Super nerdy jet engine and material science video

[mjohnson]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'll take "statements that you'd never expect to hear" for $500, please, Alex.

(generalizing of course)

In the materials world, you have two sects. The thermodynamics-focused seekers of truth (me) and the kinetics-tainted swill.

Maybe it is that thermodynamics, the drive of nature, directs all? Maybe it's that one or more of us had a really hard time with chemical reaction kinetics?

Let's keep welding out of it. That's a mystical mash of the worst bits of thermo with kinetics. And some voodoo.

But seriously, this versatium video was more or less 100.0% in line with my allegedly proper and rigorous metallurgy education. They captured some concepts that are so fundamental but that are complicated/hard.

The pigtail mold is cool, but the next step up is the float-zone refining that I used to help out with at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We would finish with a seeded single crystal of silicon - purer than any other as it didn't have any container/crucible to muck up the product. Like ppb or better purity. The coolest part was that a few inches above the seed you'd see the last dislocation exit, distorting the solidified surface. Past that was not only very very pure Si, it was also dislocation free - having only the remaining defects required by thermodynamics/physics. This silicon was valuable for solar cell research and very high power density semiconductor devices because defects (dislocations/impurities/etc) knocked down the hole-pair lifetimes sucking up energy and making heat.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mjohnson

(generalizing of course)

In the materials world, you have two sects. The thermodynamics-focused seekers of truth (me) and the kinetics-tainted swill.

Maybe it is that thermodynamics, the drive of nature, directs all? Maybe it's that one or more of us had a really hard time with chemical reaction kinetics?

Let's keep welding out of it. That's a mystical mash of the worst bits of thermo with kinetics. And some voodoo.

But seriously, this versatium video was more or less 100.0% in line with my allegedly proper and rigorous metallurgy education. They captured some concepts that are so fundamental but that are complicated/hard.

The pigtail mold is cool, but the next step up is the float-zone refining that I used to help out with at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. We would finish with a seeded single crystal of silicon - purer than any other as it didn't have any container/crucible to muck up the product. Like ppb or better purity. The coolest part was that a few inches above the seed you'd see the last dislocation exit, distorting the solidified surface. Past that was not only very very pure Si, it was also dislocation free - having only the remaining defects required by thermodynamics/physics. This silicon was valuable for solar cell research and very high power density semiconductor devices because defects (dislocations/impurities/etc) knocked down the hole-pair lifetimes sucking up energy and making heat.

I find these sorts of posts interesting. I'd love for you to post more and/or go deeper.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Otter74

I showed that video (and a link to the channel’s page) to my partner, who is a science educator. She found herself almost 15 minutes into it before she realized she had to stop and go back to what she was doing! And this is a woman who has no technical interests whatsoever.

For anyone with an inquisitive mind that has isn't instantly averse to anything STEM, I think this stuff would be interesting.

[masraum]

This one is very cool as well.

[john70t]

Another channel is Smarter Every Day :https://www.youtube.com/destinws2/videos

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by aschen

Watch his video on entropy.

My personal favorite as a thermodynamics enthusiast

I hope you can explain something he said in the video - that 100% of the energy we get from the sun is radiated out into space. It seems to me if that was true we wouldn’t have any coal, oil, natural gas, or even plants and animals. Some of that energy from the sun is converted to chemical energy and stored on earth - isn’t it?