Episode 5 The Secrets of Everything

This programme contains strong language

Humans are an incredible species.

We've found ways to talk to each other

on opposite sides of the world.

We've discovered cures for terrible diseases

and some of us have even left this planet to explore space.

But there's still so much left to find out.

I'm Greg Foot. Ever since I was a kid, I've been into science.

I've always been asking questions

and taking things apart to understand how they work.

I was the kid trawling through the rock pools

and the one that tried to turn his bike into an aeroplane.

I even went on to do a science degree.

And I'm still asking questions.

-This will hurt right?

-Yeah.

And I reckon a lot of you are, too.

And that's what this series is all about -

getting to the bottom of all those questions

that never get properly answered,

to reveal the secrets of everything.

This time on The Secrets of Everything.

Ahhhh!

We'll discover how good swearing is at helping with pain.

-BLEEP, BLEEP.

-It's going.

Doc and I have a go at creating heaven on earth.

Watch out. Watch out for the flash now. There it is.

What's going on in there is a bit like what's going on in a star.

And I get to embrace hypothermia.

Three, two, one.

SCREAMS LOUDLY

The things I have to do for science.

But first, getting the drop

on one of our favourite urban legends.

So, you're at the top of the Empire State Building

and you see someone pull a penny out of their pocket.

Then you realise that they're going to throw the penny over the top.

What you're witnessing is a potential homicide

because we all know that if you throw a penny

off a tall enough building,

if it hits someone down there, it's going to kill them.

We all know it, but is it true?

To find out, I need a tall building,

some pennies and my mate Andy to throw them.

We'll start from the second floor, about 20 metres up.

To be a bigger target, I'm going to lie down.

Oh, man, this is so going to hurt.

Ow!

Ah!

LAUGHS

Look at that.

-That's from two stories up.

-You've just been spanked by the Queen.

Using a high-speed camera

and a metre rule we can work out how fast the penny is dropping.

Right, so that's 25 miles an hour.

The further it falls

the faster it goes, the harder it hits.

The Empire State Building is far taller than this tower block

so will a penny fall fast enough to test the legend?

Well, at some point no matter how far it falls, it stops speeding up.

You'd think that the further the coin falls

the faster and faster it gets,

as gravity accelerates it down to the ground.

But gravity isn't the only force that's acting on the coin.

It's counter-acted by air resistance or drag,

which is what you feel when you put your hand out of the window as you're driving along

and the faster you go, the harder it is.

So, it's exactly the same for the penny.

As it gets faster and faster, it gets harder to push through the air

and it's the drag that slows it down.

Eventually drag equals gravity

and the penny can't fall any faster.

It's reached its terminal velocity.

And the way you work out that maximum speed for the coin

is you take a formula, you plug in the density of the air, the area of the coin, the mass of the coin,

chuck it all around and you get 67 miles per hour.

So, a penny can't drop any faster than 67 miles per hour.

Andy! But is that rapid enough to make it a deadly weapon?

Reckon you'll be able to hit me from there?

Trust me, Greg, I will hit you.

OK. Let's do this.

Three, two, one.

# All right, check this out. #

Rubbish!

Ah!

Close.

Ah, this is not going to happen.

But there is another way of getting this penny on target.

And fast.

Ah!

-Did that one hurt?

-Ahhhh!

-Did I get your belly button?

Yeah.

Ah!

Ah!

Oh, it's instant, look. It's instant!

It hurts, it's going to bruise

but it's not going to kill me.

It's just not fast enough.

So, your highest - 49 miles an hour.

-Oh.

-It's just not up to scratch.

-Terminal velocity, we need to get it right up there.

-How can we do that?

-I have got a plan.

-What's the plan?

Meet Andrew Savill,

licensed armourer and supplier of real and fake guns for TV and movies.

He's rigged up an air rifle to fire a penny.

-This is amazing.

-And we've come to this firing range

to see if that will succeed where Andy's arm failed?

Let's fire it. Let's see what this thing can do.

-So, you shoot through that do you?

-We do, yeah.

-And that's going to tell us the speed.

-It will do.

-That's cool.

-Ready?

-Three, two, one.

-What's it say?

-That's 97 feet per second.

97 feet per second is about 67 miles an hour,

as fast as a falling penny can get.

-Time to shoot me.

-Andy, you know what you're doing?

-Yes, is it not cocked?

-No.

Andrew the armourer is not happy with shooting my head.

-Left cheek?

-So he's insisting my ass gets it instead.

Dude, your aim had better be good.

-Great(!)

-Are you ready?

Here we go.

Three...

two, one...

Ah!

Yep, this really hurt, but the thing is

it didn't even break the skin.

The mighty penny isn't looking very deadly at all.

At least that shows

that, er...

you can't get killed if a penny drops off the Empire State Building

and it's going at a max speed of terminal velocity.

I don't know why your arse would be pointing upwards though!

Oh!

If you look up at the stars on a clear night,

what you're actually looking at is where we came from

because all the elements in us and pretty much all the elements

on the whole of the earth, were made up there, in the stars.

So, what actually is a star?

And is it possible to create a new one here on Earth?

# Lying in the grass

# Watching the stars come out... #

If there's anyone I know who can help me build a star,

it's a man who is a chemist, a practical engineer,

meteorologist and...

..Polish musician?

He is Dr Zbigniew Szydlo.

I just call him Doc.

-All right, Doc. So, the challenge this time...

-Yep.

-..is, I want to build a star.

-A star?

That's absolutely amazing.

How do you plan to do that, my dear boy?

Well, we need to... I was hoping that you,

-being the source of everything chemical...

-Yup.

..would be able to give me a chemical reaction

that's as close to what we see in a star as possible.

Eh, ah. I don't know whether it'll work,

but we can try getting close to one.

Stars are basically huge, hot fireballs.

So, first up, something hot.

-I'm going to do something called a thermite reaction.

-OK.

Which is when you react iron oxide,

which is basically rust, with aluminium powder.

Now, aluminium has a huge affinity for oxygen

and it actually rips the oxygen away from the iron oxide,

leaving iron behind.

And, as it does so, it releases an amazing amount of heat energy,

which is what we're going to see.

So, this is going to be our hot, unstoppable reaction.

That's our unstoppable chemical reaction.

Now, what we do, is we pour it in there, very, very carefully.

-That's it, spot on.

-Deeper?

-No, that's fine.

-So, I think we're all set to go so now.

-Good.

So, you're going to get an initial, little bit of smoke,

then a blinding flash,

a massive puff of white smoke and then, your star will be born.

Doc kick-starts the reaction with more chemicals

and special ingredients.

-Fingers crossed, there she goes.

-Blinding flash.

-There we go.

-Oh.

-Watch out, watch out for the flash now.

Blinding flash. Watch out. Stop there. The top's gone.

-There it is.

-Aw, that's the top of the beaker.

The top's gone, but there's our cloud of white smoke.

Right, let's have a quick look. Absolutely. Watch out.

-It's still bubbling away.

-Go again in a minute.

-Yeah, that's OK.

-Let's quickly have a look at that.

-Whoa.

Just look at that. Whole beaker's vaporised.

Is that just molten glass?

Molten glass, molten aluminium oxide

and molten iron, right at the bottom there, sir.

What's going on there is a bit like what's going on inside a star.

The chemical reaction is changing those chemicals

and then releasing heat and light energy.

Doc, I think we've run out of reactant.

And that's the problem. To fuel a star, even a medium-sized one,

like our sun, would mean harnessing all the energy

from 600 million tonnes of hydrogen, every second.

# Take me into the fight

# And I'm an easy brother... #

But that's not to say that I can't try to make a tiny star

here on Earth.

Stars aren't actually made out of iron oxide, aluminium and spit.

They're mainly something called plasma.

The same stuff as lightning and the Northern Lights.

And that we can make by using Doc's microwave

in a way that I've going to tell you not to try at home.

I'm going to capture my hot gas in a jar,

but I need to make sure air can get up into it as well.

Whoa, there it is.

Now, that is pretty cool. What's happening?

Well, the energy from the microwave is breaking down that flame,

that hot gas.

It's ripping the electrons away from the molecules of the gas

and that's leaving charged particles called ions.

And that ionised gas is plasma.

You're looking at a very tiny star.

So, you can make a star on Earth.

Kind of. But it's only ever going to be tiny

because you just can't get enough fuel to make anything bigger,

like the Sun.

But still pretty cool to think that you can make a micro star

in your microwave.

We all do it, but does swearing actually help us when we get hurt?

Or is it just an excuse to mouth off?

Just a little, little bit, it does help.

I swear religiously and it helps a lot.

It makes you feel better for a second, definitely.

Actually help relieve pain? I don't think so.

It's the first thing that comes to the end of the tongue.

# Takes my pain away... #

This is Ella. She's normally quite sweet,

but, today, she's going to inflict pain.

-Hello, Ella.

-Hi.

-So, thanks for helping me out with this.

So, what I need you to do, is use this hammer to hit my finger.

That's brilliant.

If you can start the stopwatch, as you hit me,

-and then we'll see how long the pain lasts for.

-OK.

Go on then. To begin with, I'm going to try not to swear.

Come on.

Ah! Banana, banana, banana, banana.

Banana, banana, banana, banana,

banana, banana, banana.

Yeah, I can feel it. Banana, banana. Ah!

Banana, banana, banana.

You really whacked that.

Banana, banana, banana.

OK, it's gone. It's gone, it's gone.

-This time I'm going to swear.

-Right.

-Yes!

And we'll see if that means I can get over the pain

-in a shorter period of time.

-OK.

Phhhw.

Come on.

Come on.

Ah! BEEP.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

It's going.

OK, it's getting better. BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

OK, it's gone. Yeah, it's gone.

-How was that?

-That was 56 seconds.

Oh, good. You know what?

It did feel like the pain was less when I swore,

but it is so subjective

and using a hammer isn't particularly scientific.

-So, I think we need to try something else.

-Yeah.

And we need lots of people.

I've assembled a group of victims

and devised a new way of causing them pain

with a bucket of ice water.

Right, so what I need you guys to do is to put your hand

into the bucket of ice and hold it in there for as long as you can,

until you can't stand the pain, but you're not allowed to swear.

If you do want to shout out, just yell banana.

OK? Right.

Three.

Two.

One.

OK, that's pretty cold.

The freezing water cools the skin right down and it's painful.

Ahhh, banana, banana.

I think I've lost a finger. Banana.

Ah!

Right, your turn.

Banana.

Yeah, that's cold. Banana.

This time, you can swear, say whatever you like,

just yell it out there.

BEEP.

BEEP. Ah!

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

Ah! BEEP.

Scientists think that swearing can work as a genuine painkiller.

BEEP.

It increases the heart rate and activates parts of the brain.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.

Releasing chemicals called endorphins.

And they can help you tolerate the pain.

It's part of the fight or flight response

and that helps us survive dangerous situations.

OK, guys, so, when we swore,

on average, we lasted one minute and 30 seconds longer.

-Oh, great.

-Great.

-Which is good stuff. That's amazing.

Swearing, used in the right context, has the ability

to reduce the pain that we feel.

Whether that's a quick hit from a hammer,

or a sustained amount of pain by sticking your hand

in loads of icy water. BEEP.

Saying that, though, the more you use it, the less effective it is.

So, keep all those BEEP, BEEP and BEEP to yourself

until you really need them.

Here's Professor Logic. How do you do, professor?

Professor Logic is a busy man. So much to see, so much to learn,

so much to measure.

Today, Professor Logic is working on his spaceship.

He's trying to make it go a bit quicker.

Just exactly how fast are you intending to go, professor?

You're aiming for close to the speed of light.

Ah. you're going to be doing a spot of time travelling.

Time to say goodbye to your friends and neighbours.

Really, professor, you're old enough to be her father.

Professor Logic, what on Earth are you up to?

I see. You think that because the theory of relativity

says that time slows down as you approach the speed of light,

that, when you get back to Earth, you'll be younger.

So, that's what this is all about.

# You can tell by the way I use my walk

# I'm a woman's man No time to talk... #

Oh, dear, professor, you've made a mistake.

You haven't got younger, everyone else has got older.

While you've been travelling at approaching the speed of light,

you're time slowed down relative to everyone else's.

Two months for you, a lifetime for them.

I'm afraid that's relativity for you, Professor Logic.

We've all heard rumours of the bizarre and unexplained

and there's one in particular that I'm really interested in.

Every now and again, someone finds a burnt human body,

but the hands arms and legs are left untouched, so is the room.

It's claimed to be spontaneous human combustion, but is it possible?

Could I simply burst into flames?

# Hot as the flames... #

To get to the bottom of this gruesome phenomenon,

I'm going to recreate a typical case.

This container makes a good living room

and this recently deceased pig is our human substitute.

It was destined for the butchers,

but, like scientists have done for centuries,

we're going to use it for research

because its physiology, size and skin are all very similar to ours.

Right, we've got to make this more human-like,

so we need to wrap it up in some clothes.

Pig in a blanket.

The first thing to know about spontaneous combustion

is that the victims are usually found near to a source of ignition,

like a gas fire or a smouldering ashtray.

So, we can knock spontaneous on the head straight away.

But there's still a lot of weirdness to investigate,

like, why is it only the torso gets burnt?

And why is the room left untouched?

So, here goes. Some typical, un-spontaneous combustion.

Normally, if you were...fell asleep with a cigarette,

the cigarette would just drop onto whatever you're wearing

-and then it would go. So, we'll try it?

-Yeah.

Let's see if that will take on the cotton blanket?

-Well, it's starting to go, isn't it?

-Yeah, looks like.

-So, that's the cigarette pretty much gone.

-Yeah.

It's burnt through the cotton, we're pretty much down to flesh.

Now, normally, you'd simply wake up and put yourself out.

But, if you were already dead or otherwise incapacitated,

you'd continue to burn.

This could take many hours,

so we're speeding things up to the point where the body catches fire.

# Darling

# There's fire in the house tonight... #

So, it's been what? An hour and a half now?

-I reckon about an hour and a half.

-It's still burning away.

We seem to have a beautiful flame just centred in the middle, don't we?

Yeah. If you look closely, you can see the skin's split

and now the fat's rendering down. The fat's becoming liquid

and it's actually the fat of the animal that's burning.

And that fat is soaking into the remnants of the blanket.

The pig's clothed body acts like an inside out candle.

The melting fat is the wax and the blanket is the wick.

And, like a candle, the whole thing burns with a low flame,

so the fire is unlikely to spread to the rest of the room.

-There you go. Fire, six hours later.

-Yeah.

You can see where that wick effect's happening, in the middle.

I mean, this is it.

It's a big pool of fat burrowing down with the flame.

Exactly. And that's where it started,

that's where the cigarette caught fire.

-And the head and the trotters...

-Still intact.

-..nothing.

I mean, they haven't even been touched.

And the reason?

Bits not covered by clothing can't become part of the wick

and they don't contain enough fat to burn by themselves.

The mystery of the burnt torso explained.

So, when the police go in and they find arms, legs and head

and loads of, kind of, burnt ash in the middle,

but the whole of the rest of the room fine,

spontaneous human combustion.

-Probably not so spontaneous.

-That isn't so spontaneous. Yeah

Well, at least I don't have to worry about bursting into flames anymore.

Living here, in the UK, we all know what it feels like to be chilly.

Being exposed to extreme cold is just bad news

for us thin-skinned humans.

But what does the extreme cold do to your body?

And is it possible to survive it?

I think I'd just move and move and dance and wiggle.

Find a pocket-knife from somewhere, find an animal, cut it open

and live inside that and slowly, slowly crawl my way to civilisation.

Double jumper, five coats.

Well, we'd get naked and hug.

And if you're really bad, get a cup of coffee.

# Cos you're giving me the chills... #

It's not exactly the weather for a pool party,

but me and my mates are up for a challenge.

The temperature in this unheated pool

is about 12 degrees above freezing,

but we're prepared to take the plunge

in the interests of scientific research.

Right, let's get rigged up.

Cold water robs the body of heat roughly 30 times faster than air,

which means our bodies are in for a shock.

I'm wearing this mask to monitor my breathing rate

and oxygen consumption

and the clip on my finger will tell me my heart rate.

-Heart rate, 85.

-85.

Time for a quick temperature check.

-Yeah.

-36.5 degrees.

And in we go.

Three, two, one.

-Ah!

-Ah!

-Ah!

-Whoa!

-That's cold.

-Oh, oh.

-Ah!

-Ooh.

Oh, oh, oh.

As soon as I hit the water, my breathing rate

and oxygen consumption go through the roof.

And, no surprise, we're all shivering.

I can't control it, my muscles are just going.

That's the body's way of keeping warm,

but all this takes energy

and that's bad, because if you use too much energy, you're a goner.

On top of all this, my heart rate's shot up.

It say's 87. More energy out of the window.

-Andy, I want to try something on you.

-Yes. What?

-Pop that on your finger.

'But nature has a way of slowing it down.'

Get your base line reading.

'Which saves energy.' 96.

-96?

-96.

-Ready?

-Andy!

-What now?

Go! Go!

59.

This lowering of your heart rate

is called the mammalian diving reflex.

All mammals do it. It's a way of burning less oxygen

when you can't replace it by breathing,

extending your range when you're swimming under water.

And using less energy in the form of oxygen is also what happens

when you body temperature drops.

-Good.

-What's that?

-35.3.

So, before I got in, my core temperature was 36.5.

It's now dropped to 35.3.

-Let's get out.

-LAUGHTER

Obviously, getting out of freezing water is the very best thing to do,

but, weirdly, the coldness we're trying to escape

can sometimes save lives.

The interesting thing is that, as your body cools down,

your bodily functions start to slow down

and your organs require less oxygen.

As they require less oxygen, you need to breath less

and, eventually, you get to the point

where your body needs so little oxygen,

you could actually survive without breathing at all.

And this simple fact has led to an amazing medical break through.

By chilling them to 16 degrees,

doctors can put patients into a state of suspended animation

and perform complex operations without the blood circulating.

Usually, this would mean certain death, but, at these temperatures,

the body is using almost no energy and can often survive

for up to 40 minutes before being warmed up and resuscitated.

So, extreme cold can do some awful things to warm-blooded mammals

like ourselves, but, ironically, in some situations,

losing your heat could save your life.

There are still plenty more secrets out there.

Next time:

Why digging to Australia is even trickier than you thought.

My brain doesn't work.

Why this, plus this, plus this

equals far more of this than you could possibly imagine.

But I only burned 1,210 calories.

And what about this?

Your challenge is to make a mountain out of a fridge.

You really couldn't make it up.

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