Bonus: I need some Weird Eclipse Facts, pronto! Please Help!

We know you're prepared for next week's eclipse: You know where you'll be viewing the event from. You've ordered your special glasses. You've even on top of your appetizer game (Eclipse chips and dips are a MUST!) But if you haven't planned for the awkward small talk, Will and Mango have you covered with plenty of weird, quirky and fun facts to have on hand in this week's bonus edition.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I guess what will what's that man go? So I'm

(00:02):
super giddy because I just got my eclipse glasses in
the mail, and I can't wait for next Monday. I
know I can't either. I know we'll both be taking
our families up to Nashville for the big event. And
you know, this is the first time a total solar
eclipse has happened on the mainland US in our lifetimes.
The last time one occurred was just a few months
before either of us were born, back in nine. Well,

(00:23):
because everyone's buzzing about the event, I thought i'd be
really fun to share a few of our favorite eclipse facts.
You know, so everyone has something to talk about out
their viewing parties, So why don't we get started. Hey,

(00:48):
their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius the Eclipse Edition,
a special mini episode. Yeah that's right. So a lot
of times we have too many facts, but we don't
have enough time to turn them into full episodes, and
the clips is just days away, so we thought, what
a great time to drop some of our favorite eclipse
facts on people. These are some strange, fun things you
can suddenly bring up as you watch the event. So

(01:10):
where do you want to start, will I think we
should go back to the beginning. I mean, eclipses are
something people have been talking about for centuries, and I
like thinking about the early myths about eclipses and just
the way people would have talked about them so long ago.
They're all sorts of tales of Mesopotamians hiding their monarchs
and replacing them with decoy monarchs, you know, just in
case the dark skies were coming to take their powers

(01:32):
or something. And you know, I read about an ancient
China many thought that the solar eclipse was actually a
dragon getting ready to feast on the sun. So they
would run out and bang on pots and drums and
make all kinds of noise, you know, just to try
to scare the dragon away. That's so funny. I also
love how the Beach Way Indians which shoot flaming arrows
at the sky to relight the heavens during eclipses, Like

(01:53):
there's something so wonderfully poetic about that. Yeah, they're great stories.
But what about that Pope fact. I know, when we
were doing research for the Vatican episode, you you stumbled
into some interesting eclipse information. Yeah, I know, and I
wanted to save it specifically for this uh. Supposedly, the
reason astrology was banned by the Catholic Church is that
because Pope Urban the eighth used to believe in it

(02:13):
and Italy's top astrologer, which I don't even know what
that means, because like, what would it mean to be
like the number one astrologer in Italy? But he foretold
that this eclipse would mean the death of the pope
unless he did some magic to protect himself. And so like,
Pope Urban followed all these spells, and he hid and
and he did some elaborate ceremonies, and you know, of

(02:34):
course he survived. But then when he survived a second
eclipse a few years later, he was so annoyed that
he banned astrology. All right, well, maybe we should talk
for a second about why this eclipse feels so special.
You know, I was wondering that, like, why is there
such mania for the eclipse this time around? Well, as
we mentioned earlier, the US has been going through somewhat

(02:55):
of a drought, you know, from total solar eclipses. In fact,
this is the longest in the US his tree, and
you know the last time a total solar eclipse was
observed anywhere in the mainland US was back in February
nineteen seventy nine. Of course, the gift of waiting out
this drought is we're going to get to see this
coast to coast totality sweeping across the continent. In some

(03:16):
places it will be up to two minutes and forty
seconds of darkness, which is so crazy. And you know
what I love is I love all this talk of
animals being tricked by this, like that crickets will start chirping,
and some spiders will deconstruct their webs, and birds stop singing.
But but the best thing I read is that chickens
supposedly stopping their tracks, which means sometimes they'll wait with

(03:37):
one foot in the air, like so strange that Mother
Nature wants to prank um like that. It's actually kind
of wild to think about animals freezing in place for
almost three minutes long. I mean, this thing is going
for you know, if it's two minutes and forty seconds,
that's a lot of frozen time. But did you know
that the longest total solar eclipse could last up to
seven and a half minutes. You know, I've got to

(03:57):
admit it might be a little freaky to experience something
that long, but even two minutes and forty seconds is
pretty crazy. So I'm just tired of talking about eclipses
before the time's up. So I'm going to change the subject.
When someone starts talking too much about eclipses, I'm gonna
pretend that they said ellipses, and I'm gonna start telling
ellipses facts. So, mano, I have to ask, is there's

(04:18):
such a good thing as a good ellipses fact. So
in the US we used three periods in a row
to make an ellipses, and in China they use six.
So that's that's my fact. Grammar comedy always kills at
the clubs. I don't know, man, I'm thinking we should
stick with the eclipses. So now, there's so much cool
science about the eclipse. Honestly, it's strange to think about.

(04:39):
But the moon has only just arrived in this so
called sweet spot for total eclipses. So the move has
been moving away from us ever since it was created,
you know, four billion years ago, racing away at a
rate of one and a half inches per year, So
it hasn't always been in the right spot. And in
just a few hundred million years from now, total solar
eclipse as will be over forever, so we've better take

(05:03):
advantage while we can. Yeah, that's true, but you know,
it is crazy to think about how rare solar eclipses are.
I mean, if the Moon's radius was just another eighty
or ninety miles smaller, we actually wouldn't be able to
experience this phenomenon. That's a that's pretty nuts. But you know,
there's been so much talk about these special glasses, But
in reading about them, I couldn't help stumble into, like
some other sunglasses facts. And you know what's fascinating to

(05:25):
me is that historical sunglasses references go all the way
back to ancient China and Rome. And apparently Nero used
to wear his sunglasses in the box seats that he
had while he was watching Gladiator facts. I mean, of course,
those polished gems war wouldn't have protected his eyes, but
but they did look pretty good. Well, I went into
a similar rabbit hole, and because you know, everyone knows

(05:46):
you're not supposed to stare directly at the sun, and
I started thinking about other things you're not supposed to
stare at, and I stumbled into this this weird study
I don't know if you know about this, but staring
into someone's eyes for too long is actually problematic. There
was a two thousand, fifteen Italian study that found when
people looked into each other's eyes for too long, they
often experienced symptoms of dissociation, including feelings of detachment from

(06:10):
one's body and even from reality. And the weirdest part
of this whole thing is that some of them even
felt full on hallucinations. So crazy, strange, you know. But
but we promised to keep this short. So any any
last facts or tangents you want to throw out there? Yeah,
so I've got to throw out one tangent because you know,
we're talking about moons to some degree. Um, I wanted

(06:30):
to talk about mooning, and specifically that for thirty years,
the city of Laguna Niguel in California, they've hosted a
mooning amtrack event, so up to ten thousand people actually
take part. And basically it started in nineteen seventy nine,
the last year of total eclipse happened, and it began
with the barroom bet like this, uh, this drinker at
the Mugs Away Saloon offered to buy drinks for anyone

(06:53):
who ran outside and moon the next train, and the
tradition was born. I'm not sure that's eclipse related off,
but it is a really good fact. All right. How
about one more so? Did you know the word eclipse
comes from the Greek word for abandonment, so quite literally,
and eclipse was seen as the Sun abandoning the earth.
That's crazy. But but you know one thing we'll never

(07:14):
do is abandoned our listeners. So Part Time Genius will
be back with full episodes next Wednesday and Friday. Happy
Eclipse watching everybody, Thanks so much for listening, Thanks again

(07:37):
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(07:57):
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