The Strange Cosmic Origin of Earth’s Most Precious Metals

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Precious metals like gold, silver, platinum, and rhodium are expensive because they're rare in Earth's crust. But are they rare in the universe? Why is it so hard to make some of the chemical elements? Where do heavy metals come from, anyway? Turns out, we can blame it all on neutron stars and some oddities of the periodic table.
Thank you to the following for helpful discussions:
Dr. Jennifer Johnson - Ohio State University
Dr. Hendrik Schatz - JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements
References: sites.google.com/view/catalyt...
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[@besmart]

The problem with neutron star crime is you can never get a charge to stick 😏

[@cooper4president234]

Ok cool (you’re the best you tuber + mr. beast)

[@MrPaxio]

nah the problem is that everyone do what they want when brandon's in charge

[@prim16]

Okay that one was pretty good ngl

[@moondevell]

WTF is this??? 😂😂😂😂🤣🤣... Let's not blame the stars for our stupidity

[@michaelfried3123]

boom! I predict this comment will explode and expand!

[@dMb1869]

I’m still gonna blame the people stealing converters. Those poor neutron stars couldn’t help their attraction to one another. Haven’t you ever been young, super dense, and in love?

[@gildedbear5355]

Yes, but not all three at the same time.

[@mr.boomguy]

Perfect comment 😆

[@brandonnguyen6718]

@Joline So Too young.

[@rise7056]

@Joline So why are you in youtube 😕

[@beaconblaster33]

@@rise7056 no gatekeeps

[@schr4nz]

Title correction: The crime wave we can partly attribute to a lack of Neutron Stars.

[@collin4555]

We either need no neutron stars ever, or a lot more of them

[@StyeAI]

No one would click that video

[@1.4142]

Correction: The crime wave is a result of the rarity of heavy metals, but the reason cars exists is because humans exist. Humans wouldn't exist if supernovas billions of years ago hadn't created essential elements like selenium, iodine, and molybdenum that humans and plants can't live without, as fusion can only create elements lighter than iron. The course of geologic history would be completely different and intelligent life may not have developed at all.

[@WolfgangSourdeau]

@@1.4142 but then sometimes you can pour some humour into all this...

[@schr4nz]

@@StyeAI they would, just not in the same numbers. My comment was mostly in jest anyway.

[@evanbarkman5786]

While it's definitely true that the heavier an element is the rarer it is in the universe (generally speaking anyway), there is another reason why heavy elements are rare in Earth's crust, specifically that when the Earth was forming and molten, heavier elements tended to sink down while the lighter ones rose to the surface, meaning that most of Earth's heavier elements are too deep for us to dig.

[@VeteranVandal]

On the flip side, reverting that would mean more metal rich asteroid impacts on earth, which we are thankful isn't a concern we constantly need to have. By the way, another reason to not use cars or combustion engines arrived to chat.

[@admiralkaede]

@@VeteranVandal just take a look what's happening in California they're infrastructure can't even handle the energy loads telling people not to charge their electric cars obviously swapping just isn't an option and the government isn't taking appropriate steps to build up the infrastructure

[@trebmal587]

Would volcanic eruptions be able to make some heavy elements come back to the surface ?

[@evanbarkman5786]

@@trebmal587 From my very limited understanding I believe both volcanoes and tectonic activity in general can bring some up from the mantle.

[@VeteranVandal]

@@trebmal587 usually some. Hard to make that in economically viable ways tho.

[@PraetorianAU]

All I want to know after watching this video is where do I get myself one of those mini periodic tables. I've always wanted something like this since I was a kid.

[@whittenaw]

It is a very cool one, i agree

[@neindanke3420]

I have actually seen similar ones on Ebay.

[@screwyourhandle]

Yeah my eyes lit up as soon as I saw that thing

[@benl8962]

@@neindanke3420 its pretty easy to fake tho

[@zencer8398]

@@benl8962 and the real ones are expensive

[@DonLee1980]

Iridium, the 2nd most dense metal in the universe, is very rare, and you won't find much of it anywhere on Earth, except... along a band of buried rock/sediment and around the 65 million year mark, we see this unique metal in small amounts covering all over the surface of the Earth. And yes, this metal is more likely to be found in some asteroids. And just happens 65 million years ago, there was a big one that came to Earth.

[@stevenkunkle3857]

I for one find it naive to believe we have discovered all natural elements in existence. Maybe in our backwoods hick corner of the universe, but the universe is mind bogglingly massive. And we suspect that the unseen universe is many tens of times larger than the observable universe.

[@iansysoev9462]

​@@stevenkunkle3857no matter the size if laws are the same. And how exactly there could be elements, if we can make them only by stacking more and more protons on top of one another?

[@kiwikemist]

​@@stevenkunkle3857not how physics works but okay

[@Xeamless]

@@stevenkunkle3857 as elements are decided by proton number, we have not missed an element, because of how elements are defined

[@colbyr7811]

Particle physistics don't claim we already know every single possible element. They know there could be more, and even think there's a small group of stable elements with much higher mass than the heaviest stable elements we know of now. It's just insanely difficult to keep synthesizing heavier And heavier elements. ​@@stevenkunkle3857

[@klikkolee]

coloring the protons blue and the neutrons red tripped me up a surprising amount

[@Ichijoe2112]

Why? AFAIK They were almost presented this way.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@Ichijoe2112 I was going to say it’s usually reversed but then looked at other pictures online and there seems to be no consensus. Electrons are green or yellow or even blue depending on the artist. So I guess my schools just happened to use a different colour scheme than PBS.

[@tony_mo]

Same for me, in France everyone leans red protons and blue neutrons. From school books to old science TV show, it was kinda always the same color code so I got used to it.

[@curiodyssey3867]

For real, me too

[@Splarkszter]

Gold rule: Only thing better than perfect are standards.

[@hughobyrne2588]

Ah, the roll-of-toilet-paper as a unit for comparison. Truly, the length-of-a-football-field of all-the-elements-in-Earth's-crust.

[@VeteranVandal]

I really liked that comparison too. I'm thinking of using it eventually.

[@BrokenConnected]

anything to avoid the metric system

[@brookmiller9806]

Wow, what a timely video! I need a new catalytic converter for my car, and I am unhappy with how much they cost. I can now be angry, poor, and knowledgeable! Thanks, Joe!

[@pappapaps]

Knowledgeable that I can get one in 60 seconds, thanks Joe!

[@fffUUUUUU]

convertors life matter huh?

[@MultiCappie]

I moved to a condo next to a train station (and a grocery store) six years ago and haven't had a car since. 😆

[@NC_Isro_64]

Good thing i dont have to worry in south asia

[@EyeOfThePhi]

@@NC_Isro_64 hopefully your bicycle doesn't get stolen!

[@MrMineHeads.]

3:59 That toilet paper things is so completely unnecessary (a simple ruler would have sufficed) but I love the fact that you still did it.

[@Rain_MG]

Americans

[@theofficialquicksilver]

🧻🧻🧻 cry about it 🤣🤣🤣

[@adb012]

What do you mean with "simple ruler"? A regular ruler or one that stretches from Austin to London?

[@MrMineHeads.]

@@adb012 I meant you can demonstrate the same length that of that toilet paper with a ruler. "If we were to imagine the proportional makeup of all the elements of the earth as the distance between Austin, TX and London, England, rhodium would only be a length of x cm/in."

[@adb012]

@@MrMineHeads. .. Ah, ok. For a minute I thought that you may have meant that he could use a "simple ruler" (say a 1m ruler) to show what fraction of such a ruler would represent the fraction of rhodium in the Earth's crust and I was "no way, that would be just 3 nanometers!"

[@drewishaf]

This has been a big problem since the early 2000s so it's a little surprising that this is only being discussed now. That's why scrap dealers require an ID and then log the transaction when someone comes in to sell cats. In high school, my friends and I were really big into building/modifying cars. I had a total of 8 cars before I was done with high school, 3 of those at the same time. When we did any exhaust work on the cars, we took the cats off and sold them to a scrapyard. Since 2 of my cars had V8s, I got 2 converters from each of them, plus another from a 4 cylinder at once. The guy at the scrap yard was really sketched out about buying them, but I expected that ahead of time. I brought all 3 registrations with me and filled out a notice form for the state. And since each catalytic converter was worth around $95, I actually managed to recover all the money from the exhaust work, plus some. On the other side of that same coin, I had some total moron try to steal the cat on another car a couple years later. I'd sold all 3 of the other cars and got a new one. I went out to start my car one morning to hear this super loud rumbly crackle. I turned it off and looked under the car to find that someone had tried to steal the cat. But instead of getting the catalytic converter (which was located inside the engine bay against the firewall), the dipshit chopped off the primary suitcase muffler. Never underestimate the stupidity of criminals.

[@ReiDaTecnologia]

y u sold ur cat

[@mcburbulicious]

In Lithuania where i'm from, people have been stealing these converters for a very long time now :D So I think the thieves in the US could have just heard about this much later :D The sad part is that they sell the converters for a fraction of what the car owner has to pay to install a new one. Some people even decide to buy a new car instead of fixing the one with the stolen converter because it makes more financial sense

[@Splarkszter]

Very sad really. Makes me want to install boobey traps on my car.

[@error.418]

@@Splarkszter And then the thief sues you and wins because booby traps are illegal... good times.

[@Splarkszter]

@@error.418 They can't sue me if they are dead 😎

[@error.418]

@@Splarkszter You're right, their estate can, even more fun!

[@jurjenbos228]

One more way in which Lithuania is ahead of the US

[@philr5129]

For anyone who doesn’t know the elements in catalytic converters are catalysts meaning they affect the reaction but are not products or reagents from the reactions. This means that 2g of that precious metal is still there after 1000 reactions

[@BlueFrenzy]

Nuclear fusion may not be only the source of virtually infinite energy, but also, the way to create rare but necessary elements.

[@stephaniewilliams6756]

No waste is best for Earth

[@joki1937]

​@@stephaniewilliams6756 Nuclear waste can be recycled.

[@Dani-ew8fc]

@@stephaniewilliams6756 properly handled nuclear waste has never killed anyone. and even counting harm done by mishandled nuclear waste to the enviornment it is still many orders of magnitude less than fossil fuels.

[@stephaniewilliams6756]

@@Dani-ew8fc youre a bad steward of the planet. Any waste is unexceptable, we must preserve the state of nature for future generations and wildlife bozo

[@IHateUniqueUsernames]

@@stephaniewilliams6756 Technically, nothing is really wasted. We only define waste because we can't figure out how to collect/use it (yet).

[@TheExplosiveGuy]

I bought one gram of Rhodium a few years ago for $105, now it's worth $600 lol. Between the price hike of my 5 grams of gold, one gram of Rhodium, Palladium, Platinum and Osmium, my element collection has paid for itself 😄. Makes me wish I had bought a couple ounces of Rhodium when it was cheap.

[@EroticOnion23]

Same! But it's a industrial-metal so depending on technology the price could crash (or surge) at any time...

[@wasd____]

Ounces? Chump change. Nah, to make real money you need to have bought some kilogram bricks back when it was at a low price point and held on to them.

[@gorilladisco9108]

I'm curious ... where's your house again?

[@perpetualponder6851]

His periodic table with tiny samples is awesome

[@bobtuckey2409]

Hi Joe, Bob here. Fascinating talk, I really enjoyed it.

[@bojangles5232]

ok turkey bob

[@BrigCommander]

Hi Bob, Brig here. Fascinating comment, I really enjoyed it.

[@MiscMitz]

Yup. I work in automotive recycling. We see this a lot

[@evlinalw325]

This has quickly become my family’s favorite go-to KZbin channel! You guys are just terrific and you always make some really heady concepts easily digestible! Keep up the wonderful work!

[@elias043011]

I love the new PBS content that's been coming out over the last few years! Keep it up

[@chuckjones9159]

My father was injured in the second world war and had to have his hand reconstructed. Back in the 70s when I was a kid I asked him what they did. He told me that the surgeons at the time had used Platinum to reconstruct the small bones in his left hand. I have researched and found very rare occasions in the past when it was used but anyway I called my family out west and asked them if they checked after he passed away because he had always told me to recover it afterwards. Dad was cremated and the family said they did tell the funeral home and requested its recovery but they claimed nothing was found. I really dont care because to me it would feel weird going through my fathers remains but I thought it was an interesting story.

[@biomatrix8154]

Where can we get the periodic table that u showed in the episode?

[@VioletSilence]

Already knew that but was interesting anyway :3 Your way to present info deserves a like indeed

[@davinci451]

Where does the Rhodium sold on the black market generally end up? Does it make some kind of circuitous journey and wind up back in a factory that makes catalytic converters, or does it go somewhere else?

[@AkaRyrye83]

Im pretty sure there are other applications besides just catalytic converters :)

[@c.augustin]

@@AkaRyrye83 Well, still catalytic converters, but not for cars, but in the chemical industry; and it is used in detectors. According to Wikipedia, 80% is used in automobiles, so chances are that the stolen Rhodium does end up in another car at some point.

[@altrag]

Most likely the thieves will be selling the catalytic converters in whole for pennies on the dollar to a fence. The fence will bundle up a bunch of them into a crate or whatever unit and sell them to a shady exporter (or perhaps a higher-tier fence who sells to the exporter) at a somewhat higher rate than they paid the thieves. The exporter will ship it off to China or Indonesia or some similar country with a lot of desperate people. The importer on that end finds those desperate people who extract the elements using whatever method they can (often including cooking and chemical processes that release all kinds of toxic crap into the air and onto the ground). Those people then sell the extracted material to processing facilities which in turn do some final purification steps and sell it back to manufacturers. By the time its gone through even the first couple of those steps, its no longer really possible to differentiate the recycled stolen material from not-stolen recycled material. Especially after its been exported. The receiving country certainly isn't going to bother checking serial numbers or anything like that before they start cutting the things open and trying to recover the valuable parts.

[@cherrydragon3120]

@@altrag you know a bit too much about this to be considered innocent mate :P I assume you have some experience in this chain of events

[@ProfestionalCrayonEater]

Jewelry I’d say but that would make it last for too long & if I learned anything it is buy again & again. I imagine car companies just be saying buy a new one with the stolen catalytic converter metals 💀

[@RantingThespian]

Yes! Long form content, that's not a KZbin Short! Thank you!

[@diomilmontesdeoca5815]

Yeah, I don't think I'll blame the universe for a crime wave. But loved the video, gave me some basic chemistry knowledge I didn't have.

[@slevinchannel7589]

If this Video made you curious, maybe try the 'Crime-Mentality' and 'Police-Issue' Videos of "Some More News". Very good Stuff.

[@smaz1400]

I mean, technically the universe is responsible for *every* crime wave

[@getafricanized]

I will definitely blame the Thieves!

[@pluspiping]

I blame their country for letting people be so poor and desperate they turn to crime. People who have financial security generally don't risk thefts like this. But poor people still need to eat and live somewhere, even in a country with criminally low minimum wage, exploitatively high rent prices, and a cruel joke of a food assistance program.

[@diomilmontesdeoca5815]

@@pluspiping nah, poverty is not a reason to commit crime.

[@johnnewton3592]

This video is excellent at explaining the basics of how elements are formed, amazing job.

[@kylacecilialoves]

This is your best video yet imo. I learned so much about how the periodic table works and I’m so thankful. I just want to learn more about this now please.

[@mebamme]

Why hasn't this happened earlier though? Are people just now realizing that Rhodium is valuable? Are we running out of it?

[@kaitlyn__L]

Covid, employment market changing, manufacturing bottlenecks, inflation, etc. More monetary pressures and fewer “release valves”. Catalytic converter thefts did occur before, but usually before they were installed into any vehicle. That’s been clamped-down on and some people are taking more drastic measures. Plus lots more people used to “cat delete” back in the day than today, which provided some supply as well.

[@oliviermagere]

Part of its cost is probably explained by the fact that it is required in millions of car exhausts….

[@Tinil0]

We really need laws that prevent the sale of catalytic converters without provenance showing where it came from. Near as I can tell, that would do minimal harm to legitimate people and pretty much only hurt thieves and scrapyards where they are fenced. It might slightly increase the price, but most people never need to buy one except the one that came with their car anyway, where the extra cost wouldn't be too noticeable. I suppose it might hurt people legitimately selling their own catalytic converters but that's INCREDIBLY niche.

[@funlover1977]

'We really need laws that prevent the sale of catalytic converters without provenance showing where it came from'. That would mean that I would be able to sell anything 'without provenance showing where it came from'. Agree.

[@jamesmelissawhite4807]

They aren't selling them as cats. They take the precious metals melt them down and sell it. Almost none of them are actually being sold as parts. It's just a easy way to get a almost untraceable materiel. Times have gotten harder so people are looking for that easy money hence the increase.

[@Tinil0]

@@jamesmelissawhite4807 I was under the impression that the people that stole them were desperate and just sold the entire thing to a third party who would THEN break it down for metals. Is that wrong?

[@ExistenceUniversity]

@@Tinil0 Why would the 3rd party care about the crime? Very silly It is already illegal to steal them, you don't have to make it illegal to sell stole items lol. It will only make it harder for good people to make and sell them, the criminals don't care about laws and licenses lol

[@Tinil0]

@@ExistenceUniversity They DON'T care about the crime, that's the problem. That's why thieves are able to sell them. There is no "good people"..making and selling??? catalytic converters. It isn't some backyard project lmao. The whole point in criminalizing it would be to have most junkyards and others taking in car parts to refuse to take in cats unless they can prove it isn't stolen. Making fencing illegal is not exactly controversial or new. There is a reason that reputable pawn shops have a close relationship with the police, to turn over goods they feel is stolen, because they are on the hook otherwise.

[@Roberto-REME]

Outstanding video, Joe. You are an excellent presenter (narrator) and your story line was interesting, informative and engaging. Really well done! Love your program.

[@RyanEglitis]

One thing you didn't mention is because of how earth formed, a lot of our supply of heavy metal elements is actually contained in the core of the planet, inaccessible.

[@happylala33]

Love your videos, they've been some of my favourite KZbin content since the pre-PBS days! Can I just ask, please, that if something is said to be about "the world" we include some resources from other countries? As a non-US viewer I've noted this about quite a few US channels / videos - references to the world or the entire earth that draw on US-specific data or issues. We're out here 🙂👋😘

[@Luanmm]

Yeah, unitedstatians think that the world revolves around them and, some times, that the USA is the world itself...

[@TJ-vh2ps]

Ha ha! I’ve heard those crazy rumors that there is some mythical place “outside” the US: where people put mayonnaise on french fries, even some that have “universal health care” whatever that is. Ridiculous! 🤣 Utter madness! 🤪 Next thing you’ll tell me that Mountains are real and the Smiling God is just a scary story on the radio. Desert Bluffs would like to disagree! But they can’t… it’s not allowed. 😃 ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD! THE GLOW CLOUD IS GREAT AND GOOD! 😵‍💫 ⛈ What? What why are you looking at me like that? I said what? Ha ha, more of your risible lies! 😛

[@mal2ksc]

PBS is specifically American-funded, so despite the smart content, they still have to cater to Freedom Units and our stupid habit of comparing things to buses or Olympic size pools or football fields.

[@communismisthefuture6503]

@@mal2ksc I know it’s fun to just make fun of Americans, but is it really so wrong to put large scale things into context using items we are more familiar with? Do other countries not use context? Lol

[@communismisthefuture6503]

I’m confused by your comment. You’re upset that the science presented was done in the US?

[@sciencenerd7639]

Wow, great video! Good info from the physical sciences plus a bit of real-world context. I have now clicked the bell icon.

[@jesunb8084]

Bro, you're so good in making me understand the periodic table than my chemistry professor that I feel you should teach in an university! ❤️🙌

[@karihamalainen9622]

Good graphics all the videos you/your team make.

[@bryandraughn9830]

How much of the rhodium in the Earth's formation winds up in the crust? It's surprising that any of the heavier metals don't wind up in the mantle or the core. Very interesting video! Thanks for all your hard work!

[@HansLemurson]

From what I've read, a lot of the precious metals in the earth's crust were deposited later by meteor impacts, and that a lot of the original gold sank to the core during the molten stage. Asteroids are likely to be richer on average than the crust of the earth in these metals, hence one of the attractions of Asteroid mining. Especially the Asteroids that came from objects that were temporarily molten, then were broken apart. Any rocks made from that semi-core material would be enriched in precious metals. Uranium is a bit of an outlier though, since although it's very heavy, it's also very soluble in the minerals that form Granite in the earth's crust, so there's more at the surface than you might expect given the early depletion of heavy elements.

[@OneEyedJacker]

Osmium, Iridium and Platinum occur in the mantle.

[@philipsuba6912]

i got my catalytic converter stolen in 2013 before it was cool😎

[@carmamd]

Cool! Love the illustrations and explanations!

[@danielrus7117]

Wow! Excellent episode! Well done! Loved it!

[@jamesfry8983]

Ah yes platinum the old catalytic converter theft, I've seen a lot of it here in the UK, I don't know if its common worldwide but somewhere along the way I read there's enough Rhodium on the planet to fill an Olympic swimming pool, could be a good mineral for future asteroid mining

[@clanpsi]

The problem with asteroid mining is the minerals need to stay scarce and therefore high priced in order to justify the insane cost of doing it.

[@laptopdragon]

I'm against asteroid mining...however I am in favor of building a giant baseball mitt, but a space-ball mitt to catch them and bring them down to the surface for more safety.

[@ActionJackson669]

It's very common here in the US lol. Folks steal more than catalytic converters too, if you are in the wrong area in any big city 😅 You could come back to your car on cinder blocks, wheels gone, converter gone, and if they can get under your hood and take a battery or alternator or something they might do that too 😭😭😭 I've seen some cars pretty fucked up, where they mustve had some time 😭

[@jamesfry8983]

@@ActionJackson669 That really does not surprise me, I have seen the thing here too many times I've heard of it happening in some place when folks have gone to visit relatives in a bad area, they come back to thire car and basically just find the tires left

[@SomeShavedSheep]

You state that the problem with catalytic converter theft is what’s on the inside. I posit that the problem is what’s NOT on the outside. Individualized part numbers stamped on the casing would allow tracking of the part. But industry hasn’t done that. Even though it’d be pretty easy to punch the VIN number in when the vehicle is being manufactured.

[@altrag]

How much would that really help? I mean sure if they catch someone with a crate of catalytic converters laying around they could maybe find the original car owners and let them know, but its not like the things can just be returned and reattached to the car. And its pretty unlikely many (if any) are being resold as-is. They're getting cut open and having their innards recycled. And a serial number isn't going to be terribly useful after its been melted down. The only real way to stop it would be to make the CC harder to get at and remove. I imagine that's not as easy as it sounds either as its part of the exhaust system and temperatures are pretty high. You can't really move it closer to the cab or trunk or other areas people might be touching without realizing. You could try to enclose it in a metal box welded to the frame or something like that, but that would cause trouble if you need legitimate maintenance on it. Switching to EVs gets rid of the problem all together of course, but I'm sure there are parts in an EV that are both valuable and frustratingly easy for thieves to remove as well.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

@@altrag could require disassembly of the cats to be a licensed activity, one of the license requirements being to record and report an image of each cat being disassembled + mass of the content extracted, and the mass of material tracked down the recycling chain. Wouldn't be a significant overhead

[@altrag]

@@williamchamberlain2263 We're talking about people who jack up a car, get under it with a hacksaw and literally cut the thing out. I don't think they're going to spend a lot of time digging out their license if the cops show up. Its kind of a moot point. The people who buy the cats from the thieves might have a license to cover their day job if they happen to also run a legitimate recycling business, but its not like the tools they use are going to be checking the license before disassembly starts. As long as they're smart enough to keep the legit ones separate from the illegal ones, they're pretty much safe barring someone ratting them out. (Never mind the pure fences who don't have a "day job" and their only business is dealing with stolen products). And of course this is ignoring the biggest issue: Most of this is done overseas. I can guarantee you some guy burning his lungs out cooking cats to get a couple bucks worth of profitable metal isn't going to give the slightest of shits about US licensing requirements. Slapping a serial number on things like bikes and cars work because the thieves are (usually) trying to sell the entire stolen product, or are just joyriding it for a while and ditching it somewhere that it can be found and potentially recovered (if it wasn't destroyed in the process). Something like a cat that's explicitly being dismantled is much, much harder to track down. There's only so many places you can stamp a serial number and once those places have been cut away or melted down, the remainder of the stolen material (ie: the valuable stuff) looks no different from legit material. (Oh yeah, and they already have serial numbers on them for the most part. Not for theft prevention but for inventory and warranty tracking since they're valuable enough to be worth that effort regardless of post-market theft rates.)

[@williamchamberlain2263]

@@altrag no, I mean that down the materials chain the mass is accounted for at each step, and has to be traceable back to a licensed agent disassembling a cat with images on record.

[@altrag]

@@williamchamberlain2263 How exactly do you trace a chunk of raw metal that's been melted down and formed back into raw ingots? Hell, its not even easy to know at that point whether its raw or virgin metal never mind figuring out who owns the hacksaw that cut it out of a car on the other side of the planet. The path goes like this: 1) The thief. Pretty sure you aren't going to get "licensed" to steal parts off peoples' cars, so that's a non-starter and the chain of traceability is already broken. 2) The fence. Their whole job is buying stolen goods from thieves and selling it to whoever will keep their mouths shut. Also pretty sure you aren't going to get licensed for "selling stolen property". They may even cut off and dispose of the casing (ie: where serial numbers would be stamped) in order to save weight/space in the next step. And its a safe bet that they won't be handing the discarded casings over to law enforcement. Another link in the chain broken. 3) The exporter. They may know that the fence is a bit shady but as long as the fence has the goods packaged up well enough its a "don't ask, don't tell" situation. _They_ have no way to know if its stolen goods or not in that crate. They're just packing it on a ship and sending it on its way. You could try to license these people, but as they don't even know there's a cat in the box the license isn't probably going to do much good. So I guess this link is in tact, but its a pretty weak link nonetheless. 4) The importer. Now you're in Indonesia. Good luck getting them to care about US licensing requirements. And even if they do, they're in much the same position as the exporter - don't ask, don't tell. Another potentially in tact link but even weaker than the previous. 5) Who the hell knows. A bunch of randos spread around Indonesia hiring literally dudes in their back yard with a barrel fire to melt the items down and extract the valuable material. No chance of even finding these people to license them, never mind them caring about US law. 6) The extractors. These are the dudes in their back yard burning their lungs out for a couple bucks an hour. They haven't even seen a chain never mind worrying about being a link in it. They've got bigger problems. 7) Who the hell knows again. After the materials have been extracted, its collected by more randos that may or may not be the same randos as above. They sell the valuable material to a smelter. 8) The smelter. Now we're finally at a place we could potentially start tracking the material. Yay! Unfortunately at this point, the material is just a block of sludgy metal. The smelter has to purify it and form it into ingots (or whatever unit rhodium is sold in), so they'd probably be able to tell that it came from a cat, but any serial number or other identifier is long, long gone by now. The absolute best you might get through something like spectroscopy is maybe finding out what manufacturer created the material as they likely all have slightly different formulations, but given the "processing" involved in step 6 even that is pretty questionable. 9) Finally, manufacturers purchase the ingots from the smelters (likely after another round of much-more-legitimate export/import). So the question is, where exactly are you planning to start this trail of material tracing? There really isn't anyone prior to step 8 that would give any shits about being legally licensed, and by the time you hit step 8 there's not really anything left to trace. If it was as easy as you seem to think, it would have been done long ago.

[@roguedogx]

3:51 as an aside, that is an awesome idea, I love that. very cool table.

[@BS-vx8dg]

This was probably the best video I've seen on this channel.

[@randymotter51]

The difficulty in forming the heavier elements could also be a factor in why we don't see many signs of other civilizations out there. Not only do we need time to evolve and learn to do certain things, we also need the right materials to create certain technologies which would mean we can't form an advanced or potentially spacefaring civilization too early. Not enough time for the natural stellar events to make what we need, and for those elements to be captured in a sufficient quantity during planetary formation would absolutely stop us from going anywhere or doing much technologically. If forming these elements is rare almost everywhere and not just in our region, it would be a huge point for us being very early among advanced species.

[@rainbowlack]

This video explained how elements are formed and the distinctions between them in a much more understandable and entertaining way than school did. Thank you!!

[@lennyeverson9010]

Thanks! I waited a couple of years for this fine explanation.

[@tyler5914]

Always a great show!

[@lostshadow5919]

Now the crime rate will even more increase in different countries due to the information in this video 😔. Poor rhodium.

[@aniksamiurrahman6365]

Finally, the scientists has learned to blame the stars.

[@Moiaija]

I loved this video. Keep it up!❤

[@mirabai.tango1]

What a great video. I love it. Very well done.

[@brillitheworldbuilder]

7:16 Not entirely true. Technetium, neptunium and plutonium can also occur naturally, but they're rare. So everything after PLUTONIUM is made solely by humans. (Actually even heavier elements could be produced in supernovae, but they decay too fast to end up in planets.)

[@InfiltrateIndustries]

If a black hole can occur naturally… It’s not like we’ve traversed and scoured the galaxy:)

[@thirsty_dog1364]

There's a story about the first big stars that burnt-out fast and in dying made most of our heavy elements we have today. About 200 million years after the big bang I think was the time line.

[@devenhull3677]

Love how your box-by-box animation for the S-process stopped just before Technetium

[@MaxenceAbela]

It would have been nice to say here that the reason iron is the heaviest element that can be made in a star is that up until Iron, fusing atoms together creates more energy than it required to fuse them. This stops being the case once most of the star is mostly mad of iron. This stops the chain fusion reaction and makes it implode on its newly formed iron core. So it's not that a star starts with a given amount of energy and doesn't have enough "humpf" to make anything heavier than iron, its just that iron fusion doesn't produce any extra energy that can be used to fuse more iron atoms together.

[@andreylebedenko1260]

And how probable would it be for an Earth-like planet to start forming not too early and not too late, not too close and not too far away from such a rare event as a collision of 2 neutron stars? Speaking of the number of life-bearing planets.

[@BrokenConnected]

Yes, fine tuning is a thing. But keep in mind that most organic life is not technological and so has no use for elements beyond H,C,N,O,P,K,S...etc. But yeah even those require an immense amount of "luck?" or whatever. Even just H. Even just a proton. So, nice to meet you.

[@chris_d_r_u_m_s]

Question: could you make elements beyond what we have on the periodic table if you continue to smash together protons and neutrons under the right conditions?

[@kristynapistekova7296]

Yes you can. Actually scientist are trying to do So. But there Is problem. The bigger the element Is (the more electrons (And protons) it has) the harder it Is for it to be stabel (And when something Is not stable it becames radioactive). The electrons Are So far from nucleus that the positive charge cant reach the negative charge of electrons And So the electrons are not "sticking" on atom very well (they can be removed from atom very easily And thus become radioactive). Elemnts with huge amount of electrons (And protons) Are Called heavy alements And some of them can't live more than 1 second. After one second passes they change to lighter element And So on And So on.

[@kristynapistekova7296]

Hope its correct I am just collage student so correct me if I am wrong

[@jeffc3051]

@@kristynapistekova7296 mostly wrong in terms of everything you wrote except for the instability of the higher atomic number atoms.

[@shivamverma7151]

@@kristynapistekova7296 even 1 second is very very large time for the last elements of periodic table

[@CorwynGC]

That's why the Periodic Table keeps getting bigger.

[@ManfredGMarshall]

So this World is objectively quite special. It is uncanny how all these rare elements found their way into this glorious garden of delicious fruits and funny life forms capable of creating and appreciating music, poetry, art, architecture, gastronomy, etc. Earth is a mathematical miracle.

[@stephylococcus.]

Dammit - that's it! No diamond ring! If he wants to Marry me, I expect a Rhodium ring, with a real Ruby on top. 🤨🤨

[@mannyespinola9228]

Thank you for this video

[@12kenbutsuri]

Its so sad that something like sillicon wasn't a catalyst.

[@PopeGoliath]

Alternatively, you could be happy that iron does what iron does, in the abundance that it does it. Imagine if ductile metals were all as rare as rhodium.

[@12kenbutsuri]

@@PopeGoliath glass half full dude, eh? I like that!

[@chillsahoy2640]

Calalytic converters? Where we're going we don't need...catalytic converters.

[@the-human-being]

Love the lego Saturn V rocket in the background.

[@rayraycthree5784]

This video filled a big gap, I did not konw iron was the heaviest element formed in a normal star, now I understand the reason why we want to understand the different type of quarks and how they interact.

[@CGDubz87]

Some of y'all emotionally driven "adults" took this title entirely too seriously, jfc

[@orsaz924]

Interesting video. By the way, I noticed something that might require clarification: At 00:00, the host said that the crime wave is happening the world over, but as far as I know, it only happened in the US (I couldn't find articles online about other places + clips shown come from American media)

[@JusNoBS420]

Are you implying that converters aren’t being ripped off enough in other countries to warrant making the news? Or maybe only a few countries require them on automobiles? Or perhaps you think the US media is exaggerating how often people are stealing these things? 🤔

[@freshoutofcrabs]

@@JusNoBS420 could be any of those or something else not considered.

[@orsaz924]

@@JusNoBS420 I mean that it doesn't seem to be happening in other countries (or at least not enough to get media coverage)

[@r-pupz7032]

It is happening here in the UK and a commenter elsewhere said it had been happening for a long time in Lithuania so maybe it just isn't newsworthy anymore for some countries? Or the stories might appear in local news that isn't easily found online? The BBC has several articles about it in the UK just from this year (I don't think I can link articles here?)

[@ewetoob1924]

Not happening here. Perhaps it is correlated to the number of African American Holes?

[@Azdingue]

Amazing production

[@turtle4llama]

I hit a tire on the freeway a couple nights ago and cracked my bumper. I sent my sad little Prius into the shop and got a call saying, "We see you dropped off a Prius. We're sorry, but we have a 4 month backlog on catalytic converters." They didn't even check the insurance claim, they just saw a Prius and assumed. They haven't had a Prius come in for any other service in months.

[@hdhhdhdbdhdhdhdh3108]

The second vid at the beginning😂😭 what was that other guy doin

[@discoball725]

i live in st louis, this has been such an issue here and it needs way more attention. someone at my work was on the phone with someone today, who was literally watching their neighbor's catalytic converter getting sawed off in broad daylight 😭 just totally bonkers in stl these days

[@wallyman292]

Liberal "no bail" policies now in effect in many major cities take away any negative consequences for the thefts even if caught. Converter thefts have been an issue for decades. However, his chart shows the direct effect these policies have had over the past 2 years or so.

[@KyleDB150]

I'm taking some pride from realising you're talking about platinum nucleosynthesis within the first 2 seconds 😁

[@Lunarpollo5622]

1:54 idk why but that thing that popped up with the laugh cracked me up

[@YoungGandalf2325]

11:06 Ten Earths worth of gold?? Forget Mars, let's travel to this place. 900 million light years away though, so we'd better get moving soon...

[@stdesy]

There’s already asteroids in our own system with enough gold & platinum such that at current market rates, would have enough to make everyone on earth a billionaire. Of course, if we did actually mine those asteroids the price of those precious metals would implode

[@dr.blockcraft6633]

@@stdesy Not if You do It the Same way That diamonds Are released. Bring it Here, and Slowly release The gold, And the Price of Gold stabilizes.

[@unvergebeneid]

I like to think the people who hoarded toilet paper at the beginning of the pandemic still have enough of it to stretch across the Atlantic.

[@bearbryant3495]

I used to know a guy who called them cadillac converters, like if you install one you suddenly have an Escalade.

[@drakegarcia3106]

I dunno why i watched this i prolly wont need this info but I did anyways. Very informative. Hope we had this when i was in school

[@PopeGoliath]

I think I'll continue to blame systems that perpetuate economic inequality, thank you!

[@grantadamson3478]

That's not the total answer either. What about those who are just too lazy to get a job and simply steal instead.

[@heinzie5]

blame anyone but the criminals

[@psora1]

@@heinzie5 and why do people will have the need to steal?

[@jr2904]

@@psora1 because they are bad people. Plenty of poor people like myself whom don't resort to stealing from others. The crime wave is fueled by district attorneys who are making so called "reforms" to the justice system. Getting rid of bail and not charging criminals for the crimes committed. There isn't any consequences for people in California who loot and rob people, they get a court date that they won't show up for and they just commit more crimes. This leads to innocent people being harmed or killed by someone who should've been in jail. What about the innocent people who get harmed because you want to be woke?

[@martinduran9523]

@@heinzie5 their fault too.

[@jnzkngs]

I have to keep reminding myself that if no one can easily make money or gain political power off of my beliefs, my beliefs don't matter. Such is the life of a frugal agnostic who understands cause and effect.

[@vice.nor.virtue]

bro you're talking about living in a capitalist state. Has nothing to do with your belief in God or not, although you must believe that money is the one true God to succeed.

[@jaiganeshramdoss1875]

Great narration! I am suckers for such good science videos.

[@pianissimo5951]

0:49 i like how the closed captions in this part say "curious music"

[@lruss2004]

I mean, if we want bad dad jokes, I can make some up... *Why did the electron and proton get married? Because opposites attract. *Why did the proton and electron marriage fail? Because the proton said the electron was always negative. *Proton wanted to know where his ex, Electron, had gone. He asked a physicist. But Heisenberg was uncertain. *So Proton went back to work on the video game Presidential campaign I hear that Proton wants to elect-Tron. *With all the celebrity, Proton needed security in the neighborhood. So he got an Atomic Watch. *Proton's life has had its ups and downs from the top to the bottom. Strange and charming. Quite quarky.

[@Aryan_0]

Weren't we all, at a time, inside a star No wait......... We were the stars

[@Splarkszter]

Yup, we are all actually stardust.

[@migueltrujillo8929]

Hey now, you're an all-star...

[@BrigCommander]

no wait.......... we ARE the stars

[@13thravenpurple94]

Great work 🥳 Thank you 💜

[@jesuspablomiros4715]

I loved the soundtrack on this one!

[@jacksonfurlong3757]

This crime wave is in no way directly caused by the elements existing. Crime is caused by socioeconomic factors, not just because something is rare.

[@X-Caliber02]

Rare metal exists, rare metal subsequently valuable in society, people steal something that has said rare/valuable metal within it... Or in other words, if a Catalytic Converter didn't have those metals, people wouldn't be stealing (anywhere near as much). But also yes, there are other factors that are causing an increase in the rate of theft, but the root cause is still rare metal = money

[@heinzie5]

crime is caused by criminals, actually.

[@dakshtyagi2410]

Ok, so I have a doubt. Like Joe said that making of these metals is a slow process, so, could it mean that earlier scientists were not able to discover some elements because they weren't made in the universe yet?

[@shrimayi213]

no... all metals except synthetic ones have been around for at least hundreds of millions of years before the earth had even formed. we're awfully late to the creation of new elements. all we can do is make up our own like technetium

[@dakshtyagi2410]

@@shrimayi213 😲🤯thanks🤝

[@Splarkszter]

@@shrimayi213 or asteroid mining but we need to colonize moon first.

[@slevinchannel7589]

@@Splarkszter If this Video made you curious, maybe try the 'Crime-Mentality' and 'Police-Issue' Videos of "Some More News". Very good Stuff.

[@theangledsaxon6765]

Not rly, it’s slow but it’s got like 10 billion years on us. If it was made in the last thousand years, then it’s been being made for billions

[@zeromancer-x]

Two solutions, get rid of gasoline engines entirely, or, make the component too time consuming/difficult to remove without the correct tools.

[@hudatolah]

Finally you’re creating content we can relate to.

[@mscience8806]

How atoms of the same elements find their way to come together in larger chunks?

[@peanutbutter369]

think about the way our solar system was formed. Everything was just dust floating around until eventually that dust starts to coalesce into larger and larger chunks until it creates our terrestrial planets. Additionally, everything was probably insanely hot from constant bombardments by meteors and the different properties of the elements allow them to stay melted longer than surroundings or solidify more quickly relative to surroundings allowing them to group up. Shared properties of the elements under volatile conditions

[@gajanandramsamooj7880]

Density

[@kaitlyn__L]

The other answers are a bit vague, so I’ll say this: atoms don’t always coalesce with like-atoms, but they always coalesce in the most stable and least energetic form they can find. Sometimes that’s with other similar elements, but often it’s just combining with oxygen which is how we find most metals, as oxides. Pretty much all of chemistry is about finding the right situation, the right interactions between elements, such they finally want to combine in a different way. This either means removing some of the lower energy components, or adding in new components which are even lower energy.

[@tony_mo]

If I understand well, it's a force trade off: There are 4 known fundamental forces, from the weakest to the strongest (but with a effect that can apply from the farthest away to the closest away): Gravity (which is actually not a force but a space time deformation but whatever) is the weakest and is visible on big scales (far away things can attract each other but too weak to be easily visible on small scales - though still possible experimentally). Electromagnetic force (force responsible for bonds between atoms, for magnets etc) is stronger but act on shorter distance (like magnets can't attract something millions of kilometers away) Weak nuclear force (force that ties protons and neutrons together in a nucleus) even stronger but act only when proton / neutrons are extremely close so acts on an even smaller scale Strong nuclear force (to tie qwarks together into a single proton or neutron) is the STRONGEST but acts at an even smaller scale when qwarks are really close. And this the 3 "real" forces (so excluding gravity) are all repulsive (except specific conditions), you need to overcome one to let the other one have a chance to be applicable. Squish 2 atoms VERY hard to let a chance for weak nuclear force to act and get another nucleus (because you need to overcome the fact that they repulse each other). Squish them EXTREMELY hard (particle collider) if you want a soup of qwarks that can potentially re-arrange differently. That's my understanding, after watching many videos of that kind, I'm not an expert.

[@Ghostowl657]

@@tony_mo more or less true, except its still the strong force that ties protons and neutrons together, not the weak force. The weak force is uh... a bit more complicated in that it typically mediates particle decays rather than bonding particles into composites.

[@mallomon]

Had mine stolen in April (2014 Prius). Right out in front of our house in the middle of the night. Still waiting for the part. They're on national backorder.

[@Ichijoe2112]

Well instead of blaming the Criminal scum that caused you, and your insurance such greef... You can now send your complaints out to the Universe. Sadly it's probably just as productive, as doing so locally.

[@12pentaborane]

You drive a Prius, just straight pipe it.

[@alien9279]

Was thinking this would be an episode about correlation =/= causation episode lol

[@sarahdee4652]

I was in the science club in highschool and was told that joke that you told at end of the video. I'm 53' now and still think... well... more pun then logic. It's something for the english language - i did not know that about catalytic converters. I remember in the 80's there was someone stealing sparkplugs out of people's automobiles at night around New York City, for the platinum. The cops caught him in Brooklyn!

[@adpirtle]

Just one more reason to go with public transit.

[@alien9279]

With the rise of fusion reactors, I wonder of we can start element forges of our own. We're missing the extreme pressure, but we do have orders of magnitude more heat than a star, which is crazy lol. Getting high pressure contained with high heat should be elementary after we solve fusion and have it working for a few years:)

[@cinemartin3530]

I think it's possible one day. People are capable of amazing things if they really want to, and this has been proven more than once.

[@widodoakrom3938]

Still long way to go

[@CorwynGC]

Look up "particle accelerators".

[@maximumryan]

Brilliant episode!

[@LordBrittish]

Well you see kids, when two neutron stars really love each other, they come together and create GOLD! (both perishing in the process)

[@Deady4u]

Humans being able to create new elements is truly awe inspiring. Things that nature can't even do

[@CorwynGC]

Nature almost certainly can do. But they don't last long enough for us to ever encounter any.

[@NCRonrad]

Humans can’t make honey 😂

[@NCRonrad]

@@CorwynGC (we’re nature btw)

[@wasd____]

@@NCRonrad We can convince bees to make it for us. Problem solved.

[@NCRonrad]

@@wasd____ it’s a work around, but molecularly, we can’t recreate bee vomit. Although a better sense of microbiome may change this! Still we merely mimic nature and live as natural beings. Scientists can’t recreate terra preta, another human made technology (much like honey, rooted in microbiota)

[@raresmircea]

Do a vid on the tools we need & how to extract it 🙏

[@syedmoheelraza4161]

From where? Car engines?

[@raresmircea]

@@syedmoheelraza4161 Joking, I wouldn’t want to do that to anyone

[@Scion141]

I've always heard that metals were created by supernova explosions and neutron stars colliding, but what I've always been confused about when and where exactly, the metals are created. After neutrons decay and whatever element becomes a metal, does it float around in space? Are there various places (space) in the universe with different types of metals floating around? Or are metal formations only possible on planets?

[@Starscream_313]

Periodic table with actual samples cool!!!!👍