The shape that changed our world forever
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- Опубліковано 10 сер 2022
- Retroreflection just might be the coolest thing ever!
Thanks to 3M for sponsoring this episode and letting me explore their facility & technology bit.ly/ASAPx3M
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Written by: Mitchell Moffit
Edited by: Luka Šarlija
Fun fact. One of the first things that was left on the moon, on the Apollo 11 mission, was a retro reflector. It is was left there so we can accurately measure the distance from the earth to the moon. And with the right equipment you can use it to this day. It is one of the indisputable proofs that we did in fact go to the moon.
Love this fact!!!
Big Bang Theory did this on the show.
Can you find someone to get me connected to NASA I'm trying to get a job. Got a few qualifications
@@trapsquad593 did you try their website?
Using that retro reflector on the moon we know that the Moon is moving away from Earth at the blistering speed of.... 1.5in per year.
I’m a truck driver that drives at night. I wish all Roads had this because not only can you not see the lines on certain highways there’s plenty of sections where they don’t remove fully the old lines so you almost have six lanes where there should be three. I’ve seen this in several locations and thought this is sketchy but it’ll be fixed soon and years later it’s the same thing
For me in particular, I am terrified of roads that don't have a shoulder lane to tell me where the road ends. Sometimes nights are so pitch black that my headlights aren't enough to tell me if that black space in front of me is more asphalt or if it's a cliff I'm about to drive off from - have come across several such roads when traveling to LA...
I'm pretty sure that my little city (Poughkeepsie, New York) uses powdered sugar to paint our road lines, since it's all worn out within a few months of unprofessional application.
I’m a transportation Civil Engineer in Illinois so I’m not going to speak for any other state here, but we’re actively installing the water proof lane lines with black contrast around the white in all new tollway projects. The issue with these types of lane lines that wasn’t really touched on in this video is for every 10 foot dash, it costs roughly $180 and that can start to really add up. An additional issue is the road needs divots cut into them so these fabric like dashes can be installed without the fear of snowplows peeling them off when it snows. It’s a matter of your state/district just putting up the money for something like that and actively inspecting the work/checking it a month/year later to track any deterioration. Most of these have guarantees from the contractors for longevity. So if your local government actually cares they’ll have engineers periodically drive through previous projects and check the pavement markings and lane reflectors. Enforcement matters and people aren’t always aware of what your government agencies do. Also, you’d be surprised how angry some people get when they see money being spent on this when so many different aspects of our infrastructure is in dire need of repair/replacement.
@@ajd6708 you make some good points. The problem I have is I feel we pay waaaay too much on taxes so the money should be there instead it’s poorly managed and wasted too many times to count
18 wheeler?
Your channel is the reason why my friends keep asking me "how do you know that random shit?"
+
Same, except with teachers
For me, it's a combination - AsapSCIENCE, Vsauce, Veritasium, MinutePhysics, etc. Just in general the educational part of UA-cam is better than any educational TV show I used to watch (and I'm even including Bill Nye the Science Guy and Magic School Bus in there) :P
@@PeterDB90 c'mon brain gamess
@@PeterDB90 kurgetsgat
LOVE that retroreflection is making it more into everyday knowledge. Celebrities sometimes use Retroreflective clothing to wash out photographs taken by the paparazzi with flash as the light from the flash bounces directly back to the camera. Also, Disney and similar theme parks are trying to use retroreflective surfaces to create illusions of holograms floating in space. Its complicated to explain without visuals, but it uses the Pepper's Ghost effect with a retroreflective surface to bounce the image back to appear floating in front of the reflection surface versus behind it. Imagine if the Haunted Mansion ghosts weren't some distance away from you in a scene, but in front of you floating with no scenery or elements around it. You can test this using 3D rendering software and it actually works, except the only downside at the moment is the quality of the image is dependent on the density of the retroreflective material. There are ways to cheat this but still nothing that has really resulted in HD images/holograms that I know of as yet!
Awesome video, love you guys!
Retroreflective clothing is also super important for e.g. safety vests, motorcycle/bike jackets. Closer to the usages in the video but it only mentioned clothing for about 1s :)
Saving this comment in case I ever get famous enough for paparazzis
Is it weird that I only know the Pepper’s Ghost illusion from The Magic School Bus?
Thank you for the science lesson I learned something today! Science is awesome(:
Not to be "that chick," but I still have all my reflection from when it was first in, so now that it's retro, I just dug the old reflection out of the back of my closet and BINGO, no need to scour the thrift stores for authentic retroreflection, or else settle for cheap knock-off imitation-retro reflection.
You know what grinds my gears about some stop signs?.. Is when they're hidden by dense foliage or trees to the point that you only notice its there as you approach it within 6ft.
Random tangent, getting it off my chest lol
Ugh I nearly flew right past the same one for the third time this year the other day! I need to go talk to the person who lives there about their tree
when someone is about to so something dumb but you kinda wanna see what happens:
(stop sign hidden by tree)
ah, or speed limit signs ftm... We have cities here (B) where police actually looks at the work planning of the city's street maintenance dept to check when they plan on trimming obstructing hedges and trees, and in the week leading up to that event they will go and have extra speed checks just behind obstructed signs. By the time people get their fine in the mail, it's already trimmed back so people can't go an take a picture to prove that it was obstructed. That's what we get from underfunding the police...
I love this channel because I never know what I’m going to learn about but I’m never disappointed! So cool ☺️
Yo 🔥ua-cam.com/video/rdJ9bsN7JAw/v-deo.html
You said it perfectly!
Yes sorry about those bots!
same!!!
Same
Your intro about yellow stop signs jogged a long forgotten memory for me. Many years ago when I was a youngster living in rural Washington, one of the county roads near our farm still had a yellow stop sign in which the letters were outlined with the reflective glass beads. It was eventually replaced with a red stop sign, of course. Thanks for helping me retrieve that memory.
Thanks Asap Science for letting know this info.....i usually wondered what material is used to make the sign boards on highways but never searched as I forget the topic when I reach home.....finally got to know this
Love from India!
I was hoping for an explanation of how 3m turned the retroreflector 3d cube into a 2d surface retroreflector "cube". Did they just make microscopic cubes or what. I'm sure they said that was their IP but imo that is kinda the entire cool science part ignored lol
It's most likely patented and therefore while it is IP the actual design is essentially public knowledge. Some of the details of manufacturing are likely kept as trade secrets though.
Guess we're gonna have to wait for an update once the patent becomes part of the public domain...
There are two ways to do it. The usual way is to embed teeny glass beads into the plastic. They showed a large-scale version of one right next to the corner cube demonstrator. The other way is to mold "corner cube" shapes into the surface of the material when it's being produced. That's not as durable, even if a transparent protective layer is added on top, but it's effective for something that doesn't have to withstand weather.
@@unreachablesecretary Why wait?
They did say it, most basic retroreflectors are just microbeads attached to a reflective layer with adhesive. Those are probably the ones they showed in the boxes for the dry/wet tests.
Since the cubic ones are more complicated, I'd assume the easiest process to be subtractive. Start with a flat layer of reflective material then etch the cube shapes with lithography (similar to microchips but with bigger 3D structures).
Mix in some materials science, some physics, and some engineering and you can adjust parameters like flexibility and refractive index.
Who knew so much science was used in making something that we just take it gor granted
Nice intro but you didn't discuss your first question. "When did the switch to red signs happen...?" Red signs have been in use for many, many decades and they did fad like crazy, like a lot of red did/does. "... and how did we overcome this hurdle?" This got the cool answer with the video and I really enjoyed that.
I can’t speak for how we designed more stable dyes, but I assume one way to make the red more visible at night would be to slightly reduce the density of the red dyes, allowing a bit of white light to be reflected, too. (Similar to the (undesired) effect in traditional stage light filter gels, which are never 100% effective at filtering unwanted colors, so some colors, especially blues, always looked a bit washed out when used with traditional white light sources. You had to resort to expensive dichroic filters for rich colors. Now we just use LEDs, which are natively monochromatic.)
Red is ingrained in our minds to mean “ALERT ALERT” so when we see red on the road we understand “ALERT IMPORTANT SIGN”
@@jprockafella9012 It is for us in the west. But it’s not universal across cultures: in Japan, green is the warning color, apparently.
This was a great video. The only thing I wish it had as a geek, is more of an explanation on how they miniaturized retro reflectors down, to be so incredibly small that they can be on flexible sheets or in a dust you can apply to painted stripes etc. There's a big difference between three full size glass mirrors, and what's on those reflective sheets in terms of scale, and I'd like to know more about the engineering that made that possible!
Having trouble seeing how physics was "broken", as stated in your thumbnail.
And what new shape? Lmao
Yeah
Yeah had to check the title when the video was almost over. I feel like they usually don't do clickbait but this was def click bait. They're more popular now so their audience is probably getting dumber. All hail the almighty algorithm!
This is not a simple clickbait. It’s flat out lying.
Haha good point. They're hoping the interesting science makes you forget the thumbnail no doubt 😆
Or maybe they just accidentally put the wrong thumbnail 🤔 Foreshadowing? I want that video about the shape that broke physics too! 😆
It's so interesting the amount of ingenuity, thought, and I guess, for lack of a better word, science, that goes into this stuff.
I've seen a few retro reflect or videos, but your demonstration at the beginning with the sphere and cubes is hands-down the best I've seen.
Im always surprised that ASAP Science isnt WAAAY more popular with how great they are at explaining science facts.
Well, 10.3 million subscribers isn't too shabby! I think they're doing OK.
Baby they have 10 million subscribers and hundred of thousands of views each videos. What are you even saying.
@@clement9782 I know lol. I'm just suprised none of their videos end up trending on Twitter or something, cause they are quite fascinating.
I was on a research project in college that was analyzing how reflective was too bright for retroreflective signs because if it reflects too much light you can see if from further away but it can also be harder to read what the sign says
Nothing breaks physics.
Only our understanding
Great article, I would have liked to see the small prisms (embedded into the tape) under a microscope to get an idea of the scale and what they look like. They were, after all, the thumbnail that motivated me to watch the video.
Can’t wait for the 3M video explaining PFAS!
In the US military everyone is taught light discipline when conducting night operations/training. That’s why we use red lights if necessary, we have blue and green lenses but idk what they are for. Infrared lights are used too, I have no exp with them though.
As a CDL driver this is incredibly informative. Love the video as well as all the other content you put out.
That’s pretty freaking cool! Thanks for covering this relatively unknown technology.
I LOVE your guys’ passion and I love that every single video you make teaches me something new. And I’m never bored watching them!
These guys jobs are directly saving lives. That's gotta feel fulfilling.
The orientation of the rods and cones are backwards in the video. Human synaptic terminal points towards the cornea/opening of the eye.
Stay calm people, nothing is broken except this video!
3:05 - 3:16 Well, you talked about how to get the reflector onto other stuff but not, how it works at the much smaller scale. Thats what i was most interested in.
This is incredibly fascinating, thank you for sharing this with us!
We still have a yellow stop sign in our city! It wasn't changed since it was pre-war and is an icon.
This was one of the exciting sides of science. Thank you for making such videos 🤝
can we have more videos about tech behind everyday objects please? a serie maybe ;))) loved the video btw
Yes I agree, a serie would be great!
Am I wrong that this felt a little bit like PR for 3M. And the shape? How did it break physics? For something that broke physics it sure wasn't talked about much in the video. Maybe I'm being a little over critical. If I'm wrong please let me know without vitriol please.
Nah you’re making good points, it might worth seeking more info.
It's called clickbait.
Technology Connections did a more in-depth video on retroreflectors a couple of years ago. Might be worth the watch if you're interested in learning more without the PR fluff.
It doesn't "break physics" per se, but it is an amazingly efficient way to make something seem like it's emitting light without using additional energy.
It's seriously game-changing for road safety, among other things.
@@pawala7 breaking physics is sooooooooo far away from efficiently reflecting light, though. There’s clickbait, then there is flat out lying. The thumbnail does the latter.
The "breaking physics" aspect is referring to the law of reflection, which is that the outgoing angle of a reflected particle or wave is the same as the incoming angle mirrored on the perpendicular from the surface. On a macroscoping scale, these retroreflective surfaces don't follow that fundamental rule for the physics of reflection.
He did fail to call back to the title in some way, which is disappointing for people waiting for the ah-ha moment, but the meaning of the title IS quite present in the video.
This video was like, so fricken high quality! I love you guys!
This is a wonderful lesson wrapped up in an straight-forward and exciting video.
Thank you for not dragging us a long with 12x "We're going to get to this...but first!". You kept it real and direct and I appreciate it.
What a cool episode!!!! Thank you!!!
This was very interesting. But 3M is kind of evil too. They lobbied to change all street signs into capital and lowercase letters - which made getting federal money for roads and highways dependant on ALL signs being replaced! So they made a SHIT TON of money by selling a replacement for perfectly working things.
don't forget all their PFAS
.
@N www.epa.gov/pfas/pfas-explained
I know in the UK the signs used to be all caps, but were changed because it takes longer to recognise what you’re actually reading when it’s all caps, so it’s less safe!
@@EddieVanAidan that's how they "won" the lobby. Doesn't mean all the old signs needed replacing. Even a 1ST STREET would need replacing to 1St Street... so helpful!
That not-working-in-the-rain is why I always HATED driving in the rain at night when I lived in the States. Here in the UK, though, they've got cats eyes as a solution! I absolutely LOVE them and going back to the US comparitively feels like driving blind!
I love this channel. Always great content!
I love it so much dear
Thanks for the vid guys.Always a fun vid.
All roads need to have this. Nonreflective paint shouldn’t ever be used in nee construction.
Wow! That was really cool! I never knew there was so much technology involved with road signs.
Title: The shape that changed our world forever
Video: starts talking about yellow stop signs
Amazinggggg I love your channel so much guys. ♥️
It's been fun to see this technology evolve through the years. Cool stuff!
3M has developed or redesigned a lot products we use in our day to day life….and sticky/glue objects are one of their biggest market be it sign post, post it, tapes etc etc
5:35 When it cut to your face in the dark UA-cam immediately switched to a horror movie ad and I nearly had a heart attack.
I used to run laser trackers for inspection in a machine shop, they use a steel ball bearing with a retroreflector cut into it, the center of the retroreflector is the exact center of the sphere, which you manually place on the parts to be measured and the laser follows it, and based on the rotation angle of the head, elevation of the beam projector, and distance the laser beam travels (measured with an on-board interferometer) and then inputting that info into 3D software a 3D reconstruction of the part can be made, which can be compared to a perfect 3D model of the part in the software. By comparing the differences between the measured model and the 3D model, I would be able to determine if the parts our shop made were within tolerance and able to ship out to our customers. The retroreflector spheres were 1.5" inches in diameter and cost $2,500 dollars apiece, and I have no idea how they cut the flat surfaces inside to have the edges meet up as perfectly as they did and polish them as perfectly as they did, it looked like it was made from three precision ground and polished individual pieces then bonded together but they were cut from a solid ball bearing. Some kind of machining voodoo I guess.
My grandfather worked on this tech at 3M. I remember him teaching me about it as a kid. 😀
You guys are awesome.
Fantastic info! Thanks!
This was actually way more interesting than I imagined
Can you do a video on the river stones due to the global drought? It is such a cool concept yet also alarming
Hi beautiful
I just realized a bunch of the times during the night that I thought the paint of the road lines were fading away, it might've been partially just the light not bouncing off as well
The reflector on the thumbnail is never mentioned in the video. So it's worth mentioning here. It is used is used in land surveying to reflect an infrared laser back to an electronic total station. This is how we measure distances between points on the ground.
That is just like how t shirt designs are made! So if you have super intricate designs on your shirt, feel grateful for the diligent work of those that did the work weeding each shirt
wow did not realize even the lines on the road are impacted by this thanks 3M for this video learned something intresting today
0:47 That stop sign is accompanied by a sign saying no stopping at any time
That tiny roadway at 3M is *ADORABLE* 😍 I want a tiny, fully accurate model of an overhead interstate sign now
I loved this! I was curious since I was a kid but never googled it or anything lol
I love getting geeky on Retro-Reflectors in the basic motorcycle classes =oD
Thanks for sharing!
I love how you get straight to the point unlike Veratasium and the british Tom Scott guy
Damn, I feel like my old high school science loving self right now and I love it!
I made retroreflective targets for laser electronic distance measuring, and they enable me to make 3D measurements to within about 1/8" from 200 feet away. Coupled with photogrammetry, I can take very accurate measurements using multiple images, including modelling an entire 1960s 30,000 square foot country club building inside and out. The targets are only 3/4" around. This is the identical technique used on JWST heat shield deployment tests.
Dude shining that laser like he is the only person in the room...1 milli-second of laser light regardless of red or green light, causes permanent damage.
I remember having to prove how the three mirror set up works with vector transformations in college. That was fantastic, thanks Dr. Mueller from Cal Poly. You are one of my favorite math professors of all time.
Dr. Mueller was great. Always a special treat when he brought in his fiddle.
Loved this video! It was awesome
Turned a technology connections video into an ad for 3M
I have noticed that signs have retroreflection on them, and in particular it's how I can tell FOR SURE (based on how bright the signs are) if the guy behind me is using high-beams or if it's just a very tall vehicle that has annoyingly tall low-beams
I remember as a kid looking at the Back reflectors on my bicycle & seeing these almost honeycomb patterns that looked almost 3D/holographic now i know how they worked. This was 40 years ago so they have advanced so much. Boring reminiscing about the past in comparison to today's tech is like archaeology.
Its so amazing that a company decided to invent this and how much impact it has on the world
Omg I loved learning about this! I had no idea it was this technological!
This was so interesting!! Love your videos
0:20 oh my god do our cones really look like that? I feel like I'm shopping at bad dragon
lol someone else saw the same thing. Why do we have dildos there?
@@gonzalodiazexcoffon7269 😭😭 thank god I'm not the only one who thought so
5:30 slayyyy queen
lol I love how excited you are about signs, very wholesome ^_^
So, what exactly was the shape that changed the world? This video first notes that spherical beads do a good job of retroreflection but then notes that the inside-corner mirror reflector does a better job, implying that it's not spheres but something different that's actual "The Shape". Yet then it goes on for the rest of the video about the reflective tapes, which it appears uses the spherical beads. I was expecting the video to go into some detail as to how the company mass-manufacture tiny shapes (not spheres) thqt employ that inside-corner mirror approach.
Nice! Would like to see how they make the retroreflective material.
Thanks, very informative 👍
This was such a cool video. Thank you for creating this video.
He said 'rods' with a lot of enthusiasm.
Never thought someone would make me think road signs and lines were interesting yet here we are
0:35 well, the rods do capture a tiny bit of red, since they extend to 640nm (according to the experiments by George Wald). And below 625nm, they still capture orange a bit more than red. So while it’s true that the rods are _relatively_ insensitive to red, it’s incorrect to state that they don’t respond to red at all.
I was thinking about saying that.
It doesn't matter in my case, I have more sensitive blue receptors than anything else, because blue light and higher frequency will nearly blind me if my eyes aren't prepared. I even probably have vestigial UV receptors too, as I can't see UV but my eyes react to it all the same.
@@ShwappaJ UV light just looks like a blurry purple to me.
I'm surprised how simple the solution for life threatening problem like this
Love all of this stuff! Really cool to see how things developed. Also, it was also cool seeing the flash of lightning, I'm guessing, in the background flash in the sky @6:26. :D
That was fascinating
my great aunt runs a sign shop that does stuff like this, kinda cool
I likw when u both do science together
Mind-blowing video, guys! You're awesome!
This is cool! And oh my good that u have the signs, especially the one w both of u guys there!
Wow, what a great idea for a video. Roadsigns are waaaay cooler than I thought!
This gets a like because of my collection of road signs. Retroreflection is a great thing
Oh this video is about retroreflection... I wish I had seen that coming!
Your channel is a really cool science channel. So much like it
If they just have this guy standing out by a road sign I'll NEVER miss it
Thank you for the science lesson I learned something today! Science is awesome(:
This commet is about stop light in japan, and haven't still did my research but we call green stop light as "ao" meaning blue because I was told that the early stop light was blue for go...
Lifesaving!
Peeling that plastic is SO satisfying, like when you get a new phone.
The original star wars movie used retro-reflective tape for the lightsaber effect!