I have a question for you that I thought of while I was driving cross country and I think it involves maybe physics or radiation or something. Can I ask you this? Sure. Great.
Yeah. No, this is important. I want to know. All right, so I'm driving down the interstate to be clear I'm supposed to answer for all the physics, right?
Like yeah, just be physics. Okay. Yeah, no problem crap dude You make it so complicated. I know right.
Sorry your physics. I'm me here. We go I'm driving down the interstate in rural Wyoming and everyone real fast because it's I mean speed limits 80 out here So it is basically 90 and I'm doing one of those half a mile an hour cruise control passes of another vehicle. You know the kind I hate them Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
I felt fine. There were no other cars out there So as I'm passing this vehicle, I notice it's very weird. It's big. It's boxy It looks kind of like a garbage truck, but it's definitely not a garbage truck And it seems like it's all armored up, but it doesn't look military and I get to the side and I discover that it has the name of some Fancy futuristic sounding energy company on it.
I remember what it was. Okay. Can you picture this? Okay?
I'm picturing a stainless steel DeLorean Tornado chasing vehicle is what I'm picturing, but go ahead. Okay. I would have liked that better. This was not that okay This looked like a mysterious sci-fi covert government agency We're trying to hide something kind of vehicle so I'm a Donald's semi truck a semi truck with a trailer on it That says McDonald's but I'm pretty sure that I'm pretty sure that's the third kind says that's how they transport stuff that they really want to keep okay Okay, I wasn't the neighborhood of close encounters with the third kind okay I was by double-star.
Okay, so I'm driving past the thing it says energy on it. I'm like well Why would you need a vehicle like that for energy? What's in there? And then you know everybody's kind of taking a nap or whatever I'm driving to my family and get to thinking what if they got something nuclear in there who?
How do they move that stuff? Do you have just a vehicle that moves nuclear stuff down the highway? I don't know I mean have to move it somehow what are those vehicles look like maybe this is one of those vehicles Then I got to thinking well, I got my whole family in the vehicle I wouldn't want them to get you know I wouldn't want them to get nuclear so I should position my vehicle in a way that's smart relative to the potentially nuclear vehicle It's no doubt just radiating nuclear and all that you don't want to get it. I created no absolutely not It's a different word, but it's funny.
Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so then I got to think and well How would I position my vehicle in this physical situation to avoid getting nuclear and then I thought how fast does radiation travel? Oh, how does it emanate? So here's my actual question Where would one want to position their vehicle in such a situation like that?
And really what my actual question is is how fast does radiation move? How is it propelled which way does it go if you're driving forward at 80 miles an hour? Does it blow back like a fart and it's just all quickly behind you because you know You're going against air and it stays back there or if the radiation is in the truck Does it maintain its momentum the same way like if you're playing catch in the back of a vehicle and everything's otherwise steady? The ball just goes back and forth more or less like normal assuming the vehicle's moving in a straight line How does the radiation work?
I'm guessing within arms length of where you are right now you being a pastor and a humanities guys I'm guessing there's a book close to you right now called like the holy Bible or something like that Let me see if I can find one. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I have one of those.
What do you need to know? Well, I currently within arms reach I have a book called Heat transfer and fluid flow in nuclear systems Like I I had my coffee are quite the parent You know, I'm sitting there like oh Matt saying a funny thing Haha, this is funny and then slowly as the seriousness of your question dawned on me like I don't really know this and then so My smile went to kind of not a frown but like a hmm a pontificating kind of look and then I was like oh look There's that book. I'll tell you the story of how I got this book is pretty interesting Let me see. I don't know that I know the answer to your question, which is fine.
I will have it before we done What's the book called again heat transfer and fluid flow in nuclear systems edited by Henry Fennick Fennick Fennick F-E-N-E-C-H Vennick, I don't know of course you have that book great, okay So I started doing a series on smarter every day the YouTube channel I do about nuclear power the reason I did that is because I didn't know about nuclear power and I really wanted to understand it But I wanted to understand it for myself not like hey the politicians say that nuclear power is bad I'm Germany or hey the politicians say nuclear power is good I wanted to like actually know the engineering and the physics behind it So I decided to start researching it I actually applied for a grant with the Department of Energy so that I gave them this like pitch And I was like I would like to come to all these department of energy labs and I would like to do xyz at this lab And xyz at this lab and they just had no framework for what I was asking them to do they're like uh no We can't do that what do you mean that no framework? I think I understand what a video about that would be like or why you would be interested the problem with smarter every day is that I'm just a dude in a ball cap right But also the benefit of smarter every day is I'm just a dude in a ball cap and so People don't really have Infrastructure or bureaucratic infrastructure set up when you go to him be like hey I would like to do a video that would tell a lot of people about this thing that you care about Yes, I run into that problem from time to time myself Yeah, and so I applied for an NSF grant one time a national science foundation grant And I was like hey I know you guys do a lot of outreach Can I please get a grant so that I could go explore and I had some things I want to do and they were like oh No, you have to be an institution and I was like what do you mean? Like we got to be like an university or a 501c3 or a for-profit business I was like well, I mean technically smarter every day is a business But I just want to talk about this thing and I know you're given like a bajillion dollars out to people to talk about stuff Can I have like a few dollars and talk about the thing? They're like I'm sorry.
You just don't have the basically I didn't have the administration in place Do you you've watched or read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy here for that book I have it's been a while I read it when I was a kid So there's this one alien race I don't know what their names are I forget all the details But I remember the big themes and one of the things about this particular alien race is they were just the in the game for bureaucracy There were beings that would be born into this civilization and they would like be the equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles So, you know you go and you get your your tag or your new license renewal or whatever and so you end up in this line And you're like why am I waiting so long to do this simple task? Well, this alien race had these people that would just they would be born and like oh your job is to operate this desk And that person they were born and their job is to wait in this line And like what are we doing? I don't know we have to do this paperwork. It's very important It kind of felt like that when I tried to approach the system and I was like hey Can I please have money to do this thing that I'm doing and they're like no?
We don't really and finally I was like well I'm not gonna go get some kind of I'm not gonna go team up with some university or some something in order to pretend like I have All this bureaucratic infrastructure. I'm just gonna go make the video I'm not gonna waste my time with that so that's when I started leaning in on patreon on smarter every day and Leaning in on you know hey I'm only gonna work with these ads that I like to you know these brands I like to work with and so often I'll go to a place and I will just make a video about the thing and then I'll have a different sponsor and that's part of why I do that So anyway, bureaucratically I've tried to do this stuff for nuclear power funded by nuclear power and I realized that wasn't gonna work So finally I was like well forget this I'm just gonna make videos about nuclear power because I'm interested in it So the nuclear power people don't want you to make videos about nuclear power that might potentially make nuclear power look good It's not that it's that they didn't know how to do it like I'm talking about Department of Energy DOE like there's not a button for that Kind of weakness it was just I was asking you're trying to be nice to them because you still want to work with them Yeah, that's exactly what's happening right now. Okay, I just didn't know I understand Real mean to a cashier at the hotel who can't check you in can't make a reservation unless you have a reservation But the Department of Energy you got to take it easy on them. Oh, yeah, I'm super mean dude super mean So yeah, I'm just calling it for what it is like they didn't have systems in place to do what I was looking to do It's a weird thing it is and if somebody gets it they get it and if they don't it is very threatening Yes, it feels like there's not really accountability like so we just open up our treasure room and put our best people on camera And then we hope you do something good with that right I get why people would freak out I've been denied access to really cool churches really cool expressions of Christianity for exactly that kind of thinking which makes sense Just I mean it's just mission.
It's logical There's some really smart people at Idaho National Labs a couple people that work in their public affairs Joel and Sarah are their names And they're just smart and they're like hey Will you come you want to come look at I know and I was like on the list that I approached DOE about and I was like yeah I would love to do that we I forget we signed some kind of a little agreement I don't remember I have to go dig that up and reread it and all that kind of stuff But basically I didn't sign away my ability to tell the truth I said I'm not going to you know there's certain things security wise you can't publish we cross the T's and got to the eyes on all that stuff But they said yeah just come tell the story you want to tell I was like man That's amazing and so I did that I told the story the world's first nuclear power plant It's called ebr one experimental breeder reactor one and then what do you call that video? I don't remember I don't remember isn't it funny because they out they changed like 12 times yeah during the early days When you're trying to trick the stupid algorithm into showing people who want to see the video the video they want to see that's Exactly how the game works and I hate every bit of that. It's called if you watch this video you will understand Nuclear power and the title is that one yeah, I hope to that title Yeah, and the title is I explore the world's first nuclear power plant and yeah cool. It's pretty cool great.
Yes Got it. Okay. I know the one we're talking about that. Yeah, Roger that so that's Zac and Sarah.
No, that's Joel and Sarah got me I put it in my head. It's a Ben Foltz song Joel and Sarah. There we go Joel and Sarah got it Yeah, they can get that Idaho national lab something yeah lab and it worked and they could see the possibility in this other people You can see and what did you learn there? I learned about how neutrons work.
What's a neutron a neutron is so you've got an atom Which is I've been told one of the most basic building blocks of matter But it's weird because there's subatomic particles which fundamentally seems like they're smaller things so it's a subatomic particle With neutral charge and so typically you have protons neutrons and electrons protons are positively charged electrons are negatively charged and neutrons are neutral All right, so I remember all my physics and all that other business. I remember how important Those orbits of the protons are and having the right I think the word was valence that they taught me in high school You got little gaps you have openings you can have so many per orbit per ring and that is part of the the building blocks of stuff that Let's think stick together so that atoms can partner up to be buddies and make things that are cooler than just what they are as an element But I don't remember why there would need to be neutrons because it seems like they don't do anything because you got a positive and you got a negative I get that but I don't understand why you would need a neutral thing in there I don't either yeah, you got these electron shells the SPDF stuff You remember in certain shells can have a certain number of electrons in there, but I'm with you I don't really like so electrons are in the rings electrons are in the rings yes protons are in the nucleus They're in the nucleus and the neutrons are in the nucleus correct. Yes. Okay.
That's right. Yeah, cuz it's valence electrons All right, this is like tenth grade for me, but it's it's there so we don't know why neutrons exist Or you don't know off the top of your head why they exist as a mystery of the universe I don't know why I don't know why I don't know if they're like a filler like a gap maker that keeps protons away from each other I don't know I have no idea. That's a better theory than my no guess So I remember from maybe sci-fi or comic books the idea of a neutron bomb is that sci-fi or is that a thing? That's a thing.
Yeah, so somebody knows how it works. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. It's pretty interesting and so We could go really really deep into this because I've learned a lot recently, but I'm not an expert at all I'm just learning well I just don't want to get radiation poisoning from my family from the garbage truck thing on the interstate by Devil's Tower That's great.
If we solve only that I'm good with today. Well, okay So I learned about the world's first nuclear power plant. All right, so we started there at out of national labs I've got this whole series I'm working on right now and the follow-up man where we really need to start the series is the world's first nuclear power plant And then after that I want to go into a nuclear plant like a today nuclear plant which you did I did that But I started getting ready to make the video on going into the today nuclear power plant And I was like whoa they just made me take like eight hours of training in order to do this So it seems like before I go into the today nuclear power plant I should kind of tell people about that training and so that's what the next video I made was about was about radiation safety and someone called oh gosh. I don't know.
It's a video called Isn't funny that we don't know the names of any of our videos. I went to a nuclear power plant and it changed how I think about radiation That's the name of the video great. That's the one the algorithm liked. Yeah, exactly It's episode 309 on Smarter of a day I just number the episodes and so whatever the title is gonna be but in that video I learned about four major types of ionizing radiation and what happens when you ionize something that means you are I Don't have a succinct way of answering that because I'm a mechanical engineer man So like I'm sure a physicist if I were to if we were to ask somebody right now They'd be like oh yeah means this I think ionization means it changes the nature of the atom like I know an ion is When you I want to say you knock off some of those electrons and you change the structure of the atom and it changed changes the count And so you'll have an atom just means a positive charge or a negative charge.
Yes, okay So just one way or the other though either one is an ion that's my understanding. Yes, okay So if you ionize something you are you are changing the atom charge? I guess that's what I think it is what the Titleist podcast is no dumb questions and I'm feeling pretty dumb right now. You're doing better than me whatever man We're learning so there's four types of ionizing radiation and this is what I learned What it was so cool is before I could go into that nuclear power plant They were like hey we need you to understand all this physics in like common everyday speak And so they taught me the types of radiation They taught me what those different types of radiation would do to me how to shield from each of those types of radiation They taught me all that stuff which was really they're like oh by the way This is how the reactor works and this is why we're doing this and this is how contamination works Which is different than radiation and they explained all this stuff to me was fantastic training And this is a browns fairy nuclear power plant which is just down the road here in Athens, Alabama So how close to the reactor did you get after you learned all that stuff dude right on top of it like with it open So they just give you a little helmet or something.
What do you yeah like it? I mean that's the that's the video I'm just gonna let that be what it is. Okay, it's flipping awesome Like imagine taking the top off of a reactor and just being there on top like if I were to jump in the water I would be in the reactor pool. That's where I went it was incredible when I was over the pool Oh, dude.
It was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my entire life. There are no fish in there I know you're not allowed to fish. No, not in the reactor pool I know this is my surprise, but there were not fish in that reactor pool. You didn't see any okay No, no, but I saw that you saw that I saw yeah, but what was really really cool is uh It was during a refueling outage, so they were taking old fuel out and putting new fuel in and so this specific type of Wait, did you see the fuel?
I'm sorry. I know I keep derailing you, but I'm excited. Did you see the fuel? Yes?
Yes, what it look like long rods long square prismatic rods Longer than a man. Yeah, like I don't know 14 foot long. I'm longer than others. Yeah, um here 14 foot Uh, let's see Let me just read this to you Fuel rods consist of uranium oxide pellets in the zircaloid to cladding tube the tubes are typically 0.483 inches Outer diameter and a hundred and sixty and a quarter inches long the pellets are stacked.
They're like half an inch thick is it? That's the pellets. Oh, you said diameter. Yeah.
Yeah. So there's these tubes these round tubes that are put into a it's like a square rod This really really long and the rod is 4.07 meters longer 160 and a quarter inch. Let me just do some math real quick Let me pull up the old calculator guess on that length nice John. What is 160.25 divided by 12.
Yeah, 13.35 feet Very impressed nice eyeballing with the top part of the tube available as a gas Efficient gas plenum a bundle will contain rods with different u-235 enrichments to adjust the local power peaking So anyway, I'm reading from a book u-235. So these are uranium rods correct. Yes Okay, so what's so cool is I got on top of this reactor And I look down into it and I started asking questions and I purposefully kept myself ignorant up until the in the way I did that is I'm a very curious person like to I'm super curious like you are I'm not lazy dude. I'm just I'm strategically Remaining ignorant about things in life.
You know exactly what I mean You know exactly what I mean you get one I do one chance to have the present and I decided not to ask all the questions I wanted to ask until I was physically there and it just lets me be like a little boy with the camera on yes And I would like to explain to the third chair just a little bit about what you're talking about so you don't have to say it But if you go and learn all the stuff and then you're like great now I learned it all Let's turn on the camera and fake it again Everyone can tell it feels dumb and stilted and like you are the knower of things Even though you're pretending not to be the knower of things and the way that ruins it for the audience in a video Is they might not be able to tell you why it sucks? But deep down their brain knows this feels fake and forced and like I'm being given a little lecture and I'm being patronized because the people on screen Are all acting and pretending to be teaching and learning in real time? I have seen you so many times plug your ears when people start to tell you something that needs to be explained with the camera on They don't tell me that yet Don't tell me that yet And the reason is because you want to learn it and react to it in real time and not have to act Because you are serving as the learning surrogate for the people who will watch it later And it just needs to be real and not acting so that you and the person watching can learn about it at the same time And that way it's fun It's like you all unwrapped the present together as opposed to you already being super smart the other person's already super smart You both know everything but you're gonna go through a performative dance to make it feel like the person watching the video learned And a huge part of why your thing is awesome is because of all those times where you stick your fingers and your ears and yell So that people won't tell you the thing until the cameras on because you're trying to be empathetic You're trying to make it fun for the people you're gonna bring along in terms of the video or at least that is my take That well said there's risk that comes along with that and that risk is what's the risk the risk is huh? Well, if we're gonna we're gonna do it live that means I have to understand it to a point where I can ask an intelligent question And if I don't understand it, there's no faking it.
There's like huh. Yeah, he really doesn't get it right now You know what I mean? Have you ever been caught with your pants down big time on that? I keep my pants up all the time.
That is not true I I was just reacting to your expression when you say call my pants down meaning like I don't understand it in the moment Yeah, I just I mean one of I can you ever been trying to do the conversations the way you do the conversation? We were just talking about and you find yourself in a spot where you didn't know enough about the subject matter to ask the next obvious question Just flat-footed um I guess I yeah, I don't know. I don't think about it at that level I just reel in the moment and so yeah, there's a lot of things I don't know and I ask I mean sometimes if I kind of know the direction we're going I'll throw the person I'm talking to a softball But a lot of times I don't know the answer to the question when I ask it and to me it seems like you know what to do very very well You don't know what's next. I think you handle that really well I've sat in interviews with people who don't who aren't as comfortable with that But I've been caught flat-footed.
I was talking with a rock star Hebrew scholar And he was explaining a translation issue that a you know one bible translation team had to work out and it's a legitimate conundrum It's a hard one right well theoretically you take Hebrew in seminary, but I don't remember any of it like I don't remember any of it That was a long time ago. I have no idea what I'm doing And he knows where I went to seminary and thinks highly of it And so we got the camera rolling and he writes up a Hebrew name On the whiteboard like with everything rolling and all these people are in the room because it's kind of you know It's kind of a big deal to be filming this and he's like there. What does that say? And I just I was like I don't I don't I don't he's like well you went to such and such university What does it say like I dude I don't I don't know what that says and he's like well sounded out I don't know what those letters are I don't remember anything why are you doing this to me you're ruining everything Yeah, and he he muttered something on camera like what are they teaching over there now?
Did he really? And I was like oh crap. I just ruined my alma mater and now it's closing so that probably was my fault after all but Uh, that's the worst just caught flat footed I've ever been but usually what you were talking about how you were coming at it is the better deal and it works better And guess what? I just didn't put that in the final edit of my video because of dignity That's pretty funny.
Well, I mean if you said it in that way, I can I can see cutting out, but I think it's important to Model how do I say this one of my Simultaneously least favorite comments and also favorite comments I get on smarter everyday videos is I can't believe you didn't know that Blah blah blah blah blah blah and I just think to myself wow, you know what the fact that I didn't have all knowledge Right there at my disposal, you know what maybe I am a fool and I should just hang it up, you know, you know And I realize that's a person that doesn't that doesn't that don't understand don't know the Alabama came out there for a second That's a person that doesn't understand the exercises. I don't know this stuff and I'm learning like I'm learning on the fly real time Yeah, and your videos are meant for you to learn things. Yeah, I think yeah I don't I don't think you're just coming up with clever ways to tell us things you already know, but we don't know it seems like you have learned to stuff Doing your job. Oh, dude.
Yeah, I love it. Man. It's my favorite thing in the world I love operating in that place right at the boundary of my own personal knowledge and understanding It's like exploring the forest when you were a kid and you grew up near the wilds or wherever it was and you would go Or if it was like the city and like it's like one block over from where you've been before like I'm gonna explore this new place I am the spearman. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you go forward and then you push the spear forward into the unknown. Yeah, it's great I think it's fun. And so what was so cool about the nuclear power plant thing is someone at Brownsbury reach I tried to get into Brownsbury a long time ago and they said no, that's down in your neck of the woods, right? The big plant a couple hours from you nuclear power plant.
It's like 35 minutes from me. It's it's an Athens. Okay, very close Yeah, who is the brown in Brownsbury? So there's the Tennessee River and there was a ferry back in the day before bridges were across the river there There's Rhodes Ferry Browns Ferry.
These are people that had literal fairies across the river and if you want to cross the river You go go down to Brownsbury and he'll get you across that that's gonna how that worked. Yeah, there was some guy named brown That's cool. Yeah pretty neat. Anyway, I was trying to get into Brownsbury years ago Got a good buddy that works there and I couldn't for whatever reason and then after I made the first video of the series that Joel and Sarah helped me make Somebody at Brownsbury reached out.
Got him bill. He's like, hey man. You want to come here? I was like, yes, so I went into Brownsbury and I learned so much I made a video about alpha beta gamma neutron radiation, which we'll talk about here in a second But I learned how the reactor worked and that's the video that George and I are working on now or work on a video about that Experience, which was amazing.
There were a lot of things I didn't understand about the reactor I was like, okay, I saw it with my eyes. I videoed it I understand a lot more than I did but there's still some equations and stuff I don't get like I don't understand why you put the new fuel in the center and the more spent fuel out towards the edges of the reactor I don't even understand how you control the reaction There was so much I didn't understand and then some guy sent me a book heat transfer and fluid flow in nuclear systems And I don't think the guy even knew Well, let me just read the first line of the letter that came with the book. Is that cool? Is that cool?
That work for you? Yeah, please Hello, Destin. My name is Alex and my grandfather wrote the book and closed within this package It would mean the world to me if you would sign my grandfather's textbook and send it back to me I would love having my two most influential engineers and scholars together on my bookcase So at this point I turned to the book and I was like, what is this book? It's a hard back book.
Um, it seems to be bound with like canvas on the outside It's it's got the letters on the front of the book or in this coppery gold leaf It's reasonably thick. It looks like a hybrid between a textbook and a not textbook It's uh about 580 colors. It's uh, it's canvas color like that like a tan kind of color It's about 580 pages and I'm just looking at it. I'm just kind of like open it up Looking inside when is this thing written and I look over here?
When is it written? Let me I forgot what it says here When is it been? It's 1981 the year I was born. I was like, okay, that's interesting Then I flip around and I was there's pictures and like oh, I like pictures Uh, let's see what are these pictures and I looked at it.
I was like, huh? That looks like exactly what I saw it browns fairy weird And I look at the thing and I was like that is the exact reactor I saw at browns fairy What is going on here? It's got a cutaway of the reactor and I was like well the one at browns fairy was made by I think general electric if I'm not and I read it says I'm reading from the book now a typical 120 megawatt bwh six core consists of 748 fuel assemblies. I was like wait a second That's 1.2 megawatts the same number of fuel assemblies 177 control rods wait, that's this is the reactor that I just saw at this moment I just kind of like my heart rate goes up.
I'm like, okay, this is interesting It's like god dropped this in my lap because there's so much I did not understand about this reactor And so I'm going back to the letter now, you know after I saw that I was like, whoa, this is this is special and so I start reading this thing and He explains a lot about his grandfather. Let's see. I'll just read from it at age 29 He was awarded a full bright fellowship to come and study at mit where he would go on to get his full masters of science and doctorate in nuclear engineering acquiring over 70 publications during his career focused about heat transfer fluid flow system design safety heat convection and reactor physics and fuel performance He was an associate professor at mit's department of nuclear engineering before moving on to uc san and barbara to start up and lead their nuclear engineering program It says he died and he worked at the brookhaven national laboratory and he died in 2001 And then there's just a lot of really nice things in this letter And he included alex included some pictures. It looks like alexus from utah included some pictures And then I opened up and I was like, okay, I gotta read the chapter on the boiling water reactor system And uh, I'm talking a lot, Matt.
Do you want to do you want to say anything right now? I realize I'm just word vomiting on you Is it this feels rude? I'm sorry. No, here's what happens to our brains.
We have conversation brain But then we have I'm looking at something right now We have perusing brain Yeah And I was kind of enjoying listening to you go into perusing brain and I was not going to interrupt it until you came out of it yourself Yeah, because you get good things out of perusing brain the I'm looking at something. I'm engaging with this in real time It has my brain. I know you're still physically here But I'm kind of in conversation with this artifact in front of me and I rather enjoyed hearing you just go down the rabbit hole So no, I'm good and very attentive and if I'm understanding correctly by complete fluke Somebody from browns ferry that you've been trying to get into reached out after forever of trying to get in there And then you were able to get in there by complete fluke somebody who likes your videos sent you a book from his grandfather who literally wrote the book On the type of reactor you just saw and by complete fluke You happened to come across that in the book as you were thumbing through it and connect the dots on all of this stuff And then by complete fluke I drove by that vehicle on the interstate by devil's tower and wanted to know if my family was going to get radiated And ask you to explain to me how all of this nuclear stuff works and how radiation moves And it's all conferencing into the perfect place where I'm going to be able to protect my family from mobile radiation labs in the future That's where I've got a pin in the conversation right now. How am I doing?
Yeah, I think that that feels good to me. So, okay I'm flipping through this book and um, I'm seeing incredibly long equations that I don't pretend to understand I'm not a nuclear engineer, but I'm seeing other things I'm like I don't know that equation, but it looks a lot like this other thing that I know about Basically, this looks like Bernoulli's momentum equation for fluid flow and I'm looking at them like I recognize that I'm not intimidated by that math. I see a gradient. I see partial derivatives Let's see.
Yeah, I could do that if I needed to but I don't need to because there's pictures here and I flip over and I look at the pictures And I'm like, oh holy whoa That's how it works And what I learned Is that you asked me about how fast radiation moves? That is a very interesting question So we have alpha beta Gamma neutron radiation those are the four types of ionizing radiation that I'm familiar with I'm positive There's more there's gotta be more but that's what I'm familiar with So to answer your question Alpha radiation is a particle and so it like sits places beta radiation is similar It can it can actually fly like it's it's an actual particle and it can be stopped by different things and uh, but like concrete led Yeah, so alpha radiation can be stopped by paper So if oh if if you're on the interstate And there's an alpha emitter in that vehicle then as long as you're driving in a paper or more container Then you're gonna be able to protect your family. Oh well. I was that's great.
They were safe That's great. I feel feel bad for all those bikers on their way to sturges. I know right. Well, I mean I was inside a container As long as they were wearing those leather chaps, I think they'll be okay They're not they they are not dude that safety is not their big focus not really into that the sturges bikers But they do wear freedom they do wear goggles, right?
They do wear glasses or goggles for wind some of them Yeah, it's I mean they wear remarkable attire Then I think they would be safe from beta radiation because beta radiation okay can penetrate paper But it's stopped by thicker things like plastic plastic would stop beta radiation Okay, so plastic or above for a vehicle is gonna get it done. So most Hondas Would block beta radiation not all of them but most but there's different good there's different things and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna speculate here because I'm not gonna try to regurgitate what I've been told Like there's this thing when people go through nuclear training. They say all right you got three different types of radiation You have to eat one you have to uh like I forget what they say if you had to eat one Which one would it be and if you had to sit on one what would it be and they have all these things and they Different types of radiation behave differently and so there's different answers We got alpha can be stopped by paper beta can be stopped by something a little thicker like plastic Gamma is just gonna go right through you. Gamma is pretty high energy.
It's like x-rays That's the one that made the Hulk gamma radiation. Didn't know what they always say that you got exposed to gamma radiation I mean when was the Hulk created? I don't know you know when but the mid 20th century when people were just starting to figure out this language And that probably sounded real sci-fiish but gamma radiation that must have been the scary one So that that's what made the Hulk I think yeah, but it's it's like you're probably being exposed to gamma radiation right now Well, I hate I hate it. It's the worst so gamma radiation.
I think of it like a wave I think of it like a form of light. I assume that means it's going at the speed of light Which is 186,000 miles a second? I assume that but I know light changes depending on what medium is flying through And so I know that different materials with light are opaque or transparent right the same works with gamma radiation You can stop gamma radiation with like concrete or lead if it was a gamma source in that vehicle I'm sorry map, but you probably were exposed. I don't know if you're feeling a little too little.
Yeah, maybe the Hulk. Yeah, maybe the Hulk. Um, yeah angry Yeah, the thing about that is the gamma radiation also just like light the closer you get the brighter it gets There's this thing called the oh gosh. What's it called?
It's the uh Art of the fourth term so the closer you get what's it called? I forgot I used to use it with radar Basically the closer you get to a thing if you get twice as close it actually the power goes up by four Am I saying that right? I forget I want to say it's the r squared law I gotta look this up real quick. I think it might be the common sense that everybody knows just from being alive law Yeah, but uh gosh I have to let Tina give me a 10 second jingle so I can look this up It's the inverse square law.
I feel stupid for some reason I kept one to call it up But the r square law was the inverse square law. So basically the way it works is the intensity is Proportional to one over the square of the distance is kind of how that works Anyway gamma what you would want to do there in Wyoming is you would want to get going really really fast And you would want or at your point of closest approach to that vehicle. That's when you're getting the most radiation And so you would want to just like it preferably if you could drive the speed of light by it No, I can't my truck won't do that a governor at 114. Yeah, that would reduce the exposure to your family the most from gamma radiation Okay So I could wait till we have like a really steep hill get it right at 114 Which I do not recommend that is way too fast But in this case lesser of two evils I'm trying to avoid trim my whole family into green rage monsters And then maybe get it on a hill where I get the assist from gravity and I can bump it up a little over 114 That'd be my best play.
Yeah, I think so Okay, so the gamma radiation or any of this radiation Is it like a fart trail behind this truck that disseminates later or is it constantly radiating in real space and dissipating in real space The fart trail you're thinking about contamination. Um, you're not thinking about radiation radiation is a thing that's happening Uh contamination is a thing that can cause contamination, right? Yes, it can cause contamination Which one is the poop in your contamination and radiation video? So particles that emit radiation that is contamination and if you step on them You can take them with you different places you are contaminated at that point And then the contaminated particles also radiate at some level.
Yes, they do they do okay Yeah, but nowhere near to the degree that the initial Like that the fuel cell is radiating and we're talking about orders of magnitude greater radiation or expulsion I mean, it's not it's not really expulsion right radiation isn't propulsion inherently. It's It's transfer. There's another type of radiation we have to talk about okay, and that's neutron radiation Well, I thought we didn't even know what those were you got alpha beta gamma and neutron And this is why your question so interesting you said how fast is radiation? There's two types while there's a lot of different types of neutron radiation But like the two that nuclear power plant people talk about a lot are fast neutrons and thermal neutrons That's what they call it fast neutrons are as you would expect fast They moved very very quickly like around Uh 20,000 kilometers a second.
They're really really fast. Okay. All right The way these things happen is when you have a uranium atom sitting there like let's say you 235 for example It's kind of like a mousetrap is the the way I explain it And so it's got three neutrons that it kind of isn't happy having at any moment in time If you come up and you poke that thing the right way, it's gonna want to throw those other neutrons off Okay, so when it jettisons those neutrons is their actual momentum is their energy transfer and speed occurring Yeah, they're flying off very fast. Does this destroy the nucleus or cause decay in the uranium?
Exactly. Yes, it does. It breaks that big uranium at an area uranium is a big atom, right? It breaks it into smaller parts.
It also gives off a lot of heat There's heat that's dissipated when this happens It will turn it into two smaller atoms and sometimes there's other weird stuff that kicks off like Electrons or positrons weird stuff beta radiation, but you know we talked about alpha and beta They're particles like alpha is it's kind of like a helium atom kind of okay It's just two electrons and two neutrons. That's what alpha radiation is But these fast neutrons it's just like a neutron just like it just like springs off of that thing and it just shoots really really really fast away Now if that neutron hits another uranium-235 atom and it hits it in such a way and I don't think about billiard balls It's not like breaking it apart. It interacts and makes it unstable and makes it want to break apart naturally What i'm about to explain is very interesting, but it's kind of hard to wrap your head around There's a probability that a neutron will interact with another uranium atom and make it break apart as well So this is not a ballistic thing that's happening. This is not a chemical reaction.
This is a nuclear reaction It's exactly as you said it's breaking is the probability of a reaction increased by the density of uranium in your proximity to the destabilized uranium neutron or the jettisoned neutron It seems like that would be the trick to getting a reaction. Yes, that's one of the tricks So the answer is yes, it is if you put more uranium-235 atoms around it Then yes, you are more likely to get another mouse trap reaction where you get more neutrons out of that And that's the chain reaction that you know you get the nuclear nuclear fission But there's another thing that can increase the likelihood of the reaction And that's if you slow down the neutrons So as the mouse trap breaks apart the atom and those neutrons are flying away from the uranium atom You can do what's called moderating you can moderate the neutrons And the way you do that is you fly those neutrons through something that slows them down Okay I'm going to introduce several concepts at the same time, but then we're going to get there i'm still tracking okay Okay, when you have slow neutrons slower neutrons how much slower are we talking you said like 25 000 Kilometers per second it was like 20 is them just in free flight ballpark a fast neutrons like 20 000 kilometers a second That's that's stupid fast 20 000 that's very very fast right that's like a percentage of yeah That's it's it's it's a meaningful fraction of the speed of light. Yeah. Yeah, so if we can get them slower down to like Two kilometers a second in that ballpark much much slower those slow neutrons those are called thermal neutrons Okay, I don't know why but that's that's they're called thermal neutrons So if we can take that fast neutron and slow it down to a slow neutron or a thermal neutron This is the interesting thing.
It is then more likely to interact with another uranium atom Of course, okay Right if I throw a baseball through a room full of helium balloons that are barely buoyant enough to stay afloat So the room is just a sea of helium balloons that are so close to the exact density of air that they barely rise and fall Just depending on the temperature gradients within the air of that room And let's say it's you know fairly full But I have a baseball and my objective is to get it to the other end of that 50 foot room without hitting a balloon I'm gonna throw it hard because even though I'm still likely to hit a balloon It's less time that the ball is in motion and less opportunity to interact with those balloons as they move about slowly through the path Whereas if I were able to throw that baseball, you know assuming I could clear a 50 foot room with that baseball going 10 miles per hour instead of 90 miles per hour It's far more likely to hit something because all those balloons are moving around it's just more time And more opportunity for interaction or at least that is what seems intuitive to me This is happening in a different realm of reality than I understand There's so many different mental models that you can use to try to understand this I don't claim to understand it. I just know what happens I know if you slow down the neutrons then it is more likely to interact with uranium 235 or Plutonium 239 however you have to think about that the one way I think about it is I think about these U 235 atoms just kind of jiggling out there They're just kind of like a dance, you know And if you just go You just shoot straight through then it'll just uh it may or may not interact But if it's going slower than I don't know something in the nucleus might interact better I mean I just think like you it's around for more time therefore it's going to interact more And theoretically this is going to keep costs down as well, right? Because you're not trying to get the most active neutrons You don't want free neutrons You're you're trying to reduce the amount of energy expended here to increase the likelihood of interaction with other uranium atoms So theoretically that would have a cost saving benefit in that you are spending less energy on the front end Because you don't want to burn that much energy anyway because you want to create a thermal neutron situation, right? I didn't quite understand your question, but um, yeah, I guess I'm not it would take less energy to achieve a thermal neutron moving at one one thousand or one ten thousandth the speed of a free neutron, right?
I don't know the answer to that. Okay fair enough. Yeah, I don't know I know there are fast neutron reader reactors, which was what ebr one was And there are thermal neutron reactors, which is what browns very is those are two different types of reactions Okay, the fast neutron reactor is better for breeding more fuel So ebr one part of the reason why they got to build ebr one is because ebr one is the that's the other I don't know that the first one the first one that came online in powered civilians. Okay.
Yeah, okay I'm putting a pin in a question. I'm trying to understand what we're talking about here I gotta pin and it keep going part of the reason why they were allowed to build ebr one is because they got fuel From I'm assuming it was the army at the time They got 235 enriched uranium from the army and they put uranium 238 on the outside of that reactor When they did that those fast neutrons that were kicking off their uranium 235 in the middle They would hit that u238 on the outside and it would turn into plutonium 239 So they were breeding turn into yes turn into they were breeding more fuel. Why are there numbers at the I'm so sorry I know I'm bogging you down. Why are there numbers at the end of uranium?
Those aren't the atomic numbers uranium's I mean all that stuff's 80s 90s hundreds right in terms of just in terms of the periodic table the periodic number Yeah, so Uranium 235 is an isotope of uranium So it's still whatever number uranium is on the periodic table and then yeah, it's the isotope Is that tag number you're giving me? Yeah, I just looked it up. So I don't get this wrong So it's it's got 92 protons and 143 neutrons So 92 is the atomic number. Okay, right?
Isn't that what determines on the time? I think you're right? I think you're right I'm so over my head right now, but I Okay, we're both hanging on as best we can here. Yeah, but then neutrons don't affect atomic number at all I mean clearly they don't because no neutrons don't affect atomic number at all So then an isotope the atomic number of uranium 235 is 92.
Yes, you're right. So the atomic number is protons. Yep Okay, so then what makes it an isotope? There's a natural state that it wants to live at and my understanding is when you change Oh gosh.
I don't know isotope. Let me see I have to look this up as two primordial isotopes no idea what that means I will say this I was about to go somewhere interesting and yes, we are bogged down here. Sorry, sorry A variation of the chemical element that has the same number of protons by a different number of neutrons And it's nucleus. So an isotope is a different number of neutrons.
I don't know if that's true Isotopes are distinct nuclear species of the same chemical element They have the same atomic number and position in the periodic table, but a different nucleon number mass numbers Due to different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei. Okay, so it's it's neutrons. It's not the electrons I did I don't know this stuff. Okay, so atomic numbers protons but then the isotope number is affected by a combined number of everything that's in the nucleus so that would be protons plus the neutron reading from Wikipedia number reading from Wikipedia the number of protons within the atoms nucleus is called It's atomic number and is equal to the number of electrons in the neutral atom each atomic number identifies Okay, so that goes back to ion So if it's not neutral, then it's an ion, but we're assuming it's neutral So the protons and electrons are going to be even and neutrons don't affect that if I'm hearing you write atomic numbers protons And a neutral element is going to be it's not an ion equal number of protons and electrons An ion would be an imbalance one way or the other a positive ion would be more protons A negative ion would be more electrons and what I'm saying is as you are explaining this neutrons do not affect charge in any way So I think we're on the same page there That's my understanding.
However Like the difference between u-235 and u-238 It sounds like they're not ions they're isotopes So an isotope has a different number of neutrons. I think roger I think that's the way it works. So an ion and an ice sense because if those are being jettisoned in these reactions It would make sense that that would then change that isotope number I mean we're feeling it out Okay Okay, well this is better than I've ever understood how you could have uranium Which just has an atomic number and then it can have other numbers at the end So those are isotope numbers Those are at least in some way related to where they are in their reaction process having to do with How many neutrons are present? I think that's correct based on what you're saying.
Okay, let's assume it is. Okay Speaking of things. I don't understand at all Some of you support this podcast at patreon.com and I'm really really grateful that you do Even though I do not understand the internal reaction at the elemental level that would cause you to want to do that I and my family are very very grateful Yeah, I was just uh remembering man. This was a very distant memory.
Didn't we get mat and destined dot com and destined and mat.com We did I just found it Why is wow really that was a bit what does it say that's the 5050 remember the 5050 vividly Still think I'm gonna play the 50 right now. Oh, I lost the 5050. I lost it Can I read the instructions for the 5050? Yes, the last time I saw this was a long time ago Uh, this is from episode one or two.
Yeah, this is going on as we're recording this eight years ago Yeah, 5050 you're about to play the 5050. This is all this web page says here's how to play one Look at the two buttons below and choose one in your mind Two click on the button you've chosen three live with the consequences If you win you'll get to see the something wonderful you will get to see the something wonderful It does have a typo to It's a typo for eight years Whatever it just lives there things happen. Yeah, you will get to see the something wonderful and we'll be morally obligated via blood oath covenant to support us on patreon link on the right If you lose no comma You'll see something strangely enchanting but deeply disquieting and will be morally obligated via blood oath covenant to support us on patreon orange link You were warned period disclosure. This is a gimmick designed to make groveling for patreon support more fun Thank you button one button two Well, I just chose one of the two buttons and I clicked it I will tell you this depending on if you go to matt and destiny.
Oh my gosh. I won. Did you win? I'm sorry.
I know you were saying something important, but I won I'm the winner. Wow. That's phenomenal. You won great job I can't say the rest of what it says but people are gonna need to people are gonna need to figure that out I like what it says a lot.
What do we get? Oh? Wow, look at that that's from when the internet was fun. That really was a gift It was yeah, depending on if you go to matt and destiny dot com or destiny mat dot com They're different 5050s.
Did you know that? I didn't remember that but now that you mentioned it I do because I think I remember what the other winner video was We each picked a winner and loser video. So matt and destiny are my picks for winner and loser and destiny mat are your inferior picks for I don't think that's true. Hold on.
I'm a destiny. I'm a safe. Oh gosh. I lost again.
And you suck You're worse at this than 50 of players. All right. Well, I guess it's time to close out our extremely professional uh patreon spot here Yeah, this is gonna revolutionize our financial futures. I can feel it.
This is the finest spot we've ever recorded How could a person just destined put yourself in somebody else's shoes here How could a person listen to what just happened and not immediately go support this podcast because they can't run off the podcast That's how that that's the only that's literally the only way Thank you for supporting up at your own also. I'm sorry idiots So Where were we we were? I don't know We're trying to figure out how to radiate my family. Okay when I'm driving down the road next to the nuclear bus Okay, so the fast neutrons just fly off of uranium 235 and Okay on a fast reactor they react inside the core but they fly off and then they interact with Uranium 238 on the outside and they turn that into plutonium 239 so the interesting thing about a Okay reactor is you can get more fuel out of it than you put into it Because you can then use the plutonium 239 correct Which is interesting huh this plutonium occur Just naturally in the wilder.
Do we have to make it through that process? No idea. I don't know I don't know but uranium does right. Yeah.
Yeah, uranium is just mindable. Yeah, exactly Interest the interesting thing about this book that Alex sent me is I flip it open and I'm like man So how does this work? And so I knew about the fact that there's these cross sections for different atoms and the likelihood of neutrons interacting with an atom Dependent on what's called the cross section and the speed of the electrons those two things determine if the probability of you getting an interaction So if we could slow down our neutrons, we can increase the likelihood of reaction So You can moderate the neutrons by slowing them down in water. So water the hydrogen bonds inside the water will naturally slow down neutrons As they're flying Slow down.
Oh, okay, if they slow down You get not a fast neutron but a thermal neutron And then it increases its likelihood that it's going to interact So if you had a rod of dry fuel and you somehow had an original like first domino that fell first mouse trap pop And you get neutrons flying off a neutron source and then you can try to start a chain reaction If you cleverly arranged these fuel rods in water It could interact differently if there's water present versus when there's not water present because it would change the speed of the neutrons Therefore it would interact with those other uranium atoms differently. Does that make sense? It does and here's something embarrassing. I thought that the water that was in the reactor was to cool it down It is that's what I thought it was meant to do it is which is interesting It does cool it down.
And so this is what's really really cool about so all this it's the same water serving two purposes or these two different tanks It serves three purposes. Yeah, it it it moderates the neutrons It cools down the fuel rods and it also turns to steam and that's what you use to generate the electricity Oh, yeah, that's embarrassing. Yeah, it sure is what you use to generate electricity Isn't it this is what happens when I get my head too far up the butt of a question and it's yes I guess the steam would be the third purpose of that water wouldn't it's fascinating I'm trying to figure all this stuff out and I realized somewhere along the way. I was like man This is fascinating and what I don't understand is how does all this happen inside a reactor core because As you start to think about you're like, oh, this isn't a 2d problem a two-dimensional problem Because when you look at a reactor core map from the top you're seeing all these control rods and fuel bundles and you're saying Oh, well if I move these control rods out of the way Then that'll allow the neutrons to pass between the fuel bundles and that'll increase my reactivity and the temperature will go up and So okay, I'm thinking about all this stuff and then I was like but it still doesn't answer my question because The top of the fuel bundles are going to be exposed these control rods are things that you insert in the bottom of the reactor And do the fuel rods go into the control rods?
Is that where they live? The fuel bundles don't move and you have these fuel go ahead So we have 177 control rods in the browns very reactor, right? I think that's right. Let me go back Yeah, 177 control rods and 748 748 fuel assemblies and that's one rod each the fuel assembly or there's a bundle in each of those There's a bundle in each assembly how much is in a bundle?
So a bundle it basically it's a it's a Describe this imagine a bunch of cylindrical pencil erasers stacked in to a metal tube and Those metal tubes are put together inside an assembly like a square thing and so let's see fuel rods consist of blah blah blah blah 64 rods are in a square tube Wow, yeah, so this is a lot of material it is they're big Yeah, I mean this and this is all these rods are primarily I mean uranium is the fuel source with these rods and how long does this last before they have to swap it all out? Every couple of years they move them around in the core. Oh, so it's like rotating your tires You don't have to throw them away correct as soon as they start to wear you can just rotate them every 10,000 miles and get more out of correct Yes, okay I was thinking about this and so these these control rods are inserted in the bottom of the reactor And what they do is they're like shielding they stop the neutrons from going from one fuel bundle to the other Oh it decreases it basically shuts off the neutrons ability to shoot across to another bundle, right? Which would create chaos because the further out the neutrons go seeking an interaction the harder it is to predict their behavior and control the energy output Oh, I'm not gonna comment on that because I don't quite understand what you're saying and words are important when we're talking about nuclear reactors So yeah My point would be if you're just trying to see how many times you can get free neutrons to interact with stable uranium to create an interaction with that Next uranium atom if the point is just to get it to happen as much as possible It would seem like you'd be ahead It would be more predictable and you'd be more likely to have interactions if you could just keep those bouncing around in the same tight little area As opposed to having them freely just bounce all over the place in a great big reactor core You're gonna get more predictable rates of interaction Yeah, it just seems like it would be more controllable more predictable and more efficient if the neutrons are moving freely in a smaller more contained area As opposed to freely bouncing between all 177 control rods.
Yeah, yeah, which I would think would greatly increase the randomization Yeah, I think the term bouncing I mean you said a few things I understand the heart of what you're saying You said several things in there that are not correct vocabulary, but I understand what you're trying to say This is not natural of uranium. This isn't rich I mean it is natural, but it's been enriched so that we have more U-235 and 238 so it's not stable. Okay, it's unstable by design We're controlling the instability of it But anyway, you insert these these rods from the bottom and they're not like cylindrical rods. They look like a plus They look across they're called cruciform rods and so these rods because we have these square bundles You can insert these pluses in between four of the bundles.
Can you see that mentally? Yes, okay, man. I'm trying I mean it shouldn't be surprising that Understanding a nuclear reactor without any visuals and just having my buddy who's just learning about this explained it to me over the phone would be hard Because nuclear things I've heard are hard Well, this is this is what's interesting about the whole thing So I get this book and I'm trying to understand the three-dimensional nature of the reactor core Right and I recognize that there's something there and I'm like There's something about the 3d nature of this and I don't understand it How how can they insert the control rods which basically kill the neutron flow? I'll call it the neutron flux.
How can they insert those things from the bottom because we still have the top of the fuel bundles exposed to each other? Like I don't understand. How does that work? And then I flip the page and it's right over here and I found this picture inside this book It says flow and heat transfer regimes in vertical two-phase flow two-phase flow is gas and liquid flowing together It's like when you open a coke you get bubbles that rise in the liquid Hey, I understood that reference.
Okay, the gas is flowing up. I like it But also the liquid is flowing up like you know, you crack the bottle and all that is flowing out And so you can imagine an eruption of a bottle you shake up a bottle and you open it and you can imagine the eruption of liquid out of a bottle Sure. I'm looking at a drawing here It's a long vertical tube and in the bottom of the drawing you've got water and in the top of the drawing you've got gas And then you have everything in between all the way up This is the moment that everything clicked for me with this book edited by Henry Fennec Fennec I forgot to say the name and that is if you think about the the fuel bundles Down at the bottom. There's water there, right?
Because you got water in the reactor core sure and what does water do to neutrons? It slows them down dramatically because of the bond between the hydrogen and the oxygen when that interacts with neutrons it slows them down It's just the hydrogen bonds. It's not the hydrogen oxygen oxygen bonds, but yes, it's oh, okay It slows them down and what is slowing down the neutrons do for us? It makes them more likely to interact with uranium 235 correct Causing a chain reaction because that will Initiate that uranium will want to expel some of its neutrons as well, right?
As the water boils And you get gas rising to the top of the core. All right, what happens to the fuel bundles at the top of the core? Let's say we have a runaway reaction and Something happens. We can't get the fuel rods in this was always my question like what happens if we can't get the control rods in Will we have a meltdown?
What happens if everything gets too hot inside there and it just boils a lot what what happens to the top? Do we have water at the top of the reactor anymore? We would have steam yeah, we would have steam which is not liquid water So what happens to the neutrons at the top of the reactor? I would assume they just accelerate and dissipate and go far far away very quickly They seem fast because they're not they're not going to be thermal neutrons.
They're going to be fast neutrons up exactly and now you have it Okay, so are we going to have a runaway reaction at the top of that thing? Well, no because they're the fast neutrons don't like to interact with the uranium and it's In its basic form so the likelihood of them encountering uranium or interacting with uranium goes down becomes less as they accelerate to 20,000 kilometers per second right so what if free neutrons do to me when they hit me they can hurt you I would hate that Yeah, I mean they can affect your biological material. They can change it neutrons can be stopped by concrete concrete The specific type of concrete you don't use is concrete. That's got a lot of water content in it Because and what is why do we want water content in the concrete?
Because the bond between the hydrogen at the elemental level in the concrete would further slow the neutrons and there's no uranium to interact with in the concrete So it's going to slow them. They're not going to go bother people and bodies, but they also won't cause any reaction because it's just concrete, right? And that's where we're at that's uh, that's my understanding so to protect your family You would want concrete if there's a source of neutron radiation a that's pretty bad because that means we got it's like some serious reactions going on Neutron radiation is going to happen in the core of the of the reactor But you have to worry about alpha beta and gamma and so alpha is going to be Um, it's going to be that thing that looks a lot like a helium atom without the electrons Okay, that's alpha radiation and then we got beta radiation. That's another particle But the gamma is what you really got to worry about gamma is kicking off of isotopes and stuff Gamma is what you really want to shield against and my guess is if they were transporting something in a truck that had some type of gamma Ionizing radiation source in there.
It's going to be shielded with lead in order to stop it. That's my guess Yeah, you would hope it was big enough. I mean if these rods are 13 and a quarter feet or 4.07 meters This vehicle was big enough to move that with shielding in place. I don't think that's probably what it was but it's kind of fun to imagine Yeah, I have no idea, but it's fascinating, isn't it?
I don't know if this is what you were wanting out of an episode, but obviously i'm still trying to learn this myself And uh, I think it's fun. I think it's fun to not know a thing And ask completely stupid sounding questions of these people that work with these plants that know this stuff a big question that everybody has Is what about nuclear waste? I got to see the nuclear waste all of the nuclear waste that this plant has produced got to see it I was like fast pre-knee wait, they keep it there. Yeah, the nuclear.
Yeah, it's interesting. Just in the break room No, oh, that'll be a video. It's fascinating stuff. I think it's I think it's really interesting and What i've learned about nuclear power is that we need more of it There's another thing that well that continues to be my opinion But the reason I value this conversation is why I was just fun to unpack it and it was fun to kind of get you out of your automatic Comfort zone where the exercise I mean usually when we have these conversations the exercise is entirely okay What everyday example could I use to make this make sense to my friend who doesn't know anything about this stuff?
And you're very patient and you do a very good job, but the exercise is challenges You know it like the back of your hand you teach it you think about it You think in the categories of these equations you see these equations in everyday life And it's become so second nature to you that now you have to step back and try to simplify it again like a beginner for me I love that i've learned so much from you that way this one was fun because you don't have the mastery of it So you were having to do the thing you normally do when you explain things from the realm of physical sciences to me But also you were having to dig deep and be like wait How does that thing work and it was kind of fun to have to see to see your brain have to do that a little bit Yeah, I'm like So far away from mastery at this I have talked to some people that have a master I spoke to one man who he was such a big deal in the whole nuclear industry at the time of Fukushima that they flew into japan They're like hey, um, something just happened in japan We need you want to plane go and he was very patient with me and he let me ask all these dumb questions and he kindly answered them And uh, I remember I remember his answer to one question. I said something about coffee Uh, I said, yeah, what was it deal with coffee? I mean I knows is it good to drink? He's like, yeah, well the nature of our work is that this thing works all the time and a lot of times people work long shifts And it's important to have some form of stimulant in order to keep people thinking clearly I remember thinking what a really fun way of answering that question That sounds amazing.
I can't wait until I have coffee someday Whatever Still have that box of all that stuff. I'm really looking forward to trying it And I wish I hadn't canceled that contract People seem so happy when they drink it. It's it's gonna be great The other reason that this is interesting to me is because I think nuclear is sort of the black box of knowledge Everybody's heard of it and it's like one of those things you can just say and it sounds fancy like like when people talk about technology and made for tv Product ads and they're like nasa approved. It's a nasa polymer and I'm like nasa polymer That sounds like nasa and the word polymer it must be good It just kind of works on me even though I don't know what any of that means I think nuclear is that sort of black box for people where folks have pretty strong opinions about it And it's kind of scary and it made the hulk and share noble is scary There was a tv thing about it and that show was really good and it was scary and it seems like it melts people and nuclear Radiation in our brains normal people like me.
It's like is it bubonic plague but green Is it contagious like if I catch radiation? Can I give you radiation? Does radiation get on my shoes like we thought covid could do for the first couple weeks of that So you got to like spritz your shoes or something to keep the radiation off and I don't like the difference between radiation and contamination makes perfect sense when you say it But I don't think most of us think in those categories But intuitively I know what happens when I'm sitting in a row in a movie theater and somebody walks past me and cropped us the entire row That fart just moves with intensity from the fart origin and then it dissipates out into the air I get it. I can visualize it.
I can smellify it you kind of learn principles of dissipation and contamination and Clean and unclean even to use kind of bible language like grossness and how it the grossness decays over time and can go from being really gross to okay Now it's it's gone. We're fine here But when it comes to nuclear stuff and radiation and where does it go and how does it get there and how does it dissipate? I can't visualize it. I don't have any context for it So I'm driving along with the family and like I said everybody's kind of a sleeper zoned out and it's just me and my thoughts and I'm going You know I have no idea If that's what I just drove by how this vehicle would work or what is going on in there And it kind of bothered me that I didn't know and as a result couldn't formulate any dad strategy For what to do to protect my family and I don't tend to like Dark spots in my knowledge where I can't formulate a dad strategy for how to protect my family So that's why I wanted to ask yeah And that's kind of how I felt about the nuclear stuff is like I can I feel that it's good But I don't really know why or how and all this kind of stuff and so I'm just asking these questions and I get a really nice note Someone said and it's exactly what I was hoping would happen So the second video and the nuclear power series on smarter every day is about radiation safety and these four types of radiation And somebody said hey I'm starting a job at a nuclear plant and I'm sitting in training and they just pulled up this video so that we could understand it better And I was like that's what I was going for.
I really wanted that to happen and it's happening which is cool I'm excited about that. So my goal with the series is I want to understand it I'm not gonna say like hey nuclear power is great and you should do it unless that seems to be true And so I'm also gonna look at waste and look at all these other things like it's a it's a green fuel It's clean. I mean in order to talk about a power source I think it's important to talk about everything involved in that so cradle to grave like it takes energy to get The uranium out of the ground we have mining trucks and we're using diesel engines to get the uranium out of the ground We go and create this electricity and then we have to do something with that nuclear waste afterwards So so I think if you think about all of the totality of the energy that goes in versus the energy that comes out Versus how dirty do we make the environment when we do that? That's one way to look at it.
Likewise. I think and you say hey look I drive an electric car therefore Somehow I'm morally absolved of all ethical dilemmas because I'm a quote good person because I drive an electric vehicle I think it's important to think about electricity comes from nowhere It's important to think about like okay, that's great Um, I would love to tell you that all the electricity comes from solar and wind and water But it doesn't and also I would love to tell you that the lithium that's in that battery just magically happened And we didn't mine it from somewhere and process it so I think it's important to think about the entire equation like how much energy does it take to make that battery toyota has said an interesting thing recently toyota's like Yeah, we're we're just gonna make incredibly incredibly efficient internal combustion engines and they're gonna be just really really good for the world And I was like wow, that's great. That's really interesting I met a man is a part of the series who has worked in coal plants or diesel plants whatever it was I forget and he's also worked in nuclear power plants and I said hey, what do you think about nuclear power? He's like dude it is great.
I was like tell me about that He's like man when I would go to the power plant before it was just dirty Like I feel safer at a nuclear plant than I do working at the other plants I thought that was a really interesting data point So that coupled with another lady that told me like I got to sit in on a control room test Were the people that operate the nuclear plant they're being tested on hey a catastrophe just happened. How do you fix this? Christ was alert. Yeah, basically.
It's called an enunciator. We'll start beeping Dude that video is gonna be so amazing because I got to go talk to the guy that was quizzing them beforehand And he's like yeah, it's gonna look like it's doing this But it's actually doing this and they have to figure that out and they're gonna try to figure it out this way But it's not gonna work because we've done this and when that doesn't work this isn't gonna work It's like oh it's so cool It's so cool The thing is we get to test the nuclear plant operators to understand their level of professionalism And do they know how to handle all these different things that happen and it's just really really fun All I'd say I think it's fascinating. I think nuclear power is very very interesting And I'm just gonna give it a real hard look and try to understand how it works so that I can Determine if it is what I want in my backyard because it is in my backyard. Yeah, I'm excited about it Yeah, I dig it.
Well Thank you for bouncing off of my silly primitive question. This is a black box to me that is something I don't understand Everything I have is from high school on this and this is probably the most I've thought about Atomic physics and nuclear stuff since seriously 10th grade 11th grade I don't know whatever and you made a bunch of things that didn't make sense before make more sense So it's a start. Thanks. Yeah, thank you.
Um, can I land the plane on the on the book situation? Sure So this guy sent me this rolling a long nice letter told me about all the stuff said please sign the book and send it back I was like man, this is so fascinating. I'm gonna look up this book I'm gonna get a copy because I need it for the series. I'm doing the only copy I could find was like $700 on eBay Oh, so I I called the guy and said I'm not sending your book back I was like I'll send it back one day, but I need it for a while right now and he's like, okay, that's cool It's in the mail.
We'll get to it. Yeah. Thanks, dude. I appreciate you showing it.
Yeah, I'm glad your family didn't get radiated Well, that way I would we know I don't know I think we're still in the window. I wouldn't know yet So I'll keep the dosimetry the dosimetry involved is a whole other thing so yeah I don't know what that means, but I feel fine at this point. No one is reporting any symptoms. That's great.
Okay. Yeah, it seems like I'd be good Thanks for wishing my family not radiation poisoning There you go, man. That feels like sort of a baseline for friendship, but I'm still gonna say thank you. Yeah Alright, man, I think we're gonna get chinese food tonight.
So I gotta go pick that up. That's important. Alright. Enjoy.
See you pal