How Mortal Engines Could Put a City on Wheels

Mortal Engines brings us a world where cities roam on giant wheels, but how could this work? Kyle does some heavy lifting on this week's Because Science!
This video sponsored by Universal Pictures and Mortal Engines
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Because Science every Thursday.
Learn more:
• NASA CRAWLER TRANSPORTER: bit.ly/2KGfzdk
• UK ELECTRICAL CONSUMPTION STATS: bit.ly/2FOwUln

[@sudonim7552]

Tokyo Drift except this time Tokyo is literally drifting

[@yeetman4953]

Name Name lol nice meme

[@rot_studios]

haha nice one :D

[@reverendbluejeans1748]

🤣 Your aving a Turkish mate

[@alcoholcat6779]

Name Name you stole this

[@brandonchan5387]

@Kuromori Tokyo also probably sank under the rising sea levels, so good luck with that.

[@paulstallings1177]

As an engineer, it's not the weight, but rather the inertial forces of trying to start, stop and the changing direction of that amount of mass exceeding our current material strength technologies.

[@becausescience]

Good point! -- kH

[@TheReaverKane]

Not only that, but there's topography to negotiate, i doubt that NASA crawlers can negotiate a hill, plus even if possible, how would it climb a hill... It would need to flex, or have dozens to hundreds of meters of suspension allowance so that all tracks along it's length would have traction Either way this would put a lot of stress on it's superstructure, more than i think it would handle. Not to mention the vibrations from the engines and the movement would mean that the city would be suffering a constant "earthquake" which would likely cause the whole thing to collapse in a few months if not weeks or days.

[@supremeirohnic]

Every time the city stopped it would look like the Battlestar Galactica (new version) after its last jump thanks to all the deteriorating structural joints that incur damage as the vehicle traverses rough terrain and then steps on the brakes. Ripple ripple!

[@billgoldberg5459]

no

[@notbob555]

@@TheReaverKane When alone, the Nasa crawlers can handle hills of somewhat decent slopes. What they do is raise one end of it to counter the slope so the top remains perfectly level at all times. Naturally, it has a limit to how steep the hill can be, and this functionality would stop working if you tried to combine them together like this. You would need the entire base of the city to be what is adjusted according to the slope in order to keep everything level. And that would be a lot harder to engineer.

[@TwojaStaraIFrytki]

When you read in the book that there are cities bigger then London....

[@joemiskowitz2669]

Saw the movie last night and it's awesome. What book should I start with?

[@AidanPayday]

@@joemiskowitz2669 the first one is called mortal engines. The books are written by Phillip Reeve

[@Saipan2297]

Oof

[@kennuuthswansun3379]

I legit just got to the chapter where they talk about the Panzer whatever and I’m trying really hard to get information without spoiling the book

[@weq150]

@@kennuuthswansun3379 besides the novel series theres like artbooks and in universe guides to the major citys you can get. cant say if they have spoilers tho cause i dont own them

[@jessekookooo]

So the city goes at 90mph? That means whenever its moving there would be 90mph winds in the city which is worse than most hurricanes

[@Tempestan]

Then imagine if it ever came to a full stop rather suddenly.

[@xMemn0nx]

Its actually moving closer to 300kmh. The VFX supervisor was interviewed by Adam on Tested and said so. They animated the city at that speed

[@YulianBrickPrime]

Hurricane María had winds of 175mph and my house still intact. (Concrete house, obviously)

[@tubegirl1013]

Maybe, just maybe, they have windscreens

[@justinmartin4282]

Kyle only took into account the trailer, and not the Mortal Engines book, where London captures the city going at a top speed of around 80kph

[@ace0736]

Hey Kyle the NASA engineers have said that they can make the crawler move faster but when moving hundreds of millions of dollars you need to be as careful as possible

[@kysier6015]

This^ though by faster I don't think they mean anywhere near the speed of the cities in the movie. More like 10-15kph at most.

[@JadedSapphire]

I remember them saying as much on an episode of Dirty Jobs. I've always wondered since what the top speed of a Crawler actually is?

[@Artaimus]

According to the wiki: "maximum speed of 1.6 km/h (1 mph) loaded, or 3.2 km/h (2 mph) unloaded."

[@jackielinde7568]

Yeah, long, cylindrical thingies with narrow bases tend not to like having their lower parts whipped around at high speeds. They tend to fall down and go boom. (Thought that's the reason they were so slow, but didn't want to bet on my memory.)

[@Jordan_C_Wilde]

Buildings aren't ment to be moved around at high speeds either, just like rockets, the 1.6 km/h is a good estimate.

[@rcbif101]

Time to build a small village on the shuttle transport crawler.

[@lordkamquatevonpotbrownie]

No

[@calcaware]

​{makes villager sound}

[@emberpowertcg7692]

@@calcaware (ok) in villager accent

[@unavailable8813]

Ember power ha...

[@2000Meilen]

@@calcaware HRMMH

[@andyu69]

after they realise that the cities don't hold up, or when things settle down... Mortal Engines 2 - Demolition Derby

[@_Not_Retarded]

Such a waste. Demolition derbies should exist only in the virual world.

[@Worthy_Renegade]

i would like to washington crashing into moscva

[@Timmeification]

The city would make one turn and crush half of the crawlers by leaning to one side

[@weq150]

ah yes the big tilt. tragic affair that was

[@mrtommypickles8635]

The high speeds at which these large cities move makes more sense when you consider the geology in play. At the scales we're talking the ground itself may as well be a liquid. If a large city weighing billions or trillions of tons were to stop moving for any length of time they would begin to sink thus rendering their wheels unusable in a short amount of time. The heavier the city the faster it would need to move to keep their wheels above the surface. Hard desert bedrock may be more "solid" of a surface but even rock acts like a fluid given enough stress. Cities in more waterlogged geology such as near coastlines would need to move so fast that they would be virtually water-skiing, or earth-skiing as the case may be, just to avoid sinking.

[@lydiahood7725]

Or the reality of thing is the concept is pure non-sense... you couldn't have realistically giant cities moving on ground, plus seriously in case of a geological disaster they wouldn't make giant cities moving on ground, they'd make giant floating cities, its something already sorta conceptualized and could be viable, the entire concept of that story is pure rubbish.

[@topanteon]

@@lydiahood7725 Frankly, I'd say it would be easier to make cities on wheels than it would be to make flying cities.

[@rickbude3866]

@@topanteon floating on water doesnt seem that far fetched

[@lydiahood7725]

@@topanteon I didn't saying Flying Cities, I said Floating, as in 'On Water'. A flying city would be significantly harder than a giant roving city on the ground, but a giant city floating on water would be significantly easier.

[@topanteon]

@@lydiahood7725 Ah, right, sorry, missunderstood. But isn't the case in the movie that there were loads of tsunamies? Would make floating cities a bit harder to sustain.

[@leefontaine2934]

While moving, London would be experiencing constant hurricane force winds at 90 mph. It would be crazy to travel from building to building while the city is in motion.

[@libertyprime4381]

They actualy solved that problem in the book with shielding and such, the exterior of the city was not somewhere you walked rather it was built with a hollow inside it for people to walk and move safely with viewing platforms so you could see the chases taking place

[@laurelwelch6295]

​@@libertyprime4381 Very interesting! I'm sure the various buildings would also break up the wind forces along the surface by creating natural barriers to the wind's movement past the city. Though, that explanation still requires the proper engineering design of the buildings/structures on the moving city to withstand the various loads on the structures surface (which would be distributed to the foundation, etc.), i.e. the same calculations done on skyscrapers on steroids.

[@ateuedai860]

@@laurelwelch6295 The whole concept of a moving city sounds like an engineer´s nightmare...

[@notbob555]

@@ateuedai860 I'm sure most of the population that was lost before these cities came into existence was from the engineers who had to work on them.

[@Karagianis]

Never mind the wind, can you imagine the VIBRATION somethign that big moving that fast over offroad terrain would cause?

[@phiinblade2293]

WHY DON'T WE TAKE BIKINI BOTTOM, AND PUSH IT SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

[@K1LLERSQU1D]

BabBahhaha

[@bloggerzen2892]

PUUUSSHHH!!!!

[@barbatosrex1087]

This comment deserves more likes

[@phiinblade2293]

@@barbatosrex1087 Thanks man

[@thomasborton4749]

Phiin Blade yyyeeeeeessssss 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😆😆😆😆😁😁😄😄😃😃🤣🤣

[@HawkEye-cm5wb]

If you painted it red it would go faster. RED ONES GO FASTER, EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!!!

[@SargeantDorito]

Paint some flames on London, that's how we get from 1 miles per hour to the speeds in the movie.

[@danielhammer619]

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHH!!!

[@cogboyofmars1575]

That sound like tech heresy... The Inquisition would like to ask you some questions.

[@dddf27]

Comunism?

[@Nempo13]

@@cogboyofmars1575 The Inquisition itself makes use of this fact against the Ork...why do you think they always push the Blood Angels to the front against them?

[@blackskullraven]

Howls moving castle did it.

[@AscendantStoic]

Because magic 😏

[@777Mikos]

*before it was cool

[@FlyingDominion]

That was on legs, not wheels.

[@blazedgamingkr1438]

@@FlyingDominion which makes it even more impressive if you do the math

[@Thor22289]

Utena did it

[@jcb986h2]

The theory of putting a city on wheels, in my mind, has just gone from ridiculously stupid, to plausibly stupid. But seriously, cool video 👍

[@neeneko]

Yeah, there is a lot of space for 'physically possible, but really would be really dumb to actually do'

[@casthedemon]

I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the trailer. Is this a comedy?

[@indigetes]

@@casthedemon I saw the anime this was probably ripped from more than 10 years ago and, if it's anything like it, it's not a comedy.

[@jacobthomas5435]

@@indigetes mate the book came out before the anime.

[@indigetes]

@@jacobthomas5435 Didn't know there was a book, and it has good reviews.... I'll read it later. Anyway, after "edge of tomorrow", didn't really bother to check it and, if the novel the anime is based on is based on this book, it's still not a comedy XD

[@kronnickusrex7832]

I remember watching a documentary about the super tanks that the Nazi were trying to make and the reason that they failed was that they would just dig themselves into the ground. I thought that there is a relatively low threshold for our ability to make something that can travel on track or wheels at speed. You have to go slow if at all or the ground will not support the weight above it.

[@oliverwilson11]

Super tanks are a much better comparison. NASA transport platforms only have to go on perfectly flat roads, what happens when you try to go up a shallow slope or across a river

[@D8W2P4]

The German "big cats" had lower ground pressure than pretty much anything the allies had, and in the case of the Maus it had even less ground pressure than the "big cats" so they wouldn't have dug themselves into the ground any worse than lighter allied tanks. The real reason they failed was because of lack of resources and factories that built them being bombed.

[@olluman123]

You need to revisit the concept behind tracks, why use tracks or catapillars on heavy machines.

[@nadarith1044]

That documentary was pretty bad then, ground pressure wasn't an issue, brigde allowance was and even then they were made with the assumption that they would just ford the rivers without them real problems was cost

[@Icetea-2000]

It’s not that you have to go slow, the slowness was a result of the lack of power. I mean the biggest tank actually built was the Maus at 188 metric tons, of course it would be slow. And also the eastern front had a particular muddy terrain. Though it all depends on the weight distribution. The Eiffel tower weighs a little over 10,000 tons, but it’s fine because it’s spread over such a large area. It just needs to not be too much weight concentrated on one spot and then vehicles of that weight could exist

[@fastestbasket4327]

*rip suspension*

[@Saipan2297]

Gpp-75 OOF

[@_Not_Retarded]

That just makes me think land vehicles are stupid.

[@Zeckmon3]

Exactly what i thought. Or else it would be a MEGA SUSPENSION

[@Gabriel-he6ih]

**laughs in Tiger 2 transmission**

[@thenno4538]

Ohh just like german engineering

[@wjhull]

That scale relative to speed illusion is why certain crawling insects look ridiculously fast, even though you could outrun them with a brisk walk.

[@adamlong9031]

Imagine you're driving London and you see a small hill in your path

[@temiajuwon8893]

And there's no way for you to turn out of the way in time because your a giant city on wheels.

[@fakename3168]

Or you moving city being turned into ash. The book was good.

[@MrAcerulez]

it would destroy the hill...

[@omartirado1721]

And what about the maintenance needed for the tracks? If they're moving that fast then the mechanical components would wear out eventually, what if one of the tracks gets completely damaged, how would they replace it?

[@solarsatan9000]

@@omartirado1721 make a second track put it in front of the city cut it's current tracks and drive it on to the new ones before using steel cables to bull it up to the driving wheel and spin them till they reach the other side of the track where welders are lowered down on window cleaning platforms to put them together

[@Slikx666]

London on tracks? Could anyone (eg. the English government) be organised enough to get it done? As someone who was born and lived their entire life in England, I'll say no. They can't even fix the roads.

[@scribblesmcgee967]

It’s in the future and only one person did it. Read the books

[@Abayas.]

As ridiculous as it would be, you could build a majority of the parts via 3D printing. Even now, 3DP is getting ready to move onto the stage of printing large objects (eventuallyany size of object) so long as you have the schematic. For example, the cost of building a rocket could decrease by as much as 80-90%.

[@l.lawliet2355]

your profile pic is nasty

[@SuperPuggle]

Imagine the potholes

[@joncocks2262]

Damn right. British government can't negotiate brexit. Let alone put London on wheels. We spend tens of billions on a train that gets you somewhere 12 minutes earlier

[@melotesoro8931]

I always see him as Thor.

[@Harry-bs1qg]

L'Oréal Thor

[@xkupi]

Thor's smaller brother.

[@stevenstevenson9365]

I'm not sure if you were using it intentionally or not, but "the City of London" is actually a much smaller subset of the whole of London, London City may only be 2.9km², but the actual London is around 1,600km²

[@Shadowpunk2077]

I was wondering about that.

[@aedanmacgabrain7251]

I think he was doing calculations for the city called London and not the separate autonomous City of London, but he used the wrong name.

[@stevenstevenson9365]

Aedan Knight although like I said, the autonomous city of London has the area that's used in the video. The actually London is considerably bigger.

[@EViL3666]

@@aedanmacgabrain7251 He's probably using City Of London (All referred as the square mile).. If he's not, then his calculation are way off!

[@deusexaethera]

I was just about to ask this. 2.9sqkm seemed like an insanely small estimate of the size of London.

[@anonymousnoone7035]

Now for the REAL reason this couldn't work: If you can't get a city full of people to agree on how to drive their cars, you're not going to get a city full of people to agree on how to drive their city.

[@Jehty21]

What you need is dictatorship. And as far as I can tell by the trailer London is governed by a dictator.

[@anonymousnoone7035]

@@Jehty21 Woah, woah, woah. Slow down there. Yes, that could work. BUT we're talking about people with road rage. Controlling the masses via politics like Hitler, Trump, or any other authoritarian? That's possible. But trying to do that when everyone has road rage? This dictator better have god-level mind control powers.

[@LyneaSilver]

Imagine the amount of back-seat driving there would be. @Politics discussion, stfu please.

[@brandonthegrey]

@Neo Politan They have this thing called "plotium". It's a highly indestructible metal that could work as pretty much anything. Shock absorbers? Check. Being able to hold entire cities on wheels without the foundation breaking? Check

[@Lyle_K]

@@Jehty21 in the book there's a lord mayor who runs the city. He is an authoritarian, and the people in general don't seem to care about where they are going.

[@theradioactiveplayer3461]

4:18 That sounds about right - In the books it was around 70mph

[@95GuitarMan13]

You didn't distinguish between London (the Capital city of England) and "The City of London" which is not really a city but more of a district in London, the small areas and populations you are talking about are for the latter.

[@gamingelementalist6725]

Sounds exactly like growing up in the Greater Houston Area but not inside the City of Houston.

[@Hippyganster31]

But what if it was the city of London in Canada 🤔

[@StsFiveOneLima]

Yeah, no shit. London, England has a population > 8 million. That's quite a few 747's........not one.

[@icarus1387]

I like the fact that in the trailer 2 you can clearly see people just walking and doing their own thing on top of a giant moving machine that chase smaller moving machine at 90 MPH WITHOUT a windshield. Plus the chase happen in rough terrain and the machine have to do necessary manuver to catch it's prey.

[@JoeWalker98]

Well the manoeuvre part can probably be countered by tilting the city when it turns by its suspension. Kinda like trains, but better.

[@zemerick]

It's even worse than that. His estimate was about half the actual speed. They said in an interview somewhere ( I think with Tested ), that the cities are moving at 300km/h which is a little over 180mph!

[@bigbrotheriswatching1190]

@@zemerick Ah shieeettt... those people would be seriously disoriented.

[@thepsion5]

@@zemerick Cleaning up vomit would be the most lucrative trade on one of those cities. People would be talking about the Sanitation-Industrial Complex

[@darkeriossss]

in the books, the first chase is described in great detail. it says: ""The town is called Salthook," boomed the voice of the announcer. "A mining platform of nine hundred inhabitants. She is currently moving at eighty miles per hour, heading due east, but the Guild of Navigators predicts London will catch her before sundown. There are sure to be many more towns awaiting us beyond the land-bridge; clear proof of just how wise our beloved Lord Mayor was when he decided to bring London east again..."" Philip Reeve, Mortal Engines, pg. 7

[@Veed.l0]

Everytime there was a backing up truck sound, i swear it sounded like it was coming from outside.

[@blackoak4978]

That's why many newer trucks are being given static noise for their reverse alert. One it doesn't travel far, letting you know it must be close, but it also is easier for the human hear to pinpoint the direction it is coming from

[@visfar101]

We built this *[mortal engine]* on rock n' roll

[@MrJugglingbear]

Ok, someone get Elon Musk in on this...

[@alex_inside]

But he is already Tracer. Oh what? The meme is dead? Well fuck.

[@felixtheking]

Nyet

[@BlueOvals24]

The last guy that would be able to build something like this.

[@walangpart2]

@@BlueOvals24 I promise you I'm the one

[@craftygamerlady]

Hi Kyle! Taking this further, say we WERE able to get the cities moving 90 mph. With all the rough terrain, even at the size they are, wouldn't they basically shake apart? Is there a building material that would prevent them from crumbling? Would it be possible to have some kind of suspension/gimbal-type system that large that would be stable across the entire city of 'London'? Thanks! Heather (aka someone who knows very little about construction...)

[@zamundaaa776]

Well look at newer cars with active suspension that you can just drive over really rough terrain without even disturbing the car by a single millimeter. If you were to take this to the next level I would think that you could maybe perhaps theoretically do it. But it would take a LOT of power and perhaps a really really good regenerative breaking (for the fall) system. And it would still require pretty flat terrain to work because of the insane size of a city

[@GrizzneyGames]

This conversation is definitely footnotes worthy. Lol

[@erbgorre]

@@zamundaaa776 yeah, but theres limits to that id say. something the size of a city rumbling over rough terrain at these speeds would probably equal a continuous richter-scale earthquake. all that vibration energy would just straight up destroy it, id wager. not to mention if you ever hit a resonance frequency anywhere. oh boy.. talk about a 10 billion Kg bouncy castle on wheels ;D

[@Ontarianmm]

As Zam pointed out there is suspension systems in place for car but to your other point. Building out on the west coast tend to be built with special metals and even in some cases suspension in the foundation to handle the movement and bending. Also wood is a great material for this too since it will bend well naturally if it remains damp. Either-way there is ways to build buildings to handle vibrations.

[@WarlandWriter]

Certainly not if you just picked up a city as we have them now, made for a very significant part out of stone. Stone is very brittle and thus would not be able to absorb the shaking. If you did some really weird construction stuff you might be able to absorb the impacts of the bumpy road using steel, but it would still mean that you'll constantly be flung throughout your house.

[@winterlast6451]

But can the cities drift?

[@leonbyrne1927]

Tokyo for sure.

[@Lucian_Andries]

Mortal Engines: Tokyo Drift... XD

[@26th_Primarch]

Deja Vu...

[@aroventalmav888]

Eurobeat intensifies

[@zidani.s6712]

😂👌

[@RinoTheBouncer]

This is my first "Because Science" video, and I really love how much effort you put into this, all the knowledge and compassion and how he presented it all. Great job!

[@oliverhathaway7248]

How did he not once mention an aircraft carrier - a literal moving city...

[@SageSavage]

Because it's not on wheels? Or tracks? Or land?

[@jugganaut33]

Also aircraft carrier is only 300m long. Containing 3,000 ish people. This thing was almost 100 times the size.

[@Gabriel-he6ih]

Would be cool if the P1000 Ratte was in the movie

[@robopope7584]

The Master Tanker no. Just nooooooooo. Humanity wouldn’t have the tech or need for tanks. Why would they have a tank when it’ll just be eaten easily. Airships are far better. Also, the cities literally have guns on rails in books 3 and 4.

[@jackwriter1908]

Well it isn't what I always wanted to know (not always), but i is very interesting. Couldn't you use nuclear energy instead of fuel?

[@pyrobob5724]

Yeah I thought of that and actually looked some stuff up and it looks like with certain cutting edge nuclear reactors you can produce the necessary energy with "only" about 2400 tons of extra weight. That would include 5 years worth of fuel.

[@samuelraymond5852]

Yes. Please Kyle. It would be ridiculous to try and run one of those cities on gas, nuclear power is the way to go.

[@jaminvanderberg5300]

That's what I thought as well. You have to power the city itself somehow, and you're likely not using coal. You don't have the space for solar or wind. Powering the city with a nuclear reactor makes sense. If you have a nuclear reactor sitting on the thing anyways, why in the world would you power the main engine with gasoline?

[@evenakushita]

I wated to ask for possibke threat upon those nuclear reactor, what about earthquakes? Cities on wheels may be able to resist earthwuaketo some degrees, but i still prefer the idea of floating cities over the ocean

[@jannelahtinen3224]

With the idea of the movie taking place in the future, nuclear fusion should've been the way to go in my opinion. This Jackson guy has come a long way on his career, btw #braindead.

[@Biyn_acc2]

Mortal Engines... Im sorry but that sounds like a Steamgame

[@Audiotrocious]

Inventing Eagle book series

[@steyn1775]

I agree lol

[@danteangelo9412]

It does, but the book series is one of the best there is. Would highly recommend reading it.

[@andresarancio6696]

Would totally play a game based on Mortal Engines' world though. Building your city, eating other cities, good stuff

[@drakeredwingofficial]

Kind of XD

[@geoffrygifari4179]

"Jack!!! where'd you go????" "Crap i fell out of london!!"

[@Anonimus-nb8rr]

How to put city on wheels Step 1. get wheels Step 2. get a city Step 3. .... Step 5. *pROfiT*

[@Chayat0freak]

I know it's been mentioned before but I want a chance at appearing in the notes episode. "The City of London" is a tiny space inside London. It's 3km2 of financial offices and it exists as a separate municipality. This is mostly due to historical reasons but it's maintained now for tax reasons, (it's a big tax haven and laws inside it are controlled by the financial organisations that exist in there, it's horrifically dystopian.

[@creepingdread88]

Yeah, the City of London isn't London. How can he think London is 2.9 km2? That's retarded.

[@dirtybongwater5751]

He definitely doesn't think the entirety of London is 1 square mile lol, but if you google "city of London size" you'll get 2.9 km2 because google wants to confuse 90% of people who refer to "the greater London area" as the city of London

[@phillipthorne8363]

If one wants to use "The City of London" as a demographic benchmark, its 2011 population of 8,000 is irrelevant -- as noted above, it's currently a prestige central business district dominated by trans-national financial services companies. Something like its 1851 population of 130,000 (Wikipedia), with a no-zoning intermixture of residential and industrial, would be more applicable to a nomadic Traction City.

[@Elipus22]

Kyle, I just think it's fair to say The City of London and London are two separate cities in real life. Don't think you said anything about it.

[@rosssidebottom9352]

Because it's so unimpressive

[@Elipus22]

@@rosssidebottom9352 I thought it was because science.

[@jagx234]

I was wondering if this would be brought up

[@rosssidebottom9352]

@@Elipus22 science doesn't explain greed

[@Elipus22]

@@rosssidebottom9352 Bruv, don't pick a fight with someone uninterested, aight? He used the City of London as a population database, meaning it would be fair to explain that London was built by Romans who wanted to steal the trade that the City of London was getting due to the wide Thames river.

[@Mary-fy8qi]

Really enjoyed this! I just recently read the book and I was surprised by how the trailer only showed maybe a chapter of the book. Not only that, it's not some "chosen one" trope fest and the main character isn't even Hester. It's Tom! I'm glad the trailers aren't giving away anything because I feel like most audiences will be really pleasantly taken aback by how things go, because the book didn't go the way I expected.

[@djsona5428]

OMG I loved Mortal Engines as a book, and now I found out they're making a movie!!! thank-you!

[@pyrobob5724]

How long have you been waiting to fit "Peter Jack-sonuvagun" into a video?

[@becausescience]

I was VERY surprised they let me say that -- kH

[@pyrobob5724]

Senpai noticed me 😶

[@Tallnerdyguy]

@@becausescience Should make a tee shirt with that on it. (and wear it when you do epic storyline BS (because science, not you know)

[@SchazmenRassir]

As you speak of why big things look slow, I have a good example. In Pacific Rim, during the fight in Tokyo, Gypsy Danger uses a tanker to whack a Kaiju. The reason it doesn't swing it as fast as we would a bat or a sword is simply because inertia would tear the ship apart (or maybe even it's weight could send Gypsy Danger flying) before it even has a chance to connect.

[@acemax1124]

This looked like a lot of fun to make and definitely watch ! Thank you and great job . By the way did you guys forget about super carriers and nuclear power engine's ? 😉

[@_kips_7133]

i could have never imagined a series i loved years ago could become a movie adaptation

[@sevenproxies4255]

Why only put London on wheels, when England is my City?

[@watchulla]

I thought England was a country?.

[@vex4531]

@@watchulla areslashwoosh

[@smartelephant7455]

I’m assuming Jake Paul is the ruler, and that his arch nemisis, Logan, is the prey.

[@thejudgmentalcat]

California is my city.

[@wrayday7149]

Yeah I'm drawing a blank here. If London were a giant CV. She could float away from the island.... Unless the built a botched ramp and jumped the channel.

[@Mike504]

The NASA crawler can go faster than 1mph they just don't. The speedo goes up to 4 if I remember correctly. Thanks Dirty Jobs.

[@pierrebilley276]

Using that valuable piece of information, we may estimate that in 26 days of movement at between 1.6 kph and 4kph, the city would have rolled over between 998 km and 2.496 km.

[@kevinarwood1897]

That would be a mind numbingly long war.

[@Allegheny500]

The NASA crawler was geared down because the rockets they move are very unstable standing on their tails until launched.

[@infidelheretic923]

Sure, but that’s without the shuttle and rockets on top.

[@VerisimilitudeDude]

@@pierrebilley276 I think you mean 998 m and 2.496 km

[@CursedQuest]

Sience is so interesting with your videos! I'm really excited of the mortal engine movie!!

[@oraculum3395]

Just discovered ya in my suggestions today, loving the vids..Great work...even some of me feels like checking out mortal engines thanks to this video., appreciate your work.

[@myself2782]

Okay, but for an entire city to be moving at 90mph over totally messed up, wartorn ground, wouldn't riding it just feel like a continuous earthquake, shaking buildings apart and throwing people off their feet (or off the side) until it's just one big pile of rubble? What kind of material could hold the cities together?

[@bryanthomas1382]

Yea, that's a thing added in the movie that the books didn't have. Likely because most people don't want to watch a 2 mph chase scene.

[@0hMax]

In the opening London catches Salthook, which is traveling at least 80MPH. The main difference is the ground, in the book it's a flat plain, whereas it's a jumble of rocks and cliffs in the trailer.

[@mylesmcarthur642]

great suspension.

[@alexbard4437]

The material is called Plot-thium. a type of metal which Hollywood runs a monopoly on and uses it to make things happen in movies which normal steel wouldn't be capable of. Such as holding those cities together despite the vibrations.

[@charlesloftin8768]

@@alexbard4437 that explains it👌😂

[@jim1550]

Why are we assuming a technologically advanced civilization would be running on gasoline and not nuclear power or thorium?

[@becausescience]

I wasn't, just using the fuel that the crawlers do. -- kH

[@venusianviking1733]

Technology is pretty stagnant in the Mortal Engines world, they don't even know how to use DVDs and make Heavier-than-air vehicles

[@justinthompson6364]

@@venusianviking1733 They might be able to use salvaged prewar tech. In fact, they would probably have to. Either that, or they developed more efficient fuel and engines out of necessity.

[@speedy01247]

Cause it's Steampunk, and this is not truly technologically advanced (compared the the prewar era) They had true immortality and Super weapons which tore the earth into the world it is seen in the movie. (though some of the survivors might have preferred death to the war) The books explain it well (the oil is actually made from shit the cities leave behind, literal and figurative shit it's an ecosystem of different types of cities and stuff)

[@jim1550]

Had to look it up. I had no idea there were like 10 styles of steampunk...

[@pinkamenadianepie8609]

Pls never stop what you are doing I love learning by how your teaching

[@JorjiCostava]

While I Was Watching Mortal Engine I Realised How Many Starwars References

[@kysier6015]

Just curious.. wouldn't a nuclear power plant placed inside the "city" produce enough energy to keep the city moving at a relatively fast pace? I know a 1GW facility produces 2.6x10^13 J/d in terms of energy, and I believe it would indeed fit and still leave enough room for habitation... though I admit, I'm no expert. Any idea? PS, been fan of your show for long time. Still as good now as when you didn't have your own channel. Hell. Better even.

[@andresarancio6696]

Dunno about the technical limitations of it, but on the thematic/narrative side, there is something to be said for the grittier feel machinery running on petrol has. This is why I personally think a lot of technological concepts we have today were scrapped when designing the setting, it just fits the animalistic "dog eats dog" world better.

[@hkr667]

@@andresarancio6696 Agreed. Mad Max wouldn't have the same appeal with Teslas either.

[@_s_9920]

@@hkr667it would of been a much longer film if in Mad Max they had to stop and wait a week for their cars to recharge on old solar panels or a jerryrigged wind turbine

[@kirknay]

@@andresarancio6696 I thought the nuclear aspect would actually be better, as radioactive material is a hell of a lot easier to salvage than gasoline or diesel fuel if your means is by grinding the city up.

[@speedy01247]

The tech was there and is still there, some remnants from the past survive and are used in the books some to greater effect then others (and some people also live very very long and sort of sad lives, but I don't think that was part of the first book, so this isn't really a spoiler) Damn, 100% need to go to the library and reread the entire series, it was good though the big change between book 2 and 3 was a bit jarring, I didn't remember them as the same series until I checked the wiki. (lots of things change over the series)

[@LucenProject]

10:45 Only 26 days? They're going to need some more fuel and resources. Bettter take it from some smaller cities!.

[@tutzdesYT]

For fossil fuel it would be HUGE. It can be perfectly viable for a nuclear powered vehicle.

[@brockbayley5279]

i remember reading the book to this and being so interested in the concept of these massive, moving cities and the society that surrounded it

[@valeniusthekat]

You look like Thor's little cousin 😂😂

[@x.x6052]

ever since i found this show ive called him science thor

[@rqn2274]

He could be rly hot if he cut that hair and be a bit less nerdy :)

[@bagochips1208]

@@dicktrolington416 LMAO. He gao

[@rqn2274]

@@bagochips1208 gao as fuk :)

[@mastertofu]

According to a video made by Nerdiest on that channel, he is Thor's younger brother because Odin in that video said "...and this is Kyle trying to pick up his big brother's(Thor's) hammer." so there you go. (The video is called 'Kyle's Dad Is Odin' or something like that.)

[@Boomchacle]

If this was Warthunder, Russian cities would have bias power.

[@kairndreamer2885]

Berezniki + German Maus Tank = this abomination of theoretical science. Arcade mode would let it move, Realistic would cause the engine to burn out, Simulator would just have it as a scale model of the intended project.

[@redshirt5126]

if this was war thunder, all russian cities would be driven by thousands of KV-2s.

[@clarencesiason8349]

Lol true

[@johnwalker7592]

People are still playing that shit game? Impressive... I thought all the moderation abuse would have 3/4 of the population banned by now.

[@corsijtsma3546]

Your in for a hell of a ride when we get to the russian battlecity arkangel in the sequel

[@rng_lord1276]

Correction, the numbers are ridiculous but not impossible. Also there would be a huge amount of weight added if you account for the need to make the city able to be moved and go over terrain, etc. Yo'd probably need a massive shock absorber for each of those 610 crawlers.

[@nicknevco215]

all science works on the improbable not the impossible.

[@tuxpheedo5665]

What about building the city over a massive bed of shock absorbers over the movers?

[@tomthomas3066]

Great presentation! I appreciate the usage of the engineering method and requisite brainstorming and creativity toward potential solution to the proposed project.

[@shardinhand1243]

damn, this was really suprizing and fun thanks my man ^^ *

[@user-ok4pk2mp3e]

Not only would it be possible to create a moving city according to your calculations, assuming all of the smaller cities were built the same way with several crawlers under each one of them, that would make it easy for the giant predatory city to reuse the materials from the cities it consumes. It wouldn't even have to build new wheels every time it expands, it would simply move the crawlers it ate to underneath the city and redistribute weight. That would be like if your dog ate all of the other dogs in your neighborhood then surgically attached the all of the legs of the dead dogs to it's own body and nervous system in order to support it's new weight. Okay, maybe there's a better analogy than that.

[@chriskerwin3904]

My dog does that...

[@kaspernbs]

That is the reason why they are classed as a predator city.

[@Korivak]

Municipal Darwinism is a hell of a drug.

[@CyrusOfNaias]

Poor city planning for a vehicle that supposedly is going to be in combat. It would also make more sense to have lots of smaller "town" vehicles rather than a giant singular city vehicle, because physics.

[@CyrusOfNaias]

And geography

[@markroberts3363]

(all book info)well it all started with one engineer who did it to get to the middle of Europe with London to be safe from rising seas wasn't made for combat just to move a bunch of people plus in the book London is like the whole of London all 200sqKM of it then other rich enough cities did it but countries didn't like it so a 60 minute war happened which blocked out the sun and fucked it all up bad so then you get to the book.

[@battleoid2411]

No no, most cities only have a few light AA guns for pirate airships. In the 4th book however, there is a war between the European traction cities and Asian static cities during which the Germans convert several cities into massive multi-mile tall mobile fortresses that act as an entire naval battlegroup on tracks.

[@HalfWolf2]

Of course you must take into account the incredibly deep lore within the book series over the course of everything, definitely helps make everything more understandable

[@youlackingcake]

Love the video. But you know- Air resistance terrain isn’t flat Turning Maintaining a machine like that Where do you get the fuel and electricity (there isn’t infinite fuel in the world) Other forces and lack of funds and material It would be much more practical to just have multiple small towns Count you imagine trying to write anything on that bumpy ride. Traction Sinking into the ground? Not to mention the winds you’d experience living there! So annyywwayys... like I said love the video

[@Gabriel-he6ih]

Christ, that thing can devour an entire hill. Why go over it if you can go trough it?

[@tomtatham5233]

London has an area of 1,572 km^2. You’re thinking of an area within London called the city of London. It’s a dumb name but London is a whole lot bigger than what you said

[@becausescience]

I know, I used the "City of London" in my calcs. It's the same as using the metropolitan area of Los Angeles instead of Los Angeles, which is ginormous. -- kH

[@Sturmlied]

The London Metropolitan Area (or Greater London) is actually not the City of London, that goes to the small area within the former. That little area is REALLY special and is the one and only City of London. It is actually a somewhat interessting history and the election of the mayor of the City of London is totally bonkers. The great and awesome GCPGrey made two videos about this. Here is nr. 1.... kzbin.info/www/bejne/gqOyk42Vfb-Ni8U

[@tomtatham5233]

Because Science sure. Plus the video would have been much shorter with those big numbers. “No. Because science!”

[@ToabyToastbrot]

The ground wouldn't be flat, so I think you gotta have a lot of energy going into destroing all the stuff coming up, too

[@ToabyToastbrot]

@staris84 might be, but I think it still would be a bumpy ride.

[@cgi2002]

Exceptionally. Those NASA crawlers only ever travel on completely flat and solid ground. The city seems to travel cross country and has next to no ground clearance. It's not so much as driving around but dragging it's belly around. A slight incline, river or rock outcrop would stop the city in it's tracks, yes it's weight would liquify the ground under it, but it anything this makes the problem worse, as if they ever do slow down, or god forbid stop, they will never get started again.

[@speedy01247]

well it can easily crush most hills and the ground has been crushed for centuries by the cities.

[@cgi2002]

@@speedy01247 that's the thing. It may weigh alot, but in terms of terrain, it's tiny, but at the same time large enough to get properly stuck in a valley (I doubt it could get up even a 10% incline without snapping it's spine) and since it's London it's driving around the UK, go north, lots of valleys, and terrain that may even subside/collapse if a few billion tons suddenly appeared on it, limestone isn't exactly the strongest material and the UK is full of the stuff.

[@iangolsby8471]

I've heard of a similar concept being used to create colonies on Mercury. A city (which would be much smaller because it's just a colony and much much less heavy because gravity) placed on the border of sunlight could use solar panels on the hot side to get power and living happens on the cool side to avoid people dying

[@realigiousrayne]

Nice concept, but it's the weight under it that's supposed to hold it up that wouldn't work. That much weight on a dirt ground would be a permanet residence. Imagine if it rains. ^_^

[@CapitaoAmerica737]

The problem isn't weight, but pressure. If you distribute the weight enough, thus, exerting less pressure, the soil can handle it.

[@DysnomiaFilms]

When a movie makes an absolute mockery of science but pays you to make a video about how it doesn't.

[@alonelyperson6031]

Ey, most sci-fi movies are kinda out of this world. Even the Avenger is kinda mocking science.

[@battleoid2411]

Nah that's nothing, in the books they have even bigger German traction cities converted for battle, so imagine a city about twice the size of London in the trailer, but covered in armor heavier than a WW2 battleship carried with a massive amount of cannons that would put the 16inchers of an Iowa class to shame. Or how about the armies of undying cyborgs that said battle cities fight. They send millions of troops into the frontlines Soviet Russia style, then when they die take the corpse and convert it into a killing machine to go out and die over and over again.

[@samueltitone5683]

I think it’s obviously a fantasy story, not sci-fi.

[@daftbence]

@@battleoid2411 Tbh not twice the size of London in the trailer as in the books they say London is a 1000 feet high.

[@daftbence]

@@samueltitone5683 It's sci fi, people just tend to completely ignore the lore from the books... This is happening in the future, when at some point there was a 60 minute war in which humanity kinda destroyed itself and had to go mobile to survive. In that war they used the Stalkers, those cyborg warriors, tesla guns and orher super advanced shit. Most of the technology got lost, but engineers of London managed to get some old Stalker pieces and revived some people with the "old tech" (which was of course old only for them). I'm more and morw worried for this movie as nobody knows the books, which contain essential info the movie most likely won't, and this will be auch a huge flop because of this :(

[@dragoonsunite]

The Russian Typhoon Nuclear Submarine houses two nuclear reactors, each individually capable of producing 190 MW of power. I think for a project of this scale, it would be more feasible to place 20 such power plants on the structure, in spite of the weight, so you could power the whole city, as well as the transportation, and not have to worry about refueling (At least for a VERY long time). Using any type of 'traditional fuel' would be rather inefficient and wasteful considering weight is an issue. As a side note, using the nuclear generators used on ships or submarines is more practical since they are optimized for weight and size in order to be practical power plants for ships. However, if you wanted only ONE power plant, and were willing to compromise size and weight to essentially haul around a city that was impractically large including it's own energy generation, the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant in Arizona produces a whopping 3.8 GW of power at maximum capacity. It actually runs at around 3.3 GW, as 'generally' you don't run a thing at its maximum engineered specs, but it can probably safely manage the necessary 3.5 GW. Now, I've been 'assuming' that when we factored in the weight of the city, we also factored in the infrastructure that produced it's electricity in the first place. If not, you essentially have to double all this, because the actual energy consumption of London is around 4.5 GW. However, assuming that production is already contained within the original figure, then we have no issues at all.

[@kairndreamer2885]

Anything else that can be used to minimize the weight of the city would also be critical to achieving this successfully: fiber optic cabling, strong but lightweight alloys, lighter plastics, graphene, reduction in usage of stony material and ceramic, etc. etc.

[@jimmyjunk3093]

Yeah but what about all the water you would need...

[@monkeymonk666]

@@jimmyjunk3093 It's very easy to engineer an essentially closed-loop system. Ya just hook your condensers up properly and there ya go. In fact, at the scale these big mothers are running on you could probably even have more power generation from running the river of recondensed water down through a turbine on it's way back to the primary holding tanks.

[@monkeymonk666]

@@kairndreamer2885 Also got to take into account the 60minute war happened a fair bit into the future, they had nanites, brain-machine interfaces, weird "clockwork" reactors that seem to be the next best thing to a ZPM/or air fueled fusion reactor or something cause they never go out, they had sentient AIs, Orbital Doom Lasers of some description (And various other Doom Satellites as well), and of course whatever the hell killed everything and Fisted Mother Nature into Oblivion in just an hour. (If it wasn't actually just the Doom Lasers....)

[@jimmyjunk3093]

@@monkeymonk666 There you go! Fusion! Screw nuclear fission.

[@ChristopherCricketWallace]

OMG. This was sooooooooo good. Great Job!

[@TF8ase]

That is incredible, and so very cool. I love that it works :D. Also gives justification to the idea that they have to go around eating other towns.

[@ToabyToastbrot]

Is there still oceans in this setting ? If yes, I guess It would be more easy to build a bunch of ships.

[@FarseerOfCearath]

There's still some water around, yes. Some of the cities float.

[@yeenmachine206]

Isn't that part of the concept of Girls Und Panzer?

[@leonbyrne1927]

@Thomas Mitchell but what if you get one of those boats with electric engines, batterys and solar. Just chill on a lifelong fishing trip with a distiler making freshwater in the kitchen. Just float until you see some guy coming towards then just speed the hell out of there.

[@speedy01247]

@@leonbyrne1927 till you run out of resources to actually stay functioning

[@leonbyrne1927]

@@speedy01247 yeah buy electric motors, rechargeable batteries and solar dont require much repairs so a box of spare parts would do you much longer than nessescary, certainly longer than mobile cities on wheels and tracks could ever do. If you get out far enough away from other you can drop anchor and just stay floating for months with no threat from people anyways.

[@boswcheydoesart1314]

4:03 Actually, given these cities "eat" each other for survival, I would expect the cities to move as fastly as technologically possible. We might even extrapolate to say these cities could technologically develop in ways similar to biological evolution. Perhaps a few decades later, we can see supersonic airborne cities, or cities covered in synthetic chromatophores to hide it from "predator" cities like London, or perhaps even cities mimicking my favorite self-defense mechanism in all of biology: that of the Spanish ribbed newt. This newt secretes poison before pushing its ribs through its skin, covering itself in toxic spikes of objectively awesome death. A smaller "prey" city like this could protect itself by creating its infrastructure in such a way that pieces of it can be launched into its "predator"'s fuel tank before exploding. This would "paralyze" the predator city and maybe even allow the smaller prey city to salvage materials from the larger predator before its immune system (its people) can mount a proper defense. I really would love to conduct the maths of all of this, but I have college finals to get studying for. One way or another, I'll see you in footnotes ;)

[@andresarancio6696]

Another solution for the sort of tactical city-to-city combat would probably be the equivalent of modern naval warfare. The city could deploy small (in comparison) air ships that act to neutralize the surface defenses of the enemy just to then send boarding tanks to neutralize its engines so it is easier prey to catch.

[@boswcheydoesart1314]

@@andresarancio6696 That's actually a really good idea! One thing I will say is that sounds like a heck of a lot of effort to catch prey that's so much smaller than the predator city. In fact, the size ratio between predator and prey makes sense in the fact that a predator would need so much space for fuel, movement, and maintenance of itself and its people, that it suddenly doesn't have that much room for its eating system. If that's the case, though, why would prey cities not take every opportunity to make themselves bigger than the predator's mouth? In fact, why do smaller cities not band together and suddenly we have pack hunting? I am not watching this movie unless they have pack hunting cities nicknamed 'raptors'. That idea is that cool to me.

[@becausescience]

An evolutionary arms race playing out in architecture! -- kH

[@andresarancio6696]

@@boswcheydoesart1314 That actually would make a lot of sense. The reason why there aren't that many giant predators and why pack hunting happens is exactly that. Of course one could argue the smaller cities could end up answering to a bigger city that has the infraestructure to process bigger prey (you would need a bigger "mouth" to devour them and turn them into resources), and in that process build a sort of "city hive" with the "Queen" being mostly sedentary while the pack hunters take down big cities and drag them into the queen's location. Aaaand soon we have a city ecosystem

[@boswcheydoesart1314]

@@andresarancio6696 Seriously this is hands down the best conversation I have ever had online!

[@BobVahn]

i think it was possible if they can make the city light and they have discover ironman arc reactor. But it dosnt really concern me though, what really bugging me is how the heck that red airship can carry 2 giant jet engine and even able to hovering in air.

[@fistpunder]

This guy always makes me laugh! Great video!

[@spicyonions]

These films are based on a book series in which it states London can go like 60mph or something. Also I remember reading them as a kid so I'm pretty excited for this film.

[@JimGiant]

2:42 "All those people don't weigh as much as you'd think... 500 metric tons" There are over 8 million people in London, and I'm pretty sure their average weight is more than 62.5 grams.

[@-jes]

Okay, I had to scroll down pretty far to see someone else agreeing. What's going on? Why didn't they notice this and why is nobody else noticing this?

[@JimGiant]

Yeah I'm surprised how few people spotted it (I scrolled quite a way too and didn't see anyone). I triple checked to make sure I hadn't misheard him because it felt so obviously wrong.

[@paulmoffat9306]

There is an old Sci-Fi novel about a city built on rail tracks, that had to constantly move West. Teams of engineers had to survey the land ahead, construct the route, and relocate the rails from the rear to the front. I forget the reason that was given for this necessity, but it made for a story.

[@xkupi]

Great information my dude thanks science.

[@DeMiGoDfIsH]

This was actually quite interesting, can’t wait to see this movie 👍🏻👍🏻🙂🙂

[@becausescience]

I love me some Hugo Weaving -- kH

[@coderdbd]

-Can you put a city on wheels? -Hahahaha, NO, that's ABSURD... because science. -Here's some money to sponsor your episode. -Alrigthy! Let's make this work somehow! because science!

[@DysnomiaFilms]

I know, this was so absolutely ridiculous.

[@blackoak4978]

To be fair, doing just about anything with science tends to be a matter of throwing money at it and waiting 😆😆😆

[@Dunduckuty]

@@DysnomiaFilms That's the point. Take a fantasy concept and see how it holds up. The more ridiculous the more fun the video.

[@CampaignerSC]

It's not a question of "if" but "when." All things are possible once the means is discovered.

[@MrTimothy1967]

Coder WINS the Internet!!! 🎊

[@generalskystrider]

I think 1 part that has been overlooked is the track width for the crawlers, for example the P.1000 ratte tank that Germany thought of during WWII was not even close to the mass of a city but people looking at the designs today think it might have had major issues sinking into terrain. Something the size of a city would need HUGE and very WIDE tracks in order to not simply sink.

[@jakstrieder]

Him "we're at the middle now" me "keep go'n"

[@godsoloved24]

Makes you wonder how much effect something like wind resistance or incline would produce on the fuel consumption for cities that big, since I'm pretty sure that those NASA platforms roll on level ground.

[@hkr667]

@staris84 You fail to address his point. He doesn't question their ability, he wonders what the effect on fuel consumption is. And as far as I know, that is quite substantial.

[@redpillreality6105]

I asked the same question. Wind resistance would become important for fuel when moving fast.

[@dergrossealte]

Why do you beep when backing up? Is there something to collide with in the void?

[@onyxguardian1756]

Gotta keep your guard up, the one time you don't you might manage to find something to hit. A drunk driver once hit the ONLY tree in the middle of a desert so, it's possible.

[@neomars7211]

@@onyxguardian1756 xD that drunk driver be drunken so bad to hit the only tree

[@Voxcast07]

I read the actual Mortal Engines book series and I was expecting the calculated speed of the city to be very different from the speed in the book but it was actually exactly the speed that it said in the book so props to the movie creators who did the math for the cgi city

[@bubenknabe2737]

Colin furze should make a city on wheels

[@abisz007007]

Ahhhhm Im pretty damn sure that London does not take up only 2,9km² .*Edit. The DISTRICT called "city of london" has 2.9km² The whole city of london has 1570 km².

[@12thmocha11]

Actually, by London he means the city, not greater London which has 1.572km2. It's up on brittanica now, litterally says the City of London, at the centre of greater London, is 2.9km2. I was actually curious as to whether he was correct or not and thought you may like to know. Edit: if you also just look up City of London, it will come up on wikipedia aswell, as London is generally used to talk about the larger area around it aswell now.

[@Halosty45]

Yeah I'm not sure where he got that number... though if you're stacking buildings on top of each other a kilometer high you can get closer to the right area but probably still pretty far.

[@abisz007007]

@@12thmocha11 I think they should have mentioned that "city of london" is a district of the city london. And not the actual city: london. The district called "city of London" of the city: London is 2,9km². The city: London is 1500km² and the metropolitan area of London has 8300km²

[@huinee]

​@@abisz007007Actually, City of London is a City, not a district. The thing is, it's inside of London. But both of them have different mayors, different City Halls, different police and different laws

[@12thmocha11]

@@abisz007007 I mean either way, the number he uses is correct. So I dont mind, I mean, like, what is considered a city would never be able to move, and every city I've been to has districts, so using the London district/borough is fine with me

[@nicholasmedich7493]

Two words: shock absorbers

[@brandonthegrey]

Or lack thereof

[@fashionsoulsonlysouls5575]

Or suspension

[@kairndreamer2885]

I have a few to mention as well... Wind Resistance. Metal Fatigue. Surface Tension. Hydrogen Fuel. Nuclear Power. Impossible Maintenance. Supercarrier Cities. Science Fantasy... ...And Rick Astley.

[@daniele7989]

I remember reading this book, never thought they'd try to make a film out of it

[@zeronolife5060]

by the way the term your looking at for the reason big things move slowly is called "Parallaxing" its also why things far away look like they move slowly till you get up close. Mostly its distance not scale, but scale is also a part of it.

[@mrmashalla9396]

Thank God that Kyle used metric units and not imperial

[@mrmashalla9396]

Manuel Sacha i know, i commented while being halfway through the video, so my comment is kinda redundant

[@simonmorley4816]

He used some of each, in one of the recent BSFootnotes he stated that he like to include both metric and imperial

[@becausescience]

I try to always have both because SOMEONE always complains about it -- kH

[@manekou3303]

@@becausescience is it weird that I'm now picturing with lords using feet and inches.

[@wyndhamcoffman8961]

I like how he uses m/s. That is both the scientific and the internationally agreed unit of speed.

[@IrishWristwatch0_0]

What would it take to make a flying city?

[@nhogan84]

Pretty sure Bioshock Infinite explained this. Quantum *somethingsomething*

[@kevinarwood1897]

Ross Cleghorn, magic... Ok but for real. Not a scientist, but I can tell you right now we don't have any form of technology that can do that. That wouldn't be sooo prohibitively dangerous. Looking at the devices of flight that I'm aware of, none of them have the capacity to be scaled up to such a degree.

[@nathananderson1550]

big wings, much wow

[@dustgold9514]

There is a flying city in the book but it is more of a massive air balloon.

[@kevinarwood1897]

Dustgold, yeah balloons were my conclusion as well. Certainly in that it wouldn't really be hard to scale up, but then I remember the Hindenburg and I realize I wouldn't want to trust my life to something like that. A hot air type would be relatively safer, but I don't think it would be efficient to keep them heated enough to float on such a large scale.

[@joshduthie3401]

Now do one on how long those tracks would last and how much time it would take to replace them.

[@nightwalker0669]

As I was watching this the main thing that occurred to me was wouldn’t moving towns and cities cost more energy than a static one

[@ajohndaeal-asad6731]

Make them fly an then we have star destroyers

[@UnderscoreZeroLP]

that's Airhaven, a flying city in Mortal Engines. Read the book man, it's 4x better than the movie

[@marciawilliams2499]

reminds me of the communities living on naval carriers in girls und panzer

[@deusexaethera]

"girls und panzer"?

[@baldy117irl]

anime bout girls driving tanks for school sport or somethin

[@TheGodEmperorOfMankind_]

Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well

[@thirteen8582]

Or Crome shelled regios

[@OdaNobunaga89]

Indeed yeah, there is a certain similarity here (even if its just 'put a city on an incredibly large vessel).

[@lordfarquaad6291]

You: Why would you want to put a city on wheels? Me, an intellectual: To make it easier to take the city and *push* it somewhere else.

[@pisahasra1492]

I had a feeling Kyle will backup at the end with beeps without permit xD