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How Maglev Trains Work · Stuff You Should Know

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