Don’t Listen to YouTube Scientists - Safety Third 83

[@rhynnoh1991]

As a 4th year engineering undergrad, this is exactly the misinformation I need right now. Thank you.

[@Warner20Bros]

I’m going into my 4th year of CE and I’m taking notes so I can explain all of these topics wrong to the MEs that ask for help lol

[@allenpan]

I am learning so much from these comments 😳

[@BigJ_FPV]

Why can’t photo-resistors pick up radio waves, and antennas can’t pick up light waves, if both things are made of photons? Light is funky

[@athul690]

I asked my professor, why doesn't all the waves combine and he told me he will tell me tomorrow , and it's been 3 years

[@munaq-jp]

@@BigJ_FPV It's all about size. Larger antennas for larger waves (lower freq), smaller photo-resistors for smaller waves (higher freq)

[@rootsxrocks]

This podcast has shown that you are truly scientists. Asking questions ,NOT regurgitating answers.

[@PhilsJunkDrawer]

Talking about stuff you aren’t an expert on is GENIUS. Everyone is going to correct you in the comments, and engagement goes through the roof. These guys are KZbin GODS, even if it’s unintentionally.

[@JunkyardBashSteve]

I just saw someone tweet that the best way to drive engagement is to make a small easily correctable mistake in your video and everyone will rush to the comments to correct you

[@DuelingDexperts]

​@@JunkyardBashStevethat was me! I tweeted that lol

[@DuelingDexperts]

This joke didn't really pan out the way I intended. See I tweeted it immediately after reading his comment, and then he was supposed to correct me. Then I would point out that yes of course it wasn't me but his comment correcting me has now driven engagement further on the video lol

[@sarahjrandomnumbers]

There's a Bill Hicks sketch about people like you. It's called Bill Hicks on Marketing.

[@sarahjrandomnumbers]

@@DuelingDexpertsWasn't talking to you, which is why your name wasn't mentioned.

[@PhilsJunkDrawer]

25:56 Me. I am the one you are giving an aneurism. Tbf most stuff was pretty close, and Kevin was spot on about Eddy Currents in AC. UHVDC is great for long distance transmission since there are no Eddy losses, meaning the entire cross section carries charge. It’s also why they use hollow tube for busswork in substations. The center of a solid conductor with a large enough diameter for the current required would be widely unused.

[@graemenelson8181]

I’ve never been more surprised to see a science podcast talk about science

[@Gunbudder]

This is how i explain NA home power: Three wires come to your house from the power station. The first wire carries an oscillating voltage that goes from -170v to 170v (which is 120v RMS) at 60 Hz relative to the third wire. The second wire also carries -170v to 170v relative to the third wire (120v RMS), but with 180 degree phase offset. The third wire is called neutral because it is used to reference the first two wires. If you look at the voltage of the first wire relative to the second wire (instead of the neutral third) you get a full 240v RMS at 60 Hz. This is all because the three wires are literally three taps on the transformer 120v apart. Now at your house in your circuit breaker panel, you can wire up 120v circuits by going from the first or second wire to the third. Or you can make a 240v circuit by connecting to the first and second wires only. Your third wire, at your house's breaker panel, will be connected to a giant, beefy bare copper grounding wire, which will literally be shoved into the dirt. This is basically for safety. Under normal conditions, current won't flow along the grounding wire into the dirt because the path along the neutral line back to the power station will be much MUCH less resistance. The fact that your panel in your house actually has two hot lines that are 180 degrees out of phase throws off most people i think because they see three lines and assume its the same three lines at your 120v wall outlet. its not! Your 120v wall outlet is connected to EITHER the first wire OR the second wire (but not both) of the main power supply to your house, and then the neutral line. and the ground pin in the wall outlet just connects to the neutral line as well at the breaker. This is why you can "trick" grounded devices by using old style ground to non-ground plug adapters, and then just not ground the adapter. the device doesn't know or care that its not actually grounded (for the most part). some fancier devices actually check if your ground pin is connected to neutral and will freak out if its not connected. I have a good UPS that will freak out if the hot and neutral are swapped or if ground is not connected. and yes, you can actually swap hot and neutral on your 120v wall outlet and most devices will work just fine. this can be incredibly dangerous though because some devices (like corded drills) will have a metal case and will put the switch on what it thinks is the hot line. this means parts of your device could be powered when you think they aren't and it can shock the piss out of you.

[@vectoredwolf]

Ok this is the comment I was looking for that I mentioned in another comment. I have never understood NA home power even though I live here, am 35 years old, and built myself a solar power system. But wait, no, I still dont understand why we need a ground plug at all since it eventually gets bonded to neutral. What I'm missing are the details about why we're not electrified when we touch something that is grounded, since we're always touching something that's bonded w/ neutral. And why we actually need that ground line at all. Is it in case we get disconnected from the power station but for some reason still have a hot line?

[@mitch.mac01]

It's extremely dangerous to reverse polarity of hot and neutral on keyless light fixtures, the metal that you screw light bulbs into would be carrying a 120vAC, not fun 😂😂😂 good explanation though

[@jimbob1103]

This was in equal measure beyond interesting and frustrating.

[@attckDog]

it's fun and painful all in one, the Radio wave Photon convo is killing me lol

[@DantalionNl]

@@attckDog As I work in radio astronomy, I had to stop watching, I'll see them again next episode lol

[@mateostenberg]

These men have forgotten more about electrical engineering than I will ever know

[@Noah-lj2sg]

​@@mateostenbergbest comment

[@rpgruli]

Nigel will be such a great guest for this episode))

[@vaguelysomething]

This is where I remember that KZbin engineer is different than KZbin scientist

[@beehard44]

this episode was extra painful to watch as someone in eee because it clearly is just magic. That's it.

[@JD2jr.]

a wizard did it

[@JeffGeerling]

RF is black magic

[@gljames24]

​@@JeffGeerlingQAM? Is that some sort of spell?

[@JeffGeerling]

@@gljames24Exactly

[@FasutonemuMyoji]

@@JeffGeerling can you make a pi-hole for visible spectrum so I don't have to see things I don't wanna. ask your dad.

[@DangerousDac]

This is the episode where it would have been really handy to have Nikola Tesla as a guest.

[@kitten-whisperer]

Fun fact. Nikola sodomized between 12 and 16 young girls.

[@memejeff]

They should try to get him on for the next episode.

[@Tunkkis]

I'm not so sure, the man didn't believe in electrons.

[@vaguelysomething]

Tesla would be shit at explaining any of this lmao not even a real physicist. Like they allude to in the episode, there's a big difference between having intuition for what's going on and actually understanding why it occurs

[@DangerousDac]

@@Tunkkis I'm still convinced he'd have been useful here.

[@seanvinsick]

I'm a screaming dude now with the radio wave thing. When RF waves pass by an antenna they change the charge of the aerials. This causes charges to move to each side, creating a voltage difference. The charge on the antenna is related to the size of antenna to wave length. You want crest of the wave to be on 1 side and the trough of the wave on the other. Wave length is v/f. Cut that in half for a dipole, and again for a 1/4wave. Have the radio detect the changes in the voltage and amplify it to a speaker

[@vectoredwolf]

OMG. do i understand how radio waves work now!??? No, of course not. But this is the closest i've ever gotten. Thank you!

[@seanvinsick]

@@vectoredwolf thanks. I have animations that use when I teach classes. It makes a ton more sense when you can see it.

[@asteriacipherines]

they removed the extra chair :( my hopes for seeing Nigel in this dumpster is all gone

[@Le_dank_memez]

He's right there?

[@ac.creations]

Literally is there. His opinion on the for kids science kits was pretty interesting.

[@jmankman4671]

Rip Nigel. Gone but never forgotten. He's too busy making bullet proof wood

[@SwordTomato]

can I purchase your comment?

[@SumriseHD]

​@@SwordTomatono need, you can just steal it, as most people actually do

[@matterwiz1689]

I love listening to 3 guys discuss their loads

[@RepeatedFailure]

I felt dumber after listening to this because I realized I couldn't concisely articulate how wrong everything was.

[@PrograError]

that "In the middle state" of understanding but yet no word to explain it....

[@willa8798]

PLEASE have technology connections as a guest omg

[@duskpede5146]

man nigel might’ve been a perfect guest for the static electricity part because what they misunderstand is all about how chemical bonds work (which unlike with how its usually taught through ionic bonding, is a lot less rigid than you’d think. especially with metals. metals are basically just surrounded by a soup of a bunch of the electrons so are way more chill with having some of them leave or added on extra)

[@KickCaesar]

they need to just fly Nigel out to Will's crack property and make him survive in the mud

[@jeffreyrosenkrantz]

Allen needs to rewatch technology connections. Alec answers so many of these questions very well. Maybe he should be a guest here some day

[@TheSpookiestSkeleton]

a jammer is equivalent to a small child screaming at the top of their lungs to be as disruptive as they can because they're mad, making it impossible for anyone else to have a conversation.

[@tp6335]

Yeah and like wifi and Bluetooth, experienced parents and teachers can have a normal conversation regardless

[@NoL.E.D.]

This reminds me of so many 3 AM study sessions back at university while getting my EE degree. Thanks guys for bringing back good memories.

[@danielfurey3081]

This is exactly why I listen to this podcast.

[@tomstdenis]

46:50 ... FM works by measuring the distance from the central carrier in frequency and the distance is the amplitude of the audio waveform. AM works by transmitting a carrier and changing the intensity of the carrier to match the waveform (both need AGC to be nice and clean).

[@joshuaarellano6600]

As a licensed electrician I'd like to say your explanation of grounding and GFCIs was spot on.

[@AlaskaSkidood]

You need AlphaPheonix on the show! This woulda been the perfect conversation. Check out one of his recent videos on a better water analogy for electricity. What stood out to me is that the electrons we are seeing move and make power are equivalent to a ripple a few inches tall on top of an ocean as deep as the orbit of Neptune. There are a lot of electrons in a wire, and only a few of them moving does the work we get from wires. Also, none of the analogies work for high frequency AC.

[@GerinoMorn]

But AP is so pure :( /j

[@theminecraft4202]

the transfer of charges through contact is called the triboelectric effect, and yes electrons do move, thus making ions on either side. It's just that electrons moving isn't as big of a deal as Allen puts it, since relatively few charges are actually displaced from one surface to the other. The static zap is just the result of accumulating too many charges whilst being isolated, and suddenly discharging them using your body as one end of a capacitor.

[@Riley_Christian]

your the one they warned us about 🧐

[@IntoxicusFreeman]

Electrons don't actually move or "flow" It's all in the electromagnetic fields.

[@samburnes9389]

@@IntoxicusFreemanthey do though, you have more electrons on you when charged.

[@rmconnelly5]

Yea, cool, but how fast is electricity? (please nobody will tell me)

[@jarno30jarno]

@@rmconnelly5 Two answers, electromagnetic fields move at the speed of light. And electrons move only a few mm/sec (this is called the drift velocity)

[@lonewolfzor]

My brain is having a hard time dealing with having more than 1 episode per month.

[@ft6637]

Me too 😂 I am already 2 episodes back 😂

[@NitteFatter]

Like how you guys manage to talk about Chemistry everytime Nigel is out of town

[@filip3374]

As someone working with bluetooth and wifi, i can tell you the main reason why bluetooth is used over over wifi in some instances, and that is power consumption. wifi power consumption is huge compared to bluetooth, the latency is being adressed with newer devices coming out with that support "LE audio", The problem with latency of legacy devices comes from the fact that there is no limit in the specification for latency of media content as it was designed primarily for music content. Voice calls and stuff do have a limit to the latency though, but is limited in audio quality. Bluetooth speakers particularly buffers up quite alot of data before it starts playing in order to extend range without gaps in the audio. more buffer means more reliable audio. And if you want to play your speaker at max volume in a busy metro you better have a loong buffer.

[@TheMrPopper69]

Most frustrating episode yet, keep it up

[@vectoredwolf]

I agree, would love more content where they're just talking about things confidently.

[@theminecraft4202]

my favorite four members of Safety Third are William, Kevin, Allen, and empty chair!

[@theonebman7581]

I don't wanna be picky or anything but the chair is by far the best member Seriously the one carrying everyone else's butts

[@vaguelysomething]

You can create light by accelerating a charge. There's a good 3B1B video (barbershop pole 2) that visualizes this. I come from the physics side, not the EE side, so I've always imagined a radio antenna as a dipole charge vibrating up and down. You can derive equations for how these vibrations depend on the amplitude, frequency, and distance between the two charges. It makes a lot more sense to think of the light as EM waves and then imagine you see the signal on an oscilloscope

[@anthonyfn]

Nigel was great in this episode, he spoke as much as usual!

[@mrguyorama]

I have two basic stamp microcontrollers. They actually came with breakout and prototype boards that had standard FTDI USB-serial adapters, and the "IDE" software still runs on windows just fine. The crummier one came with the "Boe-Bot" kit for like $250, and is sitting right next to me. It was actually a fun little kit for me to learn some very basic "Blink an LED" style microcontroller stuff, especially for someone more interested in computer programming. The micro had a 20mhz processor, running an interpreted language called PBASIC, and had powerful built in support for I2C protocols and other absolutely essential things. They could directly drive servos for example. They were very good little gadgets and you can still buy them today! The $50 ones have 32 BYTES of RAM, and some of that gets reserved for I/O! Not bad for 2006

[@tomstdenis]

25:29 the reason DC was hard at first is they had no way to boost or buck it. Whereas with AC it wasn't long before they had transformers that could boost the voltage into the 10s of 1000s of volts. AC is worse than DC at the same voltage because of the skin effect.

[@PhilsJunkDrawer]

Still is no way to boost/buck at high voltages I believe. All HVDC I know of steps up/down AC with transformers, then uses thyristor valves and caps for AC-DC-AC conversion.

[@jarno30jarno]

@@PhilsJunkDrawer There are some novel converters that use a lot of IGBTs and capacitors in series the step up and step down high voltages, but it's still more efficient to use a transformer.

[@calebvangelder1101]

This is my favorite episode by far. Just some guys asking questions and trying to figure out how stuff works. I am always asking my friends these kinds of questions and they always say stuff like who cares, and doesnt really matter. I DON'T CARE THAT IT DOESN'T MATTER, I WANT TO KNOW!

[@Cryowatt]

In this episode: The builder bros half-remember what they learned in science videos

[@twisteddman]

a projector using an lcd needs two fresnel lenses , one on each side of the screen, to straighten and then cone the light ,and a focal lens to reverse and focus the cone out from the projector. I used to make these back in the day

[@theminecraft4202]

About the voltage cross highjack thingy, that's how internet in my house is transmitted, you need an modulator and receptor on each end, but essentially yeah it highjacks and very subtly modulates your AC to transmit internet at pretty decent speeds (50-100 mbps)

[@PhilsJunkDrawer]

It’s also used in powerline carrier systems! They transmit a high frequency signal over transmission lines to communicate between substations for line protection relaying.

[@EagleManExplorer]

It makes me feel good to know that there are other people with engineering degrees (William and Allen) who struggle to understand or explain what are supposed to be the basic principles of physics. Most of what was discussed in this episode, I feel was covered in my Physics 1202 course in college, which, at least from a mechanical engineer's standpoint, still seemed like black magic. The mechanical analogy doesn't always translate well. This isn't a dig at William, Allen, or Kevin. If you don't study and apply this knowledge regularly, you lose it. Their youtube projects probably don't require most of what they learned in college. I'm waiting the the angry physics professor in the comments to correct them.

[@aarongagne8918]

@1:08:26 I used to use an insulin pump that used IR to update from my computer. super unreliable especially if you had candles burning...

[@spacecadet2663]

In response to Will at about 9:00 I had the "Electronic Playground" (likely what you were talking about) when I was 9 or 10 and I loved the logic gates on it. I figured out how to build some crazy stuff with those and the 7 segment display. Never really understood how the transformer worked though, because it was always used with the speaker and all of those circuits were black magic.

[@Animaniac-vd5st]

I love this format. Three smart, moderately educated people discussing the borders of their understanding. This is how science would start if you would be interested enough to actually try to find out the answers of all the questions you speculated about.

[@ibraheemzikria7643]

3rd year mechanical engineering student here, interestingly enough the mechanical analogy for electrical circuits and vice verse that will mentioned is part of our syllabus, maybe a new addition if will didnt study it during his time at college

[@Trenz0]

It's really only useful when understanding the basic passive components and even then lol. I understood it better once I approached it from physics and engineering methods. In my circuits class we learned nodal analysis and mesh current. In physics the build up from charge to kirchoffs laws and the pseudo mesh current method helped tie together everything from circuits. Same thing with caps and inductors. Understanding how those values work in a differential equation helped tie together the weird mechanical analogies for caps and inductors

[@davak72]

I’m not even an electrical engineer, but I was that guy that was getting frustrated haha. (Computer engineering degree and work in software dev). Also, true, there isn’t one guy who can understand all of the science and technology, but this episode covered simple enough topics that many of us do understand it haha

[@saltwt2735]

14:10 I have to agree with Allen with this. I have LOST MY FUCKING MIND trying to find intermediate research on astrophysics and geology because the only stuff I can find is a website for explaining a topic to children and full blown research papers full of technical jargon.

[@JD2jr.]

I have that problem with basically everything. Electronics, it's either 20 minutes to say "P=IV" or something that expects you to know everything these guys were confused about. Programming, it's either 45 minutes explaining what a string is and teaching you how to output "hello world", or it's a super technical thing that just assumes you know the ins and outs of 15 different libraries that the code is dependent on... Heck you try to learn to sew and it's either a 15 minute explanation of threading a needle or it's assuming you have a $1200 industrial sewing machine and a dedicated 2000sf of space to process fabrics...

[@saltwt2735]

it's LITERALLY the same with everything lol@@JD2jr.

[@gljames24]

Radio towers are the same as infrared leds. LEDs are resonate thanks to the internal chemistry of the diode, but radios have to use conductors to achieve the same thing. The signal is just messing with the power going to the LED, but it doesn't change the resonance or infrared wavelength of the LED.

[@DarrenLeadfoot]

Man I really wish they would get that popular KZbinr Nile red on. One day they might have the outreach

[@Jason-gq8fo]

I miss the zoom call with Nigel every time

[@felipedidio4698]

Heating things up is shaking them really fast, isn't it?

[@mellertid]

Yeah, but the heat is not caused by the sped up particles. It is the sped up particles.

[@gwathanaur]

It is

[@xZangHD]

@26:20 the reason is because if an electrical or other conductive unit(piece of metal) has a different earth potential than the circuit it's on, you get zapped. By law in my country (Norway) the least amout of touchable voltage that is "allowed" is 50VAC or 100VDC. So that's why it's very important to not separate earth connections. Example: Your plumbing is connected to earth, your circuit to your bathroom has faulty earth, caretaker want to dry her hair, while holding the dryer and touching metal piece on said dryer, she puts her other hand on the sink/tap (why? because humans does these things.) now caretaker gets blasted with faulty earth potential from arm to arm, electrocuting her through the heart (the heart doesn't like 50/60Hz). Keep in mind that a human being can withstand 30mA for 0,5 seconds without any damage, anything beyond that you can get seriously injured. Typically your wall outlet is 10-16A.

[@commanderv23]

I actually got Nintendo Labo. It was really cool for what it was. You could program them and make your own little games to play, and I programmed Bop It and even won an official contest and won one of the other Nintendo Labo sets. So I was the one in a thousand kids that did the insane customization. I made a mario pinball machine too with an indepth scoring system with like multipliers and a "boss fight." I still use it sometimes for the mario kart controls. The mario kart controls are INSANELY poorly optimized sadly but it's fun making your friends play with the awful controls and try to beat the AI.

[@chedderburg]

19:01 I know why, it’s to put suitcases locks 🔒 through the holes so people can’t use the device. Well that’s what my mom did to the tv when we were kids.

[@vectoredwolf]

It's what I did to my gf w/ the Magic Wand.

[@chedderburg]

@@vectoredwolf hahaha now no one will be satisfied muh ha ha ha

[@me0wsky]

This podcast made me feel better about not knowing shit.

[@PhattyMo]

14:43 - High voltage gets even stranger at higher frequencies.. Edit; An old friend/mentor who was a radio tech was once explaining various radio and RF things to me,and simply told me that "FM stands for F.....g Magic".

[@PrograError]

technology is magic to the uninitiated ... or just cavemans...

[@napalmholocaust9093]

The high power broadcast rattling pans in the early days was from weak receivers. Between 1926 and 1940 receivers increased in sensitivity by a few magnitudes. DeForest probably just invented a couple new vacuum tubes or something to account for it. He wrote enough books to answer everything. He sold little volumes by subject in home classes in radios and electronics. Something like a vintage copy of Amateur Radio Operator is about the equivalent in one book without starting with 101. You should see my Japanese military crystal radio.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

Really the radio is a T/R. It broadcasts too.

[@N0SSC]

Y’all just need ham radio. Sincerely, a ham and RF engineer who has to be the one guy doing a dozen people’s work. I’m beside myself at the bumbling through RF physics 🤣 In fact I literally ran into Kevin at a hamfest looking for junk to probably make a spark gap lol.

[@lordsqueak]

@40:30 "you can make a long wave length but just shaking the wire?" Well, yes. And you would be able to hear it, *whish whish* or *whoosh whoosh* depending on the thickness of the wire. (audio waves) Apologies to that one guy. ♥

[@bubblebaath7840]

We need an actual scientist to react to this and explain everything to us

[@vectoredwolf]

That's the thing, we would need about 17 different scientists reacting to it.

[@jahnkeanater]

An antenna has electrons resonating up and down. Charge builds up at one point and creates an electric field. Then the charge moves to the other side of the antenna and that current creates a magnet field that is 90 degrees out of phase of the electrical field.

[@35mmpistol]

Listening to smart people who don't have direct knowledge of a subject try to explain it to each other is deceptively funny. Their could be a whole genre of this. "A rocket scientist and a molecular biologist try to explain how to perform a minor surgery" or "a brain surgeon and a linguist explain climate change." Just very smart people with only tangential knowledge, frustrated but interested.

[@sommelierofstench]

this is the only podcast i’ve heard where i simultaneously feel smarter and dumber at the same time. thanks!

[@TwoScoopsofDestroyer]

No power is transmitted through ground... You have 3 power lines, and transformers that go between two of those 120° apart create one AC phase with the neutral and ground attached to the middle of the secondary transformer coil, all the power goes back through the neutral to the transformer which gets it from the 120° apart phases. You can use it without a ground, but then if the transformer fails short across the primary to secondary you have thousands of volts in your home wiring. With a ground it should pop an overcirrent device immediately.

[@gesshoku92]

This takes me back to Communications systems course. AM got it, FM ok, QAM constellations . . . . . yeah its magic summoning circles or something.

[@dylanbuford9891]

The microwave in my parents house absolutely knocks out wifi on the first floor especially for the tv, also my phone refuses to load anything online when I’m within 5 feet of the smart thermostat which I think is constantly trying to find other nodes around the house but we don’t have any so it just keeps blasting out signals

[@vectoredwolf]

I worry you might want to replace that microwave... My router is literally next to my microwave and has no issues. The faraday cage in it should keep all those inside. no?

[@jarrodhoule8134]

A great guest for this podcast would be nilered

[@theminecraft4202]

the temptation to write the paragraph long comment is strong

[@lordsqueak]

@16:42 "that's the one guy we pissed off" that was a good one

[@Zacykins]

I love y’all’s podcast. I watch all your channels as is, but when the boys get together. Nerdy magic happens 🙌🏼😂

[@jacknikolai5416]

The coils of wire in a transformer produce an magnetic field, transferring electrons to the other coil, but without an iron core it does it very inefficient. Because of this there is iron core is made out of thin metal sheets because the skin affect, so the noise you hear from the transformer it’s actually the laminations of metal not the wire. 40:07

[@xQKUg9S]

Electronic is actually black magic, we live in a simulation. Now I feel good about my fail physic class

[@skkat7336]

The reason for the holes in the plugs is that they use them to hold the unfinished plugs in place while they put the insulation on Some factories that do it differently will have no holes on the plug

[@chedderburg]

My mom put suitcase locks 🔒 through them to keep us from watching tv. We just got good at picking locks

[@alteiraa]

you know it'll be a great day when you get a safety third notification

[@jmankman4671]

Fax makes my week

[@LuciaRose]

Excited for the Safety Third Safety Chair already

[@RND_ADV_X]

Nikola Tesla spinning in his grave so fast, only he could calculate the electron loss 😂😂😂😂😂

[@maulerrw]

I think dance dance revolution is a perfect analogy for Alan for frequency modulation. See you have the arrows coming down Which can come faster, or slower, but then you have different directions as well. So while each arrow is fixed when it enters the screen, there is a constant stream of different arrows coming down, and when you combine them all together, that makes a dance. Much like sending a signal via RF

[@ThatGuyPresley]

Lets get Jeff Gerling's Dad on here he can explain Radio waves and towers to you lol

[@qualia765]

1:09:13 I've done a little AV tech work and used some speaker arrays that are like >$2000 each which communicate settings information to each other that way.

[@Leadvest]

The thing a Van de Graaf generator is named for is the bell which acts as a Faraday cage. Like charges repel eachother from the inner surface. The triboelectric belt is sort of like the windings in a Tesla coil, easy to fixate on, but not the clever part of the device.

[@Kiever_Sloane]

42:00 was alen trying to explain the fact that classical physicals allows that any hot body should make small amounts of all kinds of radiation. but quantum physics came along and explained that we need discreate packets of energy. so there is a threshold to overcome before we make dangerous things like gamma radiation?

[@smithdoesstuff]

I love how Allen is just asking all the questions we all have! This whole discussion is how my brain internally tries to reconcile human existence.

[@final_catalyst]

The way I always saw ground was: Everthing "should" go from positive to negative fallowing the circuit, but if it doesn't hopefully it take the ground you made, because either way it's finding a ground. Essentially if somthing goes wrong you want the least resistance to be through the insulated cords third pin rather then the hosing and out. (through you or other things)

[@vectoredwolf]

I get that much... but I dont get why ground and neutral are bound and it's not a problem.

[@final_catalyst]

@@vectoredwolf part of the same explanation, I think. Basically the actual circuit is 100 (arbitrary value, to represent how much the electronics want to take that path), well the connected ground (our intentional one) is like a 10, with ideally any other possible unintentional grounds made only being 0.1 So the circuit really wants to be fallowed, but then our choice of ground is otherwise magnitudes higher more appealing than other options.

[@wtfpwnz0red]

I think even if DC is more efficient for transmission, the issue is then that you have high voltage DC at your endpoint without some convenient way to step it down to less dangerous levels. Which covers (imo) the two reasons AC won. 1) DC is dangerous as fuck. Love it for low voltage stuff, easier to work with etc, but AC is less likely to fry you and 2) stepping DC is a pain in the ass. If I'm not mistaken, the mechanism for doing it is to cause a regular interrupt, run that through flyback induction, adjust duty cycles until the output is what you want, then rectify it back to DC. At that point you've basically got a transformer with more steps and you might as well be using AC anyway.

[@JamesSStip]

This has been one of my favorite episodes. ❤

[@mitch.mac01]

In hospitals or places with metal plates around their outlets it is very common for the fixture to be upside down because if the fixture's plate came loose and fell off it would fall and short the plug across live and neutral. NEMA (who develops the standard for american outlets) and CEC (Canadian Electrical Code) both say the outlets. Can go in either orientation there is no right side up. However, manufacturers often print on them in the common orientation which makes some people believe there is a "right" side-up

[@pacha1500]

its crazy how they can go from a sentence about cutting edge technology to a sentence about how they dont know stuff they teach you about electrons and photons in highschool, the more you know the more you forget i suppose, its always entertaining to listen to cool stuff i had no idea about and a group of madmen speculating incorrectly how reality works at the same time

[@Wynkrs]

9:00 you say “no kid” but I played with my RadioShack set with the sprigs connecting components so much until I convinced my dad to buy an arduino for me

[@Wynkrs]

If you’re wondering why I was the kid who asked for an arduino. My brother and I picked up pretty young that our dad had some soft spots for stuff he was willing to buy. Very conservative on anything else you would have to prepare your opening arguments for court the next morning to convince him you needed something. When we found out he had some leniency on educational things like electronics, robotics etc. we thought we found the biggest loophole. Looking back on it it was definitely on purpose.

[@Dr_Hummel]

Questions like the static electricity question popping into my head at bedtime and access to the internet are the reason that I don’t get enough sleep.

[@wtfpwnz0red]

53:20 somewhere around here what they're talking about sounds like Ethernet over power (as opposed to power over Ethernet) also i didn't realize that was a "proper" noun until today

[@wtfpwnz0red]

56:10 same deal but this was a specific product

[@jacewhite8540]

God this was so painful as a electrician

[@dietzd6691]

Do three people who don’t know what they’re talking about know more or less than one person who doesn’t know what he is talking about? One person will only go out so far on a limb in his construction of deeply hypothetical structures and will often end with a shrug or raising of hands to indicate the dismissability of his particular tale or subject. With three people, the intricacies, the gives and takes, the wherefores and why not’s, can become a veritable pas de deux of breath-taking speculation interwoven in such a way that apologies or gestures of doubt are rendered unnecessary.

[@64Martin]

27:25 "A text file works everywhere" Even "just text" is band-aids all the way down :) Dylan Beattie has a great talk about exactly this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZWYpn1tg9GprNE

[@Leetium1]

Was thinking of this exact same talk. Just happened to watch it like 2 days ago.

[@sislmira]

I like that at @44:40 they basically describe LIGO for grav waves .. :D

[@final_catalyst]

What is heating up something if not shaking really fast?

[@mystictomato1983]

This episode makes me feel way better absolutely tanking the electromagnetic fields portion of my engineering physics class when I was in college

[@lavasharkandboygirl9716]

It’s so easy to forget that you guys are actual scientists, then every now and then we get something like this

[@agropokemons]

It's incredible how invested I am over a conversation of concepts that I have zero understanding in. It's like hitting some part of my brain that I'm not even aware of.

[@adrycough]

It is the inner scientist in you

[@vectoredwolf]

it really is the inner scientist. Lots of this stuff holds no interest to people who dont care how things work. But that's all a scientist is, someone who cares more than others about how things work.

[@sketchman01]

Apparently the 4th chair needs to be for ElectroBoom

[@vectoredwolf]

I would definitely watch electroboom on this podcast.

[@prestonfreeman1967]

i enlisted in the US navy as an electronics technician rate in 1986. When i got flunked from the program because i couldnt do the simple ohms law formula math to paper trouble shoot a circuit fault without actually using probes and voltmeters and o-scope...it was a skill i couldnt get my too young for this shit brain around. ANNNYYYWAAAY....the program had a section on AM radio and the one after that i never got to attend was on frequency modulation radio sets....the students had a fun acronym for it...FM=fucking magic.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

My recycled material shoes have this felt soaked in rubber soles. When new, the bottom was basically felt. For a month I was throwing large enough sparks to leave pin point burns on my fingertips. Yelped F! in a store touching the counter loud enough that 20 people stopped and swung around spooked. Didn't say anything. Doubt they'd believe it was bright enough to see. You can figure voltage by what each inch needs to reach breakdown voltage in air. They were 3/4th of an inch max. I think.... I think it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15kv, if an inch is 22kv (don't quote me, it is probably wrong but ballpark).

[@Tunkkis]

That 0 g 3D printer sounds a lot like how radiotherapy is sometimes administered from different angles to minimize dosage in the surrounding tissue, and a concentrated dose in the tumor.

[@napalmholocaust9093]

The light programmable chips are in some 80's to early 90's slot machine motherboards. I might have some, not all the boards sold on ebay.