February 1, 2020 • 30 mins
Thanks to the amazing properties of magnets, clever engineers have figured out how to make entire trains levitate above their tracks, letting them move frictionlessly and allowing them to reach incredible speeds. Learn about how maglev trains work and what's taking so long for us to get aboard in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello friends, It's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen a super cool episode
that has it all engineering, strange, physics, elon musk. What
else do you want? What more could you ask for? Also,
by the way, I'm pretty sure that the contest we
talk about in the listener mail is no longer around,
(00:23):
since it's many, many years old. At any rate, enjoy
this episode about the future of transportation. Welcome to Stuff
You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(00:45):
and there's Charles W Chuck Chuckers, Brian Yeah, and this
is Oh is that where you're going with? Sure? Yeah,
my bus right into CC writer all the style. How
would going with the Muppet Show? Oh? Yeah, it was
time we put on makeup? Yeah, what was that somebody's
(01:07):
giant stomach? Something like? What was that? It's weird? That
was crazy. That couldn't have been Jerry's stomach. There's no way,
all right, what's chuck? Yes? Uh, you remember our Magnet podcast. Yeah,
(01:28):
I've personally thought it was a great episode because we
explained how magnets work. Yeah, it was just good, tough
but good. Yeah, it was tough, but it was also
kind of um. It was one of those ones where
you're like, oh, okay, that explains pretty much everything about magnets,
the thing that I've used before in my life, and
(01:48):
I just kind of took for granted some people think
that they're magic, but we kind of said, this is
how they work. I liked it. So, um, I liked
this EPI, this um article in theory, the one we're
about to do a show on. Yeah, yeah, about Maglev trains. Yeah,
we did a video on Maglev trains. Remember that one
(02:10):
of our one of our interstitial shorts was on mag
left trains, do we Yeah, I remember doing the quantum
levitation was that it? Are you sure? Yeah? Because that's
the only way I knew about any of this was
the fact that we had talked about it before. Well
what did we talk about, uh, maglob you know the
(02:32):
basic principle in one minute behind magnetic levitation. Well, that's
pretty much what we're gonna do here, Yeah, except slightly longer. Yeah.
So um that was my intro but intro and we
should say also, um, everyone, it is next to impossible
to get up to the minute up to the year
information about what maglev trains are in operation, what are
(02:58):
still planned, what's still going on. So it is possible
we may get that part a little incorrect, but we're
going to try our best to be as accurate as possible. Yeah,
and the reason why is because magnetic levitation to power
a train so new. Well, it's actually not that new,
because they've been doing it for a while and well
(03:18):
start it was proposed ever since Tesla started noticing what
was going on in the late nineteenth century. But it's
so new in this regard as far as super fast
speed trains powered by magnets transporting lots of people over distances,
maybe great distances. That is so new, and there's so
(03:39):
a few different technologies that it is kind of hard
to keep track on which one is in the forefront,
which ones are being funded because the stuff is expensive,
it is it's hard to get funding, especially here in
the States. Yeah, and if you go on, if you
just type mag LEVI into Google or your favorite search
engine UM or Duck duck go, if you're you know,
(04:00):
kind of watching who's watching you? Oh, is that a
like a secret? It's like an anonymous search engine okay. Um,
you will find there's projects all over the United States
and all of them are like, we're shove already, We're
ready to go. Just give us some money. And they're
not getting any money because the construction costs are so
enormous because with maglev trains you can't use existing railways.
(04:23):
It's all new. And uh, I saw one quote and
again who knows how recent this is, but fifty million
euros per mile. I can believe this is what the
German Consortium is quoting. The thing is is, once you
get it built, maintenance is not bad. Yeah, not bad
at all, because there's not a lot of wear and
tear on it. As you'll see no friction baby. Um.
(04:45):
And if you do look into maglev, you will see
that it is very much like the the transportation technology
of the future that's going on today. Um, especially after
looking into Elon Musk's um T hyper loop thing. I
heard of that. So basically Elon Musk, who is like
our good friend, uh, super rich guy, right, he basically
(05:09):
just jotted down this idea on a cocktail napkin and
all of a sudden it's like the new thing. But um,
it's a an enclosed tube system that just you put
in a little car or whatever that seats twelve people
or something comfortably and you suck all the air out
of it no resistance, so you can go really fast. Basically,
(05:31):
I think it goes about seven a little under the
speed of sound, so you can get from the west
coast to the east coast or vice versa very very fast.
The thing is, the construction costs for this or just preposterous.
But if it can come along or come down a
little more, then it will give Maglev a run for
(05:53):
its money. But if it, if Maglev can start to
really kind of get some traction and get some line going,
it will be the the movement of the future for
at least a decade or two. Yeah, I saw where
they're proposing both in the future Maglev trains that operate
inside vacuum tubes as fast as two thousand miles an
(06:16):
hour as crazy. Right now they're breaking records like three
miles an hour plus what's the fastest right now? The
So apparently this is kind of mind boggling because Maglev
as again we realize everybody, we haven't explained what Maglev
is talking here, but um, Maglev, the the great advantage
(06:37):
it has is that it's supposedly goes faster than the
normal steel wheel train. Apparently a TGV train, which is
a steel wheel train. UM in Europe, they they beat
a maglev land speed really that was held by the
Japanese Maglev of about three hundred and fifty one miles
an hour. I think it went like three sixty. Man.
(06:59):
I don't if i'd feel safe. Yeah, I can imagine.
I was. I was reading a quote from a Maglev
rider and they were saying, like, you can tell you're
going really fast, like on the bullet train. He was
gonna be so disappointed because she's taught me how to
say it in Japanese so many times a night. I
don't want to BUTCHERP. But the bullet train it goes
(07:20):
pretty fast, like hundred fifty miles an hour or something,
but it just looks like everything's a blur. You don't
feel like you're going fast. Apparently in a maglev it
goes fast enough to wear like you feel like, holy cow,
we're going three d and fifty miles an hour. Well,
our very unparent company did a show World's Fastest Trains,
and I watched the maglev segment in the dude. You know.
(07:42):
I was in the front room with the driver and
they were like, all right, we're going three hundred miles
an hour now, and it's hard to tell on the TV.
You know exactly how fast you're going, because I looked
and I was like, well, then you know, it looks
like about a hundred to me. But um, yeah, I
think being on the train and I think the key
to not feeling two or it is obviously you're not
being shot out like a bullet. You're you're ramping up
(08:03):
to that speed, so that helps. Plus if you dressed
normally for your train ride, you'll feel less weird too,
that's right. Um. Also, hold on one more thing, um
that we're talking very high speeds. That's the that's the
speed record of a maglev. But they're averaging like to
(08:23):
fifty or more, which means if you, if you get
these things built, you're going to expand the range of
where people can live and commute and go to work
every day tremendously. Um. So there's a lot of value
in creating these mag levs. Right are we there yet? Well,
before we do that, let's just might as well do
(08:44):
a message break now, huh. I think it's a good time,
all right, So now can we get down to brass tacks. Yes,
(09:05):
let's okay. Um, this is kind of confusing because I
read a paper in night, I think, where this guy
was saying, like, there's a lot of people calling all
these different technologies maglev. This is all very early stage
proposal hadn't been proven yet, but he was saying, there's
at least seven different kinds of technology here that everyone's
(09:27):
calling maglev that are different enough that it doesn't They're
just different. But for the purposes of this podcast, we
can get it with maglev, but we have to point
out that there are some really different systems that are
in use in being proposed right now, and a lot
of them have to do with the suspension systems. Yeah,
I think what's going on now? There are three pretty
(09:51):
much leading competing systems, right. Yeah, because we should say, chuck.
A maglev train is a train that uses magnets to
float above a track by either a half a centimeter too.
I saw one that floats up to a foot off
the track, and that's a little scary. It seems a
little scary, but apparently the higher you go, and that
(10:12):
that high end of the range, the more stable it is. Alright, yeah,
but so the the train is literally not touching the
tracks and it floats along. And the reason that's why
it can go so fast is because there's no friction,
no friction, The only resistance is air. And they're super
sleek of course, so even the error is cut down. Uh.
(10:32):
So let's go. Let's go to Germany first, because they
have a system, uh, trans Rapid. It's called the actually
company is called trans Rapid International. There's also a trans
Rapid USA. Now I think USA, that's right. Uh. And
the German version is electro magnetic suspension. And the way
(10:53):
that the guy on the Discovery Channel show described it
was that electro magnets, Well, when you use electro magnets,
they're only um magnetize when there's a power source, when
there's electricity running through exactly. So that's important to remember
it is and we'll point out why later because in
the German system, uh, the e m S system, it's
(11:15):
all about attraction. It's not repelled magnets repelling each other.
It's magnets that are attracted to each other. And the
reason that they float is they're basically switching it on
and off, pulsing the electromatic magnets so fast that it
creates that hovering attraction. Okay, so that's the German version,
(11:38):
so um okay. And apparently this German version, I think
they do use repulsive magnets, but on the sides for
the guidance magnets. So to make it hover, they're turning
it on an awful lot. So it wants to stick
but no, but stick but no. And there's not a
dude on a switch doing it really fast. It's all
programmed to pull. Right. They have computers handling um. And
(12:00):
then so this is the the suspension system you're talking about, right,
the electro magnetic suspension. And the word suspension is kind
of easily overlooked, but in this case we're literally talking
about how the train is suspended in mid air above
the track in this case, and with the e M
S it's about I think, uh, half a centimeter to
(12:23):
a centimeter. It's it's very close to the to the track,
and they use the electro magnets to attract and they
use the guidance magnets, which are magnets installed on the
side of the train, uh that are along the side
of the track to repel magnets along the side of
the track to keep the train from bumping into the
(12:45):
guide rails. But the it requires a um UH computer
system that constantly make adjustments to the current that's going
through these electro magnets to either um to either attract
the train to make it float or to repel it
from the sides to adjust it to make sure it
never bumps into the rails or the track, because if
(13:06):
you're going fifty miles an hour and your train scuffs
the track, you're in big trouble or big trouble. One
advantage of this UH the German system is that you
only need the power on for the section of track
that you're using at the time, So they literally will
turn on a section of track, the train goes over it,
(13:28):
and then they'll turn it back off. Right, So it's
very like economically fuel will not fuel efficient because it's
not fuel right, and that's the power efficient right. And
it doesn't use fossil fuels in the sense that a
normal train does, although if you go far enough down
the line, that electricity has to come from somewhere, so
ultimately it is coming from fossil fuels. But the efficiency.
(13:49):
Fuel efficiency is incredible compared to you know, a normal
train that burns cossal fuels just to move right, the
guy's shoveling coal into a fire. Yeah, I should say so.
My understanding of the delivery of electricity to the track
is the same for both suspension systems that you propel
(14:11):
like that. So the whole track is made of electro magnets, right,
come on both systems, and you're just sending electricity to
the electromagnets that are immediately in front of and immediately
behind the train immediately under. Yeah, because you need it.
You need to float the train, then you need to
propel it, right, And the way you're propelling it is
(14:33):
the magnets that are just ahead of the train are
going to be positive, and so that's going to attract
the train, meaning it's gonna pull it forward. And then
the the magnets behind it are going to be charged
so that they're negative and they're going to repel the
train push it. So in the front, the magnets are
pulling it in the in the back, the magnets are
(14:55):
pushing it. And again remember there's no friction here, it's
just air, so it doesn't take a whole lot to
make this train go really really fast, just using magnets. Yeah,
and they in two thousand two debuted commercially in Shanghai, China,
a pretty short run transporting people um from airport to airport,
(15:16):
basically um at a speed it speeds over two fifty
miles an hour. So I read that the journey the
nineteen mile journey. Now it takes about seven and a
half minutes as opposed to about an hour in a cab,
and they were going to expand it, but that was
halted in two thousand eight over radiation fears by people.
(15:37):
And now it's being proposed as an underground system, like
to go underground to halt those fears. But in two
thousand ten, another high speed train in the area was
a non maglev system opened, so they basically said, well,
we probably won't do this. Uh, we probably won't extend
the Shanghai line now, So yeah, I heard it's definitely
on hold, but I didn't hear that they decide that
(16:00):
they weren't going to do it. Well, the regular bullet
train popped up and they're like, well, now that we
have that, I guess we don't need the mag left. Well, oh, well,
so Japan's got the other, um big rival system. Uh
so the propulsion systems are the same. You use magnets
ahead of the train and behind the train to attract
(16:21):
or repell it right to push it forward, I believe
so so um, the suspension systems are what differ. In
Germany you're using magnets to um repel it, right, to
attract it, to attract it. In Japan you're using something
called the Meisner effect. So basically, chuck. The Meisner effect
is where you take a super cooled superconductor, right, yes,
(16:44):
I think like liquid helium temperature, which is very very cold,
and you put it in a magnetic field. The magnetic
field basically hugs it. It goes around it rather than
through it. Okay, yes, um, so when you do at
the field actually levitates the thing. So if you take
(17:06):
enough superconductors that are at the right temperature and you
put them in the presence of a magnetic field, a
whole bunch of magnets, say on a train, the the
magnet will float, it will levitate, and that's the electrodynamic
suspension that the Japanese are using. So basically you have
(17:28):
a tunnel, a magnetic field tunnel that these things are
traveling through, which means that there they don't they don't
need any extra magnets on the sides, or they don't
need any on the bottom or extra magnets on the bottom.
It's just going to stay put within this bent magnetic
field that's warped to wrap around it. It's never going
(17:49):
to drop, and it's totally stable, which is the big
that's a big advantage from what I understand of the
Japanese system over the German system. The stability doesn't require
a bunch of pewters to constantly adjust it, and it
is just inherently more stable because it's not just being
held up from the bottom and then a little on
the sides. It is wrapped in this basically blanket of
(18:12):
an electromagnetic field. Uh. It can conduct power electricity even
when the power is cut off, so that's a definite advantage.
Um Although the German system does have like battery backups,
it's not like if the power went off, the train
would just go and stop. But the German one doesn't
never doesn't need tires, and the Japanese one does, yeah,
(18:34):
because it needs to ramp up to a certain speed
in order to begin the float. It doesn't just start immediately.
What is it like eighty eight miles that's back to
the future sixty two. And I think they use liquid
nitrogen and it's just expensive to super cool these UH coils,
and I think that's one of the drawbicks. But they're
(18:55):
all expensive. They're none of this is they haven't figured
out a cheap way to do any of this. Now,
there's a proposed line um in Japan. It's already it's
the one that set the UH that land speed record
for maglev trains. It's the j R tok Um that's
the railway company to kind of close, but it's their
(19:19):
line um supposedly, supposedly is already in operation. I read
somewhere that it's moved like a million people already. But
they have a proposed line that they want to open
by seven and it's from Tokyo to Nagoya, and then
they want to extend that from Tokyo to Osaka by
and they're talking like it's like a fifty billion dollar project,
(19:42):
and I think that's just the first line that's Yeah,
it sounds about right. But the reason that it probably
will happen is they're they're um basing all of this
on data showing that people are going to keep moving
to Japan and Osaka, so they're going to have customers
and they're not relying on any money. They have so
much money they're just going to fund it themselves. Is
(20:03):
privately funded. Yeah. Yeah. Another con though of the Japanese
version is that if you have a pacemaker, you don't
want to get on that train because, um, that magnetic
field will reek havoc and you probably won't live. It
will shut you down. It will shut you down. And
then there's the in duct track and that is another
(20:23):
type of E d S system, which is the Japanese system,
except that they use room temperature magnets. And from what
I could tell, this is as close to just the
whole thing of two magnets, regular magnets opposing each other
and they're just gonna use that, right, Yeah, Like it's
(20:44):
as close to we get as you going out to
the store and getting two magnets and putting their like
poles against each other so that they repel. Yeah. There's
actually something called the hull Bock array, which is a
way to just line up the magnets um in certain
directions so that they're holes are facing north, southeast or west. UM.
And when you put them together in a clump, basically,
(21:06):
the the magnetic field below the magnets doubles, the magnetic
field on the top of the magnet cancels one another
out right, So you have your extra strong magnetic magnetic
field that can produce this Meisner effect basically UM without
this super cooled superconductor. Yeah. And these aren't even electro magnets.
(21:28):
I don't think. Aren't they just magnets. I think they're
permanent room temperature magnets. It's crazy. Yeah, there are three
UM designs right now the in duct track one, two,
and three. UM One is high speed, two is slow speed,
and three is heavy load slow speed. Yeah, so I
guess just freighting stuff back and forth. You know they
(21:49):
did this in London at one point, but then shut
it down. Like in the eighties they had a maglife train. Yeah,
just a very slow moving like it might have been
an airport type situation. And I looked up the one
here in Atlanta, the new airport trainer. I thought it
might have been maglev, but of course it's not. It's
just wheels, just stupid wheels. UM although they held Atlanta
(22:10):
have its day. Well, they have proposed one Atlanta is
one of the city's um that's trying to get maglev
going between Atlanta and Chattanooga. And there's one proposed between
d C and Baltimore. One in Las Vegas, Yeah, La
in Vegas. Um. And I think one from Pittsburgh to someplace,
but I'm not sure exactly where I saw that one too.
(22:33):
I don't remember where it might have been, d C, Dtsburg, Philly. Yeah. Well,
hold on, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Man. Well, no,
these are just proposals, and and they're having a hard
time getting the funding they need for any of these
to really take off, right, because it's expensive, it is, chuck,
how about a how about a message break? Huh hey,
let's do it alright. So, um, this whole idea of
(23:11):
going three fifty miles an hour through space even without
friction is um awesome. It is awesome. It can also
be deadly. They've they've already been maglev accidents. Yeah. The
one in Germany was a little distressing because in two
thousand and six it crashed into a repair car that
was accidentally left on the track, And this was a
(23:33):
test too, so it's like everything should have been Yeah,
like why do you leave a car on the track? Period?
I don't know, I don't know. Uh. So they actually
people died in that one. The train was going at
least a hundred and twenty miles an hour when it
struck the car, so it must have just been getting
up to speed, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, twenty nine
people died on that one. There was another one in
(23:55):
Shanghai on that line that is an operation. Yeah. That
was just a fire though, and I don't want to
make light of that, but it wasn't like a crash
or an incident like that. Yeah. I'm just glad no
one got hurt exactly. Uh. And this is breaking news, dude.
This was in the paper today as we record it
in real time. Okay, the Washington Post said that Northeast Maglev.
(24:18):
Everyone's getting in on the maglev game. Uh, because I mean,
like it really is a great idea. Yeah, it's just
really really expensive, but if you can get it up
and running, it's awesome. I Mean I imagine in literally
in a hundred years, there'll be a lot of this
as major transportation, you know, but not we won't see it.
(24:40):
But as of today November four, Northeast maglev is UH
has raised fifty million dollars in private funds. They can
build five inches of track with that exactly. And they're
trying to get the Washington Baltimore lag going with private
funding because the government's not pony any money for that.
I think we'll see it in our lifetime. They think
(25:00):
ten billion between d C and Baltimore. Yeah, um, although
they're not. They don't have a firm cost yet. But um,
I wonder how long it would take because I mean
that's not even that long of a drive anyway. Yeah,
I agreed. Let maybe maybe ten minutes, which I mean
if you live in Baltimore and work in d C.
I'm sure that would be extremely attractive. Yeah, that's true. Um,
(25:22):
I don't know about the Atlanta at Chattanooga thing. Who cares?
Yeah right, you know people in Chattanooga be psyched, I
guess because they could get to the airport in like
thirty minutes. Yeah, I guess, not just in Chattanooga. I'll
go there and pain for gold. I saw this, um
this it was some Discovery show video from a Discovery
show too, um, and it had our good friend Michio Kaku,
(25:45):
and he was talking about a train, bullet train that
could get you from one side of the world to
the other in an hour. Wow. And the way that
it would do that is to go through the middle
of the Earth. Basically, you would have to create this
to basically like Alon Musk's idea, you create a tube,
(26:06):
you evacuate all of the air out of it so
that there's no resistance whatsoever, and you just drop in
the force of gravity takes you up to about eighteen
thousand miles an hour, and then once you make it
to the center and out the other side, your gravity
starts to work against you, so it slows you down.
So within an hour you should be able to make
(26:27):
it from one side of the Earth to the other.
But as Dr Coku put put it, um, it's going
to be very difficult getting through the center of the Earth.
I love all these theoretical ideas these guys come up
with it like it's not even even then remotely possible.
And he'd probably said, like, I was just talking about
(26:47):
what they asked me to talk about. It's like, dude,
I was like McDonald's one day when I said that
I was waiting in line at McDonald's. So what else
you got? I got nothing else? Mag Lev? Yeah, the
way but the future. Yeah, we've got a we have
a standing bet. Now we will see a Maglev train
in operation that we can ride on while we're both alive.
That's my bet, you say now that we will, Like
(27:11):
I mean, if we went to Shanghai, we could do
it right now. So I feel like I just want
my bet health that you're gonna pay for us to
go to here in the United States. Um, within our lifetime,
which for me is gonna be about twenty years. We're
both still healthy enough to to ride it. Okay, I'll
take that bet. Okay. Uh, let's see. If you guys
(27:32):
want to learn more about Maglev, you can type that
word in the search part how stuff works dot Com.
And since I said a search part, it's time for
listener mail. That's right. This is I'm gonna call this
opportunity for students filmmaking students, So get your film on. Hey,
guys who work for nonprofit Antiquity Now, which is dedicated
(27:54):
to raising awareness of the importance of preserving our cult
cultural heritage by demonstrating how antiquities legacy influences and shapes
our lives today. Yeah, they have good stuff. We follow
them on Twitter. Oh you do nice? We do, Yes,
we do. Many of us at Antiquity Now are big
fans of you guys. We thought you would be interested
and this upcoming project that we are holding the first
(28:16):
ever Legacy Quest International Children's Film and Video Festival, which
aims to get tweens and teens excited about history. The
festival will be held in conjunction with the Archaeology Channel
International Film and Video Festival on May nine through and Eugene, Oregon.
So here's what you gotta do, kids, young people, if
(28:38):
you're between twelve and fifteen, you can submit videos that
represent antiquities legacy in our contemporary life. For example, you
could depict how the invention of the wheel or calendar
has contributed to modern society, or how ancient methods of
solar energy have informed today's green technology. You got that. Yes,
Entries may be submitted by an individual student or by
(29:00):
a group or class under the guidance of a teacher.
As the festival was designed in accordance with the United
States National Curriculum standards for Social Studies, Legacy Quests would
be a great project for teachers to do with their classes.
Creating the video will support the development of literacy research skills,
writing skills, visual communication, and storytelling and they have prizes first, second,
(29:21):
and third prize among along with ten honorable mentions. Will
be announced at the Archaeology Channel International Film and Video
Festival and promoted online by both the Archaeology Channel and
Antiquity Now and US and us so uh. For more
information and submission forms, go to antiquity now dot org.
(29:42):
And that is from Chandra Goldfinger, not Chandra, she points out,
it's Chandra gold Finger, which is a great name, it
really is. And again that's May nine, throught of next year. Teachers, students,
where can they go to find out more info? Yeah,
antiquity now dot org or you can follow them on
(30:02):
Twitter and ask them yourself. Yes uh. If you want
to let us know about any cool stuff you've got
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(30:23):
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Hello friends, It's me Josh and for this week's s
Y s K Selects, I've chosen a super cool episode
that has it all engineering, strange, physics, elon musk. What
else do you want? What more could you ask for? Also,
by the way, I'm pretty sure that the contest we
talk about in the listener mail is no longer around,
(00:23):
since it's many, many years old. At any rate, enjoy
this episode about the future of transportation. Welcome to Stuff
You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
(00:45):
and there's Charles W Chuck Chuckers, Brian Yeah, and this
is Oh is that where you're going with? Sure? Yeah,
my bus right into CC writer all the style. How
would going with the Muppet Show? Oh? Yeah, it was
time we put on makeup? Yeah, what was that somebody's
(01:07):
giant stomach? Something like? What was that? It's weird? That
was crazy. That couldn't have been Jerry's stomach. There's no way,
all right, what's chuck? Yes? Uh, you remember our Magnet podcast. Yeah,
(01:28):
I've personally thought it was a great episode because we
explained how magnets work. Yeah, it was just good, tough
but good. Yeah, it was tough, but it was also
kind of um. It was one of those ones where
you're like, oh, okay, that explains pretty much everything about magnets,
the thing that I've used before in my life, and
(01:48):
I just kind of took for granted some people think
that they're magic, but we kind of said, this is
how they work. I liked it. So, um, I liked
this EPI, this um article in theory, the one we're
about to do a show on. Yeah, yeah, about Maglev trains. Yeah,
we did a video on Maglev trains. Remember that one
(02:10):
of our one of our interstitial shorts was on mag
left trains, do we Yeah, I remember doing the quantum
levitation was that it? Are you sure? Yeah? Because that's
the only way I knew about any of this was
the fact that we had talked about it before. Well
what did we talk about, uh, maglob you know the
(02:32):
basic principle in one minute behind magnetic levitation. Well, that's
pretty much what we're gonna do here, Yeah, except slightly longer. Yeah.
So um that was my intro but intro and we
should say also, um, everyone, it is next to impossible
to get up to the minute up to the year
information about what maglev trains are in operation, what are
(02:58):
still planned, what's still going on. So it is possible
we may get that part a little incorrect, but we're
going to try our best to be as accurate as possible. Yeah,
and the reason why is because magnetic levitation to power
a train so new. Well, it's actually not that new,
because they've been doing it for a while and well
(03:18):
start it was proposed ever since Tesla started noticing what
was going on in the late nineteenth century. But it's
so new in this regard as far as super fast
speed trains powered by magnets transporting lots of people over distances,
maybe great distances. That is so new, and there's so
(03:39):
a few different technologies that it is kind of hard
to keep track on which one is in the forefront,
which ones are being funded because the stuff is expensive,
it is it's hard to get funding, especially here in
the States. Yeah, and if you go on, if you
just type mag LEVI into Google or your favorite search
engine UM or Duck duck go, if you're you know,
(04:00):
kind of watching who's watching you? Oh, is that a
like a secret? It's like an anonymous search engine okay. Um,
you will find there's projects all over the United States
and all of them are like, we're shove already, We're
ready to go. Just give us some money. And they're
not getting any money because the construction costs are so
enormous because with maglev trains you can't use existing railways.
(04:23):
It's all new. And uh, I saw one quote and
again who knows how recent this is, but fifty million
euros per mile. I can believe this is what the
German Consortium is quoting. The thing is is, once you
get it built, maintenance is not bad. Yeah, not bad
at all, because there's not a lot of wear and
tear on it. As you'll see no friction baby. Um.
(04:45):
And if you do look into maglev, you will see
that it is very much like the the transportation technology
of the future that's going on today. Um, especially after
looking into Elon Musk's um T hyper loop thing. I
heard of that. So basically Elon Musk, who is like
our good friend, uh, super rich guy, right, he basically
(05:09):
just jotted down this idea on a cocktail napkin and
all of a sudden it's like the new thing. But um,
it's a an enclosed tube system that just you put
in a little car or whatever that seats twelve people
or something comfortably and you suck all the air out
of it no resistance, so you can go really fast. Basically,
(05:31):
I think it goes about seven a little under the
speed of sound, so you can get from the west
coast to the east coast or vice versa very very fast.
The thing is, the construction costs for this or just preposterous.
But if it can come along or come down a
little more, then it will give Maglev a run for
(05:53):
its money. But if it, if Maglev can start to
really kind of get some traction and get some line going,
it will be the the movement of the future for
at least a decade or two. Yeah, I saw where
they're proposing both in the future Maglev trains that operate
inside vacuum tubes as fast as two thousand miles an
(06:16):
hour as crazy. Right now they're breaking records like three
miles an hour plus what's the fastest right now? The
So apparently this is kind of mind boggling because Maglev
as again we realize everybody, we haven't explained what Maglev
is talking here, but um, Maglev, the the great advantage
(06:37):
it has is that it's supposedly goes faster than the
normal steel wheel train. Apparently a TGV train, which is
a steel wheel train. UM in Europe, they they beat
a maglev land speed really that was held by the
Japanese Maglev of about three hundred and fifty one miles
an hour. I think it went like three sixty. Man.
(06:59):
I don't if i'd feel safe. Yeah, I can imagine.
I was. I was reading a quote from a Maglev
rider and they were saying, like, you can tell you're
going really fast, like on the bullet train. He was
gonna be so disappointed because she's taught me how to
say it in Japanese so many times a night. I
don't want to BUTCHERP. But the bullet train it goes
(07:20):
pretty fast, like hundred fifty miles an hour or something,
but it just looks like everything's a blur. You don't
feel like you're going fast. Apparently in a maglev it
goes fast enough to wear like you feel like, holy cow,
we're going three d and fifty miles an hour. Well,
our very unparent company did a show World's Fastest Trains,
and I watched the maglev segment in the dude. You know.
(07:42):
I was in the front room with the driver and
they were like, all right, we're going three hundred miles
an hour now, and it's hard to tell on the TV.
You know exactly how fast you're going, because I looked
and I was like, well, then you know, it looks
like about a hundred to me. But um, yeah, I
think being on the train and I think the key
to not feeling two or it is obviously you're not
being shot out like a bullet. You're you're ramping up
(08:03):
to that speed, so that helps. Plus if you dressed
normally for your train ride, you'll feel less weird too,
that's right. Um. Also, hold on one more thing, um
that we're talking very high speeds. That's the that's the
speed record of a maglev. But they're averaging like to
(08:23):
fifty or more, which means if you, if you get
these things built, you're going to expand the range of
where people can live and commute and go to work
every day tremendously. Um. So there's a lot of value
in creating these mag levs. Right are we there yet? Well,
before we do that, let's just might as well do
(08:44):
a message break now, huh. I think it's a good time,
all right, So now can we get down to brass tacks. Yes,
(09:05):
let's okay. Um, this is kind of confusing because I
read a paper in night, I think, where this guy
was saying, like, there's a lot of people calling all
these different technologies maglev. This is all very early stage
proposal hadn't been proven yet, but he was saying, there's
at least seven different kinds of technology here that everyone's
(09:27):
calling maglev that are different enough that it doesn't They're
just different. But for the purposes of this podcast, we
can get it with maglev, but we have to point
out that there are some really different systems that are
in use in being proposed right now, and a lot
of them have to do with the suspension systems. Yeah,
I think what's going on now? There are three pretty
(09:51):
much leading competing systems, right. Yeah, because we should say, chuck.
A maglev train is a train that uses magnets to
float above a track by either a half a centimeter too.
I saw one that floats up to a foot off
the track, and that's a little scary. It seems a
little scary, but apparently the higher you go, and that
(10:12):
that high end of the range, the more stable it is. Alright, yeah,
but so the the train is literally not touching the
tracks and it floats along. And the reason that's why
it can go so fast is because there's no friction,
no friction, The only resistance is air. And they're super
sleek of course, so even the error is cut down. Uh.
(10:32):
So let's go. Let's go to Germany first, because they
have a system, uh, trans Rapid. It's called the actually
company is called trans Rapid International. There's also a trans
Rapid USA. Now I think USA, that's right. Uh. And
the German version is electro magnetic suspension. And the way
(10:53):
that the guy on the Discovery Channel show described it
was that electro magnets, Well, when you use electro magnets,
they're only um magnetize when there's a power source, when
there's electricity running through exactly. So that's important to remember
it is and we'll point out why later because in
the German system, uh, the e m S system, it's
(11:15):
all about attraction. It's not repelled magnets repelling each other.
It's magnets that are attracted to each other. And the
reason that they float is they're basically switching it on
and off, pulsing the electromatic magnets so fast that it
creates that hovering attraction. Okay, so that's the German version,
(11:38):
so um okay. And apparently this German version, I think
they do use repulsive magnets, but on the sides for
the guidance magnets. So to make it hover, they're turning
it on an awful lot. So it wants to stick
but no, but stick but no. And there's not a
dude on a switch doing it really fast. It's all
programmed to pull. Right. They have computers handling um. And
(12:00):
then so this is the the suspension system you're talking about, right,
the electro magnetic suspension. And the word suspension is kind
of easily overlooked, but in this case we're literally talking
about how the train is suspended in mid air above
the track in this case, and with the e M
S it's about I think, uh, half a centimeter to
(12:23):
a centimeter. It's it's very close to the to the track,
and they use the electro magnets to attract and they
use the guidance magnets, which are magnets installed on the
side of the train, uh that are along the side
of the track to repel magnets along the side of
the track to keep the train from bumping into the
(12:45):
guide rails. But the it requires a um UH computer
system that constantly make adjustments to the current that's going
through these electro magnets to either um to either attract
the train to make it float or to repel it
from the sides to adjust it to make sure it
never bumps into the rails or the track, because if
(13:06):
you're going fifty miles an hour and your train scuffs
the track, you're in big trouble or big trouble. One
advantage of this UH the German system is that you
only need the power on for the section of track
that you're using at the time, So they literally will
turn on a section of track, the train goes over it,
(13:28):
and then they'll turn it back off. Right, So it's
very like economically fuel will not fuel efficient because it's
not fuel right, and that's the power efficient right. And
it doesn't use fossil fuels in the sense that a
normal train does, although if you go far enough down
the line, that electricity has to come from somewhere, so
ultimately it is coming from fossil fuels. But the efficiency.
(13:49):
Fuel efficiency is incredible compared to you know, a normal
train that burns cossal fuels just to move right, the
guy's shoveling coal into a fire. Yeah, I should say so.
My understanding of the delivery of electricity to the track
is the same for both suspension systems that you propel
(14:11):
like that. So the whole track is made of electro magnets, right,
come on both systems, and you're just sending electricity to
the electromagnets that are immediately in front of and immediately
behind the train immediately under. Yeah, because you need it.
You need to float the train, then you need to
propel it, right, And the way you're propelling it is
(14:33):
the magnets that are just ahead of the train are
going to be positive, and so that's going to attract
the train, meaning it's gonna pull it forward. And then
the the magnets behind it are going to be charged
so that they're negative and they're going to repel the
train push it. So in the front, the magnets are
pulling it in the in the back, the magnets are
(14:55):
pushing it. And again remember there's no friction here, it's
just air, so it doesn't take a whole lot to
make this train go really really fast, just using magnets. Yeah,
and they in two thousand two debuted commercially in Shanghai, China,
a pretty short run transporting people um from airport to airport,
(15:16):
basically um at a speed it speeds over two fifty
miles an hour. So I read that the journey the
nineteen mile journey. Now it takes about seven and a
half minutes as opposed to about an hour in a cab,
and they were going to expand it, but that was
halted in two thousand eight over radiation fears by people.
(15:37):
And now it's being proposed as an underground system, like
to go underground to halt those fears. But in two
thousand ten, another high speed train in the area was
a non maglev system opened, so they basically said, well,
we probably won't do this. Uh, we probably won't extend
the Shanghai line now, So yeah, I heard it's definitely
on hold, but I didn't hear that they decide that
(16:00):
they weren't going to do it. Well, the regular bullet
train popped up and they're like, well, now that we
have that, I guess we don't need the mag left. Well, oh, well,
so Japan's got the other, um big rival system. Uh
so the propulsion systems are the same. You use magnets
ahead of the train and behind the train to attract
(16:21):
or repell it right to push it forward, I believe
so so um, the suspension systems are what differ. In
Germany you're using magnets to um repel it, right, to
attract it, to attract it. In Japan you're using something
called the Meisner effect. So basically, chuck. The Meisner effect
is where you take a super cooled superconductor, right, yes,
(16:44):
I think like liquid helium temperature, which is very very cold,
and you put it in a magnetic field. The magnetic
field basically hugs it. It goes around it rather than
through it. Okay, yes, um, so when you do at
the field actually levitates the thing. So if you take
(17:06):
enough superconductors that are at the right temperature and you
put them in the presence of a magnetic field, a
whole bunch of magnets, say on a train, the the
magnet will float, it will levitate, and that's the electrodynamic
suspension that the Japanese are using. So basically you have
(17:28):
a tunnel, a magnetic field tunnel that these things are
traveling through, which means that there they don't they don't
need any extra magnets on the sides, or they don't
need any on the bottom or extra magnets on the bottom.
It's just going to stay put within this bent magnetic
field that's warped to wrap around it. It's never going
(17:49):
to drop, and it's totally stable, which is the big
that's a big advantage from what I understand of the
Japanese system over the German system. The stability doesn't require
a bunch of pewters to constantly adjust it, and it
is just inherently more stable because it's not just being
held up from the bottom and then a little on
the sides. It is wrapped in this basically blanket of
(18:12):
an electromagnetic field. Uh. It can conduct power electricity even
when the power is cut off, so that's a definite advantage.
Um Although the German system does have like battery backups,
it's not like if the power went off, the train
would just go and stop. But the German one doesn't
never doesn't need tires, and the Japanese one does, yeah,
(18:34):
because it needs to ramp up to a certain speed
in order to begin the float. It doesn't just start immediately.
What is it like eighty eight miles that's back to
the future sixty two. And I think they use liquid
nitrogen and it's just expensive to super cool these UH coils,
and I think that's one of the drawbicks. But they're
(18:55):
all expensive. They're none of this is they haven't figured
out a cheap way to do any of this. Now,
there's a proposed line um in Japan. It's already it's
the one that set the UH that land speed record
for maglev trains. It's the j R tok Um that's
the railway company to kind of close, but it's their
(19:19):
line um supposedly, supposedly is already in operation. I read
somewhere that it's moved like a million people already. But
they have a proposed line that they want to open
by seven and it's from Tokyo to Nagoya, and then
they want to extend that from Tokyo to Osaka by
and they're talking like it's like a fifty billion dollar project,
(19:42):
and I think that's just the first line that's Yeah,
it sounds about right. But the reason that it probably
will happen is they're they're um basing all of this
on data showing that people are going to keep moving
to Japan and Osaka, so they're going to have customers
and they're not relying on any money. They have so
much money they're just going to fund it themselves. Is
(20:03):
privately funded. Yeah. Yeah. Another con though of the Japanese
version is that if you have a pacemaker, you don't
want to get on that train because, um, that magnetic
field will reek havoc and you probably won't live. It
will shut you down. It will shut you down. And
then there's the in duct track and that is another
(20:23):
type of E d S system, which is the Japanese system,
except that they use room temperature magnets. And from what
I could tell, this is as close to just the
whole thing of two magnets, regular magnets opposing each other
and they're just gonna use that, right, Yeah, Like it's
(20:44):
as close to we get as you going out to
the store and getting two magnets and putting their like
poles against each other so that they repel. Yeah. There's
actually something called the hull Bock array, which is a
way to just line up the magnets um in certain
directions so that they're holes are facing north, southeast or west. UM.
And when you put them together in a clump, basically,
(21:06):
the the magnetic field below the magnets doubles, the magnetic
field on the top of the magnet cancels one another
out right, So you have your extra strong magnetic magnetic
field that can produce this Meisner effect basically UM without
this super cooled superconductor. Yeah. And these aren't even electro magnets.
(21:28):
I don't think. Aren't they just magnets. I think they're
permanent room temperature magnets. It's crazy. Yeah, there are three
UM designs right now the in duct track one, two,
and three. UM One is high speed, two is slow speed,
and three is heavy load slow speed. Yeah, so I
guess just freighting stuff back and forth. You know they
(21:49):
did this in London at one point, but then shut
it down. Like in the eighties they had a maglife train. Yeah,
just a very slow moving like it might have been
an airport type situation. And I looked up the one
here in Atlanta, the new airport trainer. I thought it
might have been maglev, but of course it's not. It's
just wheels, just stupid wheels. UM although they held Atlanta
(22:10):
have its day. Well, they have proposed one Atlanta is
one of the city's um that's trying to get maglev
going between Atlanta and Chattanooga. And there's one proposed between
d C and Baltimore. One in Las Vegas, Yeah, La
in Vegas. Um. And I think one from Pittsburgh to someplace,
but I'm not sure exactly where I saw that one too.
(22:33):
I don't remember where it might have been, d C, Dtsburg, Philly. Yeah. Well,
hold on, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Man. Well, no,
these are just proposals, and and they're having a hard
time getting the funding they need for any of these
to really take off, right, because it's expensive, it is, chuck,
how about a how about a message break? Huh hey,
let's do it alright. So, um, this whole idea of
(23:11):
going three fifty miles an hour through space even without
friction is um awesome. It is awesome. It can also
be deadly. They've they've already been maglev accidents. Yeah. The
one in Germany was a little distressing because in two
thousand and six it crashed into a repair car that
was accidentally left on the track, And this was a
(23:33):
test too, so it's like everything should have been Yeah,
like why do you leave a car on the track? Period?
I don't know, I don't know. Uh. So they actually
people died in that one. The train was going at
least a hundred and twenty miles an hour when it
struck the car, so it must have just been getting
up to speed, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, twenty nine
people died on that one. There was another one in
(23:55):
Shanghai on that line that is an operation. Yeah. That
was just a fire though, and I don't want to
make light of that, but it wasn't like a crash
or an incident like that. Yeah. I'm just glad no
one got hurt exactly. Uh. And this is breaking news, dude.
This was in the paper today as we record it
in real time. Okay, the Washington Post said that Northeast Maglev.
(24:18):
Everyone's getting in on the maglev game. Uh, because I mean,
like it really is a great idea. Yeah, it's just
really really expensive, but if you can get it up
and running, it's awesome. I Mean I imagine in literally
in a hundred years, there'll be a lot of this
as major transportation, you know, but not we won't see it.
(24:40):
But as of today November four, Northeast maglev is UH
has raised fifty million dollars in private funds. They can
build five inches of track with that exactly. And they're
trying to get the Washington Baltimore lag going with private
funding because the government's not pony any money for that.
I think we'll see it in our lifetime. They think
(25:00):
ten billion between d C and Baltimore. Yeah, um, although
they're not. They don't have a firm cost yet. But um,
I wonder how long it would take because I mean
that's not even that long of a drive anyway. Yeah,
I agreed. Let maybe maybe ten minutes, which I mean
if you live in Baltimore and work in d C.
I'm sure that would be extremely attractive. Yeah, that's true. Um,
(25:22):
I don't know about the Atlanta at Chattanooga thing. Who cares?
Yeah right, you know people in Chattanooga be psyched, I
guess because they could get to the airport in like
thirty minutes. Yeah, I guess, not just in Chattanooga. I'll
go there and pain for gold. I saw this, um
this it was some Discovery show video from a Discovery
show too, um, and it had our good friend Michio Kaku,
(25:45):
and he was talking about a train, bullet train that
could get you from one side of the world to
the other in an hour. Wow. And the way that
it would do that is to go through the middle
of the Earth. Basically, you would have to create this
to basically like Alon Musk's idea, you create a tube,
(26:06):
you evacuate all of the air out of it so
that there's no resistance whatsoever, and you just drop in
the force of gravity takes you up to about eighteen
thousand miles an hour, and then once you make it
to the center and out the other side, your gravity
starts to work against you, so it slows you down.
So within an hour you should be able to make
(26:27):
it from one side of the Earth to the other.
But as Dr Coku put put it, um, it's going
to be very difficult getting through the center of the Earth.
I love all these theoretical ideas these guys come up
with it like it's not even even then remotely possible.
And he'd probably said, like, I was just talking about
(26:47):
what they asked me to talk about. It's like, dude,
I was like McDonald's one day when I said that
I was waiting in line at McDonald's. So what else
you got? I got nothing else? Mag Lev? Yeah, the
way but the future. Yeah, we've got a we have
a standing bet. Now we will see a Maglev train
in operation that we can ride on while we're both alive.
That's my bet, you say now that we will, Like
(27:11):
I mean, if we went to Shanghai, we could do
it right now. So I feel like I just want
my bet health that you're gonna pay for us to
go to here in the United States. Um, within our lifetime,
which for me is gonna be about twenty years. We're
both still healthy enough to to ride it. Okay, I'll
take that bet. Okay. Uh, let's see. If you guys
(27:32):
want to learn more about Maglev, you can type that
word in the search part how stuff works dot Com.
And since I said a search part, it's time for
listener mail. That's right. This is I'm gonna call this
opportunity for students filmmaking students, So get your film on. Hey,
guys who work for nonprofit Antiquity Now, which is dedicated
(27:54):
to raising awareness of the importance of preserving our cult
cultural heritage by demonstrating how antiquities legacy influences and shapes
our lives today. Yeah, they have good stuff. We follow
them on Twitter. Oh you do nice? We do, Yes,
we do. Many of us at Antiquity Now are big
fans of you guys. We thought you would be interested
and this upcoming project that we are holding the first
(28:16):
ever Legacy Quest International Children's Film and Video Festival, which
aims to get tweens and teens excited about history. The
festival will be held in conjunction with the Archaeology Channel
International Film and Video Festival on May nine through and Eugene, Oregon.
So here's what you gotta do, kids, young people, if
(28:38):
you're between twelve and fifteen, you can submit videos that
represent antiquities legacy in our contemporary life. For example, you
could depict how the invention of the wheel or calendar
has contributed to modern society, or how ancient methods of
solar energy have informed today's green technology. You got that. Yes,
Entries may be submitted by an individual student or by
(29:00):
a group or class under the guidance of a teacher.
As the festival was designed in accordance with the United
States National Curriculum standards for Social Studies, Legacy Quests would
be a great project for teachers to do with their classes.
Creating the video will support the development of literacy research skills,
writing skills, visual communication, and storytelling and they have prizes first, second,
(29:21):
and third prize among along with ten honorable mentions. Will
be announced at the Archaeology Channel International Film and Video
Festival and promoted online by both the Archaeology Channel and
Antiquity Now and US and us so uh. For more
information and submission forms, go to antiquity now dot org.
(29:42):
And that is from Chandra Goldfinger, not Chandra, she points out,
it's Chandra gold Finger, which is a great name, it
really is. And again that's May nine, throught of next year. Teachers, students,
where can they go to find out more info? Yeah,
antiquity now dot org or you can follow them on
(30:02):
Twitter and ask them yourself. Yes uh. If you want
to let us know about any cool stuff you've got
going on that you want to share with everybody who
listens to Stuff you Should Know, your fellow s y
s K family, you can tweet to us at s
y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, or you can
(30:23):
send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how Stuff
works dot Com. Stuff You Should Know is a production
of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.