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How Crystals Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. He and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and
0:15
Speaker 1: there's Jerry over there. And this is crystals. How you doing? Man? Well,
0:23
Speaker 1: what do you think? This is? This? It's okay? Is it?
0:27
Speaker 1: The the source material is not great. We won't say
0:30
Speaker 1: where we got it. But um, I think that once
0:34
Speaker 1: we kind of make it through the the structure part
0:38
Speaker 1: will will be home free. Plus it's I mean plus
0:41
Speaker 1: it's crystals, like they're they're so worth understanding, going to
0:45
Speaker 1: the trouble of understanding because they are um basically a
0:52
Speaker 1: finger in the eye to the tendency of the universe
0:57
Speaker 1: to move towards chaos and disorder. Because a crystal is
1:01
Speaker 1: the most ordered structure in the universe. It's a a
1:06
Speaker 1: pattern that repeats over and over and over again, so
1:10
Speaker 1: much so that in a crystal, if you look at
1:13
Speaker 1: a perfectly formed, pure crystal that that came to be
1:20
Speaker 1: under ideal conditions, the shape that you're looking at, if
1:24
Speaker 1: you could zoom in to the smallest three dimensional unit
1:28
Speaker 1: of atoms inside that crystal, it would be the exact
1:32
Speaker 1: same shape. Yeah, I mean that is one uh, the
1:37
Speaker 1: one positive I took out of this article was just
1:41
Speaker 1: that thing. Early on the author did about the word
1:44
Speaker 1: crystallize m that we take colloquially. Colloquially, that was a
1:50
Speaker 1: couple of extrals in there that we take to you
1:53
Speaker 1: know what, everyone knows what that means, and it means like,
1:56
Speaker 1: you know, someone has distilled and made order out of
2:00
Speaker 1: something tough, uh, with their with their mouth words, right,
2:05
Speaker 1: and that makes sense. Yeah, So when you when you
2:07
Speaker 1: think about like an actual physical crystal, you get why
2:11
Speaker 1: that word came from that, because it is that it
2:13
Speaker 1: is this extreme order where all these molecules come together
2:18
Speaker 1: as friends to be perfect together. So um, so we
2:26
Speaker 1: both love crystals for basically the same reason. It sounds like, right, yeah,
2:30
Speaker 1: and like that. Before I started researching this, I just thought,
2:34
Speaker 1: I don't know, like crystals were just the things you
2:36
Speaker 1: buy in little five points at the shop with the
2:40
Speaker 1: cookie person who you know, wears them on their forehead
2:43
Speaker 1: for healing chakras. Before they were cool and I didn't
2:48
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that It's like crystals are also
2:51
Speaker 1: salt and sugar and snowflakes and diamonds and rubies. It's
2:54
Speaker 1: it's uh like you're you're a crystal as far as
2:57
Speaker 1: I'm concerned, So are you, Chuck? Thanks? Can we all
3:00
Speaker 1: be crystals in our heart? Should our heart chakras? Yes? So?
3:05
Speaker 1: Um yeah. There was a big takeaway from me too,
3:08
Speaker 1: was the fact that crystals aren't necessarily a thing. There
3:13
Speaker 1: a type of structure that a thing can fall into,
3:16
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Ye, and there and there's
3:18
Speaker 1: seven basic shapes or lattices that a crystal can take cubic, trigonal,
3:27
Speaker 1: try clinic, mh orthorhombic, triamic, triaminic, hexagonal, tetragonal, and monoclinic monoclinic.
3:39
Speaker 1: I don't I think there's like ten people on the
3:41
Speaker 1: planet who say that word out loud. Ever, so however
3:44
Speaker 1: you want to say, nine of them will email us, right,
3:48
Speaker 1: so um yeah, And again there's lattice shapes that you
3:51
Speaker 1: just described. Those are three dimensional structures arrangements of atoms
3:55
Speaker 1: and the crystal itself that you can sit and hold
3:58
Speaker 1: in your hand and be like, I can feel the
4:00
Speaker 1: energy just pulsating through this um. If you zoomed in
4:05
Speaker 1: the smallest three dimensional arrangement of atoms that that forms
4:10
Speaker 1: a pattern that can be repeated. The minimal size pattern
4:13
Speaker 1: that's repeated is called the unit cell that is the
4:17
Speaker 1: exact same shape. I just I can't. I'm gonna say
4:19
Speaker 1: that five different times I think in this episode. So
4:22
Speaker 1: there's two okay, and um, oh hey sorry, I know
4:27
Speaker 1: we've already gotten started, but do you mind if I
4:29
Speaker 1: do a little plug here? Who I know it's yeah, sure,
4:35
Speaker 1: Josh's Crystal Shop. So just real quick, everybody, jeez, this
4:39
Speaker 1: is really poorly placed, isn't it. I think it's great.
4:42
Speaker 1: We're not talking about Crystal, so it's good. Right, So
4:47
Speaker 1: I wanted to plug. I'm gonna do some live shows chuck. Yeah. Um,
4:52
Speaker 1: I'm going to be in Minneapolis at the Parkway Theater
4:58
Speaker 1: on June eight, okay, okay, and then the next night
5:03
Speaker 1: on June time supposed to be Yes, you are. I've
5:07
Speaker 1: got a firm row seat reserve for you both, and
5:09
Speaker 1: it's gonna I'm gonna have actually a cardboard cutout of
5:12
Speaker 1: you sitting there so everybody will know, they'll notice have
5:15
Speaker 1: chucked in and show up, you know what I mean.
5:18
Speaker 1: The next night, Um, you're going to have to travel
5:20
Speaker 1: to d C. Because that's where I will be at
5:23
Speaker 1: the Miracle Theater on June. And um, if people were
5:28
Speaker 1: so inclined to buy tickets, they could go to the
5:30
Speaker 1: the Parkway Theater dot com or the Miracle Theater dot
5:33
Speaker 1: com and there's tickets there. And I assume this is
5:35
Speaker 1: into the World material correct, Yeah, sorry, thanks for that.
5:39
Speaker 1: I'm so bad at this. Um the the It's the
5:42
Speaker 1: End of the World Live. And whether you've seen the
5:45
Speaker 1: Listen to the End of the World series by now
5:47
Speaker 1: the podcast series and made um or not, you would
5:51
Speaker 1: still get something out of This is gonna be a
5:53
Speaker 1: pretty cool show because it kind of takes these seams
5:55
Speaker 1: and expands on them and explores other other avenues, other
5:59
Speaker 1: blind allies that I can't go down in the series.
6:01
Speaker 1: I love it. Go everybody, go, go go. I appreciate that,
6:05
Speaker 1: of course. So obviously we're talking about crystals again now, Yeah, so, uh,
6:11
Speaker 1: crystals can be very small, like and we you know,
6:15
Speaker 1: are a great snowflake episode is a pretty good example,
6:18
Speaker 1: or they can be very big and the longer these
6:20
Speaker 1: crystals grow, the bigger they're gonna get and they're gonna
6:24
Speaker 1: have fewer contaminants. Although as we will learn when we
6:28
Speaker 1: talk about gemstones, those contaminants are where they get their
6:31
Speaker 1: brilliant colors. Right, yeah, so you kind of want contaminants.
6:35
Speaker 1: But most crystals, from from what I understand, are colorless,
6:39
Speaker 1: Like most um uh, pure crystals are colorless. Pure just
6:43
Speaker 1: don't say pure crystal. That's different. That's different things. So, um,
6:48
Speaker 1: you hit upon something that I think is also worth
6:50
Speaker 1: pointing out. Like usually when people think of crystals, again,
6:53
Speaker 1: they're thinking of like that little five points hippie shop
6:55
Speaker 1: kind of crystal, and you imagine it being formed in
6:58
Speaker 1: like a cave or in some sort of fissure in
7:02
Speaker 1: the earth or something like that somewhere inside the earth.
7:06
Speaker 1: But like you said, snowflakes they form above the earth,
7:09
Speaker 1: Salt forms on the earth surface. These are all crystals.
7:13
Speaker 1: So again, a crystal is not necessarily just a thing.
7:15
Speaker 1: It's a it's a structure. It's a repeating pattern of
7:19
Speaker 1: an arrangement of atoms that is a crystal. And one
7:23
Speaker 1: way to remember this um or to really just kind
7:26
Speaker 1: of have the the awe smacked into your your forehead
7:29
Speaker 1: chakra is carbon can be arranged in different ways, so
7:34
Speaker 1: the same the same molecule of carbon can be arranged
7:38
Speaker 1: in a way, um that makes it graphite or makes
7:42
Speaker 1: it a diamond. So, chemically speaking, diamonds and graphites are
7:46
Speaker 1: the exact same thing. Um. Crystallogically speaking, they are two
7:51
Speaker 1: different things because they form two different crystalline structures. Right.
7:56
Speaker 1: And if you're confused by saying the words little five
7:59
Speaker 1: points to time times, uh, we just assume everyone is
8:02
Speaker 1: from our neighborhood in Atlanta. But that isn't an area
8:06
Speaker 1: of Atlanta where you can find a drum circle or
8:10
Speaker 1: buy a crystal or some parking stocks, or some high
8:13
Speaker 1: quality incense, or pure crystal, or probably pure crystal in
8:19
Speaker 1: the white corner. If there's a pretty good Halloween parade too. Yeah,
8:24
Speaker 1: you know, it's great. It's it's remained fairly unchanged since
8:26
Speaker 1: I was hanging out there in high school. It's it's
8:28
Speaker 1: kind of kind of great in that way. I would
8:30
Speaker 1: think just about every city has its own version of
8:32
Speaker 1: little five points, wouldn't you. Yeah, absolutely, I've been to
8:35
Speaker 1: them in every city. Okay, so there you go. So
8:38
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about when we see a little
8:40
Speaker 1: five points everybody. Yes, So, um, let's talk crystal, Let's
8:44
Speaker 1: talk how how um like what an actual crystal is
8:48
Speaker 1: made from or how it's made. I guess no, No,
8:51
Speaker 1: I still can't come up with the word what makes
8:54
Speaker 1: a crystal? Crystal? That's what I'm looking for, Yeah, because
8:58
Speaker 1: it can get really confusing if you think about the
9:00
Speaker 1: fact that crystals can be salt or snowflakes, or semiconductors
9:05
Speaker 1: or in a computer display monitor or a television as
9:10
Speaker 1: liquid crystal. It's and I know we've hammered this home,
9:14
Speaker 1: but it's it's really all those things. Because crystals are
9:18
Speaker 1: a formation, right, right, So you you take atoms of
9:23
Speaker 1: a certain type of variety UM. Usually ions are a
9:27
Speaker 1: big early like predecessor atom of um crystals ions, right,
9:34
Speaker 1: they're either positively or negatively charged atoms as an ion, right,
9:38
Speaker 1: so they've got an extra electron. They are missing an electron.
9:41
Speaker 1: Something went horribly awry with their electrons and it converted
9:45
Speaker 1: this atom into a charged atom. And those ions can
9:49
Speaker 1: attract other ions, they can repel certain kinds of ions,
9:52
Speaker 1: and they start to clump together in a certain way,
9:56
Speaker 1: and they will depending on the ion um or eventually
10:01
Speaker 1: the atom. I don't think you have to have ions
10:03
Speaker 1: to have crystals. I just think they're the most common
10:05
Speaker 1: basic type of atom that you find in a crystal.
10:09
Speaker 1: But depending on the type of ion or atom that
10:12
Speaker 1: starts setting off this um aggregation or attraction of other
10:16
Speaker 1: atoms into a clump, it's going to start to form
10:19
Speaker 1: a three dimensional model what I spoke about earlier, what
10:24
Speaker 1: are called unit cells, and that little three dimensional model
10:28
Speaker 1: is going to start attracting more atoms, and another three
10:31
Speaker 1: dimensional model the exact same variety is going to be built.
10:35
Speaker 1: And now you've just gone from a unit cell, the
10:38
Speaker 1: most basic unit of the three dimensional shape of a crystal,
10:43
Speaker 1: into the lattice, which is the build out of that
10:47
Speaker 1: that unit upon unit upon unit upon unit that just
10:51
Speaker 1: can keep going and going virtually and definitely. Yeah, it's
10:55
Speaker 1: almost like they these ions are attracted and when they
10:59
Speaker 1: get there or they see what's going on, what kind
11:01
Speaker 1: of party they're having, and they're like that looks great
11:04
Speaker 1: to me. Yep, Like I'm gonna jump in there, and
11:06
Speaker 1: why would I want to mess it up by being
11:08
Speaker 1: any different? Yeah, I really feel like falling in line.
11:11
Speaker 1: It's kind of a fastest piece of matter if you
11:14
Speaker 1: think about it, a crystal. Yeah, And there were another
11:18
Speaker 1: couple of decent descriptions um or metaphors, I guess in
11:21
Speaker 1: this article in terms of long range order and short
11:25
Speaker 1: range order. I thought that made a little bit of sense.
11:27
Speaker 1: Um uh if if because crystals, like you said, can
11:33
Speaker 1: it can be a single crystal, or it can be
11:36
Speaker 1: a very large structure. And if it's a long range order,
11:41
Speaker 1: they liken it to like a halftime band, all marching
11:45
Speaker 1: in formation, like two people all together in synchronicity like that. Okay,
11:51
Speaker 1: does that sound about right? Yeah? I just found that
11:54
Speaker 1: deeply confusing, but I got it now once you explained it,
11:58
Speaker 1: I got it. Uh. Short range order, on the other hand,
12:01
Speaker 1: they like into that marching band, scattering around into smaller
12:05
Speaker 1: sub units, and this is more like liquid crystal like
12:08
Speaker 1: you would find in a TV monitor. Yeah. And so
12:11
Speaker 1: from the research that I saw this, short range crystals
12:16
Speaker 1: almost didn't even need to be mentioned in this UM
12:19
Speaker 1: article because it has so few um it appears in
12:23
Speaker 1: so few places that really, when you're talking about crystals,
12:26
Speaker 1: it almost by definition has to have long range structure.
12:31
Speaker 1: I mean you usually think almost always of crystals is
12:33
Speaker 1: solid manner right exactly, um with with basically short ranges,
12:38
Speaker 1: just this crystalline structure, the unit cell forms over a
12:42
Speaker 1: few atoms, and anything beyond that is long range, and
12:45
Speaker 1: that's when you start to get into the money. Crystals,
12:48
Speaker 1: I guess is what you call them. Yeah, you want
12:51
Speaker 1: to take a break. Sure you're feeling okay so far?
12:54
Speaker 1: I'm all right. Yeah, me too. Man, Uh, we will
12:57
Speaker 1: be right back, everybody. We're gonna go breathe into a
12:59
Speaker 1: paper bag. Okay, we're back. We went through three paper bags.
13:25
Speaker 1: It's so funny after eleven years, we still care enough
13:30
Speaker 1: that we can feel like we're hanging on by our fingernails,
13:33
Speaker 1: but we still pushed through and generally get it right.
13:38
Speaker 1: I'm good with generally correct, right, Yeah, Um, most of
13:41
Speaker 1: the time we get it right. There's there's that little
13:44
Speaker 1: bit of impurity, and those impurities give the individual podcasts.
13:47
Speaker 1: They're brilliant hues. That makes some jams very nice. So, um,
13:53
Speaker 1: there's a little more to talk about about how crystals form.
13:56
Speaker 1: Right again, when we're talking about crystals, I guarantee you
13:59
Speaker 1: the thing coming into your mind is an amethyst or
14:02
Speaker 1: maybe even you're you're savvy enough to know that precious
14:05
Speaker 1: gems are also crystals, like sapphires or rubies or something
14:08
Speaker 1: like that. Um, that's probably what's coming into your head
14:11
Speaker 1: and what you're seeing there, what you're imagining this brilliant, beautiful, translucent,
14:18
Speaker 1: uh perfect shape with a bunch of different facets that
14:22
Speaker 1: are on display. That is, that's a kind of crystal.
14:26
Speaker 1: But what you're talking about is a kind of crystal
14:29
Speaker 1: that formed under ideal conditions. And those ideal conditions are
14:33
Speaker 1: very rare, which is why gemstones tend to be pretty
14:35
Speaker 1: rare more often than not. What what you will see
14:39
Speaker 1: in nature or you know, just on the ground, or
14:42
Speaker 1: you know, in some kids backpack. I don't know, I'm
14:45
Speaker 1: grasping at straws right now. Um are what are called
14:48
Speaker 1: poly crystals where the conditions that the crystals formed under
14:52
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about how crystals form in a second,
14:54
Speaker 1: but the conditions that they formed under were not ideal,
14:57
Speaker 1: and there were a bunch of different kinds of ad
15:00
Speaker 1: is present. And so rather than forming one beautiful single crystal,
15:04
Speaker 1: because again, when you have this giant, beautiful tetrahedron of
15:09
Speaker 1: amethyst in your hand, that is one that's considered one
15:12
Speaker 1: single crystal, it's one giant crystal. If you have a
15:16
Speaker 1: big rock with a bunch of like um, pyrite in
15:19
Speaker 1: it just kind of sparkling back at you. What you're
15:22
Speaker 1: holding is a countless number of individual crystals that all
15:27
Speaker 1: kind of grew together, and rather than forming one beautiful crystal,
15:32
Speaker 1: they formed one big lump or mass, and it's still
15:36
Speaker 1: a bunch of crystals, and it's still as crystalline structure.
15:38
Speaker 1: It's just multiple crystals, and it's called a poly crystal,
15:42
Speaker 1: and that's what you see much more frequently, because again,
15:45
Speaker 1: conditions for crystals to grow under are infrequently ideal. Right,
15:49
Speaker 1: And this is where I step in and make the
15:51
Speaker 1: one joke that I thought up during that which that
15:54
Speaker 1: Tetrahydron of Amethysts was the best Yes album. Yeah, let's
16:00
Speaker 1: a good one. Yes, I have to say, Yes did
16:04
Speaker 1: second to Iron Maiden and Beautiful album covers. They were
16:08
Speaker 1: pretty good. They had great ones. Um So, polychress, contrary
16:12
Speaker 1: to what you might think or here or read, are
16:15
Speaker 1: not stronger than single crystals because it's like, uh, I mean,
16:21
Speaker 1: it kind of makes sense. If you're assembling a model
16:23
Speaker 1: from a hundred pieces, it's probably not as strong as
16:26
Speaker 1: something that's made from one thing because where they join,
16:29
Speaker 1: it's gonna have weak points. That's a million percent right right,
16:32
Speaker 1: Because again, if you if you realize that a beautiful
16:35
Speaker 1: giant crystal is just one solid piece, those all those
16:38
Speaker 1: little smaller crystals, they they're going to break apart much
16:41
Speaker 1: more easily because they have weak spots. They're not joined
16:43
Speaker 1: together with these amazing covalent or ionic bonds that are
16:48
Speaker 1: holding that that single crystal together. So it makes sense
16:51
Speaker 1: in that respect. So, um, let's talk about how crystals
16:56
Speaker 1: are formed. Do you want to? There's really basically just
16:58
Speaker 1: three ways that before and whether whether they're human made
17:02
Speaker 1: or made in nature, they basically come about three different ways. Yeah,
17:06
Speaker 1: And um, I'm gonna skip out of order here because
17:09
Speaker 1: for the kids out there, you can actually grow a
17:11
Speaker 1: crystal at home in pretty short order and it's pretty neat.
17:15
Speaker 1: So if you are a kid, or if you're a
17:17
Speaker 1: parent with some kids, here's what one kind of fun
17:20
Speaker 1: thing that you can do. And this is how to
17:21
Speaker 1: make a crystal out of a solution, which is one
17:25
Speaker 1: of the three ways. Uh, you can actually grow a
17:28
Speaker 1: sodium chloride salt crystal in just a few days. It's
17:32
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing you need to wait around
17:34
Speaker 1: like a year, four or millions of years. That's right.
17:38
Speaker 1: So to do this, kids, you need get some whatever
17:41
Speaker 1: kind of salt you can, but you can just get
17:42
Speaker 1: regular sodium chloride, table salt, some distilled water, a glass,
17:47
Speaker 1: uh like bell jar, any kind of glass is great, um,
17:51
Speaker 1: and then a spoon. You stir salt into boiling hot
17:55
Speaker 1: water until no more of it will dissolve, and you're
17:58
Speaker 1: gonna start to see some crystal start starting to appear
18:01
Speaker 1: at the bottom of this thing. And make sure the
18:03
Speaker 1: water is as close to boiling as you can get.
18:05
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna pour that solution into that clear jar
18:08
Speaker 1: and you put the spoon there is just to make
18:11
Speaker 1: sure the jar doesn't break. That always helps, okay. Is
18:14
Speaker 1: that we've got to do a short stuff on the
18:17
Speaker 1: physics of that someday. Yeah, yeah, I remember that was
18:20
Speaker 1: an old like uh waiting tables trick when you made
18:24
Speaker 1: ice coffee, which is just when what we did was
18:27
Speaker 1: just pour hot coffee and a big thing ice. Sure,
18:29
Speaker 1: well this is pre hot coffee cold brew. Yeah. Um.
18:35
Speaker 1: So then you suspend a string, that string that I
18:37
Speaker 1: told you about, uh into the jar from a spoon
18:40
Speaker 1: and just laid across the top of the jar, so
18:42
Speaker 1: it's hanging down in that solution and then just don't
18:45
Speaker 1: touch it for a while and you will literally see
18:48
Speaker 1: crystals forming on this string over the next few days. Yep,
18:51
Speaker 1: it's really really cool. It is very cool. Um. I
18:53
Speaker 1: saw another experiment you could do at home. It's got
18:56
Speaker 1: a couple of extra steps, but you can make um
18:59
Speaker 1: a beautiful kind a magenta colored crystal with um just
19:03
Speaker 1: straight up album and a couple of things. You grow
19:06
Speaker 1: a seed crystal and you use that you dangle it
19:10
Speaker 1: like on a string, like you were saying, but it
19:12
Speaker 1: actually grows more crystals up to it as well, So
19:15
Speaker 1: you can grow the stuff at home. And both of
19:17
Speaker 1: those are crystal grown from solution and crystal grown from solution.
19:22
Speaker 1: Is like you were just saying. You put in salt
19:24
Speaker 1: into hot water until you can't dissolve it anymore. That
19:28
Speaker 1: means that the salt or the water has become saturated
19:32
Speaker 1: with salt. No, it cannot hold any more salt, right, sorry,
19:37
Speaker 1: t s. But that salt gotta go somewhere and it
19:40
Speaker 1: will eventually be forced into a solid state, especially as
19:44
Speaker 1: that liquid cools. Because water that's warmer or anything that's warmer,
19:49
Speaker 1: means that that the atoms and the molecules are further apart,
19:52
Speaker 1: which means there's more space for salt. But as that
19:55
Speaker 1: water cools down, that space shrinks and that salt's gotta
19:58
Speaker 1: go somewhere, so it turn into the solid state and
20:02
Speaker 1: forms crystals. And it's that that happens with salt at
20:06
Speaker 1: a relatively cool temperature at a relatively low pressure, you know,
20:11
Speaker 1: basically sea level pressure on Earth. But that same thing
20:15
Speaker 1: can happen under water and hydrothermal vents. It can happen
20:20
Speaker 1: with magma inside the mantle of the Earth. Um, there's
20:24
Speaker 1: there's the ship. The conditions can change, so you have
20:27
Speaker 1: different temperatures, different pressures, different types of atoms, and they'll
20:31
Speaker 1: form under those different conditions, different kinds of things. But
20:35
Speaker 1: crystals can form anywhere. They can form on the surface
20:38
Speaker 1: of the Earth again, in clouds and inside the Earth itself. Yeah,
20:42
Speaker 1: And if you're going to grow from a solution like that,
20:44
Speaker 1: like you do in your kitchen, you can produce crystals
20:47
Speaker 1: much much faster, and produce bigger crystals than you can
20:51
Speaker 1: with a vapor deposition, which is you know, snowflakes, which
20:57
Speaker 1: we've talked about a lot on the show, which is
20:59
Speaker 1: basically so vapor depic is basically the same thing. Instead
21:03
Speaker 1: of a liquid solution becoming super saturated, a gaseous solution
21:09
Speaker 1: has become super saturated saturated and so that the water
21:12
Speaker 1: vapor can't the air can't hold anymore, so it pushes
21:17
Speaker 1: it into a solid state and forms snow flakes. Yeah.
21:21
Speaker 1: Then there's a third method, uh, from growth from melt,
21:25
Speaker 1: which is really kind of interesting. And there's a few
21:28
Speaker 1: different ways to do this too. Um. But basically what
21:31
Speaker 1: you're doing is you're cooling a gas until it's a
21:34
Speaker 1: liquid and then chilling that liquid until it starts that
21:38
Speaker 1: you know, crystallization process. Uh. And there's there's a few ways.
21:42
Speaker 1: There's one called crystal pulling or the here we go
21:47
Speaker 1: zakrawl Ski method. Yeah. And this is this is a
21:49
Speaker 1: human made method of creating crystals, right. Yeah. It was
21:53
Speaker 1: named from a Polish scientist by the name of Za
21:55
Speaker 1: karl Ski Kasimir funk Uh in nineteen fifteen. And this,
22:00
Speaker 1: you know, all of these involved actual machines and this
22:04
Speaker 1: you know when you hear about superconductors and stuff like that,
22:06
Speaker 1: like this is these are man made things. Are human
22:08
Speaker 1: made things, uh, And methods and processes that people figured
22:12
Speaker 1: out a long long time ago, right, Crystal pulling is
22:16
Speaker 1: pretty not so amazing. Did you see any videos on it? Yeah,
22:19
Speaker 1: I watched some videos and looked at like some still
22:21
Speaker 1: images of the machinery. It is pretty cool. So it's like,
22:24
Speaker 1: do you do that science experiment that I found where
22:27
Speaker 1: you created crystal and then you tie it to a
22:29
Speaker 1: fishing line. You basically just hang it over the solution.
22:33
Speaker 1: This is that's a very simple version of what they're
22:35
Speaker 1: doing with crystal pulling. You're using a seed crystal that
22:39
Speaker 1: is basically providing the structure for the solution below it.
22:43
Speaker 1: You you just touch that seed crystal just to the solution,
22:47
Speaker 1: and it basically sets off an attractive chain reaction that
22:52
Speaker 1: creates a crystal. So you slowly raise the crystal upward
22:56
Speaker 1: or that seed crystal upward, and the crystal follows it
23:01
Speaker 1: out of the solution. Essentially. Yes, it is. That's another
23:07
Speaker 1: reason why I love crystals. It's just the way that
23:10
Speaker 1: they form is so astounding ly awesome. And and with
23:14
Speaker 1: crystal pulling in particular, this is kind of an old technology.
23:17
Speaker 1: I think it's from the early nineteen hundreds when it
23:22
Speaker 1: was first invented, and um since then, they've gotten so
23:27
Speaker 1: good at it, and it's so perfectly automated that they
23:30
Speaker 1: can calculate how fast the crystal forms went under crystal pulling,
23:35
Speaker 1: and so they will have the machine raise that seed
23:38
Speaker 1: crystal at the rate of crystal formation. And now they
23:42
Speaker 1: can get to places where they're forming um crystals that
23:47
Speaker 1: have like, uh, there are a foot around in diameter
23:51
Speaker 1: that that are just perfect, absolutely perfect crystals because also
23:54
Speaker 1: the solution that they're using that they're dipping that that
23:57
Speaker 1: seed crystal into has been purified, so it's the absolutely
24:01
Speaker 1: pure version of whatever you're trying to make a crystal
24:04
Speaker 1: out of. So, uh, say that you could make diamonds
24:07
Speaker 1: out of this, you could. You would have pure carbon
24:10
Speaker 1: in in a solution usually melted, and then you would
24:13
Speaker 1: have a diamond um dangling down as the seed and
24:17
Speaker 1: you would grow a seed diamond. That's not how you
24:19
Speaker 1: can make diamonds, but that's how they that's what they
24:21
Speaker 1: do with um silicon. Actually, yeah, and there's another method
24:26
Speaker 1: um from from with the you know, the melting method
24:29
Speaker 1: called the Bridgeman stock Barger method, named for Percy Bridgeman
24:34
Speaker 1: and Donald stock Barger. I guess it's so hard g right. Sure,
24:38
Speaker 1: he's stock Barger. He's the Art Garfunkle of the crystal
24:41
Speaker 1: manufacturing world. And from what I got, this is used
24:46
Speaker 1: when the crystal pulling method isn't so great for certain materials. Right,
24:52
Speaker 1: And in this case, you take it's sort of like
24:54
Speaker 1: take an ice cream cone shape, a conical shape, and
24:58
Speaker 1: you lower it, uh, fill it with molten material, lower
25:01
Speaker 1: it into a cooler area, so it cools from that
25:05
Speaker 1: very bottom tip, just the tip, just the tip upward. Um,
25:09
Speaker 1: and it just kind of the same way. It just
25:11
Speaker 1: sort of works this way up joining the party saying
25:14
Speaker 1: this looks good. I like the way you guys are
25:15
Speaker 1: shaped and ordered. I'm just gonna jump right in. Yeah.
25:18
Speaker 1: So as the tip of that cone goes further downward
25:21
Speaker 1: into the colder temperature, that crystal grows upward in the tube,
25:26
Speaker 1: right yeah. And then eventually you have a whole tube
25:28
Speaker 1: that's just one one giant crystal, that's right. And then
25:31
Speaker 1: you think, how am I going to get that out
25:33
Speaker 1: of here? Oh? Yeah, I hadn't really pluck this out
25:36
Speaker 1: all the way. I just got a beautiful crystal trapped
25:39
Speaker 1: into a canonical tube. I'm sure this, I'm sure it
25:43
Speaker 1: opens don't you think, Well, maybe that's where what was
25:46
Speaker 1: the second name of that, I can't remember Donald, this
25:49
Speaker 1: is his first name. Well maybe that's where Donald. That
25:52
Speaker 1: was his big contribution was maybe having a hatch on
25:55
Speaker 1: the back. Yeah, I imagine there's something like that. So
25:58
Speaker 1: if I were going to put my money down on
26:00
Speaker 1: the best human made synthetic crystal um process, it would
26:05
Speaker 1: be epitaxi and in particular UM molecular deposition, molecular molecular
26:12
Speaker 1: beam epitaxi. Yeah, and this is one again where you're growing.
26:18
Speaker 1: I mean, all of these kind of start with a
26:20
Speaker 1: base crystal and it grows from there. And in this case,
26:24
Speaker 1: the base has to be just like atomically flat. That's
26:30
Speaker 1: a good band name too. Atomically flat is pretty good
26:33
Speaker 1: not bad math rock. Yeah, of course. So with the
26:37
Speaker 1: with the reason it has to be atomically flat is
26:40
Speaker 1: because you want to build from a pure crystal structure.
26:43
Speaker 1: And again, if you introduce atoms, especially like um, previously
26:50
Speaker 1: sordid atoms, like the kind of atoms you want UH
26:53
Speaker 1: to build this crystal structure out of um, they will
26:57
Speaker 1: fall into this arrangement when they're introduced to a crystalline structure.
27:01
Speaker 1: That's already there, and then they layer by layer, atomic
27:04
Speaker 1: layer by atomic layer will form a crystal. Uh. That
27:09
Speaker 1: that's built out. And with molecular beam in particular, you're
27:12
Speaker 1: shooting a beam of atoms across this perfectly flat substrate,
27:18
Speaker 1: and um, they are. They're introduced in a way so
27:21
Speaker 1: they don't collide with one another. They just click click
27:23
Speaker 1: click right into place. Yeah. Again this There were a
27:27
Speaker 1: couple of decent um examples in here, and this one
27:30
Speaker 1: they said, if you think of a wrack of billiard balls,
27:33
Speaker 1: and if you just throw a ball on top of that,
27:36
Speaker 1: it will come to rest somewhere, you know, who knows where,
27:39
Speaker 1: but somewhere between those other balls. It's not gonna It
27:42
Speaker 1: would be pretty amazing if it just sat directly on
27:44
Speaker 1: top of one of the balls, but that's not gonna happen.
27:46
Speaker 1: It's gonna find its place where it fits best. It
27:49
Speaker 1: gets in where it fits in. Yeah. Um. And then
27:53
Speaker 1: that was from roundabout. Uh. Then there's chemical vapor death position,
27:57
Speaker 1: which is the same thing, but instead of a beam
27:59
Speaker 1: of molecules that you're sending over that substrate, you're shooting vapor.
28:04
Speaker 1: You're just blowing vapor over it. And that way the
28:06
Speaker 1: atoms kind of link up too. Yeah, and that's faster, right,
28:10
Speaker 1: it's faster. And that's what they used for synthetic diamonds. Now,
28:16
Speaker 1: I know I needed it yesterday. Remember the diamonique from
28:20
Speaker 1: the nineties. I don't remember diamonique. Remember diamonoid and diamels
28:25
Speaker 1: it's all the same, I'm sure, yeah, or cubic or conia. Yeah,
28:29
Speaker 1: those were probably just all trade names, right, I would guess,
28:32
Speaker 1: so shure um diamonique just always stuck with me. Just
28:36
Speaker 1: sounded so fancy. It's a nice name. Um. And then lastly,
28:39
Speaker 1: there's liquid phase epitaxi, which is pretty awesome. So imagine
28:43
Speaker 1: a solution and you have a um that perfectly flat
28:48
Speaker 1: atomic substrate crystal, and you just lifted up out of
28:53
Speaker 1: the solution, and as it comes up out of the solution,
28:57
Speaker 1: a crystal just forms out of nothing. Amazing. Oh my goodness,
29:03
Speaker 1: I can't take a chuck. You want to take a break. Yeah,
29:06
Speaker 1: we'll take another break and we'll talk about jimstones and
29:09
Speaker 1: then crystal healing and what that's all about. Right after this. Okay, dude,
29:33
Speaker 1: I should say I was at UM the Smithsonian the
29:36
Speaker 1: other day. You know, I went up to d C
29:38
Speaker 1: because to hear Jeff Bezos delivers news about Blue Origin
29:42
Speaker 1: landing on the Moon. It was awesome. It was really cool,
29:46
Speaker 1: Like he was up there on stage and um, it
29:49
Speaker 1: was probably a room of hundred hundred fifty people maybe,
29:53
Speaker 1: and um, behind him, the curtain comes down and there's
29:56
Speaker 1: a full scale model of the Lunar Lander he's gonna
30:00
Speaker 1: send up in like three years. It's pretty cool. Everyone
30:03
Speaker 1: gasp yes and clapped appropriately. So. But um, so, while
30:09
Speaker 1: I was there, I killed some time at the Museum
30:11
Speaker 1: of Natural History, and uh, I was just in trance
30:15
Speaker 1: that as a matter of fact, we're doing this episode
30:17
Speaker 1: because of their the crystal um display there. I was like,
30:21
Speaker 1: have we never done one on crystals? And I thought, no,
30:23
Speaker 1: we haven't, and and then I thought, well, we really should.
30:26
Speaker 1: And then I thought, well, let's go get a sandwich
30:28
Speaker 1: in the meantime. And I wasn't there to knock you
30:30
Speaker 1: over the head with a rubber mallet. Yeah, to knock
30:33
Speaker 1: me out of the loop and be like, what happened?
30:36
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, you just passed out. He had
30:38
Speaker 1: a sandwich in his hand, but the mineral um, the
30:42
Speaker 1: mineral in crystal and gem collection they have there is
30:46
Speaker 1: just amazing. It's just so beautiful. It's like just a
30:51
Speaker 1: little wondering and you're just wandering around from case to
30:53
Speaker 1: case staring at crystals. It's really neat, and there's one
30:56
Speaker 1: in particular that really caught my fancy. It's, uh, they
31:00
Speaker 1: just look like ordinary dumb rocks or whatever. And then
31:03
Speaker 1: the light goes out in a black light comes on
31:05
Speaker 1: in this little display case and they're fluorescent crystals embedded
31:09
Speaker 1: in the rocks. And then the light comes back on
31:12
Speaker 1: and then it goes back out and then back gut
31:13
Speaker 1: and it's really amazing to watch. And then the light
31:16
Speaker 1: came on and your pants were down, do you know,
31:21
Speaker 1: fallow my own everybody. I'm just selling this whole thing.
31:24
Speaker 1: So jim Stones, like we said a couple of times,
31:27
Speaker 1: they are crystals, um. And here's the deal, Like depending
31:32
Speaker 1: on the type of um. I mean, we're not calling
31:36
Speaker 1: them imperfections or I guess impurities is flaws, yeah, flaws,
31:39
Speaker 1: shameful flaws. Yeah, that's where they get their color. So
31:42
Speaker 1: like a ruby and a sapphire, they're both corundum, but
31:47
Speaker 1: rubies are red because of a little bit of chromium
31:51
Speaker 1: that replaces a little bit of aluminum aluminum in the structure,
31:54
Speaker 1: whereas sapphire comes blue because of iron and titanium instead.
31:59
Speaker 1: Right wise, they're kind of the same thing. Yeah, just
32:02
Speaker 1: somehow some of those um, some chromium or some iron
32:06
Speaker 1: or titanium atoms got sucked into the mix and they said, Hey,
32:10
Speaker 1: I kind of like this crystal structure thing. I'm gonna
32:12
Speaker 1: hang out here. And they did, and they said, I'm
32:14
Speaker 1: gonna turn this thing blue. Watch this. Yeah, And even
32:17
Speaker 1: the name crystal, didn't that come from the Greek? From quartz?
32:21
Speaker 1: It's yeah, that's what they called courts was crystallos, which
32:24
Speaker 1: is cold drop, which we take to mean as ice um.
32:29
Speaker 1: And I read in this article. I didn't see it
32:31
Speaker 1: anywhere else that the apparently the Greeks thought courts was
32:34
Speaker 1: ice that have frozen so solid it would never melt.
32:37
Speaker 1: It sounds a little dumb to me for the Greeks.
32:39
Speaker 1: I think the Greeks were a little hipper than that, um,
32:43
Speaker 1: because I mean, just think for a second Greeks and
32:47
Speaker 1: they would say, yes, you're right, this is something else entirely.
32:50
Speaker 1: But that's where crystal came from. Was that Greek word crystallos. Yeah,
32:54
Speaker 1: and courts. I mean, like amethyst is a kind of quartz.
32:59
Speaker 1: It's just courts with the right kind of impurity that
33:02
Speaker 1: gives it color. Yeah. And apparently they have not figured
33:04
Speaker 1: out exactly what gives amethysts its purple color. Um. There's
33:08
Speaker 1: a debate over whether it's iron oxide or manganese or
33:12
Speaker 1: some sort of non specific hydrocarbons. Um. But if you
33:17
Speaker 1: take amethyst, so remember, crystal is just the chemistry can
33:21
Speaker 1: be exactly the same, like diamonds and graphite, but the
33:24
Speaker 1: conditions are different under which they form, and so they
33:27
Speaker 1: form different crystalline structures and appear to be totally different
33:31
Speaker 1: from one another. Same thing happens with amethyst. If you
33:34
Speaker 1: take amethyst and the conditions are different in that the
33:37
Speaker 1: temperatures are much greater, it doesn't form purple amethysts. It
33:40
Speaker 1: forms yellow citrine, which is pretty pretty amazing. I love crystals,
33:49
Speaker 1: and I mean we could probably go on and on
33:51
Speaker 1: with different types of gemstones, but I think everyone gets
33:55
Speaker 1: the point. Yeah, yeah, the I think they do as well.
34:00
Speaker 1: Like you could take any gemstone and break it down
34:02
Speaker 1: and explain exactly what gives it it's hugh and uh,
34:06
Speaker 1: but but I think it's I think it's all here right. So, um,
34:11
Speaker 1: that is how crystals form. And for a very long
34:15
Speaker 1: time people just kind of appreciated crystals as um for
34:20
Speaker 1: their beauty or their shape or something like that. One
34:24
Speaker 1: thing we didn't say that, I think we should say
34:26
Speaker 1: Chuck is a crystal. It forms under ideal conditions, will
34:29
Speaker 1: take one of those seven shapes you mentioned, um, but
34:32
Speaker 1: the since the conditions are rarely ever ideal, they'll actually
34:36
Speaker 1: form other shapes under different conditions, things like plate shaped
34:40
Speaker 1: or table shaped or um needle shaped a a sicular
34:45
Speaker 1: acicular um. So there's other shapes they can take. And
34:48
Speaker 1: people have appreciated these things all the time, Like if
34:51
Speaker 1: you've ever looked at it crystal, it's just like a
34:53
Speaker 1: shock of what looks like incredibly sharp needles, or just
34:58
Speaker 1: a tumble of perfectly shape cubes growing out of some
35:02
Speaker 1: lumpy rock or something like that. There's a lot to
35:05
Speaker 1: to appreciate their um and if you if you subscribe
35:09
Speaker 1: to crystal healing, which has become a thing again. Um,
35:13
Speaker 1: this has been going on, this idea that these things
35:15
Speaker 1: are not only beautiful, but that they contain some sort
35:17
Speaker 1: of energy that humans can harness to uh maybe straighten
35:21
Speaker 1: our own energy out or overcome disease or something like that.
35:25
Speaker 1: Um that this has been going on for thousands and
35:27
Speaker 1: thousands of years. Yeah, so just a quick shout before
35:32
Speaker 1: we get fully into crystal healing and that's all about. Um.
35:35
Speaker 1: Everyone want to encourage everyone to go look up some
35:37
Speaker 1: images of uh the Queva de Los crystals, the Cave
35:42
Speaker 1: of Crystals in Chihuahua, Mexico. Unbelievable if you want to
35:46
Speaker 1: see like some of the most beautiful stuff you've seen
35:48
Speaker 1: in your life that looks like something from a movie,
35:51
Speaker 1: Like it looks like the Fortress of Solitude uh in Superman. Yeah,
35:56
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. Um, these these images of Spelunker and like
36:02
Speaker 1: these caves where some of these crystals are believed to
36:04
Speaker 1: have been growing for like half a million years. It's
36:07
Speaker 1: really really something else. Yeah, that was one thing. So
36:10
Speaker 1: we talked about how fast that they can grow. Um,
36:13
Speaker 1: they can also take a very very long time. Those
36:16
Speaker 1: are the big ones. Yeah, they're the big ones. But also, um,
36:19
Speaker 1: some crystals form just by nature slowly, whether they're bigg
36:23
Speaker 1: or small. So like garnet in particular, forms atom layer
36:28
Speaker 1: atomic layer by atomic layer year by year, and so
36:32
Speaker 1: it can take ten million years for just a two
36:34
Speaker 1: centimeter garnet to grow over time. Amazing. So, like I
36:37
Speaker 1: was saying with this with crystal healing in particular, Chuck,
36:41
Speaker 1: these things are not only awesome or amazing or beautiful, um,
36:45
Speaker 1: they also supposedly contain some sort of energy. Yeah. I mean,
36:49
Speaker 1: this is where it gets a little hinky, because this
36:51
Speaker 1: is one of those um things that Western medicine, for
36:55
Speaker 1: lack of a better term, has pretty much generally poo
36:59
Speaker 1: pooed uh as pseudoscience. But the idea is that these
37:03
Speaker 1: crystals UM can carry and transfer energy that can facilitate
37:09
Speaker 1: healing of like disease. Let's say, so you would book
37:13
Speaker 1: a session with a crystal healer UM. And we'll get
37:17
Speaker 1: into whether or not those people are credential at all
37:19
Speaker 1: here in a minute. But UM, and they will lay
37:22
Speaker 1: you down on a table and they will put different
37:25
Speaker 1: crystals um. Some crystals facilitate some sort of energy, others
37:30
Speaker 1: facilitate another sort of energy, and they don't all agree
37:34
Speaker 1: on on that as well. We should point out that's
37:36
Speaker 1: kind of a big red flag. It's a big red flag. Uh.
37:39
Speaker 1: And then these crystals are placed on your body in
37:41
Speaker 1: various points, and um, they will tell you that that
37:45
Speaker 1: will uh bring in good healing energy and channel out
37:50
Speaker 1: bad diseased energy. Yeah, and and those those points on
37:54
Speaker 1: your body are actually pretty specific and they follow the
37:57
Speaker 1: Buddhist or the Hindu chakras. Right. So you've got one
38:00
Speaker 1: on the top of your head, you have one on
38:02
Speaker 1: your forehead, on your throat, your chest, somewhere around your heart,
38:05
Speaker 1: your stomach, your gut, and then around your groin for
38:09
Speaker 1: your root chakra. And there's a different color um stone
38:13
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be associated with each of the chakras.
38:16
Speaker 1: And there's different stones that can be roughly of that
38:19
Speaker 1: color that you could use for that chakra. And then
38:21
Speaker 1: like you were saying, they they free up energy. Like
38:25
Speaker 1: according to this this idea, energy can get kind of
38:28
Speaker 1: gunked up. And if you have a bunch of negative
38:30
Speaker 1: energy hanging around, um, it's gonna just do you wrong
38:34
Speaker 1: until you get rid of it. With crystal therapy that
38:37
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. UM, some crystals you can just put
38:40
Speaker 1: in a room and they'll help direct energy better. Like, UM,
38:45
Speaker 1: I can't remember what crystal I saw, but it's it's
38:48
Speaker 1: it's known for its properties of facilitating communications. So really
38:52
Speaker 1: we should have one in here for me and Jerry. Um. Like,
38:55
Speaker 1: if people are talking to one another and they don't
38:57
Speaker 1: understand what the other one saying, this crystal will kind
38:59
Speaker 1: of here that Um. And so you are you're you're
39:04
Speaker 1: pink turmaline chuck. UM. So like this is the kind
39:08
Speaker 1: of this is the idea behind crystal energy. And as
39:11
Speaker 1: I was saying a minute ago, if you follow this
39:15
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, there's a whole crystal lore and supposedly
39:18
Speaker 1: this dates back thousands of years to the Sumerians, the Egyptians,
39:22
Speaker 1: the Greeks all use crystals for healing. The problem is,
39:26
Speaker 1: there's absolutely no evidence that that's the case at all. Um.
39:30
Speaker 1: People have been writing about crystals since the the the
39:34
Speaker 1: classical Romans, but they didn't talk about the energy properties
39:38
Speaker 1: they had. They just described them and tried to classify them.
39:41
Speaker 1: It wasn't until like the seventies or eighties that that
39:44
Speaker 1: the idea that they contain energy really seemed to catch on. Yeah,
39:47
Speaker 1: and there haven't been scientific studies really done because um,
39:53
Speaker 1: mainstream science just kind of doesn't study stuff like that.
39:56
Speaker 1: But they have done some other kind of studies notably,
40:00
Speaker 1: almost twenty years ago, UM there was a study done
40:03
Speaker 1: at the University of London where they got how many
40:07
Speaker 1: people was eighty people together and they said, here's what
40:10
Speaker 1: we're gonna do, UM, go meditate for five minutes. Hold
40:15
Speaker 1: this UH quartz crystal in your hand. They're not gonna
40:20
Speaker 1: they don't say this, of course, but some of those
40:21
Speaker 1: are real crystals. Some of them are completely faked, but
40:24
Speaker 1: they all believed that they're real. They were lied to,
40:28
Speaker 1: They were blatantly liked. Half of the participants, forty of
40:32
Speaker 1: them were primed beforehand to say, you know, just think
40:35
Speaker 1: about any effects and see if you can notice any
40:37
Speaker 1: effects that these crystals are having. And so after meditating
40:41
Speaker 1: they did a Q and A session UH in a
40:44
Speaker 1: questionnaire and said basically like, how do you feel the
40:48
Speaker 1: crystal affected this healing session? And they found out that
40:52
Speaker 1: the effects reported by those who held the fake crystals
40:55
Speaker 1: while meditating were no different at all than people who
40:58
Speaker 1: had the real crystals. UM. Both reported feeling like a
41:02
Speaker 1: warm sensation in their hand holding either the fake of
41:05
Speaker 1: the real crystal, and both reported feeling an increased overall
41:09
Speaker 1: feeling of well being. But the people who have been
41:12
Speaker 1: primed those forty two, you know, basically like think about
41:15
Speaker 1: how you're feeling and how this crystal is making you feel.
41:18
Speaker 1: They reported stronger effects than those who had not been primed.
41:22
Speaker 1: So it all sounds like placebo. Well that's yeah, that's
41:26
Speaker 1: what they attributed to. The whole thing is placebo, which
41:30
Speaker 1: as far as Western medicines concerned, placebo is great. You know,
41:34
Speaker 1: if it's if you have some sort of ailment that
41:37
Speaker 1: this can help you get over through the placebo effect, fantastic.
41:40
Speaker 1: They they seem to kind of walk a fine line
41:44
Speaker 1: with that though, and that they are worried that people
41:47
Speaker 1: will say, oh, I'll just use crystals sat her cancer
41:50
Speaker 1: rather than chemotherapy, um, and that probably won't work. The
41:55
Speaker 1: placebo effect can't take on absolutely everything that ails you um.
41:59
Speaker 1: And so if crystals are based on placebo, that's one
42:03
Speaker 1: way they could be dangerous, but for the most part
42:05
Speaker 1: is considered pretty harmless. Yeah. I just know that you're
42:08
Speaker 1: going in to see someone who is not like licensed
42:13
Speaker 1: or uh certainly not medically licensed. But I think generally
42:17
Speaker 1: in all states there's no like licensing of crystal healers.
42:21
Speaker 1: There's no organization looking over that. Now, I think there
42:24
Speaker 1: are some organizations but the that that do um accredit
42:29
Speaker 1: individual healers. But those are organizations aren't accredited for themselves.
42:33
Speaker 1: So it's like at some point down the line, some
42:37
Speaker 1: like the the accreditations is being pulled out of the air. Yeah.
42:40
Speaker 1: And then there's this other thing that's a little more
42:42
Speaker 1: troublesome when it comes to babies. Um, there's this belief
42:47
Speaker 1: by some that baltic amber necklaces will help your baby's teething.
42:52
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that or your toddler's teething? No,
42:55
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard this, but um, the idea is that
43:00
Speaker 1: something called uh succinic acid is released. It's pain relieving,
43:05
Speaker 1: and it's released from the baltic amber because your child
43:08
Speaker 1: is wearing this necklace and the skin of the child
43:11
Speaker 1: is heating up this baltic amber and it's being released
43:14
Speaker 1: uh and like gathered into the bloodstream and making your
43:18
Speaker 1: little kids teething better. Right, But there's and there is
43:21
Speaker 1: scenic acid in baltic amber. It's true, but apparently it's
43:26
Speaker 1: just like one of those kernel of true things because
43:28
Speaker 1: it's not it's not been shown to be able to
43:31
Speaker 1: be released from the baltic amber. By saliva or body heat. So,
43:36
Speaker 1: and it's dangerous because you should not put a necklace
43:39
Speaker 1: around your baby or toddler's neck when they sleep because
43:43
Speaker 1: their um are they put stuff in their mouth. Well,
43:47
Speaker 1: that's what for them to teeth on. Are these little
43:49
Speaker 1: necklaces made of this? These stones? Oh? I didn't think
43:53
Speaker 1: they're supposed to chew on them. I thought i'd just
43:54
Speaker 1: laid against their throat. No, I think they're supposed to
43:57
Speaker 1: chew on them. Mm hmmm, that's what I got. I'll
44:00
Speaker 1: have to look that up. I thought the idea was
44:03
Speaker 1: it laid against their skin and it was absorbed into
44:05
Speaker 1: the skin through body heat. I think that's part of it.
44:09
Speaker 1: But I think it also they chew on it too,
44:12
Speaker 1: That's what I got from it. Boy, you're really doing
44:14
Speaker 1: it wrong if you keep your baby necklace to chew
44:18
Speaker 1: on in their sleep, right. So, so um, I have
44:23
Speaker 1: no issues with that, though, I should say I used
44:25
Speaker 1: to carry around to crystal um in my pocket all
44:27
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, yeah, all the time for years and
44:30
Speaker 1: years and years, and like I don't recall really thinking
44:35
Speaker 1: it contained any energy or anythinking. It was more like
44:39
Speaker 1: just a neat thing to just kind of rub kind
44:41
Speaker 1: of like a fidget spinner, but but much prettier to
44:45
Speaker 1: look at. You know, just just something to have in
44:47
Speaker 1: your hand or whatever, keep it in your pocket, like twenties.
44:53
Speaker 1: I think that explains a lot. Yeah sure, So why
44:58
Speaker 1: what age is appropriate for carrying a crystal around your pocket? Okay? Okay,
45:03
Speaker 1: that's when that happens. That's when you listen to the
45:04
Speaker 1: doors and you burn incense and stuff like that. That's right. Um.
45:10
Speaker 1: So yeah, more power to you if you're into crystals.
45:13
Speaker 1: Just don't don't shun medical advice if you have a
45:17
Speaker 1: real big problem. No, definitely don't. Um. And that's Oh.
45:21
Speaker 1: I have one more thing about crystals, Chuck, you got
45:23
Speaker 1: a second. Okay, remember how I said that graphite and
45:27
Speaker 1: diamonds are the exact same thing. They're just arranged differently
45:30
Speaker 1: crystal wise. I saw in a couple of different places
45:34
Speaker 1: that a diamond, since they're formed under tremendous temperature and pressure,
45:39
Speaker 1: when they're taken out of that environment and brought up
45:42
Speaker 1: to Earth, they will, over a long enough time period,
45:47
Speaker 1: melt into graphite. Amazing. It's just too long of a
45:51
Speaker 1: time period for humans to ever witness it. Hmm. Yeah.
45:55
Speaker 1: So that's crystals. Get you to the Smithsonium. Whenever you
45:58
Speaker 1: get a chance, go to the Museum of Natural History
46:00
Speaker 1: and just gaze and wonder and also wonder how your
46:04
Speaker 1: pants got down when the light came back on in
46:06
Speaker 1: the fluorescent mineral display. Because, as I said that, it's
46:10
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Yeah, which one should I do here?
46:15
Speaker 1: How about nicknames? Hey, guys, really enjoying the short stuffs
46:23
Speaker 1: and the nicknames episode was no exception, um, But I
46:26
Speaker 1: was surprised that you didn't go into the origin of
46:27
Speaker 1: the term nickname. I didn't think about that. I didn't either.
46:30
Speaker 1: I felt pretty shame. Yeah, I'd always assumed this might
46:33
Speaker 1: sound silly, that the first true nickname was Nicholas, shortened
46:36
Speaker 1: to nick, so they called them nicknames. But she did
46:38
Speaker 1: a little searching and said that it's not quite right.
46:41
Speaker 1: Looks like the term started as a Middle English word
46:44
Speaker 1: in the undreds H E K. E. Dash name pronounced
46:48
Speaker 1: nick name, meaning additional name. So over time, as people
46:52
Speaker 1: said an nickname became nickname and it's nickname. We didn't
47:01
Speaker 1: have time to look this one up. But I'm the
47:03
Speaker 1: trusting Liz. Yeah, Liz, I hope you're not steering us wrong. Yeah,
47:07
Speaker 1: she said, my husband's name is Nick. This is what
47:09
Speaker 1: got me thinking of it, and I jumped to that conclusion.
47:12
Speaker 1: You could give Nick a shout on us on your show,
47:15
Speaker 1: would be great. His birthday is next week, which means
47:18
Speaker 1: by now, it's probably a couple of weeks ago. So
47:20
Speaker 1: happy birthday, Nick, Happy birthday. Uh. And they are counting
47:24
Speaker 1: down the weeks until their twins are born. Liz is
47:28
Speaker 1: expecting a baby girl and a baby boy in late June,
47:32
Speaker 1: their first children. And she said, We've been listened to
47:35
Speaker 1: a lot of your show, well pregnant for getting Mozart
47:37
Speaker 1: and Beethoven. I'm convinced at listening to stuff you should
47:40
Speaker 1: know in utero makes baby smarter. Of course it does.
47:43
Speaker 1: And that's from Liza Nick. And babies that will be named, uh,
47:47
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck and Jerry, that's right. Yeah, they need
47:51
Speaker 1: to have triplets, huh. I think Chuck and Jerry is
47:53
Speaker 1: a good name. And Josh, yeah, the outsider Josh. No,
47:59
Speaker 1: it could be Josh and Jerry or Josh and Chuck.
48:02
Speaker 1: What if? What if both of them's middle name is Jerry, Josh,
48:06
Speaker 1: Jerry and Chuck Jerry? And I think that sounds great.
48:09
Speaker 1: I think it does too well. Thanks again, Liz. I
48:12
Speaker 1: hope you're right on this one, because if not, we're
48:14
Speaker 1: going to have follow up. Listen to yourmail from other
48:15
Speaker 1: people who are pointing out how you're wrong. Either way,
48:18
Speaker 1: best wishes on your new expanded family and happy birthday, Nick.
48:23
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with this, like
48:25
Speaker 1: Liz did, you can go on to stuff you Should
48:28
Speaker 1: Know dot com, check out our social links, or you
48:30
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff podcast at iHeart
48:33
Speaker 1: radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production
48:39
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
48:42
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
48:44
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,