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How Electricity Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant. Jerry's over there.
0:16
Speaker 1: Chuck's wearing his Last Chance garage hat, which means that
0:19
Speaker 1: all is right with the world. You know, Chuck's not
0:22
Speaker 1: wearing that hat. Who knows what's going on? There's I
0:26
Speaker 1: thought a loss this thing. Yeah, yeah, I think I
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0:35
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0:42
Speaker 1: how you doing great? Um? Chuck, Yes, I think you
0:46
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Speaker 1: dot com where we have blogs, slide shows, we post
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Speaker 1: our podcasts there, videos, it's like the the Josh and
1:48
Speaker 1: Chuck video network. Agreed. Okay, so they're all right. Now
1:54
Speaker 1: let's talk about electricity. Electricity, electricity. I've had the talking
1:59
Speaker 1: Head song in my head, which one electricity where all
2:04
Speaker 1: these sees or little dots. I thought you're gonna say
2:06
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime. No, that's what is that called?
2:10
Speaker 1: Once in a lifetime? Yeah? Uh yeah, I've been singing
2:13
Speaker 1: the Schoolhouse Rock electricity song over and over in my head.
2:17
Speaker 1: What about the electric company theme song? M I haven't
2:21
Speaker 1: been singing that, but do you remember it? Yeah? That
2:24
Speaker 1: was that was Electric Company over Sesame Street. Even Oh, yeah,
2:28
Speaker 1: I didn't think there had to be like a you know,
2:31
Speaker 1: I didn't know it was like the Stones or the Beatles.
2:33
Speaker 1: You know. No, it's uh in the correct answer, there's
2:36
Speaker 1: the Who. By the way, what do you mean is
2:42
Speaker 1: that right now? I mean, yeah, I love the Who,
2:44
Speaker 1: but I'm with you. I don't see the need to
2:48
Speaker 1: rank things like that. Well, Plus, the Electric Company came
2:52
Speaker 1: on after Sesame Street. I think, yeah, excwed slightly older.
2:56
Speaker 1: I think Sesame Street to me felt like, you know,
3:00
Speaker 1: seven eight year olds. Electric companies were like eight, nine, ten, twelve.
3:02
Speaker 1: And then even younger than Sesame Street was pin Wheel
3:05
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, that was after your time. Pinwell
3:09
Speaker 1: was pretty cute. It was like little kids, and the
3:11
Speaker 1: Sesame Street was like little kids, and then Electric Company
3:14
Speaker 1: was like cool and Romper Room was kind of pre
3:17
Speaker 1: Sesame Street. Even so, Was that the one with Reggedy,
3:20
Speaker 1: Ann and Andy? I don't remember. I just remember it was.
3:24
Speaker 1: It's very immature, Yeah, three childish you think Reggedy, Ann
3:27
Speaker 1: and Andy were in that? Well, at any rate, we've
3:30
Speaker 1: angered enough people now, I know. Uh, I have an
3:33
Speaker 1: intro for this one. Okay, you ready, about thirteen point
3:38
Speaker 1: eight billion years ago, a little something called the Big
3:42
Speaker 1: Bang happened and the universe was created, so says you.
3:46
Speaker 1: So this there's a lot of people. You know, we
3:48
Speaker 1: weren't around. Nobody saw it, but it's been detected and
3:53
Speaker 1: it's strongly suspected by scientists that the universe is thirteen
3:58
Speaker 1: point eight billion years old and that it came from
4:01
Speaker 1: something called the Big Bang, which, by the way, I
4:03
Speaker 1: would love to do an episode on Okay, um and
4:08
Speaker 1: under the auspices of the Big Bang theory, not the
4:12
Speaker 1: TV show, but the actual theory. UM. At that moment,
4:16
Speaker 1: all of the energy in the entire universe was created
4:19
Speaker 1: right then, boom bam. Ever since that point that energy
4:25
Speaker 1: has no more energy has been created and none of
4:27
Speaker 1: that energy has been destroyed. But it changes states, that
4:31
Speaker 1: changes shapes, that can be locked up in different um places.
4:35
Speaker 1: It can be transferred from one place to another via
4:38
Speaker 1: some natural ways like convection, conduction, radiation, UM. And like
4:43
Speaker 1: I said, it can be stored and stuff like it
4:45
Speaker 1: can be stored in your body. Right. Fat is potential
4:50
Speaker 1: energy that can be burned and used for energy to
4:53
Speaker 1: carry out work, which is all we're looking to do
4:56
Speaker 1: is work. We use energy to carry out work, whether
4:59
Speaker 1: it's digging a shovel or lighting a light bulb. That's
5:02
Speaker 1: what energy does. It produces work, right, Yeah, okay, um,
5:07
Speaker 1: we figured out along the way that we don't have
5:09
Speaker 1: to wait around for radiation or convection or conduction to
5:14
Speaker 1: do its thing to provide energy, because we'd have a
5:18
Speaker 1: lot of waiting to do. We wouldn't be in the
5:21
Speaker 1: computer age right now if it weren't for something called electricity,
5:25
Speaker 1: which is basically how humans have figured out how to
5:29
Speaker 1: harness converting energy from one type of another and then
5:33
Speaker 1: transmitting it a very long distance. Because electricity isn't a
5:38
Speaker 1: primary energy source like the sun or solar radiation or
5:42
Speaker 1: nuclear energy or even the flow of water kinetic energy. Yeah,
5:47
Speaker 1: it's and and it's a secondary energy source. It's a carrier,
5:51
Speaker 1: that's right. So electricity carries energy from one point to another.
5:56
Speaker 1: And if you understand that, you understand the very bay
6:00
Speaker 1: cyst of while we're gonna talk about today, like we've
6:04
Speaker 1: figured out how to generate electricity to carry energy to
6:09
Speaker 1: produce work down the line, that's right. That's my intro
6:12
Speaker 1: which is usually Mechanical energy is what's produced by machine. Yes,
6:18
Speaker 1: so think about this, like, if you capture mechanical energy
6:22
Speaker 1: like water spinning a turbine, which we'll talk about, and
6:25
Speaker 1: Niagara falls, that's not gonna do anything to light your
6:29
Speaker 1: light bulb, uh, two miles away, not by itself. No,
6:34
Speaker 1: unless you connected to you send the the work produced,
6:38
Speaker 1: the energy captured in Niagara falls down to your lightbulb.
6:42
Speaker 1: And that's what we do using electricity, that's right. Uh, Yeah,
6:48
Speaker 1: it's pretty simple. Actually, it seems complicated, but it's not. No,
6:53
Speaker 1: just electrons moving around. Yeah, let's talk about electrons, man,
6:56
Speaker 1: let's talk about the atom. We should we talk about
6:59
Speaker 1: the history of this stuff. Yes, let's uh. Back in
7:03
Speaker 1: the olden days, in ancient times, there were dudes messing
7:07
Speaker 1: around with with energy and static electricity without even knowing
7:12
Speaker 1: what they were doing. Right, they didn't understand it, But
7:16
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that they weren't playing around with it. No,
7:18
Speaker 1: and getting zapped because they're messing mestatic electricity, that's right,
7:22
Speaker 1: which will explain all that later too. But there was
7:25
Speaker 1: one dude called Dallas of Melitas. He used a philosopher
7:29
Speaker 1: in Greece and in six d BC. He has thought
7:32
Speaker 1: to have been the first dude to mess around with
7:36
Speaker 1: electro statics static electricity by rubbing amber with fur and
7:41
Speaker 1: he noticed that dust and feathers and things were attracted
7:43
Speaker 1: to it. He didn't know what the heck was going on,
7:46
Speaker 1: but he knew something was up right, and the amber
7:49
Speaker 1: plays a pretty big role. It's actually um amber. The
7:53
Speaker 1: Latin er I'm sorry that Greek Greek Greek word for
7:56
Speaker 1: amber is um electron with a K. That was like
8:00
Speaker 1: the way heavy metal, you know, but that's so like
8:04
Speaker 1: our Our word electricity is derived from the Greek word
8:08
Speaker 1: for amber, from that first experiment with static electricity. Yeah,
8:12
Speaker 1: and it was actually coined by dude name William Gilbert.
8:15
Speaker 1: He was an Englishman, a physician, and he was studying
8:19
Speaker 1: sort of the same things with static electricity. The melitas
8:22
Speaker 1: was and he was the first person to say it's
8:26
Speaker 1: electric and he saw these forces at work with an
8:29
Speaker 1: exclamation point in his finger in the air. Yeah, and
8:32
Speaker 1: we should probably we should probably differentiate like statically. There's
8:35
Speaker 1: a couple of types of electricity. There's static electricity and
8:38
Speaker 1: then there's current electricity, right, and current electricity is what
8:42
Speaker 1: we are able to generate artificially. Static electricity exists in
8:47
Speaker 1: nature just naturally, and that was the first experiments carried out.
8:52
Speaker 1: Then there's other types of current electricity, like lightning. But
8:55
Speaker 1: at this time when these people are messing with electric
8:58
Speaker 1: or static electricity or um saying it's electric for the
9:02
Speaker 1: first time, the concept of electricity was that it was fluid. Well,
9:08
Speaker 1: it was fluid. He was on the right track, and
9:11
Speaker 1: something is flowing. But they thought it was literally a
9:14
Speaker 1: fluid which they called which in those days was called
9:18
Speaker 1: a humor. And he said it leaves what he called then,
9:21
Speaker 1: and uh, a flu the vm fluvium which is atmosphere
9:26
Speaker 1: around it. When you create this rubbing action, it removes
9:30
Speaker 1: that fluid. But it wasn't fluid. They were not dummies
9:35
Speaker 1: back then, but they were just figuring it all out.
9:36
Speaker 1: They weren't dummies because even Ben Franklin thought it was
9:39
Speaker 1: a fluid. It was the prevailing idea concept of electricity.
9:43
Speaker 1: UM and Ben Franklin and a couple of his contemporaries,
9:47
Speaker 1: including a guy named Thomas Francois Dollabard, Um, we're studying
9:52
Speaker 1: electricity big time. And it was when they really investigated
9:56
Speaker 1: lightning that are understanding of current electricity started to take shape. Yeah,
10:03
Speaker 1: the old story of Ben Franklin flying his kite may
10:08
Speaker 1: or may not have happened. There are some people that
10:10
Speaker 1: think that didn't happen. Now, But if if he didn't
10:13
Speaker 1: do it, other people did. There were there were guys
10:15
Speaker 1: who died carrying out that experiment. Yeah, but was definitely
10:19
Speaker 1: carried out. I don't know if Ben Franklin did or not. Yeah,
10:22
Speaker 1: that's that's sort of the story that he flew the
10:24
Speaker 1: kite with the key, and some people think it either
10:28
Speaker 1: didn't go down like that or didn't go down with
10:30
Speaker 1: him at all. But it's a great story either way. Yeah,
10:33
Speaker 1: and I think he at least proposed it that the experiment. Well, yeah,
10:37
Speaker 1: and he was the first guy to say that electricity
10:40
Speaker 1: has a positive and negative charge and that it flows
10:43
Speaker 1: from positive to negative. He's a smart guy, very smart.
10:46
Speaker 1: He's then there was another smart dude named Coulomb, Charles
10:51
Speaker 1: Augustine de Coulomb, and he is the one that wrote
10:56
Speaker 1: Coulomb's law, and he said charges light charges were l
11:00
Speaker 1: opposite charges attract and that's kind of like the basis
11:03
Speaker 1: for it all. Yeah, and the force of these charges
11:07
Speaker 1: is proportional to the to their product. So if you
11:10
Speaker 1: multiply the charges, they are going to be very strong
11:14
Speaker 1: or cancel one another out or push one another away. Yeah.
11:17
Speaker 1: He basically said, you can now calculate this because of
11:20
Speaker 1: my handy dandy little law. Yeah, and with a boom,
11:23
Speaker 1: he said boom, not bang. Okay, that came earlier. Later on,
11:30
Speaker 1: a guy named J. J. Thompson said at a science conference, Hey,
11:36
Speaker 1: I found something smaller than the atom. And everyone said,
11:41
Speaker 1: silly man, adams are invisible. You can't it even means invisible,
11:45
Speaker 1: you liar, And he said, no, I promise it's there's
11:49
Speaker 1: something smaller. It's got a negative charge, and I'm gonna
11:51
Speaker 1: call it a corpuscle. No he didn't. Yeah, it's Latin
11:55
Speaker 1: for small bodies. And then I think, I don't know
11:57
Speaker 1: who later said let's change it to electron. Yeah, it
12:00
Speaker 1: sounds way cooler. But the discovery of the electron was
12:04
Speaker 1: basically the birth of what we know as electricity today.
12:08
Speaker 1: The understanding of the electron is what it's all about.
12:11
Speaker 1: And would you say, like so before that time, I
12:17
Speaker 1: guess he didn't understand the electron, but he understood electricity.
12:21
Speaker 1: A guy named Michael Faraday was working on the case. Yeah,
12:25
Speaker 1: basically everybody's like Ben Franklin electricity hand in hand. Really,
12:30
Speaker 1: it's Michael Faraday, who's British um who really came to
12:35
Speaker 1: lay the foundation for electrifying the world. He just he
12:40
Speaker 1: created the first dynamo, which is a generator UM which
12:43
Speaker 1: we'll talk about he um first electric motor. Yeah, he
12:47
Speaker 1: just he got electricity and he explained it to other
12:52
Speaker 1: people very well. Can you even fathom how smart these
12:55
Speaker 1: people were to be that in the dark and figuring
12:58
Speaker 1: all this sub tomic stuff out back then? Hats off, top,
13:03
Speaker 1: Hats off to these guys, last chance garage at off
13:06
Speaker 1: and back on. Like I I have trouble understanding it
13:09
Speaker 1: now when it's explained through like Kids for Science website.
13:14
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not inventing this figuring this stuff out
13:16
Speaker 1: with the first time exactly. And it's a pretty dangerous
13:19
Speaker 1: field to try to figure out blind to you know. Yeah,
13:22
Speaker 1: I mean more than one scientist got a shock from
13:24
Speaker 1: a laden jar. Oh yeah, and you can make those?
13:27
Speaker 1: You do you make those in science class? Yeah? You
13:29
Speaker 1: can make well, it's it's we should say a laden
13:32
Speaker 1: jar is a very primitive capacitor. Use a metal rod
13:35
Speaker 1: in a jar and nail that's sunk into like some water,
13:39
Speaker 1: and it can store a charge. And I think Ben
13:42
Speaker 1: Franklin's kite experiment attached the kite to or a rod
13:45
Speaker 1: or something to a laden jar to store the charge too,
13:50
Speaker 1: if that happened, right, But again, he did make the proposal,
13:54
Speaker 1: it's whether or not he carried it out. Is it
13:56
Speaker 1: all right? I guess Now we can get the atoms finally.
13:59
Speaker 1: At Ms are very tiny and they make up molecules,
14:03
Speaker 1: and molecules make up everything you see. Yeah, atoms are
14:06
Speaker 1: the building block of matter, um and and atom. Remember
14:11
Speaker 1: we're always talking about nature loves homeostasis, does it? Um,
14:19
Speaker 1: you've got a balance that nature always seeks tries to
14:22
Speaker 1: achieve it. Same with atoms or atoms are no exception.
14:26
Speaker 1: I should say within an atom, you have nucleus which
14:29
Speaker 1: is made up of protons and neutrons. Protons are positively
14:33
Speaker 1: charged particles, neutrons are neutral. And then orbiting that nucleus
14:39
Speaker 1: making the cool atom symbol are electrons and they're negatively charged.
14:45
Speaker 1: And when you have an equal number of protons two electrons,
14:52
Speaker 1: you have a neutral atom. There's no potential energy there.
14:56
Speaker 1: It's just in balance. And uh, a lot of stuf
15:00
Speaker 1: off is like that. A lot of stuff isn't balanced,
15:03
Speaker 1: some stuff is not well. Some stuff falls out of
15:06
Speaker 1: balance easier than other stuff. Well. Yeah, the electrons sometimes
15:11
Speaker 1: they're super tightly bound to the atom and they don't
15:13
Speaker 1: want to leave the house and they want to stick around.
15:16
Speaker 1: Sometimes they're they're crazy teenagers and the slightest energy and
15:22
Speaker 1: movement makes them jump off from the atom and just
15:25
Speaker 1: say I want to go attach myself to something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
15:31
Speaker 1: And it depends on the material. And those types of
15:34
Speaker 1: material that have either tightly connected or loosely connected atoms
15:39
Speaker 1: either um end up conducting electricity very well or don't
15:44
Speaker 1: conduct electricity very well, so they act as either electrical
15:48
Speaker 1: conductors or electrical insulators. Yeah. Like if you pick up
15:51
Speaker 1: a stick off the ground, it's electrons like stay close
15:55
Speaker 1: to home, so it's not gonna conduct electricity. If you
15:58
Speaker 1: pick up a metal rod, as electrons are crazy loose
16:02
Speaker 1: and they like to go off and do those things
16:04
Speaker 1: that teenage electrons do, and therefore it does collect conduct
16:08
Speaker 1: electricity right very well under normal circumstances. When you pick
16:12
Speaker 1: up that rod, or you pick up that stick. The
16:15
Speaker 1: electrons are staying put no matter what. But we figured
16:18
Speaker 1: out along the way, thanks to the work of all
16:21
Speaker 1: of the people, from the Greeks to Faraday, to Ben
16:25
Speaker 1: Franklin to your guy with the core puscle idea. Um
16:30
Speaker 1: J J. Was his name, j J J J. Corp puscle.
16:34
Speaker 1: I think it was Thompson. So thanks to the work
16:37
Speaker 1: of all of these people, we figured out how to
16:39
Speaker 1: knock electrons loose. And it's ingenious and simple, but it's
16:46
Speaker 1: also very complex, and it involves the relationship between magnetism
16:51
Speaker 1: and electricity, and we'll talk about that right after this message.
16:57
Speaker 1: So Chuck, Yes, we're talking about knocking electronsluice, which is
17:01
Speaker 1: ultimately the basis of producing electricity. Yeah, like when you
17:05
Speaker 1: were a kid in elementary school, you probably did a
17:07
Speaker 1: little balloon trick where you make static electricity and make
17:10
Speaker 1: the balloon stick to your sweater. All you're doing, you're
17:13
Speaker 1: rubbing that balloon on your sweater, and electrons are jumping
17:16
Speaker 1: from that balloon onto your sweater. And now there are
17:20
Speaker 1: two different charges going on. Because you're overcharged, the balloon
17:24
Speaker 1: is now under charged, and because opposite charges attract it
17:29
Speaker 1: sticks to your sweater, right, And that's static electricity, and
17:32
Speaker 1: static you know, you have static and dynamic, and dynamic
17:35
Speaker 1: indicates motion. Static indicates staying still um and they use
17:40
Speaker 1: that to describe this type of electricity because the electrons
17:44
Speaker 1: don't flow, they just sit there and wait for a connection.
17:47
Speaker 1: Like when you touch something that's charged, like a door
17:50
Speaker 1: knob after you've shuffled with your feet in socks over carpet.
17:55
Speaker 1: When you touch that door knob, you're forming that connection,
17:58
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the balance is achieved once more,
18:01
Speaker 1: and the electrons flow like you're literally a conductor of
18:04
Speaker 1: electricity in that moment. Right, So with current electricity, those
18:08
Speaker 1: electrons move, they move along a conductive material, say like
18:12
Speaker 1: copper y or something like that. That's a hot one. Right.
18:15
Speaker 1: So let's talk about how you produce an electrical current, right, Okay,
18:20
Speaker 1: but let's talk about generators and turbines and all that
18:23
Speaker 1: awesome stuff. It sounds like you need to generate that
18:26
Speaker 1: electricity what they generate toor right, I think that's what
18:31
Speaker 1: generators are called. That why they're called that. Yeah, it's
18:34
Speaker 1: funny just how basic some of these things are. Like
18:36
Speaker 1: you say, a compute our right, But but you just
18:39
Speaker 1: you've heard it so many times you take it for
18:41
Speaker 1: granted it loses its meeting. It's like looking at a
18:43
Speaker 1: word too frequently. Yeah, I think I think a lot
18:47
Speaker 1: of these words are like that, like a generator, or
18:52
Speaker 1: a core pustle, or a what's it called when he
18:57
Speaker 1: stopped on the electricity, which we'll get to trans former?
19:00
Speaker 1: It transforms something. But you say them so much, you're like,
19:03
Speaker 1: what's the transformer? Do you know? Anyway? I've been reading
19:06
Speaker 1: too much science for dummy something. Alright, So generators, Um, well,
19:12
Speaker 1: I guess it all comes down to magnetism. Yes, in
19:15
Speaker 1: the case of generators. And if you want to listen
19:18
Speaker 1: to two shows Lightning and Magnetism before this one, it
19:23
Speaker 1: might help you understand electricity a little bit more, right,
19:25
Speaker 1: So just go listen to those. Do that right now
19:28
Speaker 1: two hours. So, Um, what what I think fair Day
19:33
Speaker 1: figured out was that because of this relationship between um,
19:37
Speaker 1: a magnet and electricity, you can take a magnet and
19:42
Speaker 1: you can move electrons in a say, conductive material. You
19:47
Speaker 1: can knock the electrons loose basically using a magnet. Yeah,
19:51
Speaker 1: it's like what happens when you attract a paper clip
19:53
Speaker 1: to a magnet. It's just the transfer of electrons jumping around.
19:56
Speaker 1: And you create a flow by flipping the polarity. And
20:00
Speaker 1: you can do this by rotating metal right, say, like
20:05
Speaker 1: a coiled copper within the two poles of a large magnet.
20:09
Speaker 1: And when you do this, you're reversing polarity all of
20:12
Speaker 1: a sudden, and you are knocking the electrons loose in
20:17
Speaker 1: those coils. Um. And the way that you spin the
20:22
Speaker 1: coils very quickly is by hooking the coils to say
20:28
Speaker 1: a shaft. We kind of did this backwards. Let's start
20:32
Speaker 1: at the beginning you want to, Okay, let's go to
20:34
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls. Okay, back in eighteen George Westinghouse, who is
20:43
Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla's boss, Which, by the way, if you want
20:46
Speaker 1: to listen to another really good podcast, um, go listen
20:49
Speaker 1: to that one, Nicola Tesla one. Remember it was all
20:52
Speaker 1: about the A C. D C War between Tesla and
20:54
Speaker 1: Edison episode animals. Yeah, it's pretty awful, jerk um. But
21:02
Speaker 1: in eight George Westinghouse set up a hydroelectric power plant
21:06
Speaker 1: along the Niagara Falls. And what he did was he
21:10
Speaker 1: had a means of taking the movement of water, which
21:14
Speaker 1: is kinetic energy. The water at the top of the
21:17
Speaker 1: falls has potential energy, and then once it falls over,
21:20
Speaker 1: that potential turns to kinetic energy. Well, Westinghouse set up
21:24
Speaker 1: a turbine to catch this movement of water, right, which
21:27
Speaker 1: is actual energy, and have that movement spin a turbine,
21:33
Speaker 1: a propeller, a fan. Yeah, it's the same concept as
21:36
Speaker 1: an old gristmill, except it's not creating energy. It's just
21:40
Speaker 1: moving the stones that grind the wheat or corn, right
21:44
Speaker 1: the gristmill is in this case it's it's capturing that
21:47
Speaker 1: energy by or it's transferring it, we should say, by
21:50
Speaker 1: converting that kinetic energy from the water into mechanical energy
21:54
Speaker 1: spinning the the turbine. The turbine is connected to that
21:58
Speaker 1: shaft I was talking about where we say, and they
22:00
Speaker 1: changed course. And at the end of that shaft, which
22:03
Speaker 1: is now spinning thanks to the turbine, thanks to the
22:05
Speaker 1: movement of the water, is some coiled copper and that
22:08
Speaker 1: coiled copper is spinning within those two magnets. That's the key, right,
22:12
Speaker 1: And because of that the electrons are being knocked loose.
22:15
Speaker 1: You have a power line leading from the coiled copper
22:18
Speaker 1: out and all of a sudden, you have an electric current. Yeah.
22:22
Speaker 1: And um, if you've ever been to the Hoover Dam
22:25
Speaker 1: or something, you don't have to have a waterfall or
22:28
Speaker 1: a river to make this thing work, if you That's
22:30
Speaker 1: why they build dams. You stop up the water and
22:33
Speaker 1: then at the base of the dam you have the
22:35
Speaker 1: means to release that water and then it becomes that
22:38
Speaker 1: flowing water. Right. And then also for thermal power plants,
22:42
Speaker 1: they use nuclear power to create a nuclear reaction to
22:45
Speaker 1: produce heat, or they burn coal to produce heat, and
22:49
Speaker 1: then they use that heat the heat water, and then
22:52
Speaker 1: they use that water to create steam, and then that
22:54
Speaker 1: steam turns a turbine. And these are all just different methods,
23:00
Speaker 1: whether it's solar or steam or new nuclear. Almost said it,
23:05
Speaker 1: which is weird because I definitely don't say it that way. Well,
23:07
Speaker 1: you you're very excited. I think I said enough as
23:10
Speaker 1: a joke, right that it slips in. But anyway, all
23:13
Speaker 1: those are just means to turn that turbine, right, And
23:17
Speaker 1: all it is is you're using that stored energy or
23:21
Speaker 1: that kinetic energy like over here to create electricity so
23:25
Speaker 1: that you can transfer it into work down the line.
23:29
Speaker 1: That's right. It's so cool. Yeah, And this article. We
23:33
Speaker 1: used a few different articles for this one, like we said,
23:35
Speaker 1: including some science for kids websites, which by the way,
23:38
Speaker 1: I highly recommend if you don't get something. Yeah, it's
23:42
Speaker 1: a great place to go visit or these kids websites
23:44
Speaker 1: because they break it down like super simply because kids
23:47
Speaker 1: are dumb. But in our article, it uh, it describes
23:53
Speaker 1: a generator UM as if it was a water and
23:55
Speaker 1: a pump, which made a lot of sense to me. UM.
23:58
Speaker 1: The generator is the pump, but instead of pushing water
24:03
Speaker 1: through a pipe, it's pushing electrons down a line power line,
24:09
Speaker 1: and that whole like using water as an analogy UM
24:13
Speaker 1: for electricity fits very well. Yeah, but you need something
24:17
Speaker 1: to push it. It's not it's not a self pusher,
24:20
Speaker 1: so you need that force, and that force is voltage. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: it's electromotive force. It's the same with water, like UM,
24:27
Speaker 1: you have water pressure that forces the water down the line, right,
24:31
Speaker 1: And with electricity you have a force that moves electricity
24:35
Speaker 1: and its voltage, like you said, measured in volts, and
24:39
Speaker 1: the electrical current UM is measured in amps, and the
24:43
Speaker 1: amps represent the total number of electrons flowing through any
24:47
Speaker 1: one point of a circuit in any every second, and
24:51
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them. And if you have voltage
24:53
Speaker 1: and you add that to current, which is amps, you
24:58
Speaker 1: get power, which is what's right, And I think it's
25:02
Speaker 1: multiplied by it. Oh really, yeah it is. Okay, I
25:07
Speaker 1: wasn't even thinking of it as a math formula, but
25:09
Speaker 1: it is. It is a math formula. And the reason
25:11
Speaker 1: why it's a math formula is because they're related. Like
25:14
Speaker 1: you can flip flop them, you can adjust them. Um.
25:17
Speaker 1: And that's the whole basis of industrial power transmission, that
25:23
Speaker 1: which will get to later. Yeah, And I know it
25:26
Speaker 1: sounds a little confusing with the volts, amps and watts,
25:29
Speaker 1: but they are all different. Like if you said, you
25:32
Speaker 1: know that guy was shocked and he had a hundred
25:34
Speaker 1: and twenty volts uh coursing through his body, that's not
25:37
Speaker 1: true at all, um, because the vault is the force
25:41
Speaker 1: and he's got he's got amps coursing through his body.
25:44
Speaker 1: But you'd be a huge geek to point it out
25:46
Speaker 1: to someone. Someone said that, And a good rule of
25:49
Speaker 1: them is the higher the vaults, the more dangerous the shock,
25:53
Speaker 1: which is why in America, UM most outlets and homes
25:57
Speaker 1: are two are a hundred and twenty volt where if
26:01
Speaker 1: you touch it, you're gonna feel it, but it's probably
26:04
Speaker 1: not going to kill you. In the United States is
26:06
Speaker 1: one twenty, But it's different in other countries, right, which
26:08
Speaker 1: is why like European appliance can be plugged into an
26:12
Speaker 1: American appliance because you got to get those adapters. Yeah. So, UM,
26:18
Speaker 1: you were talking about current, which is the number of
26:22
Speaker 1: electron flowing through a circuit. You have UM the volts,
26:28
Speaker 1: which is the force or pressure that's pushing them down
26:31
Speaker 1: the line, and then you have UM those two multiplied
26:36
Speaker 1: by one another to create watts, which is power. You
26:39
Speaker 1: also there's one there's another um factor to electrical currents UM,
26:45
Speaker 1: and that is resistance. Oh yeah, we didn't talk about that,
26:49
Speaker 1: so we acted like it was all either an insulator
26:52
Speaker 1: or conductor. But you can be a resistor. Well, I
26:54
Speaker 1: mean everything, everything has a certain level of resistance. Yeah,
26:58
Speaker 1: but if you're an official resistor, that means current moves,
27:00
Speaker 1: it just doesn't move like as fast as it might
27:03
Speaker 1: in metal, or not at all in wood. Yeah, or
27:07
Speaker 1: glass is another good resistor insulator UM, and so so
27:12
Speaker 1: so is rubber. But even something is like conductive is
27:16
Speaker 1: copper wire has a certain amount of resistance. And again
27:20
Speaker 1: that water flowing analogy comes into place like if you
27:24
Speaker 1: pump like some water really really hard to try to
27:27
Speaker 1: get a lot of water through a very small pipe,
27:30
Speaker 1: it's still not going to come out very high, very
27:33
Speaker 1: fast because you're trying to force too much water through
27:37
Speaker 1: that that little pipe. So in the exact same way
27:42
Speaker 1: a thin wire where you're trying to push a lot
27:44
Speaker 1: of amps through and a lot of bolts through, Uh,
27:48
Speaker 1: it's going to resist. And when you when you have
27:51
Speaker 1: resistance in an electrical circuit, you have UM what you
27:55
Speaker 1: lose some of those electrons that are flowing in the
27:58
Speaker 1: form of heat, which is produced by electrons bumping up
28:01
Speaker 1: against other atoms that aren't sharing their their electrons UM.
28:05
Speaker 1: And that's the result of friction and resistance is measured
28:09
Speaker 1: in Ohm's h M. Should we talk about circuits, Yeah,
28:15
Speaker 1: we were there. I think so all this is well
28:17
Speaker 1: and good. That's uh. You know, you can supply power
28:21
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this more in detail to two
28:23
Speaker 1: homes from a power plant, UM. But you can also
28:27
Speaker 1: have a little battery supplying that electrical energy to a iPhone,
28:33
Speaker 1: let's say. And in that case, you need something called
28:36
Speaker 1: a circuit, which is basically just a closed loop that
28:41
Speaker 1: allows the electrons to travel. And in most electronics it's
28:45
Speaker 1: like like you said, like copper wire maybe, and it
28:48
Speaker 1: travels from you know, there's a switch that turns it
28:51
Speaker 1: on and off um, which is why a circuit is
28:54
Speaker 1: called a circuit breaker. Like if you break that circuit
28:57
Speaker 1: by turning and switch off, or if the wire like
28:59
Speaker 1: snaps or something, it's gonna no more electrons are gonna
29:02
Speaker 1: be flowing, right, because there's the and the reason they're
29:07
Speaker 1: not gonna be flowing any longer is because the positive
29:10
Speaker 1: pole and the negative poll from that circuit are no
29:12
Speaker 1: longer connected. Another way to look at voltage is that
29:17
Speaker 1: it is the difference between uh electrons on one side
29:21
Speaker 1: and electrons on another side of a circuit. And remember
29:24
Speaker 1: we talked about nature always wanting balance. Electrons flow from
29:29
Speaker 1: negative to positive rights, and as they flow, the reason
29:35
Speaker 1: they're flowing. The whole reason they're moving at all is
29:37
Speaker 1: because there are not as many electrons on the positive
29:41
Speaker 1: side as there are on the negative side, so they
29:44
Speaker 1: want to leave the negative side to go achieve balance
29:46
Speaker 1: on the positive side and ultimately make whatever circuit it's
29:50
Speaker 1: traveling neutral. You stick something in that circuit and as
29:55
Speaker 1: as electrons are moving from the negative side to the
29:57
Speaker 1: positive side. Because again electricity is just the flow of electrons,
30:02
Speaker 1: you can convert that movement into productive work. Yeah, mechanical energy, right,
30:07
Speaker 1: And anything you attach onto a circuit to exploit that
30:11
Speaker 1: flow of electrons for work is called the load. Yeah.
30:14
Speaker 1: It could be a lightbulb or you know whatever. Whatever
30:18
Speaker 1: mechanical energy you're trying to create is your load. And
30:21
Speaker 1: there's all sorts of things you can do by attaching
30:24
Speaker 1: a load to a circuit, like a light bulb. UM.
30:27
Speaker 1: A light bulb basically uses uh that electricity flow to
30:32
Speaker 1: um flow into a resistant filament very thin wire that
30:38
Speaker 1: purposely resists that flow of electricity, generating heat and then
30:43
Speaker 1: turn heating up to produce light. That's how a light
30:45
Speaker 1: bulb works. You can also recharge batteries, which go in
30:49
Speaker 1: and force electrons back into the negative position so that
30:54
Speaker 1: the batteries recharge and those electrons are ready to flow
30:56
Speaker 1: again once you connect the circuit. UM. There is also
31:00
Speaker 1: appliances that use resistors to produce heat, like a hair
31:03
Speaker 1: dryer or a toaster. There's all sorts of stuff you
31:07
Speaker 1: you can do to connect into the circuit, but it's
31:10
Speaker 1: all the same whether it's a battery or a toaster
31:14
Speaker 1: or a whole house, if you want to look at
31:16
Speaker 1: it that way, it's you're plugging a load onto an
31:20
Speaker 1: electrical circuit and exploiting the flow of electrons. Yeah, and
31:24
Speaker 1: I kind of misspoke a minute ago when I said
31:26
Speaker 1: it's creating the mechanical energy. You need a motor to
31:28
Speaker 1: actually do that. So if you have an electric drill,
31:32
Speaker 1: that's great that you have electrons flowing, but it's not
31:34
Speaker 1: going to turn anything unless you have that motor. And
31:37
Speaker 1: electric motor is basically just a cylinder, uh, stuffed with
31:41
Speaker 1: magnets around the edge. And if you've ever used an
31:44
Speaker 1: electric drill and you fire it up, when you look
31:46
Speaker 1: and seeing the vents, you can actually see sparks. It's
31:48
Speaker 1: pretty cool. It's very cool. It's like those little guns
31:50
Speaker 1: you used to get at the circus when you're yeah, god,
31:53
Speaker 1: I love those. Um. So it's packed with those magnets
31:56
Speaker 1: around the edge, and in the middle you've got your core,
31:58
Speaker 1: which is, you know, like an iron wire and uh,
32:04
Speaker 1: it's wrapped around you know, the coppers wrapped around the edges.
32:08
Speaker 1: So electricity flows to that core, creates magnetism, and then
32:12
Speaker 1: that pushes against the outer cylinder and makes that motor
32:16
Speaker 1: spin around. And then that's where you get your mechanical energy, right,
32:19
Speaker 1: and uh, an electric motor is probably the best example
32:23
Speaker 1: of how you're converting um energy from one form to
32:27
Speaker 1: another and then reconverting it because an electric motor is
32:31
Speaker 1: basically a generator in reverse. Yeah, And so you use
32:34
Speaker 1: that mechanical energy the spinning of the turbine down the line,
32:38
Speaker 1: and convert it in your electric drill back into mechanical
32:41
Speaker 1: energy to spin spin the drill. And in between is
32:45
Speaker 1: that flow of electrons that's causing the whole thing, or
32:48
Speaker 1: that's carrying that energy from point A to point b
32:50
Speaker 1: core puscles. There's one other there's one other thing. Um
32:54
Speaker 1: if you look at a plug that you're plugging an
32:57
Speaker 1: appliance into, because again you're just attaching a load to
33:00
Speaker 1: that flow of electrons and diverting it through your appliance
33:03
Speaker 1: and then it goes back on its merry way. Right.
33:07
Speaker 1: If you look at a plug, sometimes you'll see three
33:09
Speaker 1: prongs and the third prong, the one on the bottom
33:13
Speaker 1: seems different from the other ones. It's round, and that
33:16
Speaker 1: is actually a grounding wire. Very important, very very important,
33:20
Speaker 1: because as awesome as we've gotten with producing and directing electricity,
33:27
Speaker 1: we can't control the amount of electrons that flow through
33:30
Speaker 1: an outlet to down to a single electron, and so
33:34
Speaker 1: there's such a thing as leakage of electrons, which is crazy.
33:38
Speaker 1: And there's also um electrical build up that can happen
33:41
Speaker 1: where if you're not using all of the um amps
33:44
Speaker 1: in through an appliance, the residual amps can build up
33:49
Speaker 1: and they charge the appliance and again, as with static electricity,
33:55
Speaker 1: charges just sitting there waiting to be neutralized, sometimes through you,
34:00
Speaker 1: which can make it very dangerous. To prevent this, they
34:04
Speaker 1: have they connect the appliance through either that third prong
34:07
Speaker 1: in a plug or through an actual grounding wire to
34:10
Speaker 1: a copper wire that's driven into the ground. And that's
34:15
Speaker 1: where the word comes from ground. You're actually transferring that
34:20
Speaker 1: residual um electric electric energy to the ground, which is
34:25
Speaker 1: basically an infinite reservoir for charge of dispersal to earth. Yeah,
34:30
Speaker 1: So like when you look at a power line and
34:32
Speaker 1: you see that bare wire coming down from the parallel
34:36
Speaker 1: line and driven into the ground by a steak that
34:40
Speaker 1: is the ground, and it goes down like six or
34:42
Speaker 1: ten feet. Or if you look at every house, you're
34:44
Speaker 1: gonna see near the meter, the electrical meter, you're gonna
34:49
Speaker 1: see a probably a copper rod driven into the ground,
34:51
Speaker 1: and that's your house is ground. Exactly the same thing
34:54
Speaker 1: with a lightning rod. It's a ground for your entire house,
34:58
Speaker 1: so that the lightning doesn't go through your how as
35:00
Speaker 1: it goes through the lightning rod. And the point of
35:02
Speaker 1: all of those is that the earth is it can
35:06
Speaker 1: take it. Go ahead and give it as many electrical
35:08
Speaker 1: shocks as you want. It's gonna be fine, so we think.
35:10
Speaker 1: And it's a very good it's very good at just
35:12
Speaker 1: dispersing those charges. So that's what grounding comes from. Very
35:16
Speaker 1: important stuff. Yeah, and uh, we mentioned transformers earlier. Um
35:22
Speaker 1: power plants create massive amounts of electricity and you can't
35:26
Speaker 1: just shoot that down a power line and straight into
35:29
Speaker 1: a house because it will blow up everything in your
35:33
Speaker 1: in your home immediately. But they do need that kind
35:37
Speaker 1: of juice in order to transfer like hundreds of miles
35:41
Speaker 1: away from the power plant. You know, if you don't
35:42
Speaker 1: live close, it's still got to get to you. So
35:45
Speaker 1: the way they do that as new transformers, they transmit
35:48
Speaker 1: the power with a lot of voltage, so more force,
35:52
Speaker 1: less amperage, less resistance, less resistance, which means you lose less.
35:56
Speaker 1: And then once it you know, they stop it down
35:58
Speaker 1: along the way and by the time it gets your home,
36:01
Speaker 1: it's transformed down to here in the United States and
36:04
Speaker 1: twenty volts more elsewhere. Nights nice and safe, right, And
36:09
Speaker 1: then you just plug your appliance into it and all
36:11
Speaker 1: of a sudden that electrical energy transmits to your coaster.
36:18
Speaker 1: Strudal being warmed, your hot pocket with tainted meats. That yeah,
36:24
Speaker 1: remember that whole horsemade thing with Ikea the last couple
36:27
Speaker 1: of years. It wasn't just Ikea, but they were definitely
36:30
Speaker 1: called out, maybe most strongly for I think the hot
36:33
Speaker 1: pockets too. They called it unsound meat, which is just
36:35
Speaker 1: a word that sounds weird in front of meat. Unsound
36:38
Speaker 1: is not you don't want to go near it, unsound, unclean,
36:42
Speaker 1: It's biblical, all right. So now I think we even
36:44
Speaker 1: though we've covered it in the Tesla podcast, we do
36:47
Speaker 1: need to go over a C D C a little
36:48
Speaker 1: bit like go listen to that podcast. That's a great one.
36:51
Speaker 1: Best Australian band of all time. They were good. Yeah, yeah,
36:56
Speaker 1: are good, David? Are they still around? Yeah? Man, David
36:59
Speaker 1: Bowie played a pretty mean Tesla. No, I'm not telling
37:03
Speaker 1: my Teslam on my A C d C okay. Uh
37:07
Speaker 1: was all right? And they're not around. That's how I
37:10
Speaker 1: was really confused. I was more confused about that than
37:13
Speaker 1: I was by any aspect of electricity. I'm like, yeah, man,
37:17
Speaker 1: of course they're around anyone in the Australian Uh yeah, No,
37:21
Speaker 1: A C DC is great and they're still around. Huh
37:24
Speaker 1: yeah there. I think you're putting an album together right now.
37:26
Speaker 1: Given for them, I'll bet it sounds exactly like all
37:27
Speaker 1: the rest. It's still rocks blues based rock. Uh in
37:32
Speaker 1: valure velvet. Yes. So there was a battle being waged
37:37
Speaker 1: between Tesla and Edison, and Tesla was all about the
37:40
Speaker 1: A C current alternating current. Edison, as we know, said no, no, no,
37:44
Speaker 1: that's far too dangerous and I'll prove this to you
37:46
Speaker 1: by electrocuting animals and dogs and cats and even an
37:50
Speaker 1: elephant named topsy and Um. And he was alleged to
37:54
Speaker 1: have helped botch the first electrocution by electric chair by
37:58
Speaker 1: a state Oh yeah, um. I don't remember the details
38:01
Speaker 1: of that, but it's definitely in our our episode on
38:04
Speaker 1: Exploded the guy. Yeah, he was a real jerk, remember, um.
38:09
Speaker 1: And I think we remember I remember talking about there
38:11
Speaker 1: should be a movie too about that that battle. Yeah.
38:14
Speaker 1: I can't believe there's not. It sounds super nerdy, but
38:17
Speaker 1: it would actually be interesting to go over. Well these
38:19
Speaker 1: things degreed. So batteries these days use direct current power
38:24
Speaker 1: DC power, and that means the positive and negative terminals
38:27
Speaker 1: are always positive and negative, and it always electricity always
38:32
Speaker 1: flows in the same direction from negative depositives. It does
38:35
Speaker 1: not alternate. Yeah, just think about it this way. Uh,
38:40
Speaker 1: negative and electrons negative. So in any terminal, that's where
38:45
Speaker 1: all the negative charges vibes, and then positive is where
38:49
Speaker 1: the electrons want to be because they're seeking to balance
38:51
Speaker 1: it out and create neutral so that there's no pole
38:53
Speaker 1: good vibes, yeah, or the very least so so vibes,
38:59
Speaker 1: but not negative no. Um. And then you have alternating
39:03
Speaker 1: current or a C, which means the current reverses sixty
39:06
Speaker 1: times per second here in the US fifty times per second.
39:10
Speaker 1: In Europe, So it's just reversing back and forth, alternating
39:14
Speaker 1: that current. And uh, I guess, so who went out
39:19
Speaker 1: in the end Tesla um on a large scale. Well, yeah,
39:24
Speaker 1: I mean that's does Edison has his batteries. I guess
39:28
Speaker 1: he could throw it up, which are pretty important too.
39:31
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think we kind of came out in
39:33
Speaker 1: the same way on that episode. They both kind of won. Yeah,
39:37
Speaker 1: but Tesla was the cooler dude. Although Tesla died penniless
39:40
Speaker 1: in New York in the nineteen forties and Edison died
39:45
Speaker 1: of rich fat guy, he died of consumption and gout.
39:50
Speaker 1: No has been Franklin. I guess we can finish with um.
39:54
Speaker 1: If you get your power bill and you're amazed and
39:57
Speaker 1: you wonder how they calculate this stuff, it's pretty easy.
40:00
Speaker 1: Like we said here in the US, we deliver electricity
40:03
Speaker 1: into your home at a hundred and twenty volts, So
40:06
Speaker 1: you gotta remember that one too. It's important. Our article
40:10
Speaker 1: uses a space heater as an example, which I think
40:12
Speaker 1: is pretty good. You plug in that space heater. Let's
40:14
Speaker 1: say it's the only thing going in your house, which
40:17
Speaker 1: is not realistic, but go with me. You plug in
40:19
Speaker 1: the space heater and it comes out to ten amps.
40:25
Speaker 1: So you multiply that ten times undred and twenty because
40:28
Speaker 1: that's your voltage, and you have got twelve hundred watts
40:32
Speaker 1: of heat or one point to kill a watts. Yes,
40:36
Speaker 1: because that's how the power company is going to measure it,
40:38
Speaker 1: because they deal in big chunks. And if you leave
40:41
Speaker 1: that heater on for an hour, you just used one
40:43
Speaker 1: point to kill a watt hours, which is how you're build. Yeah,
40:47
Speaker 1: and if they charge you a dime per kilo hot hour,
40:49
Speaker 1: it's gonna cost you twelve cents an hour to run
40:51
Speaker 1: that space heater. Right, Pretty simple and neat. And that's
40:54
Speaker 1: why when you go to buy an appliance you should
40:57
Speaker 1: look at that little tag that says how many kill
40:59
Speaker 1: a wat hours you're gonna be burning? That's right, The
41:02
Speaker 1: lower the better. So electricity, Huh, you got anything else? No,
41:06
Speaker 1: don't play around with it, No, don't. Uh. Yes. I
41:10
Speaker 1: always wear rubber sold shoes because rubber is an insulator.
41:14
Speaker 1: It is why because it hangs on to its electrons,
41:18
Speaker 1: the atoms that make up rubber. It's just that simple. Uh.
41:22
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about electricity, you can
41:24
Speaker 1: type that word in the search part how stuff works
41:26
Speaker 1: dot Com. You can also go on all sorts of
41:28
Speaker 1: kids science sites and find out more about it too.
41:31
Speaker 1: And since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.
41:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this rare birthday shout out. Hey, guys,
41:41
Speaker 1: my name is Pearl, and I just want to tell
41:43
Speaker 1: you how much a fan I am of your show.
41:45
Speaker 1: I was introduced to the podcast by my best friend Molly.
41:49
Speaker 1: We've been best friends for twelve years, and many of
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Speaker 1: our conversations begin by commenting on the podcast. For example,
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Speaker 1: we could not stop laughing at your nineteen twenties voice.
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Speaker 1: Towards the end the Underground Tunnels episode, we laughed over
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Speaker 1: and over that I think she's talking about this one
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Speaker 1: see Electricity, Tesla Edison killing animals. All right, that was
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Speaker 1: for you, Molly and Pearl. Whenever we're in the car together,
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Speaker 1: we find a podcast of yours to listen to so
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Speaker 1: we can enjoy it together. I was wondering if you
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Speaker 1: could help her out. Molly's twenty six birthday is April ninth,
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Speaker 1: and I think it would be totally awesome birthday gift
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Speaker 1: if you would send her a shout out during listener
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Speaker 1: mail I would be forever in your debt. Thanks for
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Speaker 1: doing the podcast. I'm a middle school teacher who always
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Speaker 1: listens during my prep periods and so happy birthday, Molly,
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Speaker 1: Happy twenty six. That should be close. Yeah, happy birthday
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Speaker 1: to April Night. That was very nice of us, and
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Speaker 1: thank you Pearl Webb in Chicago. And your friendship means
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Speaker 1: a lot to us. Yeah, you know, your friendship with
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Speaker 1: one another. Yeah, and then conversely through us all together
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Speaker 1: in their car. Yeah. Well, if you want to get
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Speaker 1: some sort of shout out sometimes Chuck uh Danes too,
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Speaker 1: he's very nice. Um. You can tweet to us at
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Speaker 1: s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
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Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can
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Speaker 1: send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot
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Speaker 1: com and as I always, join us at our home
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Speaker 1: on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com for
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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
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Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com