Speaker 1: Hello, friends from across the nation and around the world.
I'm Martin, and you are listening to Dad's bedtime Stories. Tonight,
as promised, we're headed back into the quantum computer universe
because I had a great suggestion from Josie from Bracebridge
to do an episode where you go to different parts
of the Earth and clean up trash and save wildlife
and that sort of thing. I'd been meaning to go
back to the quantum universe for a while and I
thought this was the perfect excuse to do that. If
you have an idea for the quantum universe or any
other universe, you can leave it for me on speak Pipe.
I think there were a couple way back in the past,
and I'll go back and try to find them for
the quantum universe. But if you want to do another
one just to remind me, that would be great. Before
we get started, I just want to give a big
shout out to some of my newest Patreon sponsors. First up,
thank you too, Calder, Hayes, Hattie and Mark for sponsoring
the sponsoring the podcast on Patreon.
Speaker 2: I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And last thank you to Brandon, Melissa, Josie and Charlie
from Bracebridge for their Patreon sponsorship as well. Apparently they
started listening for the first time with my hydro one
episode when I was caught in the middle of an
ice storm about a year ago now, and funny enough,
not the first.
Speaker 2: People who told me that was the episode that led
them to the podcast, so who knew.
Speaker 1: If you'll like the podcast, don't forget to rate it
and review it wherever you're listening, consider joining Patreon if
parents think that's a good idea, or you can even
check out some of my books that are available online.
I actually went back due to some views and stuff
like that, and fixed up some of the older books.
So Cards of Power has just been updated the first
volume of it, just as a different format. There's no
need to buy it again or anything like that if
you already have it, but if you're buying it new,
I've just kind of spread things out a little bit.
I made it a little bit longer, with bigger words
and that sort of thing, something I'd always wanted to do,
and fix a couple little mistakes I found when I
was reading it for my other podcast, and I also
changed one of the pictures in the coloring book because
I saw another review that pointed out something strange in
one of those pictures. Not a huge deal, but I
did replace it. Anyways, you can check all of those
out on Amazon. The link should be in the description.
And now it's that time again. Time to get as
comfy as you can in that bed. Close your eyes
and imagine yourself doing what the kid in the story does.
Imagine yourself waking up in your very own bed. Before
you can even sit up properly, you hear Quantum's voice
speak from your wrist. Good morning, he says, cheerfully, I
have a surprise for you. You blink and lift your arm.
Quantum's tiny, smiling face is glowing on the screen of
your watch. A surprise, you ask, Yes, please look beside
your bed on the nightstand. You should find a button.
You look beside your bed, and sure enough, there is
a night stand there, even if there wasn't before, and
even stranger. Sitting on top of that night's stand is
a little red button. Oh what does it do? You ask?
I believe, Quantum says. The best way to answer that
question is to press it. You hesitate for a second, because, well,
you're not really sure about pressing this big red button.
On your night stand. But eventually you decide to go
for it. You press down on the thing, and for
a moment nothing happens, and then your bed begins to move. Oh,
you jump off the bed as the entire thing slowly
slide sideways across the floor with a smooth, mechanical hum,
revealing a large square of metal, a hatch of some kind. Quantum,
you built something under my room. I built something under
your room, under much of the house and under a
good portion of the yard. Quantum replies, I was productive
and I had a lot of energy to work with.
You hurry over and kneel beside the hatch. It's made
of dark silver metal with little glowing blue lines around
the edges, and there's a handle in the middle of course,
dry opening it, Quantum suggests you grab the handle and pull.
The hatch lifts up with a hiss, and beneath it.
There's not a ladder or stairs, or you know, some
sort of elevator. Instead, there's a slide. The shiny metal
slide curves steeply down into glowing blue light below. You
built a secret underground base, you say, staring down the slide.
That is correct, And you made the entrance a slide
that is also correct. I have researched children on your
world thoroughly. Slides are extremely popular. You grin huh fair point.
You sit down at the top, grip the sides, and
push off. You shoot downwards, immediately twisting through a polished
tunnel of metal and blue lights. The slide curves left,
then right, then drops more steeply, and your stomach flips
in the best possible way. At the bottom. You burst
out of the tube and slide across a smooth metal
floor before coming to a stop in the middle of
a gigantic underground chamber, one that definitely wasn't there before.
You stand up slowly and your mouth falls open. The
base is enormous. The walls are smooth steel and dark
gray metal, broken up by glowing blue lines that run
along the floor and ceiling like streams of light. Overhead,
huge support beams arch high above you. One side of
the chamber is taken up by an enormous new printer,
far larger than the one in your room upstairs. Thick
energy canisters are plugged into the back of it, though
none of them are glowing anymore, which makes you think
they might be empty. Or close to it. Beside the printer,
mounted against one wall, like the heart of the whole place,
is Quantum's main body, its screen glowing brightly. A group
of helper bods drift quietly through the air.
Speaker 2: Nearby.
Speaker 1: There are more than before, several of them, all hovering
carrying tools, scanning surfaces and moving the last few panels
of metal into place along the walls. But most of
the base is still empty, just a huge open space.
This is amazing, you say, thank you, Quantum says, there
is still much to do. At present. The base contains
a primary fabrication chamber, energy routing systems, robotic docking stations,
secure storage and launch access. However, many facilities remain unbuilt.
You slowly turn in a circle. You built this whole
place while I was sleeping. Yes, mostly printed it. You
sleep for a long time, which is super helpful. I
can't believe this, Oh you should. It is standing directly
beneath your feet, Quantum replies, I meant it more as
a figure of speech. You walk toward the giant printer,
where one of the helper bots floats past, carrying a
tool nearly as big as itself, sitting beneath it. Is
the folded up submarine in the shape of a backpack.
So what happens next, you ask, do we start building
all the cool stuff now? Yes, Quantum replies, but first
we need more material. And after researching your Earth, I
have found many possible sources. Quantum screen changes and suddenly
a map of Earth appears different places, blink and red.
I've spent the night analyzing publicly available information. There are
many areas on Earth in desperate need of cleanup. According
to the Internet, every year, an estimated nineteen to twenty
three million tons of plastic waste leaks into the aquatic ecosystem, rivers,
lakes and see you stare at the map that much. Yes,
Also in twenty twenty two alone, the world generated and
estimated sixty two billion kilograms of electric waste. That is
sixty two million tons. You look from the map to
quantum screen, so there's basically garbage everywhere. That is a
somewhat simplified summary, Quantum says, but yes, essentially the map
zooms in in an area marked with a glowing symbol.
I would like to start by expanding our aquatic operations,
but first we require more high quality material. Electronic waste
will be especially use It contains metals, circuitry, structural materials,
and many components suitable for advanced fabrication. With such a
large quantity, it will be less necessary to reorganize atoms
themselves into different materials. You nod slowly, all right, so
you want me to go get a bunch of e
waste correct. Also, in order to facilitate this, I have
made substantial upgrades. A deep metallic rumble passes through the base.
Speaker 2: Floor.
Speaker 1: Panels in the ground slide apart, and from below something
enormous begins to rise. You take a step back as
a machine lifts up through a giant hatch in the
floor and settles into the middle of the launch bay.
It looks kind of like a helicopter, a cargo ship,
and a futuristic drone smashed together. It's large and silver gray,
with a rounded sort of cockpit at the front and
four massive circular devices mounted around it, one on each corner.
They resemble giant propellers from a gigantic drone, except there's
no blades. Instead, each one glows faintly with a sort
of blue white energy. At the bottom is a wide
intake of some kind that looks well, kind of like
a tractor beam if your knowledge of science fiction is right.
Mounted on the rear are several large energy tanks that
look almost identical to the ones from the submarine. What
is that you ask? That? He says is a hover
You walk around it in awe. It's huge. It needed
to be. The plans I have drawn up for the
upgraded submarine and ocean cleaning device are much larger than
a backpack size. Therefore, you will need something larger than
a hover scooter to relocate it. The hover copter contains
its own collector beam, d atomizer, storage tanks, and dual
navigation modes. You made a giant flying garbage vacuum. That
is correct, you grin? I love it. A hatch on
the side folds open, revealing the cockpit. Quantum begins explaining
as you climb inside. It has several flight modes. In
hover mode. The right hand lever controls eltude, lifting it
up and down. The left hand joystick controls forward, backward,
left and right, or by twisting it you can spin
in circles. It is very similar to the controls on
a toy drone. Hover mode is ideal for precision movements
picking things up, dropping things off, or landing. You sit
in the pilot's seat, staring at the controls. As the
side closes up. On the right hand side, you see
two levers. One looks like the height lever the spaceship
is talking about, and the other is marked throttle. There's
a central steering wheel that's sort of folded into the
dash at the moment, and a little lever on the
left hand side. What's the other flight mode? You ask?
In the other flight mode, the reconfigures, the steering wheel
folds out, and the entire thing acts more like a
traditional airplane, only one that will not fall from the
sky if you come to a complete stop. In this mode,
speed is controlled with the throttle on the right hand
side of the steering wheel, and the rest of the
ship is controlled with the wheel itself. Pulling back pulls
the ship upwards, pushing down moves it forwards, and steering
left and right. As you may have guessed, steers it
left or right. I suggest you start with a basic takeoff.
The base starts to rumble again, then sunlight shines in
over top of the hovercraft as a gigantic.
Speaker 2: Hatch opens up.
Speaker 1: Oh starting hover copped now the hoofer copter hums to life.
All of the little controls on the dashboard laid up
at once and well, it starts to sort of hum.
Now pull up on the right hand lever to move
yourself straight up and out of this place. You do
just that, carefully, pulling up on the control. The hum
grows louder, and the ship starts to move up, higher
and higher and higher. Out of the hatch and above
your home. You look at a little glass panel below you,
one that lets you see what's directly below, which should
be helpful for landing. A huge opening in your lawn
slowly starts to close until it completely disappears, appearing as
if nothing was there in the first place. You practice
hovering around on the little copter, moving left and right
on the joystick. The copter itself moves directly right or
directly left as you push in that direction. If you
push forward, it moves forward, and backward it moves backward.
You try twisting the joystick, and the copter twists with it.
It's actually really easy to fly in this mode, though
not particularly fast. A GPS map appears on the display
in front of you, with a glowing path leading away
this is your destination, a large electronics waste depository. With
this additional energy collected, we should have no problem completing
the submarine upgrades to continue our cleaning of the Pacific
garbage batch. Now, are you ready to switch to flight mode?
I guess so, you say, press the button. A big
blue button lights up that says flight mode, right beside
another button that reads hover mode, which is currently glowing green,
probably to indicate that it's on. You press the flight
mode button, and the ship hums slightly differently. Now simply
press forward on the throttle and steer with the steering wheel.
The steering wheel pops out of the console in front
of you. You take hold of it with your left hand,
put your right hand on the throttle, and press forward. Instantly,
the hover copter surge is ahead. Whoa, you say, as
the trees blurbneath. You pull back slightly on the wheel
and the craft climbs pointing upwards. You angle left to
avoid a group of buildings.
Speaker 2: Just in time.
Speaker 1: You should be more careful. Quantum says buildings are to
be avoided. Luckily, I have built in safety devices to
take over control if you are doing something too dangerous. Oh,
probably a good idea. The hover copter continues to shoot
forward atn incredible speed as adrenaline pumps through your body.
You are doing exceptionally well for a first attempt. However,
the depository of electronic waste is not particularly close. I
suggest you give it a little more gas.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Once you find yourself high above any possible obstacles, you
do exactly as Quantum suggests and press forward on the throttle.
The ship zooms forward at incredible speed, and you hear
a sudden banging noise as you presumably break the sound barrier.
You may notice that you don't feel the speed as
much as one might in a traditional Earth aircraft. Quantum
says that is because I have also built in a
small artificial gravity device. This way you can travel at
up to ten g's without feeling the acceleration against your body.
You zoom up through the clouds and over top of
the world at absolutely incredible speed until Quantum's voice appears again.
I believe we are reaching the destination. Lower your altitude
and switch back to hover mode. You look at the
little GPS and see that the little dot that indicates
where you are is approaching. The little dot that indicates
where the e waste is. You slowly pull back on
the throttle a little bit and push forward, dipping down
below the clouds at a much more reasonable speed. Below
you lies a huge sprawl of discarded machines, Mountains upon
mountains of broken monitors, televisions, old computers, tangled wires, printers, microwaves, cables, keyboards, phones,
and piles of metal frames just glinting in the sun.
Oho you say yes, Quantum says humanity is extremely skilled
at inventing future garbage. You lower into hover mode and
slowly use the lever to bring the craft down over
top of the site. Activate the Collector. Quantum suggests. A
screen over to your right lights up with a button
that says activate Collector. As soon as you press the button,
the screen displays all of the garbage below and asks
you to select a target. You select, a gigantic pile
of garbage hit except and a cone of energy shoots
downward like a tractor beam. Suddenly, broken electronics begin lifting
from the heaps below, small pieces at first, and then
wull clusters of devices, enormous tangles of metal and wire.
They rise into the beam, vanish into the intake, and
are instantly deatomized, breaking them down into their well most
basic components. The energy tanks at the back begin to
glow brighter and brighter. The process is actually astonishingly fast, Quantum,
you say as you watch, this thing is incredible. Yes,
Quantum says, I am aware. The ability to use a
larger three D printer allowed me to construct more advanced materials.
In this case, you have now collected a substantial amount
of material. We should return. You turn off the little
garbage vacuum device and lift back up into the air
above the clouds, before switching into flight mode once again
and pressing forward on the throttle again. You hear a
loud boom as you pass the sound barrier and keep
on going. The clouds zip below you as you keep
an eye on your little GPS, checking to see if
you're anywhere near your home, and then you see something in.
Speaker 2: Front of you. It grows larger and larger.
Speaker 1: At first it looks a little bit like a bird,
and then you realize it's an airplane, an airplane that
you're heading directly towards. You quickly pull back on the
joystick or steering wheel, I should say, and the ship
zooms up above the gigantic passenger plane, then past it
at incredible speed. You press forward and dip below the
clouds until things start to look rather familiar again, until
you see your own home. You switch to hover mode
and sl slowly lower the thing down towards your house.
A huge hatch opens in your yard out of seemingly nowhere,
and you carefully aim the ship directly above it, and
then slowly lower it down.
Speaker 2: Through the hatch.
Speaker 1: The hatch closes above you, the sunlight disappears, and immediately
the little helper bots are already moving, grabbing the huge
storage tanks and moving them over to the three D printer.
You look over to see the little backpack sized submarine
already in place, and then the printer starts up. It
hums to life. Golden energy surges through the transparent channels
in the machine, and you see parts forming with incredible speed. Walls, panels, engines,
mechanical arms, collector systems, printing modules, and all sorts of
other pieces put together in a gigantic metal square or
wel cube. Before you know it, the gigantic square is
completely made. It's time to upgrade our ocean cleanup operation.
Please lift the hover copter up higher so we can
activate the tractor beam. Uh. Okay, you haven't even had
time to get out of the thing in the first place,
because Quantum moves rather quickly. The hatch above you opens
up again and you use the lever on the right
to increase your altitude. Hovering just above the ground beside
your home, the helper bots fly the gigantic square below you,
and Quantum's voice appears again. Activate the tractor beam, Quantum says,
and another little button lights up tractor beam. You press
the button, a light shines down below you and snaps
the gigantic square that apparently folds out into a submarine
onto the bottom of the hover copter. Next destination, the
Pacific garbage patch, a little GPS map appears once again.
You lift the ship up high above the clouds, before
once again switching to flight mode and pressing forward on
the throttle again. There's a gigantic boom as you pass
the sound barrier and zip forward over top of cities,
over top of forests and lakes and rivers, until you
eventually come to a huge body of water, the Pacific Ocean.
You zip over the ocean at incredible speed until the
water below begins to change. You slow down as you
see scattered debris appear first, and lower the ship towards
the water. Soon you see larger clusters than wide streaks
of floating garbage, then, at last a great sprawling mass
of the patch itself. You slow into hover mode and
lower the giant cube toward the water. Stand by for activation,
Quantum says, activating submode. The tractor beam disengages. The square
falls to the ground and splashes into the water, and
then it begins to unfold. Panels split apart, sections extend,
Haull pieces rotate outward. Massive side collectors swing into place,
A larger body emerges from within the cube. Windows appear,
tanks extend. A wide rear section opens up to reveal
something new, a whole fabrication bay with its own three
D printer and storage area, until that too becomes completely
covered in a hard metal shell. You stare through the
cockpit at this strange transformation. The new submarine is huge.
That's gigantic, you say, I am glad you approve it
had to be gigantic. Quantum replies, because it is no
longer a simple submarine. It is now a mother sub
I have added storage and printing chambers on the back.
This the vessel can now process collected waste into usable
energy and fabricate additional clean up devices in the field
so it can build more machines. Well it's out here,
that is correct. Some will collect floating debris, Some will
travel underwater to recover submerged waste. Some can be deployed
near inlets and river mouths where much of the plastic
enters the water in the first place. As I mentioned earlier,
an estimated nineteen to twenty three million tons of plastic
waste enter aquatic ecosystems every year. Interception is now a priority.
You lower the hovercraft onto the surface nearby, climb out
and board the mother ship. Inside everything is bigger than before.
There's more room to move around, more screens, more controls,
and in the rear, behind a sealed doorway, a new
on board printer glowing with quiet power. You sit at
the controls and start the collectors. The mother sub moves forward.
Huge amounts of floating plastic slide into the front system.
They're pulled inwards, deatomized, and routed into the internal energy
banks on a nearby screen. The available material count rises rapidly.
Then the rear printer comes to life. Inside the fabrication chamber.
At the back, metal parts begin appearing almost immediately. A
small submersible body forms, smooth and compact with miniature collector
arms and a rear intake. You watch fascinated as a
dissembled piece by piece. Quantum, are you building another sub already?
That is correct, he says, this is Unit one, autonomous
debris collection submersible. The little machine finishes printing, a hatch
opens at the rear of the mother sub, and the
many sub drops neatly into the water. On the display,
you watch it dive beneath the surface and begin moving away.
It will now collect debris independently and return stored energy
to the mothership. The printer starts again. A second many
sub forms, then a third. After that, a group of
little hovering helper drones are printed, as well, little flying
robots that can put together together smaller pieces into larger structures,
or move stored energy bins from one machine to another.
Before long, the operation has become something much larger than
one kid in one submarine. The mother sub moves steadily
through the garbage patch while it's new helpers spread out
like a growing clean up fleet. You stand in the
center of it all, looking from the front screens to
the fabrication bade, the glowing ocean outside, and realize that
this could actually change the world using garbage to create
new materials. This is amazing. And since we're using all
of the garbage to create more things. To get rid
of the garbage, we'll have more material then we know
what to do with Before well before you'll even know it.
I believe your immediate task here is complete. The cleanup
fleet can continue autonomously. Also, I believe it is your bedtime.
You smile, so you're saying I should go home. Uh, yes,
that is exactly what I'm saying. You leave the mothership running,
climb back into the hover copter, and lift up over
top of the water. You rise high above the ocean
before switching into flight mode and pressing forward on the throttle,
once again creating another sonic boom as you blast into
the sky. You fly over the ocean until you come
back to the land, where you once again fly over
cities and oceans and lakes and rivers before coming to
some nearby territory. You switch back to hover mode as
you approach your house and carefully lower the machine down
into the little well cargo bay hatch. The hatch closes
above you as the hovercraft or hover copter comes down
with a soft landing and a little hiss, the hover
copter opens up. You climb down out of the hatch
and walk back over to the slide that brought you
down here in the first place. Uh, Quantum, how do
I get out of here?
Speaker 2: You ask?
Speaker 1: That is easy. You just use reverse slide mode. Have
a seat on the slide as if you just arrived,
Quantum says. So you sit down on the bottom of
the slide facing the normal direction. A little circular piece
of metal folds up from the bottom and pushes against
your feet, lifting you backwards up the slide, around the
corners and up through the hatch until you find yourself
standing in the middle of your bedroom, above the little
secret hatch. You step off, close the hatch door, and
move over to the bedstand and press the little red
button again. The bed slides back into place. You climb
into it, pull the covers up over top of yourself,
and rest your head on the pillow.
Speaker 2: The lights in the room turn.
Speaker 1: Off and you begin to just focus on your breath,
noticing your stomach rise and fall with each deep breath.
With each out breath, you try to release a little
more tension, noticing any tension in your arms and your
legs and letting it melt away. Soon it feels as
if you're just floating on a cloud. Your mind wanders
off to thoughts of new dreams, new adventures, and new
fun things you can build with a three D printer.
Speaker 3: To come, good night everyone in.
Speaker 4: New York. More union, no no thing, no.
Speaker 3: More. M m
Speaker 1: M