Michael Stevens (2:33)

You mentioned earlier that a cup of water is like a rock smoothie. Right. Because you've got rocks dissolved in it. Magnesium and calcium. I would go a step further though, and say that a glass of water is actually just a glass of lava, because I've talked about this before and I bring it up whenever I can. Ice is a rock.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (2:57)

Sure.

Michael Stevens (2:58)

Because. Well, hold on. Ice is a mineral because a mineral is just a inorganic material that is solid and has a definite crystal structure, which ice does. Water is important for life, but it's inorganic, actually. It would exist here whether there was life or not. And what that then means is that a cube of ice is made of a mineral, so it's a mono mineralic rock. So melted ice is molten rock, lava. So water is lava. I'm here for this and this is not a joke. Ice won the mineral cup back in 2015, I believe. Like some geologists all voted on their favorite mineral and ice finally got the recognition it deserves.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (3:43)

Got the prize. Yeah, I mean, sure, I'm, I'm happy with that classification if the, if the rock people say it. So then, then, then I'm happy with it. They also move the same way. I mean, when lava gets spurted out of volcano, it uses the, the, the way that it, that it moves and behaves is exactly the same.

Michael Stevens (3:59)

The fluid dynamics of lava.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (4:01)

Fluid dynamics of lava is the same as water at that stage. Yeah. Bit later on when it cools down, then it's, then it changes.

Michael Stevens (4:08)

Is it more like ice?

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (4:09)

More like ice, There's a transition phase where it's more like toothpaste where it needs a certain amount of shear forces in order for it to flow.

Michael Stevens (4:15)

But that would be analogous to like slush. Maybe.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (4:18)

Maybe, yeah. So now that we've established that ice is a mineral and that water is lava, I think we'll take a little break. Okay. Welcome back from the break. What we've established is that water is lava, but also everything that you drink and eat is also water. Therefore everything you consume is lava.

Michael Stevens (4:45)

Pretty much. Pretty much. But let's talk more about the water on Earth and like how much there is and what form it's in. Because I think we in our day to day lives are very biased to think of water as this splashy puddle stuff. It's in lakes and rivers, but that is basically not what water is on Earth at all.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (5:03)

Go on.

Michael Stevens (5:04)

Well, Earth has a lot of water and it's famous for having a lot of water on the surface. But it's not water that we can just come up and drink because it's too salty. Most of Earth's water is way too salty. It would kill you to drink it.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (5:17)

Wait, when you say most, what are we talking here? What percentage of the water is?

Michael Stevens (5:20)

I'll tell you. I'm gonna have to pull up a chart because I want to get these numbers just right. So here's the deal. Earth has a lot of water. But of all that water on the entire planet, both on it and in it, only 2 and a half percent is fresh.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (5:35)

Meaning the rest is salty.

Professor Hannah Fry (5:36)

Not salty.

Michael Stevens (5:37)

And the rest is salty. But that 2.5% sounds small. But what we're looking for is even smaller because out of that 2.5%, almost 70% is frozen in glaciers and ice caps, so not accessible to just come up and sip. And then another 30% of that is groundwater, not up on the surface. So only 1.2% of the 2.5% that's fresh is on the surface, basically.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (6:05)

So wait, wait. Is 1% of the 2.5%.

Michael Stevens (6:08)

1% of the 2 1/2% is surface fresh water. But we're still not done because surface is being used really broadly here. That includes 3% of the. Of that 1% of the 2% is water in the atmosphere.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (6:22)

Right.

Michael Stevens (6:23)

This is very small, but it's worth mentioning. 0.26% of that little sliver is locked inside living organisms. Right?

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (6:31)

And then it's in your beef jerky.

Michael Stevens (6:33)

Almost 4% of that little sliver is dampness in the soil. So I can't just go up and, like, slurp it up. I could stick some mud in my mouth and, like, try and suck on it. We suck on it. But what we think of as fresh water, water from creeks and springs and rivers and in lakes, that is. I did the math here. 0.0072% of all the water on Earth.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (7:01)

Wow.

Michael Stevens (7:02)

It is a tiny minuscule fraction of the 1% of the 2 1/2% that's not salt water.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (7:10)

And if you think about it, all of the water that we effectively come into contact with, all of the water we're drinking, all the water we're showering with, all the. You putting in swimming pools, all of that is contained within that number.

Michael Stevens (7:23)

0072%. Yeah, but it's the water that is the star of the human show. It's what we swim in. It's what we get out of the tap. And that we drink and that we have right here. There is no salt water around us right now.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (7:36)

No, I'm not interested in the salt water, thank you very much.

Michael Stevens (7:39)

We're interested in such a narrow kind.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (7:41)

Of water, of that tiny, tiny sliver. How much of that is in Coca Cola? How much of that is tied up in.

Michael Stevens (7:47)

Yeah. How much is tied up in warehouses, in cans of soda and beer and brewed tea? Yeah. I don't know. I do know. Here's a fun fact. The entire volume of refrigerated space in the United States is equal to two thirds the volume of Mount Everest.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:09)

Really?

Michael Stevens (8:10)

I can't tell if that sounds small or big.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:13)

I think that sounds big. And the reason why I think it sounds big. I'm slightly obsessed with fridges.

Michael Stevens (8:18)

Yeah.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:20)

Which I appreciate isn't a normal sentence, but they're wild. Like, they are tricking the laws of thermodynamics.

Michael Stevens (8:27)

I know.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:27)

It's like you have managed to create this sort of tiny bubble in the universe where you have, like, sucked energy away. That's not what energy likes to do. Like, it is miraculous that fridges have managed to work.

Michael Stevens (8:41)

I know. And they do it so simply.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:43)

So simply.

Michael Stevens (8:44)

They're just squirting around a fluid and the fluids properties are like, let's do it. Let's dump this heat out. Keep your yogurt nice.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (8:50)

And I mean, also, just think about before fridges existed. Right. You could have lived, I don't know, for, like, most of the planet would never have experienced a cold drink. Right.

Michael Stevens (9:03)

I know.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (9:04)

Like, it's just. It's wild to me that we've had this thing for like a hundred years or so. Maybe a little bit more. 150 or so. I find fridges. Really? Can we do a whole episode on fridges, please?

Michael Stevens (9:13)

Yeah, we should. But where did all this water come from on Earth? How old is it? How long has it been around?

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (9:18)

Well, it didn't get made on Earth. Right. That's one thing that we know.

Michael Stevens (9:21)

Water isn't produced naturally on Earth.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (9:23)

Right? Correct. Which means it came here from space.

Michael Stevens (9:26)

Alien water.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (9:26)

Alien water, yeah.

Michael Stevens (9:29)

I've heard that it probably came from, like, comets that crashed into a dry Earth and they left all this ice. It's hard to imagine, though, how many comets that would be. I guess that's why they call that the heavy bombardment period, when Earth was just getting smacked by these comets from way out beyond the solar system. Made of ice, covered in ice, and they just delivered the oceans to us over time.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (9:54)

Do we know how old the Water is.

Michael Stevens (9:55)

Then more than half of the water on Earth is older than the sun.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (10:01)

How do they know that?

Michael Stevens (10:03)

Water can form naturally? It's an inorganic material. It's a molecule that can form all throughout the universe. And we know this because of a couple of things. One, when the sun formed, any water near the sun would have been obliterated into oxygen and hydrogen. Just elemental or molecular forms. Wouldn't be water anymore. And so any of the water that remained would have had to have been further out where it couldn't get destroyed by the sun forming. And then later, as the formation was complete, that water could fall down to Earth. And I think they've been able to test this by looking at the amount of heavy water in water on Earth and compare it to how water could have been formed more recently in the solar system.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (10:49)

And by heavy water, right?

Michael Stevens (10:50)

I mean water, where the hydrogen atoms in it are deuterium. Which is what? Hydrogen with one neutron? Yeah, yeah.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (11:00)

Chubby hydrogen.

Michael Stevens (11:01)

Chubby hydrogen. So it's still hydrogen. Because all you need to be a hydrogen atom is one proton with a little electron around. You get a little neutron in there, you're heavier, but you don't have any more protons. So your chemical properties are pretty similar. So it's still hydrogen, but it's called heavy.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (11:22)

Foreign.

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Professor Hannah Fry (11:57)

Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry.

Michael Stevens (11:59)

And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment completely uninvited.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:05)

We are not going to stay too long. Unless you want us to. Of course.

Michael Stevens (12:08)

We're here to tell you about our brand new show, the Rest is Science.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:12)

Every episode is going to start with.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (12:14)

Something that feels initially familiar. And then we're going to unpick it.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:17)

And tear it apart until you no.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (12:19)

Longer recognize it at all. You know how banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas?

Michael Stevens (12:24)

Yeah. What is that about?

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (12:25)

So it is supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a bananapocalypse.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:33)

And now you will only find it.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (12:35)

In botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires.

Michael Stevens (12:39)

Wow. Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:45)

So if you like scratching the surface.

Michael Stevens (12:47)

Thinking a little bit deeper or weirder.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:50)

Yes, definitely.

Co-host (possibly a science communicator or guest) (12:51)

That too. You can join Michael and I every.

Professor Hannah Fry (12:53)

Tuesday and Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.