Listener Mail: Black Hole Dream

Have you ever dreamt that you forgot about a college class until the morning of the final exam — and then dreamt that a black hole swallowed the entire university? Yes, it’s time for yet another Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener mail.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, are you welcome
to Stuff to blow your Mind? My name is Robert
Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're bringing you some
listener mail today. Now, we just did an episode of

(00:21):
Halloween related listener mail stuff for our October episodes on
All Things Monstrous. But there was a ton of great
listener mail that I would say fell in the crack
maybe between the coffin and the hard place, got wedged
in there, and it's it's too good to pass by.
So we're bringing you a second helping Uh. This is
gonna be listener mail. A lot of it I think
was from September, some from more recently. Uh, So we

(00:43):
hope you enjoy. That's right. There's a lot of great
stuff in here, and we we wanted to do right.
We wanted to pay off our debts here listener mail
related before we move on into some more exciting content
that will take us through the holidays and ultimately uh
into a new decade. And as always, Carnie, our mail
bodies here to help us. I was telling Carney about

(01:03):
my own uh philosophy regarding the holidays moving forward, and
then I'm going to lean into the holidays and then
embrace the holidays. Uh and and so Carney's doing the
same thing. He's cooking NonStop though. He is researching recipes
for Thanksgiving dishes, and he is attempting to replicate food
that humans can safely eat. He just presented me a

(01:26):
dish of delicious braized pop tarts that I can't wait
to tuck into. It is technically food. You cannot deny it,
all right? Should we look at this first piece of mail.
This comes from our listener, Jordan's regarding the interview you
did with Mark Mandica about, among many things, copper heads,

(01:47):
snapping turtles and all that. That's right, you were traveling,
so I had Mark come into the studio when we chatted,
and yeah, this is what Jordan had to say. Quote.
I was recently listening to your September interview with Mark
Mandinka on a more conservation and vilified reptiles, and thought
I would share my personal experience being bitten by a
copper head snake. This being said, I've always loved snakes

(02:08):
and the experience has not left me with any hatred
of the reptiles or species themselves. It's very big of
you Jordan's Five years ago, I was bitten on the
foot by a baby copper head snake in North Carolina.
As you may know, baby venom of snakes are often
considered more dangerous due to their lack of venom output control.
I wasn't aware of the snake's presence at the time,
and the bite marks were discovered by the e R,

(02:30):
but the pain felt similar to that of an insect sting.
Following the bite itself, my vision nearly immediately went yellow
as I temporarily lost the ability to see other colors.
About ten seconds after, my muscles collapsed to the forest
floor and UH and I had to drag myself out
of the woods to a nearby park bench as I
was too weak to stand. I didn't end up meeting

(02:52):
anti venom, but I was connected to three I V
machines and kept in the hospital overnight as my foot
was extremely swollen and blue and color. I was confined
to a wheelchair and crutches for multiple months after with
my swollen foot, so I definitely felt side effects of
the copper head venoms, mild or not in comparison to
other venoms. I would not wish to relieve the experience,

(03:15):
although it is a much better story than any encounter
I've had with a scud. I love stuff to blow
your mind and invention, and I hope you enjoyed hearing
what happened to someone that was actually bitten by a
copper head snake. That's a great story, Jordan. I don't
know if i'd ever heard about the vision going yellow before.
That's a very interesting effect. Right. Likewise, I either didn't

(03:35):
know or had forgotten about the young snakes and venom control.
I've been am output control. That's that's interesting as well.
And yeah, it's just nice to have a firsthand account
of the power of a snake's venom. I I have
never been bitten by a snake, so I can't I
can't relate. I've been stung by wasps. But that's that's
it all right. Next, we've got a couple of email is,

(04:00):
going way back to our episodes about fat bergs. Of course,
the the dragons, the soap dragons that grow in our
sewers when we flush wet wipes like we shouldn't don't
wash oil and grease down. The saying don't flush wet wipes, folks.
And this comes from an anonymous listener, one who wished
to remain anonymous. Uh. They say, Hi, Robert and Joe

(04:20):
and good stuff to blow your mind people. So I
guess that that concerns you too, Seth. First off, you
guys are truly of the finest podcasters, communicators, progressive thinkers,
bastions of curiosity that I've encountered in podcast land. Thank
you sincerely for your podcast and other endeavors. Well, you're
far too kind. Uh. Now I present to you a
real life Fatburg superhero. We were asking about this in

(04:41):
our Fatberg episodes. I think the idea we came up
with though, was Fatberg cop right, But the the listener
here says it is the now retired Grease Avenger from
the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation. The Grease
Avenger was created by someone named Adol hudgikal Deal to
promote awareness of the problems resulting in sewers from fo

(05:05):
g or fog Fat's Oil and Greece. This at the time,
division manager would dress up in his supersuit and appear
at functions to promote the messaging. Now that Mr Hadjikhalil
has progressed in his career to manage a different bureau.
The grease a Injur has been retired, and almost all
links to the story and images have been plucked from
the web. A little nugget of fatburg gold remains, however,

(05:29):
see the screenshot and link below. This is the only
remaining image I could find of Mr Hadjikhalil in his supersuit.
The story unfolds below in this obscure University of Houston publication.
You'll see why when you read the story. Although his
superhero days are likely entirely behind him, Atol remains a
much beloved and an effective visionary leader and is now

(05:49):
General manager of the City of Los Angeles Bureau of
Street Services. Althose, sewers and subterranean systems rarely hold the
attention of the public. Those of us who design and construct, maintain,
and operate this infrastructure know that we keep the Pooh
Beast at bay. All. All you need to remember, my friends,
is that the sun shall rise tomorrow, thanks in part

(06:10):
to people like adle hogical Eel. I'm so glad we've
come back to this this this particular email, because I
was delighted that there was a real life fat bird
cop but can you believe it? There's more. In my
early days as a newly minted civil engineer in British Columbia,
I needed to install flow gauges in the sewers of
a remote coastal community. Accurately gauging sewer flows is not trivial.

(06:33):
It's fraught with all the perils you can imagine, plus
complications that can arise from hydraulics and dynamic conditions. Anyway,
to install the most accurate type of flow gauge, which
is a metal band with a sensor at the bottom
of it, one must physically install the band inside the
sewer pipe. You must go down a man hole or
maintenance hole to use the more inclusive term, and reach

(06:55):
into the sewer pipe by hand, often while it's flowing,
and install all We popped a maintenance hole cover to
begin installation, only to find that the walls and everything
inside were coated in an inch or so thick layer
of white, softish greasy goo. The diet of this remote
community you see features a delicacy Ulican grease. UH for

(07:17):
the referenced website quote. Beginning around the end of February,
they started to fish vast quantities of ulican, a small
and very oily member of the smelt family. Ulican was
not usually eaten as a fish meat. The vast majority
of the catch was rendered for its edible grease, which
could be stored for many months. They boiled the ulican

(07:37):
uh and that's o O l I c h A
n if I'm pronouncing that wrong in large cedar bent
boxes until the grease separated in rows to the top.
They then skimmed the grease and poured it into other
boxes to store for trade with other tribes or eating
throughout the year. The grease is prominent in all aspects
of life in the local indigenous culture, so it was

(07:57):
not surprising to see it represented with such gusto in
the sewers, which quite literally linked the entire community. We
couldn't safely climb inside with all that grease, so we
got fire hoses and nozzles and other various implementia to
clean out the manholes and pipes sufficiently to let us
do our work. Not wanting to ruin our boots and clothing,
and generally stay as poo free as possible, we donned

(08:19):
rain gear, heavy gloves, and bags that we duck tape
liberally to you. Guessed it a supersuit. The only record
that remains is a coffee mug that my workmates at
the time had made for me from a project photo
that my colleague took see attached. I never thought this
photo might one day be relevant or sharable in any way.
I present my elevated persona sewerman. Remember flush not thine

(08:43):
wipes of wetness for nothing good. Therefrom shall come. Wow
that that was. That was a great listening email. It
just got better and better. Yeah, it had everything. It
had a real it had a Fatburg cop from the
real world. It had a battle with a unique type
of sewer grease. I mean this is great. Learned a
little bit about other cultures. Yeah, it's pretty great all
in all. And it's not the only bit of fat

(09:05):
Berg listener mail that we have to read for you.
This next one comes to us from Maurice, titled fat
Bergs from outer Space. They write, I'm a longtime fan
of stuff to blow your mind and listen to the
show not just to learn about weird and noteworthy things,
but also to gain inspiration for my own creative efforts.

(09:26):
I write horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories, but I
also write my own modules for the RPG games I run.
After listening to the recent Fatberg episode, I became disgustingly
fascinated and knew I had to design a gross stout
module for my star Finder game, a science fantasy game
by Pazzo. I believe it is so this is the

(09:48):
company that makes Pathfinder. It's my understanding that star Finders
like the sci Fi UM, the sc the sci Fi
B sub brand or or you know, parallel brand to
cat Finder. I don't know a thing about it. Pathfinder
more traditional like dn D style UM, and there's more
complicated history there as well. But anyway, that's what they're
talking about here anyway, talking about setting this up as

(10:09):
a side mission quote. The setup is on a space
station which uses magic to run much of its life
support in conjunction with more science based methods. A fat
Berg has been generated on board in the water system
bordering too close to the magical subsystems and has gained
a kind of sentience, and the players have to find
a way to defeat it and its minions before it

(10:29):
threatens the station. On the whole, our quest against the
fat burg starts tonight. I really can't thank you enough
for this thoroughly nauseating but immensely interesting topic. As a
thank you, I've included a few staff blocks for this module,
which I have custom created and included here, complete with
ecology and tactical notes. Sorry for the formatting. I use
several platforms to create content, and sometimes I have to

(10:51):
use lower quality JPEGs for output. Keep the great content coming, Maurice. Now,
I don't know anything about stat sheets or designing monsters
about Robert if if you have any thoughts, Oh, no,
it look pretty good, you know me. I can't resist
looking at a stats for monsters and yeah, this this
looks like a really fun, uh fun encounter. I also
like the idea of the magic and the science being

(11:13):
mingled together on the spaceship. I don't think I've encountered
that before, but it makes sense. Right, if you're gonna
power starship, you don't want to depend exclusively on magic.
You need to have at least a science back up
in place, right. I would guess that magic is more
fickle and fleeting and finnicky, and and you've got to
have something a reliable generator running in the background. Right,

(11:34):
and then you know, science can only do so much.
Something's got to make the artificial gravity work, so might
as well turned to pure magic for that. All Right,
we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right
back with more than thank Alright, we're back, alright. So
we did an episode a while back about school dreams,
the dreams where people are returned to high school or college. Uh.

(11:57):
And we we addressed why these dreams are so common,
why they so often invoke anxiety, why they're so common
in people who have been out of school for many years.
And quite a few listeners got in touch about these.
I would say this is this is one of the
most email generating episodes we've done in a while. Yeah,
and and certainly we're not going to read them all
on the show, but I will say that just the

(12:18):
sheer volume of emails did speak to the near universal
aspects of this sort of dream. Though. A couple of
people let us know that they didn't have school dreams, uh.
They usually had some kind of equivalent that was based
on some other part of their lives. A lot of
people got in touch answering Robert's question about whether people
who were in the military had military dreams uh, and

(12:41):
and quite a few people did you know they would
have dreams of uh, you know, uh not being able
to like get their uniform right, or not being able
to figure out where they're supposed to go, and things
like that. So to read a couple of the ones
we got in response to the school dreams episode. This
first one comes from Brendon. Brendan says, Hey, guys, I'm

(13:03):
an avid listener of the show and often feel compelled
to write in, but by the time I'm around my computer,
the desire has been absorbed by the day to day
duties of my life. However, this time I happened to
be in front of my computer as I finished one
of your recent episodes on school dreams. I cannot recall
ever having dreams of either high school or college, though
I attended both. However, I went to community college later

(13:24):
in my twenties and placed little personal value on my
high school experience. I went directly into the workforce from
high school, waiting tables and later tending bar I do
somewhat regularly have dreams of showing up late for shifts
and not wearing clothes in the restaurant, etcetera. In spite
of having transitioned out of this type of work some
years ago, I'm now an arborist. I have a hard

(13:46):
time imagining two more divergent careers. I think it was
Joe who questioned why school would be the metaphor brain
might select for dealing with present personal problems. Remember this
is following up from a number of people coming enting
on this phenomenon who said that they thought that school
dreams were really about whatever present challenges people were facing,
and that maybe the brain just selected school as a

(14:10):
kind of template or metaphor for working out those problems
in the dream. Brendan continues, I think that the reminiscence
bump provides a possible answer, couched in one of the
other statements you made that the period of life in
which your so called teenage brain is making vivid memories
that help one to identify with self, you're also creating

(14:30):
an extremely personalized metaphor that could be adaptable in motivating
action when one is faced with a problem that has
no clear solution by providing a feeling of reconnection to
the basic self loss to time, similar to how people
have used tarot astrology and other randomly accessed organized stimuli
to give their life direction. School just happens to be

(14:53):
a near universal experience for people of that age in
modern culture, and often referred to as where we quote
figure out who we are. I think I would be
most interested in hearing data and accounts of hunter gatherer,
early pastoral, or other non industrial cultures and their school
dream equivalence. Anyways, I hope this wasn't too long winded

(15:14):
and helps shed some light on the experience of those
who didn't attend college at that formative period of life.
Thank you also for indulging my armchair philosophical hypothesis. I
love the show and the sounds of your voices. Have
a great day, and I look forward to hearing your
next topic. Well thanks a lot, Brendan. Yeah, that was
There was some interesting inside into the topic, for sure,
I totally echo. I mean, if you're like a dream

(15:35):
researcher out there, I would like to see if people
who don't really have anything equivalent to like the standard,
you know, United States kind of school experience, if people
in in hunter gatherer societies or something report different patterns
of dreams that are in any way analogous to school dreams. Yeah,
that would that would be something interesting to cover. All right,

(16:00):
here's another dream email. This one comes to us from Sammy. Hey, guys,
just started listening to the episode called school Dreams, and wow,
did I relate to this. One of my only nightmares
is forgetting I had a class and realizing it at
the end of the semester. I know this isn't school related,
but my most common nightmare is actually being a waitress
and forgetting one of my tables. I was a waitress
about seven years ago for two years. Those have to

(16:22):
be related, right, I'd be curious to know if you
guys have these kinds of dreams about your jobs. All
the best, Sammy PS from follow up email. Sorry, I
kept listening and realized I should give you some, uh
some contexts on my education. I went straight from high
school to university for an engineering degree, where during my
second and third year I was a waitress. All of

(16:43):
my school nightmares were forgetting university classes, but not high school. Honestly,
I think this is probably because up until university I
had no difficulty in school, but engineering was quite hard. Thanks. Well,
let's see. Um. Well, that first question about dreams about
jobs and job stress. I I used to so I

(17:04):
worked in newspapers for a while before I ended up
working for How Stuff Works and getting into podcasting and
so forth, and I would do uh, I would increasingly
just do pagination, so like laying out pages of the
newspaper in a program like end Design, the Curning Master. Yeah, yeah,
all that fun stuff I mean, And it was it was,

(17:25):
it was fun. I enjoyed it, but it was also
it was also stressful because you had to get everything
to a to a fine point or as fine a
point as possible, having to edit the content, edit the headlines,
and then it goes to the press, and then that's it,
you know, and and you just hope that you got everything.
And so I would for years after I had left

(17:48):
that that job and that profession, I would still have
dreams in which I was concerned about the layout of
the front page of the newspaper. And then somehow the
bed that I was sleeping in was the front page
of the newspaper, and the pillows were different modules on
the front page, like you know, a headline or a
text box or an image box or a caption or

(18:11):
an illustration piece. And I had to be careful not
to move because I physically moved my body, I might
disrupt the various elements of the front page of the
newspaper that's really interesting, Uh finally went away, thankfully. I also,
I have school dreams a lot, but I also have
job dreams all the time. Uh, and they I've had

(18:31):
job dreams about like when I was where you know,
I've worked in restaurants and grocery stores and stuff. I
had server dreams, like lots of stuff about, like forgetting
about tables and stuff. It's actually somewhat equivalent to the
school dreams, like a big table that I forgot I
had and I had been neglecting them all night and
now they're mad, and that kind of thing. I'd have

(18:51):
dreams about, uh, you know, like losing track of of
dairy products. When I worked in a grocery store, I was, Uh,
one of the main things I had to do is
like keep stock of the dairy aisle and move stuff
up from the cooler in the back out to the
shelves and stuff like that, and so it involved a
lot of management of inventory by date. And so I'd

(19:14):
have dreams where like I couldn't read the dates and
couldn't understand Uh, you know what needed to be out there,
and then I'd lose things, and you know, everything always
had to be kept cold. So anyway, that's probably very boring. Sorry,
but this is interesting too because this touches on something
that we i think discussed recently on the show, and
that's the reading in dreams. Yeah. So, and you were

(19:36):
having the experience where you're just having a lot of
trouble reading these numbers, but not to the point where
you're like, oh, I must be in a dream because
I can't read. I don't think the problem was that
I couldn't read. It's more like there's a lot of
the dream had to remember not being able to keep
track of information. Okay, well, that that also lines up
with it right there, Like the analytical brain is not

(19:58):
fully engaged enough to to to really keep track of
things or to question the authenticity. Yeah, I think a
working memory and critical reasoning or somewhat limited in the
dream world. But also I have tons of of anxiety
dreams about like the kind of job I have now. Again,
not very hard to figure out what they might be.
It's like I dream that I released a podcast on

(20:19):
a subject, only to find out after we already published
it that everything I said was grossly inaccurate and uh,
and people are like, how could you get all this
stuff wrong? And I'm like, oh no, And yeah, it's
weird because I have those same as some of those
same waking anxieties, you know, and I have some of
the same job stresses that you do, because we pretty
pretty much have the same job. Yet I never have

(20:41):
dreams about them. I never do. I instead, I have
the school dream. That's funny. Well, I I will say
I have the school dream way more than I have
job dreams, like, way more than I have dreams about
the current job I have. I think. The way I
put it is, I have had job dreams like that.
I still have the school dream on a regular basis.
I see, yeah, yeah, that that that lines up with

(21:02):
with me. Like I had the job dreams for a while. Uh.
They they outlasted the job and then they went away. Right.
So I want to read one, maybe two of the
emails concerning you know, the school dreams about the military
or from people who served in the military. Uh. This
one comes to us from Dan Dan Rights. I joined

(21:25):
the army one week after graduating high school. I didn't
take school seriously and did not recall any school related
dreams today. However, after serving in the Persian Gulf War,
my dreams were consumed with a persistent vision. In this
dream I repeatedly had, I was disposing of an anonymous
human being wrapped in a rug tossed into a dumpster. Horrible.
The dream was so real I began to question its authenticity.

(21:48):
Was it part of my reality? I reeled for months
about it. As time passed, so did the dream. I
used my g I bill to attend college in Upstate
New York. Along the way, my dreams began to stress
and fret about cool and classes I'd forgotten to attend.
This dream also became so visceral that I began to
check my schedule to ensure my reality was not what

(22:08):
my dreams would have me believe. I love the episode.
Love what you guys do. Keep up the great work, Dan. Okay,
so this is multiple interesting permutations are saying no dreams
about school when he was in school, and then was
in the military and and served in combat and had
persistent dreams, but maybe not necessarily directly about the military,
but so much like a I don't know, some kind

(22:29):
of related persistent nightmare yeah, yeah, I mean definitely, you know,
not to serve his dream interpreter here, but it definitely
seems tied to the like the stress of dealing, uh,
you know, with life in a in a combat zone. Um. Now,
of course, the thing about not having dreams about high
school that lines up with a lot of I think
a lot of what people have said, you know, where
it's definitely that post high school period of life, that

(22:52):
that that dictates the dream content. Well, yeah, that that
seems like one of the main variants, like either it's
mostly college or mostly high school or whatever else you
were doing at that time, or some other some other
thing the other part of the life that people view. Especially,
we did hear from a lot of people saying it
was like these self defining years that really seemed to

(23:14):
uh to form their persistent like frustration and anxiety or
problem solving dreams. We asked specifically at one point about homeschooling.
I think, yeah, we heard from several people who were
homeschooled who did have related dreams. Right, But here's one
from Heather who also served in the military, So we
getted like a double in this one. Heather rights, I

(23:36):
have had dreams about elementary school mostly, and I am
usually late or still in pj's and everyone is mocking me.
I was homeschooled in middle school, and I never dream
about that. I never dream of public high school or
college either. I was also in the military, and while
I was in I did have dreams about bad things
happening to me in the military, like showing up for
a formation naked and somehow not noticing until I got there,

(23:58):
and getting in trouble from make mistakes. While I was
in I RACK, I dreamed so convincingly that I was
in Germany that I still thought I was in Germany
when I woke up. It took me and my best
friend a couple of minutes to get back to reality
and realized that we were in fact in a crappy
metal box trailer in the desert for another twelve months
talk about a freight train of disappointment. I don't really

(24:19):
dream about any of that stuff in my thirties, though, Heather,
So extinction of the dream obsession now and elementary school
stress streams instead. Weird. Sorry, I didn't mean to call
you weird, Heather, I just mean the variety is interesting now.
On the pajamas an elementary school. I do. I have
an elementary like age memory. This wasn't going to school,

(24:41):
but I instead of putting my taking my pajama pants
off and putting pants on over them, I just put
my blue jeans over my pajama pants and went on
with my day. And then later discovered when I went
to the restroom that I still had my pajamas one
under my clothes. And that was That was a real
life occurrence. That kind of nice slee mimics like the
fears we have regarding um, you know, the kind of

(25:04):
stress dreams that we have where we're like, you know,
wearing our pajamas to school, wearing them out in the day.
Uh wait, were there any bad consequences to that? Well?
And then luckily not. But it's kind of, you know,
it's like the adult version of realizing that you just
drove for four hours uh there in back home and
didn't have your driver's license. You're like, oh my goodness,
like that nothing went wrong, But what if it did?

(25:25):
What if someone had noticed that I was wearing my
pajamas all day underneath my pants, as if this was
just what I did. That's a good comparison, all right,
I think we're gonna call the school dreams. They're sorry
to the many many of you who also got in
touch with us with your great emails, we really appreciate them.
But we gotta go on to to get some feedback
about other episodes. That's right. We can't just talk about dreams.

(25:46):
We also have to talk about black holes, that's right.
So regarding our episodes about Sagittarius a Star, the supermassive
black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy,
first of all, several listeners got in touch to ask
us about the source the opening monologue in that episode.
I guess we didn't make it clear. They were asking
if it was coming from a book or something. Uh, No,
that was just us. It was just original to the show. Yeah.

(26:09):
If if we were not sourcing it or citing it,
then it's probably just something we made at well, yes,
that is generally the rule. We may have forgotten, forgotten,
unintentional if Yeah, but yeah, since you asked, Uh yeah,
that's just us. Oh so uh. This first email comes

(26:29):
from Chase Chase Rights. Hey, guys, I love your show.
After listening to your series about Sagittarius a Star, I
thought of a way for me to conceptualize the astronomically
large masses stated for black holes, and I wanted to
share it with you. I thought this was pretty interesting.
Chase says, the black hole at the center of our
Milky Way galaxy, Sagittarius A star weighs in at two

(26:50):
point six million solar masses. That's big, too big really
for us humans to fully comprehend. I agree, So I
did some math. If you think of the Sun's mass
as one second, Earth's mass is three micro seconds, and
Sagittarius A stars would be thirty days and two hours,
that that that does really hammered. But as we talked

(27:12):
about in the episode, as huge as Sagittarius A stories
from our perspective, the supermassive black holes at the center
of other galaxies get much much bigger. The quays are
Ton six eighteen is one of the brightest objects in
the known universe, so bright that the galaxy spinning around
it is not visible from Earth because the quasar itself

(27:33):
outshines it. The ultramassive black hole at the center of
Ton six eighteen is the largest currently known. It is
estimated awagh sixty six billion solar masses, and then by
the same reckoning as earlier. Where the Sun's mass was
one second, Earth's masses three micro seconds. This would be
two thousand, ninety seven years one hundred and seventy five

(27:54):
days if our sun is one second. That's really good.
I was hesitant when started reading this email because I'm like,
I'm not sure they're gonna pull this off. They're actually
gonna take these big numbers and put them in a
you know, use some sort of metaphor or or transference
that would that would really work. And this did. This
totally did time within historical records. I think is a

(28:15):
pretty good way for people to try to conceptualize big
number analogies. All right, here's another one concerning black holes.
This one comes to us from Mike. Mike says, hi, guys,
just finished episode two on the supermassive black Holes. Good stuff.
In episode one, you briefly mentioned musical references to black holes,

(28:37):
but you missed one. I believe I've heard you mentioned
the Canadian band Rush on past episodes, so I was
surprised you missed mentioning their song dedicated to the first
black hole to be experimentally discovered, Sickness x one. Smiley face.
Smiley face is not part of the black Hole's name,
though that would be amusing if it were. No, it's
just sickness x one. Looking forward to hearing more about

(29:00):
black holes on a future episode. Now, Mike, I can't
wait to find about the first astronomical bodies that have
emoji incorporated into their official names. Yeah, that would be interesting.
It's like we discover um like orpheus B three eggplant.
I mean, I guess it's only a matter of time.

(29:21):
Earthl means it's demise with the impact of the Great
Comet poop emoji. But Mike, thank you for bringing up Rush. Yes,
I don't. I don't know about you, Robert. I'm a
pretty big fan of Rush, especially I'm I'm not like
one of those deep Rush maniacs who like knows all
their catalog and all that, but Rush is one of
my favorite things to come on classic rock radio. I

(29:41):
always turn it up. Wait, what what? What is the
Rush song? I should know? Tom Sawyer, what's the other one?
I should know? Let's not get night cheese. But what's
the other one? Though? There's uh, there's limelight, there's closer
to the heart, there's uh, oh man, what am I forgetting.
I just don't know Rush that well. I mean, I

(30:02):
know I've heard them before, I've heard Tom Sawyer before,
but I feel like there there must be the one
Rush song that resonates with me. I'm not sure I'm
recognizing it offhand. His mind is not for rent to
any god or government. You don't know this? Oh that one?
I know that one. Oh that's Tom Sawyer. Yeah, yeah,
it's that's that's fine. Oh wait, there's also a Spirit
of the Radio. That's the one that one. I think

(30:25):
they reference that sometimes on Mystery Science Theater three thousands.
I think, yeah, I don't think that's a that's a
riff I ever got. But I laughed at it, you know. Alright,
So any Rush fans out there, I guess I need
some Rush education. So right in and educate. Tell me
what I need to listen to. Send me a playlist.
I will, I will give it a listen. Bring him
Closer to the Heart. Speaking of coming Closer to the

(30:48):
Heart and following up Black Holes, we have some listener
mail concerning our episode on the One Ring, right, So
this first one is a sort of correction that I
take from our listener Emmett. Now This is because we
were discussing the melting point of several different materials that
were potential candidates to make a ring of power. You

(31:09):
want to make a ring of power? What should you
make it out of? Uh? And of course mentioning the
melting points is important because the one ring in the
Lord of the Rings can't be melted by normal heat.
It has to be I think could maybe be melted
by dragon breath I don't remember, but had to be
thrown into the fires of Mountain doom. Anyway, I mentioned graphine,
the material along with its melting point, as a possible candidate,

(31:33):
and Emmett got in touch to say, hey, guys and
your Wondering episode, you discuss graphing as a potential material.
If I'm not wrong, I'm pretty sure graphing will burn
long before it melts, kind of like wood. I look
this up, yes, and it is exactly correct. I think
it was rather silly of me to try to consider
the melting point of graphing. I think that'd be sort

(31:53):
of like considering the melting point of plywood. Um. From
what I can tell you know, it even burns a
relatively low temperature in the presence of oxygen. So yeah,
there is like there's fire, there's combustion there. So very
good point, Emmett, thank you for clarifying that. All Right,
we're scratching graphing off the list of the official one
ring list, I guess, so alright, here's another one ring email,

(32:17):
and this one comes to us from Sandy Sandy Rights,
and it says, Dear Robert and Joe. First, I might
have squealed a tiny bed when I saw the title
of the episode. I love Tolkien and was so happy
for this episode. And while I have a few corrections
and notes, I mean, you hit nerd um, you know
it's it's going to happen. I want to say I
love the episode, even when people looked at me funny
on the tram when I spoke out loud in response

(32:39):
several times. Sorry not sorry. First, regarding whether smog could
have destroyed the one Ring, you actually answered it earlier
in the show. To quote Gandolf, it has been said
that dragon fire could melt and consume the rings of power.
But there is not in now any dragon left on
Earth in which the old fire is hot enough, nor
was there ever any dragon, not even uh and Callaghan,

(33:01):
the Black who could have harmed the One Ring, the
ruling ring, for that was made by Sarin himself. She continues,
Smag could have potentially destroyed the rings of Power, the Three,
the seven, or the Nine, but he could not have
destroyed the One Ring even and Callaghan the Black could
not have destroyed the one. Oh and also, uh, Sandy

(33:23):
throws in that it's very possible that Christopher Tolkien could
have covered this particular item as well in his various publications. Anyway, uh,
they continue. Second, you almost failed to mention, but did
circle back to it the issue of the ring size,
But then you aired no shame. Part of the will
of the ring, or rather part of it mirroring the

(33:45):
will of its master, is its ability to change shape.
This allows it to change bearers when it chooses. This
is also why one of the names that the ring
is known by is is Sildor's Bane. Uh seek for
the sore that was broken in in lad risks it dwells.
There shall be Council's taken stronger than mortal spells. There

(34:06):
shall be shown a token that doom is near at hand.
For is Celdor's Bain shall awaken, and the Halfling fourth
shall stand the poem from Paramir's recurring dream that bore
Amir then has once and which leads him to the
Council of l Run in Rivendale. This all makes sense
to me, because I don't know if you mentioned after

(34:27):
we did the episode, I was like, Okay, I gotta
go back and just wait. Yeah, I've been reading it.
I'm in the middle of two towers right now, Sandy continues.
It's called that because the ring had come into Sildor's
possession after he cut it off Sorin's finger in the
War of the Last Alliance. He ignored Counsel to destroy it,
which suggests perhaps he could have in the immediate defeat

(34:48):
and weakening of Soron. Maybe probably not, especially if it's
the ring that led to the Orc ambush that resulted
in his death. When he and the company he was
with were ambushed by Orcs after a fierce battle, with
the works winning, he put it on his finger to
escape to keep the ring from falling in the wrong hands,
and did so until the ring slipped off his finger.

(35:10):
Most think that it did so intentionally, enlarging itself enough
to slip off his finger, and he escaped, and and
he escaped and was then killed by the orcs. This
intentional slipping off of the finger may also be how
it moved from Gallum to Bilbo. If Gallum had worn
the ring, it had slipped off, and he had forgotten
that he had worn it, he would expect it to
be in its hiding place. Thus, when he returned to

(35:31):
get it to ambush Bilbo after being bested in the
contest of Riddles, it was not there, as Bilbo had
found it and slipped it into his pocket. Right, So
they're saying that the ring maybe sort of like getting
bigger and smaller when it wants to stick on somebody's
finger or fall off somebody's finger in order to make
it to a new host. It's almost like a parasite

(35:53):
of some kind that that has like attaching and detaching
kind of properties, or like the way some paradise parasites
that are intestinal parasites will intentionally get themselves pooped out
at some point in order to pass on to the
next point in their life cycle. The ring kind of
works that way. But you know, Sandy is also touching
on something which I could think could be a potential

(36:13):
benefit of the ring, that we are a power of
the ring. So if you're like me and you have
a ring that is kind of loose fitting, you'll find
that on cold days it is more likely just to
slide off, and on hot days it is more it
can be more difficult to remove. Though. It also has
to do with things like have you been walking around
with your hands at your sides? Have you been drinking beer? Yeah,

(36:36):
there's all these factors that can affect the fit of
a ring. But if you have the one ring, I'm
guessing as long as it wants you, you're gonna have
a perfect fit at all times. And I think that's
amazing excellent craftsmanships are on one of a kind. All right,
Sandy continues Almost done here. An interesting part of the
ring that you did not mention was those that seem

(36:57):
immune to its poll or able to resist it. We
see both Galadriol and Gandalf refuse it, but they both
also bear one of the three, and that is not
to say that they were not tempted. However, we have
two mortals, neither Elf nor Maya, and not protected by
the three. The Nine, of course, bearing no such protection
for their wares as the bears of the Nine or

(37:17):
the Ring raths Farremir and Sam. Sam even bears the
Ring with seemingly no temptation to do more than to
carry the burden for Frodo, And one must wonder how
would things have been different if if the brother, not
tempted by the Ring had gone to Rivendale. Of course,
Bomba Dill could literally play with the ring and see
through its invisibility. But Bomba Dill is probably not exactly mortal.

(37:40):
And yeah, I think Bomba Dill, by by most interpretations,
is far from mortal. Kind of primal beings, a primal
deity that is no no longer really connected to the
the affairs of I mean, he's connected in nature, I suppose,
but not to the affairs of all these mortals and
immortals battling for control of things. Dude, we're really tunneled

(38:01):
deep into Nerd Mountain here. But did we tunnel too deep?
I don't know. We'll find out anyway. Sandy finishes up anyway,
I doubt this is the only way. Too long email
about the wonder Wonderful despite its errors episode, Thank you
very much for doing it, peace, Sandy. Wait, I'm still
not sure what exactly were the errors. I a lot
lost track in there. I think maybe we did not.

(38:22):
We didn't get the thing about the dragon's breath. No, well,
I mean, I don't know. I don't think these were
necessarily errors. Uh, but they might be literally of them. Here.
I think that more Sandy was bringing up aspects of
the mythology and extended mythology that we didn't really dwell

(38:43):
on in the episode. Sandy, I I accept your wisdom.
You are the master. You are clearly the lower master.
You're the one who should have gone to Rivendell. We're
we're the fool hardy bore A mirrors who barged ahead
without having the wisdom and restraint. No, but, but no.
This is what I love about this topic is that
there's so much room for ultimately for interpretation when you
start trying to apply science to the scenario or really

(39:06):
you know, reach for the definitive answer on questions regarding
you know, the nature of the One Ring. But okay,
we've made it over the bridge of Kasa Doom. We're
now out of the nerd minds of Maria and into
the daylight on the other side. And yet we have
more listener mail related to the One Ring. And this

(39:28):
one comes to us from Tim. Oh wait, okay, yeah,
so this one refers to another similar thing. So Tim Rights, Uh, hey,
stuff to blow your mind. I listen to your One
Ring episode first, I want to say, bold move. I
bet you've got an insane amount of listener mail for
that one. Not as much male as we got about
School Dreams, but we got some, right though. I should
also say we have an older email address that I

(39:50):
don't think works anymore. So if you're still using the
house Stuff works addressed to reach out for us, that's
probably not going anywhere. I don't know. We might still
be getting man or might not. I don't. I don't
know what's arriving, just as we're not entirely sure about
how the One Ring functions were. Also not entirely sure
how company email works. Uh, Tim Rights. At one point
you'all mentioned a sci fi version of Lord of the Rings.

(40:12):
I thought you'd be interested in C. S. Lewis's space trilogy.
Is it particularly good sci fi? No? Is it a
page turner on par with Lord of the Rings? No surrey,
But does it specifically mention locations from Lord of the Rings?
And was it made partially on a bet with Tolkien?
About trying to write sci fi. Yes, allegedly, both Tolkien

(40:33):
and Lewis wanted to write science fiction because their contemporaries
were writing atheistic science fiction. Both authors produced something. Lewis
wrote the Space Space Trilogy and included themes from Tolkien.
Tolkien wrote a strange unfinished story that is marginally about
l Ron time traveler. You can read this oddity in

(40:53):
one of the History of Middle Earth books I forget which.
I don't suggest any of these works as good reads,
but they're really neat when viewed in the context of
both Tolkien and Lewis, and especially the theoretical combined Tolkien
slush Lewis Legendarium. Anyways, great content. I couldn't ask for
a better podcast to play in the background while I work.
Thank you, sincerely, Tim. Yeah, I I read the Space

(41:16):
Trilogy years and years back, like maybe it was even
high school when I read, Yeah, I was. I think
it was maybe high school when I read it initially,
and then I reread I think Paralandra the second one
in college. Paralandro was my favorite of the three by
by far, and I think if I were to reread
one today, it would definitely be Paralandra. Which if you're

(41:38):
not familiar with it, it it recreates. I believe it's
on it's on Venus um. Yes, because the first one
is out of the Silent planet, which is Mars, and
Paralandra is Venus. And what's created is kind of an
Eden world. It's a it's a water planet. It's an Eden.
And we have our character Ransom human show up and

(41:58):
he's uh and he's also arriving on the planet. Is
this other character that is a human, but a human
that is possessed by by a demon? I believe the
it is, you know, it's basically Satan. So you have
this whole like uh, you know, sort of treatment of
sin and evil in the world and uh you know,
retelling of you know, the fall of Eden On in

(42:19):
this this strange, you know, mythic kind of uh sci
fi setting. But it is, like you said, only marginally
sci fi. It's it's it's it ain't hard sci fi
at all, it's you know, maybe soft sci fi. If
we're going to get into the you know, the exact
new Gutty um you know, aspect of it here. But
I remember digging it back in the day. I don't
I don't know how I feel about it today. But

(42:41):
that's one reason to reread it. Uh. Yeah, I guess
that goes to the question we dealt with. I think
maybe in the last listener Maile episode about what is
science fiction? Is it about human humanity's challenges presented by
new technology? Or is it just like any stories that
take place in the future or stories that take place
with space travel. Yeah, and I don't I don't think

(43:04):
that episode. I mean that I don't think that installment
was at all concerned with technology. I think it was
inspired by sort of planet sci fi, of the you know,
of of the olden days. And then was about you know,
Lewis exploring topics that Lewis was interested in, sword and
planet stuff. Yeah, sword and planet exactly. Now. The third
one was is is weird what that hideous strength? I haven't.

(43:27):
I haven't read any of it. I remembered having some
There was some like gender stuff in there that I
probably would not really appreciate today, But I also remember
there being some like real horror based stuff like that.
As far as like horror and A C. S. Lewis
book goes, there are some moments and that hideous strength
that that that feel kind of creepy things with you know,

(43:48):
disembodied heads being made to speak and so forth. It's
been a long time, but I remember when I read
the Narnia books. I remember there was a passage and
voyage of the Dawn Treader that I found really horrifying
as a kid. At least it was like when they
go through this fog of fear or something. I don't know.
Maybe i'll go back revisit it, and it seems rather
tamed today. All right, we need to take a break,

(44:10):
but we'll be right back with more than all right,
we're back, and this time we truly leave the worlds
of Tolkien and Lewis behind and we move on into
more firmly scientific territory. Oh okay, this is just a
short message, uh from Rasmus about our Electric micro Bland episode. Hello,

(44:36):
stuff to pull your mind. Just listen to the episode
Electric MicroB Bland, and I wanted to let you know
how great it was. It was one of my favorite
episodes ever. I think it brought up some very interesting
concepts about electron transportation and respiration that I had never
heard of before, and I hope you will do more
episodes on this topic. Best regards Rasmus. Uh, yeah, I'm
not sure what the next thing on this subject area

(44:58):
would be, but I'm I'm game from or if you
are Robert, I guess. Yeah. We just have to see
what kind of studies and papers come out in the
months ahead. Yeah, all right, we have another listener mail.
This one concerns euphemisms, and this one this was a
vault episode. I believe, yes, it was so, Thomas writes.
The euphemism episode brought to mind a homework assignment I

(45:21):
once had in primary school. We had to write a
number of euphemisms. So, being the smart alec that I was,
I thought i'd be hilarious to put making love is
a euphemism for sexual intercourse. I think I was nine.
I don't remember the reaction I got from my teeth.
Joe mentioned that he loves idioms from around the world,

(45:41):
so down here in New Zealand and maybe Australia too,
we say we're not here to spiders, which basically translates
as we're not here to waste time. I love this expression.
That is so good. I live in Canada now and
once said this and got a resounding look of confusion.
I love both your shows and think it would could

(46:02):
be interesting to hear invention shows on plastic and knives.
Recently been watching Bob Kramer knife making videos. Keep up
the good work. Knife making videos can be very hypnotic. Now,
I don't want to I don't want to speak too
much about invention on a listener mail for stuff to
blow your mind, because we do our own invention listener
mails as well. But knives could be interesting. Not so

(46:23):
much in terms of of pinpointing like where knives were
invented and that sort of thing, but maybe looking at
the sort of innovations that have taken place over time,
like how knives have changed and what different purposes we
use knives for. Yeah, it would be a huge, very
complex story, probably a multi parter, right, because what would
you have to start with the hand axe? Going back

(46:45):
to our dietrich Stout interview, Yeah, I mean you probably
have to start with pre knife stone tools, but then
you can get into some really fun stuff like the
switch blade. Off the top of my head, I had
no idea exactly how the switch plade comes into being,
but it is such an iconic knife. It's the bad
guy knife, you know, Robert, we're not here to Spider Uh,

(47:10):
to say nothing of the Swiss Army knife. Now I'm
even more convinced. I'm I'm very interested in chasing these
various weird knives through history. Alright. This next email about
euphemisms was very short, but I wanted to read it
because I thought it was funny. Uh. This is just
part of an email we got from our listener Anna.

(47:31):
Anna says she just listened to our Vault episode about
euphemisms uh, and writes A bad example of a euphemism
is when I worked full time for a software company.
The company was not doing very well, so they had
to decrease everyone to four days a week. They described
this as quote increasing your work life balt God. That
is some. That is some some of the worst corporate

(47:53):
BS speech speak that I encountered. Really good, alright, this
one next one comes to us from Roger, and Roger says, hey, guys,
I've been a fan of stuffabull in your Mind for
a long time and really enjoy your new show invention.

(48:15):
As well. Having to drive one hour to get to
work each day gives me plenty of time to listen
to your podcasts to make the drive more enjoyable and
I try to catch every episode. Being a Norwegian myself,
it was interesting to hear that the Norwegian phrase uh
ugler i mosen owls in the moss had reached you.
As you found the phrase somewhat amusing, I thought i'd

(48:36):
shed some more light on it, especially since the phrase
falls in line with how languages change, as you mentioned
regarding the euphemism treadmill example in your euphemism's episode, the phrase,
as you mentioned, means something is afoot or something is
not how it should be. Another way of putting it
is to be wary or be careful. The term actually
originates from Denmark. However, in Danish the term was a

(48:59):
day air air ruler mussin. Now this term has a
different meaning in Danish and actually means there are wolves
in the swamp or marsh. That makes a lot more
sense for something being afoot. The difference here, of course,
is that the Danes used uhler wolves rather than ugler owls,
and in Danish the word mossen means swamps or marshes wetlands,

(49:23):
while the same word mosen in Norwegian means moss. The
Danish term was primarily used with regards to the cattle
trade to imply a shady trade up until the end
of the eighteen hundreds, and after the wolves were eradicated
from Denmark, the term gradually changed from uhler wolves to
ugler owls and has since kept that meaning. Another fun

(49:43):
thing to remark about this is also that the term
has yet again changed a little. When something is shady
or there is something afoot, and we have a single
word in Norwegian which encapsulates the whole meaning, and that
is muffins smuffins. So it's like instead of saying something
shad is going on, you can just say muffins. Yeah,
you would say uh um he or that no muffins.

(50:06):
That would mean they say there was something shady going
on here. These days, you will sometimes hear people say
here that muffins imsen, meaning there is something shady in
the moss. And this has yet again, sometimes deliberately to
be funny and other times simply as a misquote, been
changed to hair heard muffins imosin, which means that there

(50:28):
are muffins in the moss. You could argue that muffins
in the moss also implies that something is not right
or that there is something afoot. So while the phrase
has been changed around. It still retains its original meaning,
at least to some extent, though it has moved quite
a bit from its original and foreboding message there are
wolves in the marshes to the more benign there are

(50:50):
muffins in the moss. I thought this might be a
fun little exploration into how the language, how language changes
over time, using a foreign phrase you brought up in
your podcast. Also, big thanks to both of your podcasts,
which keep me entertained always allows me to pick up
and learn new things, as well as how you frequently
come at various topics from unexpected angles and often uh

(51:11):
makes me go hm. I never thought of it that
way while on my way to or from work. Keep
up the great work and looking forward to the next
episodes of both Invention and Stuff to bowl your mind. Well.
Thank you so much, Roger. That was fantastically interesting and funny.
We we had heard from several other listeners about the
owls in the moss expression. You're not the only one
to get in touch about that, but this is the

(51:32):
only place I think I heard about muffins. Yeah, I
really like this muffins in the moss talk. I want
to start incorporating that into my uh, you know, into
my daily discourse. But Robert, we're not here to muffins
in the moss. You're really getting a lot out of
out of Carney's new um profanity bleeping software. Joe, you're

(51:53):
really putting it to the test here. We keep it
clean around here. O. Alright, finally, I think we're gonna
read something about the Voyage Manuscript episodes we did so.
This comes from Matt. Matt says, Hey, guys, longtime listener,
first time correspondent, absolutely love the show, along with invention,
stuff you should know and stuff they don't want you

(52:14):
to know. I've had a high res PDF of the
Voyage Manuscript for a while and I've used it in
my own artwork as well as in D and D
campaigns as inspiration. Man, we are just hearing from so
many D and D people. Yeah, and I love it.
And the more dungeon masters and game masters we have
listening to the show, the better. Matt goes on. The
drawings are somewhat sloppy, but very endearing. The text is

(52:37):
immaculate and fascinating, at least esthetically. My theory is simple,
It's an art book, not intended to deceive or prank anyone,
just a cool project of someone similar to me, to
be honest. A few things I noticed is that it
looks like the drawings were done first and the text
added after. Pretty obvious. I also think it was written

(52:58):
from right to left and not left right. Could be
the creator or creators was left handed. I am left handed,
and I find writing that way is quite easy, especially
if I'm a hundred percent making it up as I go.
It also drastically reduces smudging. I took bookmaking and book
restoring classes in art school, and I made a few
occult tons for fun or as class projects. Never sold them,

(53:22):
still have them some twenty plus years later. One is
even on antique paper I found, which brings me to
another theory I read. Not sure if you covered it.
Maybe the text, art, and paper itself are all of
different ages or even by different people. Anyway, keep up
the fascinating work, and I have a long back catalog
of you guys to eventually listen to, which I love.

(53:43):
It would be sad if there were only fifty or
so podcasts so far. Thank you for reading, Matt, and
then Matt attached a page for us to look at
from one of his voyage esque art books. It looks
like a combination of some strange architectural plans with some
kind of like tool album cover body art kind of
a Leonaro da Vinci UH aspect to it as well. Yeah,

(54:07):
I like this, you know, speaking of I would love
to come back and do something on Leonardo da Vinci
proper because I was listening to Ideas on CBC Radio Kennedy. Well,
Paul has has moved on now he's retired, uh, and
there's a new host, but it's still a great show.
And they did one recently on Leonardo da Vinci's use

(54:28):
of monsters and UH and his his his like lifelong
obsession with monsters, and it was It was quite fascinating,
obviously because it touches on several different things that that
I really enjoy. So if I would recommend anyone out there,
if you want to check out Ideas, you've heard me
talk about it for for years, if you're interested in
monsters and or Leonardo da Vinci, go find that episode.

(54:50):
I am tremendously intrigued. Their spikes shooting out of my
brain about this, all right, I have another voltage manuscript
bit of listener mail to lead here. This one comes
to us from David. David right, So, I was just
finishing your episodes on the Vantage manuscript, and I wanted
to see if what I started to suspect had already

(55:10):
been offered as a theory. One of you mentioned that
signals and proto cryptograms, uh, you would create as a child.
I had already begun to suspect almost as quickly as
I started listening to the episodes, the possibility that it
is the work of a child. Uh. This could explain
a few things. The nonsensical language but close enoughness of
the language, the unrecognizable drawings, even the drawings of naked

(55:33):
women of prime curiosity for male children. If you think
about the nature of manuscripts of the time, access to
the material was reserved for either the clergy or the
very wealthy. The idea of a child more or less
rules out the clergy. But it wouldn't be an extreme
stretch of the imagination that a wealthy lord or baron
could allocate resources for the pet project of their preferred son.

(55:54):
I say son because it's the most logical choice for
the time and place, and privileged people believing that their
children are somehow. Uh. But you know, preternaturally intelligent is
nothing new and also never going to go out of style.
The product of the kinds of pressure the children like
these experience do often exhibit a sophistication beyond their years,
which could explain the nature of the drawing and the writing.

(56:16):
This is just an idea, and it wouldn't surprise me
if somebody else had already come up with it. I'm
not claiming to have cracked it. I've never even looked
at it, because if it is the work of a
child's mind and there's there's nothing to crack, it's just
adults trying to decipher meanings from the musings of a child,
which would be equally frustrating and hilarious to think about,
all the wasted time and conspiracy. And at the end

(56:36):
of the day, the answers to many riddles are hiding
in plain sight. It's only when we try to read
into them and over and analyze them that they become misconstrued.
Thanks for your time, both for reading and the work
you put into your shows. Cheers, David. Now, this is
really interesting. I like I really like this. This idea
of looking at it potentially is the work of a child,

(56:57):
you know, in part because that could potentially it seems
like it could maybe be one of the impossibilities. But
more importantly, I like the idea of them learned adults
coming to it and over analyzing it and finding it
so intriguing, adults who you know no longer have the
that pure childhood curiosity, that that that pure plasticity of

(57:19):
a young child. Uh And but in in doing so,
it's it's kind of like, you know, the whole idea
of children say the darndest things or whatever. You know,
like children will say weirdly crazy and often the logical
things that just fill us with laughter and and sometimes awe.
You know, sometimes they cut to like a truth of
the universe that that we would never you know, we

(57:40):
would never quite say it that way, but a child has.
We would never draw it that way, but a child did. So,
you know, I like this idea As the father of
a child who loves to illustrate strange books about dinosaurs.
You know, I'll look at them and I'll be like,
that is that is crazy? I love it? And uh, yeah,
I can imagine something like that take in place with

(58:00):
the Vonage manuscript, whether or not it's actually a valid
theory or not totally. One last thing I will say
about the Voyage manuscript is that several listeners got in
touch to ask us about a particular theory explaining it
that has has been in a couple of videos online.
I believe it's with some scholars saying they believe it's
in some archaic form of Turkish or has something to

(58:23):
do with like, uh, a Turkish culture that that created
the manuscript. I basically like I've looked at it, I
looked at the videos. I have no way of evaluating
it because I don't have you know, expertise in cryptography
or Turkish or medieval manuscripts or and I guess not medival,
medieval or Renaissance manuscripts. So I don't know. But I
also haven't found anything by experts evaluating this theory, so

(58:48):
that that already makes me a little uh cautious about saying, yes,
they cracked it, as you know, we tended to be
with all kinds of things, but as possible, Yeah, I'd
be curious to hear what the scholars and relevant expert say. Well,
the folks at Yale would be the ones to ask.
They would be at the how do you the by
Nicky Library or Harvard said what? I think we said

(59:10):
it wrong and one of the ones and one of
us is right or we're both wrong. But I feel
like we have pretty good adds there. Uh. Well, I
don't know about you, Joe, but I feel like I'm
I'm out of steam for this week's listener mail. Yes,
I would say there are owls in the moss because
they've lost the will to fly and fully collapsed into
the underbrush. All right, So yeah, we're gonna go ahead

(59:30):
and close the mailbox for now. Again. We we read everything,
we don't get to read everything on the show, and
we don't get right back, but we do continue to
continue to enjoy hearing from everyone. Uh. You know, you
end up adding so much additional insight into the topics
we discuss, and we just love to know as well,
you know what what is really resonating with you, what

(59:52):
kind of topics that you dig, and what kind of
topics you want us to do in the future. In
the meantime, if you want to listen to more episodes
of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you'll find a bit
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(01:00:12):
through human techno history, one invention at a time. Invention
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you're you're driving around or flying around, or just stay
and put check out the second oil Age. That's the
show that I worked on. And as of this publication,

(01:00:35):
I think most of the episodes are up, maybe have
like two more. It's gonna all the episodes will be
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ditch it. If you haven't listened to the second oil
Age yet, really do check it out. I think you
will love it. If you're a fan of this show,
it should be right up your alley all right. Well,
thanks to Carney for helping us out once more. Of course,
thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

(01:00:56):
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(01:01:18):
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