April 8, 2024 Total Solar Eclipse: Here's what you need to know -Smarter Every Day 295

Have you ever doubted something? And you're like, yeah, I hear people talking about that. But then you experience it and you're like, okay, I'm a believer. I'm in. I'm all in on this. That's where I'm at with total solar eclipses.

Back in 2017, I met a guy here locally. His name is Dr. Gordon Telepun. He's a surgeon. And he just told me, he's like, dude, you're going to fall in love with eclipses. And I was like, maybe. I don't know. I've heard cool. And then I just went all in. I was like, okay, I trust this guy. What's the worst that can happen? I look like an idiot on the Internet to millions of people. So I did it.

I went out to Wyoming in 2017. I saw a total solar eclipse for the first time, and it melted my brain. I did not understand what I was seeing. In fact, all the stuff I had prepared to do, I just forgot how to do it. It was amazing. That is. Take your glasses off. Stars. Oh, wait, it's overhead. Sunset. And I want you to experience that as well.

I was at a gathering the other night with a bunch of friends, and someone walks up to me and they're like, hey, Destin, this eclipse thing, right? Do I really need to do this? And my answer is, yes, you must. Because once you see it, it was.

[Bobby] One of the most amazing and emotional experiences I've ever had, other than seeing my own children being born. I still talk about it to this day. Well, like I am now. It changed my whole perception. It made me really want to see more of things like that. And the fact that it happens on the earth for free and you can just go see it, it's amazing.

[Emily] As soon as it started getting darker, you could hear the insects changing. So there were all these cicadas that were calling. And then as the eclipse started happening, the cicada sound faded out and the cricket sound faded in, and then it went in the reverse, and that blew my mind. I wasn't expecting that.

[Michael] I've only seen a total solar eclipse once in my life. And it was awesome in the literal meaning of the term awe awful, like scary, like terrifying. Because of the immensities of the astronomical bodies involved. I felt so tiny. And that morning when I woke up, knowing that it was going to happen in just a matter of hours, I became very scared. I don't know exactly why, but I think it had something to do with knowing that it was such a big event involving such big things that were so vital to our lives and also that I could not stop it. It was inevitable it was going to happen. I could not push a pause button and make it wait for when I was ready. I loved it.

[Destin] 2024. This is your biggest opportunity, if you live in the United States or in northern parts of Mexico, to see a total solar eclipse. And I don't want you to miss it because I love you and I want you to love eclipses. That's where I'm at. The actual moment is called totality. That's when the disk of the moon obscures or occludes the disk of the sun. And all kinds of things happen right then in that moment. And that's the only time you can see it.

Like, you can see the mountains of the moon along the perimeter of the sun because you can see the jagged edges. That's called bailey's beads. You can see what's called a diamond ring, the ejecta around the sun. You can see the corona. It's awesome. And you can only see it if you are right there in the path of totality. You have to physically be on this strip of land that goes all the way across the country. If you're 5 miles outside of that land, it doesn't work. The math doesn't work out so that you can see the total solar eclipse.

[Anne] We were just outside the path of totality, and I set up cameras all over the farm to see how my animals would react to the solar eclipse. And they stood there. It got dark, it got cold, it got light, it got warm again, and they just kept eating. What a letdown.

[Destin] So if it's at all possible financially or with work, if you can make this trip with someone you love, go to the path of totality and see this total solar eclipse, because it's amazing. There's like tens of millions of people that are going to watch this event. So there's articles all over the Internet about, oh, the animals are going to do weird things or the weather might do this.

I'm going to take some time, and we're going to slowly walk through and I'm going to ask all the dumb questions of Dr. Telepun, who literally wrote a book about this moment. By the way, he spent his spare time in between the last eclipse and this one writing this book specifically for this moment. So we're going to learn about everything called the partial phase phenomena. Now, that's the time leading up to the eclipse and immediately after the eclipse, there's really neat science stuff that happens when you're out there, like, looking at the eclipse and just, like, basking in the glory of the moment. You're going to know all the other stuff to look for as well. And you're going to have, like, the cheat code. You're going to enjoy it on a different level.

So let's do this. Let's go get Smarter Every Day and check out all these neat phenomena with Dr. Gordon Telepun. And let's learn about the partial phase phenomena for the total solar eclipse.

[Destin] Do you ever think to yourself, maybe this is a little too much?

[G] I do.

[Destin Laughs]

[D] What is your answer to that?

[G] I still do it. As long as my wife will tolerate it, I do it.

[D] Gordon, you have created a series of, what would you call these stations?

[G] Yeah, they're science stations about teaching the science of the partial phase phenomena. Because an eclipse is way more interesting than just totality. Of course, totality is fascinating. It's beautiful. But there's a lot of stuff you can appreciate and enjoy about the science of what's happening with the moon blocking the sun physically during that hour and a half time between C1 and C2, first contact and second contact.

[D] Okay, so to be clear, Gordon loves eclipses so much that you invested a lot of your own money to create this. It's an app called solar eclipse timer. I get nothing for telling you this. My friend Gordon made this and I've used it at every eclipse I've watched. It's awesome. Basically, you go to a location, you pull out your phone, you hit your GPS location, and it does all the math for you. And your voice, it's actually your voice which is endearing. Your voice will tell me how to watch the eclipse.

[G] It'll say, it'll count down to the contact times for the photographers.

[D] What's a contact time?

[G] So when the moon first takes that first bite out of the sun, that's first contact.

[D] C1.

[G] C1. Totality starts when the moon obscures the sun completely. That's second contact, C2. When the moon moves off on the other side and the photosphere reappears, that's C3, third contact. And when the moon moves completely off, that's the end of the eclipse. That's fourth contact.

[D] Okay, so to be clear, these science stations that we're talking about, the totality is just between C2 and C3. But all this stuff happens during the partial phase phenomena between C1 and C2 and between C3 and C4.

[G] So the first station is temperature monitoring. I've monitored and data logged temperature at all my eclipses but this time, because I can bring a lot of equipment and drive it to Texas, I wanted to do more. So I have a four station temperature data logging tower here.

[D] Okay.

[G] What we're trying to do here is document a mini inversion layer. So these are temperature loggers?

[D] Those are temperature loggers. And you have three on the pole. And one on the ground covered by some soil.

[G] Okay. And that is being heated by the sun right now. And these others have free air circulation around them. So they're monitoring the air temperature. The ground sensor will decrease in temperature during the partial phases before the 20-foot sensor decreases.

[D] So basically, people that are at the event, they'll start feeling the temperature change.

[G] That's right.

[D] But just know it's not happening the same all the way up.

[G] That's exactly right.

[D] All right, let's go to the second station here, Gordon.

[G] So the second station is the concept of pinhole projection of the crescents. So when you hold up something and it's a dot that the light from the sun goes through those dots, but it crosses. So light from the top of the sun crosses through the hole, and it goes to the bottom, and light from the bottom crosses through the hole and goes through the top and right to left crosses. So right now we're only seeing round circles because the sun.

[D] You made one for me?

[G] I did Smarter Every Day. So we're seeing round circles, but during the partial phases, these will turn into crescents.

[D] Now, we're seeing round circles right now because we're not in a total solar eclipse right now, or even we're,

[G] Not in the partial phases. So these will turn to crescents during the partial phases. And the interesting thing is, before totality, the little banana crescent will be one direction, and after totality, it'll flip. Get some paper and punch holes in it. Do your name or do the date, whatever you want to do. Bring a colander to the eclipse.

[D] Yeah.

[G] Kitchen utensils are great.

[D] Can you pull it away from the thing more, the further away?

[G] Well, the more you pull it away, you see it gets out of focus, and a little bit of that has to do with the thickness of what you're using. That's why it's good to use thin paper or,

[D] Like a cheese grater.

[G] Or a cheese grater. So a cheese grater will do it.

[D] So on eclipse day, people should pack the colander.

[G] Exactly. So the other thing for pinhole projection is to make a pinhole projection shoebox.

[D] Oh, it's actually a pinhole.

[G] It's a pinhole in tinfoil. And a little viewing box in the back and a white card on the bottom. So when you get it lined up, the little crescent phase will be projected in the back of the box. And it's a safe way to watch the partial phases because it can't hurt your eyes.

[D] What about glasses? Do people need to wear glasses?

[G] So everybody has to go to the eclipse with certified solar eclipse glasses. Start to order them now because they're going to get harder to find. And, you know, you wear these during all the partial phases and then you take them off during totality. It's the only time it's safe to take your glasses off.

[D] I've heard of people using welding glasses and stuff like that. What are your thoughts on that?

[G] So welding glasses are not certified because they don't block the right amount of infrared and ultraviolet light. So these are certified to block the right amount for viewing. It's got to be ISO 12312-2.

[D] So make sure that everybody with you has the correct glasses. You want to be safe. Don't look directly at the partial phase eclipse that could actually injure you. But you can take the glasses off during totality.

[G] Totality. You have to take them off during totality, yes.

[D] Okay. Sounds good. What's our next station here?

[G] So this is sharp and fuzzy shadows. If you take something that's 90 degrees apart like this, when you rotate this during the eclipse, the one that gets sharp is going to be in line with the crescent, the one that is staying perpendicular to the crescent, behaving like an extended source of light. That's going to be fuzzy. Let's say this is the sharp edge. That's going to be the sharp edge. That's going to be fuzzy, and that's going to be fuzzy. And this will be sharp. All the parallel sides will be sharp, and all the parallel sides will be fuzzy.

[D] So if I'm watching the eclipse on eclipse day, when people say my shadows look weird, that's what's happening.

[G] That's what's happening. They may not know it, but now they'll know it.

[D] What do you have over here?

[G] So we're going to monitor the wind at this eclipse. You'll see a lot of articles on the Internet before the eclipse that says the weather changed during the eclipse. Well, there are a lot of thermodynamic effects during eclipse, but it doesn't really change, change the weather. But there is a very hard partial phase phenomena to witness, and that's an eclipse breeze.

The theory behind it is,

[D] Eclipse breeze?

[G] An eclipse breeze.

[D] Okay.

[G] If you have calm conditions, at your observing site, and there are some mountains or hills in the distance, but relatively close, and they are in the direction of umbra approach. The ground there will cool before your ground at your observing site, just like we did at the temperature tower. And that cool air in those valleys will coalesce. Roll down the valleys and you'll feel it as a cool breeze coming from the direction of umbra approach.

[D] As the cooler air is more dense, it's going to roll down hills. And that's what you're going to try to capture here.

[G] That's right. So our observing site has a nice flat area, and it also has some hills to the east and the south. And so I'm going to have this pointing. This is a data logger. We'll have it pointing to those hills, and we'll see if we have calm conditions, if we can pick up a subtle eclipse breeze. Remember, it's subtle.

[D] Yeah.

[G] So this is a station that talks about the creation and dissipation of convective clouds, and they're created by the ground being warmed by the sun and creating moisture that rises as eddies. And these red arrows represent warm, moist eddies rising. And when that moisture hits the boundary layer, it condenses and it makes those fluffy clouds. But they are reliant on that continued energy of the sun and the continued supply of moisture. So the eclipse is going to shut off that energy and shut off that moisture. And those little fluffy convective clouds can actually dissipate before totality. Within ten or fifteen minutes before totality, there'll be these white, puffy clouds in the sky, and they'll start to go away.

[D] Wow. But not all clouds will go away to be clear, right?

[G] Yeah.

[D] Disclaimer, if you're at a place with clouds, like big clouds on a cliff, stay getting your car, go down the path one way or the other to try to get away from the clouds.

[G] Big, thick, gray rain clouds are not reliant on this kind of energy. They're more of a weather front type clouds, and they won't have time to dissipate because of the decrease in thermals.

[D] I don't know what to say about this, other than this is definitely the cutest station here. Circuit Chirping.

[Destin Laughing] What is this? Come on over and show me.

[G] So this is to teach people about the animal behavior. We're adults and we're humans, and we have brains and we know an eclipse is happening and we're watching it. We're in this field watching it because we know all about it. The animals don't know about it. They just think it's getting dark, so they think nighttime is coming, so they start their nighttime behaviors. It's fascinating.

This is a graph of the lux going down. And again, we won't even notice that anything's changing till about within ten minutes or eight minutes of totality. But the animals will sense it a little bit earlier.

[D] Really?

[G] So if you're in any natural environment at all, the first thing you'll hear is crickets. Crickets go crazy during eclipse, like this place. If this was in the path of totality, it would be wild, really wild. About ten or fifteen minutes before totality, the crickets will start. The second thing that people are not aware of, and that's why I have the bird here. If you see a group of birds in the fifteen minutes before totality flying, like they look like they're going somewhere, that's probably not random. That's a behavior. They're going to their nighttime resting spot. So be aware of that. Bees use the sun to navigate. That's how they get to their flowers. That's how they get back to their hive. People put video cameras up at the hives, and before totality, the hives got very active because the bees were trying to get back to the hive before it got dark,

[D] Really?

[G] And they found that bees that couldn't make it back if they were in some field and couldn't get back to the hive, they would land and they would wait for the sun to come back before they went to the hive or went to their flowers. So bees are really sensitive to these light changes and they change their behavior. So if you're a beekeeper and you have bees and you're in the path of totality, put a video camera up at your hives and you'll be able to document that. Or if you're in a place with a flowery bush that the bees, like, love and they're buzzing around it, put a video camera on the flowery bush. It'll be really busy during the partial phases, and when totality gets closer, the activity will go down.

[D] Really?

[G] Yes.

[D] That's awesome.

[G] Yeah.

[D] What about this chicken?

[G] It's my chicken animal behavior video. I had a farmer in Nashville monitor their chicken coop for me. I mailed them a camera and a tripod. It's amazing to see what chickens did before and after totality.

[D] We're going to watch Gordon's chicken video. Okay. I like it. What else we have here?

[G] So this station is about the Purkinje effect.

[D] Okay, this one's complicated. So I'm going to leave the long description over on the second channel video. But basically, this is what happens. You have rods and cones in your eyes, and the cones are light sensitive to colors and the rods are more monochromatic. So basically, what happens is as the eclipse comes closer, the color sensitivity of your eyes changes and you start to see colors different. The bright colors look muddy, and it just makes it feel really weird. Go check out the second channel if you want the whole description. But Gordon did something really funny so. That you could remember to wear bright color shirts and stuff on eclipse day so that you can sense these changes in your eyes.

[G] I need to do something.

[D] Okay.

[G] Now, this is way over the top.

[D] Okay.

[G] But I'm going to do it.

[D] Okay. I made up Purkinje effect shirt.

[D] Okay, great. All right. And it actually says Purkinje Effect Smarter Every Day. Okay, great. This is my Smarter Every Day Purkinje effect shirt. How long have you been planning this?

[G] About a month.

[D] Okay. Are you going to wear this on eclipse day?

[G] Absolutely.

[D] All right. This is what I was so excited about in 2017. Shadow bands. Yeah. Or as I call them, shadowsnakes. You don't like that name, do you?

[G] I like it.

[D] You like the name shadowsnakes?

[G] I do. I like it because that's how I described them when I saw them in 2002, because they look like rows of snakes that were wavy but in lines. Millions of snakes in lines. And what it has to do is that little slit of light is making little rectangles on the ground, but they're in the direction of the slit, so they're always in rows. And the way the atmosphere is going to perturb them will make what their behavior is going to be. So they could be shifting from left to right. They could look like they're leapfrogging like snakes. They could be very stagnant if the atmosphere where that light is coming through does not have a lot of motion.

[D] This sounds crazy.

[G] I know this sounds crazy. It's not crazy. I saw it in 2017. If you're watching the eclipse, hopefully they have your solar eclipse app,

[G] Right, and I'll remind them to look for shadow bands at 90 seconds, 60 seconds, and 30 seconds before C2. Because the thing is, you're so excited about the partial phases in totality coming, and the crowd's going crazy. There's this huge buzz. You have to be forced to look down at the ground.

[D] And so you just look like if you're looking here, you look for shadow bands like here.

[G] That's right. So put a white sheet in front of your group or whiteboards.

[D] Wow. I don't know the directions, but it looked like low contrast shadows.

[G] Right?

[D] And it looks kind of like boiling water. But it's in rows. It's in rows. It's really strange. It's hard for cameras to pick it up because of the dynamic range of the camera sensor, but just look at the ground. And you said afterwards it's better, right?

[G] Afterwards it's better because before C2, they kind of fade in as the lighting is going down and your dark adaptation is getting better. But after C3, you're dark adapted and the sun comes back as a very fine slit instantly. And that's perfect to make shadow bands. My app will remind you to look for shadow bands again after C3 because they can be more dramatic after C3.

[D] This video is not sponsored. This video is supported. And when I asked the supporter, what would you like the call to action to be at the end of the video, they said something very interesting. They said, ask people to be thoughtful about the video they watch after this one because what you put in your mind is important.

That's amazing. Let me tell you about these folks. So this is an organization called the Independent Media initiative. It is a new thing if you think about it. If you're a YouTube creator, you have an incentive to make sensational content. Like, if I can get a bazillion views on a video, then I can get more people watching it and the numbers go up and I can get more sponsorship. That means more money. Therefore, there's market pressure to make sensational content that is not good for society.

By the way, I really like the cypress swamp. It's really cool. I came out here because it's quiet. I put a little portrait at the end of this boardwalk. We're going to walk there and I'm going to show you something. So the independent media initiative is trying something new. They're partnering with foundations to get nonprofit money into the IMI. And then they are going to try to select creators that are authentic, genuine, make it educational, artistic content. And they're going to try to create another second path to promote those creators. Like when I was a kid, there was this program that I used to watch that made me think about feelings. It made me think about all kinds of stuff. In fact, sometimes I would get to go on a field trip to a manufacturing place, like a factory or something. Mr. Rogers neighborhood. It was awesome and I loved it.

I want to be remembered as somebody that makes stuff. Kind of like Mr. Rogers made me feel like that kind of stuff, and that's what IMI is going for, the independent media initiative. So again, I asked them, what is the call to action of this video? And they said, simply to remind viewers to be thoughtful about the next video you select to watch after this one that's it. If you don't know where to start, they've got a selection of creators on their website, you can go check those out that's a good place to start. But anyway that's it I'm grateful to IMI for the fusion award I'm grateful for their support of Smarter Every Day and I'm grateful for what their trying to do for the future of inteligent respectful content on the internet.

Thank you very much. Any last minute advice? They have to get into the totality band, where should they go?

[G] I'd watch the weather a few days before the eclipse and plan to try to drive to a bubble of high pressure.

[D] Okay, so have multiple options and make your decision.

[G] Be mobile.

[D] I get nothing out of talking about Gordon's app it's legitimately good basically where ever you are located on eclipse day you hit a button it will get your GPS position,

[G] And then it will just talk them through the eclipse just have them turn their phone on and listen to the announcements.

[D] If you had to pick one or two things, what would you recommend?

[G] Pin hole projection make up a card with your name on it pin hole project your name and sharp and fuzzy shadows.

[D] And the crickets are just gonna happen.

[Both laughing]

[G] Let nature do its work.