The World in a Grain The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization

sand is actually the most important solid substance on Earth. It's the literal foundation of modern civilization.

We use more sand than any other natural resource in the world, except for air and water.

We use about 50 billion tons of the stuff every single year, which is enough to cover the entire state of California.

the question isn't really what's going to happen when we run out of sand the question is What's going to happen when we run out of everything

Vince Beiser's book is called the world in a grain

Sand is to cities what flour is to bread, and for the gluten-free of us listening to the show, it's what cells are to our bodies.

Sand is at the core of our daily lives, used to make concrete, glass, asphalt, silicon chips in laptops, and smartphones.

Without sand, there's no modern civilization.

We use about 50 billion tons of sand every year. That's enough to cover the entire state of California every single year.

China used more cement in the last few years than the United States did in the entire 20th century.

Sand is to cities what flour is to bread... It's what cells are to our bodies.

Sand is the most important solid substance on earth... without sand we have no modern civilization.

We use about 50 billion tons of sand every year... that's enough to cover the entire state of California every single year.

The sand that we use for computer chips needs to be 99.99999999999999999% pure... that's 11 9s after the decimal.

China used more cement in the last few years than the United States did in the entire 20th century.

Sand is to cities what flour is to bread...It's what cells are to our bodies.

Without sand there's no modern civilization.

We use about 50 billion tons of sand every year. That's enough to cover the entire state of California every single year.

Desert sand is basically useless to us.

The cycle to create new sand takes 200 million years.