0:00

This episode might be the most

0:02

controversial thing to happen in the

0:04

history of Pokemon. More controversial than

0:06

Sword and Shield not having the

0:08

national decks. More shocking than the

0:10

stories about people getting hit by

0:12

cars while playing Pokemon Go. Even

0:14

more unbelievable than the fact that

0:16

Ash Ketchum just became a Pokemon

0:18

League Champion in the anime. Seriously,

0:20

the claim I'm about to make

0:22

will change the course of Pokemon

0:24

history. I'm about to prove to

0:26

you that all electric lightning type

0:28

Pokemon, including everyone's favorite sparky little

0:30

hamster Pikachu, are absolutely useless. And

0:32

come at me all you want,

0:34

but might I recommend not doing

0:36

it with an electric type Pokemon

0:38

because seriously, I'm gonna show you

0:40

why that would be super ineffective.

1:03

Hello Internet, welcome to Game Theory.

1:05

For once the cold open actually cut

1:07

right to the chase. I am in

1:09

fact here to make everyone in the

1:11

Pokemon community angry for probably like the

1:13

27th time since this show began. Okay,

1:15

let's start our discussion today by talking

1:17

about Raichu. Raichu, Pikachu's cooler oranger evolution

1:19

that failed to capture everyone's heart like

1:21

Pikachu, relies on his signature lightning bolt

1:24

move set when he charges up his

1:26

cheeks. And kind of blows out a

1:28

big lightning bolt that to his credit

1:30

seems to deliver a pretty decent wallop.

1:32

According to Raichu's Pokedex entry in Fire

1:34

Red and Pokemon Sun as well as

1:36

episode 14 of the anime, Raichu quote,

1:39

unleashes electric shocks that can reach a

1:41

hundred thousand volts. And that

1:43

seems like a huge number,

1:46

right? Like a hundred thousand

1:48

of anything must pack a big punch

1:50

because there's just a lot of zeros

1:52

in that number. And then there's volts,

1:54

volts, those are like the magical electricity

1:56

pieces, right? And we don't really know

1:59

anything about electricity. other than it's

2:01

pretty zappy, so a lot of volts

2:03

must need Raichu as basically frying any

2:05

Pokemon who stands in his way, right?

2:07

Well, slow down there, my little Excelgor,

2:10

because it turns out science is NOT

2:12

on Raichu's side. Like, really not on

2:14

his side. And to understand just how

2:16

shockingly mediocre Raichu's shocking power set actually

2:19

is, I need to school you, and

2:21

apparently everyone a game freak, about how

2:23

exactly lightning works. First thing to know

2:25

is that shooting lightning at someone is

2:28

not like shooting anything else at them.

2:30

Water, Pokemon shoot water, fire Pokemon shoot

2:32

fire, grass Pokemon are stirring up leaves

2:34

in a menacing way, I guess. All

2:37

of that makes at least some level

2:39

of basic sense, because those are all

2:41

objects that you can actually shoot at

2:43

someone. But can you actually zap someone

2:45

with electricity from a distance? Not really.

2:48

Not even with electric weapons that we

2:50

currently have today. I mean, think about

2:52

how a stun gun works. It works

2:54

by shooting wires at people, and it

2:57

only works if there's a physical connection

2:59

between the target and the stun gun.

3:01

Similarly, a taser only works when you

3:03

hold it directly against someone's skin. So

3:05

in light of that, it seems only

3:07

fair to question this idea that you

3:10

can shoot lightning bolts at people, or

3:12

in our case other anthropomorphized keychains. How

3:14

do electric Pokemon move sets work, exactly?

3:16

And more importantly, what does science actually

3:18

tell us about how strong these electric

3:20

attacks should be? At first glance, there

3:23

doesn't seem to be anything wrong with

3:25

electric-type Pokemon. They shoot electricity out of

3:27

themselves just like lightning. And lightning is

3:29

a real thing in the real world.

3:31

We know it can strike from a long

3:33

distance, so a lightning bolt between Pikachu and

3:36

the nearest Bulbasaur should work in largely the

3:38

same way, right? Well, not when you look

3:40

at what lightning really is. To put it

3:42

in scientific terms, lightning is an electrostatic discharge

3:45

that occurs between two points that have themselves

3:47

an electric potential difference. Nerd. For the non-textbook

3:49

definition, let's look at an example, shall we?

3:51

You know how batteries have one end that's

3:54

marked positive and the other end that's marked

3:56

negative? And how if you put the batteries

3:58

together, you need to put them all facing

4:00

to the negative end of one battery touches the

4:03

positive end of the next battery, that's because

4:05

in order for electricity to flow, there needs to

4:07

be what's called an electric potential difference, which in

4:09

the case of batteries is a difference in

4:11

the charge, negative or positive. At the negative end

4:13

of the battery, there's a buildup of negative charge,

4:16

which is why it's called the negative end. Pretty

4:18

obvious. I've always found it confusing that the negative

4:20

end of the battery is where all the

4:22

charge is, because negative always makes you think of

4:24

not having enough of something, but remember,

4:26

in electricity, it's the opposite. Since electricity

4:29

is talking about the flow of electrons,

4:31

and electrons have negative charge, where those electrons

4:33

are built off is where the things are

4:35

going to flow. Makes sense, right? Electric charge

4:37

always starts from the biggest pile of electrons

4:40

to the negative end and flows through the

4:42

positive, from where there's a lot of charge

4:44

to where there's less charge, until all the

4:46

extra negative charge has filled over into the

4:48

positive areas and everything winds up neutral. That's

4:50

when your batteries run out. All the negative

4:52

charge has flowed toward the positive end of

4:54

the battery, and there's no more difference between

4:56

them anymore, and the battery gets thrown out,

4:58

or more accurately re- It feels like everybody's

5:01

got a podcast these days, and that's not

5:03

really surprising considering how easy Spotify makes it.

5:05

With Spotify for Podcasters, you can start a

5:07

podcast, get it on Spotify or any other

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the comfort of my own phone. It's also

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5:27

or seen. One of the big things that

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actually drew us to Spotify now is the

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support they added for video podcasts. Our format

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so I knew that now was the perfect

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Spotify. Spotify also offers an impressive range of

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it's video podcasts and audience interaction

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6:22

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6:24

spotify.com/P-O-D-C-A-S-T-E-R-S. Cycle the CC. The difference

6:27

between the negative end of one battery and the

6:29

positive end of the next battery is called

6:31

that electric potential difference. The shorter, easier

6:33

way to say electric potential difference, by

6:35

the way, is to say voltage. That

6:37

is what volts are. So when you

6:39

hear me talk about how many volts

6:41

something has, volts aren't a thing that

6:43

you can hold in your hand or

6:45

toss around. It's just the difference between

6:47

the electric potential of two things. The

6:49

greater the voltage difference between two objects,

6:51

the more easily that electricity is going to

6:54

be able to flow between them. And

6:56

just like water flows down a steep

6:58

cliff more easily than it flows down

7:00

a little slope, electricity finds it easier

7:02

to flow when there's a high

7:04

voltage difference. Higher volts means a

7:06

steeper slope, if you're using that

7:08

water analogy. You can actually see

7:10

this play out in practically every

7:13

lightning storm. During a storm, negative

7:15

charge builds up on the bottoms

7:17

of clouds, making it polarly opposite

7:19

from the positively charged ground below

7:21

it. Sometimes, like during thunderstorms, that

7:23

potential difference between the negatively charged

7:25

cloud and the positively charged ground

7:27

becomes so big that it's able

7:29

to overcome the resistance Of miles

7:31

of air. And That brings up the question

7:33

of what I mean by resistance. Well, The

7:36

air all around us has a lot of

7:38

molecules, and each one of them has to

7:40

become supercharged to carry the lightning bolt through

7:42

the air. And It turns out that air

7:44

doesn't want to randomly become lightning, which is

7:46

pretty darn good for us, but it also

7:48

means that the lightning bolt has to overcome

7:50

a lot of resistance to get the air

7:53

to charge up enough to carry that bolt

7:55

all the way down to the ground.. In

7:57

Order to overcome that resistance, you need a

7:59

shi- You voltage difference between the

8:01

clouds and the ground is how

8:03

big a difference we talking about

8:06

here. Like a billion on the

8:08

ironically not even joking about as

8:10

high as one point three billion

8:12

volts if we want to be

8:14

exact about it. At high enough

8:16

voltages, the air actually becomes ionized

8:18

and becomes plasma. This the fourth

8:21

state of matter, ladies and gentlemen.

8:23

after death. liquid and solid. The.

8:25

Air actually stop being a gas.

8:27

And becomes an entirely different state of

8:29

matters though. imagine how much energy that

8:31

imitate of what's going on every time

8:33

you see a bolt of lightning in

8:36

the sky. The reason that potential has

8:38

to be millions or even a billion

8:40

volts is that the resistance between the

8:42

points is so big hole objects like

8:44

trees are more likely to be struck

8:46

by lightning because there's less distance between

8:49

the cloud in the top the tree

8:51

than there is from the cloud to

8:53

the ground. So the electric potential difference

8:55

required to close that gap is. Smaller

8:57

and says the electrons are looking for

9:00

the path of least resistance. Well they're

9:02

going to take it. If the can

9:04

soak could and electric pokemon strike it's

9:06

by something like thing from the sky

9:09

like a supper club would. Not even

9:11

slimmer lightning strikes to the voltages as

9:13

high as one point three billion volts

9:16

leave a small lightning strikes Theory: voltages

9:18

in the hundreds of millions. Three consulting

9:20

the poker decks were reminded that rice

9:23

you the stronger more a bold form

9:25

of peak it's you can only reach.

9:27

At most a hundred thousand volts

9:29

said his point zero one percent

9:31

of the voltage required to pull

9:33

off a large lightning strike. They

9:35

could travel from the clouds to

9:37

the ground at far will or.

9:39

Hundred thousand Volts Care, you will.

9:42

It takes around thirty thousand. Volts

9:44

per centimeter to jump a gap of

9:46

their that hasn't been ionized. So if

9:48

we're using rides you as baseline for

9:50

what a typical electric pokemon should be

9:52

capable of, that, a hundred cells and

9:55

bowls is only gonna be enough to

9:57

jump a gap of three point three

9:59

three centimeters. We're just one point

10:01

three inches sm close quarters combat for

10:03

a pokemon battle. And what's even more

10:06

concerning that even if right you is

10:08

standing right in front of another pokemon,

10:10

the only one who's really at risk

10:12

of getting electrocuted is themselves. Wait, what?

10:15

So we go from right you shooting

10:17

lightning to rights you electrocuted himself built.

10:19

The similar lightning is that we don't

10:22

actually decide where it goes. it's just

10:24

always will follow the path of least

10:26

resistance. targeting your lightning strike legacy and

10:28

pokemon battle. Their act. Like to see

10:31

a Star Wars does indeed look awesome

10:33

actually the size. Everything about physics of

10:35

how electricite travel. The truth is that

10:37

lightning strikes the closest thing with a

10:40

least resistance. The right use case they're

10:42

works leads us self looking at the

10:44

way ticket you and I choose. Power

10:46

sets work, the charge they build up

10:49

canonical he comes from these two little

10:51

few spots on their cheeks. the somehow

10:53

turn those two spots and have a

10:55

negative end of the battery supercharged. go

10:58

with lots of negative ions before shooting.

11:00

That negative charge out as their opponents.

11:02

with a problem with that is when

11:04

your cheeks or negatively charged and the

11:06

rest of you isn't and the closest

11:08

positively charged thing is just older to

11:10

be you yourself to understand why that's

11:12

the case. We need to go back

11:14

to this idea of resistance. Like I

11:17

said earlier, sending electricity through the air

11:19

is really hard. Again, this is lucky

11:21

for us because the means we're not

11:23

getting zapped every time a fleece alone.

11:25

But it also means that electricity would

11:27

rather travel through pretty much any other

11:29

objects before travelling. through the air itself

11:31

medals like copper or aluminum have a

11:33

very low resistance for instance which makes

11:35

it really easy for electricity to travel

11:37

through them and which is why we

11:40

used metal wiring for electronics of use

11:42

a professional resistance meter to measure the

11:44

resistance of aluminum or copper it a

11:46

read almost zero old which is the

11:48

official unit of resistance try something else

11:50

though like say a piece of steak

11:52

and you're going to see it register

11:54

several thousand oh slightly more resistant to

11:56

letting electricity path through easily it's get

11:58

a deep also the But in

12:00

a pinch it'll go through the stake.

12:02

Measure the resistance of the dry area

12:04

on the outside of your skin And

12:06

it's even higher still at least a

12:08

hundred thousand ohms So again

12:11

electricity is gonna choose a lot of

12:13

other things before it wants to travel

12:15

through that dry of your skin Now

12:17

compare all of those to air which

12:19

is an insulator meaning that it's particularly

12:21

bad conducting electricity Well the resistance of

12:23

air can vary a lot because the

12:25

water level in the air can change

12:27

you're talking in the realm of billions

12:29

to tens of billions of ohms of

12:31

resistance Not even a contest

12:33

if electricity can go through almost anything

12:36

else it's gonna do it So taking

12:38

this to the logical conclusion if Pikachu

12:40

or Raichu builds up a big negative

12:42

charge in their cheeks creating a big

12:45

voltage difference between themselves and the ground

12:47

Well the path of least resistance between the

12:50

cheeks and the ground is gonna be just

12:52

through its own body I don't see either

12:54

of them wearing a big old pair of

12:56

insulating rubber booties to the path of least

12:58

resistance for every single Lightning attack is just

13:01

straight through the rodents own self Now

13:03

sometimes Pikachu decides to leap up off

13:05

the ground to perform his attack So

13:07

now he's closer to his opponent than

13:09

he is to the ground which honestly

13:11

is a smart move and the only

13:13

way to Scientifically avoid striking himself with

13:16

that lightning But any part of him

13:18

that's not negatively charged would still absorb

13:20

all that lightning power before it ever

13:22

reaches his opponent He is literally just

13:24

frying himself with every attack, but hey

13:26

least he still looks cute, right? But

13:28

you know what even I'm not

13:30

heartless enough to want to see him

13:32

fail So what if we give him

13:35

the ultimate benefit of the doubt? Instead

13:37

he could still manage to lightning strike

13:39

another Pokemon sending electricity through the air

13:41

and hitting that other Pokemon on the

13:43

battlefield How strong would a strike like

13:45

that be how much damage would that

13:47

lightning be doing? Well, it turns out

13:49

that we can actually calculate that the

13:51

strength of an electrical strike is measured

13:53

in ampere or amps not Volts

13:55

remember volts aren't a thing that you can hold

13:58

in your hand a volt is just the difference

14:00

between two electric charges. The strength of

14:02

the shock all depends on the amps,

14:04

and there it doesn't take much to

14:06

do a lot of damage. A shock

14:08

as small as 10 milliamps or .01

14:11

amps is gonna be a shock that you're gonna feel, and a shock

14:13

of 200 milliamps is

14:16

fatal. So can Pikachu cause that level

14:18

of real damage? To figure out the

14:20

strength of the shock, we need to

14:22

use the equation for amps. Amps are

14:24

equal to volts divided by resistance, so

14:27

amps is gonna equal volts divided by

14:29

ohms. When the volts are high

14:31

and the resistance is low, like say

14:33

Pikachu were sending those hundred thousand volts

14:35

down a wire with almost no resistance,

14:37

well, we're gonna get ourselves a big

14:39

ol' wallop of electricity. Really high amps,

14:41

super effective damage. But if he's sending

14:43

that hundred thousand volts across the air,

14:46

that 30,000 ohms of resistance per centimeter,

14:48

well that shock isn't gonna be very

14:50

strong for very long. In a typical

14:52

Pokemon battle, Raichu is standing all the

14:54

way across an arena from his opponent,

14:56

so let's say conservatively he's like 10

14:59

feet out. To send a hundred thousand volts

15:01

that far, it has to get through at

15:03

least 9.1 million ohms of

15:07

resistance, which means the shock that hits

15:09

the other Pokemon is gonna be at

15:11

absolute most .01 amps,

15:13

about the shock of a nasty doorknob spark. Ooh,

15:16

that's some violent static electricity, but it's not

15:18

gonna be nearly as bad as if you accidentally

15:20

stuck your finger in an electrical outlet. So,

15:22

you see, volts have almost nothing to do with

15:24

the strength of a shock when it comes to

15:26

sending electricity through the air. The resistance of

15:28

the air is the thing that's ultimately hindering

15:30

the strength of that attack. Now, as

15:33

one last and final thought, if Raichu

15:35

and Pikachu and other electric type Pokemon

15:37

weren't dependent on lightning strikes, then they'd

15:39

all of a sudden be in a

15:41

totally different position. If Raichu were able

15:43

to deliver the same voltage over a

15:45

wire connecting him to his opponent, all

15:47

of a sudden he's not worried about

15:49

the electrical resistance in the air. Ionizing

15:51

air molecules, that whole thing. Now, all

15:53

of that charge suddenly goes straight from

15:55

his cheeks, down the wire, and into

15:57

the unsuspecting squirtle across the arena, where

15:59

the shock... would be so strong

16:01

that he wouldn't just be knocked unconscious,

16:03

he would die almost instantly. The long

16:05

and short of what I'm saying here

16:07

is that the strongest move in an

16:09

electric Pokemon's toolset isn't so much the

16:11

lightning strikes, it's the ability to bite

16:14

their opponent, break the skin, get down

16:16

to that soft squishy interior flesh, and

16:18

then deliver that Pokemon the shock of

16:20

their lives. Too bad Ash didn't pay

16:22

attention in physics class, or otherwise he

16:24

would have been completely unstoppable. As it

16:26

stands though, now you know the reason

16:28

how Ash is able to survive getting

16:31

electrocuted week after week after week.

16:34

Truly shocking. But hey,

16:36

that's just a theory.

16:38

A game theory. Thanks

16:40

for watching.