Not going to happen. No teacher s going to explain like a scientist and no teacher is going above and beyond wasting their time for the salary they're paid.
How did Indeed let you record an ad copy in a bathroom in a stadium? Your audio is usually so much better. Airpods? No offense meant but I'm a little disappointed. Love you both.
1 billion years from now, Cyanobacterianoids are celebrating their independence day. "Let us give thanks to the humans who graciously sacrificed their environment so that we could thrive. Abacteria."
Cyanobacterianoids obtaining self-awareness is impossible without proper environment in which to allow them fast communication (for example, human brains need the environment of the body. And not every brain in a body is self-aware.).
@@hououinkyouma5539 Buzz Killer. He didn't say it would suck without him. And even tho he was not interested in the first place (assumption) - Now he is. Mission accomplished.
Love this show I’m 22 and I think we know the predicament of the schools in America right now so I don’t mind getting a “refreshment” lesson on oxygen 😭
Man, Doc Tyson and Lord Nice, would have been a great addition to the Myth Busters series ! If teachers would have taught anywhere near this effectively back in my day we all would have benefited greatly and the future would have compounded benefits abundantly! Y’all are great - please keep up the good works. Tom
This was fascinating, I never knew that about the Apollo missions, just that six had been scrubbed. Now I'm wondering what replaces it in subsequent Apollo missions, etc. The self-regulation of plants is surprising too but makes perfect sense. That cyanobacteria idea sounds cool except for the problems mentioned with plants self-regulation, which might counter the process?
No, the 'methane atmosphere' is still the fuel, and the oxygen is still the oxidizer. The rules of chemistry don't change just because you change the position (or ratios) of the fuel and the oxidizer...
As Dr. Tyson pointed out, CO2 and O2 are constantly being cycled back and forth between photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic life forms, and this process has been more or less in equilibrium for hundreds of millions of years (since the Cambrian, at least). But some CO2 ends up "fixed" as limestone rock, and some oxygen gets captured by exposed iron and other metals as metal oxides. Here's my question: Over the entire course of the history of Earth, past, present, and future, is the amount of oxygen available in the ecosphere slowly diminishing as some amount every year gets captured as rust by iron? There is a lot of iron in this planet - the inner core is a huge sphere of iron-nickel alloy - and as we all know, iron loves to grab onto oxygen; if that wasn't true, people living in the upper midwest would never have to worry about their cars rusting out from exposure to road salt.
Great idea Chuck the CO2 scrubber I was thinking about something like that last week but I couldn't come up with what bacteria or natural means to achieve said goal. thanks Neil that was what I needed is to know that particular bacteria's name.
I know you guys probably won’t read this but I freakin love Chucks commentary because (exactly like me) he knows enough of the topic for say something true but topical of a subject. Then Dr. Tyson blows his mine with the rest of ours lol. And who as an adult thought the atmosphere was only oxygen?? There is a lot of weird stuff going on in our world, what we breath is no different lol
The big O. US Navy had a fire fighting school. Lots of demonstrations on Oxygen along with Magnesium, and every type of fuel used. Classes on fighting these fires.
One of the issues cited in the final accident report on the Apollo 1 fire cited the overuse of velcro. They had been warned about overusing the flammable material by the manufacturer.
Another nerd point about that jaws scene (even though I’ve never seen it myself). I’m a welder and work with those oxygen tanks all the time, and I would be seriously impressed if any guy could pick one of them up, let alone throw it. The BOC bottles I deal with most of the time weight about 200lbs/80ish kgs
Then it wasnt filled with o², and would not have "blown up" complete with flames. This whole stunt was debunked in an episode of Mythbusters. The compressed air simply hissed out as Neil surmised. Never learn your science from Spielberg!
Dear Neil i have a question If we was in a starship and i opened the top safety hatch to look around would u think space would add resistance to me like air on earth or no resistance where i could be moving 20000 miles an hour and still walk on top of the starship like nothing but some space rocks can get me?
When I first read the title of this StarTalk, silly me thought it would be about being able to, or not, breathe through our Covid masks…. But this was much more oxygen-encompassing and interesting. 😷👍🏽
That is also the reason why in a certain paleoclimatic atmospheric chart O2 and CO2 levels followed each other. This is a balance that either of those gases you increase the other one will also start to increase.
i think this episode should be swept under the carpet; because although i see the sense in what NdGT says, it might eventually leak into the public where someone might say "trees are bad, NdGT said so!"
Dr. Tyson, seeing as there is a ratio of O2 to nitrogen in the air, how is it maintained? And, does the amount of nitrogen available determine the amount of air in the environment?
fun fact. the asphalt on the street is flammable and would self combust under the summer sun but it needs way too much oxygen for it that is not available under normal conditions.
Why is combustion rarely refered to as rapid oxidation? After all, that's actually what is happening. In any event of burning, that burning is actually a fuel being oxygenated very rapidly. The faster oxygen molecules can combine with the carbon molecules, the more energy is released from the molecular bonds of O2, the faster and more intense is the recombination of the single remaining oxygen atoms into combustion byproducts, releasing heat, and light. Ergo: rapid oxidation.
You are correct but the issue is not that, it's that people don't easily visualize it that way. Most associate the term oxidation with metal rust which is far slower process.
Every time I come across the statement that "oxygen is not flammable", I feel that is an incomplete statement which must be elaborated upon in the established context of a learning environment. Oxygen is just one of the two parts of common combustion. All statements of combustibility should reference the ambient composition, aka "air", because the statement is easily inverted such as "oxygen is flammable in propane", therefore, statements such as "oxygen is not flammable in air", and propane is flammable in air/oxygen" should be the standard convention. Nothing relevant here is simply flammable or not-flammable, because flammability is the exothermic reaction of *two* components, the flame being made of them both.
Now we need a Nitrogen video! So, the atmosphere ~78% nitrogen. 2:08 Where did it come from? What did the Earth 🌍 start off with? Didn’t know there was a subject called atmospheric chemistry 🧪 🤯 just thought the plants 🌱 was cranking it all out.
Yes, I agree. Oxygen is 8th on the periodic table and any chemical is an accelerant if exposed to heat to push the particles forward with the faster motion of those particles.
All beings need nitrogen and it's all around us, but only bacteria can fixate nitrogen, so all beings consume bacteria to get fixated nitrogen. Not really an intelligent efficient design
@@carultch This is why the UN (some nerd department) ruled that the term "inflammable" should not be used, and the word "flammable" is correct. Thus, you rarely see "inflammable" on labelling and safety signs today. Flammable vs Not Flammable.
Great video as always, thank you! While hearing about how oxygen isn't flamable and how a whole place would catch fire after lighting a match in case it was, I realized how incredible of a fact this was! Then I remembered the way water turns into ice and only the top layer of a lake will freeze allowing all the fish survive during the winter for example. Are there any more incredible facts like these 2 that could make a whole mind-blowing Explainer? Greetings from Greece! :D
In the Apollo 1 accident, the capsule was pressurised to 1 atmosphere with pure oxygen. That made the fire progress almost explosively. There was no way to reduce the pressure in the capsule below ambient, this would have required a vacuum pump, although they could have used atmospheric air for the test instead. Note that pure oxygen at .2 atmospheres has the same fire risk as 78% N2 - 20% O2 at 1 atmosphere.
Cool. Nice to know... That explains why they didn't need to reinforce the capsule structure. Although I then wonder where that whole story about having to redesign the capsule due to the need to pressurize it came from...
@@FranciscoNogueira Since the capsule was on the launch pad for tests, and not in space, it was pressurized to one atmosphere to equal the outside pressure or it would have had to be reinforced to keep the outside air from leaking in.
Another important flaw was that the door to the capsule opened inwards. With the pressure differential it was impossible to open it. It might not have made a difference in this case but it did remove the chance of survival.
At 17 minutes into the video. Dr. Tyson mistakenly states that the insects of the Mesozoic were larger due to increased oxygen levels. It was actually the late Paleozoic that had large insects due to increased oxygen levels. Also it's my understanding that insects primarily obtain oxygen from air tube systems and not through their surface directly. Not major mistakes but accuracy matters. Thank you for all you do! ❤️
There is another big mistake that runs through the whole show and that is that trees produce oxygen, this is a complete lie, although it is factually true that trees produce oxygen it is also true that trees use up all that oxygen because everything alive uses up oxygen including trees . Not only that, trees also consume oxygen at night, but at that time they do not produce oxygen at all due to the lack of photosynthesis.
Yeaaaa Wooow He has a episode on how we have oxygen !!! It's called Photosynthesis learned in 3rd grade !! Plants pull in carbon dioxide and water plus sun converts it to Sugers that feeds plants and guess what's the by product. Of that chemical reaction. Oxygen. Yeaaa if you still using the word factual. Just watch the Movie Martian with Matt Damon !!!
I was a submariner and one of my duties was atmospheric analysis. Wish you would have hit up on pressure and O2 relationship vs pressure and our ability to live. Overall though great discussion.
Great episode. Never have given oxygen much thought, but you really put things into perspective. I thought at one point you were going to talk about o3. Ozone seems to have a lot of misinformation out there. Thanks for always sharing knowledge and making it fun!
Think of the term used in chemistry for burning things. Rapid Thermal Oxidation. Oxygen bonds to other molecules, and in doing so releases heat. Heat in turn excites nearby molecules, and makes it easier for oxygen to bond with them. When this happens rapidly enough, you get fire.
There’s more oxygen in the earths crust, actually it’s the most, or one of the most abundant elements in the earths crust. Mostly found in the silicone dioxide all over our beaches… also known as “sand” and most of the other rocks here.😅 there’s more oxygen in the ground then there is in the air we breathe, and to me that’s just weird 😂
The supernova that had left its remnants of which the Solar system built up had fused a lot of iron at its core that we make use of in the core of the Earth for a magnetic field and in our hammers, but had also fused a lot of lighter elements before that and at its outer layers. Oxygen, nitrogen and carbon are examples for those whose fusion starts at an early stage of a huge star, after it burnt all its hydrogen into helium. Silicon is just forged together out of oxygen. This way there's a big chance that during the explosion of the ancestor star, these elements are close and when the temperature decreases to the level when chemistry can take place finally, but is big enough for the real, chemical burning to that we know much better than fusion, a lot of compounds is created participating the insane oxygen... and, btw, to our luck: carbon.
@@lxathu I wouldn’t be able to go into detail myself like you have, but I am aware of the process to some degree. Honestly, the fact I mentioned was something I needed to know for a introductory chemistry course I did 2 years ago before moving into my electrical field of study 😅
Molecular oxygen (O2) is a reactant in combustion reactions. Oxygen is the 2nd most electronegative ("electron hungry") element in the universe. The small size of the oxygen nucleus relative to the valence electron configuration allows it to strongly attract elections from the atoms of many other elements to create covalent bonds. All this means oxygen is highly reactive.
Doc... keep looking up! What an awesome episode on a subject that most people think they understand. Well done sir. I learned something new. By watching the explainer series i also am relearning how to learn and how to think within a different paradigm.
I think the reason why we have 3% CO2 and 21% O2 is because of the difference of their molecular mass. CO2 is way heavier than Nitrogen or oxygen so plants will little of it to make do, compared to animals who require higher concentration of lighter oxygen
if the co2 levels were higher when that bacteria started making all that oxygen, the temperatures were probably higher too, to support the reproduction rate at such a level that it could have the impact it did. Considering this, maybe we can increase the heat inside a bacteria box that can also sustain those high temps while a stream of air flows through them. considering this further still, that principle could be used to introduce large amounts of oxygen to another planet, and so there's a good reason to make the bacteria able to survive in a another gas, cut the leg work for was, krypton. make the bacteria able to sustain an environment similarly enriched with krypton gas as nitrogen on earth, the density of it means it can stay inside tunnels on mars.. and because it can be output from uranium fission... and we think there's a fair bit of uranium on mars.. and if we can dig and fill the holes with a mixture of krypton and oxygen, then we can sorta actually get the ball rolling there.
Yes the Earth was much warmer before the cyanobacteria started pumping oxygen around 3 billion years ago (some sources say 3.5. Billion years, others say 2.7 so I rounded it at 3 Billion), majority of the atmosphere was CO2 and methane, which are much better insulators than Oxygen) and the whole Earth cooled down to subzero degrees because the Sun was 20-30 % weaker than it is today (it grows roughly 10 % per Billion years) and the whole Earth was what's called "Snowball Earth" from poles to the equator for hundreds of millions years with small areas around the equator where it retain liquid state like lakes. Then the sun intensity grew the more Hydrogen was fused to Helium and more volcanic activity started pumping more CO2 and the Earth began to warm up again.
@@toreadoress Fascinating, I guess air was also more dense with co2, like aluminium frying pan vs cast iron, the ability to hold heat increases with density. like a heat sync , absorbing heat from the atmosphere.
You say oxygen level was high in the past thats how we had big dragon fly but at the same time you say oxygen level cant go any higher because there will be too much fire to bring back to 21% im confused
It was a simplification. This amount of oxygen caused Great Oxidation Event. It happened mostly in ocean as there were no plants yet. Later on this amount of oxygen was not so much larger than today, but still more. This allowed existance of larger insects. When amount of oxygen lowered (also because of other mass extinctions and/or ice fields) bigger insects have extincted.
The history of Earth’s atmosphere, marked by the rise of oxygen through photosynthesis, has profoundly shaped the development of life and climate. The increase in atmospheric oxygen enabled the evolution of complex organisms and diverse ecosystems. How might studying this oxygenation process enhance our understanding of planetary habitability and the potential for life on other planets?
6:50 mr tyson and nice, you laugh about this matter but about 25 or 30 years ago it was NORMAL in operating rooms having surgeons and anesthesiologist smoking, also while visiting and discharging patients while being hospitalized. source myself :D
***QUESTION*** Can fire (an element) be considered a living being? T seems to eat, breath and leave waste(carbon). It grows as long as there’s food and oxygen then dies out.
If you remember when they visited Vulcan, and Kirk and Spock fought they talked about the thin atmosphere, and some were they talked about more gravity on Vulcan and that why they are stronger.
3:29 Plants and Trees only make up a small percentage of our ecosystem which produces oxygen. Most of our oxygen actually comes from the oceans. Yes you read right. Phytoplanktons, algae, cyanobacteria produce almost 70 percent of all Oxygen in our atmosphere.
The gas in your house has to be the correct ratio of gas to air(oxygen) to actually expolde /ignite. Also any dust IE coal even flour will become flamable when at the right ait mix
Oxygen would be flammable in a Methane based atmosphere. It's just that we don't precise in what kind of atmosphere we're talking because we only have one.
In regards to the rocky desert like planets that the Star Trek crewmembers were beaming down to just because that's what we were given as far as an area doesn't mean the entire planet is Desert like similar to being in the middle of the Sonoran Desert or worse yet the Saharan Desert they're still oxygen in the middle of the Sahara Desert isn't there?
The bad thing about your videos is that I constantly have to rewind them to catch the parts I missed because I was laughing too hard to hear another word. LOL
1) Are there known examples of fossilized animals that lived just fine in the previous carbon dioxide rich atmosphere on earth before cyanobacteria? 2) How do you pressurize for example a diving tank with a gas e.g. how do you force more gas into a confined space than it could hold under non pressurized conditions, and does the pressurized gas change in any way? I'm probably not wording this well but hopefully someone will understand what I'm trying to get at.
To question number 2. With a pump. Think of your air pump for your bike or car tyres. They are doing exactly the same putting gas into what well become a pressurised container. Its the same principle just scaled up.
This is proof that education can be even more fun with the right teachers! Bravo 👏
True.
Absolutely. So I can finally breathe relief and relax no probs aheadrt?
Not going to happen. No teacher s going to explain like a scientist and no teacher is going above and beyond wasting their time for the salary they're paid.
Chuck could play half the characters on the Simpsons with that voice
Chuck could play a lot of different characters and I hope he continues to get work for the rest of his life that just keeps elevating his career.
that smoker's voice was so hilarious!😄
Dr Hibbart for sure at least lol
How did Indeed let you record an ad copy in a bathroom in a stadium? Your audio is usually so much better. Airpods? No offense meant but I'm a little disappointed. Love you both.
Sounded exactly like Harvey Fierstein with his diner waitress voice.
1 billion years from now, Cyanobacterianoids are celebrating their independence day. "Let us give thanks to the humans who graciously sacrificed their environment so that we could thrive. Abacteria."
"Abacteria" that's gold right there
Very impressive
Abacteria 🌹
Nice.
Cyanobacterianoids obtaining self-awareness is impossible without proper environment in which to allow them fast communication (for example, human brains need the environment of the body. And not every brain in a body is self-aware.).
Man chuck makes this show so much better he’s just great😂
If you need him to find this interesting, you weren't really interested in the first place
@@hououinkyouma5539 Buzz Killer.
He didn't say it would suck without him.
And even tho he was not interested in the first place (assumption) - Now he is. Mission accomplished.
@@hououinkyouma5539 come on buddy it ain’t that serious chill out we all here to learn and laugh😂
@@hououinkyouma5539 attention seeker spotted
Yeah Chuck is pretty Nice.
Love this show I’m 22 and I think we know the predicament of the schools in America right now so I don’t mind getting a “refreshment” lesson on oxygen 😭
Felt
I love this show too! I turned 11 on Monday
@@REDv350 one of my favorite materials
@@Corn0nTheCobb word
Okaay! The Diner Doctor has to be a recurring character on the show! HAS TO xD
Man, Doc Tyson and Lord Nice, would have been a great addition to the Myth Busters series !
If teachers would have taught anywhere near this effectively back in my day we all would have benefited greatly and the future would have compounded benefits abundantly!
Y’all are great - please keep up the good works. Tom
Damn right
I agree. If there was more laughter in education and less stress, we would not have as many kids dropping out of school.
Some teachers do teach like this. You might have one if you're really, REALLY lucky!
That diner doctor voice was priceless! Please bring him back. *Often!!*
This was fascinating, I never knew that about the Apollo missions, just that six had been scrubbed. Now I'm wondering what replaces it in subsequent Apollo missions, etc.
The self-regulation of plants is surprising too but makes perfect sense.
That cyanobacteria idea sounds cool except for the problems mentioned with plants self-regulation, which might counter the process?
You could use O2 as a fuel in a stove in a 100% CH4 atmosphere.
Why would you even need a stove the whole atmosphere will be flammable right?
@@druggy1868 not if there is no oxygen
No, the 'methane atmosphere' is still the fuel, and the oxygen is still the oxidizer. The rules of chemistry don't change just because you change the position (or ratios) of the fuel and the oxidizer...
@@Chris-hx3om six in one hand, 1/2 a dozen in the other.
Cody'sLab made a Video "Burning Oxygen In Propane Atmosphere"
They finally got a sponsor !!!
Neil and Chuck are the perfect two people to listen to having a conversation. What wonderful goofballs.
As Dr. Tyson pointed out, CO2 and O2 are constantly being cycled back and forth between photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic life forms, and this process has been more or less in equilibrium for hundreds of millions of years (since the Cambrian, at least). But some CO2 ends up "fixed" as limestone rock, and some oxygen gets captured by exposed iron and other metals as metal oxides. Here's my question: Over the entire course of the history of Earth, past, present, and future, is the amount of oxygen available in the ecosphere slowly diminishing as some amount every year gets captured as rust by iron? There is a lot of iron in this planet - the inner core is a huge sphere of iron-nickel alloy - and as we all know, iron loves to grab onto oxygen; if that wasn't true, people living in the upper midwest would never have to worry about their cars rusting out from exposure to road salt.
Some much needed fresh air in my TH-cam feed
A special thank you to the category five🌸
Great idea Chuck the CO2 scrubber I was thinking about something like that last week but I couldn't come up with what bacteria or natural means to achieve said goal. thanks Neil that was what I needed is to know that particular bacteria's name.
I come for the knowledge bombs, but I stay for Neil’s belly laugh. Love these guys.
I know you guys probably won’t read this but I freakin love Chucks commentary because (exactly like me) he knows enough of the topic for say something true but topical of a subject. Then Dr. Tyson blows his mine with the rest of ours lol. And who as an adult thought the atmosphere was only oxygen?? There is a lot of weird stuff going on in our world, what we breath is no different lol
Chuck working extra hard to make this entire conversation seem interesting.....
....GIVE THAT MAN A RAISE..!!
The big O. US Navy had a fire fighting school. Lots of demonstrations on Oxygen along with Magnesium, and every type of fuel used. Classes on fighting these fires.
One of the issues cited in the final accident report on the Apollo 1 fire cited the overuse of velcro. They had been warned about overusing the flammable material by the manufacturer.
There was on Star Trek where they had that built into there regular suit. One episode only, talked about that.
Neil & Chuk are the best scientific combo, keep on producing the quality content. Appreciated ❤
Mythbusters had an episode on the Jaws ending. The result was the mouth rocket.
Respiratory therapist here. Excited for this one 🤣
Live plants make oxygen, dead plants make nitrogen. You know, terraform it or not.
Another nerd point about that jaws scene (even though I’ve never seen it myself).
I’m a welder and work with those oxygen tanks all the time, and I would be seriously impressed if any guy could pick one of them up, let alone throw it. The BOC bottles I deal with most of the time weight about 200lbs/80ish kgs
these were scuba tanks though, they carry them on their backs while diving.
Then it wasnt filled with o², and would not have "blown up" complete with flames. This whole stunt was debunked in an episode of Mythbusters. The compressed air simply hissed out as Neil surmised. Never learn your science from Spielberg!
Dear Neil i have a question If we was in a starship and i opened the top safety hatch to look around would u think space would add resistance to me like air on earth or no resistance where i could be moving 20000 miles an hour and still walk on top of the starship like nothing but some space rocks can get me?
Not only were the insects really big back in the dinosaur time, but I heard that's the reason the dinosaurs themselves were so big.
When I first read the title of this StarTalk, silly me thought it would be about being able to, or not, breathe through our Covid masks…. But this was much more oxygen-encompassing and interesting.
😷👍🏽
That is also the reason why in a certain paleoclimatic atmospheric chart O2 and CO2 levels followed each other. This is a balance that either of those gases you increase the other one will also start to increase.
The fix after Apollo 1 was to go to a standard atmosphere at launch. During the ascent the atmosphere would transition to pure O2 at 5psi.
i think this episode should be swept under the carpet; because although i see the sense in what NdGT says, it might eventually leak into the public where someone might say "trees are bad, NdGT said so!"
chuck has never made me laugh so hard than at 5:40
Dr. Tyson, seeing as there is a ratio of O2 to nitrogen in the air, how is it maintained? And, does the amount of nitrogen available determine the amount of air in the environment?
OG Star Trek was filmed on the Bonanza lot. That's why it looked Mars-like.
Man, the two of you are so funny. Science and Neils laugh.
4:48 Did he say "plumage" instead of "foliage"?
Apollo 1: Gus Grissom (2nd American in space), Ed White, and Roger Chaffee
Only person that could have me watch an hour episode about oxygen
fun fact. the asphalt on the street is flammable and would self combust under the summer sun but it needs way too much oxygen for it that is not available under normal conditions.
At Chuck Nice: When are you going to visit Dr. Sandra Lee? I'd watch that video. ;D (Sorry, not sure it would be a StarTalk video.)
Why is combustion rarely refered to as rapid oxidation? After all, that's actually what is happening. In any event of burning, that burning is actually a fuel being oxygenated very rapidly. The faster oxygen molecules can combine with the carbon molecules, the more energy is released from the molecular bonds of O2, the faster and more intense is the recombination of the single remaining oxygen atoms into combustion byproducts, releasing heat, and light. Ergo: rapid oxidation.
You are correct but the issue is not that, it's that people don't easily visualize it that way. Most associate the term oxidation with metal rust which is far slower process.
Every time I come across the statement that "oxygen is not flammable", I feel that is an incomplete statement which must be elaborated upon in the established context of a learning environment.
Oxygen is just one of the two parts of common combustion. All statements of combustibility should reference the ambient composition, aka "air", because the statement is easily inverted such as "oxygen is flammable in propane", therefore, statements such as "oxygen is not flammable in air", and propane is flammable in air/oxygen" should be the standard convention.
Nothing relevant here is simply flammable or not-flammable, because flammability is the exothermic reaction of *two* components, the flame being made of them both.
Whatever Chuck uses/used to get his teeth so white, I need it right now. Those are the most beautiful pearly whites Ive seen in awhile.
Now we need a Nitrogen video! So, the atmosphere ~78% nitrogen. 2:08 Where did it come from? What did the Earth 🌍 start off with? Didn’t know there was a subject called atmospheric chemistry 🧪 🤯 just thought the plants 🌱 was cranking it all out.
This inspired me to become an oxygen dealer
“Yo I got that good ox bro”
@@TraGamer1606 nah, but I got OxyContin
@@radicallybean lol do you deliver? Or mail lol
It's regulated, so you need a license and certifications. ;)
Psst hey kid, first ones free, tell your friends about it.
It'll make you feel good!
“oxygen is like a non-burning accelerant?”-Chuck N.
“Mmmkay,”-Dr. Tyson
Lol Delightful as always. Made my Tuesday better.
"The Diner Doctor" has to be a recurring character! Hands down some of Lord Nice's best!
Way too much thought on this but... Doc's Diner: "The Heavenly Hash Editions"
He was cracking Neil up there
Sounded like the women from the TV show Venture brother, also it's a good way to lose brain cells
Lord Nice...good callback!
unintentional mrs. bighead impression
In metal welding, oxygen is an accelerant. Mixing oxygen with a flammable gas or liquid will net a higher temperature flame in the right ratio.
Yes, I agree. Oxygen is 8th on the periodic table and any chemical is an accelerant if exposed to heat to push the particles forward with the faster motion of those particles.
Actually oxygen is a contaminant in welding. I think you meant metal cutting.
Oxygen, one of the many chemicals I'm addicted to. Soon American corporations will find a way to start charging money for it.
Dude, I wouldn't be surprised at all.
As an aside, have you seen Spaceballs? Given the subject matter, it seems particularly relevant : D
distopian as it would be, living in the Lorax Movie would be funny.
Didn't we just witness how Chuck solved the carbon emission problem?
Not only do I learn stuff, like O2 only promotes combustion, but I bust a gut laughing. What great teachers you two are.
In Titan's atmosphere, O2 is flammable, and methane only promotes combustion.
All beings need nitrogen and it's all around us, but only bacteria can fixate nitrogen, so all beings consume bacteria to get fixated nitrogen. Not really an intelligent efficient design
When chuck makes Neal laugh its so wholesome lol I can't help but join in 😅
Spelled neil wrong
Chuck, the symbol isn't flammable. It's the Oxidizer symbol. It's an O that's on fire. The flammable symbol is just flames.
Do you have any idea why inflammable means the same thing as flammable, when it sounds like they are opposites?
@@carultch technically, they don't mean exactly the same thing, but the opposite of both is non-flammable, so go figure.
@@carultch This is why the UN (some nerd department) ruled that the term "inflammable" should not be used, and the word "flammable" is correct. Thus, you rarely see "inflammable" on labelling and safety signs today. Flammable vs Not Flammable.
Great video as always, thank you! While hearing about how oxygen isn't flamable and how a whole place would catch fire after lighting a match in case it was, I realized how incredible of a fact this was! Then I remembered the way water turns into ice and only the top layer of a lake will freeze allowing all the fish survive during the winter for example. Are there any more incredible facts like these 2 that could make a whole mind-blowing Explainer? Greetings from Greece! :D
Neil and Chuck have the perfect dichotomy for this show. It wouldn't work with another comedian or any other astrophysicist. They're perfect
I love Chucks dad joke banter is always one of my favorite parts of Star Talk lol
In the Apollo 1 accident, the capsule was pressurised to 1 atmosphere with pure oxygen. That made the fire progress almost explosively. There was no way to reduce the pressure in the capsule below ambient, this would have required a vacuum pump, although they could have used atmospheric air for the test instead. Note that pure oxygen at .2 atmospheres has the same fire risk as 78% N2 - 20% O2 at 1 atmosphere.
Cool. Nice to know... That explains why they didn't need to reinforce the capsule structure. Although I then wonder where that whole story about having to redesign the capsule due to the need to pressurize it came from...
Neil explains it !!!
So does that mean the plan was to reduce the cabin pressure to 0.2 atmospheres once they got to the vacuum of space?
@@FranciscoNogueira Since the capsule was on the launch pad for tests, and not in space, it was pressurized to one atmosphere to equal the outside pressure or it would have had to be reinforced to keep the outside air from leaking in.
Another important flaw was that the door to the capsule opened inwards. With the pressure differential it was impossible to open it. It might not have made a difference in this case but it did remove the chance of survival.
Chuck was killing it this episode.
At 17 minutes into the video. Dr. Tyson mistakenly states that the insects of the Mesozoic were larger due to increased oxygen levels. It was actually the late Paleozoic that had large insects due to increased oxygen levels. Also it's my understanding that insects primarily obtain oxygen from air tube systems and not through their surface directly. Not major mistakes but accuracy matters. Thank you for all you do! ❤️
I agree
There is another big mistake that runs through the whole show and that is that trees produce oxygen, this is a complete lie, although it is factually true that trees produce oxygen it is also true that trees use up all that oxygen because everything alive uses up oxygen including trees . Not only that, trees also consume oxygen at night, but at that time they do not produce oxygen at all due to the lack of photosynthesis.
Yeaaaa Wooow He has a episode on how we have oxygen !!! It's called Photosynthesis learned in 3rd grade !! Plants pull in carbon dioxide and water plus sun converts it to Sugers that feeds plants and guess what's the by product. Of that chemical reaction. Oxygen. Yeaaa if you still using the word factual. Just watch the Movie Martian with Matt Damon !!!
@@vladimir5836 this doesn't sound right. Are trees not net producers of O2?
@@northuniverse Trees use up oxygen because everything alive uses up oxygen including trees. Do trees use oxygen?
The consequences of cyanobacteria was a massive ice age. One of the supposed snowball earth events.
Chuck you have single handily solved our current problem 🤣🤣
Going through alot these days. One of my few smiles come from these guys I never miss a video thanks for the knowledge guys. Keep up the good work.
Hope things have gotten better in the 9 months that have passed
like how do you apply the knowledge tho?
I think Chuck just solved the global warming crisis with that suggestion.
no, he didn't.
I love this show, Neil is one of the greats and Chuck always adds his spark to proceedings
I was a submariner and one of my duties was atmospheric analysis. Wish you would have hit up on pressure and O2 relationship vs pressure and our ability to live. Overall though great discussion.
Thank you for your service
Great episode. Never have given oxygen much thought, but you really put things into perspective. I thought at one point you were going to talk about o3. Ozone seems to have a lot of misinformation out there. Thanks for always sharing knowledge and making it fun!
Can one breathe o3
@@druggy1868 No.
Think of the term used in chemistry for burning things. Rapid Thermal Oxidation. Oxygen bonds to other molecules, and in doing so releases heat. Heat in turn excites nearby molecules, and makes it easier for oxygen to bond with them. When this happens rapidly enough, you get fire.
Excellent episode but.... "Nobody has heard of Apollo 1"... really? What are they teaching kids in school nowadays. Otherwise, that was cool :)
There’s more oxygen in the earths crust, actually it’s the most, or one of the most abundant elements in the earths crust. Mostly found in the silicone dioxide all over our beaches… also known as “sand” and most of the other rocks here.😅 there’s more oxygen in the ground then there is in the air we breathe, and to me that’s just weird 😂
Lots of oxygen in the oceans too.. wild h2o
The supernova that had left its remnants of which the Solar system built up had fused a lot of iron at its core that we make use of in the core of the Earth for a magnetic field and in our hammers, but had also fused a lot of lighter elements before that and at its outer layers.
Oxygen, nitrogen and carbon are examples for those whose fusion starts at an early stage of a huge star, after it burnt all its hydrogen into helium. Silicon is just forged together out of oxygen. This way there's a big chance that during the explosion of the ancestor star, these elements are close and when the temperature decreases to the level when chemistry can take place finally, but is big enough for the real, chemical burning to that we know much better than fusion, a lot of compounds is created participating the insane oxygen... and, btw, to our luck: carbon.
Most abundant by atomic weight
@@lxathu I wouldn’t be able to go into detail myself like you have, but I am aware of the process to some degree. Honestly, the fact I mentioned was something I needed to know for a introductory chemistry course I did 2 years ago before moving into my electrical field of study 😅
I'm really loving these videos lately StarTalk, keep it up!
Wondering why Sheldon never brought this up
I thought phytoplankton were responsible for at least half of the oxygen produced on earth
Well they do photosynthesize which means they do release oxygen in the atmosphere!
Molecular oxygen (O2) is a reactant in combustion reactions. Oxygen is the 2nd most electronegative ("electron hungry") element in the universe. The small size of the oxygen nucleus relative to the valence electron configuration allows it to strongly attract elections from the atoms of many other elements to create covalent bonds. All this means oxygen is highly reactive.
is carbon #1?
ok I see it's flourine
Doc... keep looking up! What an awesome episode on a subject that most people think they understand. Well done sir. I learned something new. By watching the explainer series i also am relearning how to learn and how to think within a different paradigm.
I’ve never watched a StarTalk
(or Cosmos) that didn’t have a new story of scientific trivia that wasn’t really interesting! Keep them coming guys!
Also the increased oxygen concentration in the atmosphere will mean there's less CO2, which will stifle plants correcting the ratio of CO2 and O2
I think the reason why we have 3% CO2 and 21% O2 is because of the difference of their molecular mass. CO2 is way heavier than Nitrogen or oxygen so plants will little of it to make do, compared to animals who require higher concentration of lighter oxygen
Great video guys! Could you explain the periodic table of elements next and why is the way it is?
It's complicated. Study quantum chemistry.
if the co2 levels were higher when that bacteria started making all that oxygen, the temperatures were probably higher too, to support the reproduction rate at such a level that it could have the impact it did.
Considering this, maybe we can increase the heat inside a bacteria box that can also sustain those high temps while a stream of air flows through them. considering this further still, that principle could be used to introduce large amounts of oxygen to another planet, and so there's a good reason to make the bacteria able to survive in a another gas, cut the leg work for was, krypton. make the bacteria able to sustain an environment similarly enriched with krypton gas as nitrogen on earth, the density of it means it can stay inside tunnels on mars.. and because it can be output from uranium fission... and we think there's a fair bit of uranium on mars.. and if we can dig and fill the holes with a mixture of krypton and oxygen, then we can sorta actually get the ball rolling there.
Yes the Earth was much warmer before the cyanobacteria started pumping oxygen around 3 billion years ago (some sources say 3.5. Billion years, others say 2.7 so I rounded it at 3 Billion), majority of the atmosphere was CO2 and methane, which are much better insulators than Oxygen) and the whole Earth cooled down to subzero degrees because the Sun was 20-30 % weaker than it is today (it grows roughly 10 % per Billion years) and the whole Earth was what's called "Snowball Earth" from poles to the equator for hundreds of millions years with small areas around the equator where it retain liquid state like lakes. Then the sun intensity grew the more Hydrogen was fused to Helium and more volcanic activity started pumping more CO2 and the Earth began to warm up again.
@@toreadoress Fascinating, I guess air was also more dense with co2, like aluminium frying pan vs cast iron, the ability to hold heat increases with density. like a heat sync , absorbing heat from the atmosphere.
Always grateful for your conversationally explaining well enough for a layman like me to understand
Actually hooper said “thats compressed air. You fool around with these things and they’ll blow up”
You say oxygen level was high in the past thats how we had big dragon fly but at the same time you say oxygen level cant go any higher because there will be too much fire to bring back to 21% im confused
It was a simplification. This amount of oxygen caused Great Oxidation Event. It happened mostly in ocean as there were no plants yet. Later on this amount of oxygen was not so much larger than today, but still more. This allowed existance of larger insects. When amount of oxygen lowered (also because of other mass extinctions and/or ice fields) bigger insects have extincted.
I like the chemistry between these two guys🤣🤣
Yeah there's an element of compatibility between them.
These guys are a gas!
@@RetNemmoc555 But their performance is solid.
The history of Earth’s atmosphere, marked by the rise of oxygen through photosynthesis, has profoundly shaped the development of life and climate. The increase in atmospheric oxygen enabled the evolution of complex organisms and diverse ecosystems. How might studying this oxygenation process enhance our understanding of planetary habitability and the potential for life on other planets?
Oxygen peaked at 35% of the atmosphere during the Carboniferous period.
In the old Columbo TV series Nimoy/Spok once played a criminal surgeon and he smoked, I'd love to listen to him talking with dr. Diner here xD
6:50 mr tyson and nice, you laugh about this matter but about 25 or 30 years ago it was NORMAL in operating rooms having surgeons and anesthesiologist smoking, also while visiting and discharging patients while being hospitalized. source myself :D
this is great, been trying to find a quick explanation of how oxygen works and basics of our atmospheres composition
***QUESTION*** Can fire (an element) be considered a living being? T seems to eat, breath and leave waste(carbon). It grows as long as there’s food and oxygen then dies out.
If you remember when they visited Vulcan, and Kirk and Spock fought they talked about the thin atmosphere, and some were they talked about more gravity on Vulcan and that why they are stronger.
Yeah in the episode where Kirk had to fight Spock, Bones gave Kirk a shot to boost his blood oxygen to make the fight more fair
3:29 Plants and Trees only make up a small percentage of our ecosystem which produces oxygen. Most of our oxygen actually comes from the oceans. Yes you read right.
Phytoplanktons, algae, cyanobacteria produce almost 70 percent of all Oxygen in our atmosphere.
Always worth the wait. God bless you sir 🙏🏻
My son and I really enjoy listening to your videos on our 30 min ride taking him to school every morning!!!
The gas in your house has to be the correct ratio of gas to air(oxygen) to actually expolde /ignite. Also any dust IE coal even flour will become flamable when at the right ait mix
Indeed. That's why saw mills and sugar producing factories can and have exploded
Custard powder is particularly dangerous - certainly not to be trifled with.
Oxygen would be flammable in a Methane based atmosphere. It's just that we don't precise in what kind of atmosphere we're talking because we only have one.
In regards to the rocky desert like planets that the Star Trek crewmembers were beaming down to just because that's what we were given as far as an area doesn't mean the entire planet is Desert like similar to being in the middle of the Sonoran Desert or worse yet the Saharan Desert they're still oxygen in the middle of the Sahara Desert isn't there?
So Picard just really likes alien deserts.
@@Dontbustthecrust Kirk also. 😆
@@harliiquinnstarlight that's who I actually meant to refer to but I was too lazy to correct it. Lol
The bad thing about your videos is that I constantly have to rewind them to catch the parts I missed because I was laughing too hard to hear another word. LOL
Thank you for making science fun Neil!
Now you got me confused, it's not flammable but yet they label it flammable. Isn't that false Advertising..?
1) Are there known examples of fossilized animals that lived just fine in the previous carbon dioxide rich atmosphere on earth before cyanobacteria?
2) How do you pressurize for example a diving tank with a gas e.g. how do you force more gas into a confined space than it could hold under non pressurized conditions, and does the pressurized gas change in any way? I'm probably not wording this well but hopefully someone will understand what I'm trying to get at.
To question number 2.
With a pump.
Think of your air pump for your bike or car tyres. They are doing exactly the same putting gas into what well become a pressurised container.
Its the same principle just scaled up.