The Little Things

Today your tour guide will show you some amazing tales made possible by the brilliant work of talented people. Prepare to be amazed!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
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 of Curiosities. Our children are often

(00:28):
seen as extensions of ourselves. They embody the best and
the worst of us, learning by watching how we navigate
the world. In a way, we program them like we
would a computer, hoping they do what we tell them
to do with as little friction as possible. We do
our best to instill in them proper values, a solid
work ethic, and the drive to pursue their dreams. Children

(00:53):
really are the future, and for Pierre Jacquet Drows, truer
words have never been spoken. Pierre made watches and elaborate
mechanical objects. His skills were unmatched, and the pieces he
created were the most precise and beautiful things a person
could own. He built music boxes featuring ornate songbirds tweeting

(01:15):
and chirping just like the real thing, their wings fluttering
along in tones of gold and emerald. He invented new
ways for people to wind their watches by simply using
the motion of their bodies. Along with his son Enri
Louis and his partner Frederic. Pierre's talents were known throughout Paris. However,
Pierre's watches were expensive both to make and to own,

(01:38):
and at some point the people with enough money to
purchase them lost interest. Business all but dried up for
poor Pierre, so he got an idea. The watch company
had always been a family business, and if he was
going to turn things around to boost sales, he'd have
to keep it that way. So he employed his three
other children to demonstrate their father's handiwork in neighboring cities

(02:00):
and towns. One son worked as a draftsman and drew
portraits and other pictures to illustrate the precision of his
father's creations. Another son wrote for a living and showed
off his impeccable penmanship to wealthy elites, comparing his artistic
talents to those of his father. And Pierre's daughter played

(02:21):
a piano like instrument called the harmonium. She serenaded crowds
across Europe with skills she'd learned from Pierre herself, and
the children's efforts proved successful. People came from all over
the world to see them perform, and soon understood why
Pierre's watches had been so popular and so expensive. In fact,

(02:42):
you can still see his children perform today if you
travel to Switzerland. They're kept behind glass at the Museum
of Art and History in New Chatel. No, they're not
held captive or anything. They're just too old to tour
the way they used to. After all, they were born
in the late seventeen hundreds. As you've probably figured out,

(03:04):
Pierre's children weren't actually his children, although I'm sure he
thought of them that way. They were called automata, androids
developed using the horological technologies that had powered his music
boxes and watches. Designed to look like small children, mechanisms
within their frames allowed them to move their arms and
hands with incredible precision. When wound up, they dazzled audiences.

(03:27):
Nothing so advanced had ever been created. Charles Babbage's analytical
engine wouldn't be developed for another seventy years, and it
would clearly be designed to look and function as a computer,
but not Pierre's automata. They were made to look human,
to function like we do, and to propose the question,
what if the technology we had available could be used

(03:49):
to make our lives easier. It's a question we still
ask ourselves now, as artificial intelligence starts to behave less
like a computer and more like us. But Pierre Jacque
a Drows had been pondering it long before, and his
work speaks volumes about where he saw it all. Leading
the Draftsman in particular, was quite the conversation piece. During

(04:11):
a visit to Marie Antoinette, the boyish automaton was supposed
to sketch a portrait of the Queen with a lead
holder poised between its metallic fingers over a sheet of paper.
Pierre set it to work. However, the cams that regulated
the movement of the robots arms hadn't been ingusted properly,
and instead of sketching the likeness of the Queen's face,

(04:32):
it drew something less flattering, the picture of a dog.
It was okay, though Marie didn't lose her head over
it or anything. Instead, the incident reinforced Pierre's popularity with
the French nobility and solidified his reputation all over the world.
He lives on today in the company bearing his name,

(04:53):
which still produces time pieces for those who can afford them,
and Pierre's small wonders live on as well, and chanting
museumgoers who want a glimpse into the future as predicted
by the past. Inventors are often known to be a

(05:22):
bit eccentric. They spend years searching for a solution to
a problem that could change their lives or the world.
It's a profession of obsession and it can yield miraculous
contributions to society. However, some inventions aren't quite ready for
the world, as was the case for John Andrews from Pennsylvania.

(05:42):
John had been sitting on a magic pill of sorts.
He hadn't really shared it with the rest of the
world yet, but in nineteen seventeen, as the United States
was preparing to enter the First World War, he thought
it was time. He drove to the Brooklyn Navy Yard
toting a small bag with powder inside and asked us
beek with Commander Earl Jessup and I know anyone trying

(06:03):
something like that today wouldn't make it past the front gate,
but times were different back then. Upon entry to the yard,
John asked the commander for a bucket of salt water
and an empty can. His demonstration was about to begin.
He carried the two items to his trunk and a
few minutes later, returned with a can full of water
and the bucket now empty. The powder in his bag

(06:25):
was gone. John then walked over to a boat bobbing
in the water nearby. Its fuel tank was empty, and
he filled it with the contents of the can, as
well as an additional half gallon of water. He started
the engine. Instead of sputtering and choking like any other
engine would when flooded with something other than gasoline, the
boat's motor rev to life. It ran until it had

(06:49):
used up all the fuel John had poured into it.
The commander was more than impressed. He was baffled since
he hadn't seen what John had done behind the car.
He thought perhaps the ventor had dumped the bucket of
water out and replaced it with real gas instead. Worried
he might be in the presence of a skilled con artist,
he invited John back the next day for another demonstration.

(07:11):
This time he stuck him in a room with only
one door and no way of disposing of any liquid,
no sinks on the wall or drains in the floor.
They brought him another bucket of salt water and an
empty can. When John came back out, he handed the
commander the can now full of liquid just like the
day before, and just like the day before, they poured

(07:32):
it into an empty fuel tank and started the engine
without fail. The commander was convinced John Andrews had created
something that could turn the tide of war for the
Allies and make millions, maybe billions, of dollars for himself
and the United States government. However, the commander's higher ups
needed some time to think what this stranger had presented

(07:54):
to them was indeed a miracle of modern science, it
was also highly suspect. They dismissed John from the yard
and told him to wait at home until they called
on him again. A few days later, they asked him
to come back. He never showed up. The Navy sent
officers out to his house to check on him, and
found the home's interior to be a wreck. Papers were

(08:16):
strewn everywhere, furniture had been knocked over, and it looked
as if there had been a struggle. It was thought
that John might have been abducted, perhaps for the formula
to his wonder powder, but he hadn't been kidnapped. He
had left in a hurry for England, where it was
discovered he was talking to the British government about his invention,

(08:36):
and thanks to John's hard work, the world has now
weaned itself off of fossil fuels in favor of a
more sustainable power source in our motor vehicles. No, just kidding,
Nothing ever came from John Andrews water fuel. He traveled
back across the ocean and made a home for himself
in Canada, but his incredible invention never made it past

(08:57):
the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Other claim aims of a gasoline
pill have circulated over the years, and the stories often
in the same way. The inventor would have made millions
and change the world if the government and the oil
industry hadn't made them disappear. We may never know the
truth about what happened to John Andrews. Powder. Scientists have

(09:19):
claimed the existence of such a substance is chemically impossible,
but new iterations keep popping up. In the nineteen eighties,
a man in China claim to have a liquid he
could add to water that would convert it into fuel.
A South Indian man in the mid nineties also claimed
to possess such a formula. All of them dried up

(09:39):
as quickly as they were announced. It seems such a
lofty promise to turn water into fuel just can't help
but run out of gas. 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

(09:59):
visit it in Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
created by me Aaron Mankey 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.