Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Bryant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here he goes the Flash. That's your new nickname Flash. Okay,
Speaker 1: con I just moved. I just wouldn't got this beverage
Speaker 1: and came back. You didn't even see me. It's amazing
Speaker 1: I didn't, Chuck. Is now the Flash Charles W. The
Speaker 1: Flash Bryant and the anti Flash. Actually, well, that's funny
Speaker 1: that you bring that up, because that would make you
Speaker 1: buddy Bizarro flash. Yeah did you see this? Surely you
Speaker 1: saw this? Saw what bizarrow something? Yeah? Man? That was good,
Speaker 1: Chuck really yeah. So you just teed me up for
Speaker 1: um for my intro and then I squandered it by
Speaker 1: complimenting you. But let me let me pick up again oversee.
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of a place called hit Tray? No?
Speaker 1: H t r A. No is that something spelled backwards?
Speaker 1: It is Earth spelled backwards and hit Trey Um first
Speaker 1: appears in the d C Comics canon in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Um it is what we know and love as Bizarro World.
Speaker 1: It is cube shaped. Um. It's inhabitants include Bizarro, Superman, Bizarro,
Speaker 1: Lois Lane and their kids. Right, and then over time,
Speaker 1: DC added whenever they wanted to um more Bizarro characters. Um,
Speaker 1: like the yellow lantern Bizarro Flash, who is you? Uh,
Speaker 1: wonder Zaro which is wonder woman, but Bizarre is yellow.
Speaker 1: On the opposite end of the spectrum is green. No,
Speaker 1: here's I'm gonna get to the ground. You stop your
Speaker 1: blowing my intro. Bat Zorow is the World's Worst Detective,
Speaker 1: which is the opposite of Batman, who is the world's
Speaker 1: greatest detective. He got to start in the detective comics
Speaker 1: DC Detective Comics, okay, at any rate, the Bizarre World,
Speaker 1: which you also know from the Seinfeld of course, and
Speaker 1: Buffy the Vampire's Layer. Apparently, Yeah, it really was, um, isn't.
Speaker 1: It's based on the idea the concept of anti matter. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So the idea that for every for every anything there
Speaker 1: is in this realm, and this the state of matter
Speaker 1: that you and I occupy, there is somehow somewhere out
Speaker 1: there a mirror image of it. The problem is with
Speaker 1: bizarro world. Like you say, the mirror image of Earth
Speaker 1: is not a cube. And although Batman would be the
Speaker 1: world's worst detective in in bizarro world, there's there's some
Speaker 1: holes in it. But again, this is DC make sure.
Speaker 1: But the idea that it's based on is not entirely
Speaker 1: out of the remal possibility. In fact, the idea that
Speaker 1: there is anti matter has been proven definitively by people
Speaker 1: way smarter than you or I. Yep. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about anti matter before we talk about the basis of
Speaker 1: this podcast. What what what it's really about? I guess
Speaker 1: you could say, which is anti matter spacecraft? I have
Speaker 1: to say I'm excited about this one. This is This
Speaker 1: goes in the our g whiz folder. Okay, all right, Josh,
Speaker 1: it should be a pretty quirky subject. Oh God, how
Speaker 1: much do you want to hit me right now? No,
Speaker 1: it's not that. It's more just like pain. Okay, Matter, Josh,
Speaker 1: is was always typically defined as anything with mass that
Speaker 1: occupies volume. That's still true, but it's got sort of
Speaker 1: a different definition now because of anti matter. Yeah, Adams,
Speaker 1: just break it down. I don't want to go sub
Speaker 1: atomic yet, but let's go to atomic. Everyone knows, and
Speaker 1: Adam has a central nucleus surrounded by a cloud of
Speaker 1: negatively charged electrons, the the humanist sign held there the
Speaker 1: electrons by a magnetic field. The nucleus is a mix
Speaker 1: of positively charged protons neutral neutrons, and when these atoms
Speaker 1: get together and have a party, they form a molecule. Yes,
Speaker 1: eventually you get enough molecules together, you're gonna have stuff,
Speaker 1: and you have our podcast. Yeah, doesn't matter, which kind
Speaker 1: of helps. Right, So anti matter is the exact same thing,
Speaker 1: but the opposite. Right, All it is is um. For
Speaker 1: every particle that you just described, there is another particle
Speaker 1: that has the exact same mass, but it has the
Speaker 1: opposite electrical charge. So for electrons, there are positrons, which
Speaker 1: are their electrons with a positive charge, which is a
Speaker 1: cool name. It is very cool. Um protons got screwed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well basically, yeah, protons are um what anti protons? It's
Speaker 1: kind of and just like with um, atoms with positively
Speaker 1: charged or regularly how about this, we'll call it the
Speaker 1: straits the normals. With the normals, you can build them
Speaker 1: into atoms and molecules and so on. Conceivably, you can
Speaker 1: build anti atoms into anti molecules, anti whatever, anti substances,
Speaker 1: anti stuff like you say, um, so all of this
Speaker 1: was theoretical. There is a guy named Paul am Durrak
Speaker 1: who he had the audacity to revise Einstein's theory of
Speaker 1: relativity equals mc squared. Direct said it did because he
Speaker 1: did it in nineteen Einstein's alive and well and he's
Speaker 1: in full you know, boxing shape. It's ready to go.
Speaker 1: Let's bring it um and Direct revised the equation into
Speaker 1: e equals plus or minus mc squared, and then he
Speaker 1: stuck his tongue out at Einstein, and Einstein said, well,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to get picky, sure, yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: I thought that was assumed. He said, which of us
Speaker 1: wears flow length for coats? And Direct his hung his
Speaker 1: head and say, we both just said the very poor
Speaker 1: Schwartzenegger almost, which Einstein kind of was, Yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: he was the Schortzenegger of math. So he had the
Speaker 1: cajones to revise that he was dead on because they
Speaker 1: actually proved this since that time, like four years later,
Speaker 1: that anti particles do in fact exist. Have you heard
Speaker 1: of um, Carl Anderson, Well just from this article, but
Speaker 1: I mean, did you look into him at all. Uh no,
Speaker 1: so we want a Nobel prize for this. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that, um, but he he he found evidence of positrons.
Speaker 1: Definitive evidence of positrons a photograph, right, Yeah, there's like
Speaker 1: a famous photograph of it. But he used it cloud chamber,
Speaker 1: and cloud chambers is very sophisticated piece of equipment. This
Speaker 1: guy built his own. But a cloud chamber is basically
Speaker 1: just like a cylinder with um filled with gas that's
Speaker 1: saturated with water vapor, and then you shoot cosmic rays
Speaker 1: through it and see what happens. And well, the cosmic
Speaker 1: rays leave a trail in the water vapor. You can
Speaker 1: measure the density of the water vapor and determine what
Speaker 1: kind of particle just passed through. It wasn't enough for
Speaker 1: Anderson to create his own um gas chamber, not gass chamber,
Speaker 1: cloud chamber. Wow that too. History has not rooted that
Speaker 1: one out yet. But yeah, we're gonna think differently of
Speaker 1: him soon. Um. He created his own cloud chamber and
Speaker 1: put an electromagnet around it so he could direct these
Speaker 1: cosmic particles in a circle. And he noticed that when
Speaker 1: he did that, when he shot a cosmic ray through
Speaker 1: something that had the same mass as an electron was
Speaker 1: creating an arc going in the opposite direction. He said,
Speaker 1: holy cow, that's a pow the tron. He said, what
Speaker 1: is that? He said, hello, million bucks from the Nobel Committee.
Speaker 1: Is that what he won? I think that's what you
Speaker 1: win back then? Probably not, but it was like twenty
Speaker 1: million bucks compared to today. Yeah, that's a good point. Uh.
Speaker 1: Anti adams were discovered by CERN, our buddies at CERN
Speaker 1: that we talked about like many many times. I know
Speaker 1: I forgot about them, since they didn't in the world.
Speaker 1: They created the first anti adom and by to the
Speaker 1: tune of nine anti hydrogen atoms, and at first was
Speaker 1: I'm sorry before night they lasted forty nana seconds, but
Speaker 1: they were there and they had a record of it.
Speaker 1: But then they're like poof gone. Yeah, but still quite
Speaker 1: an achievement. UM. Anti protons were discovered in ninety at
Speaker 1: the Berkeley Bevetron Adam Smasher particle accelerator. UM. What CERN's doing,
Speaker 1: uh is something that's been aroun them for a while,
Speaker 1: which is basically you can we figured out and not
Speaker 1: we meaning you and me, We have no idea UM,
Speaker 1: but other people have figured out that you can using magnets,
Speaker 1: vacuum tubes, um and beams of light, you can shoot
Speaker 1: particles at one another and smash them together exactly. That's
Speaker 1: what that's another name for a particle accelerator. And when
Speaker 1: you smash them together like they do, it certain because
Speaker 1: they get the atoms going almost to the speed of
Speaker 1: light and then they smash them together. And when they do,
Speaker 1: um all these particles are created, very exotic ones that
Speaker 1: like you said, the anti atoms lasted for uh forty
Speaker 1: nanoseconds well back then. And what they think is that
Speaker 1: this is this is what the Big Bang looked a
Speaker 1: lot like, right, So um, yeah, which is step one.
Speaker 1: It is step one toward building an anti matter engine.
Speaker 1: But the the I guess the question is, well, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about anti matter and what happens
Speaker 1: when antimatter comes and intact with regular matter. It's pretty awesome.
Speaker 1: What happens is they collide and it becomes nothing but
Speaker 1: pure energy. It explodes, they both are annihilated, and it's efficient,
Speaker 1: creating pure energy at the speed of light. It's the
Speaker 1: it's the only um reaction as far as we know
Speaker 1: that is on efficient. Like you said, where the mass
Speaker 1: of both the matter and the animatter particles are transferred
Speaker 1: entirely to this explosion. Yeah, you get some sub atomic
Speaker 1: left over, but it's nothing like you know, car exhaust right,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. It's not even like nuclear
Speaker 1: um reactions like nuclear fusion. Apparently only three percent of
Speaker 1: the mass of the atoms um is transferred is lost.
Speaker 1: Is like heat that is not efficient. No light is
Speaker 1: created UM by this the um particle matter and antimatter interaction.
Speaker 1: I don't think he'd is. It's more like the radiation
Speaker 1: that's created is where you get all your heat though actually,
Speaker 1: because I know that one of the first things you
Speaker 1: have to do is cool it down if they're storing it. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's just a guess. So UM. The problem is is
Speaker 1: that this doesn't just happen when you smash atoms together.
Speaker 1: This happens anytime an antimatter particle comes in contact with
Speaker 1: this it's normal particle UM. They annihilate one another. So
Speaker 1: there's this thing. There's this aspect of the standard theory
Speaker 1: UM which includes gravity. Uh no, it doesn't include gravity.
Speaker 1: It's everything else but gravity, electromagnetism, weak, nuclear force, strong
Speaker 1: nuclear force, and it doesn't include gravity, which is like
Speaker 1: the that's the Holy Grail. Right. So the standard theory says,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of creation the Big Bank, there were
Speaker 1: an equal part of particles and antiparticles. The problem is
Speaker 1: is within about two seconds, since anti particles anti matter
Speaker 1: of matter cancel each other out through these violent explosions um,
Speaker 1: there should be nothing in the universe except light left
Speaker 1: over from that the first two seconds when all matter
Speaker 1: canceled itself out. Right. The fact that we're here proves
Speaker 1: that that can't be right, and that there's matter but
Speaker 1: not antimatter. Right. So there's a couple of explanations for this,
Speaker 1: and one is that there is simply there was and
Speaker 1: it maybe still is or isn't um less anti matter
Speaker 1: than matter, right. So the idea is that over time
Speaker 1: there was way more matter than we have now, but
Speaker 1: that canceled out all the anti matter, and there is
Speaker 1: none anymore. We can produce it now, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: exist naturally. The second explanations that it does exist, right,
Speaker 1: it's just kind of sequestered off elsewhere in the universe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's sort of an addendum to the first one
Speaker 1: that it's not necessarily that there was more matter than
Speaker 1: anti matter, but there is a slight asymmetry between them, UM.
Speaker 1: And they've actually proven that that was the inn A
Speaker 1: forty eight experiment that Sern did and the k T
Speaker 1: e V experiment at firm A Lab, And those are
Speaker 1: the two big daddies this kind of research, and that
Speaker 1: the not the Berkeley bever tron. I don't know about
Speaker 1: them anymore, UM, but they directly measured this asymmetry and
Speaker 1: proved it like there is an asymmetry, and that could
Speaker 1: have been just that little bit could have been enough
Speaker 1: that matter one out essentially, right, And when you're talking
Speaker 1: about asymmetry, it's almost like a coin toss, right, where
Speaker 1: when you toss, when you create a particle UM, say
Speaker 1: seven times out of ten it creates a um an electron,
Speaker 1: and then the other three times that created a positron.
Speaker 1: That's the asymmetry. So there is evidence of that. But
Speaker 1: there's also evidence that there is a store of anti
Speaker 1: matter towards the center of the cosmos. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: much about that. They think they discovered it in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, but I haven't seen want to follow up. Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's say it is there, but have they done
Speaker 1: follow up? I don't know, but I have seen recent
Speaker 1: reference to that idea. Also that year Star Wars came out.
Speaker 1: No coincidence. If there, if there um, if there is
Speaker 1: a I guess a deposit of anti matter, then it
Speaker 1: is conceivable that there is an anti world there. There's
Speaker 1: anti stuff there. Wouldn't that mean there's no matter there though,
Speaker 1: because it would be colliding right, No, there's matter, it's
Speaker 1: just the opposite of what we have. There's more antimatter
Speaker 1: than because that's about it. Like they at Certain, they
Speaker 1: created anti Adams, So maybe there is no matter there.
Speaker 1: It's just anti matter and everything. There's us, but it's
Speaker 1: the opposite of us. Bizarro Josh and Chuck. I mean
Speaker 1: two guys who are really talented at their jobs, right exactly,
Speaker 1: who have the adoration of people, not the score right. Um,
Speaker 1: So okay for the time being, until we find out
Speaker 1: if they're really is a store of antimatter at the
Speaker 1: center of the cosmos and figure out how to go
Speaker 1: get it. And when they're open, we had we had
Speaker 1: to create our own, which is what Cern is doing.
Speaker 1: Now we can do it, but Certain is doing They're
Speaker 1: they're just not up to snuff. They're they're creating two
Speaker 1: to three pike a grams a year. Yeah, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of realities for you here. UM. Since the
Speaker 1: discovery of the anti proton, the total amount from Lear
Speaker 1: Sern and firm A lab that they've created amounts to
Speaker 1: less than one millionth of a gram. Okay, and at
Speaker 1: the current rate, and it's picking up, the rate is
Speaker 1: and that's what we're counting on here. But at the
Speaker 1: current rate, it would take a hundred hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of years and over one thousand trillion dollars to produce
Speaker 1: one gram of anti matter. So they got to pick
Speaker 1: up the pace. Yeah, not only do they need to
Speaker 1: pick up the pace if we UM are going to
Speaker 1: use antimatter as a propulsion device, the ultimate propulsion, because
Speaker 1: like we said, I mean, this thing is thousands of
Speaker 1: times more produces thousands of times more energy than oxygen
Speaker 1: or hydrogen combustion, which is what we use now to
Speaker 1: power rockets outer space, inner planetary rockets like the Mars
Speaker 1: rover that was hydrogen oxygen combustion. Right, this is thousands
Speaker 1: of times more more potent, more powerful than those engines.
Speaker 1: If we're going to use that. We need to figure
Speaker 1: out how to make these engines more efficient. I got
Speaker 1: stats on that too. If you want, let's hear, one
Speaker 1: kilogram of antimatter a kilogram annihilating ordinary like colliding with
Speaker 1: the ordinary matter can produce ten billion times the amount
Speaker 1: of energy released with a kilogram of TNT in a
Speaker 1: single gram of antimatter, the one that you know is
Speaker 1: going to take hundreds of millions of years to produce, uh,
Speaker 1: would get you as much energy as uh the fuel
Speaker 1: tanks of two dozen space shuttles a single gram US.
Speaker 1: It is nuts. The problem is we're gonna need tons
Speaker 1: of the stuff to make it to another star, which
Speaker 1: you know we're gonna want to do. It will be like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, Mars, who cares about ten grahams They think
Speaker 1: could get you to Mars in one month, where right
Speaker 1: now it takes about eleven months to get there with
Speaker 1: regular fuel, right exactly. So finally we have at our
Speaker 1: at our fingertips, the way to get from one place
Speaker 1: to another very quickly throughout the universe without having to
Speaker 1: take theoretical wormholes or use warp drive or anything that
Speaker 1: that hasn't be improven. This is this is possible if
Speaker 1: we can figure out how to how to store it
Speaker 1: and how to harness it correctly, create it, store it,
Speaker 1: use it, use it. Right, So, there's three three big
Speaker 1: components to an antimatter matter antimatter engine is what we
Speaker 1: should call it, UM the magnetic storage rings. Remember you
Speaker 1: can basically tell um particles to do what you on
Speaker 1: and that's just travel around in a searching circle by
Speaker 1: using electromagnets. Sure, so you need to store the antimatter
Speaker 1: that you create until you're ready to use it. You
Speaker 1: need to be able to feed it efficiently. So basically
Speaker 1: you need like a a particle accelerator, and then you
Speaker 1: need the magnetic rocket nozzle thruster which which takes that
Speaker 1: energy and and uses it efficiently to through a thruster
Speaker 1: the spacecraft forward right or backward? I guess if you
Speaker 1: want to go backward really fast. Um there are some
Speaker 1: problems with it right well, yeah, notably the fact that
Speaker 1: they can't create very much of it right now, even
Speaker 1: then the speeding up, uh they have as a June
Speaker 1: of this year, I'm sorry, may have this year um
Speaker 1: CERN has stored three nine anti hydrogen atoms for one
Speaker 1: thousand seconds about sixteen and a half minutes, and which
Speaker 1: is huge. And I think they said, like four years
Speaker 1: ago it was like nothing, So it's it's not growing exponentially,
Speaker 1: but they're really gaining steam with storing it, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon they hope to be able to store these anti
Speaker 1: hydrogen atoms long enough to see how it reacts to gravity,
Speaker 1: like do these things fall up or down? Which would
Speaker 1: be pretty amazing, especially if they fall up. Robert Hume
Speaker 1: would be very pleased. But that's still only three nine
Speaker 1: antry anti hydrogen havens, which is nothing. No, but you
Speaker 1: said four years ago, like this is all this is theoretical.
Speaker 1: You know, seventy years ago. Four years ago, we were
Speaker 1: just starting out. So I mean, I I imagine we're
Speaker 1: gonna have some sort of breakthrough. This is why we
Speaker 1: need a population boom. The more people there are, the
Speaker 1: more geniuses there are. Uh. They did think about they
Speaker 1: could storm in magnetic bottles, but because like charges repel though,
Speaker 1: that's a problem. So you can't just say, let's load
Speaker 1: this thing full of positrons because they repel each other
Speaker 1: and it's gonna start leaking or something, So they can't
Speaker 1: store a ton of it at a time. And did
Speaker 1: you have the Steve Hawe guy. He's not Steve half
Speaker 1: from Yes or or Asia. I think he was in
Speaker 1: Asia too. Wow, he was in Yes and Asia I
Speaker 1: guess like a prog rock god. And GTR I think
Speaker 1: too terrible Now the terrible band called g t R.
Speaker 1: What does it stand for guitar? It's like three incredible
Speaker 1: guitarists in one band and they had one album and
Speaker 1: some cheesy lead singer. Anyway, different Steve Howe, but he
Speaker 1: has an idea for a fission based anti matter sale,
Speaker 1: So like a fifteen foot diameter sale codd of with
Speaker 1: uranium and basically he said, the key is to store
Speaker 1: anti hydrogen in the form of a frozen pellet that
Speaker 1: will evaporate slowly and create this reaction that hits the
Speaker 1: sale to propel it forward. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. Who
Speaker 1: knows if that's gonna work. Um. Another big problem is
Speaker 1: that anti proton ones um release high energy gamma rays,
Speaker 1: which can penetrate you and your entire family and dissolve
Speaker 1: your molecules back into atoms. Isn't that kind of the
Speaker 1: key though to the propulsion or now, Yeah, the radiation.
Speaker 1: The problem is is like, unless we figure out how
Speaker 1: to protect the astronauts they're going to be exposed to
Speaker 1: it too. Well. And my question too, which I didn't
Speaker 1: see anywhere in any of my research, was can a
Speaker 1: human go that fast? That was my next question. To
Speaker 1: remember Colonel John Paul Staff from the Murphy's Murphy's Law
Speaker 1: episode and other things. Um, he survived up to forty
Speaker 1: six gets that was the peak, but he also suffered
Speaker 1: red outs and um, lifelong trauma. Um. Apparently right now,
Speaker 1: if you're on a rocket and you're being shot up
Speaker 1: into space on a hydrogen oxygen combustion rocket, you experienced
Speaker 1: four g s, which is substantial, but it's certainly not
Speaker 1: life threatening or anything like that. But if this produces
Speaker 1: ten times the out of thrust, this is my own
Speaker 1: like backpulation. Yeah, because remember you can get there ten
Speaker 1: times faster, you can maybe it produces ten times more thrust. Um,
Speaker 1: it's still forty gs that you have to endure the
Speaker 1: whole time. So that's a month of forty g s
Speaker 1: of the of just under the most any humans ever
Speaker 1: ever survived. So why are they even wasting their time
Speaker 1: with this? Because they could like a robot or something.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that canna space shut Even withstand
Speaker 1: that we have, we have no idea. That's another whole
Speaker 1: aspect of this that's gonna need to be worked out.
Speaker 1: Maybe we need to be stored in some sort of
Speaker 1: liquid for a month. Who else. That's why this one's
Speaker 1: in the g whiz folder. I need to pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So I guess the point is is you can look
Speaker 1: for anti matter space spacecraft in the next couple of years.
Speaker 1: That'll be cool. I can't wait to go see one
Speaker 1: of those launches that didn't They say that like possibly
Speaker 1: in the next few decades, so they must be ramping
Speaker 1: it up here soon. It's true. Good for them. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about the promise of spaceflight,
Speaker 1: the dream of man and bird alike, UM, you can
Speaker 1: type in anti matter spacecraft pretty cool stuff UM in
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com. That's right.
Speaker 1: And Star Trek fans, we know, we know, we know. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think I said search bar at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Right. Well, that brings up then listener mail Josh,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be pretty excited because we get periodic updates
Speaker 1: from our amazing fans. Sarah, the eleven year old who
Speaker 1: was now fourteen. Yes, we've watched her grow up before
Speaker 1: very eyes. She's awesome. She acts now, I believe in
Speaker 1: plays at school. Yeah, she's become a very cool person
Speaker 1: in my opinion. This is from Sarah the amazing fourteen
Speaker 1: year old man. Dear guys, really another letter from Sarah.
Speaker 1: Well that's not you boring. I didn't not expect this, Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: this means John Hodgen. I'm surprised you didn't see me
Speaker 1: sitting here the entire podcast. Well, it was weird. You
Speaker 1: literally materialized in front of our eyes. Yeah. Well I
Speaker 1: was wearing my cloaking mechanism. Okay, well done. Yeah you've
Speaker 1: been here the whole time. Yeah, yeah, what did you think?
Speaker 1: You know? It was? It was good, I was. I
Speaker 1: was satisfying. It wasn't long. It's long and getting longer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, know when to stop talking these days, joints. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it was an extremely interesting topic. But I
Speaker 1: feel like you guys went off into some weird pop
Speaker 1: cultural rattles and stopped talking about the topic for a while,
Speaker 1: and then you came back to it and they mostly
Speaker 1: satisfactory way. So I would say, you know, right down
Speaker 1: the middle for you guys, absolutely, thank you. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I just it's just this letter call thing. No, yeah,
Speaker 1: just the last few letters. You know, I just realized
Speaker 1: that I don't have a lot of me in them,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, They're like from other people,
Speaker 1: and that's not really what I want in a podcast.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, so I just took the chopper
Speaker 1: down and I landed on the roof here how stuff
Speaker 1: works tower, and uh, I thought I would just come
Speaker 1: by and and see you guys, And well, all right,
Speaker 1: look I just finished this new book. Okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you don't get the chopper out for just
Speaker 1: anything these days, well almost anything. But it was the
Speaker 1: easiest way to get to Atlanta from Sri Lanka, where
Speaker 1: I was at my compound. Um, but I have I
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm a deranged millionaire. Now we've heard that.
Speaker 1: And uh and I've written a new book. This is
Speaker 1: the last book in my compendium of Complete World Knowledge.
Speaker 1: And it's called That is All, but the last book
Speaker 1: or like the Last Crusade, kind of confusing last book. Oh,
Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. No, this is the last one,
Speaker 1: because not only is it called That is All? And
Speaker 1: I don't have anything else to write about. But also,
Speaker 1: as you know, about um thirteen months or so, the
Speaker 1: world is going to end, or at least the mind
Speaker 1: long time calendar ends, and and probably will. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we don't really know what's going to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not saying that the world is going
Speaker 1: to end in fire and flame and famine, flood and
Speaker 1: all the other fs, leaving only John Cusack alive. That's
Speaker 1: the ancient minds were saying that playing those guys. That's
Speaker 1: not me. But you know, I am keeping John Cusack
Speaker 1: prisoner in my home just in case, because it just
Speaker 1: seems like something's gonna happen. Don't you think I feel
Speaker 1: a lot better knowing that those minds will say anything.
Speaker 1: Because you just stick close to John Cusack, I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna be okay. That's that's the lesson that I
Speaker 1: took from reading the Purple of the Ancient Mind text
Speaker 1: to kick well. I mean, here, yeah, we'll see. That's
Speaker 1: the thing because because I'm I'm you know, I used
Speaker 1: to be in all these ads and on television all
Speaker 1: the time. And remember the ads are over now because
Speaker 1: we sold all the computers, I think, and are they
Speaker 1: are they done? Yeah? I think, I mean, why else
Speaker 1: wouldn't we be doing They must have sold them all,
Speaker 1: so good work for us. But that's sort of left
Speaker 1: me just this idle, deranged millionaire. And so I wrote
Speaker 1: the book and I arranged for a major publishing house
Speaker 1: to publish it, and uh, and I can just afford
Speaker 1: to take myself on book tour wherever I want. And
Speaker 1: today I'm I decided to come here. So you have
Speaker 1: a schopper now if I may call it that, you
Speaker 1: can you can call it a chopper. It's more like
Speaker 1: a hellic harrier. Yeah, what happened here? Zeppelin? It's you're
Speaker 1: talking about my my speed Zeppelin Hubris, the the the
Speaker 1: h the h Z Hubris Hodgman Zeppelin Hubris, that that
Speaker 1: I bought off of Emo Phillips a few years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not only did that crash, it crashed and burned. Was
Speaker 1: it something ironically given the name? Was it something that
Speaker 1: that had to do with Emo Phillips uptake maintenance caretaking
Speaker 1: of this Zeppelin? No? No, no, it was. It was
Speaker 1: in perfect condition when I got it, do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? But I just like, you know, when
Speaker 1: I when I'm having a Zeppelin party. It's not a
Speaker 1: Zeppelin party unless you have a fire breather. Someone should
Speaker 1: have warned me that Zeppelin's have this problem with fire
Speaker 1: like if this were a known problem, this were a
Speaker 1: known issue, as they say in the software Developing game.
Speaker 1: I wish I had gotten that memo, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, or at least in the in the Zeppelin
Speaker 1: the radiogram that I should have gotten about that. We
Speaker 1: should probably tell everybody. This is not a video cast,
Speaker 1: so you know, we have to often describe things that
Speaker 1: are going on. John looks great, Yeah, sure, And he's
Speaker 1: holding in his hand a hard cover volume of his
Speaker 1: third book, the third in the trilogy, That is All,
Speaker 1: and it's handsome and John, we do want to mention
Speaker 1: in all earnest here that the book is coming out
Speaker 1: in November one. That is so, it's called That is All. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is by John Hodgman. Available where would you like
Speaker 1: people to buy their local bookstore? Well, they should buy
Speaker 1: wherever they would like to buy it. They should support
Speaker 1: their local bookstore of choice if they like. But it
Speaker 1: is available for pre order now at this moment, even
Speaker 1: though it is not November one, Amazon, Barnes and Noble
Speaker 1: Indie Bound Powells all your major books selling websites. Be
Speaker 1: smart by this book, because if you get the first two,
Speaker 1: you gotta have the third. You're not gonna know how
Speaker 1: the everything is. I want to say, be smart. I
Speaker 1: think it's more like, stop being a dumb dumb Okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough and buy my book fair enough? And uh
Speaker 1: and if you would like to know what it sounds like.
Speaker 1: It sounds like this, I'm just gonna I think your
Speaker 1: audience will enjoy this. I'll just read the entirety of
Speaker 1: the book. Good evening. I write to you now from
Speaker 1: my secret retreat in the Internetlace hills of rural Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: or else. I'm in my custom built survival Brownstone in Parkslow, Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: or else I'm on the high seas, cruising on the
Speaker 1: luxury passenger ship Hodge Manic. I'm sorry I can't tell
Speaker 1: you where I am for reasons of safety. My location
Speaker 1: must be kept secret, even from myself. But it is
Speaker 1: good to write you again. So much has changed in
Speaker 1: my life since I wrote my first book, The Areas
Speaker 1: of my Expertise. If I'm sorry, I love your book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've read your book, and then you don't mind hearing
Speaker 1: it again. I would want to hear it again, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if we have the time to read
Speaker 1: it in its entirety, because well, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: this is a podcast, right, what he's saying, there's no rules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know. It's like it's not like you got another
Speaker 1: podcast coming on after this one. We want to sell
Speaker 1: some of these though. You don't want to spoil it,
Speaker 1: all right, but everyone's bugging me for the audio book,
Speaker 1: and so I just figured this would be the easiest
Speaker 1: way podcast, So don't give it away, sting, Alright, how
Speaker 1: do it? Uh? I mean, I'm We're delighted to have
Speaker 1: you here, John, I'm delighted to be drawing pictures, read
Speaker 1: some words. I could talk. I could talk all day long.
Speaker 1: But we've beefed up security here recently. I noticed, and
Speaker 1: you just appeared. They waved me through. No, I don't
Speaker 1: understand how that happens. I got a ticket? Did you
Speaker 1: a ticket? Ticket? Your podcast? Live podcast taping? We don't
Speaker 1: have tickets, Oh, yes, you do, you do. I got
Speaker 1: it through my credit card, don't Yeah, my credit card,
Speaker 1: all all kinds of perks, like I'm not a sporting fellow,
Speaker 1: but you know, if I wanted to go see a
Speaker 1: sports a sports thing exhibition, like a sports contest. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I just call up my
Speaker 1: independent concierge at my credit card and they get me
Speaker 1: a ticket, and you know where my ticket is? Where
Speaker 1: is it? Well, let's say I go to a New
Speaker 1: York Jets game. Okay, all right, you know where my
Speaker 1: ticket is? Where Nick Mangolds shoulders. He's a player on
Speaker 1: that team. Yeah, yea, yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Your book a lot too? Can you get to watch it?
Speaker 1: He is? He is the Well I don't. Maybe look,
Speaker 1: can I stick around until next time? All right? Maybe
Speaker 1: we can talk about the coming NERD Jock convergence then,
Speaker 1: But right now, I look, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys mind a little plugging, but I'm doing some you
Speaker 1: know me, I loathe the advertising, but I'm doing some
Speaker 1: work with with this company, this credit card company, and
Speaker 1: it's really amazing. Check. Do you remember what page it's on?
Speaker 1: You come on the diners Club. It's not just a
Speaker 1: Diners Club card, you understand, it's a special. It's the
Speaker 1: Diners Club po f H nine times Diamond card. Because
Speaker 1: you had the m X black and you said, forget that,
Speaker 1: we had the literally platinum card. Yeah, would you put
Speaker 1: your gum on because it's platinum. Sure, because you can
Speaker 1: put the gum on it, get it off very easily
Speaker 1: because it's because the nature platinum. But now you have
Speaker 1: been upgraded to the nine times Diamond Diners Club card.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not even a card. It's not even
Speaker 1: doesn't even take the shape. I know what it is,
Speaker 1: but like you to explain it. It It takes a shape.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a feather, it's a You actually get
Speaker 1: this beautiful feather in the mail and you carry it
Speaker 1: around with you. Here, I have mine here, it's spun
Speaker 1: from gold. Is that right? Yeah, it's yeah, it's nice. Right.
Speaker 1: And then when you want to make a purchase, like
Speaker 1: you don't have to like hand over your card and
Speaker 1: have the guy put it in the thing. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I mean, here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: go into a store now and you want to you
Speaker 1: want to buy something that's very expensive, and you want
Speaker 1: to treat the person like their human garbage. You used
Speaker 1: to be able to just toss in their card and
Speaker 1: then look away like you don't care. Now you have
Speaker 1: to swipe your own card like. I can't live like that,
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? So that's why I
Speaker 1: have this nine times diamond po FH card. Isn't a card,
Speaker 1: It's a feather. This is a beautiful golden feather, and
Speaker 1: I just carry it around with me, and the purchases
Speaker 1: are like automatic, So if I want to buy something
Speaker 1: with it, I don't have to give him a card
Speaker 1: or anything. I just take the feather out and I
Speaker 1: just lightly touched their cheeks with it two times, and
Speaker 1: then it belongs to me. And you point out that
Speaker 1: some some men have even met their wives this way. Correct,
Speaker 1: exactly so, because the thing about it is, the thing
Speaker 1: about having the feather is not only is it beautiful
Speaker 1: and thus reflecting you as a deranged millionaire's love of
Speaker 1: beautiful things in the world, but it allows you to
Speaker 1: treat other people in the most humiliating way possible, which
Speaker 1: is really all a deranged millionaire really wants, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So it has these amazing perks I
Speaker 1: told you about the I told you about the watching
Speaker 1: a Jets game from the shoulders and mcmangled ticket to anything,
Speaker 1: the ticket to anything. Obviously, you have a lot of
Speaker 1: travel services because deranged millionaires like me like to travel
Speaker 1: around quite a bit. So if you go to the airport,
Speaker 1: you have access to special lounges we like what well,
Speaker 1: not like the Admiral's Club right or or you know,
Speaker 1: but like a really special lounge. Like all you have
Speaker 1: to do is like you wouldn't even know that it
Speaker 1: was even there. I'm not even familiar with the Admiral's Club.
Speaker 1: That's where the admirals go before flying the planes and
Speaker 1: they and they drink rock and they sing sea chanty
Speaker 1: and then they fly. Okay, Uh, this is a this
Speaker 1: is a super secret, like super exclusive lounge, and it's
Speaker 1: you just go up to you have to find a
Speaker 1: Chili's to Golis Express, the Chili's Express or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: which are two very very very different. The important thing
Speaker 1: is don't go to the seating area. Go to the
Speaker 1: big refrigerator bank where they have all of the different
Speaker 1: tacos and Casadilla's pre made stuff, and then you just
Speaker 1: you just gently brush your feather across a particular case
Speaker 1: of dilla I can't tell you which, and then that
Speaker 1: slides back and there's a secret door into the special lounge. Uh,
Speaker 1: did you know that, and they have leather chairs, a
Speaker 1: full honor bar, a Japanese soaking tub, and all of
Speaker 1: the Chili's express food you can eat. Yeah, but at
Speaker 1: this time it tastes like actual food. Yeah. What else
Speaker 1: is this card? Do you? John? I can't. I could
Speaker 1: go on and on. There's just so many perks. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you are a fan of the theater, who isn't yeah, um,
Speaker 1: and you don't like it's you have a hard time
Speaker 1: getting tickets to the Broadway Theater. Right, Well, let's say
Speaker 1: you get tickets and the show is terrible, Like now,
Speaker 1: you're not going to go back. But what if you
Speaker 1: could call your concierge and have them call Peoplitzer Prize
Speaker 1: winning playwright David Lindsay a bear and make him write
Speaker 1: a new play to your specifications, maybe even starring a
Speaker 1: character based on you. Right, And all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that's in the Broadway Theater And not only do you
Speaker 1: get the best seats in the house to that particular show,
Speaker 1: you get to watch as the ushers kick out the
Speaker 1: people who were sitting in your seats before you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, we're talking about a good theater and oh
Speaker 1: the best, Oh the best, only theaters that are named
Speaker 1: for corporations. So we're talking about the good ones. Do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? American Airlines Theater, h Foxwood's Theater,
Speaker 1: UM Chili's Express Theater. Yeah, that's that's where. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in the round. That's where a Book of Mormon is
Speaker 1: moving to Oka And uh and what if you don't
Speaker 1: have someone to go with you? You just call a
Speaker 1: concierge and they'll set up someone to go with you. Uh.
Speaker 1: Could be Laurence O'Donnell from MSNBC is the last word,
Speaker 1: could be James Spader, He's could be Lonnie Anderson or
Speaker 1: any one of a number of stable of celebrity pals
Speaker 1: that will go with you to see the show based
Speaker 1: in your Life that David Lindsay a bet had to
Speaker 1: write for you. So do these people sign up to
Speaker 1: be a pal? Or are they kind of corralled into this?
Speaker 1: There's usually there's this like they've done something in their
Speaker 1: past that they would rather not they've racked up terrible
Speaker 1: debts or or you know, maybe they're just trying to
Speaker 1: plug the last word with Laurence o'donald and MSNBC for
Speaker 1: deranged millionaires. Yeah, there might be people that that won't
Speaker 1: ever happen to me. That will never happen to me.
Speaker 1: What are you saying, I'm not concerned about that. Here's
Speaker 1: the best thing, and I'll leave it with this. After
Speaker 1: five years of membership and good standing, premium Feather holders
Speaker 1: will be visited in their bedroom by an old man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they'll wake up and they'll be a dude. I'll have
Speaker 1: long white hair, and I'll be wearing like a white
Speaker 1: suit and a white tie. And he won't be wearing
Speaker 1: any shoes because he has bird feet. And he'll invite
Speaker 1: you to go with him, and he'll give you, uh,
Speaker 1: you'll he'll tell you to become naked, and then he'll
Speaker 1: give you a robe to wear, but the robe is
Speaker 1: like a little too short. And then you go on
Speaker 1: a limousine and you go to a high rise, like
Speaker 1: a skyscraper in New York City that you never noticed before,
Speaker 1: like was always there, Yeah, it was always there. You're
Speaker 1: just not allowed you're not allowed to see. It's it's
Speaker 1: actually a zigaratte in the middle of Manhattan. You were
Speaker 1: not allowed to see, but now you can. And then
Speaker 1: you will go in, and you will go in and
Speaker 1: you'll see all the other, uh, five year golden feather holders.
Speaker 1: They're they're all wearing golden robes. You probably know them
Speaker 1: from the Chili's Express Lounge or whatever. And then the
Speaker 1: old man will encourage you to bathe and special waters
Speaker 1: and be anointed with special oils. And then you will
Speaker 1: be told that you were among the very very few
Speaker 1: to ever see the zigguratte and be given the ever
Speaker 1: very rare opportunity to apply for the Diners Club Premium
Speaker 1: Excelsior pof D card, which costs two million dollars a
Speaker 1: year to join. And uh, it's in the It's not
Speaker 1: in the form of a feather. It's in the form
Speaker 1: of a a talking milk snake, but only you. But
Speaker 1: you carry around on your fingers and on your forearm
Speaker 1: all the time. You ever see how like an old
Speaker 1: Mark's Brothers movies or whatever have Like the really rich
Speaker 1: people are walking around in their hands they sort of
Speaker 1: like out in the air as that they're holding a cocktail,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing there. Yeah, they're holding an invisible milk
Speaker 1: snaithe they can talk to that, they can talk to,
Speaker 1: can talk to them, but they're the only ones who
Speaker 1: can see it. Wow. Another card holders as well, so
Speaker 1: just another four years for me and I won't I
Speaker 1: won't have to ever see you as again. Do you
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, do you think you'll still drop by? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll drop by, but I'll keep my cloaking mechanism M
Speaker 1: so I don't have to dract. I'll drop by for
Speaker 1: the next three weeks maybe even. Yeah. No, I'd like
Speaker 1: to come back and talk to more about what's you know? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: are you gonna? Are you leaving and coming back? Are
Speaker 1: you going to? Can we have your word that if
Speaker 1: you do leave, you'll actually have left. You won't be
Speaker 1: hanging around with invisibility on Oh no, I had, I had.
Speaker 1: I had them set up in office here and how
Speaker 1: stuff works as as as safe as a safe room
Speaker 1: for me. And I'll just go over there and you're
Speaker 1: gonna stay here. I'll just hang out and then I'll
Speaker 1: come when you guys are doing it again. I'd love
Speaker 1: to come back and prevent you from reading more read
Speaker 1: or mail. What is it? Is it Tuesday? We'll be
Speaker 1: back in here Thursday, because we record and then publish immediately.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll send you an outlooking by then. That
Speaker 1: would be terrific. Okay, okay, good, all right, let's do
Speaker 1: this at least one more time. Maybe we'll do it
Speaker 1: all more time. Okay, that's it for this show. All right, well, um,
Speaker 1: our apologies to Sarah the amazing fourteen year old fans. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. Um. If you are an amazing fan,
Speaker 1: or how about this, If you have a question for Hodgeman,
Speaker 1: we want to know it. That sounds great. You can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can also tweet directly at Hodgeman but don't um. You
Speaker 1: can visit us on Facebook at facebook dot com, slash
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know, or you can send us a
Speaker 1: good old fashioned email at Stuff Podcast at how Stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. M be sure to check out our
Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join housto Work
Speaker 1: staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
Speaker 1: of tomorrow, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand
Speaker 1: twelve camera. It's ready, are you