The speaker, Destin, is discussing his journey to discover what happens when a baseball goes past the speed of sound. He describes this as a project that has been a lifelong passion and a question he's always wanted to know the answer to. He explains that he is not just trying to make an internet video, but is driven by a desire to understand the mechanics of how things fly through the air.
Destin shares his background in aerodynamics and his experience with air cannons, and how these experiences have led him to this point. He also mentions his friends David, Jeremy, and Trent, who have helped him in this project.
Destin discusses the engineering involved in building the Super Sonic Baseball Cannon, a device designed to accelerate a baseball to supersonic speeds. He explains that they had to create a pressure difference to accelerate the baseball, and designed a seal mechanism to create this difference. They also had to consider the vacuum side of the barrel and the potential for air to leak in.
The video then shows the moment of truth when they pressurize the cannon and fire the baseball. The result is a supersonic baseball, and they manage to capture the baseball traveling at over 1000 miles per hour. They also discuss their plan to continue testing the cannon with official major league baseballs to understand what would happen if an MLB fastball were to hit something at supersonic speeds.
The video concludes with Destin expressing his gratitude to his viewers and explaining his plan to send a baseball with a Smarter Every Day logo to everyone who supports him on Patreon.
1. The speaker, Destin, is a host of the show "Smarter Every Day". He is known for his love of aerodynamics, baseball, and air cannons [Document(page_content='00:00:13.95: Hey, it\'s me, Destin.\n00:00:14.85: Welcome back to Smarter Every Day.\n00:00:16.05: You read the title of\nthe video, didn\'t you...\n00:00:17.55: you know what\'s about to happen.\n00:00:18.89: Here\'s the deal though.\nI\'ve got to explain it to you.\n00:00:20.22: This is not some dude trying\nto make an internet video.\n00:00:22.59: This is me trying to\nanswer a question\n00:00:24.76: that I\'ve wanted to\nknow my entire life.\n00:00:26.86: What happens when a baseball\ngoes past the speed of sound?\n00:00:30.83: And there\'s very specific reasons\nwhy I want to know this.\n00:00:32.90: This is a Smarter Every Day\nbaseball, by the way,\n00:00:34.50: more about that later.\n00:00:35.60: When I was a kid I did a\nbook report on this book:\n00:00:38.07: "Nolan Ryan Strikeout King."\n00:00:39.84: And I learned that in 1974,\n00:00:41.88: Nolan Ryan,\nwhile playing for the Angels,\n00:00:43.61: threw the first recorded baseball\npast a hundred miles per hour.')
2. Destin is a developmental weapons tester and has an intimate relationship with air cannons [Document(page_content='00:01:00.36: I fell in love\nwith the mechanics of\n00:01:01.69: how things fly through the air\nand to the point where,\n00:01:04.36: as a part of my job, as a\ndevelopmental weapons tester,\n00:01:07.27: I developed a pretty intimate\nrelationship with air cannons.')
3. The speaker and his friends are trying to make a baseball go past the speed of sound using a Supersonic Baseball Cannon [Document(page_content='00:01:24.62: I have to know what happens\nwhen a baseball goes past\n00:01:27.32: the speed of sound.\n00:01:28.52: Like, does the cover rip off\nbecause of the shockwave?\n00:01:30.76: What exactly happens when\nthis thing goes Mach one?\n00:01:34.16: Let\'s go learn and get\nSmarter Every Day.')
4. The Supersonic Baseball Cannon is designed to create a supersonic velocity for a baseball [Document(page_content='00:07:47.10: OK. Moment of truth.\n00:07:48.43: The question here is...\nwe\'ve got that rod\n00:07:51.30: running all the way through.\n00:07:52.90: Does the pressure seal off\nright here where that plug is?\n00:07:56.98: And also do our\nseals back here work?')
5. The Supersonic Baseball Cannon was successfully built and tested [Document(page_content='00:18:39.02: Three, two, one, fire.\n00:18:42.99: [explodey things]\n00:19:04.94: (Destin Narr