Materials and All Matters of Science with Mark Miodownik

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Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

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a global leader in science, technology, and innovation.

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My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum

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of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center.

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Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors,

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scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between,

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sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics.

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Welcome to AMSEcast.

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I’m very glad to welcome on this episode, Dr. Mark Miodownik,

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the University College London professor of materials and society.

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With his PhD from Oxford University in turbine jet engine alloys,

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Mark worked as a materials engineer in the UK, the US, and Ireland.

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At University College London, he established and is the director of

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the Institute of Making, and created the Plastic Waste Innovation Hub.

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Now, Mark is a very active science communicator, presenting

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BBC television and radio programs as well as podcasts.

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A fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Mark was awarded the great honor

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of an MBE for services to material science, engineering, and broadcasting.

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And on top of all that, he’s an award-winning author of the books,

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Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials that Shape Our Man-Made

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World, Liquid Rules: The Delightful and Dangerous Substances that

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Flow Through Our Lives, and the book we’re going to discuss today,

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It’s a Gas: The Sublime and Elusive Elements that Expand Our World.

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Mark, welcome to AMSEcast.

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Thank you.

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It’s great to be here.

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So, you’ve done matter and liquid, and now gases.

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So, I’m going to start very basically.

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People know, if they listen to AMSEcast a lot, I have degrees in history, so

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I’ve learned a lot as director of this science and engineering [laugh] museum.

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Let’s just start with, what are gases?

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Yeah, well gases are a state of matter that’s different from solids and liquids.

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So, in a solid, you have atoms, and they’re linked together

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to each other by these things called bonds, and those

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bonds are pretty strong, so mostly they can’t escape them.

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They’re next to their neighbors, they’re bonded to

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their neighbors, and that’s really where they’ll be.

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They do move around a bit, but in general they’re static.

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And then liquids are, well, you’ve got neighbors, but you can keep

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switching them, and that gives the liquids their fluidity, right?

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So, they’re constantly switching neighbors,

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but they’re still bonded to their neighbors.

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But a gas is when those atoms or molecules escape completely.

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They are not bonded to nearby, and they

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can just roam the universe as they please.

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It’s the ultimate freedom of the molecular world.

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[laugh] . I love it.

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I will keep that model in mind.

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It’s a great way of putting that.

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And you mentioned in It’s a Gas the importance of steam gas,

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something I think about—we talk a lot about energy production here

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at AMSE—something I think about a lot that in the 21st century, steam

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gas is still, as you say, a vital part of our life support system.

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Can you explain that?

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I mean, steam generates 70% of today’s electricity, would you believe it?

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[laugh] . Right.

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People don’t realize it.

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And they go, “Well, where is it?

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I can’t see the steam.” And the steam these days is not in the form of

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locomotives or steam liners, but it’s steam turbines, and it basically

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turns water, the energy of the nuclear power—so nuclear power stations—the

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energy of those actually heats water, turns it into steam, and steam is

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the thing that generates electricity going through a turbine, a bit like

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water going through a water wheel, but it’s much more efficient than that.

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And then, of course, coal-fired power stations, what is the coal doing?

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It’s heating up water to create steam.

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Gas-fired power stations, what are they doing?

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They’re heating up water.

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So, you know, really, most of the world is still run on steam.

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Yeah.

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You think about it, we talk—there’s a big, you know, nuclear

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renaissance, as it’s called, particularly here in Oak Ridge, a lot of

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companies moving in, and fission and even now a fusion company here,

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I mean, there are real technical aspects of that, but at the end of

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the day, it’s a big steam power plant that they’re hoping to produce.

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So, really, an amazing fact that I think a lot of people overlook.

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And also, I think a lot of people here have natural gas.

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I have a natural gas stove at home, but I’m not really sure what natural gas is.

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So, can you tell us what that is and what were the technical challenges

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that were there that had to be overcome to be able to harness it?

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Yeah, the story of how natural gas came into our lives is

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really fascinating because natural gas, which, it’s mostly

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methane, we mine it now, and the gas we’re talking about is

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a molecule called carbon with four hydrogens attached to it.

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If you make that molecule any bigger, like two carbons and

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some more hydrogens, it becomes a liquid fuel, you know?

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You get ethanol and ethane and so on.

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So, we’re used to the carbon.

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In the form of a liquid, it’s gasoline, but as soon

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as you get down to one carbon atom, it’s a gas.

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And those gases, traditionally, have been mined, you know, next to

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coal deposits, and I think they’re underneath the rock deposits.

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But they were a nuisance before.

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And before that, we knew about those gases way back in our

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history, like, thousands of years ago because they were called

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will-o’-the-wisp, or jack-o’-lantern, as you say in America.

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And they were bubbling out of marshland.

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And this isn’t due to a fossil fuel process; this is wetlands

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in which vegetation kind of gets subsumed into the liquid,

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and it rots but without oxygen, and that produces methane.

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It bubbles up to the surface.

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It’s an odorless, invisible gas.

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It doesn’t taste of anything.

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You often get these sulfur whiffs when you’re around those

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places, and that’s from a different kind of metabolism.

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They’re mixed up together.

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And they self-ignite sometimes, and we still

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actually amazingly don’t quite know how that works.

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But imagine going back thousands of years, our ancestors

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wandering around and they see a light in the distance as

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the sun is setting or the sun has just set its twilight.

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It would have been so magical.

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And they called them fairies, and there are names for them all over the world.

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Mostly they’re evil spirits, thought of to be evil spirits because if

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you head towards them thinking that there might be a light from a house,

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and you’re lost in a wilderness and in a landscape, you’ll end up in

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marshland, and people died [laugh] because they got completely stuck.

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And so, these jack-o’-lantern, these will-o’-the-wisps that we call them

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in England, these were the first inclinations that there was a gas that

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you could harness to make a light, and that was the first application.

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In the industrial age when steam is happening, we start to make

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methane artificially from basically burning wood and coal, but burning

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it with very little oxygen so you get methane coming out of it.

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And then it was piped under the ground to

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be burnt on sticks, which we call lampposts.

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And so, the beginning of using methane—natural

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gas—as we now use it, was to light the streets.

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And it is a miracle because we’re so used to lit cities now.

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We’re so used to that miracle of being able to walk around a city

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bathed in light, but it was the first time that was possible.

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So, you’re talking about the 1800s, 1810, where before this, if you

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got to a city like London or Chicago, you were in danger at night.

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It was a very dangerous place.

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You might get mugged, you might get robbed, you might get

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your throat slit, if you went to the wrong part of town.

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And there was a big urge by people in cities, and

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particularly the shop makers in cities, to kind of light

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the streets, make them safe so people shop and feel safe.

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Women in particular could feel safe.

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So, you might say, well, it’s a bit odd piping this flammable explosive

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gas underneath the streets and putting it on sticks, but it was a miracle.

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It was a real enlightenment moment.

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In Britain when it first happened, within 20 years of the first

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demonstration in London, every city in London, over 20,000 people—so

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every town in fact, and this is hundreds of towns—had street lighting.

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Within 20 years.

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And they’re all making artificial methane

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and they’re piping it around the place.

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We then find out later, as the fossil fuel industry builds up, that

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you can mine this stuff, and that’s what comes into our houses now.

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And of course, the lighting was replaced by electricity, but the heating bit has

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remained because it’s a very efficient way to heat your house, with natural gas.

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You know, you’re reminding me—I’m trying to remember the name of

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the river—we’re producing an exhibit here next year on US presidents

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in science over the years, and starting with George Washington.

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And while he was in New Jersey, awaiting the signed Treaty of Paris at

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the end of the revolution, he called his old friend Thomas Paine over

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to hang out, and they decided to go out and investigate a burning river

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next to them, and they’ve tried to figure out why this was happening.

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Well, methane was coming to the surface is what was happening at that.

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And they went out, and sure enough, were able to create a fire, and

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this really showed that Washington was of that enlightenment era of

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wanting to do experiments, and figure out what the heck was going on.

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So, really fascinating that he was right there, and

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that it’s part of what we’re talking about today.

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So, you ought to come see that exhibit when

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it’s up, Mark, hopefully [laugh] next spring.

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Yeah.

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And these fossil fuels leaking out, the liquids were

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visible, and tars, the tar sands, they were also visible,

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and they were used, but it was the invisible gases.

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And that’s really what my book is about is that there are so many invisible

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gases that have turned out to have absolutely pivotal roles in the evolution

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of humans, but also in our technology, particularly our technology.

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And it is our life support system.

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We talked about methane in terms of heating and lighting,

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and we talked about steam, which is still a part of our

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life support system, but there are many others in the book.

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And it really is—one of those things when you write a book, you don’t

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realize quite [laugh] how important something is until you really

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delve into it, and I really enjoyed writing it for that reason.

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Well, I really enjoyed reading it as well.

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And one gas that’s very important to our daily life is oxygen.

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We can’t live without it.

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So, can you kind of in a nutshell tell us why we can’t live without oxygen.

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And attached to that, Mark, I was really fascinated with your description

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of how oxygen is produced and distributed in modern hospitals.

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Again, I had no idea before I read this book how that was done.

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The story of oxygen is kind of a very ancient story because you got the

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earth being formed, let’s say, four-and-a-half billion years ago, we

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believe, and it’s a kind of fiery rock, hot lava, loads of noxious gases.

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There’s the sulfurs, and sulfates, and sulfur dioxide.

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There is methane, actually.

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And then there’s carbon dioxide, a lot of carbon dioxide.

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So, there’s almost zero oxygen.

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And you might ask, well, why is there zero oxygen?

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And the answer is oxygen is a very reactive gas.

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So, if it can react with something that is present, it will just react.

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So, the iron core of the earth, for instance, when that’s exposed

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to oxygen, becomes iron oxide and you see that as rust, but

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there are loads of rocks and whole stratas of rocks that have

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been laid down, and you can see that oxygen just reacting away.

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So, there isn’t much oxygen in the early earth.

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And as time goes forward and we have oceans,

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again, the atmosphere is carbon dioxide.

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And the early, early life—and we still don’t really know how the early cells

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formed, these are archaea bacteria cells—but they lived off carbon dioxide.

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So, there’s no oxygen.

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And then at some point, there’s an evolutionary moment,

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a very important one where a cyanobacteria [core] is

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evolved, which can take advantage of photosynthesis.

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So, it can take light from the sun and it can turn carbon dioxide.

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It has a waste product to keep it alive.

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That product is oxygen and it bubbles out.

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And of course, that immediate reacts, like, as we were

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saying, like anything in the ocean, it can react, with

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it does, and so that happens for millions of years.

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But this goes on and on and on until there is no more things to react with.

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And then the oxygen starts to persist in

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the atmosphere and persist in the ocean.

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And it starts poisoning off the many other cell

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types that can’t cope with this very reactive gas.

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And so, you get this thing called the Great Oxygen Event, which is about 2.4

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billion years ago, and there’s a mass sort of killing off of other things.

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And these cyanobacteria really thrive and create an oxygen atmosphere.

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And this is the beginning of our journey into the evolutionary world.

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Because the thing about oxygen is, when it’s available, if a

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cell could work out how to use oxygen to metabolize energy,

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like sugars, as we know, it’s an amazing energy source.

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And so, that’s what happened.

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These bacteria evolved to be able to use oxygen, and they thrived.

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And so, what you have is a whole two sets of life on the planet.

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One set of life is creating oxygen and using carbon dioxide, and the other

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set of life is using oxygen and creating carbon dioxide, and we’re the latter.

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So, we breathe out carbon dioxide, and the plants use it.

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And the plants breathe in carbon dioxide, and they breathe out oxygen.

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But they’re not the only ones.

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In fact, most of the oxygen comes from the oceans and the bacteria there.

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So, you have this symbiosis very early on.

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And because the oxygen is such a potent way

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of running a metabolism, it’s got such a high

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reactivity, what we believe happened is that it then allows multi-cellular

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organisms, very complex organisms, to have enough energy to run themselves.

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And so, you get this big growth in different multi-cellular organisms.

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We are descended from them.

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We are one of the oxygen breathers, which we always have dependent on.

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But we, of course, cannot live without oxygen because for that reason,

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we’re evolved to have to use it for our metabolism, but we also breathe

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out this carbon dioxide, which a whole set of other life depends on.

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And so, this kind of interrelationship between the different types of organism

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on the planet, the carbon dioxide breathers and the oxygen breathers, it goes up

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and down over the evolution of the world, and you see it in the fossil record.

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But you know, yeah, us oxygen breathers alive today cannot live

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more than a minute now without breathing in a breath of oxygen.

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And we need it about 20%, 19%, and if it goes too

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low—not very much lower than that—we suffocate.

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That’s interesting, I was just at the Smithsonian in

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DC, and have some great geological samples there showing

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that Great Oxygen Event where everything changed.

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Talk to me quickly about the hospitals.

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That was something that I really learned from your book

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of how that oxygen is distributed in modern hospitals.

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Of course, because we rely on it, one of the biggest breakthroughs

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in medical technology was to be able to get oxygen and put it

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in a tank so that when someone was having respiratory problems,

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you could put a mask over their face and deliver oxygen.

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And today, this is one of the major things

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that saves people's lives all over the world.

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So, every hospital has oxygen tanks, and every ambulance carries it.

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Now, the question is, where does that stuff come from?

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And it’s a really simple process if you’re in a developed

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country, that’s reasonably rich because what you do is you just

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get an industrial process to take air and you cool it down.

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But you have to cool it down a lot.

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And what happens is when you get to really cold temperatures,

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out comes liquid nitrogen, and that’s a byproduct.

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And that’s of course, four-fifths of the air.

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And then out comes liquid oxygen.

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And then you can distill away the liquid

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oxygen, and then you can put it in a tank.

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And then if you control that with a valve, you

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can deliver that to people and save their lives.

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It’s an incredible resource.

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And it’s 24/7.

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We’re constantly making liquid oxygen, and we’re transporting

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it every country, every developed country is transporting

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it on these massive tankers around the country to hospitals.

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And we saw this in Covid.

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That was the only therapy available at the beginning that we that worked.

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And when hospitals ran out of oxygen, people died

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in their thousands, and there were terrible scenes.

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In countries where there isn’t a big infrastructure, you

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might ask, well, where do they get their oxygen from because

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it’s not a thing that you can globally transport very easily.

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It’s a high pressure vessel.

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It’s heavy, obviously quite a dangerous thing.

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We have this material technology called

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zeolites, which is an incredible material.

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And these are rocks, the Greeks sort of discovered a form with them, and

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they called it sort of— [laugh] , if you heat them up, they basically

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steam, and they have a lot of water, sort of, stuck inside them.

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But you can—they’re basically a very porous rock that you can put a

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gas through, and it will preferentially absorb one of the gases and

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let the other one out the other side, so it becomes a giant filter.

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00:16:53,860 --> 00:16:58,620
And you can design zeolites that take air in and output oxygen.

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And so, if you’re in a country where there is not a big

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infrastructure, you use these zeolites to create, sort of, purified

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oxygen products, and then you give them to people who need them.

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Interesting.

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And this section certainly struck home for me.

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I remember as a kid, I had a lot of breathing issues,

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and it seemed like I was in the hospital all the time.

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And I—oxygen masks, but also the oxygen tent

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sitting in one of those when I was a kid.

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Thankfully, that went away, but I’m here because of them.

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Absolutely.

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And you’re one of billions.

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That is such an amazing therapy.

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And it is one of these, it’s a life support system, I mean, literally,

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00:17:35,759 --> 00:17:39,010
but it is also something we take for granted, the idea that if you’re

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in a modern country, and you have breathing difficulties, you will

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00:17:42,460 --> 00:17:46,420
not be very far away from a tank of oxygen is a modern miracle.

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00:17:46,940 --> 00:17:50,120
One of the other parts of your book, you talk about smells, and I will

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00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:54,730
tell you here at AMSE, we have a space space, we call it where we talk

325
00:17:54,740 --> 00:17:58,969
about the James Webb telescope and a bunch of other fun stuff about space.

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00:17:58,969 --> 00:18:03,730
And one of those is that space has a smell, and people can—we have an

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00:18:04,090 --> 00:18:08,170
interactive where you can take a whiff of what is said to smell like space.

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00:18:08,179 --> 00:18:09,209
It’s not pleasant.

329
00:18:09,420 --> 00:18:11,969
It doesn’t smell great at all.

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00:18:12,020 --> 00:18:15,360
But you talk about things that do, like, perfume and cologne and so forth.

331
00:18:15,620 --> 00:18:19,770
How are those smells, those gases, created and captured so that we can

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00:18:20,370 --> 00:18:25,050
buy them, and maybe buy a bottle for our wives at Christmas and so forth.

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00:18:25,410 --> 00:18:28,380
The book covers not just essentially the sort of the chemistry, let’s say,

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00:18:28,380 --> 00:18:32,929
and the evolutionary side of gases, but also the sensual and emotional side.

335
00:18:33,150 --> 00:18:35,369
And perfumes, I chose to sort of look at perfumes

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00:18:35,619 --> 00:18:37,455
because I think that is a really good example of it.

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And people might not think they’re a gas.

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It might be a surprise a perfume to gas

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00:18:41,690 --> 00:18:43,340
because I always see a liquid in this bottle.

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00:18:43,350 --> 00:18:47,780
But of course, what the liquid is, is just a carrier for an odor.

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00:18:47,940 --> 00:18:50,134
And you ask the question, how do you capture odors?

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00:18:50,340 --> 00:18:53,600
Well, in the early days, it was very tricky to do it.

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00:18:53,600 --> 00:18:55,379
You’d go to a garden, you smell a lovely

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rose, and you might think, okay, I love that.

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00:18:58,050 --> 00:18:58,173
I’m going to bottle that.

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00:18:58,180 --> 00:19:02,040
So, you get a bottle out and you waft it over it and you put a top on it.

347
00:19:02,349 --> 00:19:03,882
And then you go inside and you take the top

348
00:19:03,882 --> 00:19:06,200
off and you smell and there’s no rose smell.

349
00:19:06,200 --> 00:19:06,900
What the hell?

350
00:19:06,950 --> 00:19:07,349
What the hell?

351
00:19:08,259 --> 00:19:08,790
I put it in there and now it’s gone.

352
00:19:09,270 --> 00:19:13,130
Like, you know, you can imagine, like, the frustration of trying to

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00:19:13,130 --> 00:19:19,340
understand that a smell that can be very strong next to a plant is actually

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00:19:19,390 --> 00:19:24,389
a very saturated gas molecules that are being emitted from that plant.

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00:19:24,799 --> 00:19:28,296
And when you try to put them into a bottle by, say, just exposing the bottle

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00:19:28,296 --> 00:19:32,320
to it, you forget that the bottle is already full, it’s already full of a gas.

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00:19:32,320 --> 00:19:34,659
And so, the gas would have to fight to get in there.

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You have to basically take all the gas out of there

359
00:19:37,110 --> 00:19:39,870
first, make it into a vacuum, and then open it up.

360
00:19:40,170 --> 00:19:44,640
But even then, you only have a very small amount of these molecules.

361
00:19:44,799 --> 00:19:48,310
So, really early on, we realized, you know, in the history of

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00:19:48,310 --> 00:19:51,980
technology that you what you needed to do was find the oil that

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00:19:51,980 --> 00:19:55,540
was being vaporized into a gas that the flower was emitting.

364
00:19:55,550 --> 00:19:57,109
So, rose oil in this case.

365
00:19:57,550 --> 00:19:59,090
And how do you get rose oil?

366
00:19:59,360 --> 00:20:01,560
Well, mate, you take all the petals off the rose,

367
00:20:01,980 --> 00:20:04,760
and you put it into a distillery, basically.

368
00:20:04,770 --> 00:20:08,380
So, you maybe put it in some water, and then you gently heat

369
00:20:08,390 --> 00:20:12,000
the water up, and all these oils evaporate into the air,

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00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:16,389
and then you very carefully collect them in a cooling tube.

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00:20:16,830 --> 00:20:19,930
And if you get it right, you can exactly

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capture just the oil and not the water vapor.

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00:20:22,660 --> 00:20:27,630
And this allows you to capture any oil, let’s say, of—and it was a big business,

374
00:20:27,650 --> 00:20:32,790
and of course, you know—but it was very skilled work, and it was very expensive.

375
00:20:32,860 --> 00:20:36,110
So, the only people who had perfumes were kings and queens and rich people.

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00:20:36,110 --> 00:20:37,730
Like, everyone else smelt terrible.

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00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:42,270
So, early perfumes, but these are liquid and you put them into bottle,

378
00:20:42,590 --> 00:20:44,900
but of course, they’ll evaporate very quickly unless you put the top on.

379
00:20:44,900 --> 00:20:48,150
And that’s of course why when you buy a perfume, you’re

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00:20:48,150 --> 00:20:50,695
buying it in a spray form, and if you take that top off

381
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:53,209
and leave it off for any time, you’ll lose all of it.

382
00:20:53,349 --> 00:20:56,409
But the other thing that of course, people realized is that you could get a

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00:20:56,410 --> 00:21:00,929
liquid that was very—you could bottle other smells that were more, let’s say

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00:21:02,550 --> 00:21:07,500
musky or earthy by dissolving them in a very volatile liquid like an alcohol.

385
00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:11,529
And then when you spray those on the skin on the back of the hand, the

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00:21:11,540 --> 00:21:15,340
alcohol evaporates, it doesn’t have much smell, and maybe the cinnamon

387
00:21:15,349 --> 00:21:19,900
does or the bark of a tree does, and you get this very—so that the art

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00:21:19,970 --> 00:21:25,210
of perfume here was to kind of find these liquids, oils, essential oils.

389
00:21:25,360 --> 00:21:27,280
But then it got very complicated.

390
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:33,990
Like ambergris, right, for instance, is the kind of sick of a sperm whale

391
00:21:34,129 --> 00:21:37,650
that’s been fermented in its stomach until it’s died, it’s then been

392
00:21:37,670 --> 00:21:41,320
released, it floats around on the ocean for years and years and years,

393
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:46,100
changing its kind of composition due to the sun’s rays and the salt water.

394
00:21:46,410 --> 00:21:50,000
Then if you happen to find it, you’ll find this incredibly

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00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,470
complex, fragrant, unbelievably attractive smell.

396
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So, surprising.

397
00:21:55,360 --> 00:21:57,220
And if you find ambergris, by the way, I mean, it

398
00:21:57,230 --> 00:22:00,360
does float around, it’s worth a huge amount of money.

399
00:22:00,690 --> 00:22:03,330
It’ll go for thousands of pounds, one small bit of

400
00:22:03,340 --> 00:22:05,560
ambergris because all the perfume [unintelligible]

401
00:22:05,870 --> 00:22:07,940
.
You’d have thought these days, we don’t need that stuff,

402
00:22:07,950 --> 00:22:10,619
like natural [sources] because you can synthesize—surely

403
00:22:10,619 --> 00:22:13,030
we can synthesize any smell, but it’s just not true.

404
00:22:13,030 --> 00:22:14,870
We don’t actually have that ability.

405
00:22:15,050 --> 00:22:18,410
So yeah, I delve into all these things about the kind of

406
00:22:18,450 --> 00:22:22,070
mechanics of how you take smells from the natural world and

407
00:22:22,070 --> 00:22:26,180
turn them into perfumes, and also how perfumiers balance smells.

408
00:22:26,190 --> 00:22:30,690
So, there’s kind of a palette of smells and a trick to it, which

409
00:22:30,690 --> 00:22:33,850
is why, you know, certain people like certain perfumes, they feel

410
00:22:33,850 --> 00:22:38,230
that it kind of reflects their personality, and other people might

411
00:22:38,230 --> 00:22:42,030
hate that exact perfume and find it too clingy, too musky, too

412
00:22:42,030 --> 00:22:45,959
sweet, too floral, not masculine enough or not feminine enough.

413
00:22:46,230 --> 00:22:48,480
And that whole world, I’m fascinated by that.

414
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,220
That whole world of how we kind of identify with a certain

415
00:22:52,770 --> 00:22:56,350
portfolio of smells is something that I—yeah, I think is a

416
00:22:56,380 --> 00:22:59,790
really big part of being—of gas technology, for instance, I

417
00:22:59,820 --> 00:23:01,869
think people don’t think it’s a gas technology, but it is.

418
00:23:02,469 --> 00:23:08,860
It’s a billion dollar business, and it is so complex and so sophisticated.

419
00:23:09,250 --> 00:23:12,010
You know, you’re reminding me a question I often have about things with

420
00:23:12,010 --> 00:23:16,950
the, it was the ambergris of who first thought to try that because,

421
00:23:16,980 --> 00:23:20,270
hey, we think this might have a good complex [laugh] smell at the end.

422
00:23:20,630 --> 00:23:23,730
I’ve often thought that, Mark, with like a lobster,

423
00:23:23,730 --> 00:23:26,200
you know, who first thought, “Let’s eat one of those.

424
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:31,959
It looks so daunting.” [laugh] . But it’s really so fascinating how that becomes

425
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:36,850
part of your life in a way and as you say, part of your identity in a way.

426
00:23:37,810 --> 00:23:41,180
Let’s turn from that, though, to transportation.

427
00:23:41,180 --> 00:23:44,560
You talk about gases and hot air ballooning,

428
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,770
and I have to also say this, Thaddeus Lowe.

429
00:23:48,110 --> 00:23:49,700
I’m going to claim him as a relative.

430
00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:51,920
I don’t know if he was, but he was one of the pioneers here.

431
00:23:51,920 --> 00:23:55,080
During our civil war, he worked with President Lincoln

432
00:23:55,090 --> 00:23:59,200
to get hot air balloons utilized during the battles.

433
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,300
The sad story in his later life will lead that part out, but I’m claiming him.

434
00:24:03,300 --> 00:24:07,169
So, can you tell us a bit about hot air ballooning, when it started, and

435
00:24:07,630 --> 00:24:11,759
for those of us who don’t know why it works the way it does with the gases?

436
00:24:12,440 --> 00:24:15,740
Being able to fly, of course, a long standing dream for humans.

437
00:24:15,820 --> 00:24:19,710
And could see the birds can do it, so why can’t we do it?

438
00:24:20,270 --> 00:24:24,710
And I mean, you know, like, you can’t flap your hands and have—and people

439
00:24:24,710 --> 00:24:28,990
did—of course, there was Icarus, the myth of Icarus, of flying with wings.

440
00:24:29,380 --> 00:24:31,770
It’s actually a very tricky thing to get off the

441
00:24:31,770 --> 00:24:34,950
ground because we as humans, we are quite heavy.

442
00:24:35,090 --> 00:24:38,389
So, in order to kind of be buoyant, to be able to float

443
00:24:38,490 --> 00:24:42,185
in this fluid that is surrounding us—so I think you

444
00:24:42,185 --> 00:24:45,690
first have to realize is that we’re surrounded by air.

445
00:24:45,710 --> 00:24:50,680
We’re at the bottom of a sea of 100 kilometers of air, and just as if

446
00:24:50,690 --> 00:24:54,599
you were at the bottom of the sea, right, if you wanted to float upwards

447
00:24:54,620 --> 00:24:58,870
from the sea, you have to be the same density as the liquid around you.

448
00:24:58,870 --> 00:25:01,390
If you’re the same density of liquid around you, you’ll start to float.

449
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:04,309
And that’s how scuba diving works, that you kind of you

450
00:25:04,309 --> 00:25:07,560
match your density to the liquid, and then you can go

451
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,440
up or down or left or right and you feel weightless.

452
00:25:10,609 --> 00:25:11,820
You essentially are weightless.

453
00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:16,250
In the case of doing that in air because air is so less dense, we need

454
00:25:16,250 --> 00:25:21,429
to basically make ourselves a huge volume, and that volume is a balloon.

455
00:25:21,790 --> 00:25:24,810
But of course, air itself is the same density as the air

456
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,820
next to it and you are heavy, so that’s not going to work.

457
00:25:28,230 --> 00:25:29,530
But what if you heat the air up?

458
00:25:29,670 --> 00:25:33,850
Then hot air is less dense than cold air, and if it’s a large enough volume,

459
00:25:33,850 --> 00:25:39,050
the average density of you plus the balloon is lighter than air, and you ascend.

460
00:25:39,050 --> 00:25:42,129
And you control your height by cooling down

461
00:25:42,130 --> 00:25:45,050
the balloon and adjusting other things.

462
00:25:45,400 --> 00:25:47,220
So, that’s how hot air balloons work.

463
00:25:47,220 --> 00:25:51,640
And that was an absolutely pivotal moment in the history of the world.

464
00:25:51,700 --> 00:25:56,610
This is, like, the 1700s now because what we have is this dream come true.

465
00:25:56,650 --> 00:26:00,660
And every king, queen in Europe at the time, no kind

466
00:26:00,660 --> 00:26:03,500
of celebration was replete without these balloonists.

467
00:26:04,910 --> 00:26:06,249
They were just a marvel.

468
00:26:06,250 --> 00:26:07,270
It was just extraordinary.

469
00:26:07,270 --> 00:26:08,670
But it was very dangerous.

470
00:26:08,980 --> 00:26:10,840
You can imagine how do you come down?

471
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:13,379
[unintelligible] —they got swept out the seas.

472
00:26:13,990 --> 00:26:17,199
They went high, and then a big storm came, and then no one ever saw them again.

473
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:17,860
They just died.

474
00:26:18,130 --> 00:26:20,009
Yeah, so it was very dan—they were daredevil.

475
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:22,340
And then what happens is, there’s a different way of

476
00:26:22,340 --> 00:26:25,139
doing that, which is that you actually make hydrogen.

477
00:26:25,140 --> 00:26:30,090
Now, hydrogen is a very low density gas, so you don’t have to heat it up.

478
00:26:30,150 --> 00:26:32,559
It is much less dense than the air around it.

479
00:26:32,590 --> 00:26:36,225
And if you have enough hydrogen, it will take you up no problem at all.

480
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:40,280
And making hydrogen was relatively easy at the time because they had

481
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:45,240
quite a large amount of vitriol, which is sulfuric acid, and that

482
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:48,650
was made in large quantities for many different things like tanning.

483
00:26:48,770 --> 00:26:52,799
And they had things like, well, they had metal filings, and so

484
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:55,030
they could add the two together, you get bubbles of hydrogen.

485
00:26:55,570 --> 00:26:58,730
And so, the hydrogen balloonists competed with the

486
00:26:58,730 --> 00:27:01,030
hot air balloonists as to what’s the coolest thing.

487
00:27:01,370 --> 00:27:03,850
And,one of the things they used to do is set off fireworks

488
00:27:03,900 --> 00:27:08,110
high above the palaces to the delight of the audience below.

489
00:27:08,500 --> 00:27:11,379
And of course, occasionally one of the fireworks would then

490
00:27:11,660 --> 00:27:13,970
light the balloon and then everything would just blow up.

491
00:27:13,970 --> 00:27:15,890
[laugh] . Yeah, quite a party.

492
00:27:15,900 --> 00:27:17,200
Yeah, quite a party.

493
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,933
And you think about this, and you think—so at first it was just a

494
00:27:19,933 --> 00:27:23,793
sort of fascination, but then of course, you realize that there’s

495
00:27:23,793 --> 00:27:27,260
so many advantages to the military of being able to see high.

496
00:27:27,670 --> 00:27:29,500
And you can see where the positions of your

497
00:27:29,570 --> 00:27:32,239
enemy are, and you can then use artillery.

498
00:27:32,249 --> 00:27:34,499
In the Civil War, this is exactly what they did.

499
00:27:34,820 --> 00:27:38,940
They made hydrogen balloons, and they put them up into the air, saw where

500
00:27:38,940 --> 00:27:41,900
their positions were, then they would direct their artillery towards them.

501
00:27:42,020 --> 00:27:43,270
Of course, all the while you’re being shot at.

502
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:47,540
So, it was dangerous and thrilling in equal measure, I’m sure.

503
00:27:47,820 --> 00:27:51,039
After the Civil War finishes, a guy called

504
00:27:51,309 --> 00:27:53,709
Baron von Zeppelin, he’s seen this happening.

505
00:27:53,709 --> 00:27:57,440
He’s a German, and he goes back to Germany and he says, “I want to start

506
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:01,790
the first airline and I want to use hydrogen balloons as the way to get

507
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:08,000
around.” And he starts to make these airships made of hydrogen and thin

508
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,699
skin on the outside with a capsule underneath that you could travel in.

509
00:28:11,709 --> 00:28:14,570
And the airship is born, and it’s an incredible

510
00:28:14,570 --> 00:28:16,550
moment in history because it’s the first airline.

511
00:28:16,630 --> 00:28:18,219
I mean, people start traveling around Europe,

512
00:28:18,310 --> 00:28:21,429
and then even to America, and to South America.

513
00:28:21,429 --> 00:28:23,390
In fact, they go all the way around the world, eventually,

514
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:27,067
on these Zeppelins, which are full of [laugh] hydrogen.

515
00:28:27,067 --> 00:28:27,151
It’s just extraordinary.

516
00:28:27,179 --> 00:28:27,759
It is.

517
00:28:27,860 --> 00:28:31,990
I know not to always go back to our Presidents and Science exhibit, but I

518
00:28:31,990 --> 00:28:37,350
believe—and people can correct me—the first demonstration in America of a

519
00:28:37,350 --> 00:28:42,660
hot air balloon was Philadelphia with President Washington in attendance.

520
00:28:43,059 --> 00:28:45,399
So, it took off, he actually gave—it was a Frenchman who did it;

521
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:49,919
I can’t remember his name—he gave him essentially credentials,

522
00:28:49,940 --> 00:28:53,730
so wherever he landed, people wouldn’t shoot him or whatever

523
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:56,050
[laugh] . You know, this guy has the right to be there.

524
00:28:56,090 --> 00:28:59,819
When he landed, I think some, like, 20 miles away from where he took off.

525
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:02,059
But really, really interesting story.

526
00:29:02,099 --> 00:29:04,749
Again, revolutionizing transportation.

527
00:29:05,029 --> 00:29:09,640
We also talk a lot here about the periodic table and the noble gases.

528
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,860
Can you tell us what the noble gases are and how they’ve

529
00:29:12,860 --> 00:29:16,920
entered our daily lives since their rather unexpected discovery?

530
00:29:17,429 --> 00:29:19,389
Yeah, the noble gases, well, they’re called

531
00:29:19,389 --> 00:29:21,949
noble because they really react within anything.

532
00:29:22,209 --> 00:29:25,660
And that’s unusual because most things on the periodic table, most

533
00:29:25,690 --> 00:29:29,710
elements have a certain number of electrons in the outer shell,

534
00:29:29,710 --> 00:29:34,210
and usually that number of electrons means they’re not stable.

535
00:29:34,210 --> 00:29:36,669
They would like to complete their outer shell, and

536
00:29:36,670 --> 00:29:38,720
so the way to do that is to react with something.

537
00:29:38,820 --> 00:29:42,470
But the noble gases are molecules like helium,

538
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,920
neon, argon, and they have a complete outer shell.

539
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:47,510
So, they have no interest.

540
00:29:47,620 --> 00:29:49,270
There’s nothing in it for them to react

541
00:29:49,270 --> 00:29:50,669
with anything, and so they basically don’t.

542
00:29:50,669 --> 00:29:52,810
There are a few exceptions.

543
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,000
And what that means in practice means that when a noble gas is brought

544
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,710
into creation—and most of them on earth, like helium, that they’re born

545
00:29:59,770 --> 00:30:02,530
deep in the earth through nuclear reactions, and they bubble to the

546
00:30:02,530 --> 00:30:06,460
surface—they just sit around in our air, and no one knows they’re there.

547
00:30:06,670 --> 00:30:07,290
You can’t taste them.

548
00:30:07,290 --> 00:30:08,100
You can’t see them.

549
00:30:08,100 --> 00:30:10,100
They don’t react with anything, so why would you know?

550
00:30:10,290 --> 00:30:11,619
That was why they were completely missed.

551
00:30:11,619 --> 00:30:14,319
In the history of chemistry, they’re absent.

552
00:30:14,450 --> 00:30:17,860
And it’s only with these sophisticated techniques that come

553
00:30:17,860 --> 00:30:20,570
later that we piece together that they exist, and they’re

554
00:30:20,570 --> 00:30:23,280
in the air you breathe, and they don’t react with anything.

555
00:30:23,530 --> 00:30:24,490
So, you think, well, okay.

556
00:30:25,830 --> 00:30:26,510
Then who cares?

557
00:30:26,700 --> 00:30:29,230
At least we found them, but you know, and helium is cool

558
00:30:29,230 --> 00:30:32,090
and neon’s great, but what you know, what use could they be?

559
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:34,839
But it turns out actually that a gas that

560
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:36,960
doesn’t react with anything is super useful.

561
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,649
In the case of argon, we use it a lot to kind of

562
00:30:39,660 --> 00:30:42,850
make inert atmospheres so that things will not react.

563
00:30:42,860 --> 00:30:44,510
So, if you want to protect them from

564
00:30:44,510 --> 00:30:46,499
reacting, you put them in an argon atmosphere.

565
00:30:47,130 --> 00:30:48,573
We also make lasers out of them.

566
00:30:48,573 --> 00:30:50,060
They have a particular electron structure.

567
00:30:50,060 --> 00:30:51,460
You can make lasers out of them.

568
00:30:51,589 --> 00:30:55,369
And in the case of neon, if you put electric fields through them, they glow

569
00:30:55,370 --> 00:30:59,160
this beautiful neon color, and of course, the whole of the science initially

570
00:30:59,170 --> 00:31:04,320
would not be the same if neon lights had not been developed in the 20th century.

571
00:31:04,530 --> 00:31:05,359
And Las Vegas.

572
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:06,460
What would Las Vegas be like?

573
00:31:06,770 --> 00:31:08,270
There’s so much they’ve given us.

574
00:31:08,559 --> 00:31:11,620
But I think helium is probably the most important

575
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:15,000
because helium is a gas very similar to hydrogen.

576
00:31:15,010 --> 00:31:15,930
It’s very lightweight.

577
00:31:16,020 --> 00:31:19,090
It is used for ballooning now, much safer way to balloon around.

578
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:21,920
But its major use is in health care.

579
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,590
And if you ever go an MRI scan, you know, you’re relying on helium.

580
00:31:25,679 --> 00:31:26,719
And what are you relying on?

581
00:31:26,719 --> 00:31:32,240
Well, it’s got a very low boiling point—like, 4.2 Kelvin, which is minus 273

582
00:31:34,570 --> 00:31:37,910
centigrade—and so once you get it down to that and you start letting

583
00:31:37,910 --> 00:31:42,629
it boil off, you can keep things that are almost at zero temperature.

584
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:46,049
And that’s what you need to get very high control

585
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:49,590
over the things, like the detectors that you’re using.

586
00:31:50,020 --> 00:31:52,930
And basically the whole of science, basically, all of these

587
00:31:52,950 --> 00:31:57,139
very sensitive detectors relies on liquid helium to cool them.

588
00:31:57,260 --> 00:31:59,690
And that has had huge implications in health care.

589
00:31:59,940 --> 00:32:03,700
And whenever helium gets low, people really worry in hospitals,

590
00:32:03,700 --> 00:32:07,060
I can tell you, because it’s a major cost if the price goes up.

591
00:32:07,139 --> 00:32:10,490
And if they run over it completely, they can’t even run those instruments.

592
00:32:10,590 --> 00:32:12,040
You also you mentioned argon.

593
00:32:12,310 --> 00:32:15,459
I worked for many years at the National Archives in Washington.

594
00:32:15,460 --> 00:32:18,860
I do believe argon is part of the encasement for the Charters,

595
00:32:18,860 --> 00:32:22,359
the Declaration of Constitution, for that environment it

596
00:32:22,410 --> 00:32:25,150
creates within the case to help protect those documents.

597
00:32:25,359 --> 00:32:25,546
Wow, that’s interesting.

598
00:32:25,546 --> 00:32:25,693
I didn’t know that.

599
00:32:25,730 --> 00:32:26,629
That’s cool.

600
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:27,680
I believe that’s the case.

601
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:31,190
Now, my archives friends will probably call me today and say, “No,

602
00:32:31,220 --> 00:32:33,089
you idiot. It’s something else,” but I’m pretty sure that’s it

603
00:32:33,089 --> 00:32:37,780
[laugh] . So, we also talk about climate change and the need to

604
00:32:37,780 --> 00:32:42,350
address that. What are some of the strategies right now to capture

605
00:32:42,350 --> 00:32:46,570
carbon dioxide gas and address that real crisis we’re facing?

606
00:32:46,750 --> 00:32:51,270
That’s a technology—carbon capture is a technology that is going to be a big

607
00:32:51,270 --> 00:32:55,560
industry in the future for this century because we really can’t do without it.

608
00:32:55,610 --> 00:32:59,289
The way in which it all adds up, there’s a latency in that if

609
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:02,510
once you admit a carbon dioxide molecule into the atmosphere, it

610
00:33:02,510 --> 00:33:05,290
stays there for a long time and it’s heating up all that time.

611
00:33:05,290 --> 00:33:09,529
And you have to get it back out of the atmosphere in order to stop that heating.

612
00:33:09,530 --> 00:33:13,520
So, the carbon dioxide parts per million, which at the moment is something like

613
00:33:13,710 --> 00:33:19,519
427 parts per million in the atmosphere, that is like a thermostat for Earth.

614
00:33:19,570 --> 00:33:22,840
If we want to get the temperatures down, we have to basically pull

615
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:25,970
that oxygen—pull that, sorry—carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

616
00:33:26,700 --> 00:33:27,990
But how do we do it?

617
00:33:28,139 --> 00:33:32,190
Because we’ve got to get it out of there at an economic cost, and we’ve

618
00:33:32,210 --> 00:33:35,559
got to get it out there and store it so it doesn’t go back in there again.

619
00:33:36,279 --> 00:33:37,370
So, that’s carbon capture.

620
00:33:37,370 --> 00:33:38,850
That’s the challenge.

621
00:33:38,930 --> 00:33:41,280
And it’s worth saying probably at this point that even if we were to

622
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:46,293
stop burning all carbon fossil fuels now, we would still have a lot

623
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:50,820
of global heating in this century and probably go up to two degrees.

624
00:33:50,830 --> 00:33:52,250
So, we have to get it out.

625
00:33:52,389 --> 00:33:53,479
So, how do we do it?

626
00:33:53,490 --> 00:33:56,180
Well, of course, trees naturally pull it out of the

627
00:33:56,310 --> 00:34:01,070
atmosphere by putting it into their cellulose and lignin.

628
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:03,590
So, you might think, well, the easy thing to do is just grow trees.

629
00:34:03,889 --> 00:34:07,940
And the problem with that is the calculations don’t—are difficult

630
00:34:07,980 --> 00:34:11,199
because even if you would sort of plant trees on all the available

631
00:34:11,199 --> 00:34:16,000
land, and they grew to maturity to pull that carbon in, you still

632
00:34:16,030 --> 00:34:20,260
only account for one year’s normal carbon dioxide emissions.

633
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,800
And the truth is that most tree-planting carbon capture schemes don’t

634
00:34:26,809 --> 00:34:30,199
work because they’re often in countries where the land is cheap.

635
00:34:30,369 --> 00:34:32,639
The local residents actually need wood.

636
00:34:32,750 --> 00:34:35,500
So, you have to protect that wood from being chopped down for the

637
00:34:35,500 --> 00:34:39,410
lifetime of the tree, and that turns out to be very rarely the case.

638
00:34:39,830 --> 00:34:41,610
So, not only do you have to grow them, you have to make

639
00:34:41,610 --> 00:34:45,089
sure they are not chopped down and burned, and that is not a

640
00:34:45,089 --> 00:34:49,389
trivial thing because that land is competing for food as well.

641
00:34:50,010 --> 00:34:50,980
You see that in Brazil.

642
00:34:51,170 --> 00:34:54,800
So basically, I think the consensus is that tree planting, although great

643
00:34:54,860 --> 00:34:59,280
where you can do it, is not going to get us anywhere near what we need to do.

644
00:34:59,870 --> 00:35:01,750
So, then you think, okay, we can’t use trees.

645
00:35:01,759 --> 00:35:02,930
So, what can we use?

646
00:35:02,980 --> 00:35:06,609
The idea that we’ve got these power plants that are basically fueled

647
00:35:06,699 --> 00:35:13,090
with gas, which is methane, or with coal or oil, and out of the

648
00:35:13,090 --> 00:35:16,310
tubes coming out of those is quite concentrated carbon dioxide.

649
00:35:16,310 --> 00:35:19,314
So, can’t we capture from that and basically store it?

650
00:35:19,330 --> 00:35:20,620
And that is happening now.

651
00:35:21,009 --> 00:35:22,800
That’s called carbon capture and storage.

652
00:35:23,270 --> 00:35:27,669
The problem with that is that it perpetuates the business as usual.

653
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:34,570
So, in a way, it’s that basically companies that are capturing carbon coming

654
00:35:34,570 --> 00:35:38,899
out of the power stations, they have a business now where you keep burning

655
00:35:38,900 --> 00:35:41,229
it and capturing it, burning it and capturing it, burning it and capturing

656
00:35:41,230 --> 00:35:45,480
it, and it’s not clear that will actually take us to a net-zero situation.

657
00:35:45,790 --> 00:35:48,220
Even though I think that technology is useful, it’s

658
00:35:48,250 --> 00:35:51,019
probably not going to bring the paradigm shift that we need.

659
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:57,589
So, then we’re into the only one that I see as really absolutely going to

660
00:35:57,599 --> 00:36:03,020
save us—and I say that word kind of, yeah, deliberately because I do think

661
00:36:03,020 --> 00:36:06,520
it is about saving us; I think a lot of life on the planet will be fine.

662
00:36:06,850 --> 00:36:09,329
You know, it’ll deal very fine with hotter temperatures.

663
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:13,119
I think humans will be really in trouble if we don’t

664
00:36:13,130 --> 00:36:16,809
do something, and specifically our grandchildren.

665
00:36:17,070 --> 00:36:22,310
So, in order save them from very high temperatures and mass… mass migration,

666
00:36:22,330 --> 00:36:26,550
yeah, then I think we have to do this thing, which is called direct air capture.

667
00:36:27,090 --> 00:36:31,440
And what that is—and it sounds ludicrous— [laugh] is that you basically

668
00:36:31,460 --> 00:36:34,419
make a machine that just breathes air in a bit like our lungs breathe

669
00:36:34,419 --> 00:36:38,320
it in, and it takes out the carbon dioxide molecules and stores them.

670
00:36:38,940 --> 00:36:41,660
And it either does that as a sort of solid with a bit of

671
00:36:41,660 --> 00:36:45,360
chemistry or it pumps them down into a safe storage place.

672
00:36:45,460 --> 00:36:48,389
It’s very early days with that technology, although it does exist.

673
00:36:48,429 --> 00:36:51,392
There are companies already capturing of the order of—and this is going

674
00:36:51,540 --> 00:36:55,980
to sound ridiculous, but you know, hundreds to thousands of tons per year.

675
00:36:56,350 --> 00:36:58,270
But I mean, you have to take that in the kind

676
00:36:58,270 --> 00:37:00,380
of, we’re going to need to store trillions.

677
00:37:00,660 --> 00:37:03,760
So, you know, that’s the scale of the problem.

678
00:37:03,860 --> 00:37:09,319
And it costs thousands of dollars per ton to store it and capture it.

679
00:37:09,500 --> 00:37:13,400
And if you’re paying thousands of dollars per ton, that makes

680
00:37:13,420 --> 00:37:16,549
most of these businesses uneconomic unless without subsidies.

681
00:37:16,910 --> 00:37:21,480
So, it’s a tricky one, but I think this direct carbon capture,

682
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,280
and there are different versions of it, they are being rolled out.

683
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,099
There’s a new one happening in Paris now.

684
00:37:26,099 --> 00:37:28,149
There’s one that’s operating in Iceland now.

685
00:37:28,650 --> 00:37:32,319
They are really vital, and I think we just need more investment to

686
00:37:32,770 --> 00:37:36,250
scale them up and bring the price of the carbon capture per ton down.

687
00:37:36,700 --> 00:37:37,940
That was going to be my question.

688
00:37:38,110 --> 00:37:42,280
The current models, how large are those pieces of equipment?

689
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,910
I imagine that’s a fairly large imprint.

690
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,000
Yeah, it is.

691
00:37:47,260 --> 00:37:48,540
And you’ve got this big infrastructure.

692
00:37:48,540 --> 00:37:51,259
I mean, if you look at the history of technology, and I think that’s what the

693
00:37:51,260 --> 00:37:55,010
book does quite well, if I’m—you know, I was trying to do anyways—look at steam.

694
00:37:55,020 --> 00:37:59,159
Steam starts out as a clunky technology that hardly works, terribly inefficient.

695
00:37:59,690 --> 00:38:03,509
People understand how important it is, and they innovate, and

696
00:38:03,509 --> 00:38:05,590
they make it efficient, and they innovate, and they make the

697
00:38:05,590 --> 00:38:08,160
business around it, like [what] does with [unintelligible]

698
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:11,330
?
And that’s what we need to happen in the carbon capture market.

699
00:38:11,410 --> 00:38:14,280
I think we need to stop thinking we may not need it.

700
00:38:14,320 --> 00:38:15,289
We will need it.

701
00:38:15,289 --> 00:38:16,960
It’s 100% we’re going to need it.

702
00:38:17,210 --> 00:38:18,229
We need investment.

703
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:20,839
So, that thing that humans do really well, which

704
00:38:20,839 --> 00:38:23,759
is to innovate, and make efficient, and innovate.

705
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,280
We’ve done it with the internal combustion engines.

706
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:27,540
We’ve done it with jet engines.

707
00:38:27,540 --> 00:38:28,530
We’ve done it with steam.

708
00:38:28,750 --> 00:38:29,700
We can do it for this.

709
00:38:29,730 --> 00:38:30,310
We can.

710
00:38:30,850 --> 00:38:31,720
And we need to.

711
00:38:31,810 --> 00:38:36,640
And we just need more talent in that space and more investment in that space.

712
00:38:36,969 --> 00:38:41,769
You talk about all kinds of effects on society, on civilization,

713
00:38:41,779 --> 00:38:44,990
that gases have had over the years, and they kind of go

714
00:38:44,990 --> 00:38:49,180
hand in hand with the growth of our modern societies.

715
00:38:49,590 --> 00:38:53,390
Of those fundamental changes, gas technologies have brought,

716
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:56,470
maybe it’s an unfair question, but which one do you believe has

717
00:38:56,480 --> 00:39:00,660
had perhaps the greatest impact on civilization as we know it?

718
00:39:01,080 --> 00:39:01,680
Oh, yeah.

719
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:04,080
That’s a great question and so hard to answer.

720
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:05,030
Yes [laugh]

721
00:39:05,510 --> 00:39:09,220
.
The civilization bit makes me say it has to be the steam engine.

722
00:39:09,510 --> 00:39:12,390
And I think the reason for that is because it’s the first time in which

723
00:39:12,480 --> 00:39:15,333
a gas technology is harnessed that’s not a natural gas technology.

724
00:39:15,333 --> 00:39:19,810
It’s not like the wind, you know, wind turbines and sailboats.

725
00:39:19,810 --> 00:39:21,180
Which did change the world a lot.

726
00:39:21,530 --> 00:39:24,100
I mean, if you didn’t have a sailing ship, the geography

727
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:26,449
and politics of the world would be totally different.

728
00:39:26,550 --> 00:39:28,975
The whole of America, North America itself, you know, and its

729
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:32,280
history, it was all about the sailing ships coming from Europe.

730
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:32,999
Think about that.

731
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,389
That’s a huge, you know, impact on civilization and

732
00:39:36,389 --> 00:39:39,779
the clash of cultures and the creativity around that.

733
00:39:39,779 --> 00:39:42,640
I mean, it is a creative and destructive at the same time, right?

734
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,040
But the steam engine, what it does is it kind of starts

735
00:39:46,070 --> 00:39:50,969
us on this journey to liberate people from manual labor.

736
00:39:51,389 --> 00:39:54,640
Before this, if you want to make goods, in the

737
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:57,220
end, it’s people who are doing that making.

738
00:39:57,320 --> 00:39:59,340
And so, not everyone can own loads of goods

739
00:39:59,370 --> 00:40:02,419
because you just can’t afford have that much labor.

740
00:40:03,010 --> 00:40:04,959
So, the rich are rich, and they have lots of stuff, and

741
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:06,840
the poor are poor, and they don’t have any much stuff.

742
00:40:07,490 --> 00:40:11,020
Then the steam engine comes along, and it doesn’t just kind of creates

743
00:40:11,029 --> 00:40:14,759
these different transport technologies, like the steam locomotive, and

744
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,920
railways, and the steam liner, but it creates the mass manufacturer.

745
00:40:19,240 --> 00:40:23,420
It makes mass manufacture possible through use of coal or oil,

746
00:40:24,420 --> 00:40:27,210
[unintelligible] , and that means that everyone can get wealthy.

747
00:40:27,230 --> 00:40:32,830
Like, it’s hard to underestimate, really, how the machine age where everything

748
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:37,330
doesn’t have to be built by a person’s hands makes everyone wealthy.

749
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:42,179
And I think that we take it for granted now that we have lots of

750
00:40:42,190 --> 00:40:44,599
people—though I’m not saying everyone, but certainly in developed

751
00:40:44,610 --> 00:40:51,920
countries—90% of the population have a huge, amazing array of wonderful

752
00:40:52,080 --> 00:40:56,930
things in their lives from sofas to trainers to TVs to phones to lights.

753
00:40:56,930 --> 00:40:57,379
You know, they’re bathed in light.

754
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:01,920
You know, they have baths, you know, they have showers.

755
00:41:02,349 --> 00:41:06,129
All down, all in the end, none of that’s possible without

756
00:41:06,129 --> 00:41:09,240
mass manufacturing, and it all starts with a steam engine.

757
00:41:10,130 --> 00:41:10,940
Fascinating.

758
00:41:12,340 --> 00:41:14,390
You write so many fascinating books.

759
00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:15,729
I really enjoy them all.

760
00:41:15,900 --> 00:41:17,360
What are you working on right now?

761
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:18,400
What’s next for you?

762
00:41:18,540 --> 00:41:24,100
Segueing from that, we live in this very material, wonderful material world, and

763
00:41:24,940 --> 00:41:28,810
the one downside to that material wealth has been the pollution caused by it.

764
00:41:28,860 --> 00:41:30,425
I’m talking about plastic pollution in the [unintelligible]

765
00:41:30,530 --> 00:41:34,350
of plastics, but there’s many other unintended side effects.

766
00:41:34,849 --> 00:41:38,529
And it’s not like I want to write a book about how bad that is.

767
00:41:38,849 --> 00:41:39,189
I don’t.

768
00:41:39,330 --> 00:41:43,629
I want to write a book about how we can change so we still can have

769
00:41:43,630 --> 00:41:47,190
all this wonderful stuff in our lives, but not pollute the planet.

770
00:41:47,590 --> 00:41:50,420
And I think there is a very clear way forward.

771
00:41:50,720 --> 00:41:52,839
And it’s just going to be this turning point.

772
00:41:52,940 --> 00:41:56,729
It’s the next bit of our journey as humans, as I see it.

773
00:41:56,809 --> 00:41:58,949
And I want us to kind of move towards this

774
00:41:58,949 --> 00:42:01,490
thing where we actually look after our stuff.

775
00:42:02,010 --> 00:42:06,374
We don’t just buy it, enjoy it, and then in a sense, what often happens is you

776
00:42:06,374 --> 00:42:10,040
throw it away and buy something new because that’s now more interesting to you.

777
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:12,249
You just don’t do that.

778
00:42:12,259 --> 00:42:15,519
You actually look after it, and you hand it on to the next

779
00:42:15,520 --> 00:42:17,749
generation, or you hand it on to some other person who

780
00:42:17,750 --> 00:42:21,010
wants to buy it, and we don’t have to buy new all the time.

781
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:23,280
We can look after our stuff.

782
00:42:23,290 --> 00:42:24,850
So, I want to write that book.

783
00:42:25,140 --> 00:42:25,740
Yeah, interesting.

784
00:42:25,740 --> 00:42:27,210
You’re going back to my parents’ ethic.

785
00:42:27,210 --> 00:42:29,929
That was their thought, coming out of the Great

786
00:42:29,929 --> 00:42:32,380
Depression of, you don’t just throw things away.

787
00:42:32,380 --> 00:42:36,129
You either repurpose them or make sure someone else has a use for them.

788
00:42:36,129 --> 00:42:38,040
So, I look forward to that.

789
00:42:38,350 --> 00:42:40,339
Where can people learn more about your work?

790
00:42:40,540 --> 00:42:40,720
Yeah.

791
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:43,170
I mean, I’ve got a website, markmiodownik.net.

792
00:42:43,300 --> 00:42:46,640
So, that kind of lists most of the things I do in different headings.

793
00:42:46,660 --> 00:42:50,310
So, I do research at the university or on things like repair of

794
00:42:51,190 --> 00:42:55,500
materials and how to design for repair and waste, but also some

795
00:42:55,500 --> 00:42:58,720
quite sci-fi stuff we’re working on, which is self-repairing

796
00:42:58,720 --> 00:43:01,770
materials, which I really believe is a big part of the future.

797
00:43:01,770 --> 00:43:03,660
So, materials that look after themselves.

798
00:43:04,139 --> 00:43:10,120
So, your phone, you’ve dropped your phone, the phone breaks, the housing cracks.

799
00:43:10,529 --> 00:43:13,570
You plug it in the wall, you leave it 12 hours, and it’s healed.

800
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:15,950
That’s the kind of thing we’re working on.

801
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:21,600
And I do think that’s an inevitable next step for materials technology.

802
00:43:22,150 --> 00:43:24,340
A fellow I think you should talk with is a good friend of

803
00:43:24,340 --> 00:43:27,300
ours, Guru Madhavan at the National Academy of Engineering.

804
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:31,250
He’s the Norm Augustine Senior Fellow there, and a good friend to AMSE.

805
00:43:31,780 --> 00:43:34,810
He talks to me a lot and he’s been on AMSEcast a couple of times about

806
00:43:34,820 --> 00:43:38,359
the importance of maintenance and the type of thing you’re talking about.

807
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:42,890
So we, again, are very much an innovation area here in East Tennessee.

808
00:43:42,900 --> 00:43:45,959
A lot of innovation all around us, which we know is important, but that

809
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:50,370
maintenance and, you know, maintaining things so they can continue to be used

810
00:43:50,370 --> 00:43:53,790
this and the next generation is really an important part of that equation too.

811
00:43:53,790 --> 00:43:56,680
So, I look forward to that book, and I look forward—I hope you can visit

812
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,309
us in Oak Ridge and I can’t thank you enough for joining us on AMSEcast.

813
00:44:00,990 --> 00:44:02,529
Oh, it’s been a real pleasure.

814
00:44:02,559 --> 00:44:07,060
Thank you so much for letting me onto the AMSEcast, which I’ve really enjoyed.

815
00:44:12,070 --> 00:44:14,750
Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast.

816
00:44:15,150 --> 00:44:19,460
For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at

817
00:44:19,740 --> 00:44:26,100
AMSE.org or find, like, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

818
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,920
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819
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,720
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820
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,209
You can also shop at our online store and become a member at AMSE.org.

821
00:44:36,660 --> 00:44:40,100
Thanks to our production team with Matt Mullins, plus our supportive colleagues

822
00:44:40,119 --> 00:44:43,950
at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Environmental

823
00:44:43,950 --> 00:44:47,940
Management, and Office of Legacy Management, as well as Oak Ridge National

824
00:44:47,940 --> 00:44:53,779
Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, NNSA, and the AMSE Foundation.

825
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,010
And of course, thanks to our wonderful guests

826
00:44:56,010 --> 00:44:57,850
today, and to all of you for listening.

827
00:44:58,340 --> 00:45:01,190
I hope you’ll join us for the next episode of AMSEcast.

828
00:45:03,730 --> 00:45:06,700
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829
00:45:06,700 --> 00:45:11,280
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830
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831
00:45:15,559 --> 00:45:18,740
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834
00:45:24,860 --> 00:45:28,720
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835
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836
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:37,400
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837
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00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:48,280
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840
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841
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