Marty McFly is stuck in 1955 and only one thing can save him: the concentrated energy of a lightning bolt! This is supposed to give his time machine the juice it needs to get back to the future. But does lightning even have enough energy for that? And if so: Can it be captured and used as electricity, like the antenna on Marty's DeLorean does? Together with the physicist duo Nicolas and Reinhard from the podcast @methodischinkorrekt2348, Jack explains in the video whether Doc Brown's plan would actually be a clever science stunt - and what modern workaround there could be today. #backtothefuture #minkorrekt #sciencevsfiction A huge thank you to Nicolas and Reinhard, who bravely filmed with us late into the night - despite the outside temperature being 5 degrees. Here you can find their science podcast "Methodically incorrect!" to listen to and their "Optically incorrect!" live streams to watch: ▸ https://minkorrekt.de/ ▸ / minkorrekt ... and the live dates mentioned by Nicolas can be found here: ▸ https://minkorrekt.de/minkorrekt-live/ Many thanks also to Axel Märcker and the Faculty of Physics and Geosciences, to Marika Kandler and the Faculty of Chemistry and Mineralogy at the University of Leipzig and to INSPIRATA Leipzig - they all lent us the great experimental equipment for this episode: ▸ https://www.physgeo.uni-leipzig.de/fa... ▸ https://magazin.uni-leipzig.de/das-le... ▸ https://www.inspirata.de/ Sources, background and further information about this episode: Plutonium on Mars - how the radionuclide battery works of the NASA rover Perseverance: ▸ https://blog.deutsches-museum.de/2021... ...the principle of such generators is explained in a little more detail here: ▸ https://www.chemie.de/lexikon/Radiois... If you want to think a little more about how the fairly precise timing of the lightning strike and the precise tapping of the lightning energy in the film could have come about - there are plenty of nerdy ideas here: ▸ https://movies.stackexchange.com/ques... More on current, resistance and the temperature of conductors can be found in our Magneto episode and the following sources: ▸ • Why Magneto shouldn't be a magnet... ▸ • Physics: Voltage, current and resistance... Here is the video from our YouTube buddy Cedric on his channel Doktor Whatson and the cool experiment that was carried out by the physicists in this video: ▸ • A day with the fastest high-speed... ▸ http://www.physikanten.de/experimente... More about lightning, how it is created and how much energy it brings with it: ▸ https://www.wdr.de/tv/applications/fe... ▸ https://www.vde.com/de/blitzschutz/fa... On the question of whether lightning energy can be used: ▸ https://www.ffe.de/veroeffentlichunge... ▸ https://www.quarks.de/technik/energie... ▸ https://www.wissenschaft-im-dialog.de... What Doc Brown must have gone through when he was struck by lightning while touching the cable: ▸ https://www.quarks.de/gesundheit/das-... …and if you plan on peeing against a pasture fence, please read this first: ▸ https://zaunq.de/wie-funktioniert-ein... On the physical quantity power and nuclear reactors: ▸ • Introduction to energy and power, kWh,... ▸ https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_d... More about capacitors and supercapacitors: ▸ https://www.leifiphysik.de/elektrizit... ▸ https://www.energie-experten.org/erne... Superconducting magnetic energy storage (SMES) explained in detail: ▸ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldu... ▸ https://bib-pubdb1.desy.de/record/139... (from page 40) Jake Roper from Vsauce carried out other cool reality checks for Back to the Future on the original set - absolutely worth seeing: ▸ • Could You Survive BACK TO THE FUTURE? ...and here is Jack Pop's favorite YouTube video, where his two passions Marvel and Back to the Future finally come together: ▸ • Robert Downey Jr and Tom Holland in B... /-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/ MDR knowledge on the net: ▸ https://www.mdr.de/wissen/index.html Please observe our netiquette when commenting! ▸ https://www.mdr.de/s/wissennetiquette