Everything a Normal Person Needs to Know About Helium
Channel: vlogbrothers
Date: 2021-11-12

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Helium is so great...and we are running out of it, but also we are not running out of it. 

This video has a surprising number of sources:

2012 article about how helium is mostly squandered by not capturing it, not by using it in balloons: https://www.nature.com/articles/485573a

Here's how a pressure fed engine works and thus why we need helium for rocket launches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pressure-fed_engine

A great "Planet Money" on Helium: https://www.npr.org/2019/08/16/751845378/episode-933-find-the-helium

One use of helium I didn't mention was in deep-water diving. Divers put mix their breathing gas with helium because the normal gas (nitrogen) is more soluble in human blood, and as water pressures increase, that pressure can force the nitrogen into your cells with causes "nitrogen narcosis." Helium is much less soluble in blood because, again, IT JUST DOESN"T INTERACT WITH STUFF.



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