Some of it is hard to make out over the background noise, but I got something to the effect of "getting wessage" or "getting message", and the 2nd part actually says "eat s*** and die" as far as I can tell.
Mehdi, you have just brilliantly re-enacted the discovery of radio. And using exactly the same principle, and the same party trick that was done with it: remotely turning on lighting in a palace in Paris. It was done in 1905 by scientist Edouard Branly, and 5,000 people came to witness that magical feat! Today, with TH-cam, you’ll have 1M people watching your new discovery. Now, that’s progress!
You cloud probably make a simple transistor latch circuit and attach long wires to it and turn on some light bulb... Primitive home automation maybe? @@KafshakTashtak
This is presuming that the perimeter had a contiguous strip of similar gravel. Also that said gravel had a recognizable signature in the frequency domain one could trigger on. @@Jamey_ETHZurich_TUe_Rulez
gravel may be made up with some silicon and quartz so there's a piezoelectic effect when you slam a piece of quartz, thats the mechanism the lighter has to light@@nirodper
From the breakdown voltage of Al2O3 we can deduce estimate that the oxide thickness layer is at most about (2V)/(5 MW/cm)=4 nm. It turns out that the aluminium develops about 4 nm oxide layer on its surface under ambient conditions, so your measurement/estimation of the critical voltage for the coherer was quite good Mehdi!
Best comment for context. Always wondered why you can't see the oxide layer clearly in commercial aluminium foil. Won't find such unique cases of experimentation in any textbook!
This was a good one! I think on board the Californian, the nearby ship that failed to ever come to Titanic's rescue, they had a Marconi receiver with a coherer detector too. The proper wireless operator had gone to sleep for the night, but some mates were allowed to tinker with the set. The detector had a wind-up clockwork that constantly struck the coherer to reset it, making it possible to hear actual Morse on the set. The people forgot to wind it up, and never heard Titanic's CQDs and SOSs.
That’s interesting, I’d read about the crew going to sleep for the night and turning it off. Never heard that some people stayed up to mess with it and could’ve picked up the distress call if they’d wound-up the detector… that’s a big shame if true. Also how fake does that sound, “they forgot to wind-up the radio detector” if you didn’t know about tapping to reset it 😅
not at all what happened. the equipment was turned off and the operator went to bed after finishing his shift with a rude coworker this was before impact. they also saw titanic shoot rockets and have thought they were in trouble but it didnt look like a distress signal, and the captain never did anything. they also tried to communicate with titanic using a morse lamp, but were never told to contact her wirelessly.
Wasn't the "rude co-worker" thing in actuality just a part of the radio operator culture at the time? I remember hearing that it was pretty common for radiomen to send messages to one another that most "upstanding citizens" would have considered rude.
@@MrPaxio IIRC part of the reason it was turned off is the volume differences between the sets. Thus it was an annoyance to hear from the Titanic, until it became a necessity. :(
@@TechyBen i dont think it matters at all, they saw distress rockets being fired, the crew was very concerned, they told the captain, and the captain left the area two hours before it became a submarine. even if titanic was screaming down those internet tubes that shes sinking, theyd prob leave anyway 😂😂🤣
I have always enjoyed your demonstrations Mehdi, but this one tops them all. I am a retired radio communications tech who only reluctantly admitted that a Branly coherer could actually work... but now I see it's far more reliable and sensitive than I had been willing to believe! THANKS!
Its been 7 years i'm Building a Marconi coherer receiver and I can assure you how this simple sensor Is easy to operate and stable in a properly built circuit
Theoretical physicist here. I think the resistance goes down across the balls when you click the lighter because when the electromagnetic pulse reaches the balls, it triggers magnetic reconnections betwen them (magnetic flux tubes), which are like the field lines between the Earth and Sun when they do reconnections. It's like a "magnetic worm hole" for the electrons since a flux tube is a magnetic vortex with a vertical magnetic field line at the center. So there are these flux tubes from ball to ball along which the electrons travel. The vibrations of your voice oscillates the air and collapses the flux tubes, so the "worm holes" between the balls are gone, so the resistance is back.
So basically, when he clicks the lighter, it whacks the nether quartz inside really hard, which creates a Redstone pulse, which then block-updates the balls and causes them to stop being glitchy.
This concept is also used for switch contacts. You need a minimum voltage to breakdown the layer of corrosion that forms. As some switches can be in a circuit with less than 5 volts in non-ideal conditions, this can be a “hidden issue”. Solving the issue could be using a starter circuit or a switch with a wiping contact opposed to just pressing contacts.
I remember seeing them make something like this on 'The Secret Life of Machines' when I was a kid. They had a tube of metal filings with an agitator / bell hooked to it with an antenna, then then a decent distance away they had a spark gap that was hooked to the ignition coil of a running vehicle with another antenna. It would make the bell ring about every time the ignition coil fired.
Yes! I went on a 'The Secret Life of Machines' marathon a couple of months ago and remember seeing this as well. Couldn't remember if it was the same thing or not but this proves if haha
Wonderful that it works with such macroscopic setup! Wouldn't have realized. I only had heard of a coherer as this filings-filled device. Had one in my Soviet era electromechanic konstruktor set. Was too young to make the Morse receiver experiment work.
You should try to connect it to a ground source ex (ground terminal of an outlet or metal pipe) to see if it would trigger around the house or even outside of the house. Also, it would be interesting to see if this could work as a cheap lighting detector or be triggered by lighting.
re: "You should try to connect it to a ground source" Well, of course, "Everything goes better with -Coke- er a ground connection" /sarc Earthing is of little consequence to all but (and this is important) GROUND REFERENCED SYSTEMS like single-wire REA (Rural Electrification Act) medium voltage 'distribution' systems.
@@Berkeloid0 re: "I think there are a lot of RF engineers who might disagree with you there!" NOT NOTing the end of the Sarc tag eh? Demerits for you! MOST ppl think 'ground' is some sort of cure-all .. is that what you think too? THINK rather in terms of DIFFERENTIAL voltages, balanced feeds and the like ... advance to the next level.
@@uploadJ You said earthing is of little consequence (no sarcasm tag there) but you'll find that a number of antenna systems perform poorly without a ground connection, as put simply the ground/earth is used to reflect the signal back onto itself to improve the transmission power. So earthing is of great importance to anyone designing RF systems which was my point.
@@Berkeloid0 re: "but you'll find that a number of antenna systems perform" Typical hammy thinking. Every circumstance is DIFFERENT. There are some designs that work better THAN OTHERS but ANY design that relies on LOSSY EARTH cannot make up for the dissipative losses due to resistivie and dielectric losses IN SOIL or ROCK. You really wanna debate this? Lets go over to QRZ and we'll get on the antenna forum and discuss it.
Material scientist here. The thing with the isolating layer makes sense. Aluminium corrodes on air rather quickly. Although it's just a few atoms thick, it prevents the aluminium layers underneath from corroding. This oxide layer also prevents an electrical connection and explains, why you have to press a little harder to get a connection. A voltage spike is enough to get a connection going and tapping on the glass or vibrating the aluminium balls any other way expands the gaps between them just enough to disconnect. I think this effect is not possible with other balls, e.g. steel ball bearings. Greetings from Germany.
Mahdi is a professional electrical engineer, and even a great physicist. Look at the analysis methods he used to confirm the truth of the video, and also how he was able to prove and question the theories he put forward so that everything became clear and understandable.
@robloxrhys Mehdi knows what he's doing. His "accidents" are just staged tricks with editing and knowing how electricity actually works. The guy is a master of his craft is all and he has apparently fooled you into thinking his feigned incompetence is real.
@robloxrhys It's all for show. If you don't agree with the antics, you can look for another channel with tutorials and a suggestive title. I prefer funny explanations to a professor repeating a book to me.
@@rthorofthehillpplJust for the record if anybody lurking the comments doesn't know yet: That is true in 99,7% of the cases. There are one/two captured incidents (Jakob's ladder for example) where he had very bad unscripted shocks.
This is a fascinating experiment ! I've heard about the coherer used the late 1800's and early 1900's to detect the early wireless signals. The sensitivity of this crude setup is surprisingly good.
I wonder if this Coherer Effect could be used like the old telephone microphones. Vibration of the microphone's diaphragm would excite a needle placed in a cup of tiny [metal or carbon] spheres . Current across the cup and the diaphragm would be changed, amplified and transmitted. Maybe, in a follow-up video, you could build yourself a microphone to play with.
@@Alex-zi1nb I was surprised too after I took some pliers to it and all the 'balls' spilled out. But, they work really well, I was able power a loud speaker directly with it.
re: "The microphone's diaphragm " I think you're confusing a carbon mic element with this effect. There is nor reference to the Coherer Effect in early telephone tech.
This kind of video right here is why I subbed so long ago, sir. The break down and variable testing just to eliminate guesses. Full explanations and myth busting are just a bonus!
I was fortunate to have Nick Georgis and he did the same sort of experiments. He used a strobe to make a fan appear stopped, then jammed his finger in showing that it wasn't. Nick was also blasé about touching line voltage so would do similar gags of touching live wires. We did learn physics from him and it stuck, many engineers came out of his classes. Thanks Nick!
100% this effect reminds me of certain weird minecraft redstone properties in java, and it makes them feel not so "buggy" (granted even though they've been considered features for years now) its nice to see a similar effect here
Bedrock has "spooky action at a distance" too, the only difference is it's completely (pseudo-)random. Examples being how block update order depends on the state of all other redstone circuits in the world.
Alexander Popov did that with a simple circuit. You Just Need a polarized relay, a coherer, an electric bell and two circuits of battery: 1,5v on the coherer and polar relay spools, and 3/4,5 or more on the relay contacts and Bell ringer
Mehdi, watching your progress over the years has been so fun to watch. I've learned so much through this channel alone, please continue the work you do. Revisiting your channel feels so refreshing :)
Mehdi's face at 2:35 is priceless, Trying to understand the basics of the circuit is why I subscribed, I'm not playing with electricity at all but I like to learn new things. That ending scene is worth an Oscar 🤣, please do more skits like that in future videos
So cool! Also watching the resistance change in response to sound at 7:45 put me in mind of carbon microphones that work by inducing vibrations in a conductive powder between 2 plates. I wonder if those would also be affected by the Coherer effect and could be used as a basic antenna to detect sparks too. 🤔
this is essentially first discovery of radio waves by David Edward Hughes. However, review commitee played down his observations to be "simple induction". Carbon powder microphone was better coherer, than one made of iron shavings. It was just not a right time to kick off.
i wonder if the conductive powder is kind of like a much smaller version of the ball and can be modeled as such. Perhaps on that level you would need some sort of statistical mechanical analysis
While I haven’t done any homework on it: I suspect the redox potential of aluminum (-1.66V) is probably significant here. My guess is that in ideal conditions, that’ll be the voltage required to reduce the oxide layer (or similar - I’m sure Aluminium oxide has some interfering properties)
5:09 you might already know this but I suspect it is due to oxidation. When they are just there they are separated by oxidation. The spark creates ozone or some things that is destroying or converting it.
You're on to something with the whole low voltage stabilizing the connection theory. This could explain why in some cheap audio equipment with dirty connections I've experienced the sound "popping" back in when the volume is turned high enough. The right amount of voltage from the amplified sound is enough to "reconnect" it and keep the sound going.
5:43 that's exactly the case: aluminium under atmospheric conditions is covered in a layer of oxide. This oxide layer not only isolates it electrically but also chemically and that is why aluminum foil does not react violently in contact with water as pure aluminium would.
Just like you I never would have believed this could have worked until you actually did it. Amazing video that shows there is always something new we can learn. And your ending animation was hilarious!
I did this experiment 18 years ago but not with aluminium balls. I used a piece of aquarium tubing filled with iron fillings then 2 screws, one on each end. This works really well with 2 long pieces of wire at the end of each screw. I got up to 7m away. This fascinated me for weeks!
There is an in-depth history of coherers by by Thomas Cuff available online that I found very interesting. There were many variants of the coherer: Tesla patented one that kept the loose conductors in a rotating drum so it would self-reset. Work on coherers eventually led to the copper-oxide rectifier.
One of the most interesting video on your channel so far. It can really be used to teach “basics of wireless network to young minds”. ❤And the best part is, this can be repeated at home safety. 😂
Yup, that's how radio was way back then. Good old spark gap transmitters and the basic Coherer detector. I have also made a few of these and they always work but can be hard to reset at times. The wireless receivers of the time used a simple bell type tapper to tap and reset the Coherer each time a pulse was received. Take care, De WA4JAT
Im happy youre getting into nonlinear tech. We can all theorize these together as non of us understand these concepts. Im getting deep into it myself and you should too! heres some crazy stuff you can look up. Power Factor Correction Load Flow Analysis Transformer Saturation
Always an adventure in your videos 👍. With a proper resonant circuit, the coherer circuit can be used as a remote for turning on and off a transistor. The clapper redevelopment 😅👍❤️
I highly recommend the book "Thunderstruck", it's about the discovery of the Coherer effect and the dawn of wireless communication via Marconi - and people really did thing it was magic back then too! At the same time, it's also at the same time a story about an infamous 1800s murder... Definitely check it out if you're interesting in historical drama! 😅
Probably not terribly useful for communications these days. But would seem to potentially be a decent Lightning detector for distant (and approaching) storms, if that was of interest. Perhaps a fun exercise to try?
This episode reminds me of Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod's The Secret Life of Machines: The Radio. I didn't watch it as a kid, I watched the series a few years ago and I still watch Tim's channel and his "The Secret Life of Components" series.
So... nobody tried to decode the Morse code at the end?!
Nah
probably should
We believe you.
I know it's not the Morse code you put but the "She says eat sh*t and die" 😂 that was too good
Some of it is hard to make out over the background noise, but I got something to the effect of "getting wessage" or "getting message", and the 2nd part actually says "eat s*** and die" as far as I can tell.
Mehdi, you have just brilliantly re-enacted the discovery of radio. And using exactly the same principle, and the same party trick that was done with it: remotely turning on lighting in a palace in Paris. It was done in 1905 by scientist Edouard Branly, and 5,000 people came to witness that magical feat! Today, with TH-cam, you’ll have 1M people watching your new discovery. Now, that’s progress!
OH HI MARC
I wonder if there is a modern circuit for that (other than an oscilloscope and antenna)
You cloud probably make a simple transistor latch circuit and attach long wires to it and turn on some light bulb... Primitive home automation maybe? @@KafshakTashtak
he reinvented the radio in 2023
Yooo
It’s nice to see Mehdi happy he discovered something he didn’t know.
That's how the engineers functions. You get happy because learning new things is a treat, not mad like dummies 😄
Yeah!!! I agree
@@Jamey_ETHZurich_TUe_Rulez Where can I get more info on that, I couldn't find anything
This is presuming that the perimeter had a contiguous strip of similar gravel. Also that said gravel had a recognizable signature in the frequency domain one could trigger on. @@Jamey_ETHZurich_TUe_Rulez
gravel may be made up with some silicon and quartz so there's a piezoelectic effect when you slam a piece of quartz, thats the mechanism the lighter has to light@@nirodper
The end-sequence was pure gold.
Such worldbuilding.
Poor abullah fr
Good enough to knock out the adverts...
From the breakdown voltage of Al2O3 we can deduce estimate that the oxide thickness layer is at most about (2V)/(5 MW/cm)=4 nm.
It turns out that the aluminium develops about 4 nm oxide layer on its surface under ambient conditions, so your measurement/estimation of the critical voltage for the coherer was quite good Mehdi!
Best comment for context. Always wondered why you can't see the oxide layer clearly in commercial aluminium foil. Won't find such unique cases of experimentation in any textbook!
Yo this is sick! Love it when physics makes everything add up
Thanks for the context!
The electricity is stored in the balls.
Mehdi is the only man who will brainlessly finger a cup full of high voltage metal
Fingering high voltage is something he's dreamed about since he was a teenager
hi
It is nothing but a ant bite
you and i know very different men
Fr
This was a good one!
I think on board the Californian, the nearby ship that failed to ever come to Titanic's rescue, they had a Marconi receiver with a coherer detector too. The proper wireless operator had gone to sleep for the night, but some mates were allowed to tinker with the set. The detector had a wind-up clockwork that constantly struck the coherer to reset it, making it possible to hear actual Morse on the set. The people forgot to wind it up, and never heard Titanic's CQDs and SOSs.
That’s interesting, I’d read about the crew going to sleep for the night and turning it off.
Never heard that some people stayed up to mess with it and could’ve picked up the distress call if they’d wound-up the detector… that’s a big shame if true.
Also how fake does that sound, “they forgot to wind-up the radio detector” if you didn’t know about tapping to reset it 😅
not at all what happened. the equipment was turned off and the operator went to bed after finishing his shift with a rude coworker this was before impact. they also saw titanic shoot rockets and have thought they were in trouble but it didnt look like a distress signal, and the captain never did anything. they also tried to communicate with titanic using a morse lamp, but were never told to contact her wirelessly.
Wasn't the "rude co-worker" thing in actuality just a part of the radio operator culture at the time? I remember hearing that it was pretty common for radiomen to send messages to one another that most "upstanding citizens" would have considered rude.
@@MrPaxio IIRC part of the reason it was turned off is the volume differences between the sets. Thus it was an annoyance to hear from the Titanic, until it became a necessity. :(
@@TechyBen i dont think it matters at all, they saw distress rockets being fired, the crew was very concerned, they told the captain, and the captain left the area two hours before it became a submarine. even if titanic was screaming down those internet tubes that shes sinking, theyd prob leave anyway 😂😂🤣
“Don’t shove your fingers in a pool of live balls”
Excellent life lesson there…and not just the electrified aluminium balls either 😉
I shoved a hammer in an exposed outlet thinking it was disconnected. I learned that was the opposite.
Early gang
👇
especialy if they aren't your balls
You have to say "no homo first" then it's fine.
Electro inspires me.. My parents said if i get 50K followers They'd buy me a professional camera for recording..begging u guys , literally
Begging...
12:08 the best moment in the video for real lol
I have always enjoyed your demonstrations Mehdi, but this one tops them all. I am a retired radio communications tech who only reluctantly admitted that a Branly coherer could actually work... but now I see it's far more reliable and sensitive than I had been willing to believe! THANKS!
Its been 7 years i'm Building a Marconi coherer receiver and I can assure you how this simple sensor Is easy to operate and stable in a properly built circuit
the standard explanation for how it actually works is obviously bonkers. breakdown voltage is modern understanding of it
I've definitely experienced the Coherer effect before. It has a very surprising range, and can absolutely causes some odd effects.
Wanna give an example?
@@keepyoursinsmy PC often times wakes up from sleep when I use a lighter.
@@BKLettuce Every time my wife stands up from her chair my monitor screen glitches, no joke. Now I finally know why.
“I receive CIA radio transmissions in my head because their frequencies connect across my metal fillings”
@@XxSForrestxX are your fillings aluminum ?
11:58 this skit is pure gold.
This was a pretty fun episode, I had a smile on my face all the way, especially at the end :)
Hi
Balls
how did you comment this a day ago
how the fuck, are you breaking space and time???????????
patreon get vidoe acces early@@fatpancake52
Theoretical physicist here. I think the resistance goes down across the balls when you click the lighter because when the electromagnetic pulse reaches the balls, it triggers magnetic reconnections betwen them (magnetic flux tubes), which are like the field lines between the Earth and Sun when they do reconnections. It's like a "magnetic worm hole" for the electrons since a flux tube is a magnetic vortex with a vertical magnetic field line at the center. So there are these flux tubes from ball to ball along which the electrons travel. The vibrations of your voice oscillates the air and collapses the flux tubes, so the "worm holes" between the balls are gone, so the resistance is back.
So basically, when he clicks the lighter, it whacks the nether quartz inside really hard, which creates a Redstone pulse, which then block-updates the balls and causes them to stop being glitchy.
You are absolutely correct, this glitch never been fixed by Mojang, I've been thinking that is not a bug, its a feature.
@@jonatangbortolon As my dad never used to say: A bug that has been present for long enough, becomes a feature.
bro, Minecraft was my favorite videogame growing up.🙃
Imagine mehdi making a vid about minecraft redstone🗿
Sculk sensor
Hoo boy, that Morse code segment at the end was PRICELESS. I just like be when he mixes in a certain amount of humor in his videos.
innit
Gotta respect that he thought abuella said eat shit and die, and they actually did
1:47 “Don’t shove your finger in a pool of live balls” -Mehdi 2023
This concept is also used for switch contacts. You need a minimum voltage to breakdown the layer of corrosion that forms.
As some switches can be in a circuit with less than 5 volts in non-ideal conditions, this can be a “hidden issue”.
Solving the issue could be using a starter circuit or a switch with a wiping contact opposed to just pressing contacts.
We have a relay that has 24vdc to pass through. It barely has a wipe so every once in awhile we have to burnish the contacts. 😅
Mehdi works his magic by teaching us with humor and knowledge. This guy is awesome ☺️
Mehdi taught me more about electricity than my physics teacher
12:24 , so It was not the iceberg that shrink the Titanic it was Electroboom and his clone brother .
This was highly educational and the fact that you can build it at home is just a cherry on top.
It was done in 1905 by scientist Edouard Branly
I remember seeing them make something like this on 'The Secret Life of Machines' when I was a kid. They had a tube of metal filings with an agitator / bell hooked to it with an antenna, then then a decent distance away they had a spark gap that was hooked to the ignition coil of a running vehicle with another antenna. It would make the bell ring about every time the ignition coil fired.
That show is on TH-cam now. Even remastered. The host uploaded it to his channel.
Yes! I went on a 'The Secret Life of Machines' marathon a couple of months ago and remember seeing this as well. Couldn't remember if it was the same thing or not but this proves if haha
@@inquirewue2beat me to it😂
Tim Hunkin is a legend. It's sad his co host Rex Garrod succumbed to health issues and is no longer around. He was brilliant as well
8:24 -"What a ball breaking phenomenon!" ☠☠☠☠
Wonderful that it works with such macroscopic setup! Wouldn't have realized. I only had heard of a coherer as this filings-filled device. Had one in my Soviet era electromechanic konstruktor set. Was too young to make the Morse receiver experiment work.
You should try to connect it to a ground source ex (ground terminal of an outlet or metal pipe) to see if it would trigger around the house or even outside of the house. Also, it would be interesting to see if this could work as a cheap lighting detector or be triggered by lighting.
re: "You should try to connect it to a ground source"
Well, of course, "Everything goes better with -Coke- er a ground connection" /sarc
Earthing is of little consequence to all but (and this is important) GROUND REFERENCED SYSTEMS like single-wire REA (Rural Electrification Act) medium voltage 'distribution' systems.
@@uploadJ I think there are a lot of RF engineers who might disagree with you there!
@@Berkeloid0 re: "I think there are a lot of RF engineers who might disagree with you there!"
NOT NOTing the end of the Sarc tag eh? Demerits for you!
MOST ppl think 'ground' is some sort of cure-all .. is that what you think too? THINK rather in terms of DIFFERENTIAL voltages, balanced feeds and the like ... advance to the next level.
@@uploadJ You said earthing is of little consequence (no sarcasm tag there) but you'll find that a number of antenna systems perform poorly without a ground connection, as put simply the ground/earth is used to reflect the signal back onto itself to improve the transmission power. So earthing is of great importance to anyone designing RF systems which was my point.
@@Berkeloid0 re: "but you'll find that a number of antenna systems perform"
Typical hammy thinking. Every circumstance is DIFFERENT. There are some designs that work better THAN OTHERS but ANY design that relies on LOSSY EARTH cannot make up for the dissipative losses due to resistivie and dielectric losses IN SOIL or ROCK. You really wanna debate this? Lets go over to QRZ and we'll get on the antenna forum and discuss it.
Material scientist here. The thing with the isolating layer makes sense. Aluminium corrodes on air rather quickly. Although it's just a few atoms thick, it prevents the aluminium layers underneath from corroding. This oxide layer also prevents an electrical connection and explains, why you have to press a little harder to get a connection. A voltage spike is enough to get a connection going and tapping on the glass or vibrating the aluminium balls any other way expands the gaps between them just enough to disconnect. I think this effect is not possible with other balls, e.g. steel ball bearings. Greetings from Germany.
Mahdi is a professional electrical engineer, and even a great physicist. Look at the analysis methods he used to confirm the truth of the video, and also how he was able to prove and question the theories he put forward so that everything became clear and understandable.
hes gonna be angry when he sees this
MEH-di. When he sees this, his day is gonna be ruined 😅
@robloxrhys Mehdi knows what he's doing. His "accidents" are just staged tricks with editing and knowing how electricity actually works. The guy is a master of his craft is all and he has apparently fooled you into thinking his feigned incompetence is real.
@robloxrhys It's all for show. If you don't agree with the antics, you can look for another channel with tutorials and a suggestive title. I prefer funny explanations to a professor repeating a book to me.
@@rthorofthehillpplJust for the record if anybody lurking the comments doesn't know yet: That is true in 99,7% of the cases. There are one/two captured incidents (Jakob's ladder for example) where he had very bad unscripted shocks.
This is a fascinating experiment !
I've heard about the coherer used the late 1800's and early 1900's to detect the early wireless signals.
The sensitivity of this crude setup is surprisingly good.
Mehdi's no programmer, but he's the kind of person who'd ask: "It works. Why?" 😂 (2:48)
Programming is more questioning why it doesn't work
This is the second most fun I’ve ever had watching an old man shock his balls!
Great video! Very educational and my theory was nearly correct!
Second?
@@Jimmy_Jones I said what I said. Don’t ask.
😅
@@DanteYewToobI just gotta know who's the first now 😂
@@DanteYewToob🤨📸
I've read about the coherer in an old soviet physics/electronics book at school age. It's very interesting to see it in action.
I wonder if this Coherer Effect could be used like the old telephone microphones. Vibration of the microphone's diaphragm would excite a needle placed in a cup of tiny [metal or carbon] spheres . Current across the cup and the diaphragm would be changed, amplified and transmitted. Maybe, in a follow-up video, you could build yourself a microphone to play with.
now that is mind blowing. and transistors just took the place???
@@Alex-zi1nb I was surprised too after I took some pliers to it and all the 'balls' spilled out.
But, they work really well, I was able power a loud speaker directly with it.
It's not actually the coherer effect, it's just that vibrating loose contacts changes the resistance.
@@tommihommi1 Yes, the Boudet (or Carbon) microphone but, I thought this Coherer Effect was similar enough to compare
re: "The microphone's diaphragm "
I think you're confusing a carbon mic element with this effect. There is nor reference to the Coherer Effect in early telephone tech.
Low key mehdi has one of the most wholesome channels on TH-cam. He just genuinely looks like he's having the time of his life in his videos.
I tried this with my daughter this evening, they thought i was magic! Thanks so much for sharing ❤
This kind of video right here is why I subbed so long ago, sir. The break down and variable testing just to eliminate guesses. Full explanations and myth busting are just a bonus!
12:15 this is how the titianic actually sank btw
*Titanic II
10:29 weirdest reaction to an electric shock 😂
I love that the LED still turned on in the background 🤣
Aiiii
Ayyyyyy😂
Imagine having him as a science teacher 😂 would be awesome
I'd go back to school for that!
I was fortunate to have Nick Georgis and he did the same sort of experiments. He used a strobe to make a fan appear stopped, then jammed his finger in showing that it wasn't. Nick was also blasé about touching line voltage so would do similar gags of touching live wires. We did learn physics from him and it stuck, many engineers came out of his classes. Thanks Nick!
3:00 THE FIRST REMOTE TECHNOLOGY WITHOUT IR RADIATION AND IR EMMITTER.
-By Medhi the magician
Medhi? 💀
It would be interesting to see Steve mould test this with his motion amplification camera.
Good point you made... Steve was asking for new ideas for using it in his recent video.
that was the first thing came to my mind
yeah
I don't think anything actually moves though.
100% this effect reminds me of certain weird minecraft redstone properties in java, and it makes them feel not so "buggy" (granted even though they've been considered features for years now) its nice to see a similar effect here
Ah yes, piston quasi-connectivity.
A torch two dust pistons and bamboo it just works
Bedrock has "spooky action at a distance" too, the only difference is it's completely (pseudo-)random. Examples being how block update order depends on the state of all other redstone circuits in the world.
maybe reality is buggy too XD
Did someone say quasi-connectivity? 👀
@@jazziiRedThe man himself
Would be interesting to have some of these cups set up, and then see if distant lightning during a thunderstorm will trigger them 😊
Alexander Popov did that with a simple circuit. You Just Need a polarized relay, a coherer, an electric bell and two circuits of battery: 1,5v on the coherer and polar relay spools, and 3/4,5 or more on the relay contacts and Bell ringer
Mehdi, watching your progress over the years has been so fun to watch. I've learned so much through this channel alone, please continue the work you do. Revisiting your channel feels so refreshing :)
ok that ending was completely unexpected
I never expected that one day I'll see a video of Mehdi playing with his magic wand and balls, and that I'd watch the video to it's end 😂
wait... playing with his balls 🤔
@@Okkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk9 ...and his wand.
*its
@toseltreps1101
The auto-correct is responsible for that😇
I am even surprised TH-cam allowed this video to be public.
6:07 don't take that out of context
It’s nice to see Mehdi happy he discovered something he didn’t know.. The end-sequence was pure gold..
Thiss is proably the best demonstration of early wireless communication out there 👌
Mehdi's face at 2:35 is priceless, Trying to understand the basics of the circuit is why I subscribed, I'm not playing with electricity at all but I like to learn new things.
That ending scene is worth an Oscar 🤣, please do more skits like that in future videos
A "try this at home" playlist would be ideal for parents. 👍🏻
So cool! Also watching the resistance change in response to sound at 7:45 put me in mind of carbon microphones that work by inducing vibrations in a conductive powder between 2 plates. I wonder if those would also be affected by the Coherer effect and could be used as a basic antenna to detect sparks too. 🤔
this is essentially first discovery of radio waves by David Edward Hughes. However, review commitee played down his observations to be "simple induction". Carbon powder microphone was better coherer, than one made of iron shavings. It was just not a right time to kick off.
@@michawisniewski4654 fascinating, thank you!
i wonder if the conductive powder is kind of like a much smaller version of the ball and can be modeled as such. Perhaps on that level you would need some sort of statistical mechanical analysis
@@cd-zw2tt actually balls are larger version of the dust. Shavings tend to have rough surface too, but in microscopic scale
Very cool! I like Medhi's expression on his face when it WORKED!! So cool.
2:35 his face when he realised that it worked 😂
While I haven’t done any homework on it: I suspect the redox potential of aluminum (-1.66V) is probably significant here. My guess is that in ideal conditions, that’ll be the voltage required to reduce the oxide layer (or similar - I’m sure Aluminium oxide has some interfering properties)
5:09 you might already know this but I suspect it is due to oxidation. When they are just there they are separated by oxidation. The spark creates ozone or some things that is destroying or converting it.
8:20 I was listening to this in the background, and I wasn't expecting to look up and see my own reaction to what you just said 😆
You're on to something with the whole low voltage stabilizing the connection theory. This could explain why in some cheap audio equipment with dirty connections I've experienced the sound "popping" back in when the volume is turned high enough. The right amount of voltage from the amplified sound is enough to "reconnect" it and keep the sound going.
This is one of my favorite videos not just by Mehdi but in general. I hope he makes more content like this showcasing him experimenting.
I can't believe it it didn't explode 2:33
5:43 that's exactly the case: aluminium under atmospheric conditions is covered in a layer of oxide. This oxide layer not only isolates it electrically but also chemically and that is why aluminum foil does not react violently in contact with water as pure aluminium would.
Just like you I never would have believed this could have worked until you actually did it. Amazing video that shows there is always something new we can learn. And your ending animation was hilarious!
Fun episode! That ending had me literally ROFLMAO for a good 5 minutes! 🤣❤
1:57 -Will the BaLLlllLLllls connect together?
I did this experiment 18 years ago but not with aluminium balls. I used a piece of aquarium tubing filled with iron fillings then 2 screws, one on each end. This works really well with 2 long pieces of wire at the end of each screw. I got up to 7m away. This fascinated me for weeks!
As Marconi says, 95% nickel grains and 5% silver grains with a bit of Mercury works incredibly well
There is an in-depth history of coherers by by Thomas Cuff available online that I found very interesting. There were many variants of the coherer: Tesla patented one that kept the loose conductors in a rotating drum so it would self-reset. Work on coherers eventually led to the copper-oxide rectifier.
The most used setup was a simple Bell ringer shaking the coherer everytime It become conductive
This was an awesome video! Going from skeptic, to surprised, then immediately into investigative! That's a great mentality to share.
One of the most interesting video on your channel so far. It can really be used to teach “basics of wireless network to young minds”. ❤And the best part is, this can be repeated at home safety. 😂
Unlike most of Mehdi's other experiments.
7:50 Mehdi just made a mic without even realizing
I did not think I'd be into your channel but your vibe is too infectious to ignore.
3:34 disconnect the balls
Yup, that's how radio was way back then. Good old spark gap transmitters and the basic Coherer detector. I have also made a few of these and they always work but can be hard to reset at times. The wireless receivers of the time used a simple bell type tapper to tap and reset the Coherer each time a pulse was received. Take care, De WA4JAT
woww that final animation was fantastic😂😂.please make more
Medi went crazy 3:39
Medi?
Thanks so much . I did this with my science classes as an intro actvity today it made an awesome introduction to class.
the story telling at the end... I'm just glad that I found this channel
this has to be one of my favourite videos from electroboom!
it's great to see him bewildered by how something finally worked!
12:29 this literally sounds like 9/11 and titanic mixed 😂
a video with medhi shouting BALLS each 5 seconds is always a good video.
This was surprisingly entertaining! As always, thank you !
Im happy youre getting into nonlinear tech. We can all theorize these together as non of us understand these concepts.
Im getting deep into it myself and you should too! heres some crazy stuff you can look up.
Power Factor Correction
Load Flow Analysis
Transformer Saturation
Disclaimer: *A lot of bαlls will be mentioned throughout this entire video, please proceed with laughter.*
11:46: Medhi: "probably do much better than ballz"
“After Four Years I searched for Coherer effect and I realized It was real”
Im glad you made a Novel discovery
Always an adventure in your videos 👍.
With a proper resonant circuit, the coherer circuit can be used as a remote for turning on and off a transistor.
The clapper redevelopment 😅👍❤️
recently i watched his a 10 years old video. He is still the same. He hasn't changed a bit and surprisingly, he is still alive.
We need some more end credit cartoons like this!
Simple yet hilarious!
I loved it 😂😂😂
I highly recommend the book "Thunderstruck", it's about the discovery of the Coherer effect and the dawn of wireless communication via Marconi - and people really did thing it was magic back then too! At the same time, it's also at the same time a story about an infamous 1800s murder... Definitely check it out if you're interesting in historical drama! 😅
For anyone else who takes this recommendation to heart, it’s the one by Erik Larson (unsurprisingly it’s quite a common book title)
@@kaitlyn__L yes, thank you for clarifying, my bad haha 😅
@@superultramegarobot I just realised I totally should’ve googled “thunderstruck marconi” instead of manually finding the right one, lmao oh well 🥲
Read that as "Macaroni" at first and was very impressed for a moment.
Probably not terribly useful for communications these days. But would seem to potentially be a decent Lightning detector for distant (and approaching) storms, if that was of interest. Perhaps a fun exercise to try?
I wonder if lightning is high-frequency enough… maybe the frequency doesn’t matter though
Thank you very much for a new inspiration to my analogue synth music projects!
I like all your videos but this one has a nice unique feel to it. I felt like this when I was back in school discovering new things. Nostalgia struck.
11:15 nice calligraphy :)
Where did you see calligraphy?
@@danek_hren On the wall, next to the doorway
@@Ralesklol I thought it was something tea or coffee-related
9:45 " ... so we get hight enoghe voltage to cohere our balles 😂😂😂😂😂😂"
8:29 Is it possible to make a microphone out of this ??
The aluminium balls are spying on us 😮😮😮
Vsauce should be included in is chat
Since I'm spending ten years building a perfect replica of an early coherer receiver apparatus, I officially approve this video.
"Don't shove your finger in a pool of live balls."
Got it.
3:50 “Is the tiny arc moving the balls around so they touch?” 😂
“Don’t shove your finger in a pool of live balls.” Words to live by.
Isn't it nice when you get an experiment that finally works out one that actually works and that somebody can do at home
This episode reminds me of Tim Hunkin and Rex Garrod's The Secret Life of Machines: The Radio. I didn't watch it as a kid, I watched the series a few years ago and I still watch Tim's channel and his "The Secret Life of Components" series.
Wait a minute... Shouting at the balls at 7:55 makes the resistance vary. So... it's a condenser microphone?