WEBVTT

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this is a pneumatic tube dispatch if you're under a certain age then it's

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possible you've never seen one of these systems in person but for over a century

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they were relatively Common Place believe it or not they're still very

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popular in certain industries and there are still thinkers and dreamers talking

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about bringing them back in new and Innovative applications pneumatic tube

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transport Works through the application of an incredibly simple concept if you

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put a cylindrical object in a gas impermeable tube then you can move that

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object through the tube by either creating enough gas pressure on one end

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to push it or by creating a partial vacuum on the other side to pull it

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think of it like a blueberry and a drinking straw if you suck hard enough

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you can pull it towards you and if you blow hard enough you can shoot

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somebody's eye up an odd thing about pneumatic tubes is that they still tend

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to be used as a visual shorthand for futuristic technology both in classic

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television shows like the Jetson and in relatively modern works like futur AMA

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the technology itself however is pretty old the idea of using air pressure to

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move cargo through sealed tubes was first suggested by English engineer

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George medhurst in 1799 and in 1824 some

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dude named Vance created the first experimental pneumatic Railway or if you

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prefer Ye Old hyper Loop there were two major variants one where the passenger

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car sat inside a large tube and acted as the piston and a more popular version

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where the passenger car is connected to a piston that is being pushed along

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inside a smaller tube the there were even several successful commercial

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atmospheric Rail lines in Europe through the mid 19th century despite the

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occasional technical issues such as the leather flap grease with beeswax and

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animal fat that they Ed to keep the metal tubing around the Piston shut

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getting stiff in cold weather and failing to seal properly also the smell

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attracted rats that would chew on the leather and crawl up inside the Machinery primary advantage of

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atmospheric rail is that the carriages are relatively lightweight this means

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that they didn't need as much energy to propel them and they could typically

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handle steeper inclines than conventional rail these issues however

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became less and less relevant as Steam Engines became smaller more powerful and

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more efficient leading to atmospheric rail being largely superseded before it

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could become truly popular a small number of atmospheric rails have been

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built since and are still in use but they don't typically use beef Tallow

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anymore the pneumatic tube dispatch created in 1853 fared significantly

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better than pneumatic rail because it allowed for Rapid communication and

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distribution of parcels it was decades before popular

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adoption of the telephone and the electric telegraph was extremely

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expensive in part because becoming an operator took months to learn and years

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to master think about it if you had to pay by the word to get a trained

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professional to type out every single character you would definitely taex less

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for complicated documents or for messages only going a short distance it

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was typically cheaper and easier to just pay someone to run it over pneumatic

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tubes were an ideal Middle Ground fast and more secure than a runner but far

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easier to operate than a telegraph in fact the first pneumatic dispatch was a

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660t line between the local telegram office and the London Stock Exchange as

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a replacement for all the people running back and forth between the two buildings

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all day it was sometimes envisioned that these tube systems would one day carry

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heavy Freight across middle distances but that idea was superseded by the

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invention of the Practical internal combustion engine and the modern truck

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people dreamt of putting human pass ERS and animals inside the capsules and

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someone even successfully transported a live cat through a pneumatic tube cat

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was not a fan throughout the early 20th century the pneumatic dispatch saw wide

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popularity in large buildings and complexes especially Banks factories

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hospitals and post offices places where a lot of small objects need to be moved

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quickly and securely throughout the workday major cities throughout Europe

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and North America like Berlin Chicago Paris New York and Vienna all had

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extensive pneumatic tube networks the great pneumatic post system of Prague

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began in 1889 and closed due to flood damage in just 2002 the first pneumatic

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trash collection system was installed in a Swedish Hospital in 1961 and thousands

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of similar systems still operate across Europe and Asia there's even one from

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the 70s in Disney's Magic Kingdom and another throughout Roosevelt Island in

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New York but if they're that useful why

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aren't they still everywhere now we'll tell you right after we think I fix it

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picture this the year just started and you missed all the holiday deals on

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laptops but suddenly your laptop won't work anymore well instead of going out

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and paying full price for one why don't you try fixing it with iix it their

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laptop repair kits are great for giving your busted device a new lease on life

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from February 9th to March 11th you can get a free anti-static project tray with

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a purchase of any laptop repair kit with code fix tray check out iix it at the

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link below as cool as they are the truth is there are a few big problems with

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these kinds of systems the biggest is that they're relatively expensive to

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install and can be difficult to maintain especially if something gets stuck in

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one of the pipes which something often does typically due to user error people

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who don't understand the system frequently fail to close the capsules

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correctly or will put items into the system that it was never meant to handle

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just ask the sanitation workers at Roosevelt Island who found entire hockey

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sticks mattresses and bed frames shoved into their poor unprepared pipes this of

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course leads to clogs which have to be addressed before the tube in question

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can function normally again typically by snaking the line from the nearest access

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point it wasn't until the 1980s when the high-tech tool of the future the fax

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machine became ubiquitous in modern offices that the popularity of the

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pneumatic dispatch started to slide a lot of examples that are still around

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today are frankly Legacy systems that will one day be retired when they start

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to wear out like the pneumatic Bank drive-throughs dotting the US that will

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one day be replaced by simple ATMs those systems that haven't been modernized in

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the last half century or so are very hard to to repair because the parts and

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the knowledge needed to fix them just aren't around anymore but some of these

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systems aren't Legacy systems at all they're very much modern because while

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the fax machine gave us a way to securely send an exact copy of a

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document anywhere in an instant it never solved the problem of how to quickly

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take a blood sample from a nurses station and deliver it to a lab two

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floors down and 100 ft away or how to quickly and safely move a rapidly

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decaying nuclear isotope for testing many organizations still have needs that

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justify installing new A atic dispatch systems and because they're not open to

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the public they can train everyone who interacts with them and prevent them

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from trying to shove an entire bed through the system a modern pneumatic

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dispatch can shoot an object three stories up in under two seconds without

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splattering it against the ceiling which is a feet a conveyor belt or dumb waiter

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would struggle to match they're still very common in hospitals and factories

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and in Vancouver where we're located you can actually find these systems in some

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marijuana dispensaries according to a representative of of City cannabis the

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government requires many of their products to be securely stored at all

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times and the pneumatic dispatch system allows these products to be quickly and

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efficiently transported to the front of the store while also acting as a fun

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novelty for customers as they watch their pot whiz overhead there are also

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local companies that retrofit homes with pneumatic elevators which still have

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advantages over hydraulic elevators namely that they take up less space and

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don't require the creation of a pit or machine room some applications for

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pneumatic Transportation were only invented in the 21st century in 2011

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whoosh Technologies tested the salmon Cannon a pneumatic system based on fruit

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harvesting equipment which is intended to help fish safely bypass dams by

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sucking them up and firing them over the

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top at 22 mph baby it's not clear if we

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will one day see pneumatic High-Speed Rail implemented on any broad scale or

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if one day we too will shoot ourselves up to our offices like confused fish

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what is clear though is that pneumatic tube transport is still far more than

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just a relic of the past thanks for watching guys if you like this video maybe you like our video on Amish

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computers they exist very cool