Ever wondered how jets keep their cool when turbines spin at over 1,400 °C? Veritasium breaks down the entire show—starting with the basic airflow cycle, then whisking you off to Rolls-Royce’s precision casting facility. You’ll see how nickel-based superalloys (the gamma-prime phase), single-crystal blades, and crystal-structure tricks all team up to keep turbine blades from melting.
Along the way there’s a quick history of the first jet engines, a crash course on edge-dislocation science, and a reminder why hurling sand into your intake is a very bad idea. It’s a fun, informal deep dive into aerospace engineering and materials magic that explains exactly why those blade tips stay solid in scorching conditions.
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