The First Plastic - Objectivity 161

[@osmanika8741]

The footage on this channel will a part of history forever

[@simonroebuck7145]

Keith should really start to do audio books, quite a calming voice he has.

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

He could read all those old records for us!

[@etmax1]

Palladium is used a lot in PCB (printed circuit board) manufacture, they start off with a glass fibre reinforced epoxy sheet and they need to plate it with copper and apparently you get a much stronger plating adhesion of palladium to epoxy and then you can more easily plate that surface with copper.

[@joshridderhoff2050]

Hey, it’s the Palladium from the Periodic Videos episode on Palladium; first object I’ve seen twice! If I recall from the other video, they analyzed the ingots & said one was Platinum and the other was Palladium.

[@lukacrnomarkovic8172]

Now you have to make a video on that Royal Society secret treasure room!

[@Noise-Bomb]

I love these videos. It's like a little glimp at the past of research.

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

Hello to the past. 🔥

[@xGaLoSx]

KEITH! Thank god!

[@shiddy.]

seeing these things like this is amazing - thank you

[@PhilBoswell]

There's a story, which might be an urban legend, about how in the early days of large-scale preparation of a plastic-which one escapes my memory right now-the byproducts built up in the preparation chamber so that every so often the process had to be stopped to clean them out. The story goes that someone forgot with consequences that looked disastrous because the shed containing the process blew apart, even though the actual equipment was OK: however it turned out to be quicker to bolt the shed back together and start the process up again with the now-clean equipment than it had been to laboriously shut everything down, clean it out by hand, and start it up again equally laboriously. So from then on it became the practice to carry on producing the end product while monitoring the buildup of the byproducts, and every now and again let them blow themselves up in a semi-controlled fashion while keeping soft and squishy personnel at a safe distance. If anybody could confirm or deny this story, I would be grateful: I cannot now recall where I originally heard it but it would be great fun if it turned out to be true ;-)

[@jeremybuchanan4759]

google "plastic manufacturing explosion" ... seems unlikely

[@RMoribayashi]

You reminded me of a story my dad used to tell a half century ago. While he was a quality control foreman for Rohm and Hass Chemicals a senior chemist in a different division, despite having both experience and a careful briefing, let a large kettle filled of plastic go completely solid (I believe it was around two stories tall). Unfortunately there was no procedure that could remove the plastic without destroying the container. It was not simply a matter of re-doing the test since the unstable components would be useless by the time repaired were completed. The whole testing program was delayed while the kettle, still filled with useless product, had to be allowed to stabilize, removed then replaced with a new fixture. Of course, the chemist was fired.

[@Eliphas_Leary]

A little bit of nostalgia: it would've been great to open this video with Pete sitting between the two, starting with "What I got here is a very old sample of Paladium..." and then describing the metal.

[@chicoktc]

I would love a video about some really recent stuff the royal society received recently, or whatever it is they are up to now

[@huawafabe]

I think Brady is secretly being prepared for becoming Keith's successor some day :D

[@neruneri]

I would not be surprised if Brady's channels actually does lead to a future successor of Keith being inspired to go into the fields because of the videos.

[@maverick6627]

@3.08 I believe it is a lamination defect in the crystalline structure of the metal. Can be common in poor quality steels .

[@donaldasayers]

So what is the lid of the bottle that holds the polyethylene molded out of? An earlier plastic, bakelite made since 1907. You meant first thermoplastic not first plastic.

[@cesarperez970]

Crazy to think that plastic hasn’t even had its 100th anniversary yet it is used in many everyday essentials!

[@jamesedmonds7519]

And already polluting the planet.

[@gustavth1]

Nice videos! Is there any information on how he produced palladium in the library?

[@paulabraham2550]

I'd be pretty sure he didn't. He almost certainly did it in the lab. ;-)

[@Chocolatebunting]

Fantastic!

[@dexterous5892]

Why did I just now realise that Keith sounds exactly like Richmond from the IT Crowd?

[@nishant16781]

the next trendy THING will be *Graphene*, I guess

[@JoylessHumper]

I'd imagine Lithium due to its use in batteries and with how ubiquitous batteries have become. Materials like graphene can bolster batteries, but lithium is the star of the show.

[@Goodvvine]

silicon chips?

[@kingjames4886]

and it'll just be a piece of tape...

[@koolguy728]

Nah graphenes too expensive to manufacture

[@doohuh]

I LOVE KEITH

[@Satchboy71]

At 3:56 that wasn't really a denial that there isn't a camber full of gems. :D

[@PinkChucky15]

It’s pretty awesome to see how it began :-)

[@CrowArchLane]

Can you interview Keith? I'd like to know more about him

[@KelseyThornton]

Surely the title of "first plastic" goes to Bakelite - manufactured in 1907. This might be the first polymer plastic...

[@PastPresented]

What about Celluloid (mid-19th century)?

[@KelseyThornton]

PastPresented good point - I'd forgotten that one! Was thinking more of widely used plastics.

[@jmchez]

Yeah, bakelite and celluloid were the first thing that came to mind. By the 1930's when the plastic shown was made, phones were being made with bakelite by the hundreds of thousands.

[@paulabraham2550]

Polyethylene actually predates Bakelite (it was first synthesised in the 1890s). The industrial scale process wasn't developed until much later, however, and in that Bakelite beats it by a mile.

[@KelseyThornton]

Yes. I was suggesting Bakelite was the first one to be manufactured in useful quantities. Celluloid is earlier but much more limited in its application.

[@naota3k]

How did these previous scientists know that something (a metal, for instance) was a new metal? I can't imagine primitive microscopes would have helped *too* much. How were they able to discern a pure element from an alloy like something made of steel or brass?

[@NBFman1991]

Even modern microscopes aren't really going to help differentiate between metals - at least not as effectively as other methods. Both back then and now, we can use physical properties such as density, ductility, conductivity, etc. to help tell some differences between two samples of metal. Additionally, chemical properties can be tested by observing how the sample will react with a variety of other compounds. If you can see evidence that one metal sample is significantly different than any previously tested metals, you can be fairly certain that you have a new metal. Alloys would be more complicated. I would imagine that they would try to heat up and separate the different components so that the pure elements could then be tested for their identity by the same methods I mentioned earlier. I would also imagine that after enough use of certain alloys, their unique characteristics would be known by people who used them frequently, and they could probably accurately determine the composition of an unknown alloy without too much trouble.

[@Tapecutter59]

Melt it, if it gives off a gas or seperates into more than one liquid layer, it's not an element.

[@carnsoaks1]

Graphylene (ptp & tm) &or Hydroxl-Graphelite (ptp & tm)

[@BurnabyAlex]

6:40 I'm sure graphene and carbon structured materials are next.

[@JamieJamez]

At what point does something that was given to the Royal Society to be a consumable, suddenly become something that needed to be preserved?

[@stephensheppard]

Keith's lavender gloves! These require further investigation/explanation.

[@cgaccount3669]

Did they get a sample of nitroglycerin when it was discovered? 💥

[@metaparcel]

Keith knows how to do the Johnny Carson thing and go along with a joke.

[@matiasocarez]

And now we have traces of plastic in our blood 💕

[@Aravzil]

Keith is so funny haha

[@WetaMantis]

Isn't palladium very expensive?

[@WetaMantis]

John Dee It does not seem to be under a lot of security.

[@Terri_MacKay]

I want a job where my title is Keeper of Information and Really Interesting Stuff. 😄😄

[@turtle2720]

Rule number 1: You do not speak about the Mystery Metal Vault of the Royal Society. Rule number 2: You do not speak about the Mystery Metal Vault of the Royal Society.

[@bikejoede]

Next? Bradyum!

[@Croxmata]

This much Palladium must be worth a lot of money.

[@helmut666kohl]

Yeah it's quite expensive these days. And also this batch is from the very guy who discovered it… I'd love to have a ring made from it :-)

[@markiangooley]

London palladium!

[@stuehleruecker]

Are they sitting in the council room?? Even most members are not allowed in there. Maybe one day Brady will be a member.

[@ArnimSommer]

Of course there is a vault of precious gemstones! But precious only in a scientific way...

[@illustriouschin]

Everything in the 21st century will be made out of one weird trick from clickbait vids.

[@Robert_McGarry_Poems]

Palladium, plastic, electrons, Quantum states.

[@hoboman444]

The current trendy yet awesome material? Carbon Fiber.

[@chillsahoy2640]

Next? Unobtanium. Don't worry, James Cameron has got it covered.

[@steve1978ger]

next: how to clean all that plastic from the bloody oceans before we poison ourselves.

[@dansv1]

"What will it be next": ionic liquids.

[@MmeHyraelle]

What will be next : I say silicon semi-conductor mastery. Aka computers.

[@MNalias]

It's.... the FUTURE!

[@Veptis]

301 viewers back?

[@artmankind]

paladamick, not paladaiemy

[@lucidmoses]

"what would it be next".... My guess is carbon fiber.

[@dannyhanny1191]

Some of us regularly use carbon fiber products multiple times a week - and we don't understand why it isn't more prevalent yet. The Chinese have perfected mass-manufacturing of CF products, but for some reason much of the world still sees it as too expensive of a manufacturing process to work with. I'd agree that CF could be the material for the first-half of this century, where-as it seems to me that Aluminum was the pivotal substance of the first half of the 20th century, and plastics/polymers were that substance for the second half.

[@alexandreconlon8990]

I'm under the impression that carbon fibre isn't more widely used is in part due to it being expensive and that there's no way of recycling, or using, the off cuts. I might be completely off about this though.

[@dannyhanny1191]

Unfortunately, the typical British and American manufacturing strategies is to call it 'exotic,' and charge a lot of money for it to pay for their time. And that's all well and fine for exotic cars that show off the carbon fiber - where all strands need to be neatly laid to show off to the customers. But in numerous other areas, the Chinese are pumping out a number of carbon fiber products (not cars) that are generally well-regarded, if not highly regarded, and they're doing it for very little money considering the complexities of the designs. I think it's still just a cultural thing where most countries don't have companies who have the expertise or specialization. The way to do it seems to be to design the 'X' - whatever it is - and to have it then produced in China. If the market and numbers are big enough, they can do it cheap enough.

[@ethan_martin]

"Ad in 360 seconds" k. xD

[@josephgioielli]

This video is really about palladium, very little about plastic. No real information.

[@batya7]

"What will it be next?l" Look to biologicals, Brady.

[@primerim2799]

what's in the bOOOOOOOOOOxx?

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

The "new silver" indeed. Contemptible fraud!

[@aysheep]

First comment on a video about being “ the first”

[@TPLeatherworks]

Second

[@randomisedrandomness]

first???