Wetzel, who spends his days trying to build a better jet engine, recently invited the author and comedian Baratunde Thurston inside his lab. Thurston was at the GRC to film a series of short videos that explain how jet engines, wind turbines and locomotives work. The series is live now. (Take a look below.)

(Wetzel is becoming GE’s media star. In May, he also spent a couple of days with three kid inventors who appeared with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show in a sketch called Fallonventions.)
How does a jet engine work? Here’s the answer:
The wind turbine works like a fan in reverse. Take a look:
The locomotive is a power station that’s no longer stationary: