July 13, 2021 • 9 mins
Some people search far and wide for a scientific breakthrough, only to come up empty. Others seem to be dripping with sucess. Here's a pair of stories to help you soak up the truth.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. Humans are curious by nature. We're driven to
explore our world and challenge what we know about our existence.
Through the centuries, we've charted lands and oceans. We've invented
and built a wide array of transportation methods to take
(00:50):
us too far away places, and not just horizontal travel.
In nineteen fifty three, two men reached the summit of
Mount Everest, and in recent years we sent humans in
submersibles through the Pacific Oceans, Mariana Trench, and then there's space.
We've been to the Moon and landed probes on Mars.
Despite the jokes, the moon is not made of cheese,
(01:12):
although the ancient Greeks did exile a philosopher for believing
the Moon was just a giant rock and not a god,
which reminds me we've believed a lot of crazy things
about the Earth over the years, and it's taken centuries
to dispel a lot of those notions. But in early
eighteen hundreds of America, we were still exploring and had
a lot of questions. Curiosity is a good thing, after all.
(01:37):
Captain John Cleaves Simes, Jr. Was a military captain who
had served in the War of eighteen twelve. He was
well educated and well read, but of all the subjects
he had studied, the one that interested him the most
was the Earth. He wasn't a scientist by any means,
although he had a few theories about our planet and
he thought we should explore them. He published a Pamplet's
(02:00):
explaining his theories in detail, and had five hundred copies made.
Then he toured the United States and handed them out
to scientists and politicians during his lectures. His theories were
met with plenty of skepticism, and he turned to his
societal connections to give him some credibility. He held a
fundraiser for an expedition to the North Pole. If there
(02:20):
was proper funding, he proposed explorers would bring back all
the proof necessary to back up his claims, and soon
enough he caught the attention of one politician in particular,
who had enough power to make his dream of exploration
a reality, President John Quincy Adams. During his presidency, Adams
established the Naval Observatory in Washington, d c. Which had
(02:41):
drawn considerable ridicule. He had also been instrumental in establishing
the Smithsonian Institute. John Quincy was the eldest son of
John Adams, the second President of the United States. Considered
highly intelligence, he had attended top schools all over Europe,
eventually earning ad mission at Harvard, where he situated at
the top of his class. And as a side note,
(03:03):
Adams also loved to skinny dip and regularly swam nude
in the Potomac River. It has no connection to our story,
but if that little fact has to live inside my head,
it gets to live inside yours as well. Like Simes,
Adams loved the thrill of discovery and presented the project
to Congress, but Congress didn't see the value in spending
(03:24):
taxpayer dollars for such an endeavor, calling it ludicrous. At
the time, though presidents didn't need as much approval, and
Adams overrode Congress and back simes proposal anyway. Simes believed
that the North and South Poles had deep caves and
he wanted to explore them. He estimated that one men
would be sufficient to carry out the study. At the time,
(03:45):
no one knew what minerals or metals they might find
along the way. But jun Quincy Adams didn't remain in
office long, just one term. The next President, Andrew Jackson,
had agreed with Congress that simes theories were ridiculous, and
once he was an power he immediately canceled the project.
By then, however, Sim's health had begun to fail and
(04:06):
he was never able to garner attention for his theories. Again,
well that's not exactly true. He may have inspired science
fiction writers years later, and what exploration had the sixth
President of the United States authorized a journey to the
center of the Earth. You see, while both Symmes and
Adams knew the Earth was round, they also believed that
(04:28):
it was hollow. When we think of brilliant minds, we
think of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, and
Alan Turing, innovators who changed art, science, and every other
(04:50):
way we understand our world. One mind, however, stands out
as one of the greatest in his field. Albert Einstein
was a man who was widely considered one of the
most brilliant physicists who have ever lived. Just a mention
of his name and one cannot help but think of
his theory of relativity. He equals mc squared, an equation
that everyone knows, but few actually understand. However, Einstein did
(05:16):
quite a bit of work before that. One of his
earliest papers was written on the topic of capillary action.
Anyone who has dipped a washcloth into a puddle of
water and watched the liquid creep upward has witnessed capillarity.
It's also called wicking, name for what happens when hot
wax moved toward a lit candle. Wick Einstein's article on
it was published in nineteen o one, and it explained
(05:39):
his theory that a force like gravity was what attracted
the water molecules up the sides of a tube. Unfortunately,
his paper wasn't accurate, but it did set the stage
for a breakthrough yet to come. Later. In nineteen oh five,
Einstein t hackled the concept that had stumped English botanist
Robert Brown a few decades earlier. Back in seven, Round
(06:00):
had placed to drop of dust filled water beneath his
microscope and noticed something odd. The bits of dust in
the droplet were moving all over the place, shivering randomly.
It wasn't until Einstein revisited Brown's observations for his own
paper that he found an explanation. The dust wasn't shaking
on its own. It was being pushed around the water
(06:20):
by molecules that were invisible to the naked eye. Though
the molecules would jostle the dust grains on all sides
equally most of the time, they could also bump them
from one side without warning, sending them careening elsewhere. And
although it was Einstein who had uncovered the truth, today
the concept is known as Brownie in motion. But Einstein
(06:41):
didn't sit still. He continued to research and analyze for
the next fifty years. For example, in nineteen seventeen, he'd
been theorizing about something he called spontaneous emission. It was
a phenomenon that occurred when an atom charged with photons
left its high energy state by emitting those photons, which
dropped into a low energy state. The process also worked
(07:02):
the other way around, too, with low energy atoms absorbing
photons to advance to a higher energy state. But Einstein
had a problem. He wanted to accurately calculate the kind
of radiation these atoms gave off, but other physicists were
finding vastly different results in their own experiments. So Einstein
went back to the drawing board. He looked at his
formulas and hypothesized that photons moved together when they were
(07:25):
in the same state. If the photons traveled in one formation,
then a high energy atom would emit its own photon
in the same direction. That had been the missing piece
of the puzzle, and so Einstein changed his theory from
spontaneous emission to stimulated emission. Thirty years later, when physicists
used mirrors to reflect a stream of photons, they called
(07:46):
their discovery this light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
in honor of Einstein's paper, But that name was just
too long for normal conversation, so they simply shortened it
to laser, and those lasers are now used in military weapons,
DVD players, and even toys that we can annoy our
(08:08):
cats with. As for his work on Brownie and motion, well,
it's been used to analyze how stock market prices change
over time and to predict the performance of markets around
the world, and six years after publishing his article on
capillary action, it found its own real world application. A
company from Pennsylvania had been looking for an alternative to
(08:29):
cloth towels, which often became home to mold and disease
from frequent use. What the company eventually produced was disposable, inexpensive,
and absorbent. The Scott Paper Company unveiled their new paper
towels in nineteen o seven, and ever since, Einstein's theory
of capillarity is used every time someone needs to clean
(08:51):
up a big spill. Sure, Albert Einstein knew a lot
about the speed of light and theoretical physics, but he
also contributed to some of the most important scientific discoveries
in history. He may well have run into a few
bumps along the way, but he wasn't the kind of
guy to cry over spilt milk, because if he did,
(09:11):
he knew he had the perfect tool to mop it
right up. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
(09:32):
in partnership with how Stuff Works, I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
(00:27):
of Curiosities. Humans are curious by nature. We're driven to
explore our world and challenge what we know about our existence.
Through the centuries, we've charted lands and oceans. We've invented
and built a wide array of transportation methods to take
(00:50):
us too far away places, and not just horizontal travel.
In nineteen fifty three, two men reached the summit of
Mount Everest, and in recent years we sent humans in
submersibles through the Pacific Oceans, Mariana Trench, and then there's space.
We've been to the Moon and landed probes on Mars.
Despite the jokes, the moon is not made of cheese,
(01:12):
although the ancient Greeks did exile a philosopher for believing
the Moon was just a giant rock and not a god,
which reminds me we've believed a lot of crazy things
about the Earth over the years, and it's taken centuries
to dispel a lot of those notions. But in early
eighteen hundreds of America, we were still exploring and had
a lot of questions. Curiosity is a good thing, after all.
(01:37):
Captain John Cleaves Simes, Jr. Was a military captain who
had served in the War of eighteen twelve. He was
well educated and well read, but of all the subjects
he had studied, the one that interested him the most
was the Earth. He wasn't a scientist by any means,
although he had a few theories about our planet and
he thought we should explore them. He published a Pamplet's
(02:00):
explaining his theories in detail, and had five hundred copies made.
Then he toured the United States and handed them out
to scientists and politicians during his lectures. His theories were
met with plenty of skepticism, and he turned to his
societal connections to give him some credibility. He held a
fundraiser for an expedition to the North Pole. If there
(02:20):
was proper funding, he proposed explorers would bring back all
the proof necessary to back up his claims, and soon
enough he caught the attention of one politician in particular,
who had enough power to make his dream of exploration
a reality, President John Quincy Adams. During his presidency, Adams
established the Naval Observatory in Washington, d c. Which had
(02:41):
drawn considerable ridicule. He had also been instrumental in establishing
the Smithsonian Institute. John Quincy was the eldest son of
John Adams, the second President of the United States. Considered
highly intelligence, he had attended top schools all over Europe,
eventually earning ad mission at Harvard, where he situated at
the top of his class. And as a side note,
(03:03):
Adams also loved to skinny dip and regularly swam nude
in the Potomac River. It has no connection to our story,
but if that little fact has to live inside my head,
it gets to live inside yours as well. Like Simes,
Adams loved the thrill of discovery and presented the project
to Congress, but Congress didn't see the value in spending
(03:24):
taxpayer dollars for such an endeavor, calling it ludicrous. At
the time, though presidents didn't need as much approval, and
Adams overrode Congress and back simes proposal anyway. Simes believed
that the North and South Poles had deep caves and
he wanted to explore them. He estimated that one men
would be sufficient to carry out the study. At the time,
(03:45):
no one knew what minerals or metals they might find
along the way. But jun Quincy Adams didn't remain in
office long, just one term. The next President, Andrew Jackson,
had agreed with Congress that simes theories were ridiculous, and
once he was an power he immediately canceled the project.
By then, however, Sim's health had begun to fail and
(04:06):
he was never able to garner attention for his theories. Again,
well that's not exactly true. He may have inspired science
fiction writers years later, and what exploration had the sixth
President of the United States authorized a journey to the
center of the Earth. You see, while both Symmes and
Adams knew the Earth was round, they also believed that
(04:28):
it was hollow. When we think of brilliant minds, we
think of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, and
Alan Turing, innovators who changed art, science, and every other
(04:50):
way we understand our world. One mind, however, stands out
as one of the greatest in his field. Albert Einstein
was a man who was widely considered one of the
most brilliant physicists who have ever lived. Just a mention
of his name and one cannot help but think of
his theory of relativity. He equals mc squared, an equation
that everyone knows, but few actually understand. However, Einstein did
(05:16):
quite a bit of work before that. One of his
earliest papers was written on the topic of capillary action.
Anyone who has dipped a washcloth into a puddle of
water and watched the liquid creep upward has witnessed capillarity.
It's also called wicking, name for what happens when hot
wax moved toward a lit candle. Wick Einstein's article on
it was published in nineteen o one, and it explained
(05:39):
his theory that a force like gravity was what attracted
the water molecules up the sides of a tube. Unfortunately,
his paper wasn't accurate, but it did set the stage
for a breakthrough yet to come. Later. In nineteen oh five,
Einstein t hackled the concept that had stumped English botanist
Robert Brown a few decades earlier. Back in seven, Round
(06:00):
had placed to drop of dust filled water beneath his
microscope and noticed something odd. The bits of dust in
the droplet were moving all over the place, shivering randomly.
It wasn't until Einstein revisited Brown's observations for his own
paper that he found an explanation. The dust wasn't shaking
on its own. It was being pushed around the water
(06:20):
by molecules that were invisible to the naked eye. Though
the molecules would jostle the dust grains on all sides
equally most of the time, they could also bump them
from one side without warning, sending them careening elsewhere. And
although it was Einstein who had uncovered the truth, today
the concept is known as Brownie in motion. But Einstein
(06:41):
didn't sit still. He continued to research and analyze for
the next fifty years. For example, in nineteen seventeen, he'd
been theorizing about something he called spontaneous emission. It was
a phenomenon that occurred when an atom charged with photons
left its high energy state by emitting those photons, which
dropped into a low energy state. The process also worked
(07:02):
the other way around, too, with low energy atoms absorbing
photons to advance to a higher energy state. But Einstein
had a problem. He wanted to accurately calculate the kind
of radiation these atoms gave off, but other physicists were
finding vastly different results in their own experiments. So Einstein
went back to the drawing board. He looked at his
formulas and hypothesized that photons moved together when they were
(07:25):
in the same state. If the photons traveled in one formation,
then a high energy atom would emit its own photon
in the same direction. That had been the missing piece
of the puzzle, and so Einstein changed his theory from
spontaneous emission to stimulated emission. Thirty years later, when physicists
used mirrors to reflect a stream of photons, they called
(07:46):
their discovery this light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
in honor of Einstein's paper, But that name was just
too long for normal conversation, so they simply shortened it
to laser, and those lasers are now used in military weapons,
DVD players, and even toys that we can annoy our
(08:08):
cats with. As for his work on Brownie and motion, well,
it's been used to analyze how stock market prices change
over time and to predict the performance of markets around
the world, and six years after publishing his article on
capillary action, it found its own real world application. A
company from Pennsylvania had been looking for an alternative to
(08:29):
cloth towels, which often became home to mold and disease
from frequent use. What the company eventually produced was disposable, inexpensive,
and absorbent. The Scott Paper Company unveiled their new paper
towels in nineteen o seven, and ever since, Einstein's theory
of capillarity is used every time someone needs to clean
(08:51):
up a big spill. Sure, Albert Einstein knew a lot
about the speed of light and theoretical physics, but he
also contributed to some of the most important scientific discoveries
in history. He may well have run into a few
bumps along the way, but he wasn't the kind of
guy to cry over spilt milk, because if he did,
(09:11):
he knew he had the perfect tool to mop it
right up. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
(09:32):
in partnership with how Stuff Works, I make another award
winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
and television show and you can learn all about it
over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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