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Where Does The Earth's Magnetic Field Come From? · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

0:07
Speaker 1: Orry. Did you know that the Earth has a mysterious
0:10
Speaker 1: invisible field protecting it? What do you mean, like a
0:13
Speaker 1: like a force field? Yeah, basically it protects us from
0:16
Speaker 1: cognate rays and space weather. And also it's a crazy radiation.
0:20
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's like a that's like Star Wars, right,
0:23
Speaker 1: like all the spaceships have a force field that protects it.
0:26
Speaker 1: How do we have this field? It's pretty amazing. It's
0:29
Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic field. Actually, what is that? Suddenly less
0:34
Speaker 1: exciting to use its magnetic than a force field. It's
0:38
Speaker 1: not very attractive unfortunately. Um no, I mean what do
0:41
Speaker 1: you mean? It's it's just like the like the North
0:44
Speaker 1: pole and the South pole. Is that what you mean? Yeah,
0:47
Speaker 1: the earths magnetic field serves a really important purpose. But
0:50
Speaker 1: what a lot of people don't know about it is
0:52
Speaker 1: that it's changing. It might not be around forever. Oh
0:57
Speaker 1: what hm? I am Ran and I'm Daniel, and welcome
1:17
Speaker 1: to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge explained the universe, in
1:21
Speaker 1: which we take everything about the universe and try to
1:23
Speaker 1: make sure it makes sense to you. Things in the
1:25
Speaker 1: sky and things under our feet. That's right, all the
1:28
Speaker 1: positive things, all the negative things in the universe, all
1:32
Speaker 1: the north things and all the South things. That's right.
1:35
Speaker 1: Today on the program, we're going to ask the question
1:41
Speaker 1: what's the source of the Earth's magnetic field? Like why
1:45
Speaker 1: is the Earth a huge cosmic magnet? Right? Like that's
1:49
Speaker 1: crazy to think about, like that that's basically what we are.
1:52
Speaker 1: We're just the giant flying fridge magnet. That's right, And
1:57
Speaker 1: the Earth is a huge magnet. It's really powerful. Is
1:59
Speaker 1: that this huge, single magnetic field envelops the entire Earth.
2:03
Speaker 1: It protects us from radiation, allows us to navigate, Like
2:07
Speaker 1: where does it come from? Why does it exist? Are
2:09
Speaker 1: we lucky to have one? Does every planet have one?
2:12
Speaker 1: Where does it come from? Can we turn it off?
2:13
Speaker 1: I have so many questions, and it's super important because
2:16
Speaker 1: without the Earth's magnetic field, we would literally be toast, right,
2:21
Speaker 1: Like we would just get burned to a crisp? Is
2:24
Speaker 1: that a technically accurate use of the word literally? Like
2:28
Speaker 1: would you turn into toast? Like? Could I spread butter
2:30
Speaker 1: on you and eating for breakfast? Uh? Dina, depends on
2:36
Speaker 1: what do you like. I'm not sure I'm into toasted
2:39
Speaker 1: Jorge for breakfast. But yeah, without the magnetic field, there
2:43
Speaker 1: would be a huge amount of radiation that just bombards us.
2:46
Speaker 1: As we said before, the magnetic field bends the path
2:48
Speaker 1: of charged particles. It deflects them, so it doesn't like
2:51
Speaker 1: stop them. It's not like a force field where it
2:52
Speaker 1: goes when it gets fizzled out or anything. It just
2:56
Speaker 1: bends them. But if a charged particles moving really fast,
2:59
Speaker 1: then all you need to do is deflect it and
3:00
Speaker 1: it will go somewhere else instead of write into your
3:02
Speaker 1: brain and give you cancer. Right, And it's not just
3:05
Speaker 1: like a little bit of charged particles or it's a
3:09
Speaker 1: lot like the field is doing a lot right now. Yeah,
3:12
Speaker 1: it does a lot of work. Without it, we wouldn't
3:14
Speaker 1: have an atmosphere, right, we would. We wouldn't be able
3:17
Speaker 1: to breathe, we would, Really, the earth wouldn't be the same. Yeah,
3:21
Speaker 1: it does a lot of heavy lifting every day, and
3:22
Speaker 1: most people, most people just ignore it. You know, most
3:25
Speaker 1: people aren't even aware they're aware of everything that's being
3:27
Speaker 1: done for them by the magnetic field. Right. Ever, ever,
3:30
Speaker 1: wonder if it feels resentful, if it's like, man, nobody
3:33
Speaker 1: ever gives me props. I'm doing all this work here.
3:37
Speaker 1: Everybody just takes me for granted, right, it should just
3:39
Speaker 1: turn itself off for a few days just to teach
3:41
Speaker 1: us a lesson. Yeah, yeah, I think people do take
3:44
Speaker 1: it for granted. You know, it's kind of like nobody
3:46
Speaker 1: ever pays attention to to which way is north. You
3:49
Speaker 1: just think that it's always going to point to the
3:51
Speaker 1: same direction. But it's not right exactly. And we've had
3:54
Speaker 1: a magnetic field for billions of years. As far as
3:57
Speaker 1: we know, the Earth's magnetic fields formed pretty soon after
4:00
Speaker 1: the planet came to be. Okay, yeah, that's that's something
4:03
Speaker 1: I didn't know. And in fact, let's let's talk about
4:06
Speaker 1: a couple of things that maybe people don't know about
4:07
Speaker 1: the magnetic field. Some interesting facts about the magnetic field
4:14
Speaker 1: is that it's not perfectly aligned with our rotational access.
4:19
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty surprising to me. Yeah, it's off by
4:23
Speaker 1: about eleven degrees. Right. Yeah. The Earth, it's like it
4:26
Speaker 1: has two north poles. Right, one is the one it
4:30
Speaker 1: spins around. Right, the whole Earth is spinning. Right, Who
4:33
Speaker 1: gives us day and night as the Earth turns towards
4:35
Speaker 1: and away from the Sun. Yeah, we're spinning. The Earth
4:38
Speaker 1: is spinning. And so if you put a line through
4:42
Speaker 1: around where it's spinning, you would get one north pole.
4:45
Speaker 1: But you're saying the magnetic north Pole is not aligned
4:48
Speaker 1: with that one. That's right, it's not exactly aligned with this.
4:51
Speaker 1: So if you were standing on the rotational north pole,
4:55
Speaker 1: the point around which the Earth is spinning, right, and
4:58
Speaker 1: you looked at a compass would point away from that place,
5:01
Speaker 1: it would say, Nope, you're not at the magnetic north Pole.
5:05
Speaker 1: Because the wait, so then where the Santa Claus live?
5:09
Speaker 1: Does he live in the rotational north Pole or the
5:11
Speaker 1: magnetic north Pole or does he have two houses? That's
5:14
Speaker 1: a big secret. I think we should save that for
5:15
Speaker 1: an entire other podcast. So the magnetic north Pole is
5:20
Speaker 1: different from the rotational north Pole. They're different by eleven degrees.
5:24
Speaker 1: And remember it's like three sixty degrees all the way
5:27
Speaker 1: around the circle. Eleven degrees. So it's not a big difference.
5:30
Speaker 1: If you're in the US or in South America or whatever,
5:33
Speaker 1: or in Asia. You can mostly use a compass. It's
5:36
Speaker 1: going to point pretty close to the top of the
5:38
Speaker 1: Earth as we think about it rotationally, but not exactly. Wow,
5:42
Speaker 1: it's a big deal if you're in the north Pole, right,
5:44
Speaker 1: I mean eleven degrees must be like a thousand miles
5:47
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, as you get closer and closer to
5:49
Speaker 1: the North Pole, becomes a bigger and bigger deal. Right,
5:51
Speaker 1: So that if you're standing on with the line that
5:54
Speaker 1: Earth rotates around, it's going to be kind of a
5:56
Speaker 1: big deal that the North Pole is far from there.
5:59
Speaker 1: But if you're far away from like most people are,
6:00
Speaker 1: most of our listeners are, then it's not really an issue.
6:03
Speaker 1: But I think it raises the interesting question like why
6:06
Speaker 1: aren't they aligned? Where does the magnetic field come from? Right,
6:09
Speaker 1: like a big bar magnet inside the Earth that's got
6:12
Speaker 1: like knocked over and tilted. Is it something totally different?
6:14
Speaker 1: That's what I think. It's it's quite fascinating. Um, so
6:17
Speaker 1: it's three point four billion years old, meaning that before
6:20
Speaker 1: three point four billion years we didn't have a magnetic field. Yeah,
6:24
Speaker 1: that's right. And it's basically because earlier than that, the
6:27
Speaker 1: Earth was just a hot ball of nasty magma and
6:31
Speaker 1: nothing was really organized. So before that you didn't really
6:34
Speaker 1: have all these structures we needed to generate the magnetic field,
6:38
Speaker 1: and so it's just like a yeah, it's just a
6:40
Speaker 1: ball of lava in space, basically a giant level lamp.
6:45
Speaker 1: Exactly a hot drop of rock. We've got from fridge
6:49
Speaker 1: magnet to level lamp. I guess we'll get in more
6:52
Speaker 1: into how that works. Um, But this is this is
6:54
Speaker 1: an interesting semantic point, which is that the north pole,
6:58
Speaker 1: but we call the north pole, is actually the magnetic
7:01
Speaker 1: south pole. Yeah. It's one of these things about definitions, right.
7:05
Speaker 1: It's like when they discovered electricity. You know, they defined
7:09
Speaker 1: positive negative currents, and it turns out that electrons have
7:11
Speaker 1: negative charge. Right, it's just a definitional thing. But when
7:16
Speaker 1: they first figured all this out, they define north as
7:20
Speaker 1: you know, whichever side of the magnet points towards the
7:22
Speaker 1: Earth's north pole. But that actually makes it the south right,
7:26
Speaker 1: because the southern the south pole of a magnet will
7:29
Speaker 1: point towards the north pole of another magnet, right, And
7:32
Speaker 1: so that's just a definitional thing. But it's kind of funny.
7:34
Speaker 1: So if you're holding onto your compass, the magnetic north
7:37
Speaker 1: pole of your compass points of course towards the Earth
7:40
Speaker 1: north pole. That means Earth north pole is magnetically south right,
7:44
Speaker 1: because the north pole of your compass is attracted to it.
7:49
Speaker 1: So we should change the name or change the laws
7:51
Speaker 1: of physics, which one should we do? First? Let's come
7:55
Speaker 1: up with better names, right, like not north and south,
7:57
Speaker 1: but like apples and oranges, or h I lift four
8:02
Speaker 1: blocks apple of here? Is that? Is that a general idea?
8:07
Speaker 1: I always thought it was weird that it was north
8:09
Speaker 1: and south. I mean, I understand where it comes from.
8:10
Speaker 1: It comes from the geographical question where are we in
8:14
Speaker 1: the Earth rotating and stuff? But from a physics point
8:16
Speaker 1: of view, you know, we like to think of these
8:18
Speaker 1: things is like positive and negative. Right. All the other
8:21
Speaker 1: charges we think about, like electric charge and gravitational charge
8:25
Speaker 1: or weak force charge, we all think about those in
8:28
Speaker 1: terms of positive negative numbers. So north and South is
8:30
Speaker 1: sort of archaic. So if I had to redo it
8:32
Speaker 1: all over again, I would just define one of them
8:34
Speaker 1: is positive and one of them is negative. It's like
8:37
Speaker 1: a big magnetic battery. And then we wouldn't be so
8:39
Speaker 1: concerned about the North Pole not being aligned with the
8:42
Speaker 1: rotational North Pole. Yeah, we would probably have a big
8:44
Speaker 1: political question like would you rather have the North pool
8:47
Speaker 1: be positive or negative? Right? Everybody, part of everybody probably
8:50
Speaker 1: wants to be positive. In the southern hemisphere would argue
8:53
Speaker 1: we should be positive your guys are so negative up
8:55
Speaker 1: there here being colonial exactly. That's right, that's right. Okay,
9:03
Speaker 1: So those are some pretty cool facts about the Earth's
9:06
Speaker 1: magnetic field. Um, but now let's talk about what what
9:10
Speaker 1: what's the source of it? How? How how come we
9:12
Speaker 1: have a magnetic field and other planets? Stone and I
9:15
Speaker 1: think a really important clue there is the fact that
9:17
Speaker 1: the magnetic field is not static. It's not just like,
9:20
Speaker 1: here's the magnetic field. It's always been this way, it's
9:23
Speaker 1: always gonna be this way. A big clue that the
9:26
Speaker 1: source of the Earth's magnetic field is something weird and
9:29
Speaker 1: interesting is that the magnetic field is changing. You know
9:33
Speaker 1: that the magnetic field is moving. It's moving quite a bit,
9:37
Speaker 1: and it's also getting weaker, Like the magnetic field was
9:40
Speaker 1: much much stronger when the Romans were in charge of
9:43
Speaker 1: the world than it is today really and even years ago,
9:48
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand years and um, eventually it might
9:53
Speaker 1: even flip, right, it might be that positive becomes negative,
9:55
Speaker 1: north becomes south. And so that's quite interesting, right, and
9:59
Speaker 1: tell is that there's something really interesting going on making
10:02
Speaker 1: that magnetic field. So let's dig into that. Yeah, let's
10:05
Speaker 1: let's talk about that um. But we were wondering how
10:08
Speaker 1: many people out there knew or had this idea that
10:11
Speaker 1: the magnetic field is not something that's given in on Earth.
10:15
Speaker 1: How many people out there knew what's the source of
10:17
Speaker 1: the Earth's magnetic field? Yeah? So I went around and
10:20
Speaker 1: I asked a bunch of unsuspecting undergrads that you see Irvine,
10:23
Speaker 1: and said, what do you think about this question? So
10:26
Speaker 1: before you hear their answers, think to yourself, do you
10:29
Speaker 1: know where the Earth's magnetic field comes from? Could you
10:31
Speaker 1: explain it? If you had to build a planet from scratch,
10:33
Speaker 1: how would you make sure it had a magnetic field? Yeah?
10:36
Speaker 1: Would you put just a bunch of fridge magnets in
10:38
Speaker 1: the middle, like a bunch of fridge magnets. Well, here's
10:44
Speaker 1: what people had to say. Something to do with the core.
10:47
Speaker 1: It's across gravity that atmosphere a little okay, gravity, Um,
10:54
Speaker 1: I assume it's the rotation um of the Earth's core.
11:00
Speaker 1: Is it the core? The core, the Pole's north pole? Softhpore?
11:06
Speaker 1: Al Right, pretty I think there's a pretty good credit
11:08
Speaker 1: to those students at the University of California, Irvine. Um,
11:12
Speaker 1: pretty good, said gravity, it's always gravity. It turns out,
11:20
Speaker 1: actually they're not entirely wrong. Gravity as always plays a role.
11:24
Speaker 1: My favorite answer was the one that said the north
11:26
Speaker 1: pole in this south pole that gives the magnetic field.
11:29
Speaker 1: It's like, cool, cool, good, complete, complete answer without actually
11:32
Speaker 1: revealing any information. Yeah, and not making fun of these
11:36
Speaker 1: people of course, you know, I put them on the
11:37
Speaker 1: spot answer random physics question. I'm I'm just impressed that
11:40
Speaker 1: they were even willing to share their thoughts with me. Yeah,
11:43
Speaker 1: I know it takes it takes some certain amount of
11:46
Speaker 1: bravery to talk to you in public, Daniel, I don't
11:51
Speaker 1: even know how to respond to that one. Um. No.
11:54
Speaker 1: I usually try to avoid talking to myself in public
11:56
Speaker 1: also for that same reason. Yeah, it's not it's frowned upon.
12:01
Speaker 1: Um But No, what I mean is a lot of
12:03
Speaker 1: people answer they need to have something to do with
12:05
Speaker 1: the Earth's core, something about the core and the magma
12:09
Speaker 1: and the crust, something about the something going on inside
12:13
Speaker 1: the Earth itself. Yeah. Yeah, And it's like thinking about
12:16
Speaker 1: the Earth is a big machine, right, which is kind
12:18
Speaker 1: of crazy because you walk along the surface of the
12:20
Speaker 1: Earth and you think of it just as a big rock, right,
12:23
Speaker 1: But underneath there are powerful forces and crazy things happening,
12:27
Speaker 1: and all that is happening in order so that you
12:30
Speaker 1: can have a magnetic field. So it's I'm just glad
12:32
Speaker 1: that people are aware of all the work the Earth
12:34
Speaker 1: is doing for us. Yeah, there's there's stuff happening inside
12:37
Speaker 1: the Earth, right, like it's an active machine. It's an
12:40
Speaker 1: active device. Yeah. Absolutely, it's like a boiling kettle of
12:45
Speaker 1: magma and crazy stuff is happening in there. And if
12:47
Speaker 1: it wasn't, we wouldn't have a magnetic field. So we're
12:50
Speaker 1: glad to have sort of a young hot planet. Yeah,
12:53
Speaker 1: well let's get into it, um, but first let's take
12:56
Speaker 1: a quick break. I'm an engineer, and I have to
13:10
Speaker 1: admit that I don't really understand how magnets work. So
13:14
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe, welcome to the podcast. He came to
13:16
Speaker 1: the right place. This sounds like a great episode. I'll
13:19
Speaker 1: tune in, UM, But let's take a step back maybe,
13:22
Speaker 1: and then talk about the magnets in general. Yeah, magnets
13:25
Speaker 1: are really pretty amazing. They're one of my favorite things
13:27
Speaker 1: because they're like physics that you can see with the
13:31
Speaker 1: naked eye. Right, you can see a fridge magnet um
13:34
Speaker 1: sticking to the wall, you can even get these things
13:36
Speaker 1: to push away from each other without touching. It's like
13:39
Speaker 1: the first sign of a force that you can really
13:42
Speaker 1: play with and identify with. It's it almost looks like magic.
13:45
Speaker 1: Of course it's not because we understand it, but it
13:48
Speaker 1: has something in common with it. Right, it's powerful, it's visceral,
13:51
Speaker 1: it's physical. It's right there in front of you. It's
13:53
Speaker 1: a lot of fun because most things don't act like magnets, right, Like,
13:57
Speaker 1: most things don't stick to the wall. If you put
13:59
Speaker 1: them there, those things don't push against you without any
14:03
Speaker 1: direct line of connection. Right, It's so it's weird. I
14:05
Speaker 1: don't know how many things have you tried. I've thrown
14:07
Speaker 1: a lot of different things at the wall, and a
14:09
Speaker 1: good number of them actually stick. You know, spaghetti sticks
14:12
Speaker 1: to the wall, sticks to the wall, lasagna sticks to
14:15
Speaker 1: the wall, Lots of different kind of foods. Don't you
14:17
Speaker 1: have young kids? You should be aware of how many
14:19
Speaker 1: things do actually stick to the wall. Once again, I'll
14:22
Speaker 1: i'll them, I'll decline your invitation to visit your house
14:28
Speaker 1: just where you know, all rubber clothing. It's no big deal.
14:30
Speaker 1: I mean, just we just hose off after dinner. Um, no,
14:33
Speaker 1: you're right, and not everything is a magnet, right, and
14:35
Speaker 1: so not everything sticks to sticks to things, and so
14:38
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about that a little bit. How do
14:40
Speaker 1: you how does something become a magnet? What makes something
14:42
Speaker 1: a magnet and something else not a magnet? Right? The
14:45
Speaker 1: amazing thing is that it's all about electrons. Okay, like
14:49
Speaker 1: the kind of magnet you're familiar with, you know, a
14:51
Speaker 1: fridge magnet and normal like a piece of metal that
14:53
Speaker 1: has become magnetized that sticks to something. How does that work? Well?
14:57
Speaker 1: The way that it becomes a magnet is because it
14:59
Speaker 1: has bill ends of tiny little magnets inside of it.
15:03
Speaker 1: Each electron has something we call quantum spin, and it's
15:07
Speaker 1: not actually spinning around or doing anything physical. It's a
15:11
Speaker 1: quantum mechanical property we call its spin, and it generates
15:14
Speaker 1: a little magnetic field. So this electron does this weird
15:18
Speaker 1: thing and it generates a very tiny magnets. So every
15:20
Speaker 1: electrons is like a little magnet. So it's not actually spinning.
15:25
Speaker 1: Physicists of just are spinning it as if it was spinning.
15:28
Speaker 1: That's right, it's physics spin. Yeah. We use the word
15:32
Speaker 1: spin because the thing it does, the quantum spin has
15:36
Speaker 1: a lot of similarity with physical spin. Like the mathematics
15:40
Speaker 1: we used to describe physical spin angular momentum. A lot
15:43
Speaker 1: of that mathematics can be copied over and applied directly
15:46
Speaker 1: to quantum spin. And that's what makes this compelling as
15:49
Speaker 1: a as a concept, and we should have a whole
15:50
Speaker 1: episode about what is quantum spin because it's fascinating. But
15:54
Speaker 1: but the point is that each electron itself is like
15:58
Speaker 1: a magnet. It's like a really maney little magnet with
16:01
Speaker 1: a with a field as its own little magnetic field.
16:05
Speaker 1: And in some kinds of materials, the way the electrons
16:08
Speaker 1: are organized in their shells, etcetera. Gives you an overall
16:12
Speaker 1: magnetic field for the atom. Okay, and some of them
16:15
Speaker 1: that they don't just cancel out you get nothing um
16:18
Speaker 1: and some of them you do get little magnets for
16:20
Speaker 1: the atom. And then in some of those atoms they
16:23
Speaker 1: like to organize in a way so all the magnetic
16:25
Speaker 1: fields are aligned. So, for example, in iron and a
16:27
Speaker 1: lot of metals have these properties that you can align
16:31
Speaker 1: all the little magnetic fields of the atoms so they
16:33
Speaker 1: point in the same way. So when you have a
16:36
Speaker 1: piece of magnet like a chunk of metal that sticks
16:39
Speaker 1: to your fridge. The reason it has a magnetic field
16:42
Speaker 1: is because all those tiny little magnetic fields are all
16:45
Speaker 1: going in the same direction, so they add up to
16:47
Speaker 1: kind of a big magnetic field. You have another piece
16:50
Speaker 1: of metal, it's not magnetized, and all they're just sort
16:53
Speaker 1: of scrambled. They're all in different directions. So there are
16:55
Speaker 1: magnetic fields in there, but they're all just sort of
16:57
Speaker 1: canceling each other out. And it's not just metals. I
16:59
Speaker 1: mean you and I and the chair, riman, this wooden chair,
17:03
Speaker 1: theman it's it also has these billions of tiny little magnets.
17:07
Speaker 1: But the problem is they're not all pointing in the
17:08
Speaker 1: same directions, so they all cancel out, and so overall
17:11
Speaker 1: it's not a magnetic thing. Yeah, exactly. You have to
17:14
Speaker 1: be magnetic. You need to have these little magnetic fields,
17:16
Speaker 1: and you have to have a structure where the substance
17:19
Speaker 1: likes to organize in a way so they all point
17:20
Speaker 1: in the same direction. Um, so we're all magnetic. We
17:24
Speaker 1: all have magnetic personalities. You want me to tell you
17:28
Speaker 1: you're a magnetic dude, You're a magnetic dude. That's about um.
17:32
Speaker 1: And that's how something can become a magnet also, right,
17:35
Speaker 1: Like you have a normal piece of metal and it
17:37
Speaker 1: sits next to a magnet for a long time, Right,
17:39
Speaker 1: how does that become a magnet? Well, the first magnet
17:43
Speaker 1: is aligning all the little magnets in the other one.
17:45
Speaker 1: It's pushing them in the same direction, so eventually becomes
17:48
Speaker 1: a magnet itself. But let's um, let's see if we
17:52
Speaker 1: can get into maybe a little bit more so, what
17:56
Speaker 1: does it mean that each electron is like a little magnet? Why?
18:00
Speaker 1: White White said? Why does the electron have a field?
18:04
Speaker 1: You know, like white white and it white, it a
18:06
Speaker 1: pointed field. Well, there's a very close connection between electricity
18:10
Speaker 1: and magnetism, right. In fact, we think of them as
18:13
Speaker 1: one theory electromagnetism, and there's a lot of connections, like
18:17
Speaker 1: anytime you get electricity moving in a circle, that makes
18:21
Speaker 1: a magnetic field, okay, and and the other it works
18:24
Speaker 1: in the other direction to any magnetic field that changes
18:27
Speaker 1: in time will generate electric currents. So we think of
18:31
Speaker 1: these things electricity and magnetism is sort of separate. Turns
18:35
Speaker 1: out they're really closely connected. They're really just two sides
18:37
Speaker 1: of the same coin. And That's why it's not really
18:39
Speaker 1: surprising that the electron, which is like the most basic
18:42
Speaker 1: charged particle we have, could generate electric fields because in
18:46
Speaker 1: the end, it's a charge and it's not physically spinning,
18:49
Speaker 1: but it has quantum spin, and so you can think
18:52
Speaker 1: of it as like having a small quantum magnetic field.
18:54
Speaker 1: It really is a quantum mechanical effect, Like every fridge
18:57
Speaker 1: magnet is a quantum mechanical effect. Wow. So it's just
19:01
Speaker 1: something kind of embedded in the laws of the universe,
19:05
Speaker 1: is that whenever you have something with charge, like an electron,
19:08
Speaker 1: is just sort of automatically, by the laws of physics,
19:11
Speaker 1: associated with a magnetic field. Yeah, charges plus motion gives
19:16
Speaker 1: you magnetic fields. In this case, the motion is the
19:19
Speaker 1: quantum spin, right, And that's how you can make a
19:22
Speaker 1: non permanent magnet, right, Like that's how you make electromagnets exactly.
19:26
Speaker 1: So there's a little electrons, they spin and they make
19:29
Speaker 1: their own little magnetic field. But you can also do
19:31
Speaker 1: something else with them, is that you can move them
19:32
Speaker 1: in a circle, right, make a loop of wire and
19:35
Speaker 1: pass electricity through it, and it generates a magnetic field. Why, well,
19:39
Speaker 1: that's just one of the Maxwell's equations. That's one of
19:42
Speaker 1: the laws of electricity and magneticism that currents moving in
19:45
Speaker 1: a circle will generate a magnetic field, because magnetic fields
19:50
Speaker 1: and currents are very closely connected. As I said before,
19:53
Speaker 1: there's just really two parts of the same thing. This
19:55
Speaker 1: is pervasive quantum field that that fills the universe. Right
19:59
Speaker 1: that let's just up into the electro magnetism at any
20:01
Speaker 1: point and moving charges through it will generate the magnetic field, right.
20:06
Speaker 1: And it's so it's kind of like if you take
20:09
Speaker 1: a bunch of electrons and you get them to go
20:11
Speaker 1: and move in a circle, they all sort of aligne
20:14
Speaker 1: and add up to create all of their little magnetic
20:17
Speaker 1: fields to create a big magnetic field in the center
20:20
Speaker 1: of the circle. No, it's not their personal magnetic fields
20:23
Speaker 1: like the ones that come from their quantum spin. It's
20:26
Speaker 1: the fact that they're moving in a circle generates the
20:29
Speaker 1: magnetic field in the center. So they still have their
20:32
Speaker 1: own little fields from their quantum spin, but it's their
20:35
Speaker 1: motion in a circle. The current moving in a circle
20:38
Speaker 1: will generate a magnetic field as well. But why um?
20:44
Speaker 1: But why the deep question? Man? I think the um
20:49
Speaker 1: there's a technical way to think about that question, which is,
20:52
Speaker 1: look at the equations that describe it. And those equations
20:55
Speaker 1: have symmetry in them. They're called Maxwell's equations. You can
20:57
Speaker 1: google them and look at them, and they show you
21:00
Speaker 1: that electric fields and magnetic fields really are connected. But
21:03
Speaker 1: I think the intuitive way to think about it is
21:05
Speaker 1: just as part of one, right it. Don't think that
21:08
Speaker 1: moving currents generates magnetic fields, like this one kind of
21:12
Speaker 1: thing generates this other kind of thing. Just think of
21:15
Speaker 1: them as part of one combined thing. Right. There's a
21:18
Speaker 1: close connection between electric fields and magnetic fields, and a
21:22
Speaker 1: fascinating insight comes from thinking about how electric and magnetic
21:25
Speaker 1: fields change if you look at them from different velocities. Like,
21:29
Speaker 1: if you have an electron at rest, it mostly gives
21:31
Speaker 1: you an electric field. Right, It's a very small magnetic
21:33
Speaker 1: field because of its quantum Spinlet's ignore that for now.
21:36
Speaker 1: But somebody else driving by, they see that electron not
21:40
Speaker 1: at rest, they see it is moving, right, and moving
21:42
Speaker 1: charges give magnetic fields. So if you're at rest with
21:46
Speaker 1: respect to the electron, you mostly see it an electric field.
21:49
Speaker 1: If you're in motion with respect to the electron, you
21:51
Speaker 1: see an electric field and a magnetic field. This really
21:54
Speaker 1: is a clue that the two are different parts of
21:56
Speaker 1: the same thing, and you see different parts of it
21:59
Speaker 1: if you're moving at different speeds, so they really can't
22:02
Speaker 1: be separated. They're really just two parts of the same beast. Oh. Okay,
22:09
Speaker 1: so that's magnets um there. They can either be permanent,
22:12
Speaker 1: meaning that it's just the electrons inside of the material
22:16
Speaker 1: adding up to make a big magnetic field, or you
22:20
Speaker 1: can also make it field by moving electrons around in
22:23
Speaker 1: a circle. Okay, So so the Earth is which of
22:26
Speaker 1: the two? Is the Earth a permanent magnet or is
22:28
Speaker 1: it like a like an electric motor. Well, it's a
22:31
Speaker 1: great question. For a while, we didn't know because it
22:33
Speaker 1: could have been that the Earth had basically a bunch
22:36
Speaker 1: of permanent magnets buried in it, right, because you know,
22:38
Speaker 1: there is this crust and it's got a lot of rock,
22:40
Speaker 1: and a lot of those rocks are metallic, and you
22:42
Speaker 1: might imagine maybe there's just a bunch of magnets and
22:45
Speaker 1: they all got a line somehow. Right. Yeah, that wouldn't
22:47
Speaker 1: make sense, right, it would make some sense, right, You
22:49
Speaker 1: can imagine that happening, and then the Sun has a
22:51
Speaker 1: big magnetic field, so you can imagine maybe the Sun
22:54
Speaker 1: magnetized the Earth. And well, before we go too far
22:56
Speaker 1: into that crazy speculation, the answer is no, the Earth
22:59
Speaker 1: is not permanent magnet um and we know that because
23:03
Speaker 1: the earth magnetic field seems to penetrate from the core right,
23:06
Speaker 1: not from the crust, and also because it's changing. It's
23:09
Speaker 1: not static. It's not the same all the time, and
23:12
Speaker 1: a permanent magnet by definition, it would be permanent right
23:15
Speaker 1: if it was. If it came from a bunch of
23:16
Speaker 1: buried magnets inside the Earth, then those wouldn't be changing.
23:20
Speaker 1: In fact, we do see the earth magnetic field changing.
23:22
Speaker 1: So how fast is it changing? Is it changing by
23:26
Speaker 1: the hour or by the one thousand years? It's more
23:28
Speaker 1: on the thousands of years schedule, but we don't really know. Um.
23:32
Speaker 1: The amazing thing is that we can see the history
23:35
Speaker 1: of the Earth's magnetic field. And the way we can
23:38
Speaker 1: do that is that we um we look at magnets
23:41
Speaker 1: being generated over time on the sea floor. So there's
23:44
Speaker 1: these like volcanoes that spit up magma and lava and
23:48
Speaker 1: stuff on the floor of the ocean, and what happens
23:51
Speaker 1: when they come up the floor of the ocean is
23:52
Speaker 1: of course they cool very quickly because you know all
23:55
Speaker 1: that cold water and lava, and it cools very quickly.
23:58
Speaker 1: But the lava is sometimes magnetic, right, has a bunch
24:01
Speaker 1: of little magnets in it, And so what happens before
24:04
Speaker 1: they cool is they get aligned with the Earth's magnetic
24:07
Speaker 1: field and then they get frozen. So each of those
24:10
Speaker 1: rocks is like a picture of the strength and the
24:13
Speaker 1: direction of the magnetic field when it was formed. I
24:17
Speaker 1: was about to ask you how we know have we
24:19
Speaker 1: been measuring the magnetic field in our history books, But
24:22
Speaker 1: we don't have to it. It's kind of embedded in
24:24
Speaker 1: the Earth itself. The history of that it's really amazing.
24:28
Speaker 1: And because the volcanoes underwater just continuously spew this stuff out,
24:33
Speaker 1: we have this like unbroken record of the strength and
24:36
Speaker 1: the direction of the earth magnetic field over thousands and
24:40
Speaker 1: thousands and millions of years. And that's the crazy thing
24:43
Speaker 1: is that not only is the earth magnetic field changing,
24:46
Speaker 1: like it's getting weaker and it's sliding off the north
24:49
Speaker 1: pole a little bit. It used to point the other way. What, yeah,
24:54
Speaker 1: like one eight degrees. Yeah, exactly, like if you jumped
24:58
Speaker 1: into a time machine with a compass. Today and went
25:00
Speaker 1: back eight hundred thousand years the compass with point in
25:03
Speaker 1: the other direction. Okay, so there's stuff going on and
25:06
Speaker 1: it's changing, which means that the Earth is not a
25:08
Speaker 1: permanent magnet. We're not a giant fridge magnet floating through space. Um,
25:13
Speaker 1: so what's going on in there? What's what's what's causing
25:15
Speaker 1: the field? Then inside the Earth? Yeah, well it's kind
25:18
Speaker 1: of a mess, um. But you know, the one option
25:20
Speaker 1: is permanent magnets. If it's not, that has to be
25:22
Speaker 1: a current, right. You need some sort of charges moving
25:25
Speaker 1: in a circle to generate a magnetic field. So what
25:28
Speaker 1: could be doing that. It's not like somebody built a
25:30
Speaker 1: huge machine made of wires down under the ground, right. Instead,
25:34
Speaker 1: what we have a sort of basic picture of what's
25:36
Speaker 1: inside the Earth is you have the crust which we're
25:38
Speaker 1: standing on. Under that, there's a big liquid layer of
25:42
Speaker 1: various rocks and metals, and then there's a solid core, right,
25:46
Speaker 1: and that liquid layer is sloshing around. There's a lot
25:49
Speaker 1: of heat that's coming up from the gravitation of pressure
25:52
Speaker 1: and from the radiation of all the crazy stuff inside
25:55
Speaker 1: the Earth. It's keeping that sort of bubbling and frothing
25:57
Speaker 1: it's like a big soup of liquid little and basically
26:01
Speaker 1: the currents in that soup of liquid metal are what's
26:04
Speaker 1: generating the magnetic field. So all those electrons in that
26:08
Speaker 1: soup moving around in a circle is what creates the
26:11
Speaker 1: earth magnetic field. Yeah, if you take something that can
26:15
Speaker 1: conduct electricity, like iron, and you melt it down right
26:18
Speaker 1: and you slosh it around in a circle, you'll be
26:21
Speaker 1: generating little magnetic fields because you have electrons and they're
26:24
Speaker 1: moving in a circle. Right. And it's a little bit
26:27
Speaker 1: more complicated than that, because it's not like the liquid
26:29
Speaker 1: inside the Earth is just slowly moving in a circle
26:32
Speaker 1: and that generates the magnetic field. It's much more turbulent
26:35
Speaker 1: than that. Right. This convection going on is it's things
26:38
Speaker 1: that are dense fall and things that are light bubble
26:40
Speaker 1: up to the top and that's making all of this swirling.
26:44
Speaker 1: And there's this cool effect called a dynamo. And what
26:46
Speaker 1: happens is you get a little magnetic field from some
26:49
Speaker 1: initial swirling, and because electricity and magnetism are so closely connected,
26:53
Speaker 1: that magnetic field will push electrons around. Right. Like we said,
26:58
Speaker 1: the magnetic field of the Earth deflects charged particles. Right. Well,
27:01
Speaker 1: when you get a magnetic field started in the Earth,
27:04
Speaker 1: it builds on itself because the motion of the electrons
27:07
Speaker 1: gives you a magnetic field. That magnetic field pushes those
27:10
Speaker 1: electrons around even more, which gives you more magnetic field.
27:13
Speaker 1: So it's sort of a feedback effect, like a perpetual
27:17
Speaker 1: motion machine, kind of like feedback. Yeah. The source of
27:21
Speaker 1: energy is that you have this all this heat that's
27:24
Speaker 1: coming from the gravitational pressure the Earth being squeezed by
27:27
Speaker 1: its own stuff and the radiation. So it's not like
27:30
Speaker 1: a perpetual motion machine because it's constantly being fed energy, right,
27:33
Speaker 1: So it's more like a like a bubbling cauldron of
27:36
Speaker 1: stuff right that generates these magnetic fields, and and its
27:39
Speaker 1: motion is sort of related to the Earth's rotation, right,
27:43
Speaker 1: I mean it's um like the Earth spinning is kind
27:45
Speaker 1: of what creates these currents going in a certain direction,
27:49
Speaker 1: which is why the magnetic field is sort of aligned
27:53
Speaker 1: with this rotational access of the Earth. Yeah, exactly, these
27:57
Speaker 1: currents are the Earth movie relative to its liquid core. Right.
28:02
Speaker 1: If you ever held like a you know, a ball
28:04
Speaker 1: that has liquid inside of it, you know they don't
28:07
Speaker 1: roll normally, right, If you have a ball half filled
28:09
Speaker 1: with liquid, you roll across your garage floor, it's gonna
28:12
Speaker 1: go all wonky and be really unpredictable, right, And if
28:15
Speaker 1: you spin it, similar things happen, and so it creates
28:17
Speaker 1: crazy currents inside of it. And so this this is
28:19
Speaker 1: like it's hot and it's bubbling and it's spinning. So
28:22
Speaker 1: you definitely get lots of really complex fluid dynamics going
28:25
Speaker 1: on inside there. But it's related to the spinning, but
28:29
Speaker 1: it's not completely dependent on the spinning, which is why
28:32
Speaker 1: it's the two axes are not aligned, that's right, Yeah,
28:35
Speaker 1: but they're definitely related, right, definitely related. But you know
28:39
Speaker 1: what's generating the magnetic field? The short version is that
28:41
Speaker 1: it's you know, spinning hot liquids inside the earth, spinning
28:45
Speaker 1: magnetic conducting liquids inside the Earth are generating our magnetic field,
28:49
Speaker 1: which is crazy, right. Yeah, the Earth is is hot,
28:53
Speaker 1: it's magnetic, it's attractive. It's amazing to me that it's
28:56
Speaker 1: stable at all. You know that that would like not
28:58
Speaker 1: just be pointing. And also it's a in the directions,
29:00
Speaker 1: you know, like you watch a pot of water bubble, right,
29:03
Speaker 1: and it's crazy, it's going crazy all the time is
29:05
Speaker 1: this direction in that direction? Then somehow the Earth's magnetic
29:09
Speaker 1: field is surprisingly stable, given given all the craziness that's
29:12
Speaker 1: happening under our feet. Well, let's talk about that, but
29:16
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Let's get into that
29:30
Speaker 1: is it stable? Because you said earlier that it it
29:33
Speaker 1: flipped a long time ago and it's moving over thousands
29:36
Speaker 1: of years, that that doesn't seem super stable. Our magnetic
29:40
Speaker 1: field is remarkably stable compared to others, Like the magnetic
29:43
Speaker 1: field of the Sun. It flips direction every eleven years
29:47
Speaker 1: very regularly. What. Yeah, the Sun's magnetic field like has
29:51
Speaker 1: a huge impact on the solar system like where to
29:54
Speaker 1: charge particles go and how does the solar wind blow
29:56
Speaker 1: and all this kind of stuff, and every eleven years
29:58
Speaker 1: it just flips flips. What causes it to flip? I
30:01
Speaker 1: mean on Earth, what causes our field to flip? We
30:04
Speaker 1: don't really understand it, um, But the short version is
30:08
Speaker 1: that it's a big hot mess and it's sort of unstable,
30:11
Speaker 1: and so you know, it's mostly supporting itself and you
30:14
Speaker 1: get a feedback effect. But these things can be crazy.
30:17
Speaker 1: It's like when you roll that half filled ball across
30:20
Speaker 1: your garage floor. Sometimes it mostly roll straight. Sometimes it
30:23
Speaker 1: does a crazy loop. And so if one little random
30:27
Speaker 1: thing happens, it can push it sort of off course.
30:29
Speaker 1: That can build on itself and feedback in the wrong direction.
30:32
Speaker 1: So these are instabilities from equilibrium and when that happened.
30:36
Speaker 1: Once that happens, it can very quickly go off course.
30:39
Speaker 1: Imagine you're like driving your car down the freeway at
30:41
Speaker 1: ninety you know everything's going fine and and your and
30:45
Speaker 1: your and it's all good. Suddenly a tire pops right
30:48
Speaker 1: and you're flipping over, or you veer, you know, your
30:51
Speaker 1: kid makes the noise in the back seat, and you
30:52
Speaker 1: pull your hand on the steering wheel a little bit,
30:54
Speaker 1: you start going in the wrong direction. It's suddenly very
30:56
Speaker 1: hard to get back on track driving smoothly right. It's
31:00
Speaker 1: sort of like that with the magnetic field. One little
31:03
Speaker 1: random effect, one little random occurrence can sort of build
31:06
Speaker 1: on itself and make things go crazy, and eventually things
31:09
Speaker 1: can even flip over and go the other direction. It's
31:12
Speaker 1: kind of like a chaotic system. Absolutely, absolutely, that's the word.
31:15
Speaker 1: It's a chaotic system. So what happens when it flips
31:18
Speaker 1: is it is does it just happen overnight, Like one day,
31:21
Speaker 1: who I'll see my compass point in one way and
31:24
Speaker 1: then suddenly else seet flip pointed the other way. Or
31:27
Speaker 1: does it build over hundreds of years? Well, Um, the
31:30
Speaker 1: fossil record we have is not very precise down to
31:33
Speaker 1: like them the minute or the year or something. Um.
31:35
Speaker 1: But as far as we can tell, it doesn't happen overnight.
31:37
Speaker 1: You know, these things are all geological time scales, so
31:40
Speaker 1: it takes a little while. Um. But the interesting thing
31:43
Speaker 1: about the earth magnetic field is that the periods of
31:46
Speaker 1: flipping are not predictable as far as we can tell. Like,
31:50
Speaker 1: sometimes it will flip, like you know, every hundred thousand
31:53
Speaker 1: years it will flip, and sometimes it'll go fifty million
31:56
Speaker 1: years without flipping. But does it flip one eight degrees
31:59
Speaker 1: or can it flip sideways? It's flips usually so that
32:03
Speaker 1: the north pole is at your house yet Clause, I've
32:09
Speaker 1: always thought you kind of look like Santa Claus. Yeah,
32:13
Speaker 1: the Chinese Panamanian version of Santa Claus. Many people don't
32:18
Speaker 1: have the actual historical origin of Santa Claus everything, like
32:22
Speaker 1: everything else, we've just stole in our culture. Um. No,
32:25
Speaker 1: it's it's um. There are too, more stable set situations,
32:29
Speaker 1: and one is um, you know, the north pole, on
32:31
Speaker 1: the Earth's rotational north pole, and the other one is
32:34
Speaker 1: on the Earth's rotational south pole. I see. Those are
32:37
Speaker 1: the stable coming because they sort of aligned with the
32:40
Speaker 1: spinning of the Earth. Exactly. It can't just be random
32:43
Speaker 1: because the spinning of the Earth does play a role
32:45
Speaker 1: in generating those currents and maintaining them. Oh, I see,
32:48
Speaker 1: but maybe there's a few thousand years in between where
32:51
Speaker 1: it's sort of wandering around the Earth. Yeah, exactly, and
32:54
Speaker 1: it can drift, and that's what's actually happening right now. Like,
32:58
Speaker 1: right now, the Earth's magnetic pole is moving forty kilometers
33:02
Speaker 1: per year. Forty kilometers. Wow. Yet I was stunned. It's fast, right,
33:08
Speaker 1: I mean you might think, well, forty kilometers per years
33:10
Speaker 1: not a lot of meters per second, and that's true,
33:13
Speaker 1: but you know that adds up over a bunch of years.
33:15
Speaker 1: And not only that, but it's getting weaker, right, It's
33:18
Speaker 1: getting weaker every year by several Percentum. We don't know
33:22
Speaker 1: what's going to happen because we can't predict these things,
33:24
Speaker 1: but you know, if you do sort of like a
33:26
Speaker 1: trivial straight line trajectory, then it's getting weaker and weaker
33:30
Speaker 1: and it might eventually flip. You know, we we have
33:32
Speaker 1: records from earlier times when humanity was around, and like
33:35
Speaker 1: the Romans, they had a magnetic field that was twice
33:38
Speaker 1: as strong as ours is. So it's definitely active. It's
33:41
Speaker 1: not like it's right now just hanging out like things
33:43
Speaker 1: are happening. The magnetic field and the thousand years could
33:46
Speaker 1: be different dramatically than it is today. So if I
33:50
Speaker 1: took just like a regular compass and I sat it
33:52
Speaker 1: on my table, and I filmed it for you know,
33:55
Speaker 1: a couple of years, and then I spit up the
33:58
Speaker 1: video fast forward, I would to see it. You might
34:00
Speaker 1: see it drift a little bit. Yeah, yeah, if you
34:03
Speaker 1: wait long enough and you're far far enough north, then yeah,
34:05
Speaker 1: you could see the compass drift a little bit exactly.
34:07
Speaker 1: And you know, I wonder about things like animals. You know,
34:10
Speaker 1: a lot of animals use the magnetic fields for navigation. Right.
34:13
Speaker 1: We've recently figured out that, like birds, some of them
34:15
Speaker 1: can see magnetic fields and use them to help figure
34:18
Speaker 1: out where to go. I wonder if that like totally
34:20
Speaker 1: screws up the birds. Yeah, well forty kilometers a year,
34:24
Speaker 1: and it's it's a lot. I mean, that means Santa
34:26
Speaker 1: Claus every year has to move forty kilometers, has to
34:29
Speaker 1: pack everything up the whole factory. Moving sucks, so it's
34:33
Speaker 1: such a drag. And if you've got all that stuff
34:35
Speaker 1: in the workshop, at least he's got a little little
34:37
Speaker 1: elves to help him, right, Yeah, maybe that's why he
34:39
Speaker 1: has it helves, you know, just to help him move. Originally,
34:43
Speaker 1: that's why he contracted the elves. But I mean it's
34:45
Speaker 1: not it's not a little bit. It's forty kilometers. Every
34:47
Speaker 1: year you have to pick up move forty kilometers and
34:50
Speaker 1: that's where the new north pole would be, the magnetic pole.
34:54
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Yeah, okay, And you said it's getting weaker,
34:57
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, it's getting weaker. Also, it's like just not
35:00
Speaker 1: as strong. Um thousand years ago it was stronger than
35:03
Speaker 1: it is today, and every year it's getting a little weaker.
35:05
Speaker 1: And we don't know what's going to happen. Next year.
35:07
Speaker 1: It might like drift back towards the rotational north pole
35:11
Speaker 1: and get stronger. Right, these things are unpredictable. But there
35:14
Speaker 1: are a bunch of people working on this and they
35:16
Speaker 1: have really complex computer simulations that describe like all of
35:20
Speaker 1: the physics we think is happening inside the Earth and um,
35:24
Speaker 1: until recently those simulations didn't agree with what we were seeing.
35:28
Speaker 1: But now they're more sophisticated and they can model all
35:31
Speaker 1: the complexities and the simulations are pretty good, so we
35:34
Speaker 1: think we have some understanding of all the crazy effects
35:37
Speaker 1: that are happening in there. And they even do predict
35:39
Speaker 1: things like the earth magnetic field flipping. They can't specifically
35:42
Speaker 1: predict when our magnetic field is going to flip, but
35:44
Speaker 1: you know, they have a computer model in which sometimes
35:47
Speaker 1: they see it flip. Right, But this idea that it's
35:49
Speaker 1: protecting us and keeping our atmosphere in place, we don't
35:53
Speaker 1: need to worry about that, right, Like it's getting weaker,
35:55
Speaker 1: but it's not going away. Should we worry? Sort of
36:00
Speaker 1: a deeper philosophical question, you know, in general, in general,
36:05
Speaker 1: should we worried? My Jewish grandmother says, yes, Um, I
36:10
Speaker 1: think we're not likely to lose our magnetic field. Right.
36:15
Speaker 1: Look at a planet like Mars, right, Mars used to
36:17
Speaker 1: have magnetic field, but it doesn't anymore, and the reason
36:20
Speaker 1: is that it's insides have gone quiet, right, it's cooled,
36:24
Speaker 1: and it no longer has like a lot of crazy
36:26
Speaker 1: stuff happening on its inside. So it lost its magnetic field.
36:29
Speaker 1: That's not likely to happen to the Earth anytime soon.
36:32
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna have some sort of magnetic field
36:34
Speaker 1: protecting us from space. It may be stronger, maybe weaker,
36:37
Speaker 1: may point in another direction, but we're still we're likely
36:40
Speaker 1: to still keep this force field. Okay, so I don't
36:42
Speaker 1: need to stockbell on sun block or refrigerator magnets silver panels.
36:48
Speaker 1: I wonder if how how many refrigerator magnets would take
36:51
Speaker 1: to protect yourself from cosmic rays? All those a tinfoil
36:55
Speaker 1: had people a little do they know it's fridge magnets.
36:57
Speaker 1: You gotta put them on. He put them on your head.
37:00
Speaker 1: We're gonna spawn a whole generation of refrigerator magnet hat people. Now, Yeah,
37:05
Speaker 1: we should sell those in our store. Oh my gosh,
37:08
Speaker 1: let's sell refrigerator magnet hats. Force field had personal force field,
37:13
Speaker 1: had the well and and actually would be real science.
37:17
Speaker 1: It really does generate a force field, and it really
37:19
Speaker 1: does deflect radiation. Yeah, oh my gosh, somebody get the
37:23
Speaker 1: lawyers on that. Yeah, we need to open Daniel and
37:26
Speaker 1: Jorhe dot com slash store, ap slash Crazy Science Protection Store. Alright, well, um,
37:42
Speaker 1: let's take a step back here. I mean, it's pretty
37:44
Speaker 1: amazing to think that our planet is currently in our
37:48
Speaker 1: Solar system. It's special because we have this magnetic field
37:51
Speaker 1: and and without it there wouldn't really be any life
37:54
Speaker 1: on it, that's right. But you know a lot of
37:56
Speaker 1: planets have bangnetic fields. Jupiter has one, all the big
37:59
Speaker 1: gas giants have one. Basically any planet that's rotating and
38:02
Speaker 1: has stuff going on inside it has a magnetic field.
38:05
Speaker 1: So we expect that a lot of rocky planets out
38:07
Speaker 1: there probably have met magnetic fields. And that's absolutely essential.
38:11
Speaker 1: Mars is sort of unusual, right, Mars and Venus also
38:15
Speaker 1: doesn't happen, right, Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, And
38:17
Speaker 1: and we have and it helps us have an atmosphere
38:20
Speaker 1: in life, and so we really wouldn't be here without
38:23
Speaker 1: the Earth magnetic field. No props to the magnetic field, man,
38:26
Speaker 1: it's absolutely essential. Yeah, And without it would blow away
38:29
Speaker 1: our atmosphere, right, The solar wind wouldn't be deflected, it
38:32
Speaker 1: would rob us of atmosphere slowly over time, like what
38:35
Speaker 1: happened to Mars. So it's definitely very important. And you know,
38:39
Speaker 1: we still have a lot of learned to learn about
38:40
Speaker 1: the sort of extra planetary magnetic fields. Like I would
38:44
Speaker 1: love to understand why the Sun's magnetic field flips so
38:47
Speaker 1: regularly and so dramatically every eleven years. It's a mystery.
38:51
Speaker 1: And you know, we even have moons out there in
38:52
Speaker 1: the Solar System with magnetic fields. Our moon doesn't seem
38:55
Speaker 1: to have one because it's basically a lump of rock.
38:58
Speaker 1: It might have had one earlier in its lifetime. Um,
39:00
Speaker 1: but like Ganymede, is big enough to have like stuff
39:04
Speaker 1: going on inside it to have its own magnetic field.
39:06
Speaker 1: So it's sort of like a property of a planet
39:08
Speaker 1: when he gets like big enough, you know, exactly when
39:10
Speaker 1: you're a real planet, you have a magnetic field. Yeah,
39:13
Speaker 1: it's amazing to think that at the scale the Solar System,
39:16
Speaker 1: things are kind of chaotic, right, and the Solar System
39:19
Speaker 1: is changing all the time, and it's doing crazy stuff,
39:22
Speaker 1: it's flipping its fields. It's yeah, the Earth is not
39:25
Speaker 1: just a rock, right, it's a it's like a really
39:27
Speaker 1: big machine doing crazy stuff out there in space for us.
39:30
Speaker 1: All right, I hope you found that an attractive topic
39:34
Speaker 1: with two magnetic personalities current importance. I hope that charged
39:40
Speaker 1: you up for your day. Yeah, and maybe next time
39:44
Speaker 1: you go out there and you think about the fact
39:47
Speaker 1: that you're swimming in this amazing and unpredictable field that
39:52
Speaker 1: is protecting the earth. Yeah, so go out there and
39:55
Speaker 1: get the fields for your magnetic field. Thanks for joining us,
39:59
Speaker 1: so your next night. If you still have a question
40:09
Speaker 1: after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line.
40:12
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
40:14
Speaker 1: at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge That's
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Speaker 1: one word, or email us at Feedback at Daniel and
40:22
Speaker 1: Jorge dot com.