August 22, 2024 • 9 mins
On today's tour through the Cabinet, we visit two topics that most of us take for granted, and put a curious spin on each of them.
Pre-order the official Cabinet of Curiosities book by clicking here today, and get ready to enjoy some curious reading this November!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Ada Lovelace had always been
(00:38):
someone who threw herself into her hobbies. As an aristocratic
young woman in seventeenth century England, it was all she
really could do. Many of her friends found passion in
the few pastimes deemed ladylike enough for them, like embroidery, music,
and writing poetry. But Aida had a significantly different pastime,
advanced mathematics. She came by it honestly. Her mother, Annabella,
(01:02):
was an amateur mathematician herself, and her father, Lord Byron,
was one of the most famous poets and intellectuals of
his time. Just as famous was his reputation for debauchery,
thrill seeking, and his strong will, which led Annabella to
separate from him when Ada was just a year old.
Fearing her daughter would inherit what she called Lord Byron's madness,
(01:24):
Annabella insisted Ada fill her brain instead with languages, classic literature, science,
and mathematics, and these latter subjects were always Ada's favorite.
She would doodle designs for flying machines and her workbooks,
and ask insightful questions about the science of everyday phenomena
like rainbows. AIDA's interest in math took a turn from
(01:44):
hobbyist to professional when she attended a party in eighteen
thirty two, at the age of seventeen. The host, a
man named Charles, showed Ada and her mother his latest invention,
a steam powered math machine. Now, at the time, to
solve any sort of complex calculations, you would have to
write them out by hand or use a rudimentary tool
like an apicus. The Thinking Machine, as Ada called it,
(02:08):
was impressive. It was able to raise numbers to the
second and third power and add and subtract numbers quickly.
Ada was fascinated, and she and Charles became instant friends.
For the next decade, the two exchanged hundreds of letters
debating mathematic principles. Charles quickly took to bouncing ideas off
of Ada for his newest invention, an even more complicated calculator.
(02:32):
Charles envision the machine would use a series of punched
cards to represent different mathematical values, which a person would
input manually. This machine would be able to solve formulas,
find square roots, and perform even more complex calculations.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Aida had been keeping busy for several years in the
eighteen thirties by marrying and giving birth to her three children,
but by eighteen forty she wanted to put her mind
back to work helping her old friend Charles. The British
Scientific communit Unity had turned its nose up at his
new calculating machine, so he had gone to the continent
to raise funds for its development. In Europe, a fan
(03:07):
of Charles had published Charles's lecture notes in French, and
this Ada realized was her opportunity. She would translate the
notes to English and publish them in Britain. Charles agreed
on one condition that Ada would publish her annotations alongside.
The ideas in Ada's notes stretched beyond the bounds of
what Charles had created. Charles had originally envisioned his machine
(03:30):
as merely a mathematical tool. It was Ada who realized
that they could use it for other data. The most
logical use was for algebraic formulas, not just arithmetic, as
charles first machine did. In her notes, she also mused
about replacing the numbers for symbols and notes, envisioning a
future where his machine could write music or even generate images.
(03:52):
In her final note, titled Note g Ada described how
in detail to perform a specific calculation, invited step by
step instructions for how to arrange the cards in the
machine for it to produce the Bernoulli numbers, a specific
sequence of rational numbers. When AIDA's final translation was published
in eighteen forty three, that work was sixty six pages long,
(04:15):
forty one of which were AIDA's notes. All told, Charles
machine was never created in real life. It remained theoretical. Therefore,
it wasn't until nearly one hundred years later that the
scientific community realized the full impact of what he and
Ada had done. You see, AIDA's friend Charles was none
other than Charles Babbage, the celebrated English polymath. His invention,
(04:38):
the Analytical Engine is considered today to be the first
general purpose computer, which is impressive, but almost pales in
comparison to what Aida did. You see, if the Analytical
Engine was a computer, that means that Ada Lovelace's detailed
instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers, was the world's first computer program,
(04:58):
written almost a hundred years before the term computer ever existed.
Outside of George Washington, baseball games, and apple pie, there
(05:21):
are very few things more American than a good old
fashioned UFO sighting. The United States leads the world in
flying saucer encounters, with over one hundred and five thousand
reported sightings since nineteen forty seven. That's, of course, is
the year that a mysterious aircraft crashed near an army
airfield in Roswell, New Mexico. The government rushed to collect
(05:42):
the debris and cover up the incident, sparking conspiracy theories
that the downed aircraft was extraterrestrial in nature. We now
know that it wasn't the case if you believe the
official story. The aircraft was actually part of Project Mogul,
a top secret balloon project designed by the military toy
on Soviet nuclear tests, but that wasn't revealed until nineteen
(06:03):
ninety four, and in the decades between, UFO sightings really
took off.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
But while Roswell is.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Often cited as the start of America's infatuation with UFOs,
it's not actually the first sighting on record. There are
at least two others that precede it. One occurred in
the same year as the Roswell crash. In June of
that year, an amateur pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying
near Mount Rainier in Washington when he saw nine crescent
shaped objects darting through the sky. He told journalists that
(06:33):
the craft were incredibly fast, moving hundreds of thousands of
miles per hour. They moved like saucers skipping on water.
The other sighting is a bit older, and in some
ways even stranger. It happened to a man named James
Everell and two of his friends. The trio were rowing
across the Charles River one night when they saw an
incredible light zipping across the sky. Their description is eerily
(06:56):
similar to what Arnold's experienced in nineteen forty seven. For
close to three hours, the light darted back and forth
between the river and nearby Charleston. At times, it would
stand completely still in the sky, pulsing vibrantly before it
started to move again. When the light finally faded away,
Everell and his friends were startled to discover that they
(07:16):
had traveled a mile up river. They had no memory
of how they'd gotten there, which is especially strange since
they moved against the tide, meaning that they couldn't have
just drifted. It was like the lights had transported them
in an instant, or like they'd briefly blacked out and
forgotten part of their experience. If that's what happens, it
aligns with countless other alien abduction stories from later years.
(07:39):
The most famous is probably the case of Betty and
Barney Hill. The couple was driving through New Hampshire's White
Mountains in nineteen sixty one when they saw a strange
light in the sky that seemed to be following them.
The next thing they knew, it was dawn and they
were pulling up in front of their house. They couldn't
remember what had happened with the lights, but their clothes
were torn and dirty. It was only through hypnosis that
(08:01):
they eventually recovered traumatic memories of what had happened. For
the rest of their lives, the Hills maintained that they
had been abducted and forcibly examined by aliens. James Everell
never underwent hypnosis treatment, so we have no way of
knowing what happened during the time that he lost. He
never claimed to have been abducted, nor did he identify
the lights he saw over the Charles River as a UFO.
(08:24):
But it's an interesting case for a few reasons. The
lights were verified by several other witnesses in Charleston, and
the local governor, John Winthrop personally recorded James Everel's account.
Unlike the Roswell incident, it's highly unlikely that the lights
he saw that night were from a military aircraft or
balloon because this sighting occurred well before planes or weather balloons,
(08:45):
or even the US government existed. It happened on March
first of sixteen thirty nine, less than twenty years after
the First Thanksgiving. James Everell and his companions were Puritan
settlers in the Massachusetts Bay colin, which means that whatever's
causing all those lights in the sky, they've been here
for a very long time. We've been seeing them since
(09:07):
the Pilgrims stepped off of the Mayflower. 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.
(09:31):
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 Worldoflore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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. Ada Lovelace had always been
(00:38):
someone who threw herself into her hobbies. As an aristocratic
young woman in seventeenth century England, it was all she
really could do. Many of her friends found passion in
the few pastimes deemed ladylike enough for them, like embroidery, music,
and writing poetry. But Aida had a significantly different pastime,
advanced mathematics. She came by it honestly. Her mother, Annabella,
(01:02):
was an amateur mathematician herself, and her father, Lord Byron,
was one of the most famous poets and intellectuals of
his time. Just as famous was his reputation for debauchery,
thrill seeking, and his strong will, which led Annabella to
separate from him when Ada was just a year old.
Fearing her daughter would inherit what she called Lord Byron's madness,
(01:24):
Annabella insisted Ada fill her brain instead with languages, classic literature, science,
and mathematics, and these latter subjects were always Ada's favorite.
She would doodle designs for flying machines and her workbooks,
and ask insightful questions about the science of everyday phenomena
like rainbows. AIDA's interest in math took a turn from
(01:44):
hobbyist to professional when she attended a party in eighteen
thirty two, at the age of seventeen. The host, a
man named Charles, showed Ada and her mother his latest invention,
a steam powered math machine. Now, at the time, to
solve any sort of complex calculations, you would have to
write them out by hand or use a rudimentary tool
like an apicus. The Thinking Machine, as Ada called it,
(02:08):
was impressive. It was able to raise numbers to the
second and third power and add and subtract numbers quickly.
Ada was fascinated, and she and Charles became instant friends.
For the next decade, the two exchanged hundreds of letters
debating mathematic principles. Charles quickly took to bouncing ideas off
of Ada for his newest invention, an even more complicated calculator.
(02:32):
Charles envision the machine would use a series of punched
cards to represent different mathematical values, which a person would
input manually. This machine would be able to solve formulas,
find square roots, and perform even more complex calculations.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Aida had been keeping busy for several years in the
eighteen thirties by marrying and giving birth to her three children,
but by eighteen forty she wanted to put her mind
back to work helping her old friend Charles. The British
Scientific communit Unity had turned its nose up at his
new calculating machine, so he had gone to the continent
to raise funds for its development. In Europe, a fan
(03:07):
of Charles had published Charles's lecture notes in French, and
this Ada realized was her opportunity. She would translate the
notes to English and publish them in Britain. Charles agreed
on one condition that Ada would publish her annotations alongside.
The ideas in Ada's notes stretched beyond the bounds of
what Charles had created. Charles had originally envisioned his machine
(03:30):
as merely a mathematical tool. It was Ada who realized
that they could use it for other data. The most
logical use was for algebraic formulas, not just arithmetic, as
charles first machine did. In her notes, she also mused
about replacing the numbers for symbols and notes, envisioning a
future where his machine could write music or even generate images.
(03:52):
In her final note, titled Note g Ada described how
in detail to perform a specific calculation, invited step by
step instructions for how to arrange the cards in the
machine for it to produce the Bernoulli numbers, a specific
sequence of rational numbers. When AIDA's final translation was published
in eighteen forty three, that work was sixty six pages long,
(04:15):
forty one of which were AIDA's notes. All told, Charles
machine was never created in real life. It remained theoretical. Therefore,
it wasn't until nearly one hundred years later that the
scientific community realized the full impact of what he and
Ada had done. You see, AIDA's friend Charles was none
other than Charles Babbage, the celebrated English polymath. His invention,
(04:38):
the Analytical Engine is considered today to be the first
general purpose computer, which is impressive, but almost pales in
comparison to what Aida did. You see, if the Analytical
Engine was a computer, that means that Ada Lovelace's detailed
instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers, was the world's first computer program,
(04:58):
written almost a hundred years before the term computer ever existed.
Outside of George Washington, baseball games, and apple pie, there
(05:21):
are very few things more American than a good old
fashioned UFO sighting. The United States leads the world in
flying saucer encounters, with over one hundred and five thousand
reported sightings since nineteen forty seven. That's, of course, is
the year that a mysterious aircraft crashed near an army
airfield in Roswell, New Mexico. The government rushed to collect
(05:42):
the debris and cover up the incident, sparking conspiracy theories
that the downed aircraft was extraterrestrial in nature. We now
know that it wasn't the case if you believe the
official story. The aircraft was actually part of Project Mogul,
a top secret balloon project designed by the military toy
on Soviet nuclear tests, but that wasn't revealed until nineteen
(06:03):
ninety four, and in the decades between, UFO sightings really
took off.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
But while Roswell is.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Often cited as the start of America's infatuation with UFOs,
it's not actually the first sighting on record. There are
at least two others that precede it. One occurred in
the same year as the Roswell crash. In June of
that year, an amateur pilot named Kenneth Arnold was flying
near Mount Rainier in Washington when he saw nine crescent
shaped objects darting through the sky. He told journalists that
(06:33):
the craft were incredibly fast, moving hundreds of thousands of
miles per hour. They moved like saucers skipping on water.
The other sighting is a bit older, and in some
ways even stranger. It happened to a man named James
Everell and two of his friends. The trio were rowing
across the Charles River one night when they saw an
incredible light zipping across the sky. Their description is eerily
(06:56):
similar to what Arnold's experienced in nineteen forty seven. For
close to three hours, the light darted back and forth
between the river and nearby Charleston. At times, it would
stand completely still in the sky, pulsing vibrantly before it
started to move again. When the light finally faded away,
Everell and his friends were startled to discover that they
(07:16):
had traveled a mile up river. They had no memory
of how they'd gotten there, which is especially strange since
they moved against the tide, meaning that they couldn't have
just drifted. It was like the lights had transported them
in an instant, or like they'd briefly blacked out and
forgotten part of their experience. If that's what happens, it
aligns with countless other alien abduction stories from later years.
(07:39):
The most famous is probably the case of Betty and
Barney Hill. The couple was driving through New Hampshire's White
Mountains in nineteen sixty one when they saw a strange
light in the sky that seemed to be following them.
The next thing they knew, it was dawn and they
were pulling up in front of their house. They couldn't
remember what had happened with the lights, but their clothes
were torn and dirty. It was only through hypnosis that
(08:01):
they eventually recovered traumatic memories of what had happened. For
the rest of their lives, the Hills maintained that they
had been abducted and forcibly examined by aliens. James Everell
never underwent hypnosis treatment, so we have no way of
knowing what happened during the time that he lost. He
never claimed to have been abducted, nor did he identify
the lights he saw over the Charles River as a UFO.
(08:24):
But it's an interesting case for a few reasons. The
lights were verified by several other witnesses in Charleston, and
the local governor, John Winthrop personally recorded James Everel's account.
Unlike the Roswell incident, it's highly unlikely that the lights
he saw that night were from a military aircraft or
balloon because this sighting occurred well before planes or weather balloons,
(08:45):
or even the US government existed. It happened on March
first of sixteen thirty nine, less than twenty years after
the First Thanksgiving. James Everell and his companions were Puritan
settlers in the Massachusetts Bay colin, which means that whatever's
causing all those lights in the sky, they've been here
for a very long time. We've been seeing them since
(09:07):
the Pilgrims stepped off of the Mayflower. 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.
(09:31):
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 Worldoflore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
Popular Podcasts
1. Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
2. Start Here
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.
3. Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.