Nuclear Breakdown - Back to the Future DeLorean Reactor Scenes
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2024
- Back to the Future is an amazing film and has a surprising number of nuclear references. Let's check it out. Also, don't worry! Chernobyl Part 5 is coming soon, but I wanted to give you guys something else (also, a bit more fun and light hearted!) in the mean time.
If you'd like to support the channel, I would greatly appreciate it: / theatomicage
Sources:
[1] "The twin PWR reactor containments at the Cook Nuclear Plant in Michigan" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contain...) by Dwp49423 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dw...) is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
[2] "Tcherenkov" ( • Tcherenkov ) by La Chaine Pourrie ( / @moisitv ) is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)
[3] "How Powerful Is Lightning?" (www.weather.gov/safety/lightn...)
[4] "How much energy does lightning generate? | Exchange Utility" (www.exchangeutility.co.uk/new...)
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:46 Breakdown
01:00 The radiation symbol
02:08 Jigawatts!
03:38 Where do you get plutonium?
04:04 Radioactive shipping labels
06:48 Scrutinize the nuclear shipping package
07:59 "Safe now. Everything's lead-lined"
09:57 Do you need more plutonium for each trip?
11:28 The Roentgen meter
12:42 What does a radiation suit do?
14:02 Is a lightning bolt powerful enough?
15:50 Trash as fuel for Mr. Fusion
17:30 Outro
Hey, everyone, don't worry! Chernobyl Part 5 is coming soon, but I wanted to give you guys something else (also, a bit more fun and light hearted!) in the mean time. Hope you enjoy.
It’s worth the wait. 👍
I had a question, at chernobyl, how bad could it have been? Like worst case? What's the worst that could happen? Theoretically?
It could have had a larger release of radioactivity than it did, but I really don't think it could have gotten much worse than it did - the reactor exploded violently and released extremely large amounts of radioactivity.
@@TheAtomicAgeCM I guess the scenario, where the corium reached a large body of underground water and caused a massive steam explosion that ruptured the other units, was a possibility. I don’t think it was as likely as has been claimed, as we’ve discussed before, in another context. What do you think?
@@langdalepaul I don't buy it haha. Sure there could have been a steam explosion of some sort or high pressure steam geyser directly under Unit 4 that could propel more of the core into the atmosphere, but I don't think it's possible for it to have anywhere near enough energy to destroy the other units - directly at least. If we want to speculate on emergency situations where power at other units could be lost or something, then maaaaaybe. But I think that complicates this discussion greatly. I just don't think it could approach anywhere near the kind of levels necessary to do such a thing - definitely not destroy the other reactor pressure vessels directly. I think its only danger would be to shoot more radioactivity into the air.
The Delorean has a 1.22 gigawatt circuit breaker so lightning bolts pose no problems. Everybody knows that.
The part when 1985 Marty takes 1955 Doc to see the DeLorean and the Flux Capacitor for the first time, when Doc falls to his knees exclaiming "IT WORKSSS!!!!!"
Gives me chills every time. Cool video! I like your Chernobyl ones too.
when this baby hits 88 miles per hour your going to see some serious shit🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That DeLorean was some serious shit
Man, that "FISSILE" shipping logo is waaaaay more benign than I was expecting.
yeah, it is plain looking, but it's strictly controlled for. each content of a package is given a "no ifs, ands, or buts" value for CSI, say for example 5. you're not allowed to have a group of packagings that have a total CSI greater than 50, so you could have ten, CSI 5 (5*10 = 50) packages lumped together and be assured of safety. with the radiation label, there's like that "slow burn" danger if you will but there should never be a situation where fissile packages go critical if procedures are followed. but it is indeed curious that they look so benign. there's a reason somewhere out there in the regulatory ether
4:06 - 4:17 The silent reaction here with just the blinking eyes cracked me up. 🤣
3:00 The "fuel rod" in the car is depleted instantly by the time jump, whether this is due to rapid aging of the rod due to some form of quantum effect or the time equipment simply sucks all of the potential energy right out it in a split second IDK... But, you are correct with it being all done in one huge "pulse" of nuclear energy.
Great video! Im a massive BTTF nerd (trying to build a replica delorean time machine myself actually) so it was nice to get an expert opinion on some things. Heres some interesting trivia that expands on things you said.
"This looks more like a package he would use to transport sound equipment."
That is indeed what it was originally! The case was made by a company called Anvil, a company that, amongst other things, makes boxes for instruments and sound equipment in the Los Angeles area. When doing the set design the propmasters must've happened upon one of their cases and used it for the plutonium case. Funnily enough, Anvil now makes replica versions of the plutonium chamber case as an omage to the movie.
"Perhaps the car ejects the fuel once its done with it"
While not explained in the movie, a book recently came out that was co-written by Bob Gale called the Delorean Time Machine Owners Manual, and inside is a diagram of the nuclear reactor itself (I have no idea if its anywhere close to correct, perhaps you could take a look at it someday...?) and one of the parts shown is a spent fuel chamber, which is said to be removable. I dont hold this book to super high scrutiny however, but having input from Bob Gale means he must've approved it enough to be at least partially canonical.
The Roentgen Meter
This is actually something that watching Chenobyl taught me inadvertantly, about the gauge not really making much sense as an indicator for the reactor being empty. But, we know why it was used. Michael Scheffe, one of the designers of the Delorean for the first film, was walking around one of the electronic surplus yards that they sourced parts from and happened upon that gauge. Considering they knew the car was going to contain a nuclear reactor, and Roentgens measured nuclear radiation, it was a match made in heaven. Those meters came from US Navy radiacs, by the way. The round gauges next to it have never been identified (at least with that particular face insert). Contacting the company and asking for where those gauges were used led to them saying it was top secret information. Fun stuff!
Mr Fusion
That's pretty cool to know that, if cold fusion was actually able to be done, that garbage like banana peels and Miller cans would actually be a viable fuel source. Even though I think that might've just been a coincidence. Mr Fusion was actually based on Mr Coffee, which, like how Mr Coffee brought brewable coffee into consumers hands, Mr Fusion would bring nuclear energry into the consumers hands. As such, the top part of Mr Fusion is famously made from a Krups 223 Coffina Coffee Grinder. This same coffee grinder also makes an appearance in Alien (though I believe it was actually intended to be a coffee grinder in this instance)
Thank you! Great trivia knowledge here.
No sir you are not a BTTF nerd... You are a BTTF scholar and thank you for the incredible information and a I really hope one day you get your DeLorean. I know some guy in Texas is allowed to sell new ones but are very pricey. Only the other week I was in Belfast where of course they were made. All the best from 🇮🇪 👍
I like how the back of the time machine (the reactor parts of it) are just heavily scaled down versions of their life sized counterparts. By what I can see anyway.
Iirc the jigawatt thing was because Christopher Lloyd couldn't say gigawatt. They just left it in as it adds character.
Within science fiction, one can figure that there’s science speculation- That’s a key reason for why I subscribed! Very intrinsically interesting video, *Atomic Age* !
I was watching The Dark Knight Rises the other day, wondered if you’re planning to do a video on how Wayne Enterprises nuclear reactor bring turned into a bomb by Bane?
Just an Idea for content (love your material and delivery), what about something like a "Worst Case" series: either the worst containment units caught on film, hypothetical case studies (all earth's Nuclear plants runaway simultaneously, etc.), or something to that effect. Really enjoying the Nuclear Engineer Reacts/Break Downs!
I'd be curious to hear you discuss the Goiânia accident that occurred in 1987. It seems quite different from other accidents insofar as people unknowingly ingested radioactive material.
Great video! Can’t wait for the next Chernobyl , I’ve been actually checking back to make sure I haven’t missed it. Thanks for your great content!
When I first read this I thought you were saying you can’t wait for the next Chernobyl, as in the next catastrophic nuclear accident! 😂😱
You made a comment in the video about how a bolt of lightning may be too much for the Delorean. I realised that in the films the time circuits start to malfunction and eventually fail completely when struck by lightning multiple times.
The way Doctor Brown pronounces giga is closer to the Greek word γίγας (gigas), the word for giant, that giga- is based off of. Most other languages also pronounces gi with the softer g like giant that sounds closer to a j.
So really, the people pronouncing it with the hard G are the ones pronouncing it wrong if you want to be a condescending prick about how he's pronouncing it.
Hey Charlie, thanks for explaining a gigawatt hahaha. I enjoy your channel and all your videos.
Great video..I enjoy these. Its a science that im not too familiar with but its incredible just because of the energy density.
Your channel is really intresting espcially as a chemical engineering student I am able to see the intresects of both of those fileds in a fun and intresting way. Looking forward for more fun neculer engineering content as it help me expand my knowledge in a less technical/boring way :) + have you thought of a Rick and Morty review?
Thank you! I've never really watched rick and morty.
Keep it up!
_>Nuclear topics_
_>BTTF_
_>Synthwave_
Subscribed.
EDIT: Isn't Pu a manmade material that can only occur through fission? If so it would be highly radioactive from the start as it's a fission product. Atleast that's what I remember reading years ago, I could be wrong...
EDIT2: According to google, Natural Pu exists but in trace amounts, but I'm not even sure how viable it would be to extract for use as fuel compared to manmade Pu.
woo hoo!
yes, any sizeable portion is made in a reactor. They chemically separate it from the nasty stuff, though.
Well done that was awesome :)
thank you!
@@TheAtomicAgeCM you mentioned in a previous video you used to have a game
Channel. What was the name of that and is the content still available? Thanks
From Australia.
yes, still going! it's called "FPSchazly" ua-cam.com/users/FPSchazly1
As explained later in part III it still runs on gas so you have all tree in play here. A fuel tank, very high voltage and a reactor.
And yes jigawatt is a well known mispronunciation for gigawatt but has also become a meme for whenever something is in need of more power
Technically fusion power does exist. It just doesn't produce more energy than it takes in (yet)
I guess I had figured that the Flux capacitor and it's assemblies took in the power from whatever the reactor was and amplified it's power at a specific rate. So as the plutonium created a reaction but it didn't nessesarly need to be the full 1.21 gigawatts.
I really do like these reactions for anything considering nuclear power. May I request Spider-man 2?
Thank you! That could be fun with that mini sun thing.
Please note: The Time Machine was in three phase.
(Everything on the machine is in groups of three)
this was fun
Plutonium 239 is extremely mellow compared to many other radioisotopes, it makes x rays of about 8keV and slpha particles. Theoretically gloves alone are more than enough to protect you from the radiation itself. It is, however, extremely chemically reactive, about the same as cerium, which is the metal that makes a cigarette lighter spark. Because of this it is handled in a glove box as it will oxidize and flake off. Inhaling it is extremely unhealthy to put it mildly.
Ooo! I get to be the first commenter on something!
**flail-waves**
Utterly fascinating as always - thank you for making!
In the future, you should talk about Shoreham. Great story there.
Maybe there's only a tiny tiny amount in each pellet.
And Doc invented a super efficient ultra burnup reactor, which is a much more useful invention than a time machine!
Oooh, maybe it's a liquid fuel reactor?
It looks like liquid, it didn't look like solid plutonium.
Liquid reactors have very high burn-up.
So maybe that's it, it's a Plutonium liquid, very low fuel density and it gets 100% fissioned running the flux capacitor.
@8:50 "The reactor is lead lined so it's the movies way of getting around the fact there is a nuclear reactor in the back of the car." Jeez, the Delorean is so famous for not even being ABLE to make it up to 88mph much less more than that as is. Now add a nuke generator along with lead lining weight too? That suckas gonn' be heavy bruv.
How about a reaction to the polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinyenko? Interesting stuff there?
only watch your thumbnail and realise that this movie is before chernobyl accident.
The best thing about his "jigawatts" was that the subtitles *actually* read "Jigawatts" in the DVD.
Also, you *could* generate a 1.21GW pulse from an AA battery - if the pulse were a maximum of ~4 nanoseconds long. Not withstanding maximum discharge rates, though.
Fun fact, In polish translation of the movie, they actually say Gigawatt, not this 'Jigawatt' nonsense. I always assumed, that this wierd pronauciation was because they wanted to highlight his german roots, and marty never actually bothered with that since he does not know anything about this stuff
@@NocnaDusza I always assumed it was because it was the mid 80s and no one had any familiarity with pronouncing the prefix giga yet outside of a handful of power plant operators and "huge" mass data storage engineers, so Christopher Lloyd probably just said it the way he thought it should sound and everyone else just went with it.
@@christosvoskresye yep, ESR of nano-ohms would already prevent this. And they're typically in milli-ohms.
@@Muonium1 Yeah, that actually makes more sense
I'd like to think someone said Jigawatts by mistake and everyone thought it was funny so they left it in. I think the bit where Marty goes "What the hell is a Jigawatt?" is supposed to poke fun at it.
In regard to the fusion part of this, you should break down The Saint, which involves "cold fusion" (yes, it's still total conjecture currently, but it'd be fun!).
Ah, yes the good ol' Cold Fusion hehe. Added to the list, thanks!
@@TheAtomicAgeCM ❤
What would be the legal way for the Doc to source Plutonium? How do commercial nuclear power plants buy their fuel?
That's actually a good question. I don't work on that side of things, but I assume you'd have to be running an approved, licensed facility to be able to buy and sell uranium and plutonium. I'm quite certain Doc's DeLorean is unlicensed haha.
Probably easier to get a legitimate official prescription treatment plan with medical cocaine for having headaches, with doctors scripts and getting coke refills at CVS lol with all being regulated and getting a permit on a federal level so you could even travel the country with medical cocaine in your carry on at airports
@@TheAtomicAgeCM The main question is where the hell they Libyans get it? Who did they steal it from and how? I would assume it's probably Soviet plutonium.
@@jaycee330 There's a brief scene in the opening where it implies the Libyans stole it, but the TV news article tries to write it off as an inventory error, presumably to prevent panic.
My head canon is that the as the reactor pulses and the wormhole or whatever opens the radiation is left at the point of departure or scattered across time or something.
That Roengten meter looks not terrible, but not great. Large power plants of any kind can put out 1.21 gigawatts. Grand Coulee Dam can put out 6.809 gigawatts. Coal power plant Scherer in Georgia puts out ~3.7 gigawatts.
Man I need to rewatch back to the future! Thank u!!! Such a good breakdown of something I basically skipped when I watched this as a 7 yo
Any time! I would expect any 7 year old to have their eyes glaze over at most of those parts :)
Chernobyl part five will be worth the wait.
I read that during filming Christopher Lloyd did actually intend to say gigawatts (that's how it was written that way) but accidently mispronounced it. they decided to leave it in and it became jigawatts
Need part 5 man
it's coming!
Mr. Fusion would be up to the challenge
pair that up with a Mr Gutsy and we'd be good to go
Getting the pulse power that high would require a critical mass that would be larger than these fuel objects, and packing them next to each other in the same box would risk a criticality accident.
umm I thought nuclear power didn't run out that fast cause when you think about it running at max power does it not take a lot longer for run down nuclear fuel down then they make to run down in the movie?
@@raven4k998 Getting a pulse of nuclear power requires enough mass to support a chain reaction. It’s quite possible to create a short pulse of power with the right design of nuclear reactor. Some research reactors are designed to do this, going supercritical until they hit a target power level, then immediately going subcritical. On the extreme end, there are nuclear reactors that expend large portions of their fuel in a single pulse. They’re commonly known as nuclear weapons.
9:28 The fact that you chose to use the word 'docile' is terrifying to me. Most people use the word docile to describe a potentially dangerous animal. 'Most piranha are relatively docile, unless you're bleeding'. LOL
haha it's docile as long as you don't mix too much of it with water. but yeah, there are better synonyms for safe
Would you consider reviewing "Part 6: 'A Is for Atom'" from the Adam Curtis documentary series "Pandora's Box"?
looks interesting, seems to be anti-nuclear and from about 20-30 years ago. I'll put it on the list, thank you!
@@TheAtomicAgeCM it's not really anti-nuclear, and in large part it's interviews of people who were involved in the industry. At least I didn't get an oppositional vibe from it, and I'm quite pro-nuclear. Very pro, to be honest.
I thought I had seen on the making of Back to the Future that it was giga watts but someone wrote it up wrong as jiga watts and no one knew the difference
technically you could fit a reactor with that power into a car. compare with the core dimensions of the proposed BN-1200.
the cooling system though not a chance, let alone steam generators and turbines.
Like these videos. You should check out the movie "Manhatten Project" 1986 . Kid steals plutonium from his moms boyfriend who works for the government makes a B word for a science project.
Lead is also a lousy neutron shield, and neutrons from fissions would mess the driver up.
Of course, the gasoline has lots of hydrogen, which could shield the driver from neutrons.
I NEED my Chernobyl ep 5 REACT….NOW!! PLEEZ, we ALL DO!! IM DYING man!!! I gotta a FEEVA and my only prescription is Chernobyl Ep 5 REaCt!!!!
What about a Alexander Litvinenko video?
Wouldn't you need 2 plutonium rods next to each other to get any kind of reaction?
without getting too technical, no, you could definitely do it with just one piece of plutonium. there are a lot of factors at play as to whether one rod would be enough. to be fair, the amounts of plutonium they showed were much less than critical mass based on just the sizes we see alone
Could you break down some other nuclear shipping labels and what they mean?
Any labels you have in mind? Or the ones I did but in more detail?
@@TheAtomicAgeCM You noted some of the inaccuracies on the shipping labels, but assuming that the Libyans stole it, they may have just grabbed whatever shipping container was available. It's not like they were planning on shipping it through normal channels anyway.
I would like for you to react to the old movie of a german submarine that had a nuclear reactor "malfunction" (idk the correct term) but it is called K-19.
already did it! and it was a Soviet submarine ua-cam.com/video/nTlrrviJiuU/v-deo.html
Charlie does a 5-minute explanation about gigawatt.. blows right past Wormhole Theory
haha that's the realm of physics
@@TheAtomicAgeCM yeah it was really funny.
Did you anylize the movie fat man little boy? Or the teen movie MANHATTEN PROJECT. Where kid makes a bomb for his science project and collects plutonium
Any chance we get a reaction to the China syndrome turbine trip video?
I plan to do the whole movie eventually, so yes
I just discovered your channel and like what I see, we need some balance to the antinuclear propaganda we have seen in the media for the lat 50+ years. I started my channel (actually a collection of many contributors) in response to the click-bait scam artists that is using people's ignorance about anything nuclear as an opportunity to take their money. When you finally get around to doing some Fukushima videos I woulds love to feature by permission at least one of them on my channel.
what about a video about the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning
What would you like to know?
Life lesson #1 Always have some spare plutonium ☢
What about the actual Plutonium fuel itself? Is that a reasonable depiction of its appearance (I've read that the real stuff when fresh has a sort of shiny blue/green hue)?
No, it's pure Hollywood. Looks like some kind of red liquid. I'd expect the shininess of plutonium metal, but in this instance for reactor fuel, I'd expect the dull graphite/black look of plutonium oxide. If it's raw bomb material, I don't know what form they keep that in.
@@TheAtomicAgeCM Really interesting... Thanks for your reply.
@@christosvoskresye Oh why would it be in a solution for the movie? I don't even think they were thinking at that level. They probably wanted it to look like something other than "just metal", which metallic plutonium would look like. But outside of the movie, plutonium and uranium solutions are very necessary for processing those materials into various forms.
Would it be possible to make a lightning rod that can harness lightning for power? Or would that be too dangerous? It probably wouldn't be efficient or reliable, but would it be possible?
I'm not an electrical engineer but I think it would be possible. Just too random / infrequent to make as any sort of dependable source. The surge-like nature of it might be hard to capture too without damaging stuff.
Do the math. 1.21GW. How much plutonium would it take?
I know you would never have to ship this but what shipping label would a piece of graphite from reactor 4 have?
It would be very dependent on what type of package is used to ship it and how radioactive it is, but likely a Category-III yellow label
In my personal opinion, I don't think BTTF needs a SME. Chernobyl, yes, but this is no different than Ghostbusters, the word 'nuclear' should not be a trigger to tear apart what's supposed to be a more-fun less-accurate film. I do understand, however, that this is meant to be the theme of your channel, so what else can I say?
all in good fun, I love this movie
yes do it late and solid then now and sloppy.
I find it annoying that the emergency alert service in my state uses a trefoil rotated 90° to denote "hazardous material". It was most concerning to see that symbol on the map, particularly since Australia currently has no nuclear energy, until I clicked and it said it was a chemical spill, then I was confused. I have no idea why they chose such a symbol.
that's very bizarre.
"Back to the Future" is actually one of the most oddly accurate portrayals of nuclear/electrical power that any Sci-Fi movie has ever put forth. You can tell the movie producers really did their homework, prior to making this flick. And you can tell from the review done by "The Atomic Age." He really had very little to complain about, if you pay attention!
I almost wish movie-creators nowadays were like this. Even Science Fiction needs to have SOME accuracy to its' science parts. Otherwise, in a nutshell, it is nothing more than fantasy.
ummm it's really not that accurate. like....at all.
Maybe he's saying gigawatts in the same way that some folks pronounce gif "jif".
it was the actor miss pronouncing it, Marty says the correct term after doc leaves the room. It's good that they leave in some mistakes.. "Starwars, with the stormtrooper hitting his head on the door coming down :)"
That’s basically what it is. Back in the’80s before the Giga- prefix entered common parlance in the’90s with home computers, you would hear it pronounced both ways depending on who you were talking to.
@@SynchronizorVideos actually, Zemeckis and Gale went to a lecture, and they heard the physicist pronounce it the way Doc says it; they assumed it was the correct way to say it, without getting anyone else to verify it.
The video has 888 views right now…so meta
are you an actual PE or just call yourself one?
In it gigawatts.
In my native language, giga is pronounced jiga, which seems like a mighty big coincidence.
My guess is someone on set spoke a similar language and told the actors it's pronounced jiga.