker 1: probably the most famous one that people have heard about recently. 785 00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:03,200 Speaker 1: Magnetic levitation trains maglev trains. There's a couple of examples 786 00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:06,480 Speaker 1: of these, mostly out in Japan, where the idea is 787 00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,960 Speaker 1: to use the superconductors along a track, so you super 788 00:47:10,960 --> 00:47:15,400 Speaker 1: cool them and you create this uh, this this quantum 789 00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:19,480 Speaker 1: lock phenomena, and then there are magnets on the actual 790 00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:23,560 Speaker 1: train that can allow it to levitate above the track, 791 00:47:23,719 --> 00:47:27,719 Speaker 1: thus allowing it to move without that friction that would 792 00:47:27,800 --> 00:47:31,920 Speaker 1: normally cause the train to be less efficient and uh 793 00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,440 Speaker 1: and allow it to move it on a high speed 794 00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:39,479 Speaker 1: um without with a relative minimum of energy input, right right, Uh. 795 00:47:39,520 --> 00:47:41,480 Speaker 1: And of course you could also make a train the 796 00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:44,000 Speaker 1: other way around, where the superconductors are on the train 797 00:47:44,080 --> 00:47:45,960 Speaker 1: and the magnets are in the track. In fact, I 798 00:47:45,960 --> 00:47:49,160 Speaker 1: think Japan might have examples of both. I wrote an 799 00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,880 Speaker 1: article years and years ago for Discovery News about it, 800 00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,400 Speaker 1: but frankly, I honestly can't remember at this point. But 801 00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:00,000 Speaker 1: other things we could use it for nuclear magnetic resident 802 00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:04,760 Speaker 1: it's spectroscopy, that's that's that's just very useful in a 803 00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:13,279 Speaker 1: pharmacutical pharmaceutical research. It catches yeah, biotechnologies, etcetera, etcetera. And 804 00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:16,080 Speaker 1: they're they're looking forward to uh to maybe trying to 805 00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:19,200 Speaker 1: use this in more efficient forms of energy storage or 806 00:48:19,640 --> 00:48:24,400 Speaker 1: energy capture like wind turbines, right, also just other electric 807 00:48:24,440 --> 00:48:27,239 Speaker 1: generators in general, so that you don't lose as much 808 00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,440 Speaker 1: of that electricity that you've generated through heat. So again 809 00:48:30,480 --> 00:48:32,040 Speaker 1: that's one of those things. You know, if we can 810 00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:35,400 Speaker 1: make power systems more efficient where more of the power 811 00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:38,319 Speaker 1: we are, more of the electricity we're generating, gets to 812 00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,880 Speaker 1: wherever it needs to be to do work, then that's 813 00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,279 Speaker 1: a win for everybody. It means that you have to 814 00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:48,200 Speaker 1: consume fewer resources because you don't have to worry about 815 00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:51,439 Speaker 1: losing you know, x amount of the energy you're trying 816 00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:54,239 Speaker 1: to produce as heat. Right. Also on the on the 817 00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:56,239 Speaker 1: quantum level, it could be very useful for things like 818 00:48:56,320 --> 00:49:03,160 Speaker 1: quantum computers because it's it's working that tiny quantum scale. Yeah, 819 00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,640 Speaker 1: quantum computers. There's always a super cooling element with quantum 820 00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:09,439 Speaker 1: computers as well, in order to make them work. We've 821 00:49:09,440 --> 00:49:11,759 Speaker 1: talked about quantum computers in previous episodes, but I have 822 00:49:11,800 --> 00:49:13,440 Speaker 1: a feeling we're going to need to do a full 823 00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,239 Speaker 1: episode on quantum computers to really explain what the concept 824 00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,280 Speaker 1: is and how they work, because again, it gets pretty 825 00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:23,360 Speaker 1: I guess Einstein would call it spooky. I guess I 826 00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:28,799 Speaker 1: guess you would. Um speaking of spooky a quantum entanglement. 827 00:49:29,239 --> 00:49:34,439 Speaker 1: Superconductors are used to create quantum entanglement, ah so, which 828 00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:37,920 Speaker 1: is again a very important component in things like the 829 00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:43,439 Speaker 1: quantum cryptography. Now you have a note here that I've 830 00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,880 Speaker 1: read I see in front of me. I wanted to 831 00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:49,560 Speaker 1: mention that this is not anti gravity, right, Um, you 832 00:49:49,600 --> 00:49:52,920 Speaker 1: know it is. You are. You are canceling out a 833 00:49:52,960 --> 00:49:56,840 Speaker 1: magnetic field, right, But it's not like you have created 834 00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,040 Speaker 1: some way like you can't turn a switch on the 835 00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,520 Speaker 1: room everyone floats off the floor exactly. Yeah, And we're 836 00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,799 Speaker 1: we're not we're not counteracting gravitons. We still don't really 837 00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,320 Speaker 1: know how gravity actually works. I mean, wit, we obviously 838 00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,520 Speaker 1: see uh, the effect of it, right, we don't see 839 00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:18,120 Speaker 1: the actual mechanism. Yeah. Back was a Russian physicist whose 840 00:50:18,440 --> 00:50:21,320 Speaker 1: name I'm not even going to attempt, right, now, Um, 841 00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:24,120 Speaker 1: but but he he claimed to have successfully tested this 842 00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:28,319 Speaker 1: device that would shield an object from gravity. Um. It 843 00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:33,760 Speaker 1: involved levitating a superconducting disc above m magnet and UM, 844 00:50:33,920 --> 00:50:36,120 Speaker 1: no one, no one in the past couple of decades 845 00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:39,080 Speaker 1: has figured out how has has been able to replicate 846 00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:43,160 Speaker 1: this experiment. So that's not that's not what we're talking about, 847 00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:45,640 Speaker 1: right right. And then, of course, the other note I 848 00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,760 Speaker 1: was going to mention was the one about people thought 849 00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:55,040 Speaker 1: that we somehow reverse engineered superconductors from alien spacecraft. Yeah, 850 00:50:55,080 --> 00:50:57,120 Speaker 1: because you know what Area fifty one they were. They 851 00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,520 Speaker 1: were holding all those that that that alien space craft. 852 00:50:59,600 --> 00:51:02,000 Speaker 1: And so where you wrote that and I wrote that 853 00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:04,839 Speaker 1: whole article Area fifty one, and I don't remember any 854 00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:08,879 Speaker 1: alien spacecraft being in there. No. This is again why 855 00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:12,279 Speaker 1: those conspiracy theories where people thought that perhaps humans are 856 00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:15,040 Speaker 1: not ingenious or inventive enough to have come up with 857 00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,759 Speaker 1: this on our own. Now credit, since we already talked 858 00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,759 Speaker 1: about how the first experiments with super conductivity date back 859 00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,799 Speaker 1: to nineteen eleven, I think we can be safe to 860 00:51:24,800 --> 00:51:30,200 Speaker 1: say that it's not the Area fifty one reverse engineering nonsense. However, 861 00:51:30,239 --> 00:51:32,000 Speaker 1: I mean, you know it's I do see the connection 862 00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:35,680 Speaker 1: since we started really up pushing pushing the technology off 863 00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:39,160 Speaker 1: the ground in the nineteen fifties and nine and nine 864 00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:42,960 Speaker 1: seven being the year that um oh, the Roswell incident. 865 00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,160 Speaker 1: Of the Roswell incident. Also keep in mind that Roswell 866 00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:50,160 Speaker 1: an Area fifty one are not remotely closely clearly connected. 867 00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:55,200 Speaker 1: So I this is where Jonathan says, ladies and gentlemen, 868 00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,680 Speaker 1: humans are amazingly smart and amazingly creative, and we come 869 00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:04,480 Speaker 1: up with some amazing accidents. Yeah, there's sometimes we find 870 00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:07,839 Speaker 1: out we find stuff that we weren't even looking for, 871 00:52:07,960 --> 00:52:11,840 Speaker 1: but it becomes really important. And I don't I personally, 872 00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:14,319 Speaker 1: whenever I think of these reverse engineering stories, it really, 873 00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:18,000 Speaker 1: to me is just downplaying how how brilliant people can be. 874 00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:20,520 Speaker 1: And that kind of gets me a little upset because 875 00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:25,840 Speaker 1: I've met folks who are truly geniuses at specific fields 876 00:52:26,360 --> 00:52:29,080 Speaker 1: and uh, and you know, I think it's an insult 877 00:52:29,120 --> 00:52:32,399 Speaker 1: to them to say that, oh, obviously no person could 878 00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:34,480 Speaker 1: have thought this up. It's too magical. It must have 879 00:52:34,520 --> 00:52:38,880 Speaker 1: come from somewhere else. Also, reverse engineering isn't really easier necessary. 880 00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:40,359 Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, because you have to figure out how 881 00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:42,080 Speaker 1: it works in the first place, and then it's not 882 00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,680 Speaker 1: like you don't you don't just know it doesn't involve 883 00:52:45,760 --> 00:52:49,799 Speaker 1: using a Mac computer to upload of virus to a mothership. Boy, 884 00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:52,560 Speaker 1: we could do a full episode on just uh, that 885 00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:54,800 Speaker 1: would be fun to do. Sometimes do a tech stuff 886 00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:57,319 Speaker 1: episode where we just pick a science fiction film and 887 00:52:57,360 --> 00:53:01,200 Speaker 1: pick apart all the technical and accuracies in that film. 888 00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:03,399 Speaker 1: And we could do that occasionally, just once in a while. 889 00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:04,919 Speaker 1: Let us know. Let us know how you guys feel 890 00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,480 Speaker 1: about that, because that could either be incredibly tiresome er 891 00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:09,680 Speaker 1: really fun and I'm not entirely sure which one. If 892 00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:11,479 Speaker 1: you guys, If you guys do think that that would 893 00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,600 Speaker 1: be a fun idea, let us know, and I go 894 00:53:13,640 --> 00:53:15,680 Speaker 1: ahead and propose it depended. Stay could be the first 895 00:53:15,680 --> 00:53:18,440 Speaker 1: film that we tackle and that does it for that 896 00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:21,239 Speaker 1: classic episode on super conductors. Hope you guys enjoyed it. 897 00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:24,120 Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, 898 00:53:24,200 --> 00:53:26,480 Speaker 1: let me know on Twitter or Facebook. The handle for 899 00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:29,400 Speaker 1: both is tech Stuff hs W and I'll talk to 900 00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:37,200 Speaker 1: you again really soon. Y. Text Stuff is an I 901 00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:40,800 Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, 902 00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:44,320 Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 903 00:53:44,400 --> 00:53:45,920 Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,