'Hey Bill Nye, Can We Use Giant Magnets to Build a Space Elevator?' #TuesdaysWithBill | Big Think

Hey Bill Nye, Can We Use Giant Magnets to Build a Space Elevator?'

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Bill Nye answers a question submitted by Nick: is it possible to take two giant magnets and use the repulsion force between them to lift objects into space? Or can we set up stages along the way and use the attraction and repulsion force to build a space elevator to the moon, or anywhere else we may want to go?

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BILL NYE :

Bill Nye, scientist, engineer, comedian, author, and inventor, is a man with a mission: to help foster a scientifically literate society, to help people everywhere understand and appreciate the science that makes our world work. Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life.

In Seattle Nye began to combine his love of science with his flair for comedy, when he won the Steve Martin look-alike contest and developed dual careers as an engineer by day and a stand-up comic by night. Nye then quit his day engineering day job and made the transition to a night job as a comedy writer and performer on Seattle’s home-grown ensemble comedy show “Almost Live.” This is where “Bill Nye the Science Guy®” was born. The show appeared before Saturday Night Live and later on Comedy Central, originating at KING-TV, Seattle’s NBC affiliate.

While working on the Science Guy show, Nye won seven national Emmy Awards for writing, performing, and producing. The show won 18 Emmys in five years. In between creating the shows, he wrote five children’s books about science, including his latest title, “Bill Nye’s Great Big Book of Tiny Germs.”

Nye is the host of three currently-running television series. “The 100 Greatest Discoveries” airs on the Science Channel. “The Eyes of Nye” airs on PBS stations across the country.

Bill’s latest project is hosting a show on Planet Green called “Stuff Happens.” It’s about environmentally responsible choices that consumers can make as they go about their day and their shopping. Also, you’ll see Nye in his good-natured rivalry with his neighbor Ed Begley. They compete to see who can save the most energy and produce the smallest carbon footprint. Nye has 4,000 watts of solar power and a solar-boosted hot water system. There’s also the low water use garden and underground watering system. It’s fun for him; he’s an engineer with an energy conservation hobby.

Nye is currently the Executive Director of The Planetary Society, the world’s largest space interest organization.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Nick: Nick here. I was wondering if it’s possible to take two giant magnets and use the repulsion force between the two to lift objects into space or can we set up stages along the way up and how that attraction and repulsion force send a type of space elevator up to the moon or anywhere we want to go. Let me know what you think.

Bill Nye: Nick, Nick, Nick. This is an interesting question. Let me say though starting out we all when you play with magnets and you feel the repulsive force it seems strong. But notice that it acts over a very short distance. Just nominally it goes – it’s not perfect but you can estimate it by saying it goes off as the cube of the distance. So if you have magnets this far apart and you make them twice that far apart they only haven an eighth as much umph. So using a magnet to push things up as high as the atmosphere would take an enormously strong magnet and where would that energy come from? And to give you an idea of the kind of energy we’re talking about the particle collider in Switzerland which we call CERN, the Center for Nuclear Research but in French the adjective is at the end. That takes the electricity of a small city to keep protons going in a circle, just protons. So just imagine how much magnetism you would need to push something of reasonable mass up into the sky. It would take a huge amount of energy. So shooting from the hip I’d say it’s really not possible.

With that said I like the way you think. Then you also referred to using stages to get the magnet, this magnetic car or craft pushed up. Keep in mind that whatever you push it up from has to be pushed from a place which is somehow anchored to the Earth or magnetically repulsed from the Earth. So it becomes really difficult practically to have a stack of magnets that’s stable that has all that energy required to create that much magnetism. You probably couldn’t do it. But that’s very creative. That was cool. Carry on Nick.