It is so cool that the company showed you - idk how much - twelve? different reactions. Indoors, outdoors, in a veritasium logo, slow, fast, higher and lower temperature... A big thank you to this company!
id love to see veritasium try to do science live for us while their already filming it , can they control those pulse by passing gases trough the reaction ?
5. it can't be data if we set the material of the harddrive on fire (see Chlorine Trifluoride, it sets things that would not think of as capable of burning on fire).
I did my undergrad and am currently doing my grad degree in metallurgical engineering and I gotta say, this video is hands down one of the best practical demonstrations of high temperature metallothermic reduction I've seen. Its awesome.
Somewhat unrelated question. Given your area of study has there been much research into the physics behind so-called 'vacuum welding'? I know in airless environments some metals will spontaneously bond with no oxide coating to seperate them. I was wondering specifically if there'd been much of a look as to vacuum alloying as well. Maybe even polyelemental vacuum welding experiments? Seems like an interesting area of study with some high potential to make some potential revolutionary discoveries. Or at the very least give us some insight into better constructing in moon enviroments.
@@LuisSierra42 More like you need to write it down so you can either deduct it from your taxes or get paid 🤣 Jokes aside you're absolutely right, it's a critical part of the scientific method.
Them pretending to not know the outcome of the blowtorch experiment and making Derek put on safety equipment to freak him out is peak German humor. It was obviously made for drama and Derek played into it, but their deadpan delivery seemed to genuinely unnerve him hahaha
Seems a lot of this video's narrative is less than transparent. Grain burning and the "surging" reaction front is not a new thing. That chunky grain size was definitely a narrative choice. Veritasium's script seems always to be written to vaguely imply this is new research or discovery or unknown mystery. The only thing new is public footage of close thermite reactions--which is cool and awesome, but nothing else if new or genuine.
There is a small risk of ignition from a blow torch. It's not so much a risk the thermite will ignite. It's a risk there could be a particle of something else in the mix that isn't supposed to be there. If a small piece of say magnesium found its way into the mix the magnesium might ignite and then ignite the thermite
@@Psi105 it's a German company doing essentially a massive international promotional piece for their products and capabilities. No way in hell did they just use their run off the mill product. I guarantee you they took every measure to ensure that no piece of magnesium was in earshot of that bucket. If there was any chance at all they wouldn't have filled an entire bucket and let this many people stand near it. Industry safety is legit insane in Germany. My dad leads a small department in the chem industry here and they don't take any chances, ever.
@@Mezuzah87 I don't feel like he's ever presented anything as though the information, in his video, is newly discovered. Instead, I feel like he's trying to present it in a new way, each time - which he does succeed at.
@@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies fair assessment, whats more it draws the common people into science/knowledge/curiosity to learn more about our world and less about Kardashians
"Why is there pulsing?" "I don't know." I already trust this guy immensely. To state that you just don't know something, and not try to justify or speculate or excuse it shows intelligence.
even if he tried to speculate something that would just be him trying to understand it or trying to have a conversation on what could be causing it, that's how science advances
I came to the comments for exactly this conversation. That I don’t know, and the excitement on his voice, it is at the center of the driving force behind science. I loved it.
That is such a cool, respectable answer. "I dont know. We try to understand" an honest admission of not knowing something, and a desire to try and learn about it. Very cool.
Yep! And it shows why they were so open to doing the experiment ! Like it can’t be anything but good R&D for them if they’ve never seen the reaction like this live
I bet it was a mixture of humor and honesty. As in "We've never tried with a lighter. So on the off chance that something totally unexpected is going on there I better say 95%".
Great video but special shout to the moment he says 'I don't know' to your question. True man of character in teaching, doesn't try to fake knowing it all and by admitting something he didn't know it gives more credibility to everything else he says. Thanks for the work.
I grew up around railroad people and more than once I had an opportunity to watch a section gang make welds in the rails. They had a thing they called a shoe that clamped around the rails at the joint location. It was filled with thermite and ignited by a man sticking a fuzee (flare) into it. Spectacular! My grandfather took me to the former site of the Chicago worlds fair and showed me the stumps of the girders which held one of the attractions which were cut off with thermite when the fair was dismantled. Those experiences when I was a boy, and many others let me to pursue a lifelong career as an engineer. Thanks for producing such amazing content.
Sir…. Where do I start….. 32 mins Herr Goldschmidt looking at a tub of glowing thermite like a Boy Scout checking his breakfast sausage, gas burning a tub of thermite, after discussing a warehouse full of the stuff…. Insurance people are never buying that’s safe…. Smokeless desktop lab tests,……. It’s goes on. As a semi pro photographer and an engineer, I fully got what you were capturing… it did look hard and yes you have blown highlights. I hope you and Herr Goldschmidt are best mates now, this is by far the best video I’ve EVER seen on RUclips . THANK YOU
I work as a railroad welder and have ignited more of these buckets than I can count! I learned a great deal more about the properties and safety of thermite thanks to you and Dr. Axel. It was also extremely neat to see inside the bucket as the reaction takes place :D
I am German and this reminds me of "Sendung mit der Maus". A childrens program where we learn those processes and other miscellaneous factory processes. Inbetween cartoons. Its kinda weird. We are kinda weird. Kudos to Veritasium. Top notch content.
Im not German, but ive watched der Maus several times now bcuz its just interestin and probs a better way to immerse myself in the language after all than smth like duolingo Its just rly fascinatin to see the things explained in that show :3
as a PhD in chemical (+physical) metallurgy on this specific matter, I am over clouds that u mention this amazing reaction.we showed that you can synthesize advanced alloys (or ceramics) by using specific type of thermite reaction known as SHS with almost 0 energy (you just need minisclue ignition energy).
Really important safety fact for people doing this at home, one that almost cost me an eye: Thermite CAN ignite with a blowtorch if it's in small enough quantities (think spoonful or so) and if it's FINELY POWDERED aluminum and iron oxide. It takes a while to ignite with a blowtorch so the whole pile heats up to ~1000 °C. Under those conditions, the reaction happens violently, like flash powder, and sprays molten slag and metal blobs everywhere at high speed. Only though luck or the grace of God was I not seriously injured when I found that out, since I was within arms reach holding the blowtorch. Always take precautions and wear eye protection and other protective gear when working with energetic materials!
My chemistry teacher did such an experiment outside on the parking lot. He told me a previous demonstration had been a fail so he used finer ground aluminum and oxide this time and an increased amount of some igniting agent to get it running. I warned him that in combination would be too much and the reaction could be violent. He dismissed it, but I hid behind a car and most of my classmates grudgingly did the same. The flower pot exploded, but the shards did not go far - they were bonded by the slag that formed with one centimeter wide cracks in between. Iron droplets rained down on the cars on the parking lot, but as they were small and lost most of their heat during their flight they did not seem to have done much harm. Nobody was seriously hurt - but the school never did a thermite experiment again.
too many people who dont clean thier garages while repairing things like old motorcycles (renovations etc) after fine sanding aluminium to a shine, and removing rust, suddenly realise they need to weld and whoosh all the nooks and crannies go up in flames because they pointed the welder at a corner holding a buildup of both fine rust particles and fine aluminium particles
An important key to the ignition temperature is the particle size, that is correct. As discussed in the video we control the particle size meticulously to make sure the ignition temperature stays safely above 1000°C, so the experiment was a lot safer than we made it seem. But what is true, is that precautions and safety gear is always advised when dealing with Thermit. Don't try this with home made Thermit out of rust and aluminum foil!
@@DaStuntChannel ya, they overheat. They get too hot to operate... It withstood being next to a fking thermite reaction and still operated during and afterwards m8 I'd say that's impressive engineering.
@@modisp ya not even kidding. I don't think @DaStuntChannel really understands how a logarithmic scaled relationship works. Being that close to that thermite reaction would melt ur ass
Same goes for CNC milling operations, we cut the block to get the desired shape, and the shavings are recycled for other purposes. Don't really know what for, I'm just a student.
Most people have no idea just how common this is in large-scale industry. Getting rid of waste costs money, buying resources costs money. If someone has waste that can be a resource for you, you can buy it from them at a lower price, because even if they only get a little bit of money for it, that's still much better than having to pay to get rid of it. No one, least of all large companies, want waste products - because everything you waste is lost profit.
In my high school AP Chemistry class my teacher had two orange sized rusty steel balls, we'd cover one of them with aluminum foil and then smack them together (wearing proper hand, eye, and ear protection of course) to initiate a tiny thermite reaction with a loud bang and a spark. It was part of a lesson to demonstrate the requirements for chemical reactions, namely activation energy and orientation, results would differ slightly based on how rusty the spot of contact was, or how hard or fast the collision was, or even between direct and glancing blows. Eventually we also did a larger experiment outdoors using Magnesium ribbon to ignite the powder mixture, I still vividly remember how bright the Magnesium was! I absolutely love that videos like this can share scientific knowledge to a vast audience in such an entertaining way. Thanks!
Thank you for the presentation. I learned a lot. As an industrial electrician, we used a process like this to bond 4/0 copper wire, ground rods, and sometimes I-beams for grounding made by Cadweld. Fun stuff. As long as it wasn't an enclosed building, this worked great. I think they went to mechanical hydraulic clamping now. They usually supplied a striker to ignite but I found it better to use a propane or Mapp torch for sweating pipes. It took a secondary thermal reactive powder that was provided to ignite the thermite. When the crucibles started wearing out, a good smattering of Duct Seal putty was the answer. Likely what the gray stuff they were lining the glass with.
It's a scheduled upload, youtube likes to suggest creators when the most optimum time to upload a video is based on all the timezones around the world, or based on the creator's own research.
An obvious thanks to the whole Vertasium crew as always for making science FUN! But man, a huge shoutout and thank you to the company as well. What a good group of guys, providing excellent humour, hospitality, resources, and education. Great video, and can't wait for the rest!
Always nice to avoid the algo-worshipping clickbaits. I don't know how representative I am of less unsmart people, but I personally avoid clickbait titles and thumbnails with loathing. That includes non-recommending entire channels that seem too unserious, clicking 'not interested' on every baity unknown video, and avoiding and possibly unsubing known channels that are turning to algo-worship. I can't stand marketing BS creators with no self-respect. I'm probably among the fewer, but there is something to think about in the risk of driving away the high quality community and then ending up having to adapt the content, and thus one's life, to the remaining 'average and below' crowd. 🤔
Brilliant video, Derek! I’m currently working on my PhD project, focusing on a step before this process where you undesirably form the oxides. In the thermite reaction, you use Al as a reducing agent for Fe or Cr oxides in stainless steel. I’m modeling the fluid dynamics of a process where Cr and Fe act as reducing agents for Carbon oxides, interrupting the decarburization of stainless steel, which I’m trying to prevent. (If you are interested search AOD or BOF for stainless steel) I was amazed by the team’s ability to show the inside of a crucible through a vertical cross-section. It’s an impressive feat, and I haven’t seen similar efforts in melting, remelting, or decarburizing before. The best/traditional shot you get, if you are lucky and there is no fumes, are the top surface shots you made from the slag. This approach you used has given me new ideas for direct validation. Thank you! BTW, I've observed similar pulsations during decarburization processes (even with supersonic gas injection, after filtering out the injection pulsations). My observations lead me to a similar conclusion: - Your video seems to show the thermite forming a flow of particles, gas bubbles and liquid film, resulting in a granular multiphase flow with bubbles. These bubbles likely arise from the rapid oxidation of impurities like carbon in the steel, forming CO and CO2. While air pockets in the thermite join them later. The exhaust behavior suggests that heat and mass transfer can't keep up with the reaction rate. (In fact we know that reactions happens that fast that we can assume they happen immediately.) So first we see reaction happens and then step by step we see the gas expansion and elevation, and liquid film penetration. - My hypothesis is that a liquid film forms in the interface of molten part and granular bath, and the heat and mass transfer transfer through this film to the next layer of thermite particles causes a delay in ignition. I say this delay creates the pulsating effect we see. Since the reactions are nearly instantaneous compared to the mass transfer, we could potentially estimate the gas production using thermodynamic equilibrium calculations and then analyze the interplay of capillary, buoyancy, and viscous forces to model the pulsations. - Essentially, there are two potential sources for these pulsations: impurities in the iron oxide (leads to CO, CO2 etc. formation) and air pockets within the granular thermite. The behavior of both then could be estimated based on ideal gas theory. While interesting, I suspect these pulsations don't significantly affect the homogeneity of the final rail formation. Viscosity, inertia, and the pressure gradient likely dampen the pulsations before they reach the bottom of the crucible And of course looking forward to watch the rest of the series.
I wish this had more likes and comments to reach more people, this seems to be an accurate hypothesis that should be confirmed and to turn into common knowledge among scientists working with thermite.
How many pairs of lab glasses and gloves do you have? and do ppl fight over the good equipment. Gotta love lab life. I think the figures in your thesis (images, more than the graphs) are going to be a lot more interesting than what I recall producing.
well if you put a 200 ton burning plane made of aluminum in a steel structure yes it does, the steel beams get oxidized in a fire by jetfuel (a product of jet fuel burning is rich in NOx) a source for oxygen, aluminum melts and reacts with the oxidized steel make in situ thermite reaction..
I got to see Thermite up close when the MTA in NYC was fixing tracks. They allowed me to watch, and they even taught me a few things, while chatting with me, as they were doing their jobs fixing MTA tracks. I thought it was one of the best days of my life. I learned something and got to see things I have never seen up close and personal. It was awesome.
I was going to suggest that too! Would've made a great ad for them. "Oh look, it's on fire and still recording!" Totally see Red Bull incorporating this into a stunt!
I don't think they would need that kind of advertising anymore, though 😂 GoPros have been shown enduring so much punishment that Goku vs Freeza was filmed with a GoPro.
They have a relatively tough case, but they're actually not that durable to shock and vibration. I've had a few GoPros start glitching out and I suspect it's from road vibration. Also, the mounts (and the part of the case that attaches to the mount) are really not that strong. If the mount breaks, and your camera gets lost, it doesn't even matter how tough the camera was... :-/
This was pretty 😍 cool to watch. I was fortunate enough to work on the railway where thermite was used in the process of connecting two railway tracks together, that process was used quite often for CP and CN railway companies. It is quite the process to watching them join two tracks together and it has to be absolutely perfect or the track will break and cause a train derailment. The temperature has to be controlled just right and the tracks have to be heated up first to the right temperature before they ignite the thermite it is awesome to watch the process.
What a banger business presentation, to light it on the conference table and then say 'We have such expertise/confidence that we can do this, so why dont you hire us for your business situation too'.
The boundary of the ignition region reminds me of a Mandelbrot set. At least it would be interesting to see if it could be calculated approximately like fractals.
It’s genuinely incredible how you’re able to put out videos so often that are so high quality and often involve going places and talking to various people in a field. The turnaround is crazy
@@AxelHoeschenSuch an amazing spirit you've got and shown in the video! I've got my Diplom for Maschinenbauingenieur at TU Kaiserslautern in Material Science and Compound Materials. We did a lot of fun stuff back than since some parts of university buildings were only 40% state-funded and 60% funded by their own research. I was lucky to be able to invent a "Oberflächenspannungs-Abalysegerät für Festkörper" over the course of 2.5 years and kept the cost per unit at 190€. I remember the daily "chaos" that happened when working with new and old materials that suddenly show new properties. One did move a big laser by a few centimeters and people didn't notice at first that the ray was no longer reflected by mirrors but the mirrors shifted and the laser did indeed melt part of a concrete wall. Got to love material science and, in my case, damage analysis. Thanks for being the best host one could think of! You showed so much professionalism but I'm most proud with the simple answer "I don't know." No trying to look smart about something you haven't encountered. Much love from Rhineland-Palatinate
I looked up the melting points of iron oxides, and they're all below 2000 °C - and Al melts at 660.2 °C. Is it possible to melt a thermite mixture without it igniting yet? And how fast would that react when it gets ignited?
@wilfriedklaebe I think the video should answer your questions if you haven't watched it fully yet. Thermite, though it burns VERY hot, the compounds of which it is made do actually melt long before the point at which they are ignited, as well as the temperature at which it burns. That is why when the thermite burns, it becomes a pool of lava. Hope that helps!
At 18:45 what's crazy is that even after destroying a laptop with termite, the information is still out there in the cloud of smoke and magnetic radiation. Theoretically it's possible to reassemble it by reversing the reaction. Of course it's impossible with today's technology.
Derek I just wanted to say that your entire video production process is noticeably getting even better, between how you tell the story, and even down to the minutiae thumbnails and how you integrate ads and end videos--it was always great before, but I wanted to affirm that I love seeing you and your team always striving to improve to push the frontier of what RUclips videos can really be. We can really notice the effort!
11:00 the Ferric oxide (Fe2O3) decomposition temperature it's around 1500°C, where it gives oxigen as a product: 6 Fe2O3 --> 4 Fe3O4 + O2 Maybe oxygen is being generated in those pulses where the ferric oxide is being heated to 2000°C. And at those temperatures also the magnetite can themally decompose to ferrous oxide: 2 Fe3O4 --> 6 FeO + O2 Below 600°C the ferrous oxide it's termodinamically unstable, but at high enought temperature can be formed.
I work on cellular construction sites and we use this process to weld tinned solid copper leads to galvanized pipes to have a way assuring proper grounding paths. This is very cool to have a better understanding of a material I’ve been using for the last 10+ years.
As a German it always excites me to learn more about the nice things we brought the world. We actually have so many historical figures that had huge inventions and ideas, but sadly I never learned anything about that in school. Not even Einstein. To be clear: Im not complaining, I think it's more important to learn about the second world war and I pretty sure most Germans nowadays see it as their duty to remember what happend and do whatever possible to prevent something like this to ever happen again because we are so well educated about it. But still I find it kind of sad that I learned nothing about them in my history classes in school. Most of the information actually came from RUclips and my Chemistry lectures in University.
The scars will never go away, but slowly over time they fade. An important reminder of past mistakes, but also a demonstration in how much you have grown. Germany has had a long history of great contributions to the world, both good and bad. I hope here in the US we can at some point achieve the same valuable hindsight and apply it to the future.
My favorite German to this day is Heinrich Barkhausen, for discovering the mathematical criteria for oscillation in circuits. Might as well be magic. Of course, he signed his loyalties to the Party, but I like to believe he was under duress
As an American, I feel bad to hear that so much of your education was spent "ragging on your own country" for lack of a better way to say it. Unfortunately, I also know how that feels... It is always good to learn from the past, but many times, I get the feeling that is not the motivation for education about negative experiences. German engineering is awesome, btw. 🙂
There is a reason all these great achievements take a side note: Germany before the World Wars arguably was the most developed country of it's time. But yet, after two world wars most of it was gone. We can ignite and develop this ingenuity back all we want - if we don't learn the right lessons caused the world wars, history will be doomed to repeat itself.
I was expecting to skip most of the parts but it was actually one shot watch and a few rewind backs for me. Very good documented, I like the information packed in your visual shows! Thanks!
When he asked the guy why it was pulsing and the guy said he didn't know. So much respect for that. It's always ok to admit the limits to our knowledge. When we make up answers it robs us of the opportunity to find out in the future
VERY few YT vids are able to keep me watching to the end (much less when they try to lure me to keep watching!) - but this one kept me hooked! Nicely done.
We used to use special kits for welding "00" copper cable to grounding stakes for computer installations. One kit was missing the igniter packet. Propane, MAPP, Smokeless gunpowder-nothing worked until we came up with a single sparkler that had been recovered and left in the trunk of a patrol car. That did it.
The fact the Veritasium team has uploaded every week for the past 2 months while also INCREASING the video quality proves how internet media has FAR surpassed television media. This is better than anything on cable, and comes out just as frequently. Good work Derek and team!
Feels bad how television quality drops. I remember Discovery with all of it interesting series, hw Mithbusters came to be. I have no idea how or why was ditching these shows a good idea for Discovery!
I interned with a railroad company, and the highlight of my time there was any of the times a thermite weld was needed - we'd always drive out to the site to watch them ignite it. Can't wait for that video!
I first saw Derek on “Chasing The Dragon” about nuclear energy and thought he was an amazing educator and actor, besides his PhD Physics credentials. Over the years I’ve always enjoyed his RUclips videos and this one was right up there with his best. I would pay for a RUclips just for his content. Clear, fascinating, funny, enjoyable, engaging and on and on. Thanks Derek, you really add something for all of us. I particularly liked his video on how electromagnetic energy radiates when he tested how fast a light bulb energizes when discussing the speed of light. It must’ve generated a hundred videos with differing opinions, some of which were fascinating in their own right.
As an electrician, I use thermite welding sometimes to bond copper grounding electrodes to steel structures for lighting protection and other grounding applications, especially where bare copper wire will be buried and subject to oxidation that could cause a mechanical connection to fail electrically.
@@tylermiller8142 What superalloys have you worked on, and what kind of tool did you use? I’m close to the end of my vocational training as a machinist, and interested. 😊
It's quite sad that my metallurgy class was theory-only, but one of my other chemistry classes that did have practical experiments included this one... minus the hole. Crucibles just broke and we rescued the iron mass that had pooled on the bottom.
If you like, you can get one of those Thermit kits we use for the experiment in the meeting room. Just reach out to us and mention the video! We support educators worldwide
A great video. Kudos to the chap who runs the factory. He was informative and had a sense of humour - are for a German but valued immensely when it appears. I shall definitely watch more of your video.
To test your hypothesis about air pockets causing pulsing, perform rxn under vacuum conditions to remove air to see if there is a significant decrease in pulsing. The other possibility is that it has to do with material heterogeneity, repeat rxn with slightly more blocky components to see if there is a change in pulsing.
To create a vacuum, you need a closed container. The second in which the reaction starts, it releases a tremendous amount of hot gasses. So the vacuum would be gone instantly, and your closed container would become a bomb that spreads molten steal. Nice.
There's a RUclipsr called Hyce who films steam locomotives. He has a habit of making GoPros more thermally resistant by putting them in a jar of water.
I actually got the rare opportunity to make thermite in my chemistry 12 class. My teacher was a family friend and she made an exception for my group. We made it in her backyard in a massive clay flowerpot. I’ll never forget it 😂
Thermite is a version of an HTA or High Temperature Accelerant. As a fire expert we worked with several mixtures. The subject HTA fires we worked on had no physical evidence remaining and some experts called "Junk Science". However, the timeline of the fires and the amount of destruction in a building with no fuel told a concerning story. Our team developed several mixtures and where able to mock up test burns to demonstrate. Thermite leaves a solid residue that is detectible after the fire. A well tuned HTA mixture does not.
I think no one's getting any data off the hard drive because by the end there _was no hard drive_ to speak of. Some of the remaining blob was at best only vaguely still shaped like a laptop. It doesn't get more deleted than that, short of vaporising if to its constituent atoms
@@uxtbI yesn't. you can still read bits of a broken up hard drive you will need to read basically bit by bit by hand, but for high security applications, that can be a concern. That's what you are preventing by melting it down.
Wow this is one of the best videos on Veritasium. The different levels of reactions and the complete explanation on how the raction happen was mind blowing
This is the Veritasium I've been missing! Lots of experiments, tons of knowledge, but not too deep into the weeds of advanced mathematics. Looking forward to what's next in this series!
Derek watching you do this is watching the joy of a five year old with a new puppy. You’re so happy when things melt and are destroyed and you’re just excited about every moment. Keep staying in touch with your five-year-old child inside you
@@doofer13ok You know who else uses imperial measurements a lot in daily/conversational use? people in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Canada. I have seen a video where someone in the UK talked about how many liters of petrol (gasoline) they used to drive a number of miles.
Excellent video. As you were in Germany, I was home in Northern Illinois where they were rebuilding the railroad crossing for the major road through town. I happened to come by just as they were setting up a thermite weld and got to watch it. It is just cool. Thanks for the video.
32:19 Aluminum powder is ONLY safe as a settled mass. If dispersed in air, it is easily ignitable and explosive, oxide layer or not. Just for reference, an aluminum dust explosion killed Shawn Boone in 2003.
There are many materials--even those not typically considered explosive--that can become so if dispersed in air as dust. Flour silos are a huge explosive risk for precisely this reason. There was also a sugar explosion at a mill in the US state of Georgia in 2008 that killed 13 people. (Flour and sugar in particular are bad because they're both carbohydrates, so when they burn they produce a great deal of gas in the form of carbon dioxide and water vapour.)
Amazing work Derek! The cut through crucible shot was definitely worth frying a GoPro. Another way to get a good shot of something that could vaporize your camera is by using angled mirrors and a zoom lens.
1. As long as it is dry, it shouldn't do much other than melt together and get really hot 2. Thermite would make uniquely terrible rocket fuel because it doesn't exhaust hot gases. 0/10 3. I don't know enough about thermite reactions to know if it will ignite under water, but you are going to need something really hot do do it.
@@johncarlaw8633 Addition for rocket fuel suitability: Hydrogen has more specific impulse because of the lower molecular weight of the products. It's not *just* about efficiency. I wonder though if you could make a relatively simple rocket engine with a very hot thermite breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen and then igniting it. Horribly inefficient, but depending on the specific solution it might be relatively simple in construction.
Also thought of #1. #2 will not work. #3 We did while operating an aluminum furnace. The rake-out contained aluminum and rust which, if left in a heap, would gradually get hotter. White hotter. Would take a lump of it and drop it in Basset Creek. So hot it would float on the steam cushion then descend with recurring thumps and flames on top of the water.
At minute 16:46 you see a thermite grenade. These weren't used after the Cold War to destroy old weapons, they were used in action during WWII to destroy enemy equipment such as tanks and artillery. An infantryman that managed to get close enough could lay one on the air vents of a tank and kill everyone inside.
As a railway engineer, this has been very informative. I know how thermit welding works but I love the research behind this and the experiments done here. Makes me a better engineer
Thank you for this presentation. I hope you show thermite welding of the rebar used in concrete reinforcement. That's been my experience with thermite. It was a very soothing sensation for my pyromania to be paid to get such a thrill. I'll be looking forward to this series.
I love how much Veritasium we've been getting lately, especially the increased frequency. And it's not like he is posting shorter videos more often. We've gotten more than 70 minutes of Veritasium in less than a week. I can honestly say I've never seen a new Veritasium video, seen its length, and decided it was too long to watch. I may have decided to watch it later, but if so, I made sure to do that. Presumably, the rest of the videos in the thermite series have already been shot. Hopefully, that means he will release the others at least weekly. It's not even Christmas!!!
4:57, the over-exposed camera sensor is epic! The sensor is just overwhelmed by the IR radiation, which the filter cannot handle! EPIC! Continued watching.. Derek saw it too.
Use code veritasium at incogni.com/veritasium to get an exclusive 60% off an annual Incogni plan.
か
i’ll not😂
1st view Please Pin ❤
Make a video on URANIUM or any radioactive material
Cap@@adityaraj_901
It is so cool that the company showed you - idk how much - twelve? different reactions. Indoors, outdoors, in a veritasium logo, slow, fast, higher and lower temperature... A big thank you to this company!
You're welcome :)
@@AxelHoeschen nochmal auf deutsch: Richtig cool, vielen Dank dafür! :-)
@@AxelHoeschen Cheers from Slovenia.
Loved your colaboration with Veritasium!
@@AxelHoeschen Can you tell us how tall are you? 😁
Although, I did have to wonder about conducting thermite reactions in a room with cardboard boxes on wooden pallets . . . 😀
"Why is it pulsing?
I don't know...We try to understand."
That's the scientific spirit perfectly encapsulated right there.
id love to see veritasium try to do science live for us while their already filming it , can they control those pulse by passing gases trough the reaction ?
"I don't know" bro is as mesmerized as everyone else
Of I reacted to a bunch of termites, my heart would also be pulsating…
I noticed that too. And i had the exact same thought. Why and how?
Religious people already have an answer to that: God made it do that.
Data removal levels:
1. Delete my data.
2. Delete my recycle bin.
3. Break hard drive.
4. It can't be data if it's liquid.
Format the hard drive
You still have the data inside your brain. There is only one way to remove it. Agent Smith, it is time for you to go. You did well. Goodbye.
5. it can't be data if we set the material of the harddrive on fire (see Chlorine Trifluoride, it sets things that would not think of as capable of burning on fire).
yet FBI can trace data from every drive condition
@@someone4229 no it can still be recoverd
I did my undergrad and am currently doing my grad degree in metallurgical engineering and I gotta say, this video is hands down one of the best practical demonstrations of high temperature metallothermic reduction I've seen. Its awesome.
Somewhat unrelated question. Given your area of study has there been much research into the physics behind so-called 'vacuum welding'? I know in airless environments some metals will spontaneously bond with no oxide coating to seperate them. I was wondering specifically if there'd been much of a look as to vacuum alloying as well. Maybe even polyelemental vacuum welding experiments? Seems like an interesting area of study with some high potential to make some potential revolutionary discoveries. Or at the very least give us some insight into better constructing in moon enviroments.
I have no idea what you just said but it sounds like something fascinating I should look up.
nice dp
"Remember kids, the only difference between screwing around and science... is writing it down." - Adam Savage
I prefer the former. I used to get up to some fun stuff as a kid, but I never felt that I had to write it down. It was fun in and of itself 😉
@@Sniperboy5551 You need to write it down in order to be able to replicate and understand it
Sparkers contain barium nitrate, not barium hydroxide.
@@LuisSierra42 More like you need to write it down so you can either deduct it from your taxes or get paid 🤣
Jokes aside you're absolutely right, it's a critical part of the scientific method.
True hahahaha
Them pretending to not know the outcome of the blowtorch experiment and making Derek put on safety equipment to freak him out is peak German humor. It was obviously made for drama and Derek played into it, but their deadpan delivery seemed to genuinely unnerve him hahaha
Seems a lot of this video's narrative is less than transparent. Grain burning and the "surging" reaction front is not a new thing. That chunky grain size was definitely a narrative choice. Veritasium's script seems always to be written to vaguely imply this is new research or discovery or unknown mystery. The only thing new is public footage of close thermite reactions--which is cool and awesome, but nothing else if new or genuine.
There is a small risk of ignition from a blow torch. It's not so much a risk the thermite will ignite. It's a risk there could be a particle of something else in the mix that isn't supposed to be there. If a small piece of say magnesium found its way into the mix the magnesium might ignite and then ignite the thermite
@@Psi105 it's a German company doing essentially a massive international promotional piece for their products and capabilities. No way in hell did they just use their run off the mill product. I guarantee you they took every measure to ensure that no piece of magnesium was in earshot of that bucket. If there was any chance at all they wouldn't have filled an entire bucket and let this many people stand near it. Industry safety is legit insane in Germany. My dad leads a small department in the chem industry here and they don't take any chances, ever.
@@Mezuzah87 I don't feel like he's ever presented anything as though the information, in his video, is newly discovered. Instead, I feel like he's trying to present it in a new way, each time - which he does succeed at.
@@BruceNJeffAreMyFlies fair assessment, whats more it draws the common people into science/knowledge/curiosity to learn more about our world and less about Kardashians
"Why is there pulsing?"
"I don't know."
I already trust this guy immensely. To state that you just don't know something, and not try to justify or speculate or excuse it shows intelligence.
even if he tried to speculate something that would just be him trying to understand it or trying to have a conversation on what could be causing it, that's how science advances
He probable saw it for the first time too.
@@void_serenadeOften times someone’s speculation weirdly becomes a conclusion to someone else which hinders progress.
His "Theory 2" is the reason.
I came to the comments for exactly this conversation. That I don’t know, and the excitement on his voice, it is at the center of the driving force behind science. I loved it.
I'm amazed at how open and eager Goldschmidt was to do these demonstrations, and help you film them. Major props to them.
That is such a cool, respectable answer. "I dont know. We try to understand"
an honest admission of not knowing something, and a desire to try and learn about it. Very cool.
"Remember, the only difference between science and goofing around is writing it down" -Adam Savage
Respect to him! Most of the time "scientists" start off with the usual long drawn-out bs saying, "Billions of years ago..." 🙄
Yep! And it shows why they were so open to doing the experiment !
Like it can’t be anything but good R&D for them if they’ve never seen the reaction like this live
very well said!
@@MAGGOT_VOMIT I read that in Neil DeGrasse Tyson's voice...
29:45 "I'm 95% sure he cannot ignite it" Ah good old german humor
I bet it was a mixture of humor and honesty. As in "We've never tried with a lighter. So on the off chance that something totally unexpected is going on there I better say 95%".
29:30 "Maybe you can help me ignite it?" - No, I have wife and kids!
That guy probably was from QA. Remember, whenever humans create something fool proof, god just creates a better fool.
"At least it'll be on camera"... Hahaha! Love those guys!
"We were hoping for a youtuber coming here to test this for us"
Great video but special shout to the moment he says 'I don't know' to your question. True man of character in teaching, doesn't try to fake knowing it all and by admitting something he didn't know it gives more credibility to everything else he says. Thanks for the work.
@@hypercynicHow come?
@@megumiii9893Ignore him, his account name sums up his reply perfectly.
The answer should be anywhere on the bible... hahahaha.
@@hypercynic Accurate username is accurate
@@Noksus Or: Username checks out. ;)
I grew up around railroad people and more than once I had an opportunity to watch a section gang make welds in the rails. They had a thing they called a shoe that clamped around the rails at the joint location. It was filled with thermite and ignited by a man sticking a fuzee (flare) into it. Spectacular! My grandfather took me to the former site of the Chicago worlds fair and showed me the stumps of the girders which held one of the attractions which were cut off with thermite when the fair was dismantled. Those experiences when I was a boy, and many others let me to pursue a lifelong career as an engineer. Thanks for producing such amazing content.
when you said “first in a series” and the video was 35 minutes long I got very excited
I thought it's too stretched out if you need multiple videos about such a simple product.
@@vioco Maybe it's not that simple
@norlore5216 Who wouldn't!?!? I can't wait...like literally please release the next one as soon as possible🤣
10:00 I've seen that before, as Russia advances in the Donbas
@@LuisSierra42the inventor himself said it is such a simple process
I love how Derek get's increasingly confident in lighting thermite over the course of the video.
I have a character arc 😂. The first lighting was the one in the conference room. Second was CuO. Eventually I lit two at a time for the tap time test.
@@veritasium dual wielding.. Just like Caleb in blood.
@@JackWse Dual welding, maybe?
@@ideallyyours DOTA geeks assemble 🎉
@@ideallyyours haha
"At least there will be footage of how it happened." had me in stitches 😂
"Wouldn't you want the end of your channel be a big bang?"
The next best thing to success is well-documented failure.
Honestly made me laugh out loud haha
Germans! 😄
Low key the funniest thing ever said on this channel
Sir…. Where do I start….. 32 mins Herr Goldschmidt looking at a tub of glowing thermite like a Boy Scout checking his breakfast sausage, gas burning a tub of thermite, after discussing a warehouse full of the stuff…. Insurance people are never buying that’s safe…. Smokeless desktop lab tests,……. It’s goes on. As a semi pro photographer and an engineer, I fully got what you were capturing… it did look hard and yes you have blown highlights. I hope you and Herr Goldschmidt are best mates now, this is by far the best video I’ve EVER seen on RUclips . THANK YOU
I work as a railroad welder and have ignited more of these buckets than I can count!
I learned a great deal more about the properties and safety of thermite thanks to you and Dr. Axel. It was also extremely neat to see inside the bucket as the reaction takes place :D
I work for the German railway (Deutsche Bahn) and see thermite welding almost every day. this video should be shown to every worker during education!
I assume they use the slow burning thermite at Deutsche Bahn.
@@argfasdfgadfgasdfgsdfgsdfg6351 they do the reaction one molecule at a time. For safety reasons ofcause.
@@argfasdfgadfgasdfgsdfgsdfg6351 Sometimes it doesn't ignite at all!
Should be in every Chemistry class (obviously performed by a teacher)
Das kriegt man doch schon in der achten Klasse gezeigt... Wir haben das bei uns in der Klasse sogar selbst gemacht
I am German and this reminds me of "Sendung mit der Maus". A childrens program where we learn those processes and other miscellaneous factory processes. Inbetween cartoons. Its kinda weird. We are kinda weird. Kudos to Veritasium. Top notch content.
That's why all over world its said it's German! (For quality). I wish I was a German scientist back then.
At least they're learning here in the US they're being taught how to twerk.
Im not German, but ive watched der Maus several times now bcuz its just interestin and probs a better way to immerse myself in the language after all than smth like duolingo
Its just rly fascinatin to see the things explained in that show :3
Ich lerne deutsch taglich :)
i bin ebene a2-b1
ich habe meine pruefung im 2 monaten
i hoffe dich, ein gute zukunft ^_^
@@0ptic0p22 viel glück
as a PhD in chemical (+physical) metallurgy on this specific matter, I am over clouds that u mention this amazing reaction.we showed that you can synthesize advanced alloys (or ceramics) by using specific type of thermite reaction known as SHS with almost 0 energy (you just need minisclue ignition energy).
Watching a 35 min veritasium video on thermite before going out on a saturday night... Living my best life right now
Really important safety fact for people doing this at home, one that almost cost me an eye: Thermite CAN ignite with a blowtorch if it's in small enough quantities (think spoonful or so) and if it's FINELY POWDERED aluminum and iron oxide. It takes a while to ignite with a blowtorch so the whole pile heats up to ~1000 °C. Under those conditions, the reaction happens violently, like flash powder, and sprays molten slag and metal blobs everywhere at high speed. Only though luck or the grace of God was I not seriously injured when I found that out, since I was within arms reach holding the blowtorch. Always take precautions and wear eye protection and other protective gear when working with energetic materials!
My chemistry teacher did such an experiment outside on the parking lot. He told me a previous demonstration had been a fail so he used finer ground aluminum and oxide this time and an increased amount of some igniting agent to get it running.
I warned him that in combination would be too much and the reaction could be violent. He dismissed it, but I hid behind a car and most of my classmates grudgingly did the same. The flower pot exploded, but the shards did not go far - they were bonded by the slag that formed with one centimeter wide cracks in between. Iron droplets rained down on the cars on the parking lot, but as they were small and lost most of their heat during their flight they did not seem to have done much harm.
Nobody was seriously hurt - but the school never did a thermite experiment again.
too many people who dont clean thier garages while repairing things like old motorcycles (renovations etc) after fine sanding aluminium to a shine, and removing rust, suddenly realise they need to weld and whoosh all the nooks and crannies go up in flames because they pointed the welder at a corner holding a buildup of both fine rust particles and fine aluminium particles
Try adding a magnesium strip for a faster reaction
the forbidden jizz XDDDD
An important key to the ignition temperature is the particle size, that is correct. As discussed in the video we control the particle size meticulously to make sure the ignition temperature stays safely above 1000°C, so the experiment was a lot safer than we made it seem. But what is true, is that precautions and safety gear is always advised when dealing with Thermit. Don't try this with home made Thermit out of rust and aluminum foil!
7:55 Best GoPro ad I've seen so far.
I was utterly shocked when they cut to its footage after that. Nokia must've become GoPro?
Gopros overheat on their own
@@DaStuntChannel ya, they overheat. They get too hot to operate... It withstood being next to a fking thermite reaction and still operated during and afterwards m8 I'd say that's impressive engineering.
@@raidtheferry Yeah, but it still filmed the required footage WHILE ITS FACE WAS ON FIRE xD
@@modisp ya not even kidding. I don't think @DaStuntChannel really understands how a logarithmic scaled relationship works. Being that close to that thermite reaction would melt ur ass
I have alot of respect for a professional in a field that isn't afraid to say "I don't know" on camera for a channel with over 16mill subscribers.
I love that they use mill scale to make thermite. It's a nice way to reprocess what would normally be waste
The steel mills can make money off iron lost in the process they do every day. Sounds like a winner.
With all I'm hearing about German de-industrialisation, I wonder how much longer the company can stay in business, at least at this scale.
Same goes for CNC milling operations, we cut the block to get the desired shape, and the shavings are recycled for other purposes. Don't really know what for, I'm just a student.
@@billedifier8584Germany is an EU country. It can import mill scale from all over the EU without paying tarifs.
Most people have no idea just how common this is in large-scale industry. Getting rid of waste costs money, buying resources costs money. If someone has waste that can be a resource for you, you can buy it from them at a lower price, because even if they only get a little bit of money for it, that's still much better than having to pay to get rid of it. No one, least of all large companies, want waste products - because everything you waste is lost profit.
This video has such a nostalgic Myth Busters vibe and I love it
Didn't mythbusters say that thermite can't be used to make explosives or cut through steel? 😅
Yeah, it's that "joy of discovery" vibe.
Whoa never thought history dose channel would comment here
@@joesaiditstrue It can be used for the latter. There are better options tho.
@@joesaiditstrue Yup, and so did National Geographic ... 🤣🤣🤣
In my high school AP Chemistry class my teacher had two orange sized rusty steel balls, we'd cover one of them with aluminum foil and then smack them together (wearing proper hand, eye, and ear protection of course) to initiate a tiny thermite reaction with a loud bang and a spark. It was part of a lesson to demonstrate the requirements for chemical reactions, namely activation energy and orientation, results would differ slightly based on how rusty the spot of contact was, or how hard or fast the collision was, or even between direct and glancing blows. Eventually we also did a larger experiment outdoors using Magnesium ribbon to ignite the powder mixture, I still vividly remember how bright the Magnesium was! I absolutely love that videos like this can share scientific knowledge to a vast audience in such an entertaining way. Thanks!
Thank you Pat,
good ol rusty balls
Magnesium Ribbon, and its white flame.... We did it in 10th, it was nice
Thermite on the other hand, was only done theoritically....
@@welporajackwelp4899 even though I am...
wasn't there a Vsauce video explaining it?
Thank you for the presentation. I learned a lot. As an industrial electrician, we used a process like this to bond 4/0 copper wire, ground rods, and sometimes I-beams for grounding made by Cadweld. Fun stuff. As long as it wasn't an enclosed building, this worked great. I think they went to mechanical hydraulic clamping now. They usually supplied a striker to ignite but I found it better to use a propane or Mapp torch for sweating pipes. It took a secondary thermal reactive powder that was provided to ignite the thermite. When the crucibles started wearing out, a good smattering of Duct Seal putty was the answer. Likely what the gray stuff they were lining the glass with.
Veritasium, 3Blue1Brown, Real Engineering, all just woke up 😂
yeah lol
Guess I’ll be watching RUclips this afternoon!
It's a scheduled upload, youtube likes to suggest creators when the most optimum time to upload a video is based on all the timezones around the world, or based on the creator's own research.
@@The-NSAafternoon! It's almost midnight at my place😴😴... Guess I'll watch only 5 mins now.
Just came from watching 3blue1brown video
An obvious thanks to the whole Vertasium crew as always for making science FUN! But man, a huge shoutout and thank you to the company as well. What a good group of guys, providing excellent humour, hospitality, resources, and education. Great video, and can't wait for the rest!
I've made a lot of thermite and even so learned a ton from this video. Nicely done!
Your starlite would have saved that poor laptop.
I was looking for a comment from you and/or Cody's Lab, found yours, still cant find Cody's 😅
I love that you changed the title to be less clickbaity. Very cool, Verytasium!!!
Always nice to avoid the algo-worshipping clickbaits. I don't know how representative I am of less unsmart people, but I personally avoid clickbait titles and thumbnails with loathing. That includes non-recommending entire channels that seem too unserious, clicking 'not interested' on every baity unknown video, and avoiding and possibly unsubing known channels that are turning to algo-worship. I can't stand marketing BS creators with no self-respect.
I'm probably among the fewer, but there is something to think about in the risk of driving away the high quality community and then ending up having to adapt the content, and thus one's life, to the remaining 'average and below' crowd. 🤔
Brilliant video, Derek! I’m currently working on my PhD project, focusing on a step before this process where you undesirably form the oxides. In the thermite reaction, you use Al as a reducing agent for Fe or Cr oxides in stainless steel. I’m modeling the fluid dynamics of a process where Cr and Fe act as reducing agents for Carbon oxides, interrupting the decarburization of stainless steel, which I’m trying to prevent. (If you are interested search AOD or BOF for stainless steel)
I was amazed by the team’s ability to show the inside of a crucible through a vertical cross-section. It’s an impressive feat, and I haven’t seen similar efforts in melting, remelting, or decarburizing before. The best/traditional shot you get, if you are lucky and there is no fumes, are the top surface shots you made from the slag. This approach you used has given me new ideas for direct validation. Thank you!
BTW, I've observed similar pulsations during decarburization processes (even with supersonic gas injection, after filtering out the injection pulsations). My observations lead me to a similar conclusion:
- Your video seems to show the thermite forming a flow of particles, gas bubbles and liquid film, resulting in a granular multiphase flow with bubbles. These bubbles likely arise from the rapid oxidation of impurities like carbon in the steel, forming CO and CO2. While air pockets in the thermite join them later. The exhaust behavior suggests that heat and mass transfer can't keep up with the reaction rate. (In fact we know that reactions happens that fast that we can assume they happen immediately.) So first we see reaction happens and then step by step we see the gas expansion and elevation, and liquid film penetration.
- My hypothesis is that a liquid film forms in the interface of molten part and granular bath, and the heat and mass transfer transfer through this film to the next layer of thermite particles causes a delay in ignition. I say this delay creates the pulsating effect we see. Since the reactions are nearly instantaneous compared to the mass transfer, we could potentially estimate the gas production using thermodynamic equilibrium calculations and then analyze the interplay of capillary, buoyancy, and viscous forces to model the pulsations.
- Essentially, there are two potential sources for these pulsations: impurities in the iron oxide (leads to CO, CO2 etc. formation) and air pockets within the granular thermite. The behavior of both then could be estimated based on ideal gas theory.
While interesting, I suspect these pulsations don't significantly affect the homogeneity of the final rail formation. Viscosity, inertia, and the pressure gradient likely dampen the pulsations before they reach the bottom of the crucible
And of course looking forward to watch the rest of the series.
I recognized some of these words
I wish this had more likes and comments to reach more people, this seems to be an accurate hypothesis that should be confirmed and to turn into common knowledge among scientists working with thermite.
How many pairs of lab glasses and gloves do you have? and do ppl fight over the good equipment. Gotta love lab life.
I think the figures in your thesis (images, more than the graphs) are going to be a lot more interesting than what I recall producing.
i think the delay is due to Aluminium oxide layer that requires to melt down before the reaction to kick in, I'm no scientist though...
Most informative comment of them all. ❤
2 Veritasium vids in a week is awesome
fr
I’m saying, he’s hitting his prime fr
@@boneless9311 who summon me
REAL
unheard of 😮😮
When he simply answered "I don't know" he earned my respect.
Same thing used to sever all of the support columns to bring down #1, #2, and #7
well if you put a 200 ton burning plane made of aluminum in a steel structure yes it does, the steel beams get oxidized in a fire by jetfuel (a product of jet fuel burning is rich in NOx) a source for oxygen, aluminum melts and reacts with the oxidized steel make in situ thermite reaction..
@@leonb881
@@leonb881 Jet fuel = kerosene
@@leonb881 der doy duh, which way did he go, which way did he go?
@@leonb881no, but even if that did explain it why did building 7 fall despite not being hit by any planes?
I got to see Thermite up close when the MTA in NYC was fixing tracks. They allowed me to watch, and they even taught me a few things, while chatting with me,
as they were doing their jobs fixing MTA tracks. I thought it was one of the best days of my life. I learned something and got to see things I have never seen up close and personal.
It was awesome.
Honestly, this should have been sponsored by GoPro, because this was a great demonstration of that camera's durability.
I was going to suggest that too! Would've made a great ad for them. "Oh look, it's on fire and still recording!" Totally see Red Bull incorporating this into a stunt!
I don't think they would need that kind of advertising anymore, though 😂 GoPros have been shown enduring so much punishment that Goku vs Freeza was filmed with a GoPro.
I don't want a camera that can't handle 2700 °C.
They have a relatively tough case, but they're actually not that durable to shock and vibration. I've had a few GoPros start glitching out and I suspect it's from road vibration. Also, the mounts (and the part of the case that attaches to the mount) are really not that strong. If the mount breaks, and your camera gets lost, it doesn't even matter how tough the camera was... :-/
GoPros: They record while actively being on fire, yet overheat when you record for more than 30 min on a hot day
This was probably the most fun those guys have had in a while, they obviously love their job working with thermite
This was pretty 😍 cool to watch. I was fortunate enough to work on the railway where thermite was used in the process of connecting two railway tracks together, that process was used quite often for CP and CN railway companies. It is quite the process to watching them join two tracks together and it has to be absolutely perfect or the track will break and cause a train derailment. The temperature has to be controlled just right and the tracks have to be heated up first to the right temperature before they ignite the thermite it is awesome to watch the process.
30:20 I'm a firefighter, always put the gloves on the outside of your jacket when you don't want fire inside your jacket :D
Equally funny that he’s wearing fire protection gear and the camera man right next to him is in jeans shorts 😅
Death of Derek 31:00
@@GJgators24 rip
It's worst, fire could get inside your glove.... best is long glove under with suit on top that got band in the wrist to keep it more seeled.
@@henny01 that makes more sense
What a banger business presentation, to light it on the conference table and then say 'We have such expertise/confidence that we can do this, so why dont you hire us for your business situation too'.
“We sell fruit, sir”
@@thepepchannel7940 Sir, this is a Wendys restaurant
@@thepepchannel7940haha😂
That's Germany for you.
8:45 "I don't know, we try to understand"
I love this. the pursuit of knowledge at its finest
Typical German bluntness. :)
The boundary of the ignition region reminds me of a Mandelbrot set.
At least it would be interesting to see if it could be calculated approximately like fractals.
It’s genuinely incredible how you’re able to put out videos so often that are so high quality and often involve going places and talking to various people in a field. The turnaround is crazy
What amazing hosts, you can tell they were having so much fun with this as well!
Ah.. it was just another Tuesday 😆
@@AxelHoeschenSuch an amazing spirit you've got and shown in the video!
I've got my Diplom for Maschinenbauingenieur at TU Kaiserslautern in Material Science and Compound Materials. We did a lot of fun stuff back than since some parts of university buildings were only 40% state-funded and 60% funded by their own research. I was lucky to be able to invent a "Oberflächenspannungs-Abalysegerät für Festkörper" over the course of 2.5 years and kept the cost per unit at 190€.
I remember the daily "chaos" that happened when working with new and old materials that suddenly show new properties.
One did move a big laser by a few centimeters and people didn't notice at first that the ray was no longer reflected by mirrors but the mirrors shifted and the laser did indeed melt part of a concrete wall.
Got to love material science and, in my case, damage analysis.
Thanks for being the best host one could think of! You showed so much professionalism but I'm most proud with the simple answer "I don't know."
No trying to look smart about something you haven't encountered.
Much love from Rhineland-Palatinate
32:00 "Did it melt!?!?"
"Yeah, that can happen."
😂😂😂😂
Average German humor
You dumbasses, of COURSE the GoPro was too close...I'm glad you didn't ignite the thermite a second time...🙄
I looked up the melting points of iron oxides, and they're all below 2000 °C - and Al melts at 660.2 °C.
Is it possible to melt a thermite mixture without it igniting yet? And how fast would that react when it gets ignited?
@wilfriedklaebe I think the video should answer your questions if you haven't watched it fully yet. Thermite, though it burns VERY hot, the compounds of which it is made do actually melt long before the point at which they are ignited, as well as the temperature at which it burns. That is why when the thermite burns, it becomes a pool of lava. Hope that helps!
@@JRueTee Well, that was what wasn't entirely clear to me from the video.
Also it would be cool to try that on camera...
The reveal at 17:30 is genius, I love how they just knew Derek well enough to know he would want to pick it up
19:18 Are you SURE the laptop’s memory was wiped, ONLY because of the heat demagnetizing the hard drive?!😂
If you are speaking of RAM. There should be nothing on it after the power source is interrupted, as it is volatile memory (not long term storage).
Exactly hahaha
@@williampayne8876 hes talking about the whole laptop being reduced to atoms xd
@@williampayne8876 lol, no, not speaking about the ram xD
At 18:45 what's crazy is that even after destroying a laptop with termite, the information is still out there in the cloud of smoke and magnetic radiation. Theoretically it's possible to reassemble it by reversing the reaction. Of course it's impossible with today's technology.
Derek I just wanted to say that your entire video production process is noticeably getting even better, between how you tell the story, and even down to the minutiae thumbnails and how you integrate ads and end videos--it was always great before, but I wanted to affirm that I love seeing you and your team always striving to improve to push the frontier of what RUclips videos can really be. We can really notice the effort!
What a treat, Saturday evening in Sweden and Veritasium releases a video about Thermite. I feel so lucky!
Swedistan
11:00 the Ferric oxide (Fe2O3) decomposition temperature it's around 1500°C, where it gives oxigen as a product:
6 Fe2O3 --> 4 Fe3O4 + O2
Maybe oxygen is being generated in those pulses where the ferric oxide is being heated to 2000°C. And at those temperatures also the magnetite can themally decompose to ferrous oxide:
2 Fe3O4 --> 6 FeO + O2
Below 600°C the ferrous oxide it's termodinamically unstable, but at high enought temperature can be formed.
I work on cellular construction sites and we use this process to weld tinned solid copper leads to galvanized pipes to have a way assuring proper grounding paths. This is very cool to have a better understanding of a material I’ve been using for the last 10+ years.
"At least there will be footage of how it happened" love that German sense of humour, right up my ally 😂😂
As a German it always excites me to learn more about the nice things we brought the world. We actually have so many historical figures that had huge inventions and ideas, but sadly I never learned anything about that in school. Not even Einstein. To be clear: Im not complaining, I think it's more important to learn about the second world war and I pretty sure most Germans nowadays see it as their duty to remember what happend and do whatever possible to prevent something like this to ever happen again because we are so well educated about it. But still I find it kind of sad that I learned nothing about them in my history classes in school. Most of the information actually came from RUclips and my Chemistry lectures in University.
Absolute Zustimmung. Sad but true! Mir geht es oft genauso wie dir.. aber dass wird sich auch irgendwann wieder ändern. Viele Grüße
The scars will never go away, but slowly over time they fade. An important reminder of past mistakes, but also a demonstration in how much you have grown. Germany has had a long history of great contributions to the world, both good and bad. I hope here in the US we can at some point achieve the same valuable hindsight and apply it to the future.
My favorite German to this day is Heinrich Barkhausen, for discovering the mathematical criteria for oscillation in circuits. Might as well be magic. Of course, he signed his loyalties to the Party, but I like to believe he was under duress
As an American, I feel bad to hear that so much of your education was spent "ragging on your own country" for lack of a better way to say it. Unfortunately, I also know how that feels... It is always good to learn from the past, but many times, I get the feeling that is not the motivation for education about negative experiences.
German engineering is awesome, btw. 🙂
There is a reason all these great achievements take a side note: Germany before the World Wars arguably was the most developed country of it's time. But yet, after two world wars most of it was gone. We can ignite and develop this ingenuity back all we want - if we don't learn the right lessons caused the world wars, history will be doomed to repeat itself.
I was expecting to skip most of the parts but it was actually one shot watch and a few rewind backs for me. Very good documented, I like the information packed in your visual shows! Thanks!
8:40 "i dont know". such a important statement to make.
Yes😅
Fair enough
It's giving : We're on the same page here sonny
13:27 "I mean, this is impressive work for a camera that's on fire" lol
Grt advert for go pro
@gopro pay this man 😂
😂😂😂
When he asked the guy why it was pulsing and the guy said he didn't know. So much respect for that. It's always ok to admit the limits to our knowledge. When we make up answers it robs us of the opportunity to find out in the future
VERY few YT vids are able to keep me watching to the end (much less when they try to lure me to keep watching!) - but this one kept me hooked! Nicely done.
We used to use special kits for welding "00" copper cable to grounding stakes for computer installations. One kit was missing the igniter packet. Propane, MAPP, Smokeless gunpowder-nothing worked until we came up with a single sparkler that had been recovered and left in the trunk of a patrol car. That did it.
Super cool
I thought the igniters they were using looked an awful lot like sparklers!! 😄
Makes me wonder if a road flare would do it
You had me at Smokeless powder.... 😮
The fact the Veritasium team has uploaded every week for the past 2 months while also INCREASING the video quality proves how internet media has FAR surpassed television media. This is better than anything on cable, and comes out just as frequently.
Good work Derek and team!
Feels bad how television quality drops. I remember Discovery with all of it interesting series, hw Mithbusters came to be. I have no idea how or why was ditching these shows a good idea for Discovery!
I interned with a railroad company, and the highlight of my time there was any of the times a thermite weld was needed - we'd always drive out to the site to watch them ignite it. Can't wait for that video!
I first saw Derek on “Chasing The Dragon” about nuclear energy and thought he was an amazing educator and actor, besides his PhD Physics credentials. Over the years I’ve always enjoyed his RUclips videos and this one was right up there with his best. I would pay for a RUclips just for his content. Clear, fascinating, funny, enjoyable, engaging and on and on. Thanks Derek, you really add something for all of us. I particularly liked his video on how electromagnetic energy radiates when he tested how fast a light bulb energizes when discussing the speed of light. It must’ve generated a hundred videos with differing opinions, some of which were fascinating in their own right.
As an electrician, I use thermite welding sometimes to bond copper grounding electrodes to steel structures for lighting protection and other grounding applications, especially where bare copper wire will be buried and subject to oxidation that could cause a mechanical connection to fail electrically.
Do you know if it's an iron-based thermite or a copper-based one?
@@BrooksMoses Copper
This is really helpful for my metallurgy class.
Metallurgy is awesome. Machining superalloys is the most frustrating but satisfying thing I’ve done
@@tylermiller8142 What superalloys have you worked on, and what kind of tool did you use?
I’m close to the end of my vocational training as a machinist, and interested. 😊
@@tylermiller8142 How about titanium?
It's quite sad that my metallurgy class was theory-only, but one of my other chemistry classes that did have practical experiments included this one... minus the hole. Crucibles just broke and we rescued the iron mass that had pooled on the bottom.
If you like, you can get one of those Thermit kits we use for the experiment in the meeting room. Just reach out to us and mention the video! We support educators worldwide
I especially like it when experts simply say "I don't know". There's still so much out there to learn. Never stop asking questions :)
What is bro yapping abt
@@ArpanDe chup be chomu
A great video. Kudos to the chap who runs the factory. He was informative and had a sense of humour - are for a German but valued immensely when it appears. I shall definitely watch more of your video.
To test your hypothesis about air pockets causing pulsing, perform rxn under vacuum conditions to remove air to see if there is a significant decrease in pulsing. The other possibility is that it has to do with material heterogeneity, repeat rxn with slightly more blocky components to see if there is a change in pulsing.
not sure it would ignite very well under vacuum
@@thomasdejongh850 I think you just need a very hot object to ignite it, the process doesn’t require air. Fire is just much more convenient
@@thomasdejongh850probably will react better without air, cause air is redundant in this reaction
@@thomasdejongh850 The oxygen is already present in the ingredients, it doesn't need air to burn.
To create a vacuum, you need a closed container. The second in which the reaction starts, it releases a tremendous amount of hot gasses. So the vacuum would be gone instantly, and your closed container would become a bomb that spreads molten steal. Nice.
There's a RUclipsr called Hyce who films steam locomotives. He has a habit of making GoPros more thermally resistant by putting them in a jar of water.
that's really smart. also, a bot copied your comment
@@neild4609: maybe you just replied to a bot... !
@@shinyhappyrem8728maybe you replied to a bot!
@@Netro1992 maybe you replied to a bot!
@@mozvi1436 maybe you replied to a bot!
I actually got the rare opportunity to make thermite in my chemistry 12 class. My teacher was a family friend and she made an exception for my group. We made it in her backyard in a massive clay flowerpot. I’ll never forget it 😂
We were allowed to mix Magnesium, KNO3 and Sulfur in my chemistry class when I was 14. Everyone still remembers the flash of light xD 📸
we did this too in chemistry class. The teacher lit it up right in the schoolyard. (when there was no break obviously) good times
this is how you get kids interested in science
the 42.0 on the Veritasium logo makes me love this channel sOOOooo much more :p
Thermite is a version of an HTA or High Temperature Accelerant. As a fire expert we worked with several mixtures. The subject HTA fires we worked on had no physical evidence remaining and some experts called "Junk Science". However, the timeline of the fires and the amount of destruction in a building with no fuel told a concerning story. Our team developed several mixtures and where able to mock up test burns to demonstrate. Thermite leaves a solid residue that is detectible after the fire. A well tuned HTA mixture does not.
Thermite: "It takes two guys and a bucket" 😂
The footage in this video is amazing!
Please no one ever film two guys and a bucket.
@@L3v3LLIP: you don't like chocolate?
Magnets loose their power when there's enough heat.
Burns Laptop
I think no one's getting any data off the hard drive because by the end there _was no hard drive_ to speak of.
Some of the remaining blob was at best only vaguely still shaped like a laptop. It doesn't get more deleted than that, short of vaporising if to its constituent atoms
@@akaHarvesteR yeah, but the thermite data erasing made no sense. Yeah you got laptop destroyed, but you could do it with a hammer twice faster
@@uxtbI yesn't. you can still read bits of a broken up hard drive you will need to read basically bit by bit by hand, but for high security applications, that can be a concern. That's what you are preventing by melting it down.
Wow this is one of the best videos on Veritasium. The different levels of reactions and the complete explanation on how the raction happen was mind blowing
This is the Veritasium I've been missing! Lots of experiments, tons of knowledge, but not too deep into the weeds of advanced mathematics. Looking forward to what's next in this series!
Derek watching you do this is watching the joy of a five year old with a new puppy. You’re so happy when things melt and are destroyed and you’re just excited about every moment. Keep staying in touch with your five-year-old child inside you
Would have been a good MYTHBUSTER.
That guy grabbing the equipment from near the thermite.. Wow. Such a professional. Everyone dealing with such things needs one of him!
WOW that is 🔥(no pun intended)
Its amazing to see these close up reactions, can't wait for the next video
14:52 "thermite was a solution looking for problems." LMFAO
Its like the old saying "circumcision is a cure looking for a disease"
It's a common saying, usually referred to lasers.
Is Derek fairly short or is this guy really tall?
Ok just googled it. Derek is around 1.75m and this dude is just an absolute unit!
He said that he is 6'7 under a other comment.
@@hanibalfischkopf6286 american
He's a portion.
@@doofer13ok No ,German, but he wrote it that way and I was to lazy to Look it Up.😉
@@doofer13ok You know who else uses imperial measurements a lot in daily/conversational use? people in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Canada.
I have seen a video where someone in the UK talked about how many liters of petrol (gasoline) they used to drive a number of miles.
"I am 95% certain it won't happen...."
"At least there will be footage if it does"
That's the spirit!
Excellent video. As you were in Germany, I was home in Northern Illinois where they were rebuilding the railroad crossing for the major road through town. I happened to come by just as they were setting up a thermite weld and got to watch it. It is just cool. Thanks for the video.
I love the moment at 4:28 . So smooth. That's someone I want in a critical situation.
Yeah you never know when you'll panic and make the worst possible choice.
32:19 Aluminum powder is ONLY safe as a settled mass. If dispersed in air, it is easily ignitable and explosive, oxide layer or not. Just for reference, an aluminum dust explosion killed Shawn Boone in 2003.
i mean, a Dust explosion can happen with many, many different Materials. You always need to be aware of this.
There are many materials--even those not typically considered explosive--that can become so if dispersed in air as dust. Flour silos are a huge explosive risk for precisely this reason. There was also a sugar explosion at a mill in the US state of Georgia in 2008 that killed 13 people.
(Flour and sugar in particular are bad because they're both carbohydrates, so when they burn they produce a great deal of gas in the form of carbon dioxide and water vapour.)
I was wondering if they could ignite the (torch) heated mixture by disturbing the mixture enough to scratch off the oxide layer.
Try powdered coffee creamer...
15:45 2 guys, 1 bucket 💀
Whatever youre into mate 🤢
Sounds good
Was looking for the comment
Amazing work Derek!
The cut through crucible shot was definitely worth frying a GoPro. Another way to get a good shot of something that could vaporize your camera is by using angled mirrors and a zoom lens.
Geil, dass diese Firma dir das ermöglicht, und dann noch in diesem riesigen Rahmen aus Versuchen. Tolle Sache!! Greetings from Germany
Gotta love the German sense of humour. It's so dry and subtle that you are always left wondering - are they kidding or aren't they?
Yeah anyone who thinks Germans are humourless is missing out
We need 3 things here:
1. Thermite in a vacuum
2. Thermite as rocket fuel
3. Thermite under water
1. As long as it is dry, it shouldn't do much other than melt together and get really hot
2. Thermite would make uniquely terrible rocket fuel because it doesn't exhaust hot gases. 0/10
3. I don't know enough about thermite reactions to know if it will ignite under water, but you are going to need something really hot do do it.
@@johncarlaw8633 Addition for rocket fuel suitability: Hydrogen has more specific impulse because of the lower molecular weight of the products. It's not *just* about efficiency.
I wonder though if you could make a relatively simple rocket engine with a very hot thermite breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen and then igniting it. Horribly inefficient, but depending on the specific solution it might be relatively simple in construction.
I also guess the thermite mixture is very heavy, so even if it would create more gas, it would probably be "overweight" for rockets
@@dan-nutu pretty sure the thrust needed is total weight / thrust created = more than 1.0
Also thought of #1. #2 will not work. #3 We did while operating an aluminum furnace. The rake-out contained aluminum and rust which, if left in a heap, would gradually get hotter. White hotter. Would take a lump of it and drop it in Basset Creek. So hot it would float on the steam cushion then descend with recurring thumps and flames on top of the water.
This is such a cool video! So engrossing from start to end with a lot of cool cinematic looking effects. Can't wait for the sequels to drop.
At minute 16:46 you see a thermite grenade. These weren't used after the Cold War to destroy old weapons, they were used in action during WWII to destroy enemy equipment such as tanks and artillery. An infantryman that managed to get close enough could lay one on the air vents of a tank and kill everyone inside.
They work for this porpous too ig
As a railway engineer, this has been very informative. I know how thermit welding works but I love the research behind this and the experiments done here. Makes me a better engineer
If you are a railroad engineer, do they ever let you drive the train ?
This channel is just incredible, man. The fact that RUclips is the home of such fantastic science documentaries is phenomenal.
Thank you for this presentation. I hope you show thermite welding of the rebar used in concrete reinforcement. That's been my experience with thermite. It was a very soothing sensation for my pyromania to be paid to get such a thrill.
I'll be looking forward to this series.
I love how much Veritasium we've been getting lately, especially the increased frequency. And it's not like he is posting shorter videos more often. We've gotten more than 70 minutes of Veritasium in less than a week. I can honestly say I've never seen a new Veritasium video, seen its length, and decided it was too long to watch. I may have decided to watch it later, but if so, I made sure to do that. Presumably, the rest of the videos in the thermite series have already been shot. Hopefully, that means he will release the others at least weekly. It's not even Christmas!!!
30:04 - "At least there will be footage of how it happened, muahahah 😈"
4:57, the over-exposed camera sensor is epic!
The sensor is just overwhelmed by the IR radiation, which the filter cannot handle!
EPIC!
Continued watching.. Derek saw it too.
Right, I actually wrote the same thing and then deleted the comment when Derek said it immediately after I had written the comment.
nah that's the cursed flame