As a physicist, I really appreciated this presentation, and I think you got it all just about right. Unfortunately, most people - and, in particular, most legislators - think helium is just a joke, used for party balloons. It's not. Helium is a critical non-renewable resource that is vital for many industries, and we have suffered from shortages. We need to hoard the stuff and re-fill the national helium reserve.
Well, technically renewable, as it's generated continually in the Earth and Sun via (different) nuclear processes, but point well taken. Has any of your research involved helium and run into shortages?
@@bearcubdaycare The decay of radioactive elements in the Earth’s crust that produces He is still a finite process, though, and we’re unlikely to develop technology to extract He from the Sun any time soon. One way to perhaps make it less scarce would be to make it in our own hydrogen-to-helium nuclear fusion reactors, but developing the technology to build a practical fusion reactor is proving elusive, even after many decades of attempts.
@@bearcubdaycare Sorry for the delayed response, but I just saw your comment. I have not used helium, but I have a colleague whose research at low temperatures was made so expensive that he spent a few hundred thousand dollars to build a helium-recycling facility. The huge price increase has cause a big hit to this branch of physics.
I work in vacuum carburization (heat treating to increase surface hardness) of vehicle transmission gears for a major auto manufacturer. We actually quench each load with helium at 18 bar (atmosphere pressure at sea level times 18). We reclaim the helium, put it through an O2 scrubber to keep the oxygen out (discharge is H20), and shove it back in our massive helium pressure tanks. Helium is second to only one gas at quickly quenching glowing-hot metal. Hydrogen is the best, but you can guess why no one uses it for that process. The industry is turning to nitrogen quenches. It's basically 80% of what you breathe, and can cheaply be generated in pure form. But it's messier and slower than helium. The quickness of the quench determines part deformation. Slower = bad. Quicker = good. I loved this video, and watched it for the science. But that threat that helium was getting pretty rare has made an irreversible seismic shift in my industry. The price-shock changed industry for decades to come.
@Toughen Up, Fluffy The heat treatment itself creates the carbon treatment. For us, this is done by pulsing acetylene gas into the chamber, which then breaks down into carbon and hydrogen at high temps. The carbon is infused into the metal. The quench process is a way to immediately stop the heat treating process.
@@captainvegas4823 In metallurgy, the term quench usually means rapid cooling from elevated temperature to either harden the workpiece, in the case of steel, or to soften it as in the case of copper. But here you are saying that you "quench" in helium to simply stop the process of diffusing carbon into the steel. Do I understand you correctly?
Well, as someone who has *cough* "studied" landscape design, as well as turfgrass & ornamental maintenance, I'm leery of asking you, a physicist, for a lesson on tin mining in Cornwall.
Well, it's 2019 after all. It seems most of our science is in the history bin. 😂 Electrons aren't even little balls any more, they are vibrations! 🤯🧘♂️
@@patrickmcleod111 Which is why I would never presume to offer one. Now having grown up in an iron mining town in Labrador, I can tell you a little about that :D
@@DavesRocketShop I was being sarcastic in the other post. But since you mentioned iron, maybe you can explain why I left high school under the impression that ONLY Iron and ferrous metals are attracted to magnets? It wasn't until I bought my first computer and first internet connection, that I learned about the 'other' ferro magnetic elements. That was only after I started an element collection, and ended up with pure, physical examples of nickel, cobalt and gadolinium, and basically discovered their ferro magnetism on my own.
Point of contention: Helium, or liquid helium to be exact, in MRI is not used to prevent wear and tear. It is used to create the superconducting environment for the internal wire windings of niobium-titanium (NbTi) which display zero electrical resistance at a temperature of approximately 4 degrees Kelvin, allowing for superconductivity. This means that the electromagnetic high strength field generated by the large current applied to the windings is static and does not need a continual source to remain at field. A complex system of cryogenics and temperature shielding is used to maintain the near-absolute zero temperature, reducing or eliminating liquid helium boiloff. This is my job, to repair and maintain these machines.
When I watch your presentations, I am reminded of a couple of history professors I had in college (Ludwig and McBride) who loved history as you do. They understood that when history is taught as memorizing dates and facts, it loses its' fascination, and becomes stale and quite unpalatable to students who see it as a drudge to work through for a grade... not as something that can enrich their lives. Thank you for what you do! I know is it a labor of love, and I'm glad that RUclips allows you a bully pulpit to express your love of history! Keep up the good work!
My daughter and I used to refer to her history class as memorization class. She got A's but the information was outta her head within a week. Some teachers definitely get it...others not so much.
When I began teaching (all boys Catholic Technical HS in Paterson, NJ) in 1976, one of my freshman students raised his had and asked, "Mr B - are you going to make us remember dates??" Rather innocently I replied - "As far as I'm concerned dates are only for two things...eating or taking out..." - a wise guy from the back called out..."If yer lucky, you can do both..." I KNOW I was SPOZED'TA jump in his shit, but I couldn't...I hadda laugh...I asked him..."Do you have an older brother???"...he said yes...I said...It figgers...and quickly explained that it wasn't the date, but the significance of the event and it's date (in the overall time line of civilization) that was important and THAT'S what I wanted them to know - and hopefully commit to memory...
I was "taught" history as dates and facts and as a 13- year old in 1968, I just switched off. Apollo missions were orbiting the moon and my history teacher was telling me about stuff which happened 200, 300 yrs ago? We were *making* history- *right now.* I really enjoy THG videos and wish that I'd been taught history in such an engaging way. Thank you THG.
@@stephenphillip5656 When I began teaching World History to freshmen in '76, (An all boys Catholic Technical HS in Paterson, NJ) one of the students asked me "Mr. B...will you make us remember dates???" My reply was not phrased in the best way...I told the class that as far as I was concerned, dates were only for taking out - or eating..." and before I could explain, a wise kid in the back yelled out..."If you get lucky, you can do both..." Do you have any idea how hard it was not to laugh out loud??? I asked the kid if he had an older brother...not surprisingly he did...I finished my answer by telling them that while dates were important - they were really only important in the timeline of history...history is a continuous story and record of how we got where we are from where we were...and that knowing where we came from is important to us and future generations in preserving our past & present traditions - or changing them...
You know what I really like about your channel? Everything. Liquid helium is used in the whole body superconducting MR magnet’s to keep them in their superconducting state. There are now 3 types of superconducting magnets: Full loss (where the liquid helium boils to gas and is lost to the atmosphere); Zero boiloff, where the cryogenerator keeps the liquid helium at its liquid state and there is no boiloff; and the newest magnet which only uses a small amount of liquid helium in a cycle of convection. This new magnet never looses helium to the atmosphere. The consequence of loosing the liquid helium would be the magnet quenching and loosing its magnetic field. Usually, the magnet isn’t damaged and can be refilled with liquid helium and re-ramped back to field. I’m a professional MR engineer with 36 years of experience with MR systems. The picture of the MR system in your video is the company I work for. Love your channel very much. Please keep up the outstanding work you do. Someday, maybe, we will see you on the History Channel. That would be awesome.
Amazing. Well done for connecting chemistry, physics, and history all together for one video. The world is all connected if we but realised it. Thank you.
What a wonderfully told story! I work at a particle accelerator and we use helium for cryogenics and leak detection. Several years ago a helium recovery and re-liquefaction plant was installed, and we now recover 90,000 liquid liters a year of helium that used to be vented from experiments. Its a big saving now that it costs about $15 per liter!
I learn from my colleagues who still work in the industry, that MRI magnets have become more parsimonious with their once profligate use of Helium. In my twenty-three odd years as an MRI Field Engineer, I must have used hundreds of thousands of litres of LHe - which is not cheap - yet I never actually saw LHe, ever. As HG mentioned, it has the lowest boiling point of any liquid and even with the full 'push pressure' (used when filling a magnet) expelling the liquid up through the dewar stack and through the fill line (essentially a half inch, flexible, stainless steel pipe) actual liquid Helium never comes out of the end of the pipe. Very rarely, droplets of LHe are spat out, but they are always surrounded by a covering of furiously boiling vapour and they vanish after less than a foot. You may wonder why, if He is so valuable, we just blew it out the pipe before filling the magnet? Precooling is the answer. The plumbing all starts out at room temperature (20C or about 300 Kelvin) and must be precooled to close to about 4 Kelvin or -270C, otherwise we would be blowing (relatively) warm gas into the magnet and that, to say the least, is not good. So many people mention the squeaky voice trick. We who used it, would never get close enough to our Helium, because it was so, so cold - freeze your eyeballs cold. Also, our safety rules forbade us from mucking about with it. Helium is a very efficient asphyxiant, because it not only flushes all the oxygen out of your blood that's already in there, it flushes all the CO2 out of your lungs, which is what triggers your 'breathe reflex.' If you play the squeaky voice trick too often or too much, you can die, quite peacefully and without struggling to breathe.
Your last line reminded me of something I've not thought of in years- there was an Australian "organization" that offered plans for a suicide kit utilizing the helium bottles that used to be sold in stores all over the Americas. I'm not sure that either is available today...
Very interesting. I'm wondering if it would be possible to do a preliminary cooling stage using liquid nitrogen to take it down to around -196 degrees Celcius? That could save a lot of Helium and liquid Nitrogen is easy to make using a compressor and fractionating tower.They can be installed in quite a small area and are cheap to run. I used to run one at a geological lab.
I have scrapped a lot of MRI magnets, and for a civilian, I have a good grasp of what is going on here. Actually, in some cases MRIs do indeed use LN2 liquid as a first stage cryogenic process. Actually one probably now obsolete MRI was the Oxford dual-cryo magnet that had both forms of liquid working the system. Now, a little-understood principle is sacrificial refrigeration in cryogenic storage. Since the CTP of gases like O2 N2, Helium and others is just so fuckin' extreme that there is no way it can be contained in a reasonable reinforced container. The pressure would rise to tens of thousands of PSI as the liquid warmed up. It would blast the container open, and one that would hold up would be unable to be moved! SO, what they do is contain it in a Dewars container, with a relief valve that "pops" at a reasonable "extreme". As pressure over a confined liquid rises, the boiling point does too. This feature means that as the liquid warms up. the pressure rises, and when the valve "pops" the escaping vapor causes a vigorous boiling of the liquid inside the massively insulated container, and this boiling robs latent heat stored in the liquid and lowers the boiling point of the liquid. When the available heat is depleted, the valve closes. This goes on and on as the pressure rises and falls. A locomotive boiler is the exact duplicate of this feature, except water has a boiling point higher than our native heat on this planet, so we add fire to boil the water. There is the cold head on the MRI and I think this thing is the pump that runs the gas helium above the iquid through a pressure-colling circuit to prevent the otherwise loss of helium vapor to control the rest of the liquid in the MRI.. I am of the belief there is no escape of helium normally occurring in an MRI. I DO KNOW THOUGH that if you hit the "QUENCH" button and turn on the heating-wire grid deep inside the MRI innermost tank with the Neodymium wire and spool it will instantly boil the liquid inside it and rupture the burst disc in the cupola and waste all the helium in a SPECTACULAR display of a jet engine sight and sound at the end of the discharge line!!! They said it costs $50,000 to re-ramp a magnet! Also, I have transported magnets to my demolition yard that still had small amounts of helium even after weeks of storage since thay can't recover all of it. Once you pierce the outer shell with a torch or saw (if the burst disc was still intact) within seconds after the vacuum is gone, the disc will rupture and roar away as the last of the helium vaporizes and escapes!
Do you ever wonder why the death penalty process doesn't use an inert gas for the dirty work? Helium, nitrogen, and maybe to a lesser degree CO2 work supremely as a painless way to go, and I think if you don't realize your oxygen-rich air supply has just been replaced with a straight no-oxygen supply you won't even realize it before you die!!! A lot better than all the torture- methods, even the "needle"!!
This was GREAT! I'm an Emeritus Professor of Geology and really appreciate your excellent delivery and content. I wish I could have used your programs in my classes. Thank you!
I have been a commercial diver since 1994. We used heliox for deep dives past 160'. My personal deepest dive was -328' surface supplied. This was in '99 so it's been a while, but we were breathing either 12 or 14% O2 and the rest helium. The platform was in the movie "Armageddon". Thankyou for this video. It is flat out astounding how people take other's accomplishments and run with it to do amazing things with it in their own rights.
Liked the presentation. As a Chemist, I was aware of Helium's place in history of adding information that helped with the filling out some of the notions that are the Periodic System and Table. Rutherford's contributions (along with his students') can't be understated, in my view. Moseley's staircase is one such example.
My wife and I have had this conversation several times - we both hated History in school, loved it as adults. I blame it on the focus on testing in schools... nobody really cares when the Edict of Nantes was signed. In contrast, I recall a tale of Ireland when Cromwell's army was marching through. Defenders in a particular area knew the fortress they had would come under attack, where the cannons would be set up, where the wall would be breached.... That all came to pass, with the invaders pouring through the breach, the rest waiting for the fortress gates to be opened. The gates never opened, and soon invaders could no longer enter. Piles of bodies blocked the breach. The defenders had set up a pen with a catwalk that enclosed the predicted breach. The catwalk was heavily manned and loaded with rocks that were thrown onto the heads of the invaders. Now, _THAT_ is history worth remembering, although I don't recall exactly where it was. I remembered the parts worth remembering.
I never knew how important and complicated the discovery of Helium was until now. I have to admit I only thought of it as a gas for balloons and blimps too. Thanks for sharing this story. And your right, all good stories have pirates in them.
Bravo! Now this is a remarkable snippet of historical context: History of science, engineering, technological innovation, industrial and military application all rolled into one. Indeed, helium is history that deserves to be remembered.
Whenever a class instructor makes his/her subject a 'fun' experience for their students, their learning ability is enhanced exponentially! That's why I was able to pass high school Chemistry with an 'A' in all the semesters without opening the official textbook. The class was so interesting that I spent much of my free time in the public library reading various books on the subject of the weeks lessons. Astounding! THG reminds me so much of my Chemistry instructor! Kudos to THG for the interesting methodology he uses for every episode on his channel! BTW I graduated high school in 1960.
This is certainly a great way to learn in depth. It is probably aided by your lack of the usual internal dysfunctions or obstacles to learning that many suffer from due to stressful teaching methods. (My opinion, obviously, not known fact.)
atrus445 I hope they are. I think it would be pretty hard to find something to complain about. It’s not like he went and wrote the history he’s just educating and explaining the history. But there are crazy people out here that would complain about anything. This guy though has a great intonation in his voice I could listen to him read the phone book all day long
Every time I watch one, I say....that was the best one yet!....Sir, you’ve accomplished that conundrum once again for me...thank you I will watch this one again...
I was wondering how far back in time History Guy could go. Now he's gone back to the beginning of the universe at the big bang, that might be the limit.
Thank you for bringing up the shortage. Important topic. 'Identified what humans had never before seen.. the second most abundant element in the universe...' love it
I learned about the basic realities of helium years ago, and ever since, I've been curious as to why we STILL allow helium to be sold for uneccesary purposes like party balloons, considering its a non renewable resource.
@@binaway....... And like they say, if you cannot physically see it with the naked eye, it does NOT really exist. Anything that falls under that criteria, can ONLY be considered to be a conspiracy theory... It's my hypothesis that the same is true of radioactive matter. We must ask ourselves, can we see radiation? No?? Then, like helium, argon, neon, radon, xenon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, it's just a conspiracy theory! To prove it, I'm going to move into an old radium mine for a few years. When I walk out a healthy man, I'll be a national hero for exposing this scandal! Lol. (Sarcasm)
I'm imagining an 1907 Texas town where the timbre of the townspeople has been altered by helium seeping out the ground. Add to that the dialogue of a western movie. Black Bart: "Who are you calling Squeaky stranger?"
History of science is a close one to my heart and is most definitely history that deserves to be remembered. I definitely learned something from this video. HG is always making history even more fascinating.
When I was a kid my mom would never buy me a balloon for my birthday because she said there was a helium shortage and we had to conserve helium. Turns out we were just really poor.
Space Man - ruclips.net/video/s9FhbLCOTok/видео.html .it will be a problem when the captured supply runs out. Drilling for more helium is an option but will conflict with the environment.
There is another way that parents mask poverty and prevent the development of pricey tastes in children: call it an allergic. For me, it was wool, cheeses, chocolate, and oranges. I found it strange that no vegetables were on that list.
The bigger store here is how one scientist built upon another scientists findings, over and over again. They opened unforeseen areas. How powerful is the unfettered sharing of scientific knowledge!
When I saw that balloon to your right my first thought was, "Oh no, History Guy is going to jump the shark!" Thankfully - no. One of your better videos. Lots of info about history and science rolled into a concise package. This would be a great one to show in a chemistry or history class.
This was probably in the bottom 10% of interesting topics you have covered, but also in the top 5% of knowledge I have gotten from you. Ironic I think that once again helium has risen to the top.
At first, my eyes began to glaze with the chemistry. But as a trucker, I've hauled liquid Argon, which is, if I recall, liquid at 400 degrees below zero. It vaporizes as soon as it hits the air, and the trailer must always be vented so it won't burst. It's used both in Ag for welding aluminum and making silicone chips. As for trying to light a well on fire, one need only look to North Dakota or Utah in the most recent oil boom. There was a lot of natural gas simply burned off, wasted, in "flare pits" so numerous and bright, you could see them from space!! Thankfully, more practical heads got involved to stop that and try to bring it to market, along with the crude oil that they were primarily concerned about. I once took non-mathamatical astronomy in college thinking it would be fun to really learn about the stars I had only looked at through my father's 1930's era home built telescope. What someone should have warned me about, however, was to come prepared for a chemistry romp through space!! Though I still don't pretend to understand it much, it is really amazing that over a hundred plus years ago, with very crude or simple tools and understanding, these men (& women) of science, were able to find helium and the other elements they did. Thanks again for a surprising and valuable lesson in history ( and chemistry).
Just yesterday saw a sign, at a local store that said, no balloons, we are out of helium. Best video of your so far on a science topic, answered so many questions.
It must take a great deal of time to write up the narrative script--they are always so thoughtfully and cleverly written. Super episode--thank you professor!
Bravo, What an all round historian you are! Great to see you present the history behind elementary Chemistry and Physics. I spent my life teaching this stuff. Love it!
I love your channel! I am curious, with the new updates in the community guidelines, what will happen to history channels, as war and events of tragedy are suggested t9 be off limits for monetization.
Inspired John those limits have always been there- they are not new. To my disappointment they were not better clarified with the new standards. The application seems to be somewhat capricious.
It makes me sad to see what RUclips is doing. Being that RUclips has becomes such a repository of information, this decision on their part is starting to feel more like revisionist history than it is a business decision.
You are the only guy on this planet that could make a fascinating and enjoyable video about a gas that appears on the periodic table! You are the Master!
This guy does not miss anything. He is a Jedi Master! His history is accurate. His science is deep and on point. His CORRECT pronunciation and usage of megacomplex words is so precise that you know you're dealing with someone well talented and gifted. I have watched about 40 videos and not found one mistake. Golden buzzer. Subscribed!
Thank you for a great show, I learned quite a bit! I'm so glad you included party balloons which must account for way less than 1% of helium usage. I would like to see a breakdown of current uses, with MRI machines probably taking 59% of the reserves. You are way better than my high school chem teacher!
There are probably more who have unearthed more information, but few (if any) who have taught so many so much about it. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?" - Dr. Strangelove.
Helium is still used extensively for scientific experiments such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy, or in layman's terms the study of materials and samples under pure X-Ray light, and observing the spectrum given off in a pure helium atmosphere. To put things into perspective, the Synchrotron physics lab where I work, uses about $30,000 worth of helium per month!
Where I work we make fire protection equipment for aircraft. The sensors have to be sealed so we inject a bit of helium into them right before welding them shut. The sensors are then put in bell jars attached to spectrometers, the air pumped out and then checked for traces of helium. I had no idea that test went back to WWII.
@@JeffDeWitt Helium is an impressively tiny molecule, and we also use it for leak checking our vacuum system on the particle accelerator ring. Very cool that your method dates back to ww2!
Definitely more history of science videos. This one is excellent not only for the usual History Guy style and presentation but also for the very high standard of research on the subject. A pity we can't give more likes.
THG - I recently decided to stop freeloading on your wonderful videos and clicked the "Join" button, and I am now doing the same with all my favorite channels. I hope you never stop making such quality content, and I thank you not only for what you have already given us but also for whatever you put out in the future. I hope my small contribution helps keep you "on the air" for a very long time!
Wow. What a great job you did explaining the molecular side of this element. The rest was great too but that middle section was so dense with facts and delivered in such a faultless manner it seemed to me it must have taken ages to get all those ducks lined up, delivered and recorded in a seamless stream that must have lasted for 5 minutes. Bravo.
Timothy Stockman I never go home to western Kansas without stopping at Henry candy. My family has stopped there every trip since the 1970's. I was going to add this in comments but you beat me to it, love me some Henrys candy
As a former math & science educator, I used to love such videos. This is what true education looks like. About 10 years ago the idiotic curriculum guru (a particular administrator, but a guy consistent with the movement) decided math and science should be neither interesting or fun, but instead 100% focused on maximizing test scores, eliminating anything not directly and entirely related to their guidelines. Predictable, this not only lowered scores and wasted many students,but led to my departure as well.
Your videos are very well presented and enjoyable. I miss the days when you could find succinct information like this on tv without somebody declaring everything is because of aliens.
I'm never disappointed with any of your videos. Only thing that gets my goat is I'll stay up until 6AM pst then I go to sleep and then at 6:02 am you post a new video!! My doctor said I should just go to sleep History is still going to be there! Mr. Know it all doctor. I think that smart Alec History Guy does it intentionally!! But your channel is still my favorite! Much respect to you and History Gal! Play on Playboy!
Hot Dang man.....You sure done your homework on this one....It is beyond me how you got....All of the out so very well....My Hat is surly off to you...W0W....Thanks so very much..!!!!!!!!!!
I’m amazed at how you can take subjects that seem uninteresting at first and make them so interesting like helium that makes me want to research it even more. Thanks for bringing us the history that should be remembered regardless of how insignificant it may appear at first.
As I live across the pond I usually find Amercan documentaries (and many of ours) rather like watching paint dry - that's being very kind. Please note the U.S. ones on RUclips with BBC in the title. This chap is quite rare, the ability to captivate and hold his audience wherever and whatever they may be on a complex subject. There are two problems though (1) his videos are far too short - 3 hours minimum (2) 1000 of them would be too little. I may be exagerating a bit there but I'm sure as we all agree this bloke is GOOD. I'd buy him a pint any day. Gawd - I'm going to watch it again.
I'd love to see an episode about the Acre of Massacre in the Second Boer War, especially because it involved both Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi.
I've used Helium in welding, (stainless steel) it's waaay more expensive than the already costly Argon...It really bothers me when I see these mylar/helium balloons usually just drifting skyward..to be lost, forever....well, not the mylar anyway...it just causes problems when it get's tangled in high-voltage lines...
Wow! One of the longer episodes, and this on a scientific topic. I learned a lot more than I expected because it challenged so many preconceptions I carried. Fantastic story, painstakingly researched, wonderfully told. Thank you, Mr History Guy!
When I was a kid, my Boy Scout troop discovered that farts were flammable. I did not win a Nobel Prize. Side note, the ‘test kid’ will regret his role in the experiment for the rest of his natural life. 🤣
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 LOL!! My uncle had to prove that to his mother-in-law in the most literal way you can imagine (he was a methane machine so gas production on the spot was no problem). Those two in a dark room with a lighter made a believer out of her. 👍😁👌
dhession64 - LOL! We used matches and it was a... fart of considerable volume. The plume of flame 🔥 was most remarkable. The poor ‘test kid’s’ bum was singed. I remember dozens of faces being illuminated by the flash, then a pause as my jaw dropped, as I assume everyones did, then a scream and he cried for quite a while. It was quite the OMG moment.
@@Erin-Thor I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now LOL!!!!!! You certainly can paint a picture with words, Erin. I'll be giggling about this for quite a while. Oh, the poor "test kid" lol
Interesting topic to me. I work in industrial cryogenic liquid / gas production. I use Helium on a daily basis as a carrier gas for on of my laboratory instruments.
I grew up in Kansas. I had no idea of the contributions of the state to the helium industry. I’m sure that there’s a bunch of the stuff in Oklahoma due to all of the wells in that state.
You probably saw them and never gave them a second glance as you traveled down Oklahoma highways. Helium is transported primarily in "high pressure tube trailers" from the processing/refining plants to end users.
Odd comment, but I like that you don't edit out minor stutters or mis-pronunciations. You recover perfectly, and it's not necessary. Makes the monologue feel more organic and personal. Love your work!
History guy- makes fascinating video about chemistry and physics, and the discovery of some of the most important components of our understanding of the universe Random commentator-"hah government bad"
@@Joesolo13 It is called cross curriculum. I am a chemistry teacher and loved the video, but I too recognized the inefficiency of government exemplified in this story...
@@Joesolo13 -- He's right. Government does something with some value then runs up a massive debt producing few positive intended consequences and many negative unintended consequences. In general for all of the good government achieves it manages to cost more than the positive is worth and create negatives that, of course, can only be "solved" through even more massive government. It's the only perpetual motion machine in existence, constantly creating more need for more government to fix the problems it's caused solving problems.
@@Joesolo13 Not "government bad". Government is what you make it, or allow it to be. Seeing as how Bill Clinton was President in '94 when the helium reserve was sold off, and his wife was heavily involved in selling off 1/5 of our uranium to an "enemy" nation as SoS during Obama's presidency, it looks like they abused their offices to commit treason. We paid full attention to the science history involved in this matter, but it seems like you totally ignore the political side. Ender was actually being nice by attributing the problems to "poorly handled finances". Personally, I would have said "criminally mismanaged finances".
Although you have a unique style to your presentations, this episode in particular reminded me of James Burke's Connections. I love seeing how even sometimes minor events can ripple outwards, affecting and shaping our world in ways that we don't see until we stop to look back on how we got here.
As a physicist, I really appreciated this presentation, and I think you got it all just about right. Unfortunately, most people - and, in particular, most legislators - think helium is just a joke, used for party balloons. It's not. Helium is a critical non-renewable resource that is vital for many industries, and we have suffered from shortages. We need to hoard the stuff and re-fill the national helium reserve.
Well, technically renewable, as it's generated continually in the Earth and Sun via (different) nuclear processes, but point well taken. Has any of your research involved helium and run into shortages?
And to launch quietly space force
@@bearcubdaycare The decay of radioactive elements in the Earth’s crust that produces He is still a finite process, though, and we’re unlikely to develop technology to extract He from the Sun any time soon. One way to perhaps make it less scarce would be to make it in our own hydrogen-to-helium nuclear fusion reactors, but developing the technology to build a practical fusion reactor is proving elusive, even after many decades of attempts.
It was a strategic material until industry convinced the Reagan administration to remove it. Now it is being wasted frivolousy
@@bearcubdaycare Sorry for the delayed response, but I just saw your comment. I have not used helium, but I have a colleague whose research at low temperatures was made so expensive that he spent a few hundred thousand dollars to build a helium-recycling facility. The huge price increase has cause a big hit to this branch of physics.
I work in vacuum carburization (heat treating to increase surface hardness) of vehicle transmission gears for a major auto manufacturer. We actually quench each load with helium at 18 bar (atmosphere pressure at sea level times 18). We reclaim the helium, put it through an O2 scrubber to keep the oxygen out (discharge is H20), and shove it back in our massive helium pressure tanks.
Helium is second to only one gas at quickly quenching glowing-hot metal. Hydrogen is the best, but you can guess why no one uses it for that process. The industry is turning to nitrogen quenches. It's basically 80% of what you breathe, and can cheaply be generated in pure form. But it's messier and slower than helium. The quickness of the quench determines part deformation. Slower = bad. Quicker = good.
I loved this video, and watched it for the science. But that threat that helium was getting pretty rare has made an irreversible seismic shift in my industry. The price-shock changed industry for decades to come.
One of the most reverent & appropriate comments I've ever read. Thank you sir!
@@EricGates Thank you, good sir!
@Toughen Up, Fluffy The heat treatment itself creates the carbon treatment. For us, this is done by pulsing acetylene gas into the chamber, which then breaks down into carbon and hydrogen at high temps. The carbon is infused into the metal. The quench process is a way to immediately stop the heat treating process.
@@captainvegas4823 In metallurgy, the term quench usually means rapid cooling from elevated temperature to either harden the workpiece, in the case of steel, or to soften it as in the case of copper. But here you are saying that you "quench" in helium to simply stop the process of diffusing carbon into the steel. Do I understand you correctly?
@@pauleohl Absolutely. The purpose is to immediately stop the carburization process.
As someone who studied physics, I was a little leery about listening to a historian explain science, but you nailed it. Well done!
Well, as someone who has *cough* "studied" landscape design, as well as turfgrass & ornamental maintenance, I'm leery of asking you, a physicist, for a lesson on tin mining in Cornwall.
Well, it's 2019 after all. It seems most of our science is in the history bin. 😂 Electrons aren't even little balls any more, they are vibrations! 🤯🧘♂️
@@patrickmcleod111 Which is why I would never presume to offer one. Now having grown up in an iron mining town in Labrador, I can tell you a little about that :D
@@DavesRocketShop
I was being sarcastic in the other post. But since you mentioned iron, maybe you can explain why I left high school under the impression that ONLY Iron and ferrous metals are attracted to magnets? It wasn't until I bought my first computer and first internet connection, that I learned about the 'other' ferro magnetic elements. That was only after I started an element collection, and ended up with pure, physical examples of nickel, cobalt and gadolinium, and basically discovered their ferro magnetism on my own.
I admire his enthusiasm.
Point of contention: Helium, or liquid helium to be exact, in MRI is not used to prevent wear and tear. It is used to create the superconducting environment for the internal wire windings of niobium-titanium (NbTi) which display zero electrical resistance at a temperature of approximately 4 degrees Kelvin, allowing for superconductivity. This means that the electromagnetic high strength field generated by the large current applied to the windings is static and does not need a continual source to remain at field. A complex system of cryogenics and temperature shielding is used to maintain the near-absolute zero temperature, reducing or eliminating liquid helium boiloff.
This is my job, to repair and maintain these machines.
blah blah blah...
@@Daledavispratt "His comment sounds like, "blah" to you, but your "blah" sounds like jealousy to me."
-Hater Hater
I appreciate the technical insight as the purpose of Helium in the MRI machine.
If you would just listen he said it was used to cool the magnets. Wow. Find a little fault next time.
Mark
Really interesting stuff, Mark.
I hope that you have some good thick gloves!
When I watch your presentations, I am reminded of a couple of history professors I had in college (Ludwig and McBride) who loved history as you do. They understood that when history is taught as memorizing dates and facts, it loses its' fascination, and becomes stale and quite unpalatable to students who see it as a drudge to work through for a grade... not as something that can enrich their lives. Thank you for what you do! I know is it a labor of love, and I'm glad that RUclips allows you a bully pulpit to express your love of history! Keep up the good work!
My daughter and I used to refer to her history class as memorization class. She got A's but the information was outta her head within a week. Some teachers definitely get it...others not so much.
There is no apostrophe in its as a possessive. it exists only in the contraction for it is.....
When I began teaching (all boys Catholic Technical HS in Paterson, NJ) in 1976, one of my freshman students raised his had and asked, "Mr B - are you going to make us remember dates??" Rather innocently I replied - "As far as I'm concerned dates are only for two things...eating or taking out..." - a wise guy from the back called out..."If yer lucky, you can do both..." I KNOW I was SPOZED'TA jump in his shit, but I couldn't...I hadda laugh...I asked him..."Do you have an older brother???"...he said yes...I said...It figgers...and quickly explained that it wasn't the date, but the significance of the event and it's date (in the overall time line of civilization) that was important and THAT'S what I wanted them to know - and hopefully commit to memory...
I was "taught" history as dates and facts and as a 13- year old in 1968, I just switched off. Apollo missions were orbiting the moon and my history teacher was telling me about stuff which happened 200, 300 yrs ago? We were *making* history- *right now.*
I really enjoy THG videos and wish that I'd been taught history in such an engaging way. Thank you THG.
@@stephenphillip5656 When I began teaching World History to freshmen in '76, (An all boys Catholic Technical HS in Paterson, NJ) one of the students asked me "Mr. B...will you make us remember dates???" My reply was not phrased in the best way...I told the class that as far as I was concerned, dates were only for taking out - or eating..." and before I could explain, a wise kid in the back yelled out..."If you get lucky, you can do both..." Do you have any idea how hard it was not to laugh out loud??? I asked the kid if he had an older brother...not surprisingly he did...I finished my answer by telling them that while dates were important - they were really only important in the timeline of history...history is a continuous story and record of how we got where we are from where we were...and that knowing where we came from is important to us and future generations in preserving our past & present traditions - or changing them...
You know what I really like about your channel? Everything.
Liquid helium is used in the whole body superconducting MR magnet’s to keep them in their superconducting state. There are now 3 types of superconducting magnets: Full loss (where the liquid helium boils to gas and is lost to the atmosphere); Zero boiloff, where the cryogenerator keeps the liquid helium at its liquid state and there is no boiloff; and the newest magnet which only uses a small amount of liquid helium in a cycle of convection. This new magnet never looses helium to the atmosphere.
The consequence of loosing the liquid helium would be the magnet quenching and loosing its magnetic field. Usually, the magnet isn’t damaged and can be refilled with liquid helium and re-ramped back to field.
I’m a professional MR engineer with 36 years of experience with MR systems. The picture of the MR system in your video is the company I work for.
Love your channel very much. Please keep up the outstanding work you do. Someday, maybe, we will see you on the History Channel. That would be awesome.
Amazing. Well done for connecting chemistry, physics, and history all together for one video. The world is all connected if we but realised it. Thank you.
Reminiscent of James Burke's "Connections" series on PBS.
@@mephitismephitis6825 Buggers! I wanted to bring up James Burke's work!
What a wonderfully told story! I work at a particle accelerator and we use helium for cryogenics and leak detection. Several years ago a helium recovery and re-liquefaction plant was installed, and we now recover 90,000 liquid liters a year of helium that used to be vented from experiments. Its a big saving now that it costs about $15 per liter!
I learn from my colleagues who still work in the industry, that MRI magnets have become more parsimonious with their once profligate use of Helium. In my twenty-three odd years as an MRI Field Engineer, I must have used hundreds of thousands of litres of LHe - which is not cheap - yet I never actually saw LHe, ever.
As HG mentioned, it has the lowest boiling point of any liquid and even with the full 'push pressure' (used when filling a magnet) expelling the liquid up through the dewar stack and through the fill line (essentially a half inch, flexible, stainless steel pipe) actual liquid Helium never comes out of the end of the pipe. Very rarely, droplets of LHe are spat out, but they are always surrounded by a covering of furiously boiling vapour and they vanish after less than a foot.
You may wonder why, if He is so valuable, we just blew it out the pipe before filling the magnet? Precooling is the answer. The plumbing all starts out at room temperature (20C or about 300 Kelvin) and must be precooled to close to about 4 Kelvin or -270C, otherwise we would be blowing (relatively) warm gas into the magnet and that, to say the least, is not good.
So many people mention the squeaky voice trick. We who used it, would never get close enough to our Helium, because it was so, so cold - freeze your eyeballs cold. Also, our safety rules forbade us from mucking about with it. Helium is a very efficient asphyxiant, because it not only flushes all the oxygen out of your blood that's already in there, it flushes all the CO2 out of your lungs, which is what triggers your 'breathe reflex.' If you play the squeaky voice trick too often or too much, you can die, quite peacefully and without struggling to breathe.
Roger Whittle which company did (do) you work for?
Your last line reminded me of something I've not thought of in years- there was an Australian "organization" that offered plans for a suicide kit utilizing the helium bottles that used to be sold in stores all over the Americas. I'm not sure that either is available today...
Very interesting. I'm wondering if it would be possible to do a preliminary cooling stage using liquid nitrogen to take it down to around -196 degrees Celcius? That could save a lot of Helium and liquid Nitrogen is easy to make using a compressor and fractionating tower.They can be installed in quite a small area and are cheap to run. I used to run one at a geological lab.
I have scrapped a lot of MRI magnets, and for a civilian, I have a good grasp of what is going on here. Actually, in some cases MRIs do indeed use LN2 liquid as a first stage cryogenic process. Actually one probably now obsolete MRI was the Oxford dual-cryo magnet that had both forms of liquid working the system. Now, a little-understood principle is sacrificial refrigeration in cryogenic storage. Since the CTP of gases like O2 N2, Helium and others is just so fuckin' extreme that there is no way it can be contained in a reasonable reinforced container. The pressure would rise to tens of thousands of PSI as the liquid warmed up. It would blast the container open, and one that would hold up would be unable to be moved! SO, what they do is contain it in a Dewars container, with a relief valve that "pops" at a reasonable "extreme". As pressure over a confined liquid rises, the boiling point does too. This feature means that as the liquid warms up. the pressure rises, and when the valve "pops" the escaping vapor causes a vigorous boiling of the liquid inside the massively insulated container, and this boiling robs latent heat stored in the liquid and lowers the boiling point of the liquid. When the available heat is depleted, the valve closes. This goes on and on as the pressure rises and falls. A locomotive boiler is the exact duplicate of this feature, except water has a boiling point higher than our native heat on this planet, so we add fire to boil the water. There is the cold head on the MRI and I think this thing is the pump that runs the gas helium above the iquid through a pressure-colling circuit to prevent the otherwise loss of helium vapor to control the rest of the liquid in the MRI.. I am of the belief there is no escape of helium normally occurring in an MRI. I DO KNOW THOUGH that if you hit the "QUENCH" button and turn on the heating-wire grid deep inside the MRI innermost tank with the Neodymium wire and spool it will instantly boil the liquid inside it and rupture the burst disc in the cupola and waste all the helium in a SPECTACULAR display of a jet engine sight and sound at the end of the discharge line!!! They said it costs $50,000 to re-ramp a magnet! Also, I have transported magnets to my demolition yard that still had small amounts of helium even after weeks of storage since thay can't recover all of it. Once you pierce the outer shell with a torch or saw (if the burst disc was still intact) within seconds after the vacuum is gone, the disc will rupture and roar away as the last of the helium vaporizes and escapes!
Do you ever wonder why the death penalty process doesn't use an inert gas for the dirty work? Helium, nitrogen, and maybe to a lesser degree CO2 work supremely as a painless way to go, and I think if you don't realize your oxygen-rich air supply has just been replaced with a straight no-oxygen supply you won't even realize it before you die!!! A lot better than all the torture- methods, even the "needle"!!
This was GREAT! I'm an Emeritus Professor of Geology and really appreciate your excellent delivery and content. I wish I could have used your programs in my classes. Thank you!
Great video, should be a must watch for any high school science class.
Should be, but won't... as Helium is a 'Noble Gas' and 'unreactive', Critical Theory will not allow such information to be taught to kids.
I have been a commercial diver since 1994. We used heliox for deep dives past 160'. My personal deepest dive was -328' surface supplied. This was in '99 so it's been a while, but we were breathing either 12 or 14% O2 and the rest helium. The platform was in the movie "Armageddon".
Thankyou for this video. It is flat out astounding how people take other's accomplishments and run with it to do amazing things with it in their own rights.
what an uplifting episode!
Ayyyy
Compared to other episodes, it was kinda lightweight.
mr man - ruclips.net/video/s9FhbLCOTok/видео.html
I felt released from earthly bonds!
-_-
Liked the presentation. As a Chemist, I was aware of Helium's place in history of adding information that helped with the filling out some of the notions that are the Periodic System and Table. Rutherford's contributions (along with his students') can't be understated, in my view. Moseley's staircase is one such example.
I love the variety of the content you post on this channel
I eat penis because dude? Is that really your name?? 🤦🏻♂️
If only high school history teachers had been like you. I’d have paid more attention back then.
My wife and I have had this conversation several times - we both hated History in school, loved it as adults. I blame it on the focus on testing in schools... nobody really cares when the Edict of Nantes was signed.
In contrast, I recall a tale of Ireland when Cromwell's army was marching through. Defenders in a particular area knew the fortress they had would come under attack, where the cannons would be set up, where the wall would be breached.... That all came to pass, with the invaders pouring through the breach, the rest waiting for the fortress gates to be opened. The gates never opened, and soon invaders could no longer enter. Piles of bodies blocked the breach. The defenders had set up a pen with a catwalk that enclosed the predicted breach. The catwalk was heavily manned and loaded with rocks that were thrown onto the heads of the invaders. Now, _THAT_ is history worth remembering, although I don't recall exactly where it was. I remembered the parts worth remembering.
Scientist here. Love your channel and this one made my day thanks for the great content.
I never knew how important and complicated the discovery of Helium was until now. I have to admit I only thought of it as a gas for balloons and blimps too. Thanks for sharing this story. And your right, all good stories have pirates in them.
Bravo! Now this is a remarkable snippet of historical context: History of science, engineering, technological innovation, industrial and military application all rolled into one. Indeed, helium is history that deserves to be remembered.
Whenever a class instructor makes his/her subject a 'fun' experience for their students, their learning ability is enhanced exponentially! That's why I was able to pass high school Chemistry with an 'A' in all the semesters without opening the official textbook. The class was so interesting that I spent much of my free time in the public library reading various books on the subject of the weeks lessons. Astounding! THG reminds me so much of my Chemistry instructor! Kudos to THG for the interesting methodology he uses for every episode on his channel! BTW I graduated high school in 1960.
This is certainly a great way to learn in depth. It is probably aided by your lack of the usual internal dysfunctions or obstacles to learning that many suffer from due to stressful teaching methods. (My opinion, obviously, not known fact.)
So now you're "the Chem-history Guy"! Another interesting and entertaining episode.
LtCol Pulaski. The Chem-Phys-History Guy, surely?
@@rogerwhittle2078 More accurate maybe, but not as punny.
Chemistory guy
Hey " i know pulaskis..n..w. Of g.b. wisc.
This channel never ceases to amaze me in it's quality and content.
I love how you snuck in a pirate at the end!!! Rrrrrr lol
He reads the comments. They seem to be generally positive on this channel.
atrus445 I hope they are. I think it would be pretty hard to find something to complain about. It’s not like he went and wrote the history he’s just educating and explaining the history. But there are crazy people out here that would complain about anything. This guy though has a great intonation in his voice I could listen to him read the phone book all day long
It's not September 19, Talk Like a Pirate Day.
HugeWolf1 every day is pirate day!!
arrrrrr
I found this subject matter to not only be light and airy but it was also very uplifting.
Every time I watch one, I say....that was the best one yet!....Sir, you’ve accomplished that conundrum once again for me...thank you I will watch this one again...
Awesome 👍
I was wondering how far back in time History Guy could go. Now he's gone back to the beginning of the universe at the big bang, that might be the limit.
Thank you for bringing up the shortage. Important topic. 'Identified what humans had never before seen.. the second most abundant element in the universe...' love it
An entirely entertaining episode of a subject I had never given a second thought. More like this one please.
I learned about the basic realities of helium years ago, and ever since, I've been curious as to why we STILL allow helium to be sold for uneccesary purposes like party balloons, considering its a non renewable resource.
An invisible gas. We still haven't seen it.
@@binaway....... And like they say, if you cannot physically see it with the naked eye, it does NOT really exist. Anything that falls under that criteria, can ONLY be considered to be a conspiracy theory... It's my hypothesis that the same is true of radioactive matter. We must ask ourselves, can we see radiation? No?? Then, like helium, argon, neon, radon, xenon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, it's just a conspiracy theory! To prove it, I'm going to move into an old radium mine for a few years. When I walk out a healthy man, I'll be a national hero for exposing this scandal! Lol. (Sarcasm)
@@patrickmcleod111 It's the fault of the powerful party balloon lobby.
I'm imagining an 1907 Texas town where the timbre of the townspeople has been altered by helium seeping out the ground. Add to that the dialogue of a western movie.
Black Bart: "Who are you calling Squeaky stranger?"
Blazing saddles just got funnier.
History of science is a close one to my heart and is most definitely history that deserves to be remembered. I definitely learned something from this video. HG is always making history even more fascinating.
"...will continue to lift us into the future."
I was waiting for it but still groaned :-)
When I was a kid my mom would never buy me a balloon for my birthday because she said there was a helium shortage and we had to conserve helium. Turns out we were just really poor.
Same here...
Space Man - ruclips.net/video/s9FhbLCOTok/видео.html .it will be a problem when the captured supply runs out. Drilling for more helium is an option but will conflict with the environment.
The new reserve was discovered in Tanzania....alot more
@@JesseAkabwogi Really? That's super cool. I'm going to go buy 100 helium balloons right now and set them loose while standing on a beach!
There is another way that parents mask poverty and prevent the development of pricey tastes in children: call it an allergic. For me, it was wool, cheeses, chocolate, and oranges. I found it strange that no vegetables were on that list.
The bigger store here is how one scientist built upon another scientists findings, over and over again. They opened unforeseen areas. How powerful is the unfettered sharing of scientific knowledge!
I enjoy your catch phrase I noticed it has been slipping in more often. “Don’t all good stories involve pirates”
Good work friend !!!
@@BruceLortzHI Napster. Now there's some history I'd already forgotten about.
This episode made me flashback to James Burke's brilliant series, Connections. Well done HG!
When I saw that balloon to your right my first thought was, "Oh no, History Guy is going to jump the shark!" Thankfully - no. One of your better videos. Lots of info about history and science rolled into a concise package. This would be a great one to show in a chemistry or history class.
It's amazing how I knew almost all of this yet the detail and order you presented in made it so enjoyable. By far my favorite history channel!
This was probably in the bottom 10% of interesting topics you have covered, but also in the top 5% of knowledge I have gotten from you. Ironic I think that once again helium has risen to the top.
R B hehe nice one
I'm in my mid 50's and have never cared for history, but something caught my eye in the past and I love how you present the information! Thank you
All stories get better with pirates in them, especially pirate sharks. :)
There is a move to ban stories about pirates unless the'res an R in the month. 😊👍
@@bigblue6917 A segment on the history of “pirate talk” would be interesting.
That is a Sharrrrk! Spell it right, please! :)
Had to pause the video for several minutes while she yelled "Pirate Shark!"
But does it have frickin' lasers on its head?!
At first, my eyes began to glaze with the chemistry. But as a trucker, I've hauled liquid Argon, which is, if I recall, liquid at 400 degrees below zero. It vaporizes as soon as it hits the air, and the trailer must always be vented so it won't burst. It's used both in Ag for welding aluminum and making silicone chips. As for trying to light a well on fire, one need only look to North Dakota or Utah in the most recent oil boom. There was a lot of natural gas simply burned off, wasted, in "flare pits" so numerous and bright, you could see them from space!! Thankfully, more practical heads got involved to stop that and try to bring it to market, along with the crude oil that they were primarily concerned about. I once took non-mathamatical astronomy in college thinking it would be fun to really learn about the stars I had only looked at through my father's 1930's era home built telescope. What someone should have warned me about, however, was to come prepared for a chemistry romp through space!! Though I still don't pretend to understand it much, it is really amazing that over a hundred plus years ago, with very crude or simple tools and understanding, these men (& women) of science, were able to find helium and the other elements they did. Thanks again for a surprising and valuable lesson in history ( and chemistry).
And not only is the Fourth of July coming up, but also shark week. Excellent selection in balloons history guy
Also, don't forget the International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th!
Finally..., A Channel worth watching. No worthless Social Media here. Thanx!!!!!!!
Just yesterday saw a sign, at a local store that said, no balloons, we are out of helium. Best video of your so far on a science topic, answered so many questions.
It must take a great deal of time to write up the narrative script--they are always so thoughtfully and cleverly written. Super episode--thank you professor!
This is a great video. Combines two of my loves. Science and History. Thank you.
Bravo, What an all round historian you are! Great to see you present the history behind elementary Chemistry and Physics. I spent my life teaching this stuff. Love it!
I love your channel! I am curious, with the new updates in the community guidelines, what will happen to history channels, as war and events of tragedy are suggested t9 be off limits for monetization.
Inspired John those limits have always been there- they are not new. To my disappointment they were not better clarified with the new standards. The application seems to be somewhat capricious.
It makes me sad to see what RUclips is doing. Being that RUclips has becomes such a repository of information, this decision on their part is starting to feel more like revisionist history than it is a business decision.
@@hyfy-tr2jy Google is extremely biased and everything they do is politically motivated.
You are the only guy on this planet that could make a fascinating and enjoyable video about a gas that appears on the periodic table! You are the Master!
this episode is an absolute gas
This guy does not miss anything. He is a Jedi Master! His history is accurate. His science is deep and on point. His CORRECT pronunciation and usage of megacomplex words is so precise that you know you're dealing with someone well talented and gifted. I have watched about 40 videos and not found one mistake. Golden buzzer. Subscribed!
Thank you for a great show, I learned quite a bit! I'm so glad you included party balloons which must account for way less than 1% of helium usage. I would like to see a breakdown of current uses, with MRI machines probably taking 59% of the reserves. You are way better than my high school chem teacher!
This channel is so great. History Guy has got to be the world's best historian. If only my schooling in history was this enjoyable ... Thank you.
There are probably more who have unearthed more information, but few (if any) who have taught so many so much about it. "Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh?" - Dr. Strangelove.
Loved hearing you nerd out on science. Fascinating... thank you. Wish you were my Jr High science teacher. Well done.
Thank you, thank you. Every video you create makes me smile, and I learn something, too!
Helium is still used extensively for scientific experiments such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy, or in layman's terms the study of materials and samples under pure X-Ray light, and observing the spectrum given off in a pure helium atmosphere.
To put things into perspective, the Synchrotron physics lab where I work, uses about $30,000 worth of helium per month!
Where I work we make fire protection equipment for aircraft. The sensors have to be sealed so we inject a bit of helium into them right before welding them shut. The sensors are then put in bell jars attached to spectrometers, the air pumped out and then checked for traces of helium. I had no idea that test went back to WWII.
@@JeffDeWitt Helium is an impressively tiny molecule, and we also use it for leak checking our vacuum system on the particle accelerator ring. Very cool that your method dates back to ww2!
Definitely more history of science videos. This one is excellent not only for the usual History Guy style and presentation but also for the very high standard of research on the subject.
A pity we can't give more likes.
THG - I recently decided to stop freeloading on your wonderful videos and clicked the "Join" button, and I am now doing the same with all my favorite channels. I hope you never stop making such quality content, and I thank you not only for what you have already given us but also for whatever you put out in the future. I hope my small contribution helps keep you "on the air" for a very long time!
OMG! The History Guy can make ANYTHING sound interesting and I'll watch it. THANKS for making working from home for the past months tolerable!!!
"Don't all good stories involve pirates"....you need a tshirt with this on it
hyfy1970 That’s exactly what I was going to say!
I believe the History Guy store now offers just such a shirt.
He needs to do a video wearing an eye patch
Wow. What a great job you did explaining the molecular side of this element. The rest was great too but that middle section was so dense with facts and delivered in such a faultless manner it seemed to me it must have taken ages to get all those ducks lined up, delivered and recorded in a seamless stream that must have lasted for 5 minutes. Bravo.
Dexter KS is also home of the Henry Candy Company, founded by Tom Henry,who claimed to be the inventor of the Oh Henry! bar.
Timothy Stockman I never go home to western Kansas without stopping at Henry candy. My family has stopped there every trip since the 1970's. I was going to add this in comments but you beat me to it, love me some Henrys candy
More reasons why Kansas is the greatest place on earth :)
As a former math & science educator, I used to love such videos. This is what true education looks like. About 10 years ago the idiotic curriculum guru (a particular administrator, but a guy consistent with the movement) decided math and science should be neither interesting or fun, but instead 100% focused on maximizing test scores, eliminating anything not directly and entirely related to their guidelines. Predictable, this not only lowered scores and wasted many students,but led to my departure as well.
Your videos are very well presented and enjoyable. I miss the days when you could find succinct information like this on tv without somebody declaring everything is because of aliens.
I'm never disappointed with any of your videos. Only thing that gets my goat is I'll stay up until 6AM pst then I go to sleep and then at 6:02 am you post a new video!! My doctor said I should just go to sleep History is still going to be there! Mr. Know it all doctor. I think that smart Alec History Guy does it intentionally!! But your channel is still my favorite! Much respect to you and History Gal! Play on Playboy!
Great video! I always learn something new while watching your videos. Thank you.
Variety is the spice of RUclips content. 5 stars sir. Well done all.
Excellent summary - learned so much I'm light-headed.
Pete -
It must be all the helium.
The connections between scientists related to helium are themselves mind-boggling. A connection graph would make an interesting classroom poster.
Hot Dang man.....You sure done your homework on this one....It is beyond me how you got....All of the out so very well....My Hat is surly off to you...W0W....Thanks so very much..!!!!!!!!!!
I’m amazed at how you can take subjects that seem uninteresting at first and make them so interesting like helium that makes me want to research it even more. Thanks for bringing us the history that should be remembered regardless of how insignificant it may appear at first.
There are 150 thumbs down on this... what kind of viewer could not admire this?
As I live across the pond I usually find Amercan documentaries (and many of ours) rather like watching paint dry - that's being very kind. Please note the U.S. ones on RUclips with BBC in the title.
This chap is quite rare, the ability to captivate and hold his audience wherever and whatever they may be on a complex subject. There are two problems though (1) his videos are far too short - 3 hours minimum (2) 1000 of them would be too little. I may be exagerating a bit there but I'm sure as we all agree this bloke is GOOD. I'd buy him a pint any day. Gawd - I'm going to watch it again.
I'd love to see an episode about the Acre of Massacre in the Second Boer War, especially because it involved both Winston Churchill and Mahatma Gandhi.
When I was growing up in the late 70's, helium balloons were a luxury we could never afford.
I've used Helium in welding, (stainless steel) it's waaay more expensive than the already costly Argon...It really bothers me when I see these mylar/helium balloons usually just drifting skyward..to be lost, forever....well, not the mylar anyway...it just causes problems when it get's tangled in high-voltage lines...
Working in the oil and gas industry in the Hugoton gas field and helium reserve, I found this episode very interesting. Job well done!
Interesting but even better for me you had a short shot of the ZMC-2 blimp which was built between the World Wars of Aluminum.
Wow! One of the longer episodes, and this on a scientific topic. I learned a lot more than I expected because it challenged so many preconceptions I carried.
Fantastic story, painstakingly researched, wonderfully told.
Thank you, Mr History Guy!
The history guy meets the chemistry guy😂😂😂 thanks H.G.....another interesting one!!
Outstanding video friend. Thanks a lot for your wonderful work. SC Navy vet.
Not gonna lie, I'm a little disappointed History Guy didn't open the video with a high-pitched voice. XD
meme tier dad joke. hes better than that.
18 minutes on Helium? 🤔
It's the History Guy...I'm IN! It was worth it. 👍
When I was a kid, my Boy Scout troop discovered that farts were flammable. I did not win a Nobel Prize. Side note, the ‘test kid’ will regret his role in the experiment for the rest of his natural life. 🤣
🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 LOL!!
My uncle had to prove that to his mother-in-law in the most literal way you can imagine (he was a methane machine so gas production on the spot was no problem). Those two in a dark room with a lighter made a believer out of her. 👍😁👌
dhession64 - LOL! We used matches and it was a... fart of considerable volume. The plume of flame 🔥 was most remarkable. The poor ‘test kid’s’ bum was singed. I remember dozens of faces being illuminated by the flash, then a pause as my jaw dropped, as I assume everyones did, then a scream and he cried for quite a while. It was quite the OMG moment.
@@Erin-Thor I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now LOL!!!!!! You certainly can paint a picture with words, Erin. I'll be giggling about this for quite a while. Oh, the poor "test kid" lol
Sucking in helium would be a fitting end of this educational lesson on chemistry . Good info!
Interesting topic to me. I work in industrial cryogenic liquid / gas production. I use Helium on a daily basis as a carrier gas for on of my laboratory instruments.
I work at a gas supplier myself .
If we would have had the History Guy as our teacher in school, we would all have quit looking at the clock and gotten much better grades.
I grew up in Kansas. I had no idea of the contributions of the state to the helium industry. I’m sure that there’s a bunch of the stuff in Oklahoma due to all of the wells in that state.
You probably saw them and never gave them a second glance as you traveled down Oklahoma highways. Helium is transported primarily in "high pressure tube trailers" from the processing/refining plants to end users.
I have a feeling your're not in Kansas anymore.
Maan.....i love how u start every video." History that deserves to be rememberd"
If helium is a noble gas, then it follows that methane, as a contributing factor to flatulence, must be an ignoble one.
It depends upon the occasion and the company kept.
Methane is not present in flatus( to any significant level) hydrogen is.
Hydrogen Sulphide is a bigger contribution to the ignoble flatus...
Man...just an excellent channel.....and I love when he shows glimpses of silliness!
Would like to see one done on the Toledo War (conflict between Michigan and Ohio over NW Ohio - how the UP became part of Michigan)
That would be a great one especially since we're from Michigan
@@barbaradivizio7414 we are too! Is that where the rivalry began?
Great idea! I'm in Wisconsin near the UP and we want it back!
@@sharonmullins1957 what would I
Odd comment, but I like that you don't edit out minor stutters or mis-pronunciations. You recover perfectly, and it's not necessary. Makes the monologue feel more organic and personal. Love your work!
The government handled finances poorly? What a surprise.
History guy- makes fascinating video about chemistry and physics, and the discovery of some of the most important components of our understanding of the universe
Random commentator-"hah government bad"
@@Joesolo13 It is called cross curriculum. I am a chemistry teacher and loved the video, but I too recognized the inefficiency of government exemplified in this story...
@@Joesolo13 -- He's right. Government does something with some value then runs up a massive debt producing few positive intended consequences and many negative unintended consequences. In general for all of the good government achieves it manages to cost more than the positive is worth and create negatives that, of course, can only be "solved" through even more massive government. It's the only perpetual motion machine in existence, constantly creating more need for more government to fix the problems it's caused solving problems.
@@Joesolo13 Not "government bad". Government is what you make it, or allow it to be. Seeing as how Bill Clinton was President in '94 when the helium reserve was sold off, and his wife was heavily involved in selling off 1/5 of our uranium to an "enemy" nation as SoS during Obama's presidency, it looks like they abused their offices to commit treason. We paid full attention to the science history involved in this matter, but it seems like you totally ignore the political side. Ender was actually being nice by attributing the problems to "poorly handled finances". Personally, I would have said "criminally mismanaged finances".
Only The History Guy can float an injection of Pirates into the story of Helium.
Makes you look at party balloons in a different way.
Although you have a unique style to your presentations, this episode in particular reminded me of James Burke's Connections. I love seeing how even sometimes minor events can ripple outwards, affecting and shaping our world in ways that we don't see until we stop to look back on how we got here.
Knock, Knock.
Who's There?
Candygram.
Land shark.
@@m1t2a1 Actually I'm a dolphin, ma'am.
@@DarkAudit Well... O.K.
LMBO Gilda Radner was so funny. I love the OSNL
what an uplifting presentation...
That helps explain why they push for radon testing homes in Kansas.
T0T0 ly
E PA has a significant radon "belt" also. Makes me speculate that He is in the mix there.
Forgot to mention helium’s use in welding processes. Very nicely done!