Rube Goldberg WITH FIRE TORNADO! - Smarter Every Day 17

[Music] Hey it's me, Destin. Welcome to Smarter Every Day.

So a few years ago, I messed up and put a video of me playing with my chicken on the Internet, and now everybody says "Hey, aren't you the chicken man?" His head stays rock solid in one position. And I'm cool with being the chicken man, but I think there's a lot cooler things I can be, like, uh... I don't know. Let's play with fire, what about that?

So today we're gonna learn about vorticity. Vorticity is the circulation in a confined area divided by that area. So today we've made a fire tornado. I guess I should put safety glasses on to make this official science. We've made a fire tornado by restricting the airflow to the flame, except through a certain area.

Now, when I turn the vorticity up by increasing circulation with this vacuum cleaner, we're going to start a chain of events. The fire tornado will set off a trigger on the rifle, and the rifle will fire and light these matches over here. Once it lights the matches, the gunpowder will go up and light a rocket, and well, uh... you'll see the rest.

So let's check it out. [Vacuum engine running] [Sizzling] [Loud sizzling] [Loud sizzling] [Slight sizzling] [Sizzling intensifies] [Periodic crackling] That's a pretty good way to light a bonfire.

So anyway, I was thinking about maybe another name instead of chicken man. How about pyrodynamicist? What do you think about that? [Chicken clucking] What do you think about that, Claire? Cool with that?

[Loud sizzling] Anyway, you're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. [Music] Captioning in different languages welcome. Please contact Destin if you can help.