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Speaker 2: Does your supermarket have notions? Look for the signs cheesemongers, aristas,
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Speaker 4: Oh hey, it's your neighbor who's always out vacuuming his car,
Speaker 4: and you're like, is he really clean or is he
Speaker 4: so dirty that he needs to be vacuuming it that much.
Speaker 4: Ali board back with another episode of Ologies. Okay, so
Speaker 4: today one half of a two parter on Potter. Are
Speaker 4: you ready for this? Have you been ready for this
Speaker 4: since nineteen ninety seven?
Speaker 5: Were you even born in nineteen ninety seven?
Speaker 4: Now, whether you've read all seven books in the Harry
Speaker 4: Potter series, or you've just seen a movie or two,
Speaker 4: or all you know is that Harry Potter is about
Speaker 4: a charming adolescent member of the occult who has I
Speaker 4: guess pretty bad vision. This episode is about chemistry and
Speaker 4: the science behind the spells. It's just dang magical and fun. Also,
Speaker 4: it's kid from I'm not going to swear. I've managed
Speaker 4: not to swear. It was difficult. You are welcome, okay,
Speaker 4: but before we board, the Hogwarts express a really quick
Speaker 4: bit of business prior to leaving the station. So thanks
Speaker 4: are in order to everyone who supports the show by
Speaker 4: signing up on patreon dot com for as little as
Speaker 4: twenty five cents an episode, which lets you submit questions
Speaker 4: to the ologists. Thank you, Everyone's sporting Ologies wares from
Speaker 4: ologiesmerch dot com. We have brand new merch up, including
Speaker 4: some stickers to help you find all the ologites around you.
Speaker 4: Thank you also to everyone who rates and subscribes to
Speaker 4: ologies and shares episodes on social media. Y'all keep it
Speaker 4: up there in the science charts. And especially to the
Speaker 4: folks you know close to my heart who leave reviews.
Speaker 4: You know, I creepily read each one, and I pluck
Speaker 4: a fresh one each week, such as, for example, cup Eater,
Speaker 4: who said, if you ever thought about the movie Legally
Speaker 4: Blonde and are like gosh, I wish el Woods had
Speaker 4: an awesome podcast about science and creativity and fact based
Speaker 4: thinking in general that I could listen to every week. Well,
Speaker 4: that is a nodly specific request, but also what this
Speaker 4: podcast is. Thank you, Cupeter, I will take that with
Speaker 4: a bow. Also, Sarah Jane Horwitz, your secret is safe
Speaker 4: with me and anyone else who reads every single review. Okay,
Speaker 4: potter Ology, come the frick on, dad Ward, I've got okay,
Speaker 4: I've got a making up Potterrology right listen. My standard
Speaker 4: is theology has to have been used previously by a
Speaker 4: person not involved in this podcast in an educational or
Speaker 4: an academic setting. And yes, potterlogy does count.
Speaker 5: It does exist.
Speaker 4: There are book clubs called potter Ology there's an instagram
Speaker 4: at potter Ology. It has like fifty thousand followers, and
Speaker 4: it serves up some hot Harry Potter memes, even Urban Dictionary,
Speaker 4: which is a terrible website of firms. Potterrology is quote
Speaker 4: the study of all things in the wizarding world of
Speaker 4: Harry Potter. So Potterrology. It's in a lexicon and one
Speaker 4: cold cheney. A letter fell from the gray sky, just kidding.
Speaker 4: It was in my email inbox, and it was from
Speaker 4: a real witch, just kidding.
Speaker 5: It was from a PhD student in.
Speaker 4: Nebraska, Channing Thompson, who works with a professor who has
Speaker 4: created a seven week course for exploring the science behind
Speaker 4: each Harry Potter book. She teaches it to local middle
Speaker 4: schools as an after school program, and even has an
Speaker 4: honors class at the undergraduate level at the university. So
Speaker 4: her college course is called a Muggles Guide to Harry
Speaker 4: Potter's Chemistry. Her mission to prove to muggles aka non wizards,
Speaker 4: humans like you and me, that science and technology are
Speaker 4: muggle magic, and to highlight all of the real world
Speaker 4: chemistry and botany and alchemy and love potions and stun
Speaker 4: guns and hybrid animals that we love from the wizarding world.
Speaker 4: So this ologist is a chemistry professor who works on
Speaker 4: the development of electrochemical biosensors that could be used to
Speaker 4: diagnose disease. She's been an author on papers such as
Speaker 4: use of thiolated oglio nucleotides as anti fouling dilutants and
Speaker 4: electrochemical peptide based sensors.
Speaker 5: I needed to meet.
Speaker 4: Her, so I rode tripped. I made a special stop
Speaker 4: my first ever visit to Nebraska, and on a rainy
Speaker 4: morning I made it to the chemistry building at the
Speaker 4: University of Lincoln, Nebraska to meet up with her. She
Speaker 4: is small in stature, wearing fashionable black pants, black boots,
Speaker 4: polka dotted black blouse, and we popped into our office
Speaker 4: past a rustic looking sorting hat and a life size
Speaker 4: cutout of Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter, and she slipped
Speaker 4: on a pair of circular Potter esque glasses. We sat
Speaker 4: down at her desk, where she proceeded to demonstrate disappearing
Speaker 4: ink before I really even had recording levels set or
Speaker 4: handed her a mic. Just wait, you're gonna fall in
Speaker 4: love with this genius human person.
Speaker 5: But I don't need to spell out how charming she is.
Speaker 4: So without further ado, get ready to blast through platform
Speaker 4: nine and three quarters into the world of chemistry Professor
Speaker 4: Honorary Wizard and patrologist, Doctor Rebecca Lae.
Speaker 6: And you can see it would eventually fade away again
Speaker 6: because the chemistry is really what happens is that this
Speaker 6: ink is basically made in a basic pH such as
Speaker 6: like PHG eleven DOWO pH thirteen, so the color is blue.
Speaker 6: But the fact is that when when you know in
Speaker 6: the presence of just exposed to air such as you
Speaker 6: know that air has CO two in there, So what
Speaker 6: happens is that CO two carbonic acid. So carbonic acid
Speaker 6: neutralizes with the base, which is a sodium hydroxide that
Speaker 6: is in the ink, dropping the PhD around pH nine
Speaker 6: or so when that indicator at pH nine is actually colorless.
Speaker 4: Yes, we hit the ground running. We blasted through a
Speaker 4: brick wall and straight into her, showing me a muggle's
Speaker 4: way to simulate the spell apocium attempted by hermione in
Speaker 4: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets to read hidden
Speaker 4: writing from one Tom Marvolo Riddle's diary. So not a
Speaker 4: wizard caught in a struggle of good and evil. No
Speaker 4: worries that special blue ink is basic but neutralizes in
Speaker 4: air to be invisible on the paper. So she swipes
Speaker 4: a liquid point oh five molar solution of sodium hydroxide,
Speaker 4: raising the pH again to very basic, and the message
Speaker 4: pops back up on the paper. Chemistry lesson magic intrigue,
Speaker 4: Hidden messages in a diary that Professor Lai gives me
Speaker 4: to take home. This is literally before the interview even began,
Speaker 4: and I got to ask her anything about her classes,
Speaker 4: and I swear we pick up the microphones like normal
Speaker 4: in a minute.
Speaker 6: It's great because we are really having a real cause
Speaker 6: about it. And I remember students seeing this class on
Speaker 6: the website, the Catalog University. Someone actually wrote me, are
Speaker 6: you sure this is a real class that you can
Speaker 6: receive a credit? And I was like, yes, absolutely, you
Speaker 6: have exam, you have group project that you have to
Speaker 6: work on. Yes, absolutely. Oh my god, this class close
Speaker 6: close really fast. You basically only got sixteen slot. It's
Speaker 6: not a big class. Honors class is only for sixteen
Speaker 6: sixteen slot, and it always ended up you know, the
Speaker 6: class will close very early because it's just kind of
Speaker 6: cool exactly, and some people would also mention that they
Speaker 6: would like to take the class just to have that
Speaker 6: on their transcript.
Speaker 4: A Locals Guide to Harry Potter's Chemistry. Okay, all right,
Speaker 4: let's get into this. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 4: your background with chemistry. When did you realize that you
Speaker 4: loved chemistry.
Speaker 6: I actually, I would say I started to like chemistry
Speaker 6: when I was in high school. But I do have
Speaker 6: to tell you that it is a bit unusual path
Speaker 6: that I took. Actually, in my whole life, I've always
Speaker 6: liked art. Not until even my first year in college,
Speaker 6: I was still going for fashion design or fashion merchandising major.
Speaker 6: So in my second year I switched to biochemistry.
Speaker 4: How did that happen?
Speaker 6: So in my whole life, I've always been into you know,
Speaker 6: arts and actually really wanted to be, you know, a
Speaker 6: fashion designer. And what happens that when I I took
Speaker 6: you know, took a chemistry class in my first year
Speaker 6: and realizing that in college, I went to Kelsey, Los Angeles,
Speaker 6: realizing that I really like chemistry. And I think there's
Speaker 6: a little bit you know, pragmatics reason or lazy reason
Speaker 6: I should not have my students here about that the
Speaker 6: fact because I thought that I did well without needing
Speaker 6: a lot of studying, I just like, yeah, I just thought, well,
Speaker 6: maybe I do actually get this, I get chemistry. I
Speaker 6: was like wow, I just ended up doing well in
Speaker 6: the class, and I thought, wow, okay, I should try
Speaker 6: to think about this might be could be a career option.
Speaker 4: This career hunch was confirmed when she was getting her
Speaker 4: bachelor's in biochemistry at California State University and met her
Speaker 4: undergrad research advisor, doctor Jao.
Speaker 6: Doctor Faming Jell and I really learned about, you know,
Speaker 6: the transformative ability of research. So he basically taught me
Speaker 6: a lot about how it is to do research and
Speaker 6: also how to be a scientist basically to have a
Speaker 6: scientific mindset. I think that's a very important idea as
Speaker 6: to how to approach a scientific question. That's really the
Speaker 6: time that when I look at research like wow, you
Speaker 6: can actually do so much with research. And that's when
Speaker 6: I decided to switch to biochemistry major too.
Speaker 4: And what do you think is a scientific mindset? How
Speaker 4: would you describe it?
Speaker 6: A scientific mindset is? Of course, first you know, you
Speaker 6: have to figure out what's the question, and then you
Speaker 6: have to think about how you're going to approach it,
Speaker 6: and there are multiple ways to approach it. You can't
Speaker 6: be oh, like, I want to try that all all
Speaker 6: of them at the same time. It's not possible. In
Speaker 6: some cases it might be possible, but it's more ideal
Speaker 6: is to systematically isolate one part of the questions, because
Speaker 6: some scientific questions are really really broad and really complex.
Speaker 6: But how to isolate, you know, small chunks, small parts
Speaker 6: and attack small chunks at a time and be able
Speaker 6: to achieve get to a conclusion because you can think
Speaker 6: of it as like a network of you know, questions.
Speaker 6: They're all related. So how am I going to prioritize
Speaker 6: which part I want to address first? And you have
Speaker 6: to think about the amount of time, the resources, and
Speaker 6: all the others. Right, simplify the question or at least
Speaker 6: address one part of the question at a time, and
Speaker 6: even within that one part of the question you would
Speaker 6: like to address. There are multiple approaches to address a question.
Speaker 6: It's very difficult to try to address everything at the
Speaker 6: same time, no matter how big the lab is. I
Speaker 6: think in general, I think I always would say scientific processes,
Speaker 6: do you think systematically? Rather than trying to go I
Speaker 6: like this, I like this are like all of them? Well,
Speaker 6: how much time you have if you have the time
Speaker 6: turner right over there? This is a time turn of
Speaker 6: Harry And okay you might but even then, time turners
Speaker 6: can only go back one hour, so I don't know.
Speaker 6: You still can't address to too much problems. You keep
Speaker 6: turning it back another hour. Oh, let's go back all right?
Speaker 4: Did Rebecca have a necklace nearby that looked like Hermione's
Speaker 4: time turn independent. I'm gonna let you guess. Also, before
Speaker 4: getting her bachelor's she studied at a British school in
Speaker 4: Hong Kong, but for her PhD in chemistry she went
Speaker 4: at the University of Texas at Austin and then did
Speaker 4: postdoc at UCSB. So what sparked this interest in lab work? Like?
Speaker 4: Was it like solving puzzles as you go? What did
Speaker 4: you like about it?
Speaker 6: I like, I consider that, as you know, it's not
Speaker 6: as good as the verito serum. It's not truth serum,
Speaker 6: but it is truth finder. You know, at the end,
Speaker 6: there's a truth to all these things that are happening
Speaker 6: in science in different chemical reactions. Even at that at
Speaker 6: this moment, I may not know all of them. There's
Speaker 6: always an answer to it. I think there's always a
Speaker 6: truth in science, whether we can at this moment know it,
Speaker 6: or we don't have to. We're not technologically advanced enough
Speaker 6: to be able to understand it. Whether it's about a
Speaker 6: pathway in the human body with diseases or just new technologies.
Speaker 6: We may not be able to understand all of them,
Speaker 6: but I think it has I think I like science
Speaker 6: because or chemistry or science in general, is because it's
Speaker 6: truth finding. I think I think it is. I really
Speaker 6: think even if I don't know and understand it all
Speaker 6: right now, but slowly and surely I will get there.
Speaker 6: That's how I'll get it.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a beautiful answer.
Speaker 6: It's just my humble opinion. It could be entirely wrong,
Speaker 6: you see.
Speaker 4: I think it's right. And then when you were getting
Speaker 4: your PhD, what exactly you were studying? Ions correct?
Speaker 6: Oh, I study a lot of chemistry. So then when
Speaker 6: I decided to go to graduate school, I wanted to
Speaker 6: continue on with that.
Speaker 4: Rebecca said that she had great mentors like undergrad advisor
Speaker 4: doctor Franglin Jao, PhD advisor doctor Alan Bard. So if
Speaker 4: you have academic dragons to slay, it's good to have
Speaker 4: a posse. I'm guessing both of them were more Hermione
Speaker 4: and less Weasley. Now Rebecca herself seems like a find
Speaker 4: excitable Hogwarts professor. And when it came to teaching, you
Speaker 4: got to design a syllabus and you are clearly a
Speaker 4: Harry Potter fan. Yes, yes, When let's actually go back
Speaker 4: to that, when did you read your first Harry Potter book.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's been such a long time, I have to say, actually,
Speaker 6: I would say it was probably the time that the
Speaker 6: first one came out, Yeah, two thousand and one. I
Speaker 6: believe The Sorcerer's Stone absolutely, and at that time it
Speaker 6: was already usked. That's the time that when I was like, oh,
Speaker 6: it's very cool. Oh it's a really cool book.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: So but I didn't actually, I mean, I had that
Speaker 6: book then, but I didn't really get into seriously studying
Speaker 6: it completely, digesting the books and learning all about it
Speaker 6: until later on, for sure.
Speaker 4: Okay, quick aside a little background on the books. The
Speaker 4: first in the series was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,
Speaker 4: published in nineteen ninety seven in the UK. Harry Potter
Speaker 4: and the Sorcerer's Stone in nineteen ninety eight was the
Speaker 4: US version and a name change which was suggested by
Speaker 4: the publisher. Rowling says that she regrets it. We'll talk
Speaker 4: about that more later. Also fun fact, the initials JK
Speaker 4: were to sidestep any issues with young boys who bristled
Speaker 4: at reading a female author. Now Jay stands for Joanne.
Speaker 4: K stands for Kathleen. She didn't actually have a middle name,
Speaker 4: but she made it up. Now. The first imprint of
Speaker 4: the book was a scant five hundred copies, and three
Speaker 4: hundred of those were sent to public libraries in the UK,
Speaker 4: which means then a rare signed first imprint, complete with
Speaker 4: a few typos and some misnumbered pages, has fetched nearly
Speaker 4: ninety thousand dollars at an auction earlier this year. So
Speaker 4: Evan esco Your Life Savings. That means it disappeared.
Speaker 6: It's a very old book, bit and it's very useful,
Speaker 6: King because I read it so many times. I think
Speaker 6: that book is probably one that I read the most
Speaker 6: number of times. I think the others at least around
Speaker 6: seven or eight. That one's probably ten. I cannot say
Speaker 6: that I remember everything, but I definitely have read it
Speaker 6: many many times. It's also quite short.
Speaker 4: Yeah to the other one, and so what was he
Speaker 4: What was your impression when you were reading it? What
Speaker 4: really hooked you?
Speaker 6: I just thought it's really amazing. I was thinking very
Speaker 6: much at that time, not a long time ago, you know,
Speaker 6: I wasn't thinking about having this class yet or chemistry
Speaker 6: when I first read it. But I was just more
Speaker 6: so really amazed by how intelligent, how creative, how awesome
Speaker 6: jk rowning, Yes, I really thought, I thought, Wow, she
Speaker 6: you know, she basically came up with the world, a
Speaker 6: world that is new, unique and or her own. There
Speaker 6: are other ideas, you know, or books could be similar.
Speaker 6: But yet at the same time, I think, you know,
Speaker 6: she really, you know, generally, she really has this niche
Speaker 6: right there, you know, generating, you know, a whole just
Speaker 6: a whole world that I think is uniquely hers. And
Speaker 6: I was more at that time, I was really amazed
Speaker 6: off for writing ability and also just be able to
Speaker 6: come up with a world like that, because I've always
Speaker 6: been to arts. Actually I wrote short stories myself, never
Speaker 6: to anyone, but you know, I've always been interested in
Speaker 6: writing stories and also sci fi and things like that.
Speaker 6: So I think it's actually quite amazing to be able
Speaker 6: to come up with an idea like that, because there's
Speaker 6: a lot of internal logic, you have to make it consistent. Yes,
Speaker 6: you can generate all sorts of sci fi world, whether
Speaker 6: it is for books or for manga or any animation
Speaker 6: anima like Japanese animations. A lot of them got based
Speaker 6: on some really unique sci fi ideas. But you really
Speaker 6: have to maintain that logic throughout the series. And I
Speaker 6: think she thought about it a lot even when she
Speaker 6: first wrote The SORCER's Stone. So therefore, how to tie
Speaker 6: everything to be consistent? And I'm still very amazed by that,
Speaker 6: and it's very inspiring.
Speaker 4: And it's kind of like, how can mystery is consistent?
Speaker 4: It's predictable because of certain chemical laws and physical property.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, I think so too. You learn one concept
Speaker 6: could be applied to other systems or other reactions as well.
Speaker 6: It is very very much the case learning from what's
Speaker 6: previously been done and used that to advance what you
Speaker 6: are going to do or what you are currently doing
Speaker 6: is very important in chemistry and science, as in writing
Speaker 6: as well. I think in creative writing and storytelling it's
Speaker 6: analogous in some ways.
Speaker 4: When did it first strike you as a chemistry professor?
Speaker 4: That hot, damn, I can do a whole class on
Speaker 4: essentially potterrology. Were you like, wait a second, can I
Speaker 4: do well? They let me do exactly?
Speaker 5: I'm sorry I squealed.
Speaker 6: You seem very absolutely correct what you just said there.
Speaker 6: And actually the idea. I was talking to my friend
Speaker 6: who's another professor here is doctor Barry Channg, and I
Speaker 6: always thank him when I have these podcasts and when
Speaker 6: I talk about these classes, because he really helped me
Speaker 6: and encourage me because I at that time, I basically
Speaker 6: asked him. I was like, yeah, I would really like
Speaker 6: to do this honors class, but will the university allow
Speaker 6: these type of things? I mean, this is really I
Speaker 6: just worry they'll say you're not you know, it could
Speaker 6: be so. But so he said, what you know, Basically,
Speaker 6: he said, well, there's nothing to lose. Just try it.
Speaker 6: Ask them if they will let you. If they don't
Speaker 6: letch you, then the answer is no, at least you try.
Speaker 6: You know, you don't try, you don't know. And that's
Speaker 6: what I did, and I was entirely surprised that yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: the university allowed it. And so that's how it happened
Speaker 6: that I was like great, and after the class showed
Speaker 6: up on the catalog that that students look in and
Speaker 6: just like, oh and a student actually wrote me ask
Speaker 6: me about whether the class is lit. Is that legit
Speaker 6: or not? Who I actually get the credit for it?
Speaker 6: I was like, yes, you absolutely will. Well you have
Speaker 6: to pass it and do a good job the stale
Speaker 6: you will get one exactly. So yeah.
Speaker 4: So Rebecca also teaches the curricula in much simpler form
Speaker 4: for high school and elementary after school programs. Her university
Speaker 4: class was four honor students and it met fifteen or
Speaker 4: sixteen weeks in a row. Pre Rex having read all
Speaker 4: seven of the Harry Potter books that is over four
Speaker 4: thousand pages. It's over one million words. Posers need not
Speaker 4: apply now. I wish we could have made this a
Speaker 4: four hour episode because she covers everything from the science
Speaker 4: of invisibility cloaks to the spells. Petrificus totalis which freezes
Speaker 4: your foes, and chemicals in nature that can simulate it,
Speaker 4: like Haitian zombie powders from plants and the deadly pufferfish
Speaker 4: neurotoxin that blocks the conduction of nerve impulses along fibers
Speaker 4: and axons. It comes from bacteria in the puffer fish,
Speaker 4: not the puffer fish itself. So not a wizard can't
Speaker 4: cast any spells. That's fine, just get yourself a dirty pufferfish.
Speaker 4: This class is amazing anyway.
Speaker 6: And so's that's how it's started. And I think it
Speaker 6: was just it was just great, just trying to come
Speaker 6: up with the syllabus of what I would like to
Speaker 6: talk about, and it's just it's really it's good fun.
Speaker 6: I think, you know, really setting up the class and
Speaker 6: thinking about how to run this class to make it
Speaker 6: fun but still educational. I think that's always going to
Speaker 6: be the case, because after all, it is a chemistry
Speaker 6: class and will be graded and they should learn things
Speaker 6: right as a chemistry professor, as a scientist, I cannot
Speaker 6: just say, oh, I'll have a class, it's all good fun,
Speaker 6: funds great, but they have to learn things that have
Speaker 6: to put effort into it. And I think at the
Speaker 6: end I definitely receive because we have students' evaluation for
Speaker 6: our classes, and definitely a few students mentioned that despite
Speaker 6: it seems like it's a you know, a fun class
Speaker 6: and whatnot, I've learned a lot that's actually a lot
Speaker 6: of science material. They learned a lot about not just chemistry,
Speaker 6: but science and technology as well. But the most important
Speaker 6: part I would like to mentioned this class is that
Speaker 6: their homework. There's also, of course attendance point because there's
Speaker 6: class participation. They need to know answer questions and participate
Speaker 6: in class discussions as well. So these are all part
Speaker 6: of it. But but before I want to get there,
Speaker 6: I would like to mention how the class. The first
Speaker 6: thing I did on my first class was that I
Speaker 6: shorted them into houses.
Speaker 4: Quick aside, for those who have never read the Harry
Speaker 4: Potter series in totality, Hogwarts is Harry Potter's wizarding school,
Speaker 4: and it has different houses, kind of like fraternities, but
Speaker 4: for cool witches. Raven Claw raven Claw mascot, Eagle colors
Speaker 4: blue and bronze. Values creativity, wit, intelligence, and learning. Raven
Speaker 4: Claus kind of seemed like the guy at work who's
Speaker 4: always reading books on his lunch hower and you're like,
Speaker 4: good on ya. Hufflepuff mascot the Badger colors yellow and black.
Speaker 4: Values loyalty, justice, hard work, and patience. I feel like
Speaker 4: Hufflepuffs are the friends who hope you move. Gryffin Gryffindor
Speaker 4: mascot Lion colors Red and gold values bravery, gumption, chivalry,
Speaker 4: and courage. Harry Potter himself along with his buds Hermione
Speaker 4: and Ron Weasley all Gryffindors Gryffindors Ultimate Wingman, and finally
Speaker 4: Slytherin Slytherin mascot the snack I'm a snag now colors
Speaker 4: Green and silver values are leadership, cunning, resourcefulness, and ambition.
Speaker 4: They seem kind of like hedge funt account managers of tomorrow,
Speaker 4: like congrats, you drive a bens, but you need to
Speaker 4: also pop your collar. I don't know if I like you,
Speaker 4: but I admire you now. At Hogwarts, the talking sorting
Speaker 4: hat bellows your house before a packed tall of students,
Speaker 4: but in Rebecca's class, she fills it with slips of
Speaker 4: paper and then lets fate.
Speaker 6: I passed the hat around. They all pick one. If
Speaker 6: they picked the green green snake logo, the sliver Slytherin's logo,
Speaker 6: so they slitherin. Then if they got the you know,
Speaker 6: if they got the raven the raven claw, so the
Speaker 6: blue logos or raven claw, and then et cetera half
Speaker 6: a puff and a Griffin dhal after that for the
Speaker 6: rest of the semester, they will sit with their house.
Speaker 1: Yes, before you can take your seats, you must be
Speaker 1: sorted into your houses.
Speaker 6: So I felt in the beginning there were like three
Speaker 6: friends they took the class together, but I split them
Speaker 6: into three houses.
Speaker 1: Not me.
Speaker 6: Actually the hat did that's I was like, you know,
Speaker 6: m I actually put those little logos little pieces of
Speaker 6: papers inside and then seal it with a piece of
Speaker 6: paper and I left it out overnight on that desk.
Speaker 6: Great for them, so to let the head make some decisions.
Speaker 6: Yeah that night, right, and they's got a night to decide, okay.
Speaker 6: And it's not related to me. You got sorted into
Speaker 6: Slytherin as a hats problem, will.
Speaker 2: Have gained a wonderful young wizard.
Speaker 6: So so it was. It was quite funny too. I think
Speaker 6: in another class, I think the twenty thirteen one of
Speaker 6: the students was saying that, but I'm a Grifvens. I
Speaker 6: got sorted into Slytherin. She was very unhappy about it,
Speaker 6: really was very unhappy about it. But what school was
Speaker 6: that was the end of the semester. She actually learning
Speaker 6: more about the Slytherins and learning more about the class
Speaker 6: and working with the other students because I saw them
Speaker 6: in the teams, right, she actually had a great time still,
Speaker 6: you know, despite the fact that she was truly unhappy.
Speaker 6: I could see her face just like I'm it just
Speaker 6: sorted me in the slytherin, I was like the hat
Speaker 6: sort of. But towards the end, I think independent of
Speaker 6: what they came they came into the class wanting to
Speaker 6: be in this house or the other, they all ended
Speaker 6: up learning something about different houses and enjoyed because making
Speaker 6: your friends too, right, because by you know, having them,
Speaker 6: you know, work together for the rest of the semester
Speaker 6: with each other. And why I also mentioned that, it's
Speaker 6: because there are house points. I have four jars, and
Speaker 6: I have intentional approach. I love Swarovski's crystals, four colors
Speaker 6: of it because the sapphires, you know, the emeralds, and
Speaker 6: then you know, you can think of with the rubies
Speaker 6: and then the yellow one. I end up choosing something
Speaker 6: that's more like a topaz, right for the hufflepuffs, and
Speaker 6: I have bags of these crystals, and then in the
Speaker 6: beginning they are all empties or four jars, and then
Speaker 6: when they answer the questions correctly, award ten points. Basically
Speaker 6: still mimicking what they have at Hogwards, right, because they
Speaker 6: have these four you know, big jars. They're not really jars,
Speaker 6: but columns of it. You can see how many would
Speaker 6: they gain house points They'll be they'll open it, open
Speaker 6: the valve and then be like, oh, six rubies, just
Speaker 6: drop to the bottom, you know, No, the griffin doll
Speaker 6: got six points or ten points, right, So that's also
Speaker 6: what what I did as well. So the four jars,
Speaker 6: I have never seen so many hens going on. Yeah,
Speaker 6: because usually you think of college classes, most people will
Speaker 6: ask a question, They're like, I don't want to answer
Speaker 6: your question. Yeah, I know the answer, but just don't
Speaker 6: want to. And I'm just kidding. But you could see
Speaker 6: just and realizing that. I think, no, mother, at what
Speaker 6: level college or or K twelve level, everyone likes to win.
Speaker 4: So in the college level class, they also have final
Speaker 4: projects in the form of a presentation, and everyone in
Speaker 4: each house has to participate. No ducking behind the loud
Speaker 4: person in your group wallflowers. Now, Rebecca had me guess
Speaker 4: the last two winners and they were Hufflepuff and Gryffindor,
Speaker 4: and I was dead wrong guessing both times. Literally the
Speaker 4: last house I guessed each time, I might as well
Speaker 4: get muggle tattooed on my neck. Ps. I checked around,
Speaker 4: and yes, there are people out there with muggle tattoos
Speaker 4: on their necks, and I sadly salute them.
Speaker 7: How did this happen twice?
Speaker 6: Magic is not on your side today? Sorry, I need
Speaker 6: to give you some potions, and.
Speaker 4: I do want to talk potions. So tell me a
Speaker 4: little bit. Tell me about the lessons that you run through.
Speaker 4: I want to hear about the chemistry lessons on your
Speaker 4: syllabus that you relate to the books. What are some
Speaker 4: big takeaways that you're able to give people based on
Speaker 4: the book.
Speaker 6: Yeah. So first I started with, you know, talking about
Speaker 6: sorces stone and about gold, because Sorcerer's stone, right, that
Speaker 6: stone's ability to basically touch anything and can turn it
Speaker 6: into gold. So I talked about the history of gold
Speaker 6: and why the chemistry of gold, Why gold is something
Speaker 6: that's so sought off to back in the medieval times, right,
Speaker 6: why it is gold such a unique metal compared to
Speaker 6: other metals and lesson metals, et cetera. So I talked
Speaker 6: about gold. I spent two lectures talking about gold, and
Speaker 6: I think based on this judent evaluation. The gold portion
Speaker 6: ended up being actually the most well like lectures.
Speaker 4: What are what are some lessons about gold? What are
Speaker 4: some takeaways? Because I've died and out well?
Speaker 6: We talked about you know, microscopic gold versus microscopic gold
Speaker 6: like gold nano particles, and how microscopic gold looks gold
Speaker 6: in color and compared to you know, microscopic gold. When
Speaker 6: when the gold becomes like gold nanoparticles very very small,
Speaker 6: it has a reddish color, and how it ties to
Speaker 6: many other things including arts. Is that if you go
Speaker 6: to a cathedral or places like that, basically red stained
Speaker 6: glass contains coloid or gold.
Speaker 4: Wow, did you know that about gold nanoparticles? I did not?
Speaker 4: So teeny tiny gold particles less than one hundred nanimeters
Speaker 4: show as an intense red color. Well, larger particles or
Speaker 4: nanorods absorb and scatterlight differently, and they present as blue
Speaker 4: or purple. Gold is like, Hey, just because I'm called
Speaker 4: gold doesn't mean I'm gold?
Speaker 6: How dare you so I talk about you know, the
Speaker 6: chemistry of gold or what it means, and I, you know,
Speaker 6: talk about other objects gold objects in the Harry Potter's
Speaker 6: world and compared to and talk about European alchemy, about
Speaker 6: you know, Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, and how they
Speaker 6: also thought that gold being the perfect metal and therefore
Speaker 6: the others are all just not as perfect. And they
Speaker 6: also thought about this idea, how it ties to the
Speaker 6: sorcerer's stone, and that JQ. Allen used this idea, which
Speaker 6: was an idea that was real that people thought about, well,
Speaker 6: can we mix something or discover something that is so good,
Speaker 6: so much more perfect than gold than could be used
Speaker 6: to transform or make change other base or metals such
Speaker 6: as iron and or led anything else to reach the
Speaker 6: perfection of gold, basically convert them into gold. So it's
Speaker 6: related this idea of the philosopher's stone. I would say
Speaker 6: it's not JQ. Allen's original idea, but to utilized this
Speaker 6: idea very well in her books, But it is an
Speaker 6: actual idea.
Speaker 4: PS side note for those who aren't up on centuries
Speaker 4: old alchemy gossip, a philosopher's stone was a real thing.
Speaker 4: Folks were looking for. A philosopher back then didn't necessarily
Speaker 4: mean someone in like a turtleneck writing essays about nihilism,
Speaker 4: but rather literally a lover of wisdom aka scientist Now
Speaker 4: who was Albertus Magnus or the Big Albert. He was
Speaker 4: a thirteenth century Friar philosopher, perhaps an alchemist, although scholars
Speaker 4: disagree about the degree to which she dabbled in gold making.
Speaker 4: But he did believe in the occult powers of rocks.
Speaker 4: So if Big Albert wore a bra, he'd have a
Speaker 4: crystal tucked in it. We both know it now. Roger
Speaker 4: Bacon was a contemporary of Biggie Albert, and he had
Speaker 4: a reputation as a wizard. He also reportedly owned a
Speaker 4: mechanical bronze face that could answer any question you asked it.
Speaker 4: This was called a brazen head, kind of like a
Speaker 4: magic eight ball, but metal and looked like a decapitated head. So,
Speaker 4: knowing all of this backstory about real philosopher, wizards and
Speaker 4: stones in gold, I see why JK was bummed that
Speaker 4: she let the publisher change it to sorcerer for US Americans.
Speaker 4: So who was it who urged the change? It was
Speaker 4: one Arthur Levine at Scholastic Books who thought philosopher just
Speaker 4: wouldn't grab us audiences, and he suggested instead the title
Speaker 4: Harry Potter and the School of Magic. And JK was
Speaker 4: like mm no, but compromised with Sorcerer's stone. Did I
Speaker 4: look up Arthur Levine?
Speaker 5: I did.
Speaker 4: He's at Arthur A. Levine one on Twitter. He lives
Speaker 4: in New York. He owns his own publishing company.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: He has about twenty four hundred followers. So if you
Speaker 4: were to tweet at him and say, wow, dude, that
Speaker 4: was all you huh, he might even see it and reply.
Speaker 4: But be nice, though, because that is quite a dual
Speaker 4: triumph and a burden to carry. Okay, back to the
Speaker 4: wizard Roger Bacon, who I'm sorry, wizards named Roger the best.
Speaker 4: As far as I knew, Roger is just a name
Speaker 4: for stepdads or the guy in accounting who wears Dockers
Speaker 4: but must have a wild, dark, magical life outside the office.
Speaker 6: Roger Bacon, the alchemist, actually thought that gold dissolved in
Speaker 6: something else. It's called the elixir of life, and that's
Speaker 6: something called aqua regia, which is nitric acid and hydrochloric acid,
Speaker 6: which is something that no one should be drinking at all.
Speaker 6: There's no way of lengthening anyone's life whatsoever drinking that
Speaker 6: you can see. But it's also interesting in a way
Speaker 6: that how JQL also used this idea mentioned this elixir
Speaker 6: of life related to the Sorcerer's stone. But this idea
Speaker 6: of elixir of life was around as well for the
Speaker 6: European alchemist Roger Bacon. But of course it's different chemical.
Speaker 6: But yet at the same time, I find it kind
Speaker 6: of interesting why acuaregia, why they I do not know
Speaker 6: why he would consider that's the elixir of life and
Speaker 6: giving this solution this name, But it could be because
Speaker 6: Aqua regia is known to be able to dissolve gold.
Speaker 6: If you just at the HCl, you put the gold
Speaker 6: wire right there, you do not see any dissolution. Now,
Speaker 6: if you just add the nitric acid right there, you
Speaker 6: don't see the dissolution. But as you combine them together,
Speaker 6: you can see it's generating a beautiful dissolve gold solution,
Speaker 6: which is a golden color yellowish color solution. And what
Speaker 6: happens is that the aquius, the gold three plus right there,
Speaker 6: is going to eventually form this gold chloride, which is aquius.
Speaker 6: It's also soluble, and that's what you see in this
Speaker 6: yellow solution right there. So these two reaction equations basically
Speaker 6: is telling exactly the story going from here with the
Speaker 6: solid gold right there, solid this gold wire to become
Speaker 6: this gold chloride, which is aquius basically in the liquid form.
Speaker 6: That's basically the transformation from here is magic right from
Speaker 6: here to you. I'm sure at that time people, at
Speaker 6: that Roger Bacon's time, that must be quite magical when
Speaker 6: you just add some stuff and like whoa, look it's
Speaker 6: all dissolved, you know, and it's really amazing. But why
Speaker 6: the other on its own cannot do that? Why does
Speaker 6: it need that type of combination to be able to
Speaker 6: do that?
Speaker 4: So while aquaorgia might be three parts hydrochloric acid in
Speaker 4: one part nitric acid, exactly the philosopher's stone that Harry
Speaker 4: is trying to protect, it does look in a beaker
Speaker 4: kind of like a glowy orange apparel spritz cocktail, which
Speaker 4: can be magical in the right amounts and caustic if
Speaker 4: too much goes down the hatch. So what if your
Speaker 4: gold has been cursed into a slushy jar and you
Speaker 4: need it dry and solid and like gold again.
Speaker 5: What if you're going through TSA.
Speaker 6: What can we do is that we can actually convert
Speaker 6: it back again. And that's one thing the magical part
Speaker 6: about gold is that and I wouldn't say only gold,
Speaker 6: many of them. You can dissolve it from a solid
Speaker 6: form to a solution form and then you can precipitate out.
Speaker 6: We just mentioned that we use acoregia to dissolve the
Speaker 6: salt gold wire or gold ring into the solution and
Speaker 6: then we can actually precipitate it out. You see, that's
Speaker 6: what one could do. Now if the aco regia solution
Speaker 6: contains only gold, this beautiful yellow solution, and we want
Speaker 6: to collect these powders back so that is more portable.
Speaker 6: You can walk around with this caustic solution everywhere, right,
Speaker 6: and it's just you have to. You want to take
Speaker 6: it everywhere, so you want to bring it back into
Speaker 6: its powdery form. So what happens is that you can
Speaker 6: boil off the excess acroygia and by and removing residual
Speaker 6: nitric acid by repeatedly heating with hydrochloric acids, so you
Speaker 6: might you will be able to obtain the solid tetrachloral
Speaker 6: oric acid. So you end up getting this salt right there.
Speaker 6: So now it's back into this powdery form that you
Speaker 6: can take it everywhere. At that time, I'm sure It's
Speaker 6: very magical to think about. You can go from something shiny,
Speaker 6: beautiful solid and then go into a yellow solution, and
Speaker 6: then by doing some chemistry right there right to be
Speaker 6: able to transform it back into a powdery form so
Speaker 6: that you can take it everywhere.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Rebecca had pulled up some PDF slides to show
Speaker 4: me a pile of powdered gold, which surprisingly looks less
Speaker 4: like a glitter bomb and more like desiccated mustard. So chemically,
Speaker 4: in a muggly way, how do you completely reverse the spell?
Speaker 6: You want a beautiful shiny gold again, you can selectively
Speaker 6: reduce it with sulfur dioxide or hydrozene. You can get
Speaker 6: back to the shiny gold and then you can make
Speaker 6: your gold rings or any other things. So it's just
Speaker 6: think about the gold cycle from solid to liquid to
Speaker 6: the powdery form and then reduce it back to you know,
Speaker 6: the elemental gold of the shiny gold, and then use
Speaker 6: it again and go through the cycle. It's very I
Speaker 6: really do believe, you know, if I were living at
Speaker 6: that time, I don't know what woman Okay, in medieval time,
Speaker 6: I don't know how many there might be some female scientists.
Speaker 6: I'm sure that there were, you know, a great female scientist.
Speaker 6: But to be able to see that and work on
Speaker 6: that would be just very magical.
Speaker 4: Side note, first chemist ever Tapoti, a perfume maker in
Speaker 4: Babylonian Mesopotamia three thousand years ago. She was not a man,
Speaker 4: folks now, the first woman to win a Nobel prize,
Speaker 4: Madame Curie speaking of nobels and spells and gold and
Speaker 4: sorcering with Regia.
Speaker 6: But it was actually used with the Nobel metal, which
Speaker 6: was yes, it was used on that because during World
Speaker 6: War Two, two of those gold medals, because at that
Speaker 6: time German prohibited the export of these noble metal outside
Speaker 6: the country. Nazi Germany did not allow people to do that.
Speaker 6: And yet the two Nobel laureates would not like their
Speaker 6: medals to become something other than what they really want.
Speaker 6: So they actually gone through this process and ended up
Speaker 6: having converted into the powder and then ship it out
Speaker 6: and then after the war was over, it was recasted
Speaker 6: back as the metal, basically exactly going from this to
Speaker 6: this process. So you can see what the process I
Speaker 6: mentioned here was clearly useful. It was a chemist to
Speaker 6: help them out to physicsist wanting to have their metal
Speaker 6: not be destroyed or they wanted it to be shipped out,
Speaker 6: But how you can disguise it? How can you in
Speaker 6: what form that you can ship no precious metal out
Speaker 6: when it's clearly prohibited and illegal to do so. So
Speaker 6: I think these type of methods are very could be useful.
Speaker 4: Less Yeah, little Nazis are the worst trivia. So the
Speaker 4: golden Nobel Prizes belonged to Maximan Low and James Frank
Speaker 4: and Hungarian chemist George de Hevesy dissolved them in a
Speaker 4: beaker of aqua regia as the invading forces were literally
Speaker 4: marching the streets of Copenhagen. This dissolved gold remained on
Speaker 4: a shelf for years, despite the laboratory getting ransacked by Nazis,
Speaker 4: who left the beaker untouched. Because Nazis represent extreme ignorant
Speaker 4: evil ps. If you're like, man, can you imagine being
Speaker 4: smart enough to win a Nobel Prize? I will never
Speaker 4: be that perfect. I just want you to know that.
Speaker 4: On theofficial Nobelprize dot org site, on the very website
Speaker 4: that affirms the story, there is an easy to miss typo.
Speaker 4: So let that be a lesson that perfection doesn't exist,
Speaker 4: but perseverance through obstacles and failure.
Speaker 6: Does of course we are scientists chemist physics, as we
Speaker 6: like to talk about Nobel prize. Who doesn't want to
Speaker 6: have one? I mean, I know most people will not
Speaker 6: have one. I'm sure we're all aware of that, but
Speaker 6: doesn't mean we have a tiny small amount of hope
Speaker 6: that if you would like. I think most would like
Speaker 6: to have one. So you can see before ninety eighty
Speaker 6: is actually two hundred grams of twenty three carrot gold.
Speaker 6: Twenty four carred gold is pure gold, so that's a
Speaker 6: lot of money. But later on it's changed. Now it
Speaker 6: is just one hundred and seventy five grams of eighteen
Speaker 6: carrot gold. Played it with pure gold, but actually it's
Speaker 6: green gold. Basically it's a silver gold alloy. If you
Speaker 6: have heard of what green gold is, basically silver gold alloy.
Speaker 4: So they've made it a little bit cheaper, yes, correct, So.
Speaker 6: Nobel price is beyond the value of a Nobel prize
Speaker 6: to the person who received it is a lifetime's work
Speaker 6: beyond that worth fifty three eighty US dollars, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Which is a think what my two thousand and seven
Speaker 4: prius is worth. So it but it's much more than
Speaker 4: that it's the fact, it's the.
Speaker 6: Amount of work, the honor, and also the amount of
Speaker 6: work to go into that to you know, to continue
Speaker 6: to believe your own idea, because a lot of times
Speaker 6: when people first started, even if you were to ask
Speaker 6: a few of them, a lot of them, perhaps my thought, oh,
Speaker 6: I didn't think the idea would work out, but I
Speaker 6: just kept you know, in the initial trials things were
Speaker 6: not working. I could have given up, but you know,
Speaker 6: but I persevere again and again and eventually believing one's
Speaker 6: own idea and eventually be able to get there. I
Speaker 6: think there are a lot of that kind of story
Speaker 6: if you interview different you know, Nobel Laureates. I think
Speaker 6: not every singles career. It's just like, oh, saal through Okay,
Speaker 6: I came up with this idea and I tried it
Speaker 6: and it worked. It continued to work, work, work. It's
Speaker 6: not always like that. Of course, there are cases that
Speaker 6: like that, but there are also cases that in which
Speaker 6: people you know, truly have to persevere it to really
Speaker 6: you know, got a lot of challenges, but they were
Speaker 6: not giving up, so they just continue to work at
Speaker 6: it and ended up becoming successful in doing what they
Speaker 6: set out to do.
Speaker 4: So, including JK. Rowling who started this. Look on it
Speaker 4: in a napkin, I know, in a coffee shop.
Speaker 6: JK. Rowling's writing to you know broad impact on so
Speaker 6: many people, and I think it's amazing. Oh my, she
Speaker 6: is amazing.
Speaker 4: Do you hope one day to meet oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: I maybe he can help me with Yeah, I feel
Speaker 4: like enough tweets, With enough tweets, perhaps one Rowling will
Speaker 4: learn of doctor Las homageous to her.
Speaker 5: Do you think.
Speaker 4: Also, on the topic of napkin drafts, I've looked into
Speaker 4: this further, and Rolling says that she had the first
Speaker 4: ideas for the Harry Potter series while on a train
Speaker 4: from Manchester to London, which had been four hours delayed. Also, JK.
Speaker 4: Rowling's parents met on a train. Two reasons perhaps why
Speaker 4: trains and terminals might make such charming appearances now ps,
Speaker 4: train nerds, please see the Ologies episode Pharaohechronology for more
Speaker 4: shockingly kid friendly information. Anyway, JK started writing the books
Speaker 4: by sketching the characters, perhaps on a napkin, and then
Speaker 4: wrote much of the rest of the books in cafes
Speaker 4: as a single mom herself nursing one cup of coffee
Speaker 4: for hours while her newborn slept in a stroller nearby.
Speaker 4: It seems that the scientific method of a hunch followed
Speaker 4: by trial and error plus determination works not only in
Speaker 4: the lab, but also while staring at a blank page.
Speaker 4: On Rowling's website, she shared her struggles and advice, and
Speaker 4: she says it took her seven years to write and
Speaker 4: publish her first book because she was convinced it was rubbish.
Speaker 4: She continues, just giving the pep talk of the century, writing,
Speaker 4: fear of failure is the saddest reason on earth not
Speaker 4: to do what you were meant to do ultimately. Wouldn't
Speaker 4: you rather be the person who actually finished the project
Speaker 4: you're dreaming about, rather than the one who talks about
Speaker 4: always having want to do ultimately? In writing, as in life,
Speaker 4: your job is to do the best you can, improving
Speaker 4: your own inherently dimitations where possible, learning as much as
Speaker 4: you can, and accepting that perfect works of art are
Speaker 4: only slightly less rare than perfect human beings. Pop quiz
Speaker 4: how much did I cry while working on this episode?
Speaker 4: So inspired by her? If you guessed a truly embarrassing amount,
Speaker 4: and thank god you are alone, hive points to your
Speaker 4: house as long as we're getting mushy. Each week we
Speaker 4: donate to a cause of the ologists choosing, and this
Speaker 4: week Rebecca chose PBS dot org. And PBS provides content
Speaker 4: and experiences that inspire, inform, and entertain over the air, online,
Speaker 4: in the community, and in the classroom. Nearly fifty percent
Speaker 4: of their funding comes from individual donors and viewers, So
Speaker 4: a donation went to PBS dot org in Rebecca's name.
Speaker 4: That donation is made possible by having sponsors. And here
Speaker 4: are a few words about them before we talk about
Speaker 4: spells and technology.
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Speaker 5: All right, let's get back into it.
Speaker 4: And now what about spells and technology?
Speaker 6: Yes, spells and technology. Even though I end up not
Speaker 6: picking all the spells that are the most you know,
Speaker 6: commonly used, but I picked the ones in which I
Speaker 6: can talk a lot about the science. Yeah, give me
Speaker 6: some of them, for example, like impervious. Impervious is a
Speaker 6: spell that that is used to make sure that you
Speaker 6: know substances such as water will not affect it. Of course,
Speaker 6: it was used very much when Harry was playing a
Speaker 6: quidditch game, So impervious basically making sure that my glasses
Speaker 6: will stay perfectly fine in the rain, just like Harry's
Speaker 6: glasses when he was playing quidditch in the third year
Speaker 6: right Prisoners of Azkebaon he was playing in the storm.
Speaker 4: Right, okay, side note, if you haven't seen or read it,
Speaker 4: Harry is being pummeled by rain. It looks like CNN
Speaker 4: hurricane coverage, just lightning chased by ghostly dark dementors in
Speaker 4: the sky. I do not know what kind of liability
Speaker 4: insurance Hogwarts has, but it cannot be cheap.
Speaker 6: So what do we have? Is that impervious actually used
Speaker 6: on other occasions as well in the book, But I
Speaker 6: think the most famous example that people relate to is
Speaker 6: the one I talk about Harry's glasses. You know that hermionees. Basically,
Speaker 6: it's always the smartest ones, like impervious. You know, Okay,
Speaker 6: your glasses are fine, go window quidditch match, Okay, don't complaint,
Speaker 6: stop it?
Speaker 4: Okay, So how do you get your glasses from fogging up?
Speaker 1: For me?
Speaker 6: Exactly? That's what I'm gonna say. Rainax, right, if you
Speaker 6: think rainex or any or aquapell I would not recommend
Speaker 6: that for glasses, but Rainax is very good for your
Speaker 6: car right for the car windows, the windshield, and same
Speaker 6: with aquapel. It's basically they have these polycylock sayings have
Speaker 6: functional groups that end in buying to the OAG group
Speaker 6: on the glass surface and therefore making it the service
Speaker 6: chemistry that you basically making it difficult for polar solvents
Speaker 6: such as rain water to wet the.
Speaker 4: So products like rain x have compounds called polysyloxanates that
Speaker 4: have functional groups that bind the glass surface and that
Speaker 4: changes the surface chemistry making it harder for solvents like
Speaker 4: water to wet the surface. And aquapel is another product
Speaker 4: that has fluorinated compounds and that binds the glass surface.
Speaker 4: So windshield wizardry with magic for muggles. Now another way
Speaker 4: the impervious spell could work via chemistry. Rebecca says to
Speaker 4: turn your eye or rather your SEM scanning electron microscope
Speaker 4: toward lotus leaves.
Speaker 6: The lotus effect is that if you think about looking
Speaker 6: at a lotus leaf up close, it's beautiful and green,
Speaker 6: you can, but if you look at it under an
Speaker 6: SEM and like you see, you will see that they
Speaker 6: have these lone tufts. Tufts are sticking out, so it's
Speaker 6: actually not flat. It basically have these little tough sticking out.
Speaker 6: And that's one of the reasons why you never really
Speaker 6: look at to see lotus leave being super dirty because
Speaker 6: of using this nanostructuring, having this nanostructuring effect that enables
Speaker 6: the water to just like roll off and taking the dirt,
Speaker 6: the dirt, the soil particles and whatnot with it, so
Speaker 6: you can see the rain the water and then just
Speaker 6: go away, right if you think about that, And that's
Speaker 6: due to the nanostructuring the unique surface of that lotus leaf.
Speaker 6: So from afar we cannot see that. But people now
Speaker 6: that's research, right, you know. The fact is that people
Speaker 6: first of all have to build powerful microscope to be
Speaker 6: able to see it. If not, you wouldn't know, right.
Speaker 6: So by seeing that, they're like, wow, okay, why how
Speaker 6: does that happen? Having these small little nanostructures, these little
Speaker 6: tough sticking out. How could this be a self cleaning technology?
Speaker 6: You know? So once people figure out, you know, the
Speaker 6: science behind that, they use it to do a lot
Speaker 6: of things. I think they have a paint called Lotus son.
Speaker 6: We actually got some sample in the lab that they
Speaker 6: gave it for free because I mentioned about that I'm
Speaker 6: using this for outreach and for education. And you can
Speaker 6: pain the wall and then when it drives, it will
Speaker 6: have these little spikes nano features or micro features sticking out,
Speaker 6: so that if you paint the wall and then the rain,
Speaker 6: which is so that dirt and all these things will
Speaker 6: not stick, especially if for the outside of the house
Speaker 6: is very important. Right, So again you can think about
Speaker 6: it's paint that's derived from information people obtain when they
Speaker 6: study lotus leef.
Speaker 4: When water drops on these ultra hydrophobic lotus leaves, these
Speaker 4: are nalumbo plants, lotus plants, it beads up and it
Speaker 4: looks kind of like a ball is just sitting on
Speaker 4: the surface. And it turns out that the more boingy
Speaker 4: and ball like the water droplet looks is an indicator
Speaker 4: of how hydrophobic the surface is. So imagine the difference
Speaker 4: between a bowl overturned on a countertop versus a partly
Speaker 4: deflated basketball on the countertop versus a pretty much fully
Speaker 4: inflated basketball. So the angle of contact between the droplet
Speaker 4: and the surface even has different names. Wenzel is the
Speaker 4: kind of flated ball shape, and Cassie Baxter is the
Speaker 4: rounder droplet. So does anyone need a pen name for
Speaker 4: a fantasy or sci fi novel you're newly inspired to write?
Speaker 4: May I suggest Cassie Baxter? Okay. Side note that lotus
Speaker 4: technology exists in hydrophobic shirts, which is perfect if you're
Speaker 4: a proud slob who can't do an impervious spell, or
Speaker 4: if you just want to google hydrophobic shirts and watch
Speaker 4: people intentionally spilling barbecue sauce on themselves then marveling in wonder.
Speaker 6: Rebecca explains, And they also have a nonostructure shirt as well.
Speaker 6: We actually have a shirt that is it's in the lab.
Speaker 6: If you spray water on it or your coffee, it
Speaker 6: just strips, It will completely not absorb. It's again because
Speaker 6: of the texture of that shirt. How they actually make
Speaker 6: that fabric is using utilizing the lotus effect.
Speaker 4: As well, And so that's like impervious.
Speaker 6: It's impervious absolutely, and that's how look at it actually
Speaker 6: not impervious because they have a few spells such as
Speaker 6: you know, scourgefy and Turgio. It's also about self cleaning
Speaker 6: how to In Harry's world, they have that when things
Speaker 6: get dirty I've always wanted to use. But you can
Speaker 6: see we also have self cleaning technology right there, right then,
Speaker 6: So which one is actually better? I have to say?
Speaker 6: I think ours is actually high up there? You know, hey,
Speaker 6: this is not bad, right A paresium versus al sodium hydroxide.
Speaker 4: Yeah, oh, that's amazing.
Speaker 6: So that's one of the spells that I covered quite
Speaker 6: a bit.
Speaker 4: Aposium by the bye would be the incantation behind that
Speaker 4: invisible ink from earlier, and that can be used to
Speaker 4: reveal invisible writing or invisible illustrations. Hermione attempted this charm
Speaker 4: again on Tom Riddle's diary, to no avail, as there
Speaker 4: was nothing written in it. Also, Rebecca is the best.
Speaker 4: She gave me the pen with the invisible ink and
Speaker 4: the base to revive it, and I kept it as
Speaker 4: a keepsake in my purse all through my road trip journey.
Speaker 4: Weeks later, I was home taking measurements for a new refrigerator.
Speaker 4: They took the note with me to the appliance store
Speaker 4: and the paper was blank. So muggle trubs. Now what
Speaker 4: other spells does Rebecca cast through chemistry?
Speaker 6: I have the congentivitius curse. It's basically a curse that
Speaker 6: caused great pain to the victim's eyes. So that was
Speaker 6: used by Victor Crumb during the Goblet of Fire tribeizard tournament.
Speaker 6: He used this curse to affect the dragon's eyes. It
Speaker 6: was also mentioned in other books as well. But what
Speaker 6: we have is, of course pepper spray cap sasan, only
Speaker 6: old cap Sasan exactly. So I spent time talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 6: they have the congentivitius curse to affect people's eyes, and
Speaker 6: we have one that's even better cover your nose and
Speaker 6: mouth as well. Actually it's a milkus membrane. So it's
Speaker 6: basically it's cap Sasan. It's cap Sasan is from you know,
Speaker 6: it's a compound from chili straight. And when you basically
Speaker 6: all the pepper spray got different concentration of cups Cap saysan.
Speaker 6: Some could be pretty high. Most will have around two
Speaker 6: to ten percent of oleo cap saysin. But doesn't mean
Speaker 6: the higher the merrier. Actually you want it, you know,
Speaker 6: you want the fluid to be really light so that
Speaker 6: it could penetrate the membranes on your nose and eyes quicker.
Speaker 6: At the end, this is a defense and perhaps offense.
Speaker 6: You want it to act work very fast. Okay, you
Speaker 6: could just even if you have to, like I'm sure
Speaker 6: Victor rum will try on that dragon. You really would
Speaker 6: like that to be fast, seriously, Okay, So we talked
Speaker 6: about the ingredients which is called oc or oleo resin
Speaker 6: cap sayism. You could see that actually when you if
Speaker 6: you have one, I have quite a few. I don't
Speaker 6: have one with me, but I have pepper spray and
Speaker 6: actually different you know, different concentration of that as well,
Speaker 6: and you could see that. And I just basically spend
Speaker 6: time describing what's cap saysin and how people actually have
Speaker 6: done a lot of work to even isolate it. I mean,
Speaker 6: I'm sure at the start of the human time when
Speaker 6: we know how to eat some sort of a hell
Speaker 6: opinion or that you realize, wow, this thing is spicy. Wow,
Speaker 6: this thing is spishy, and you know, it takes a
Speaker 6: lot more science and chemistry and to work up to
Speaker 6: actually figure out what's the compound isolate a compound that
Speaker 6: it's a molecule that is responsible for this for this feeling. Right,
Speaker 6: So actually gone through a lot related to analytical chemistry.
Speaker 6: I'm in electual chemis but I'm also an analytical chemist
Speaker 6: because I like to analyze what's in you know, food
Speaker 6: or different type of complex samples. I want to know
Speaker 6: what's in there.
Speaker 5: PS.
Speaker 4: If you have not ever scorched your own eyes or
Speaker 4: mouth on a hot pepper, you may not know that
Speaker 4: scoval units measure hotness, with a bell pepper being a
Speaker 4: zero jalapino going up to thirty five hundred scovo units. Habernarow,
Speaker 4: which has reduced me to tears, ranks on average a
Speaker 4: quarter million scoval units. So what is the wizardy Dragon's
Speaker 4: Breath pepper? Rated at two point five million scoval units,
Speaker 4: nearly doubling the sculls of former record holder pucker Butt
Speaker 4: Farms Carolina Reaper pepper, which itself has sent people to
Speaker 4: the hospital.
Speaker 5: So Dragon's bread peppers must.
Speaker 4: Be the muggles answer to the conjunctivitis curse. Yes, not
Speaker 4: so fast. Pucker Butt Farms takes the lead again with
Speaker 4: owners Smoke and ed Curry, cultivating a new not even
Speaker 4: commercially available pepper X that hits the three million mark,
Speaker 4: surpassing Dragon's Breath. PS. Why does cap sayson hurt so much? Oh,
Speaker 4: it triggers the same pain receptors that think you're literally
Speaker 4: burning alive, which is why you start sweating. Also, you
Speaker 4: release endorphins and dopamine. So in lieu of a spell
Speaker 4: that keeps you chipper, just pack hot sauce in your bag. Now,
Speaker 4: how do they know how hot is hot? Aska chemist?
Speaker 6: So they compare to you know, ghoes pepper, hobinaros and
Speaker 6: knows starviion peppers and all sorts strike. So you can
Speaker 6: see that's actually in order to obtain those information, they
Speaker 6: actually have to analyze, mostly using chromatography, to be able
Speaker 6: to separate and then quantify. When they make a mixture
Speaker 6: of this chili pepper, they have to first of all,
Speaker 6: digests the sample and then they have to clean it
Speaker 6: up and then inject it into an instrument and then
Speaker 6: look at separating these different species because the fact is
Speaker 6: the sample food samples are very complex, right, you got
Speaker 6: tons of things in that, or you can do that
Speaker 6: for the buffalo wowings.
Speaker 4: And that's all analytical guys.
Speaker 6: Yes, absolutely, And actually I would like to mention that
Speaker 6: I think two years ago or maybe even more that
Speaker 6: because I teach the class called you know, analytical chemistry
Speaker 6: basically the instrumental analysis class. Two years ago or so.
Speaker 6: One student actually studied the amount of capsaicin in different
Speaker 6: types of chilis. And he likes chili himself, like eating,
Speaker 6: he eats spicy food. And also he grew this chili,
Speaker 6: and he wanted to study when the chili pepper that's
Speaker 6: from home, when he processes differently dried in the oven
Speaker 6: versus other methods, will it change the amount of capsaican
Speaker 6: in it? And also of his grown different environment, like
Speaker 6: different type of soil, will it affect the same chili plant?
Speaker 6: Will it affect the fruits which is this chili? Purpose
Speaker 6: the amount of capsaican in there? So it's actually really fun.
Speaker 6: It's one of the students in my class who did
Speaker 6: a project like that.
Speaker 4: Rebecca kind of hooks people into chemistry by letting them
Speaker 4: study things that they already love. And in her analytical
Speaker 4: chem class, one student is analyzing what makes Chanelle number
Speaker 4: five perfume smell like Chanel number five perfume and why
Speaker 4: imitations are a little off the nose nose but the
Speaker 4: analysis shows I suppose.
Speaker 6: So that's why analytical chemistry and analytical science is very important,
Speaker 6: and that's why this class that I'm currently teaching the
Speaker 6: students get to spend half of their semester analyzing things
Speaker 6: that they're interested in, whether it's about you know, perfumes,
Speaker 6: real versus imitation. So it's really fun, especially when you
Speaker 6: have thirteen, twelve students, etc. And each one come up
Speaker 6: with something that's drastically different.
Speaker 4: Another student is testing a different olive oil to see
Speaker 4: if the amount of antioxidant polyphenales correspond to better taste,
Speaker 4: although they're not allowed to lick anything inside the lab itself. Now,
Speaker 4: if this episode has taught you anything, don't drink a
Speaker 4: beaker full of apparel for so many reasons. Speaking of feeding,
Speaker 4: one thing about the Harry Potter series I find challenging
Speaker 4: is that I end up slowly reading the feast scenes
Speaker 4: and even though I don't even know what treacle is,
Speaker 4: I'm starving and I'm taking a break to go stir
Speaker 4: putting mix with a splash of coffee creamer and toss
Speaker 4: in some corn pops. I am a kitchen dragon and
Speaker 4: my fuel is carbs.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Rebecca said that one aspect of the course is, of course,
Speaker 4: food science, starting with none other than the kaleidoscope flavors
Speaker 4: in a bag of jelly beans.
Speaker 6: Yes, we actually have that. I talked about the process
Speaker 6: of how jelly beans are actually made. I talked about
Speaker 6: the process of not only that, is that in food science,
Speaker 6: one to one may not be may not equals to two.
Speaker 6: So if you mix a few flavors together, you will
Speaker 6: completely actually taste a different flavor. And the jelly Bellies
Speaker 6: people they know that. They absolutely know that. I think
Speaker 6: it's everything is top secret, very proprietary. It's because they
Speaker 6: did a lot of work. For example, I looked up
Speaker 6: their process when I talked about jelly beans for my
Speaker 6: food chemistry lecture. They really they analyze, like for example,
Speaker 6: making the pomegranate jelly bean, they really analyze the juice
Speaker 6: from the real pomegranate and they use they use, you know, separations.
Speaker 6: They use separation techniques such as chromatography. They use mass
Speaker 6: back to analyze what's in there, and they want to
Speaker 6: know what's the concentration. Each of these compounds is called
Speaker 6: the components of this pomegranate juice and sea can they
Speaker 6: recreate that in the lab into this jelly bean. So
Speaker 6: you can see the scientific process to make a flavor
Speaker 6: that is so close to the real thing. It's a
Speaker 6: lot of work.
Speaker 4: Okay, side note, I fell into a deep badger hole
Speaker 4: and I think this would be odo laryngology. But I
Speaker 4: believe a man by the name of Ambrose Lee heads
Speaker 4: up jelly belly flavor science. Boy, howdy would I like
Speaker 4: to ask that smart person stupid disgusting questions. Meanwhile, Rebecca explains.
Speaker 6: Basically, as they design new flavors, they will have the
Speaker 6: people actually, you know, hold maybe have a bite of
Speaker 6: the real thing and then taste that bean and then
Speaker 6: got to be the same. So they actually have gone
Speaker 6: through very you know, I think is really rigorous process
Speaker 6: in terms of for food science. It's amazing, I think,
Speaker 6: to really understand what's in there so as to recreate it.
Speaker 6: Jelly bean charged okay here, but you can see they
Speaker 6: actually encourage you to eat a chocolate and then I think, yeah,
Speaker 6: and then something like that a strawberry and a blueberry
Speaker 6: and becomes a thing else. And then if you want
Speaker 6: a honey Dell melon, you go with a cantalop and
Speaker 6: green apple.
Speaker 4: I can eat a whole banana split if you do exactly,
Speaker 4: if you.
Speaker 6: Do it right, you see, And that's why they themselves.
Speaker 6: I think it's really amazing. I mean I could see
Speaker 6: why people think jelly bellies are not the cheapest jelly
Speaker 6: beans you could find around. But yet if you think
Speaker 6: about the kind of processing, you know, these people, the
Speaker 6: creativity that they be put in is very amazing, and
Speaker 6: I think I could see creativity, I could see amazing
Speaker 6: science in anything. I really can see that. I think
Speaker 6: that's how why people think. How I can correlate just
Speaker 6: some sci fi books of Harry Potter or some books
Speaker 6: to science, it's because you can see that just in
Speaker 6: terms of you look at how much food chemistry and
Speaker 6: food science got into how people think about each type
Speaker 6: of combination, and each of them takes a lot of
Speaker 6: time to actually develop that bean, this bean and then
Speaker 6: try out under what conditions you can how humans perception
Speaker 6: of tastes. Yeah, you know works, It's amazing. Okay, chew
Speaker 6: on this. Some people have more taste buds than others.
Speaker 6: But each taste bud has receptors for salty, sweet, sour, bitter,
Speaker 6: and umami. So that notion that only certain parts of
Speaker 6: your tongue can taste things that is flint flam friends,
Speaker 6: that was very harmony of me.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: And so what do you do in the class.
Speaker 6: I have small old bags each one, have them to
Speaker 6: ask them basically to identify without looking at the chart.
Speaker 6: Can they even say that this is doctor Pepper, this
Speaker 6: is island punch. Because if they could, then they have
Speaker 6: done a great job. Then jelly Belly has done a
Speaker 6: great job, right, because that's the ultimate goal, right, you know,
Speaker 6: is to be able to eat that and realize that,
Speaker 6: oh that's peach, that's not a mangle. It was quite
Speaker 6: fun in terms of but more so really want you
Speaker 6: want them to understand that getting something from an idea
Speaker 6: to a product, it takes a lot of work and
Speaker 6: a lot of times it will take will go through
Speaker 6: you know, a lot of you know steps to get
Speaker 6: to the right get to the what they want finally,
Speaker 6: and a lot of science is involved. Actually I want
Speaker 6: to say it's simple jelly beans, but think about the
Speaker 6: time that people go into analyzing those spectra, whether it's
Speaker 6: the mass BAC or the HBLC, the chrome talk chromatograms.
Speaker 6: They really have to put effort into, you know, analyzing
Speaker 6: that so as to be able to get the product
Speaker 6: that is so well received. Even though I really dislike
Speaker 6: some of those flavors, those so had no I think
Speaker 6: one of my students gave that to me last Christmas
Speaker 6: or something. Little, you know, some of them, I just
Speaker 6: I think I'm okay with the soap. I don't know
Speaker 6: how much I like the vomit. It's pretty bad that
Speaker 6: one earthworm is very okay. Pepper is actually I like
Speaker 6: pepper is actually perfectly fine. I could be tons of those,
Speaker 6: but some of them vomit was that those two I
Speaker 6: just I left. I left that at the bottom, and
Speaker 6: I just I think I chucked it.
Speaker 4: So non wizards, you'll have to learn yourself some mass
Speaker 4: spectrometry that measures the mass to charge ratio of ions,
Speaker 4: or APLC high performance liquid chromatography if you don't have
Speaker 4: a magic wand handy oh, which left me wondering where
Speaker 4: does the wand would come in chemistry?
Speaker 6: Wide two lots actually, because you think about the wand
Speaker 6: would okay, do you want to guess what this? This is?
Speaker 6: Of course not would, but uh but har is Harry's wand.
Speaker 6: Harry's wand is made from Hollywood, really holly, holly, holly plant, Hollywood,
Speaker 6: the elder wand and different type of elder trees. And
Speaker 6: we also ended up talking about different types like willow
Speaker 6: because willow is also wand wood. I believe that is
Speaker 6: Harry Potter's mother Lily's wand is made from willow. And
Speaker 6: then there's other wands such as Lord Voldemort himself's original
Speaker 6: wand not the elder one. It's from yew trees, and
Speaker 6: you there's a lot of fooklaws related to it. But
Speaker 6: people also study these unique type of plants and be
Speaker 6: able to find, you know, again go through the analytical
Speaker 6: process to obtained chemicals that it could eventually be usedul
Speaker 6: of finding cancers or all the others. A lot of
Speaker 6: times there's a lot of researchers actually doing a lot
Speaker 6: of research with different types of plants is to try
Speaker 6: to look at you know, plant derive, you know, anti
Speaker 6: cancer drugs or at least trying to understand that right.
Speaker 6: Very simple things such as you know, methysalusylate or salslic acid.
Speaker 6: You think about, you know, willow bar people use ma
Speaker 6: teas out of willow bark back in the days without
Speaker 6: knowing salsic acid type of compounds that.
Speaker 4: Isn't the specific youw tree is used in breast cancer research.
Speaker 4: But that's a Voldemort would yes, voltimort a blond cure's
Speaker 4: cancer and my mind's blown. Right now, how do you
Speaker 4: how do you explain that.
Speaker 6: It's because it's related to death and things like that.
Speaker 6: Yous are usually planted in the mythology. You trees are
Speaker 6: related to death and they plant it usually in cemeteries.
Speaker 4: Wow. Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 6: Cases of you buried with the body can protect the
Speaker 6: soul on this to the other world. So there's a
Speaker 6: lot of you know, mythology that you know Jqrowling, you know,
Speaker 6: she's clearly expert and incorporates that in her books.
Speaker 4: So, oh my god.
Speaker 6: That is So that's more divination, those more like you know,
Speaker 6: the myths and rituals, and of course this is what
Speaker 6: you're talking about. Yeah, it's taxo exactly, exactly pactly taxel.
Speaker 6: So there are poisonous but of course, but we can
Speaker 6: get something out of it, you know, not all poisons,
Speaker 6: I mean poisons a lot of things. Is that you
Speaker 6: look at it being poisonous. It's also those response, right,
Speaker 6: it depends on how much you use. Basically, therapeutic windows
Speaker 6: very very small, so therefore you have to be very
Speaker 6: careful if you So therefore it is not telling people, oh,
Speaker 6: let's get some you bargain and chew on it. No,
Speaker 6: that's not a good idea. Everything has to be well controlled.
Speaker 6: And but again but nonetheless, if you look at you know,
Speaker 6: how many people are trying to really study what's nature,
Speaker 6: what nature is offering, and then see what one could
Speaker 6: use to improve human life, whether it's about you know,
Speaker 6: for cancer as cancer drugs or not. So it's kind
Speaker 6: of neat, you see, that's one of the main part
Speaker 6: because taxil.
Speaker 4: Everyone knows that exactly.
Speaker 5: Oh, that's so fascinating.
Speaker 4: For more on how the specific you treats cancer specifically,
Speaker 4: it's discovery in breast cancer therapies see last October Surgical
Speaker 4: Oncology episode. I promise it'll leave you hopeful, will you cry?
Speaker 7: Maybe?
Speaker 5: Will it be worth it? Definitely?
Speaker 4: Okay, back to one.
Speaker 6: So these are the one would that one was elder one,
Speaker 6: the holly, elm ye, vine, hawthorn, willow, walnut, and of
Speaker 6: course the course these other things that we don't have,
Speaker 6: but at least we can talk about the different one would.
Speaker 6: So it's all related to the Celtic three calendars as well. Basically,
Speaker 6: Harry's wand is because he was born July thirty first
Speaker 6: and actually met just the holly Wow. And then Hermione
Speaker 6: was born between September two and September twenty ninth, and
Speaker 6: she has vinewood, so you can see these other things
Speaker 6: a JQ. Rowling, it's not random how she chose what
Speaker 6: type of wands that what would she chose for the
Speaker 6: trio main characters?
Speaker 4: So would you be Birch Becazera Capricorn.
Speaker 6: Yes, that is correct, She's all right. I don't know. Actually,
Speaker 6: willows also nice, and so I talk about you see,
Speaker 6: the holly tree name comes from holy. It repels evil,
Speaker 6: while you, which can achieve astonishing longevity, can symbolize both
Speaker 6: death and resurrection. The sap is also poisonous. And that's
Speaker 6: actually a quote from JK. Rowling when people ask why
Speaker 6: she ended up choosing you for Voldemort and Holly for
Speaker 6: Harry because the word comes from holy.
Speaker 4: Okay, real quick, I was reading about how Professor Dumbledore
Speaker 4: had an elderwood wand and McGonagall had fur wand Hermione
Speaker 4: had vine wood, and I, a grown woman who hasn't
Speaker 4: even finished all the books, was like, oh, I need
Speaker 4: a wand I need to carry a polished foot long
Speaker 4: piece of wood in my purse at all times. This
Speaker 4: is the new me. Also, if you're curious about types
Speaker 4: of wood and haven't listened to the dendrology episode, I
Speaker 4: honestly feel bad for you. That ologist is amazing, So
Speaker 4: listen to that while you kill time waiting for the
Speaker 4: second part of this Potterroalogy episode to come out next week. Yes, okay,
Speaker 4: tree chemistry, And so when you're teaching this in your lectures,
Speaker 4: is there any kind of chemistry that goes into analyzing
Speaker 4: what a wood is?
Speaker 6: Oh? Yeah, I actually in terms of like rings, the
Speaker 6: growth and on the other I want it to you,
Speaker 6: but I want to focus more on the chemistry. Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's cool, but you see that leads to you. One
Speaker 6: thing is that this class, when I first started it,
Speaker 6: I know we're going like not very heleniar here. That
Speaker 6: actually I was hoping that eventually there will be other
Speaker 6: professors in the school would be interested in a Muggle's
Speaker 6: Guide to Harry Potter's plantss, A muggles Guide to Harry
Speaker 6: Potter's linguistic because all the spells, many of them are
Speaker 6: Latin based. And then you can also have a Muggle's
Speaker 6: Guide to Harry Potter's a biology or zoology because you
Speaker 6: have all these fantastic bees, right, So I'll do the
Speaker 6: chemistry portion and have other people do that. It would
Speaker 6: be wonderful if it's within the university. But of course
Speaker 6: everyone's busiest. You can see, it's quite a bit of
Speaker 6: work to get to research. You have to research both
Speaker 6: the science part and the non science part right to
Speaker 6: get people to be to correlate the two things straight.
Speaker 6: So that was actually what I was always what I
Speaker 6: hope that it would be great to have this type
Speaker 6: of synergy, to have Nebraska you and l be Harry
Speaker 6: Potter related educational courses, you know, and things like that.
Speaker 6: Because it's a I cannot do all of them. I mean,
Speaker 6: I've been talking a bit about fantastic bees, looking at
Speaker 6: be able to talk about biology and things like that.
Speaker 6: But linguistic I can do that. I don't think I'm
Speaker 6: expert in plants either. You see, there are no plants
Speaker 6: here because I kill them all.
Speaker 4: You've got a leaf over there not alive.
Speaker 6: I'm only That's why I only have plastic stuff, okay,
Speaker 6: because the real ones are long gone.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you some questions from listeners? But before
Speaker 4: we ask this smart person, you're smart and maybe hopefully
Speaker 4: at least a few blissfully stupid questions. You're just gonna
Speaker 4: have to wait a week. I'm sorry. Yes, this chat
Speaker 4: was so long I had to divide it into Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: you can listen to the Andrology or Surgical Oncology or
Speaker 4: Pharaoh Equnology episodes, or you can spend the time reading
Speaker 4: all the Harry Potter books, or watch all the movies,
Speaker 4: or start your own novel. Next Tuesday, we'll learn more
Speaker 4: about her courses and we will fueld your questions to
Speaker 4: doctor Lie Now. You can also spend the week saying
Speaker 4: hi on Twitter or Instagram. We're at ologies on both,
Speaker 4: and I'm also on both at Ali ward Ali with
Speaker 4: one L and stickers and shirts, even some back to
Speaker 4: school inspired merch and backpacks are at ologiesmerch dot com.
Speaker 4: Thank you to Shannon Filters and Bondi Dutch for that.
Speaker 4: They are also hosts of the comedy podcast You Are That,
Speaker 4: which is wonderful. Thank you to Hannah Liippo and Aaron
Speaker 4: Talbert for admitting the Facebook group which is full of wonderfuls.
Speaker 4: Hello to all the sub editors out there. To assistant
Speaker 4: editor Jarrett Sleeper of the podcast My Good Bad Brain,
Speaker 4: and he whose name shall be spoken Steve Ray Morris,
Speaker 4: who also hosts the percast and see Jurassic Right. Thank
Speaker 4: you for editing all these clips together. All Harry Potter
Speaker 4: films are Warner Brothers, so do go treat yourself to
Speaker 4: those films. Bingjamal at once, tell your boss you ate
Speaker 4: bad shrimp, You're out for the week. Also, the theme
Speaker 4: music for this podcast was written and performed by Nick
Speaker 4: Thorburn of the band Islands, which is a very good band.
Speaker 4: So if you stick around till the end of the episode,
Speaker 4: I tell you a secret. And this week's secret is
Speaker 4: that I still have not bought out garbage can.
Speaker 5: And also every time.
Speaker 4: I walk in a bookstore or a library, I get
Speaker 4: so excited I immediately have to be okay.
Speaker 5: Next week potter Ology Part two out by by.
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