February 13, 2020 • 10 mins
Two remarkable people and two scientific mysteries, each with an exciting journey and an unpredictable ending.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the cabinet of curiosities. Most of us have had
(00:28):
a shocking experience before. Not a surprising or unexpected experience,
but a shocking one. If you can remember your childhood,
it probably involved a balloon, some shag carpet, and a
pair of wool socks. All you had to do was
drag your feet and then watch as that balloon magically
stuck to your head until you zapped your friend with
(00:48):
your finger. That is, but not everyone has been limited
to tools such as carpet and balloons. You know, some
people have had much more power at their disposal. And
no one, it seems, had more than a fourteen year
old French girl named Angelique. She was born in eighteen
thirty one in the town of La Perier, and as
far as I can tell, her early years were unremarkable.
(01:10):
But in eighteen forty five something changed. She had been
working with other women in a clothier that manufactured gloves
on oak weaving frames, and for a very long while
things were normal and safe But suddenly all of that
changed when she reached for the oak frame and it
moved away from her hand. Some of the women working
near her claimed that even if she simply stood near
(01:32):
the equipment, it would vibrate and rattle, as if an
invisible hand were thrashing it around. Now, this was the
nineteenth century in Europe, in a very deeply Catholic region,
so what happened next makes a bit of sense. Her
parents and employer all agreed that Angelique must be possessed
by a demon. I mean, what else could produce those
(01:52):
kinds of effects. So a priest was called for and
an exorcism was performed. But when it was over, thing
had changed. In fact, things seemed to be getting worse
rather quickly. Once she entered a room and approached a
large chair that witnesses estimated to have weighed at least
sixty pounds, but the power inside her forced the chair
across the floor and then up the opposite wall, as
(02:15):
if it were repelled by a powerful magnet. There were
medical tests, of course. One physician determined that when the
unusual events like that were taking place, Angelique's heart rate
would increase dramatically. Others noticed that one side of her
body was warmer than the other. Good record keeping and
a lot of experimenting also taught them that her powers
(02:36):
were more active in the evening and would sometimes vanish
altogether for a couple of days before returning unannounced. Eventually,
Angelique was studied by the smartest people in the land,
and they all had no idea what was happening inside
her body. Finally, in eighteen forty six, French physicist Francois
Arago published his findings in a scholarly journal, concluding that
(02:59):
the girls simply suffered from an abundance of electromagnetism. There
were more tests and more experiences, and all of them,
I have to say, were more than a little shocking. Once,
hoping that they could test the limits of her powers,
two strong men were charged with holding down a chair
while Angelique approached it to sit. Before she could reach it,
(03:21):
though the chair splintered into dozens of pieces, Thankfully, the
men weren't harmed by the accident. The life was becoming
difficult for Angelique because furniture moved away from her. She
was unable to sleep in a bed or sit in
a chair. The best her parents could manage was a
stone slab covered in cork, something her powers apparently couldn't affect.
(03:44):
It seemed as though she was doomed to a life
of difficulty and unintended accidents. Thankfully, all of that changed
later in eighteen her parents finally decided that they could
find answers in Paris, and so they packed her up
as best they could and began the law difficult journey
across France. Once there, though the greatest scientific minds were
(04:04):
stumped by a different problem. Angelique's amazing magnetism seems to
have vanished. What it was will never know, but it's
clear that Angelique Cotine had a special gift, if even
just for a little while. But looking back, I can't
blame her or her family for being frightened and confused.
(04:25):
She was doing things that no person should be able
to do, and if that happened to you or me,
I'm sure that we'd probably be more then a little shocked.
(04:47):
Few things are truly limitless. Sure it might be fun
to imagine winning the lottery and bringing home a check
for a hundred million dollars, but depending on how you
spend it, that well could run dry before you retire.
It used to be thought that there was a nearly
endless supply of buffalo in the American West. But human
activity and over hunting put an end to that idea
(05:08):
pretty quickly, and nearly put an end to the buffalo itself.
And it's that search for the limitless that's at the
root of so many of histories, great quests too, the
philosopher's stone that so many alchemists were looking for. It
would have dispensed limitless life, the recipe that finally would
transform led to gold. You guessed it, limitless wealth. But
(05:29):
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Johan was looking
for something different. For him, the ultimate pursuit was unlimited energy.
To be more specific, he dreamed of a device that
could generate more energy than he put into it. It's
one of the holy grails of physics and has been
for centuries. And you've heard of it too. They referred
to it as a perpetual motion machine. Well as it
(05:53):
happened in late seventeen seventeen, Johan believed that he had
cracked it. He was working under the patronage of a
wealthy count in what is now modern Germany, and after
a handful of less successful attempts. He had finally built
a machine that he kept locked in a room, safe
from prying eyes and mettlesome hands, and if he was correct,
he had made history. His first attempt at perpetual motion
(06:17):
took place in seventeen twelve at the young age of
just thirty two. His device resembled a large wheel about
three feet in diameter and four inches thick. But Johan
was a paranoid sort of guy. Yes, he wanted to
demonstrate his efforts, but he was also worried about all
the other scientists who came to inspect it. The following year,
he displayed a new and improved version of the device
(06:40):
in Leipzig. This one was also a wheel, but over
six feet in diameter. All one needed to do was
give the wheel a gentle spin and the mechanism inside
would take over, increasing the speed over time. It could
even be connected to gears that would allow the rotational
force to raise and lower heavy objects, all without slowing
down or needing another wish. In seventeen fifteen, that wheel
(07:03):
was tested by a group of experts, much to Johann's
chagrin when they were done, though their report was glowing,
Johan's perpetual motion machine was real, but the response from
others in the scientific community was less than encouraging. People
who had never examined the device made fun of Johan,
calling him a crackpots and a fraud. Naturally, that didn't
(07:23):
sit well with him. Still, he had enough success to
convince him that it was a good idea to change
his name to something that sounded a lot more like
a Greek philosopher and began referring to himself as or Furious.
And then he retreated to Germany and took funding from
that wealthy count that I mentioned earlier. After building his
(07:44):
third and final perpetual motion device in a gardening shed
on the count's property, he moved the contraption indoors, where
it could be locked up and guarded around the clock.
When he finally felt that his masterpiece was ready, he
sent out new invitations to have it inspected just as before,
and a number of scientists took him up on the offer.
(08:04):
Sometime in the winter of seventeen seventeen to seventeen eighteen,
those investigators arrived, Johan unlocked the door to the room
where his magical device awaited them, and then let the
men get to work. And needless to say, they were impressed.
One of the men, Willem Jacob Graveshand, actually wrote up
his findings and sent them to the English mathematician Sir
(08:24):
Isaac Newton. As far as everyone who witnessed it was concerned,
Johan had done it. Of course, everyone wanted to know
how it all worked, but Johan was a stubborn guy.
These were smart men, and they could very easily take
his explanation and go make their own. No, he wanted
payment for access to their inner workings, and he named
(08:46):
his sum an exorbitant amount of money. From what I've read,
no one took the bait. In fact, no one even nibbled,
and with no payment offered, Johan decided that if he
couldn't sell the devices secrets, then no one should ever
scovered them for free. So that night he locked himself
in the machines room with nothing more than his distraught
mental state and a large axe, and proceeded to chop
(09:09):
the device to pieces. As you might imagine, Johan's wealthy
patron didn't like what the inventor had done. How could
he get a return on his investment if the machine
was in pieces. A short while later Johan found himself
out on the street. Poor Johan Bessler would be an
aimless wanderer for another twenty seven years, finally passing away
(09:31):
in seventeen. Then all of that effort, all that time
and money and energy that he poured into his device, well,
in the end, it netted him nothing in return, quite
the opposite of what his device was designed to accomplish.
(09:52):
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 Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(10:15):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the cabinet of curiosities. Most of us have had
(00:28):
a shocking experience before. Not a surprising or unexpected experience,
but a shocking one. If you can remember your childhood,
it probably involved a balloon, some shag carpet, and a
pair of wool socks. All you had to do was
drag your feet and then watch as that balloon magically
stuck to your head until you zapped your friend with
(00:48):
your finger. That is, but not everyone has been limited
to tools such as carpet and balloons. You know, some
people have had much more power at their disposal. And
no one, it seems, had more than a fourteen year
old French girl named Angelique. She was born in eighteen
thirty one in the town of La Perier, and as
far as I can tell, her early years were unremarkable.
(01:10):
But in eighteen forty five something changed. She had been
working with other women in a clothier that manufactured gloves
on oak weaving frames, and for a very long while
things were normal and safe But suddenly all of that
changed when she reached for the oak frame and it
moved away from her hand. Some of the women working
near her claimed that even if she simply stood near
(01:32):
the equipment, it would vibrate and rattle, as if an
invisible hand were thrashing it around. Now, this was the
nineteenth century in Europe, in a very deeply Catholic region,
so what happened next makes a bit of sense. Her
parents and employer all agreed that Angelique must be possessed
by a demon. I mean, what else could produce those
(01:52):
kinds of effects. So a priest was called for and
an exorcism was performed. But when it was over, thing
had changed. In fact, things seemed to be getting worse
rather quickly. Once she entered a room and approached a
large chair that witnesses estimated to have weighed at least
sixty pounds, but the power inside her forced the chair
across the floor and then up the opposite wall, as
(02:15):
if it were repelled by a powerful magnet. There were
medical tests, of course. One physician determined that when the
unusual events like that were taking place, Angelique's heart rate
would increase dramatically. Others noticed that one side of her
body was warmer than the other. Good record keeping and
a lot of experimenting also taught them that her powers
(02:36):
were more active in the evening and would sometimes vanish
altogether for a couple of days before returning unannounced. Eventually,
Angelique was studied by the smartest people in the land,
and they all had no idea what was happening inside
her body. Finally, in eighteen forty six, French physicist Francois
Arago published his findings in a scholarly journal, concluding that
(02:59):
the girls simply suffered from an abundance of electromagnetism. There
were more tests and more experiences, and all of them,
I have to say, were more than a little shocking. Once,
hoping that they could test the limits of her powers,
two strong men were charged with holding down a chair
while Angelique approached it to sit. Before she could reach it,
(03:21):
though the chair splintered into dozens of pieces, Thankfully, the
men weren't harmed by the accident. The life was becoming
difficult for Angelique because furniture moved away from her. She
was unable to sleep in a bed or sit in
a chair. The best her parents could manage was a
stone slab covered in cork, something her powers apparently couldn't affect.
(03:44):
It seemed as though she was doomed to a life
of difficulty and unintended accidents. Thankfully, all of that changed
later in eighteen her parents finally decided that they could
find answers in Paris, and so they packed her up
as best they could and began the law difficult journey
across France. Once there, though the greatest scientific minds were
(04:04):
stumped by a different problem. Angelique's amazing magnetism seems to
have vanished. What it was will never know, but it's
clear that Angelique Cotine had a special gift, if even
just for a little while. But looking back, I can't
blame her or her family for being frightened and confused.
(04:25):
She was doing things that no person should be able
to do, and if that happened to you or me,
I'm sure that we'd probably be more then a little shocked.
(04:47):
Few things are truly limitless. Sure it might be fun
to imagine winning the lottery and bringing home a check
for a hundred million dollars, but depending on how you
spend it, that well could run dry before you retire.
It used to be thought that there was a nearly
endless supply of buffalo in the American West. But human
activity and over hunting put an end to that idea
(05:08):
pretty quickly, and nearly put an end to the buffalo itself.
And it's that search for the limitless that's at the
root of so many of histories, great quests too, the
philosopher's stone that so many alchemists were looking for. It
would have dispensed limitless life, the recipe that finally would
transform led to gold. You guessed it, limitless wealth. But
(05:29):
at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Johan was looking
for something different. For him, the ultimate pursuit was unlimited energy.
To be more specific, he dreamed of a device that
could generate more energy than he put into it. It's
one of the holy grails of physics and has been
for centuries. And you've heard of it too. They referred
to it as a perpetual motion machine. Well as it
(05:53):
happened in late seventeen seventeen, Johan believed that he had
cracked it. He was working under the patronage of a
wealthy count in what is now modern Germany, and after
a handful of less successful attempts. He had finally built
a machine that he kept locked in a room, safe
from prying eyes and mettlesome hands, and if he was correct,
he had made history. His first attempt at perpetual motion
(06:17):
took place in seventeen twelve at the young age of
just thirty two. His device resembled a large wheel about
three feet in diameter and four inches thick. But Johan
was a paranoid sort of guy. Yes, he wanted to
demonstrate his efforts, but he was also worried about all
the other scientists who came to inspect it. The following year,
he displayed a new and improved version of the device
(06:40):
in Leipzig. This one was also a wheel, but over
six feet in diameter. All one needed to do was
give the wheel a gentle spin and the mechanism inside
would take over, increasing the speed over time. It could
even be connected to gears that would allow the rotational
force to raise and lower heavy objects, all without slowing
down or needing another wish. In seventeen fifteen, that wheel
(07:03):
was tested by a group of experts, much to Johann's
chagrin when they were done, though their report was glowing,
Johan's perpetual motion machine was real, but the response from
others in the scientific community was less than encouraging. People
who had never examined the device made fun of Johan,
calling him a crackpots and a fraud. Naturally, that didn't
(07:23):
sit well with him. Still, he had enough success to
convince him that it was a good idea to change
his name to something that sounded a lot more like
a Greek philosopher and began referring to himself as or Furious.
And then he retreated to Germany and took funding from
that wealthy count that I mentioned earlier. After building his
(07:44):
third and final perpetual motion device in a gardening shed
on the count's property, he moved the contraption indoors, where
it could be locked up and guarded around the clock.
When he finally felt that his masterpiece was ready, he
sent out new invitations to have it inspected just as before,
and a number of scientists took him up on the offer.
(08:04):
Sometime in the winter of seventeen seventeen to seventeen eighteen,
those investigators arrived, Johan unlocked the door to the room
where his magical device awaited them, and then let the
men get to work. And needless to say, they were impressed.
One of the men, Willem Jacob Graveshand, actually wrote up
his findings and sent them to the English mathematician Sir
(08:24):
Isaac Newton. As far as everyone who witnessed it was concerned,
Johan had done it. Of course, everyone wanted to know
how it all worked, but Johan was a stubborn guy.
These were smart men, and they could very easily take
his explanation and go make their own. No, he wanted
payment for access to their inner workings, and he named
(08:46):
his sum an exorbitant amount of money. From what I've read,
no one took the bait. In fact, no one even nibbled,
and with no payment offered, Johan decided that if he
couldn't sell the devices secrets, then no one should ever
scovered them for free. So that night he locked himself
in the machines room with nothing more than his distraught
mental state and a large axe, and proceeded to chop
(09:09):
the device to pieces. As you might imagine, Johan's wealthy
patron didn't like what the inventor had done. How could
he get a return on his investment if the machine
was in pieces. A short while later Johan found himself
out on the street. Poor Johan Bessler would be an
aimless wanderer for another twenty seven years, finally passing away
(09:31):
in seventeen. Then all of that effort, all that time
and money and energy that he poured into his device, well,
in the end, it netted him nothing in return, quite
the opposite of what his device was designed to accomplish.
(09:52):
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 Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
(10:15):
and you can learn all about it over at the
World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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