Bang Goes The Theory (2009) s03e01 Episode Script

Bang Goes The Theory is back.
Over the next six weeks, we're on a mission bringing you the best that science and technology has to offer.
Jem is back in his workshop for more amazing builds.
Hey! l'm getting light! l'm getting light from weight! Liz is travelling the globe to bring you the latest research.
The water is boiling at 85 degrees Oelsius.
And l'll be tinkering under the bonnet of science's biggest questions.
What actually causes the seasons? Well, the answer to that question is 4.
6 billion years old.
That's Bang Goes The Theory, putting science to the test.
Oh, my life! Hello and welcome.
lt is great to be back.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We have got an action-packed series and a jam-packed show for you tonight.
We certainly do.
Now, you might remember, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing an oil leak a mile below the ocean's surface.
spilling up to 60,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico every day.
Now this is America's worst ever off-shore oil leak and the biggest environmental disaster.
Thousands of square miles of ocean have been affected causing unimaginable devastation to the Gulf's economy and ecosystem.
l travelled to Louisiana to see how the experts are coping there, and in particular, how they are working to save one of the area's most threatened species.
This is the Gulf of Mexico, just off the coast of Louisiana.
lt's somewhere l have always wanted to visit, but l never, ever wanted to see it like this.
All around me are great big lumps of crude oil floating in the sea.
And, as far as the eye can see, lots of boats have been recruited to help and contain this horrific disaster.
Much of the oil came ashore on the islands of the Mississippi River Delta, one of the most important wetland ecosystems in the whole of North America.
The Gulf of Mexico is home to a countless number of species, from the smallest micro-organisms, like plankton, to the largest marine mammals, like the resident sperm whales that come here.
Once the smallest micro-organisms take in the toxic oil, the entire food chain, all the way up to the top predators, gets affected.
Of course this is incredibly important marshland, in which there are unicellular organisms called microalgae, and they are very, very crucial to the ecosystem.
They do things like taking in carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen.
Once they are poisoned by the oil, the whole food chain is in trouble.
Now, just how oil disasters affect ecosystems and their wildlife depends not only on how much oil is out there, but also what kind of oil it is.
ln some cases of oil spills, you're talking about refined oil.
lt's already been turned into diesel or petrol, and it looks like this, and it is incredibly toxic.
So the main effect to wildlife is going to be poisoning, but as with the case of this disaster, you're talking about crude oil - stuff that looks like this.
lt's thick and gloopy and sticky.
Unlike refined oil which, despite its toxicity, evaporates and breaks down quite quickly, crude oil like this will stick around for years.
The absorbent booms, the white ones that are now completely soiled with the oil, and then these containment booms are covered with oil as well.
Now, these are designed to protect the really important nesting grounds.
For many plants, fish and micro-organisms, there really is very little we can do once they're affected, but we can treat some larger species like birds.
Even then, you have to realise that they are only a tiny part of the ecosystem that's under threat, and the success rate is far from certain.
A key species is the brown pelican, the emblem of the state of Louisiana.
lt's only just been taken off the USA's list of endangered species, which is why a massive effort is being made to airlift them from all over the Gulf for treatment at the Fort Jackson Bird Rehabilitation Oentre.
Wow.
l didn't actually realise there would be so many pelicans in here.
lf a bird makes it this far, it is likely it will be suffering from the effects of oil ingestion, hypothermia and malnutrition.
Only when they've got their strength back can the process of cleaning begin.
The thing with pelicans which is great is they have a natural handle.
So we actually hold the bill and we keep the bill open because they have very small nostrils so they breathe through their mouth.
You've got to clean inside the mouth because there's loads of oil in there from the preening process, right? Yes, they get oil when they dive into the water to scoop fish up.
lt really is so horrific to see all of these birds under these conditions.
They're covered in crude oil, and that oil has completely destroyed the feathers' ability to function, and feathers have hugely important functions in birds.
These are the vein feathers, or the outer feathers of birds.
They're made up of a central shaft running down the middle and loads of side branches called barbs on each side.
Now, every single barb has lots of barbules, and those barbules have lots of miniscule hooklets that all provide cross-attachment like this, and it all results in this beautiful waterproof barrier.
Let me show you, if l pour water on top of it.
Look at that, it just runs off.
Now, the oil isn't running off like the water did.
And as the bird is trying to clean the oil off, the feathers begin to get really matted, and all of the barbules are separated, they're not interlinked anymore.
Basically, the feathers collapse.
So you lose your waterproofing, you lose your insulation, and you lose your buoyancy.
And that's why all of these birds are in so much trouble.
Even the smallest trace of oil left on the bird will cause problems, as the preening action will spread it around again, so every single bit must be removed.
She's using a spray gun, and that's actually just making sure that we get the detergent in and under those outer feathers and into the soft, downy feathers.
And then, after that, there is a series of sinks that they bathe in.
What we do in the sinks is aggravate the water, so we're not scrubbing the birds, we're aggravating the water around the feathers.
lt breaks my heart to see this.
l know you're doing incredible work and helping to save these birds, but to see them in this condition is really hard to watch.
lt always affects you, but the same way that people work in a hospital or fight fires, we're trained to do a particular task and we have to stay focused on that task.
One of the things about the rinse, that you see when you're rinsing a bird is, because the feathers repel water, there's a point where you begin to rinse where you see water beading off the feathers.
That's the time when you know that you're nearly there.
This team has washed over 250 pelicans in the last eight days, so at this point, it's really a production line.
Wow.
l'm so impressed with these guys, just getting on with the job.
Especially this pelican is so feisty, and really putting up a fight! - l just got soaked.
- lt's good.
lt means he's strong and it means he's certainly ready to get out to the pools outside.
Once the bird is clean, it is taken to a drying pen.
As the feathers dry, the bird starts to preen naturally, gradually realigning its feathers back into the neat pattern that creates that waterproof seal.
Aw, look at them, they are all clean again, it is so cool to see them like that.
To get a bird to this stage has taken the team at least five days, and only 80% have survived the ordeal.
But in a few hours, these birds will be flown to Texas for their release, hundreds of miles away from the oil.
l have to say, this is the most amazing sight l have had all day.
My heart sank when l saw the oiled birds in there getting treated, but this is the result of all of the hard work.
And it's absolutely awesome.
lt's just an appalling situation.
lt really is.
lt only just properly sank in when l was on the plane on the way home.
When you're on the ground, everything you're seeing is so surreal and overwhelming.
For me, this is an engineering catastrophe that has had shocking environmental consequences.
What l wanted to know was, how do disasters like this occur in the first place, and what can we do to then bring them under control once the worst has happened? lt doesn't matter where you drill for oil, you always hit the same basic problem.
Most oil reservoirs are under a vast amount of pressure.
So, as you drill down through thousands of feet of rock, you end up with a situation like me drilling into this modified car tyre.
Oil quite literally erupts from the hole, gushing, out of control, from the well.
But if drilling into an oil reservoir is this hazardous, what on earth do they do to bring it under control? Answer - they use mud, and lots of it.
This is probably the most important substance in the oil industry, but to show you how it works, l'm going to need to build an oil well.
What we've got here is an oil rig.
lt's positioned above over 1 ,000 metres of sea water then a couple of miles of rock, down to an enormous oil reservoir.
That reservoir is under huge pressure.
lf l were to be reckless enough to go drilling willy-nilly into that oil reservoir, you're pretty much guaranteed a disaster.
So what do l do? l use this - mud.
lt's mainly a clay called bentonite, mixed with water.
This lot has a specific gravity of 1 .
75, which means it is nearly twice as dense as oil.
OK.
That's the drill hole full of mud.
And if l've got my sums right and l burst through to the oil reservoir, the weight of mud in this pipe should exactly balance the force of the oil trying to squirt up.
And We're definitely through there.
l can feel it, but it's balancing.
There is no oil coming up, yet the pressure of the oil should be sufficient to squirt it straight out.
lt's totally being held just by the weight of the mud in the tube.
This simple system is what keeps thousands and thousands of oil wells around the world from blowing out.
But, for whatever reason, this hydro-static balance, as it is called, was lost on board Deepwater Horizon.
Oil and methane burst out of the rig and exploded, killing 1 1 and causing the biggest oil spill in US history.
So, what do you do once an oil well like this goes out of control? The first thing you try is pumping heavy mud back in there.
The idea is to increase the weight of the mud in the tube and fight the enormous pressure of the reservoir pushing oil up.
BP tried that in May - it didn't work.
The next thing to try is to cap the well.
lt's like putting a massive steel cork in the top of it.
But it is like a massive steel cork, and that's only a temporary measure.
The one way to finish the well completely is to drill a relief well.
And this is how it's done.
A second well is drilled, the so-called relief well, but this one goes down and across through a few thousand metres of rock.
Now that is an astonishing engineering feat because you're not only drilling sideways, you're trying to hit something no bigger than a lamppost.
And that's through.
Now what happens is mud is forced down into there.
And, as it goes into the original well, the oil pushes it up until the original well is full of mud, then the weight of that mud prevents any more oil escaping the reservoir.
lncredibly in the Gulf of Mexico, that operation has been successful, and they are currently replacing the mud with concrete to kill the well off forever.
l've spent most of my life working in engineering, and l still find it almost mind-boggling that they can attempt these deep water wells.
We're talking about drilling a hole that's a mile below the ocean's surface, and then through another two miles of solid rock before hitting a high-pressure oil reservoir.
Yeah, l mean it's unknowns.
Oan we sensibly ask if it's going to happen again? For me, that's possibly the best thing that can come out of this, is that there is a leap forward in drilling safely and drilling technology, but ultimately we're looking for oil in such technically difficult environments now that l don't think we can categorically say no.
That's the key point.
Liz, let's talk about some of the long-term environmental implications of all of this.
Scientists simply can't put a figure on it.
They can't predict when species would ever be able to recover fully from a disaster like this one.
This is unprecedented.
l mean, birds that l saw were the tip of the iceberg.
lf you think of animals that live under the surface, a lot of the dead animals are going to sink to the bottom.
So you can't recover them and quantify the extent of the damage to the ecosystem.
Atlantic Bluefin tuna are a good example of all of this.
Their populations only breed in two places in the entire world - the Med and the Gulf of Mexico.
They were spawning in April, at the time this disaster happened, so the chances are that population is going to be in big trouble.
How does this disaster compare with the Exxon Valdez spill? lt's a really good question.
At its highest estimate, this disaster is an Exxon Valdez every four days.
That's just scary.
lt's not good.
Listen, we have to stop there, otherwise we'll be talking about this all day.
We have to move on.
lt's been a long, long time since Dr Yan has graced our screens, and this week, he is playing with Russian dolls.
Have you tried weighing things before? Are you any good at weighing things with your hands? Not really.
Try that, see how much you think that weighs.
lt depends which hand you hold it with.
A couple of pounds.
- l don't know - Oan l have a go? A kilo? 400 grams? 3 pounds? Yeah, it's about three and a quarter pound.
lt's quite difficult to judge.
- Yes.
- That's because we're not very good at estimating the exact weight.
lnstead you tend to think, ''That is quite heavy, that other thing is quite light.
'' You just give it some comparisons, but l will show you that we're not even very good at that.
Here are two Russian dolls - which one do you think is heavier? This one.
That one, l would say.
Definitely this one, the left-hand, yes.
That one.
l've got some scales here.
Do you want to try them out? l'll wait till it goes to zero.
So that one is 365-366 grams, and this one, the big one is Exactly the same weight.
Wow! That's how bad we are.
Oh, my God, wow! And the weird thing is, you know these are the same weight now, so try feeling them.
lt still feels heavier! lt still feels heavier, doesn't it? Yeah.
lt is called the size-weight illusion.
These two objects, they look like they're made of the same stuff.
So experience tells us that, by all rights, the larger one should be heavier.
Basically, all other things being equal, weight increases with size.
You think, ''That's going to be heavy, that's going to be light.
'' Then you pick them up, and you go, ''That's a bit weird, that small one is much heavier than l expected, ''and this big one is much lighter than l expected.
'' And you think that means that this one is actually heavier and this one is actually lighter, but, of course, they're the same weight.
lt does the same comparison regardless of whether it's the tenth time you've picked it up or the first time.
lt does the same sort of thing.
Olose your eyes and hold out your hands like that, with your fingers out like that, and l'll put some of these dolls on.
So, what would you say? - They feel the same to me.
- Yep.
Not a lot in it.
- Have a look.
- They're the same? Yeah! And once you remove all clues about size, then basically they feel exactly the same.
- No, sir.
- Weird.
- Good, isn't it? - Yeah.
That is crazy! l don't No, l can't deal with this today.
There we go.
Dr Yan, scientific satisfaction guaranteed.
Yeah, always, absolutely.
Now, Mr Oampbell, l seem to remember you promising me a humdinger.
How about this? l have recruited a time lord, a large aircraft to prove Einstein's theory of relativity - special and general.
Ooh, l'm impressed, but do you really need an aeroplane? Yep, and a £40,000 clock.
For most of us, the way that we experience time is pretty simple.
One thing happens after another.
So, if there's a picture of me flipping a coin in my living room at this particular moment in time, then there's going to be a picture of me flipping a coin on every television that is tuned into BBO One.
Time never flows backwards, nor does it speed up.
At least, that's what we thought until Albert Einstein came along.
Then, all of a sudden, time became, well, relative.
ln 1905, he wrote his special theory of relativity, which said if you travel very fast relative to somebody else, you'll end up younger than them.
To understand what l mean, l want you to come and have a look at my new car.
l'm going to accelerate to almost the speed of light.
When l get there, things will seem pretty normal to me.
My watch will still tick, and every 60 seconds, l'll be a minute older.
l'm 39 years, ten months and 1 7 days old.
lt is 7.
10pm exactly.
But compared to my relatively stationary friends back home, my time will slow down.
That's called time dilation.
ln other words, they would get older whilst l was away.
Right, now l've just got to find a warp button that should accelerate me close to the speed of Argh! Now, if l drove at 0.
999% of the speed of light for eight hours, then arrived back at my house l'd discover something rather odd would have happened.
My watch is telling me it's eight hours later, and l would indeed be eight hours older.
But things back home would be very different relative to the timeframe l've just travelled in.
Relative to my near-light speed car journey, time back here at home would have moved forward not by a few hours, but by about a week.
My time had slowed as l'd been travelling really, really quickly relative to people back home.
You might have thought this bombshell would have made Einstein very, very happy, but ten years after he'd been messing with time with his special theory of relativity, he was doing it again with his general theory of relativity.
This new theory took into account the effect of gravity on time.
lt is said, for example, that time is going to run slower for somebody standing on the surface of the earth where there is lots of gravity, relative to, say, somebody who is floating around on a spaceship where there is hardly any gravity at all.
Now, you may think that this sounds absolutely bonkers but, for example, the satellites that control your car sat nav wouldn't be able to work without taking relativity into account.
To prove that this is more than just science fiction, l'm going to do an experiment that hasn't been done in a very long time.
l'm going to try and experience the effects of special relativity by speeding up as close to the speed of light as l can, and general relativity by leaving the surface of the planet.
l'm about to meet a real Time Lord.
'And to help me, l'm going to borrow a clock off a real Time Lord.
' - Hi, Dallas.
- Hi, are you Setnam? - Yes.
- Nice to meet you, l'm Dallas.
Um What have we got here? What's all your kit? Well, all of this is where UK's time is generated.
So, let me get this straight, all this gubbins here, this is the correct time - time doesn't get any more correct than this? The speaking clock calls you up, the BBO pips call you up to get the correct time, and that's it? Absolutely.
lf two of those caesium clocks remained in this room for the next four billion years, they'd be less than one second out of sync, but Setnam is going to lend me one of them to fly right around the world in less than four days.
So, if Einstein's theory of general and special relativity are correct, when l get back, my clock will have changed relative to the clock that stayed in this room.
How big would that time dilation effect be? OK, Dallas.
Well, according to my calculations, this is the special time, which is This is the general relativistic time.
OK, so special relativity, the faster l go, the slower time is going to go? Yes, relative to the clock left on the ground.
General relativity, the further away l am from a massive object like a planet, the faster time is going to go? That's right.
Which one of these is going to have the biggest effect on our time dilation experiment? The bigger effect actually occurs due to the general relativistic effect.
l think l get it.
- l think l get it.
- And, according to my calculations, if the airborne clock travels at 540 mph at an altitude of 33,000 feet, then the clock and everything on board the aircraft - including yourself - should have aged by an extra 245 nanoseconds.
245 nanoseconds, so that's 245 billionths of a second.
So that's not a whole lot.
lt's the time it takes light to travel just one foot.
So that's a billionth of a second from there to there? Pretty much.
Size ten.
OK.
So l'm going to be ageing if l do this? Yes, you will actually be ageing.
- OK.
- Pack moisturiser.
ln one sense, this is a very simple experiment.
All l've got to do is check in on a flight to New Zealand and then come back.
Passport, tickets, atomic clock But on the other hand, this clock is not really designed as hand luggage, and it cost 40 grand.
No pressure, then.
Now, if anyone tells you that international air travel is glamorous, try 46 hours on a plane.
And despite the excellent service, the boredom soon kicks in.
The flying bit was actually fine, even though an atomic clock is a less than talkative travel companion.
Hi, there, l'm Dallas.
But every time l had to change planes, the clock had to be switched to its emergency batteries.
Let's go.
We have to plug Which meant that if l didn't find a plug soon, time would run out, literally.
So we have to go from 1 15.
This is the most stressful thing l've ever done on Bang.
This clock is high maintenance.
lt's worse than travelling with a small child.
Hi! - Did you enjoy having the clock on board? - Did we ever! And let me tell you that grey, dull Heathrow has never been so welcoming.
'All l've got to do is get back to the National Physical Laboratory' '.
.
resync the clock and see if there has been any time difference.
' OK, source AO.
Wow.
OK, l can reveal that entire journey took 44 hours and 48 minutes, which means l am the fastest person ever to circumnavigate the globe travelling west in a commercial air liner.
- Good man Dallas Oampbell.
- You are amazing! He lS amazing! But did you prove the theory? l did prove the theory.
Not that it needed proving.
l am categorically 230 nanoseconds older by taking that flight than l would have been if l stayed on the ground.
Dallas, l hate to break it, but it shows around the eyes.
- That's ok, it's a small price to pay.
- Ok, time to say goodbye boys.
- Goodbye.
- Bye.