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SYSK Selects: How Maglev Trains Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Hello friends, It's me Josh and for this week's s
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Speaker 1: Y s K Selects, I've chosen a super cool episode
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Speaker 1: that has it all engineering, strange, physics, elon musk. What
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Speaker 1: else do you want? What more could you ask for? Also,
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Speaker 1: by the way, I'm pretty sure that the contest we
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Speaker 1: talk about in the listener mail is no longer around,
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Speaker 1: since it's many, many years old. At any rate, enjoy
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Speaker 1: this episode about the future of transportation. Welcome to Stuff
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Speaker 1: You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How
0:36
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:45
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W Chuck Chuckers, Brian Yeah, and this
0:51
Speaker 1: is Oh is that where you're going with? Sure? Yeah,
0:57
Speaker 1: my bus right into CC writer all the style. How
0:59
Speaker 1: would going with the Muppet Show? Oh? Yeah, it was
1:03
Speaker 1: time we put on makeup? Yeah, what was that somebody's
1:07
Speaker 1: giant stomach? Something like? What was that? It's weird? That
1:14
Speaker 1: was crazy. That couldn't have been Jerry's stomach. There's no way,
1:18
Speaker 1: all right, what's chuck? Yes? Uh, you remember our Magnet podcast. Yeah,
1:28
Speaker 1: I've personally thought it was a great episode because we
1:32
Speaker 1: explained how magnets work. Yeah, it was just good, tough
1:35
Speaker 1: but good. Yeah, it was tough, but it was also
1:39
Speaker 1: kind of um. It was one of those ones where
1:42
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, okay, that explains pretty much everything about magnets,
1:46
Speaker 1: the thing that I've used before in my life, and
1:48
Speaker 1: I just kind of took for granted some people think
1:50
Speaker 1: that they're magic, but we kind of said, this is
1:54
Speaker 1: how they work. I liked it. So, um, I liked
1:57
Speaker 1: this EPI, this um article in theory, the one we're
2:02
Speaker 1: about to do a show on. Yeah, yeah, about Maglev trains. Yeah,
2:06
Speaker 1: we did a video on Maglev trains. Remember that one
2:10
Speaker 1: of our one of our interstitial shorts was on mag
2:13
Speaker 1: left trains, do we Yeah, I remember doing the quantum
2:20
Speaker 1: levitation was that it? Are you sure? Yeah? Because that's
2:25
Speaker 1: the only way I knew about any of this was
2:27
Speaker 1: the fact that we had talked about it before. Well
2:28
Speaker 1: what did we talk about, uh, maglob you know the
2:32
Speaker 1: basic principle in one minute behind magnetic levitation. Well, that's
2:36
Speaker 1: pretty much what we're gonna do here, Yeah, except slightly longer. Yeah.
2:39
Speaker 1: So um that was my intro but intro and we
2:43
Speaker 1: should say also, um, everyone, it is next to impossible
2:49
Speaker 1: to get up to the minute up to the year
2:52
Speaker 1: information about what maglev trains are in operation, what are
2:58
Speaker 1: still planned, what's still going on. So it is possible
3:02
Speaker 1: we may get that part a little incorrect, but we're
3:06
Speaker 1: going to try our best to be as accurate as possible. Yeah,
3:09
Speaker 1: and the reason why is because magnetic levitation to power
3:13
Speaker 1: a train so new. Well, it's actually not that new,
3:16
Speaker 1: because they've been doing it for a while and well
3:18
Speaker 1: start it was proposed ever since Tesla started noticing what
3:21
Speaker 1: was going on in the late nineteenth century. But it's
3:24
Speaker 1: so new in this regard as far as super fast
3:29
Speaker 1: speed trains powered by magnets transporting lots of people over distances,
3:35
Speaker 1: maybe great distances. That is so new, and there's so
3:39
Speaker 1: a few different technologies that it is kind of hard
3:41
Speaker 1: to keep track on which one is in the forefront,
3:44
Speaker 1: which ones are being funded because the stuff is expensive,
3:48
Speaker 1: it is it's hard to get funding, especially here in
3:50
Speaker 1: the States. Yeah, and if you go on, if you
3:52
Speaker 1: just type mag LEVI into Google or your favorite search
3:55
Speaker 1: engine UM or Duck duck go, if you're you know,
4:00
Speaker 1: kind of watching who's watching you? Oh, is that a
4:02
Speaker 1: like a secret? It's like an anonymous search engine okay. Um,
4:07
Speaker 1: you will find there's projects all over the United States
4:11
Speaker 1: and all of them are like, we're shove already, We're
4:13
Speaker 1: ready to go. Just give us some money. And they're
4:15
Speaker 1: not getting any money because the construction costs are so
4:18
Speaker 1: enormous because with maglev trains you can't use existing railways.
4:23
Speaker 1: It's all new. And uh, I saw one quote and
4:26
Speaker 1: again who knows how recent this is, but fifty million
4:30
Speaker 1: euros per mile. I can believe this is what the
4:32
Speaker 1: German Consortium is quoting. The thing is is, once you
4:37
Speaker 1: get it built, maintenance is not bad. Yeah, not bad
4:41
Speaker 1: at all, because there's not a lot of wear and
4:43
Speaker 1: tear on it. As you'll see no friction baby. Um.
4:45
Speaker 1: And if you do look into maglev, you will see
4:48
Speaker 1: that it is very much like the the transportation technology
4:52
Speaker 1: of the future that's going on today. Um, especially after
4:56
Speaker 1: looking into Elon Musk's um T hyper loop thing. I
5:02
Speaker 1: heard of that. So basically Elon Musk, who is like
5:05
Speaker 1: our good friend, uh, super rich guy, right, he basically
5:09
Speaker 1: just jotted down this idea on a cocktail napkin and
5:12
Speaker 1: all of a sudden it's like the new thing. But um,
5:14
Speaker 1: it's a an enclosed tube system that just you put
5:19
Speaker 1: in a little car or whatever that seats twelve people
5:23
Speaker 1: or something comfortably and you suck all the air out
5:26
Speaker 1: of it no resistance, so you can go really fast. Basically,
5:31
Speaker 1: I think it goes about seven a little under the
5:34
Speaker 1: speed of sound, so you can get from the west
5:37
Speaker 1: coast to the east coast or vice versa very very fast.
5:41
Speaker 1: The thing is, the construction costs for this or just preposterous.
5:46
Speaker 1: But if it can come along or come down a
5:50
Speaker 1: little more, then it will give Maglev a run for
5:53
Speaker 1: its money. But if it, if Maglev can start to
5:57
Speaker 1: really kind of get some traction and get some line going,
6:01
Speaker 1: it will be the the movement of the future for
6:04
Speaker 1: at least a decade or two. Yeah, I saw where
6:08
Speaker 1: they're proposing both in the future Maglev trains that operate
6:12
Speaker 1: inside vacuum tubes as fast as two thousand miles an
6:16
Speaker 1: hour as crazy. Right now they're breaking records like three
6:20
Speaker 1: miles an hour plus what's the fastest right now? The
6:24
Speaker 1: So apparently this is kind of mind boggling because Maglev
6:28
Speaker 1: as again we realize everybody, we haven't explained what Maglev
6:31
Speaker 1: is talking here, but um, Maglev, the the great advantage
6:37
Speaker 1: it has is that it's supposedly goes faster than the
6:41
Speaker 1: normal steel wheel train. Apparently a TGV train, which is
6:45
Speaker 1: a steel wheel train. UM in Europe, they they beat
6:50
Speaker 1: a maglev land speed really that was held by the
6:53
Speaker 1: Japanese Maglev of about three hundred and fifty one miles
6:57
Speaker 1: an hour. I think it went like three sixty. Man.
6:59
Speaker 1: I don't if i'd feel safe. Yeah, I can imagine.
7:03
Speaker 1: I was. I was reading a quote from a Maglev
7:05
Speaker 1: rider and they were saying, like, you can tell you're
7:08
Speaker 1: going really fast, like on the bullet train. He was
7:12
Speaker 1: gonna be so disappointed because she's taught me how to
7:14
Speaker 1: say it in Japanese so many times a night. I
7:17
Speaker 1: don't want to BUTCHERP. But the bullet train it goes
7:20
Speaker 1: pretty fast, like hundred fifty miles an hour or something,
7:23
Speaker 1: but it just looks like everything's a blur. You don't
7:27
Speaker 1: feel like you're going fast. Apparently in a maglev it
7:29
Speaker 1: goes fast enough to wear like you feel like, holy cow,
7:32
Speaker 1: we're going three d and fifty miles an hour. Well,
7:35
Speaker 1: our very unparent company did a show World's Fastest Trains,
7:39
Speaker 1: and I watched the maglev segment in the dude. You know.
7:42
Speaker 1: I was in the front room with the driver and
7:44
Speaker 1: they were like, all right, we're going three hundred miles
7:46
Speaker 1: an hour now, and it's hard to tell on the TV.
7:49
Speaker 1: You know exactly how fast you're going, because I looked
7:52
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, then you know, it looks
7:54
Speaker 1: like about a hundred to me. But um, yeah, I
7:56
Speaker 1: think being on the train and I think the key
7:58
Speaker 1: to not feeling two or it is obviously you're not
8:01
Speaker 1: being shot out like a bullet. You're you're ramping up
8:03
Speaker 1: to that speed, so that helps. Plus if you dressed
8:06
Speaker 1: normally for your train ride, you'll feel less weird too,
8:08
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. Also, hold on one more thing, um
8:12
Speaker 1: that we're talking very high speeds. That's the that's the
8:19
Speaker 1: speed record of a maglev. But they're averaging like to
8:23
Speaker 1: fifty or more, which means if you, if you get
8:27
Speaker 1: these things built, you're going to expand the range of
8:30
Speaker 1: where people can live and commute and go to work
8:32
Speaker 1: every day tremendously. Um. So there's a lot of value
8:36
Speaker 1: in creating these mag levs. Right are we there yet? Well,
8:41
Speaker 1: before we do that, let's just might as well do
8:44
Speaker 1: a message break now, huh. I think it's a good time,
9:01
Speaker 1: all right, So now can we get down to brass tacks. Yes,
9:05
Speaker 1: let's okay. Um, this is kind of confusing because I
9:09
Speaker 1: read a paper in night, I think, where this guy
9:14
Speaker 1: was saying, like, there's a lot of people calling all
9:15
Speaker 1: these different technologies maglev. This is all very early stage
9:21
Speaker 1: proposal hadn't been proven yet, but he was saying, there's
9:24
Speaker 1: at least seven different kinds of technology here that everyone's
9:27
Speaker 1: calling maglev that are different enough that it doesn't They're
9:30
Speaker 1: just different. But for the purposes of this podcast, we
9:33
Speaker 1: can get it with maglev, but we have to point
9:36
Speaker 1: out that there are some really different systems that are
9:39
Speaker 1: in use in being proposed right now, and a lot
9:43
Speaker 1: of them have to do with the suspension systems. Yeah,
9:47
Speaker 1: I think what's going on now? There are three pretty
9:51
Speaker 1: much leading competing systems, right. Yeah, because we should say, chuck.
9:56
Speaker 1: A maglev train is a train that uses magnets to
9:59
Speaker 1: float above a track by either a half a centimeter too.
10:05
Speaker 1: I saw one that floats up to a foot off
10:07
Speaker 1: the track, and that's a little scary. It seems a
10:09
Speaker 1: little scary, but apparently the higher you go, and that
10:12
Speaker 1: that high end of the range, the more stable it is. Alright, yeah,
10:16
Speaker 1: but so the the train is literally not touching the
10:19
Speaker 1: tracks and it floats along. And the reason that's why
10:23
Speaker 1: it can go so fast is because there's no friction,
10:26
Speaker 1: no friction, The only resistance is air. And they're super
10:29
Speaker 1: sleek of course, so even the error is cut down. Uh.
10:32
Speaker 1: So let's go. Let's go to Germany first, because they
10:35
Speaker 1: have a system, uh, trans Rapid. It's called the actually
10:40
Speaker 1: company is called trans Rapid International. There's also a trans
10:43
Speaker 1: Rapid USA. Now I think USA, that's right. Uh. And
10:48
Speaker 1: the German version is electro magnetic suspension. And the way
10:53
Speaker 1: that the guy on the Discovery Channel show described it
10:56
Speaker 1: was that electro magnets, Well, when you use electro magnets,
11:00
Speaker 1: they're only um magnetize when there's a power source, when
11:05
Speaker 1: there's electricity running through exactly. So that's important to remember
11:09
Speaker 1: it is and we'll point out why later because in
11:11
Speaker 1: the German system, uh, the e m S system, it's
11:15
Speaker 1: all about attraction. It's not repelled magnets repelling each other.
11:20
Speaker 1: It's magnets that are attracted to each other. And the
11:23
Speaker 1: reason that they float is they're basically switching it on
11:27
Speaker 1: and off, pulsing the electromatic magnets so fast that it
11:31
Speaker 1: creates that hovering attraction. Okay, so that's the German version,
11:38
Speaker 1: so um okay. And apparently this German version, I think
11:42
Speaker 1: they do use repulsive magnets, but on the sides for
11:45
Speaker 1: the guidance magnets. So to make it hover, they're turning
11:50
Speaker 1: it on an awful lot. So it wants to stick
11:52
Speaker 1: but no, but stick but no. And there's not a
11:54
Speaker 1: dude on a switch doing it really fast. It's all
11:56
Speaker 1: programmed to pull. Right. They have computers handling um. And
12:00
Speaker 1: then so this is the the suspension system you're talking about, right,
12:04
Speaker 1: the electro magnetic suspension. And the word suspension is kind
12:08
Speaker 1: of easily overlooked, but in this case we're literally talking
12:11
Speaker 1: about how the train is suspended in mid air above
12:15
Speaker 1: the track in this case, and with the e M
12:19
Speaker 1: S it's about I think, uh, half a centimeter to
12:23
Speaker 1: a centimeter. It's it's very close to the to the track,
12:26
Speaker 1: and they use the electro magnets to attract and they
12:30
Speaker 1: use the guidance magnets, which are magnets installed on the
12:33
Speaker 1: side of the train, uh that are along the side
12:37
Speaker 1: of the track to repel magnets along the side of
12:41
Speaker 1: the track to keep the train from bumping into the
12:45
Speaker 1: guide rails. But the it requires a um UH computer
12:50
Speaker 1: system that constantly make adjustments to the current that's going
12:54
Speaker 1: through these electro magnets to either um to either attract
12:59
Speaker 1: the train to make it float or to repel it
13:01
Speaker 1: from the sides to adjust it to make sure it
13:03
Speaker 1: never bumps into the rails or the track, because if
13:06
Speaker 1: you're going fifty miles an hour and your train scuffs
13:11
Speaker 1: the track, you're in big trouble or big trouble. One
13:14
Speaker 1: advantage of this UH the German system is that you
13:18
Speaker 1: only need the power on for the section of track
13:20
Speaker 1: that you're using at the time, So they literally will
13:25
Speaker 1: turn on a section of track, the train goes over it,
13:28
Speaker 1: and then they'll turn it back off. Right, So it's
13:30
Speaker 1: very like economically fuel will not fuel efficient because it's
13:34
Speaker 1: not fuel right, and that's the power efficient right. And
13:37
Speaker 1: it doesn't use fossil fuels in the sense that a
13:40
Speaker 1: normal train does, although if you go far enough down
13:42
Speaker 1: the line, that electricity has to come from somewhere, so
13:45
Speaker 1: ultimately it is coming from fossil fuels. But the efficiency.
13:49
Speaker 1: Fuel efficiency is incredible compared to you know, a normal
13:54
Speaker 1: train that burns cossal fuels just to move right, the
13:58
Speaker 1: guy's shoveling coal into a fire. Yeah, I should say so.
14:02
Speaker 1: My understanding of the delivery of electricity to the track
14:08
Speaker 1: is the same for both suspension systems that you propel
14:11
Speaker 1: like that. So the whole track is made of electro magnets, right,
14:17
Speaker 1: come on both systems, and you're just sending electricity to
14:21
Speaker 1: the electromagnets that are immediately in front of and immediately
14:25
Speaker 1: behind the train immediately under. Yeah, because you need it.
14:30
Speaker 1: You need to float the train, then you need to
14:31
Speaker 1: propel it, right, And the way you're propelling it is
14:33
Speaker 1: the magnets that are just ahead of the train are
14:36
Speaker 1: going to be positive, and so that's going to attract
14:40
Speaker 1: the train, meaning it's gonna pull it forward. And then
14:43
Speaker 1: the the magnets behind it are going to be charged
14:46
Speaker 1: so that they're negative and they're going to repel the
14:49
Speaker 1: train push it. So in the front, the magnets are
14:52
Speaker 1: pulling it in the in the back, the magnets are
14:55
Speaker 1: pushing it. And again remember there's no friction here, it's
14:58
Speaker 1: just air, so it doesn't take a whole lot to
15:02
Speaker 1: make this train go really really fast, just using magnets. Yeah,
15:05
Speaker 1: and they in two thousand two debuted commercially in Shanghai, China,
15:11
Speaker 1: a pretty short run transporting people um from airport to airport,
15:16
Speaker 1: basically um at a speed it speeds over two fifty
15:20
Speaker 1: miles an hour. So I read that the journey the
15:23
Speaker 1: nineteen mile journey. Now it takes about seven and a
15:24
Speaker 1: half minutes as opposed to about an hour in a cab,
15:28
Speaker 1: and they were going to expand it, but that was
15:32
Speaker 1: halted in two thousand eight over radiation fears by people.
15:37
Speaker 1: And now it's being proposed as an underground system, like
15:42
Speaker 1: to go underground to halt those fears. But in two
15:45
Speaker 1: thousand ten, another high speed train in the area was
15:49
Speaker 1: a non maglev system opened, so they basically said, well,
15:52
Speaker 1: we probably won't do this. Uh, we probably won't extend
15:55
Speaker 1: the Shanghai line now, So yeah, I heard it's definitely
15:57
Speaker 1: on hold, but I didn't hear that they decide that
16:00
Speaker 1: they weren't going to do it. Well, the regular bullet
16:04
Speaker 1: train popped up and they're like, well, now that we
16:07
Speaker 1: have that, I guess we don't need the mag left. Well, oh, well,
16:10
Speaker 1: so Japan's got the other, um big rival system. Uh
16:16
Speaker 1: so the propulsion systems are the same. You use magnets
16:18
Speaker 1: ahead of the train and behind the train to attract
16:21
Speaker 1: or repell it right to push it forward, I believe
16:23
Speaker 1: so so um, the suspension systems are what differ. In
16:27
Speaker 1: Germany you're using magnets to um repel it, right, to
16:31
Speaker 1: attract it, to attract it. In Japan you're using something
16:35
Speaker 1: called the Meisner effect. So basically, chuck. The Meisner effect
16:38
Speaker 1: is where you take a super cooled superconductor, right, yes,
16:44
Speaker 1: I think like liquid helium temperature, which is very very cold,
16:48
Speaker 1: and you put it in a magnetic field. The magnetic
16:51
Speaker 1: field basically hugs it. It goes around it rather than
16:55
Speaker 1: through it. Okay, yes, um, so when you do at
17:01
Speaker 1: the field actually levitates the thing. So if you take
17:06
Speaker 1: enough superconductors that are at the right temperature and you
17:10
Speaker 1: put them in the presence of a magnetic field, a
17:13
Speaker 1: whole bunch of magnets, say on a train, the the
17:18
Speaker 1: magnet will float, it will levitate, and that's the electrodynamic
17:24
Speaker 1: suspension that the Japanese are using. So basically you have
17:28
Speaker 1: a tunnel, a magnetic field tunnel that these things are
17:32
Speaker 1: traveling through, which means that there they don't they don't
17:35
Speaker 1: need any extra magnets on the sides, or they don't
17:38
Speaker 1: need any on the bottom or extra magnets on the bottom.
17:41
Speaker 1: It's just going to stay put within this bent magnetic
17:45
Speaker 1: field that's warped to wrap around it. It's never going
17:49
Speaker 1: to drop, and it's totally stable, which is the big
17:52
Speaker 1: that's a big advantage from what I understand of the
17:55
Speaker 1: Japanese system over the German system. The stability doesn't require
17:59
Speaker 1: a bunch of pewters to constantly adjust it, and it
18:02
Speaker 1: is just inherently more stable because it's not just being
18:06
Speaker 1: held up from the bottom and then a little on
18:08
Speaker 1: the sides. It is wrapped in this basically blanket of
18:12
Speaker 1: an electromagnetic field. Uh. It can conduct power electricity even
18:19
Speaker 1: when the power is cut off, so that's a definite advantage.
18:22
Speaker 1: Um Although the German system does have like battery backups,
18:24
Speaker 1: it's not like if the power went off, the train
18:26
Speaker 1: would just go and stop. But the German one doesn't
18:31
Speaker 1: never doesn't need tires, and the Japanese one does, yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: because it needs to ramp up to a certain speed
18:36
Speaker 1: in order to begin the float. It doesn't just start immediately.
18:40
Speaker 1: What is it like eighty eight miles that's back to
18:42
Speaker 1: the future sixty two. And I think they use liquid
18:47
Speaker 1: nitrogen and it's just expensive to super cool these UH coils,
18:52
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the drawbicks. But they're
18:55
Speaker 1: all expensive. They're none of this is they haven't figured
18:59
Speaker 1: out a cheap way to do any of this. Now,
19:01
Speaker 1: there's a proposed line um in Japan. It's already it's
19:06
Speaker 1: the one that set the UH that land speed record
19:09
Speaker 1: for maglev trains. It's the j R tok Um that's
19:15
Speaker 1: the railway company to kind of close, but it's their
19:19
Speaker 1: line um supposedly, supposedly is already in operation. I read
19:23
Speaker 1: somewhere that it's moved like a million people already. But
19:26
Speaker 1: they have a proposed line that they want to open
19:28
Speaker 1: by seven and it's from Tokyo to Nagoya, and then
19:33
Speaker 1: they want to extend that from Tokyo to Osaka by
19:38
Speaker 1: and they're talking like it's like a fifty billion dollar project,
19:42
Speaker 1: and I think that's just the first line that's Yeah,
19:45
Speaker 1: it sounds about right. But the reason that it probably
19:48
Speaker 1: will happen is they're they're um basing all of this
19:51
Speaker 1: on data showing that people are going to keep moving
19:55
Speaker 1: to Japan and Osaka, so they're going to have customers
19:58
Speaker 1: and they're not relying on any money. They have so
20:01
Speaker 1: much money they're just going to fund it themselves. Is
20:03
Speaker 1: privately funded. Yeah. Yeah. Another con though of the Japanese
20:07
Speaker 1: version is that if you have a pacemaker, you don't
20:09
Speaker 1: want to get on that train because, um, that magnetic
20:12
Speaker 1: field will reek havoc and you probably won't live. It
20:17
Speaker 1: will shut you down. It will shut you down. And
20:20
Speaker 1: then there's the in duct track and that is another
20:23
Speaker 1: type of E d S system, which is the Japanese system,
20:27
Speaker 1: except that they use room temperature magnets. And from what
20:31
Speaker 1: I could tell, this is as close to just the
20:36
Speaker 1: whole thing of two magnets, regular magnets opposing each other
20:41
Speaker 1: and they're just gonna use that, right, Yeah, Like it's
20:44
Speaker 1: as close to we get as you going out to
20:46
Speaker 1: the store and getting two magnets and putting their like
20:49
Speaker 1: poles against each other so that they repel. Yeah. There's
20:53
Speaker 1: actually something called the hull Bock array, which is a
20:56
Speaker 1: way to just line up the magnets um in certain
20:58
Speaker 1: directions so that they're holes are facing north, southeast or west. UM.
21:03
Speaker 1: And when you put them together in a clump, basically,
21:06
Speaker 1: the the magnetic field below the magnets doubles, the magnetic
21:13
Speaker 1: field on the top of the magnet cancels one another
21:16
Speaker 1: out right, So you have your extra strong magnetic magnetic
21:20
Speaker 1: field that can produce this Meisner effect basically UM without
21:24
Speaker 1: this super cooled superconductor. Yeah. And these aren't even electro magnets.
21:28
Speaker 1: I don't think. Aren't they just magnets. I think they're
21:30
Speaker 1: permanent room temperature magnets. It's crazy. Yeah, there are three
21:34
Speaker 1: UM designs right now the in duct track one, two,
21:37
Speaker 1: and three. UM One is high speed, two is slow speed,
21:43
Speaker 1: and three is heavy load slow speed. Yeah, so I
21:46
Speaker 1: guess just freighting stuff back and forth. You know they
21:49
Speaker 1: did this in London at one point, but then shut
21:51
Speaker 1: it down. Like in the eighties they had a maglife train. Yeah,
21:55
Speaker 1: just a very slow moving like it might have been
21:57
Speaker 1: an airport type situation. And I looked up the one
22:00
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, the new airport trainer. I thought it
22:04
Speaker 1: might have been maglev, but of course it's not. It's
22:05
Speaker 1: just wheels, just stupid wheels. UM although they held Atlanta
22:10
Speaker 1: have its day. Well, they have proposed one Atlanta is
22:13
Speaker 1: one of the city's um that's trying to get maglev
22:16
Speaker 1: going between Atlanta and Chattanooga. And there's one proposed between
22:20
Speaker 1: d C and Baltimore. One in Las Vegas, Yeah, La
22:24
Speaker 1: in Vegas. Um. And I think one from Pittsburgh to someplace,
22:30
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure exactly where I saw that one too.
22:33
Speaker 1: I don't remember where it might have been, d C, Dtsburg, Philly. Yeah. Well,
22:37
Speaker 1: hold on, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Man. Well, no,
22:39
Speaker 1: these are just proposals, and and they're having a hard
22:41
Speaker 1: time getting the funding they need for any of these
22:44
Speaker 1: to really take off, right, because it's expensive, it is, chuck,
22:49
Speaker 1: how about a how about a message break? Huh hey,
22:52
Speaker 1: let's do it alright. So, um, this whole idea of
23:11
Speaker 1: going three fifty miles an hour through space even without
23:15
Speaker 1: friction is um awesome. It is awesome. It can also
23:19
Speaker 1: be deadly. They've they've already been maglev accidents. Yeah. The
23:23
Speaker 1: one in Germany was a little distressing because in two
23:26
Speaker 1: thousand and six it crashed into a repair car that
23:29
Speaker 1: was accidentally left on the track, And this was a
23:33
Speaker 1: test too, so it's like everything should have been Yeah,
23:38
Speaker 1: like why do you leave a car on the track? Period?
23:40
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. Uh. So they actually
23:43
Speaker 1: people died in that one. The train was going at
23:45
Speaker 1: least a hundred and twenty miles an hour when it
23:47
Speaker 1: struck the car, so it must have just been getting
23:49
Speaker 1: up to speed, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, twenty nine
23:52
Speaker 1: people died on that one. There was another one in
23:55
Speaker 1: Shanghai on that line that is an operation. Yeah. That
23:58
Speaker 1: was just a fire though, and I don't want to
24:01
Speaker 1: make light of that, but it wasn't like a crash
24:03
Speaker 1: or an incident like that. Yeah. I'm just glad no
24:07
Speaker 1: one got hurt exactly. Uh. And this is breaking news, dude.
24:10
Speaker 1: This was in the paper today as we record it
24:13
Speaker 1: in real time. Okay, the Washington Post said that Northeast Maglev.
24:18
Speaker 1: Everyone's getting in on the maglev game. Uh, because I mean,
24:22
Speaker 1: like it really is a great idea. Yeah, it's just
24:25
Speaker 1: really really expensive, but if you can get it up
24:28
Speaker 1: and running, it's awesome. I Mean I imagine in literally
24:33
Speaker 1: in a hundred years, there'll be a lot of this
24:35
Speaker 1: as major transportation, you know, but not we won't see it.
24:40
Speaker 1: But as of today November four, Northeast maglev is UH
24:45
Speaker 1: has raised fifty million dollars in private funds. They can
24:48
Speaker 1: build five inches of track with that exactly. And they're
24:52
Speaker 1: trying to get the Washington Baltimore lag going with private
24:54
Speaker 1: funding because the government's not pony any money for that.
24:58
Speaker 1: I think we'll see it in our lifetime. They think
25:00
Speaker 1: ten billion between d C and Baltimore. Yeah, um, although
25:04
Speaker 1: they're not. They don't have a firm cost yet. But um,
25:07
Speaker 1: I wonder how long it would take because I mean
25:08
Speaker 1: that's not even that long of a drive anyway. Yeah,
25:11
Speaker 1: I agreed. Let maybe maybe ten minutes, which I mean
25:15
Speaker 1: if you live in Baltimore and work in d C.
25:17
Speaker 1: I'm sure that would be extremely attractive. Yeah, that's true. Um,
25:22
Speaker 1: I don't know about the Atlanta at Chattanooga thing. Who cares?
25:24
Speaker 1: Yeah right, you know people in Chattanooga be psyched, I
25:27
Speaker 1: guess because they could get to the airport in like
25:29
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. Yeah, I guess, not just in Chattanooga. I'll
25:34
Speaker 1: go there and pain for gold. I saw this, um
25:36
Speaker 1: this it was some Discovery show video from a Discovery
25:40
Speaker 1: show too, um, and it had our good friend Michio Kaku,
25:45
Speaker 1: and he was talking about a train, bullet train that
25:49
Speaker 1: could get you from one side of the world to
25:53
Speaker 1: the other in an hour. Wow. And the way that
25:56
Speaker 1: it would do that is to go through the middle
25:59
Speaker 1: of the Earth. Basically, you would have to create this
26:03
Speaker 1: to basically like Alon Musk's idea, you create a tube,
26:06
Speaker 1: you evacuate all of the air out of it so
26:10
Speaker 1: that there's no resistance whatsoever, and you just drop in
26:13
Speaker 1: the force of gravity takes you up to about eighteen
26:16
Speaker 1: thousand miles an hour, and then once you make it
26:18
Speaker 1: to the center and out the other side, your gravity
26:21
Speaker 1: starts to work against you, so it slows you down.
26:24
Speaker 1: So within an hour you should be able to make
26:27
Speaker 1: it from one side of the Earth to the other.
26:29
Speaker 1: But as Dr Coku put put it, um, it's going
26:34
Speaker 1: to be very difficult getting through the center of the Earth.
26:39
Speaker 1: I love all these theoretical ideas these guys come up
26:41
Speaker 1: with it like it's not even even then remotely possible.
26:45
Speaker 1: And he'd probably said, like, I was just talking about
26:47
Speaker 1: what they asked me to talk about. It's like, dude,
26:50
Speaker 1: I was like McDonald's one day when I said that
26:53
Speaker 1: I was waiting in line at McDonald's. So what else
26:56
Speaker 1: you got? I got nothing else? Mag Lev? Yeah, the
26:59
Speaker 1: way but the future. Yeah, we've got a we have
27:01
Speaker 1: a standing bet. Now we will see a Maglev train
27:04
Speaker 1: in operation that we can ride on while we're both alive.
27:07
Speaker 1: That's my bet, you say now that we will, Like
27:11
Speaker 1: I mean, if we went to Shanghai, we could do
27:13
Speaker 1: it right now. So I feel like I just want
27:15
Speaker 1: my bet health that you're gonna pay for us to
27:17
Speaker 1: go to here in the United States. Um, within our lifetime,
27:23
Speaker 1: which for me is gonna be about twenty years. We're
27:25
Speaker 1: both still healthy enough to to ride it. Okay, I'll
27:28
Speaker 1: take that bet. Okay. Uh, let's see. If you guys
27:32
Speaker 1: want to learn more about Maglev, you can type that
27:34
Speaker 1: word in the search part how stuff works dot Com.
27:37
Speaker 1: And since I said a search part, it's time for
27:40
Speaker 1: listener mail. That's right. This is I'm gonna call this
27:44
Speaker 1: opportunity for students filmmaking students, So get your film on. Hey,
27:50
Speaker 1: guys who work for nonprofit Antiquity Now, which is dedicated
27:54
Speaker 1: to raising awareness of the importance of preserving our cult
27:58
Speaker 1: cultural heritage by demonstrating how antiquities legacy influences and shapes
28:03
Speaker 1: our lives today. Yeah, they have good stuff. We follow
28:05
Speaker 1: them on Twitter. Oh you do nice? We do, Yes,
28:09
Speaker 1: we do. Many of us at Antiquity Now are big
28:11
Speaker 1: fans of you guys. We thought you would be interested
28:13
Speaker 1: and this upcoming project that we are holding the first
28:16
Speaker 1: ever Legacy Quest International Children's Film and Video Festival, which
28:21
Speaker 1: aims to get tweens and teens excited about history. The
28:24
Speaker 1: festival will be held in conjunction with the Archaeology Channel
28:28
Speaker 1: International Film and Video Festival on May nine through and Eugene, Oregon.
28:35
Speaker 1: So here's what you gotta do, kids, young people, if
28:38
Speaker 1: you're between twelve and fifteen, you can submit videos that
28:41
Speaker 1: represent antiquities legacy in our contemporary life. For example, you
28:45
Speaker 1: could depict how the invention of the wheel or calendar
28:48
Speaker 1: has contributed to modern society, or how ancient methods of
28:52
Speaker 1: solar energy have informed today's green technology. You got that. Yes,
28:57
Speaker 1: Entries may be submitted by an individual student or by
29:00
Speaker 1: a group or class under the guidance of a teacher.
29:03
Speaker 1: As the festival was designed in accordance with the United
29:06
Speaker 1: States National Curriculum standards for Social Studies, Legacy Quests would
29:09
Speaker 1: be a great project for teachers to do with their classes.
29:13
Speaker 1: Creating the video will support the development of literacy research skills,
29:16
Speaker 1: writing skills, visual communication, and storytelling and they have prizes first, second,
29:21
Speaker 1: and third prize among along with ten honorable mentions. Will
29:25
Speaker 1: be announced at the Archaeology Channel International Film and Video
29:28
Speaker 1: Festival and promoted online by both the Archaeology Channel and
29:33
Speaker 1: Antiquity Now and US and us so uh. For more
29:37
Speaker 1: information and submission forms, go to antiquity now dot org.
29:42
Speaker 1: And that is from Chandra Goldfinger, not Chandra, she points out,
29:48
Speaker 1: it's Chandra gold Finger, which is a great name, it
29:52
Speaker 1: really is. And again that's May nine, throught of next year. Teachers, students,
29:58
Speaker 1: where can they go to find out more info? Yeah,
30:00
Speaker 1: antiquity now dot org or you can follow them on
30:02
Speaker 1: Twitter and ask them yourself. Yes uh. If you want
30:06
Speaker 1: to let us know about any cool stuff you've got
30:09
Speaker 1: going on that you want to share with everybody who
30:12
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30:18
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30:23
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