May 31, 2011 • 42 mins
The notion of Vedic nuclear weapons is a more than a bit far-fetched. Yet from the Antikythera mechanism to Archimedes' death ray, people are fascinated by the idea of ancient advanced technology. Join Robert and Julie as they separate fact from fiction.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Degla And
Julie I was looking around the Internet the other day
and I found this amazing theory which is completely out there,
(00:23):
completely non factual, but it's it's kind of the genesis
for this, uh, this podcast, and it captured your imagination
after is my imagination and serves to exemplify why this
is an amazing uh concept, the idea of the technology
of the ancients. Because the theory involves vedic nuclear war.
We're talking here right right, We're talking um atomic warfare
(00:49):
in uh the first millennium BC, which is a crazy idea.
And let's let me just get to get it out
before I go into the details. Here. We do not
buy into this at all. No, but I see a
movie here, like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Well it's interesting.
I actually was looking around and Grant Morrison, who's a
graphic novel comics sky brilliant, brilliant and weird Scottish dude.
(01:13):
He's apparently doing some sort of like sci fi adaptation
of the you know, the ancient Vedic epic, the Mahabarata,
and so so some people were thinking along these lines.
But but yeah, this this theory which you'll find if
you do a search for Mahabarata and uh, we're just
for nuclear warfare ancient India. You'll find just tons and
(01:36):
tons of websites, all of them saying that, hey, um,
they're like radio There are these you know, the remains
of these ancient cities and their radioactive and there's a
big crater and it's because there was nuclear warfare going
on way back in the days, because the ancient ancients
had all this advanced technology that it took us centuries
(01:56):
millennia to to catch up with again after their fall
all and they point to the Mahaparata as showing proof
of this. Yeah, and I should mention too that if
you go on such a quest on the internet, you
may find yourself in some very odd places down the
rabbit hole without like a rope. So yeah, we should
just warn people of that, and certainly without a scientific rope.
(02:20):
So so then, just to give a little background on
the Mahaparata, this is a is an epic of ancient
India written in Sanskrit, and it's full of imagery of
warring kings using utilizing like flying machines, terrifying energy weapons
and and magic and gods. It's um it's the story
(02:42):
of a great rivalry between two royal houses, the Kurus
and the Pandavas and uh and it it kind of
has its genesis in the first millennium BC in the
form of just popular stories about gods and kings and
so forth, UH and the But then it eventually gets
written down and their additional date for the war uh
that it's that's the central event of this epic is
(03:04):
a thirteen O two PC, but most historians as signed
it actually a later date. So you'll find a lot
of these web these crazy websites UM citing the Mahaparata.
But they'll but they'll do this really annoying thing where
they'll have like they'll have like a particular um, you know,
section of texts here and here where they're where it
(03:24):
sounds you know, it's like, hey, it sounds like they're
talking about, you know, somebody using some crazy advanced technology
to blow up the city. And they're talking about people
fleeing burning cities and food becoming contaminated. That's great. And
then you go and then you know, I'm looking at that,
I'm thinking, hey, let me look up the original on that,
because I just want to be sure since this is
a crazy website. And then it's bund is green against
(03:45):
that black background. I'm like, well, let me let me
research this. But and then you look down to where
they site it, and they just put site the Mahaparata.
The mob Haaparata is one is a one hundred thousand
verses long. See, you can't just say, oh, it's like
me saying God is love, dude, quote the Bible. It
just doesn't, you know, give me a little specific to
(04:06):
go on. I found somewhere they'd actually say, oh, this
is from the drown up Purva section of the Mahaparata.
But that section in and of itself has over two
hundred subsections of text. So, um, the best I could find,
like find just I'm on my own time when without
just killing days trying to track down what sources these
(04:28):
guys may or may not be quoting from. Um, if
you don't mind, I'm just gonna read like a real
quick bit no no, because I think again it captures
your imagination is this idea, is of this ancient warfare
and kings and flying saucerers. Even perhaps I don't know.
So here's here's a little bit from section thirty four
of book eight the Karna, and uh it goes a
(04:51):
little something like this, I'm gonna use the kind of
the door. I'm not gonna wrap, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna do a voice, you know, kind of like um.
Then he called Nila Rohita, that terrible deity, robed in skins,
looking like ten thousand suns enshrouded by the fire of
superabundant energy, blazed up with splendor that discomforter of even
(05:13):
him that is difficult of being discomforted. That victor, that
slayer of all haters of Brahma, called also Horror, the
rescuer of the righteous and destroyer of the unrighteous, the
illustrious Fanu, accompanied by many beings of terrible might and
terrible forms that were endued with the speed of the mind,
and capable of agitating and crushing all foes, as if
(05:34):
with all fourteen faculties of the soul awake about him,
looked exceedingly resplendent. So it's yeah, so it's like lots
of that and that's that's awesome, and you can made
even better by your Charleton Heston like voice. By the way,
I could have handed up even more. But but some
of the some of the words are a bit uh
bit out there. Yeah, the names and all. But okay,
(05:57):
but you know there's an example of yeah, there's all
sorts of crazy stuff going on in here. There are
these references to these like these different ostras, which are
some people think are weapons, and then there are these jantras,
which people think are machines. And if you go to
some of these websites, they'll even get real detailed with
it and say, this is referring to a flying machine,
(06:18):
this is talking about nuclear weapons, this is talking about
a TV screen or a heat ray or a holographic device,
and uh, these are interpretations of this text, right yeah.
And then and then to the ruins there there we
do have ruins of the ancient cities of Harappa and
Mahineodaro and these were once give great metropolises of the
(06:40):
Indus Valley civil civilization, some of the earliest urban centers
in the world. And you know now they're gone. But
you see these references talking about radio radiation in these sites,
and there's just no I could not find a single source. Actually,
I applaud you for for looking into it so intently,
because I have to admit that when I was looking
(07:00):
into it and I started to see some talk of
anti matter, I started back away because I knew that,
like right around the corner, aliens were hanging out there.
So I was like, it is is a very intriguing thing.
And I think what's so intriguing about it is because
people were thinking about warfare and technology UM in a
very complex way much before they could even actually put
(07:24):
it into use. Right, We've seen this over and over again.
We see we've seen this with da Vinci and drawings
with all sorts of ideas of how to create stuff
that he just was way too ahead of his time
to put into motion. Yeah, it drives some the real
examples we're going to look at here, the ones that
are actually that we can actually say, yes, this happened
(07:45):
or this probably happened, and are not related to atomic
wars between demigods and in a primal age um. These
are these are all examples of that did really show
how how much the human mind can accomplish even if
it does and have the same tools that minds have today.
Like I kind of like to think of it as
imagine you give one guy a sheet of paper and
(08:07):
one guy a poster board, and then both of them
are artists, and you say, fill it up with some
art for me, you know, give me some art and uh,
and if they're they both have the same amount of skill,
one guy is gonna be able to fill up one uh,
you know, sheet of papers worth of art they have.
The guy's gonna fill up one poster boards worth of art.
And today we can fill up more of a poster
(08:29):
board size because we have the science we were able
to stand on the backs of giants. We uh, we
we have a much much more advanced technology to aid
the human mind and developing these things. But still given
the limited, um, you know, restraints of the time. Uh.
Some of these guys you know in the you know,
for common era back but you know, in BC time,
(08:49):
they were accomplishing amazing things with their technology and and
in their understanding of the visible universe. Yeah, which became
a pretty nuanced understanding for for that time. In those capabilities.
As you mentioned, Um, I did want to talk about
really quickly. A couple of things that I came across
which are kind of low fi um tech. Uh, I
(09:11):
guess you could say inventions of warfare. And this is
from the Christian Science Monitor. It's called articles called early
weapons of mass destruction and they cite a king and
Asia minor of the second century b C. Who was
defeated when Hannibal quote catapulted live snakes on two ships,
which I thought. It's creative, right, yeah, it's the sort
(09:33):
of warfare. It's the kind of thing you would more
expect from ancient times as opposed to dazzling weapons of light.
Yeah yeah, yeah, you see, like you know, flamethrowers, snakes.
I mean, the snakes thing I do have to say
kind of reminds me of Pee Wee Herman a little bit,
like if he catapulted snakes. No, I mean he he uh,
he released some snakes of going from a pet store,
but if he were to go into warfare, I'm pretty
(09:55):
sure that's how he would do it. Um. And then
there's sort of an example of early bio warfare and
the the Hittite sent plague victims into the land of
their enemies, and this is from the same article. They
basically say in this article quote, the principle of summoning
plague for self defense maybe related to the reality that
invaders are immunologically naive and therefore more vulnerable to epidemic
(10:20):
diseases in foreign lands than the local population. So there
was some sort of understanding about disease and other cultures
perhaps not having or being vulnerable to it. Yeah, you know,
this is this is a bit of an extrapolation of
the idea. But again there's this idea that that humans
(10:42):
are sitting around saying, how is how can I best
my enemy? I've got snakes at my disposition, I've got
a couple of plague victims. You know, what else can
we do here? Yeah, it's a lot more nuanced than saying,
all right, guys, we really want to take uh these
other this other tribes the stuff. So let's go pokem
with sharp sticks. Everybody get a sharp stick. Let's go,
(11:04):
let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, that sharp stick I di
didn't work out so well last time? What else can
we do? Um? So this has kind of brought us
to actually what we were talking about before, just these
much more complex mechanisms that people began to look into
to better understand the world and can navigate it. And
in particular, there's something called the Islamic astrolabe. Very cool thing. Yes,
(11:28):
the astrolabe is pretty amazing. And I'm gonna I'm gonna
put together, as usual, a blog post to accompany this,
and I'll be sure to have an image of an
astrolabe because it's you've probably seen it before and uh,
and you know what I'm talking about here, But but
you have to look at them because they're just be
beautiful art um. As was common in those days. When
(11:48):
you're creating an artifact um that's going to aid you
in anything, you're also going to g's you know, it's
like illuminated manuscripts. It's descightful, but let's make it beautiful
as well. And it's the same. I was trying to
think about how to best describe it, and it's obviously
it's this disk that has these different inlays on it,
and with inlay a sort of like carvings too, and
(12:09):
all sorts of um information and symbols on it and
so on and so forth. But it reminds me of
something that like that you would create now as a
steampunk piece. Of jewelry. Yeah, it does have that kind
of look to it. It's basically it's a small circular
device usually made of wood or brass, sometimes paper, um
varying degrees of like we said, artistic embellishment. And essentially
(12:34):
it's a model of the stars in the sky and
you can move them to show where the stars would
be at any time in the year. And then you
flip it over and you and there's like a gear
and you can in this site concerns the sun and
the moon, and it's uh, the basic idea. The concepts
originate around three b C. And the the Arabs of
(12:56):
the ninth century were the ones to perfect it. And
and this is what's crazy. After they perfected it in
the ninth century, it was the basic astronomer's tool for
the next seven hundred years. That's how much staying power
this device goes. Nowadays, my my iPad or my my
pod or iPhone or any kind of technological device I have,
it has like what a shelf life of of maybe
a year before a new version comes along. And granted
(13:20):
they were you know, and a lot of this time
they were adding little features apps, if you will, to
the astro labor astrolabe and uh, but but still the
basic concept was just held strong, right, And we should
probably mention too that it's the design and the execution
of the design is credited with Appollonius and two fifty BC,
So that'll just kind of ground everybody. And and what
(13:41):
we're talking about here in this timeline, and again you
talked about the actual idea of it being around around
three and that, yeah, and that's that's because people had
to hold on a concept called stereographic projection, which is
used in this device. Um. The ironic thing to me
about this is that, yes, this app that if you
(14:01):
know how to use it, you've got like thousand different
choices on different data that you can access. But if
you were to put it and you are its hands today,
it would be like putting up in nana our hands
and being like, hey, you used just to find out
what time it is? Yeah, we'd have we'd just be like, oh,
this is pretty Yeah, it would it would be as
lost in our hands as my iPhone would be in
(14:21):
the hands of somebody from well, probably we would be
more lost because I think that I would just say
it's so intuitive. I think they'd start doing you know,
oh the screen moves, okay, and then that individual would
rule the world inside a week with that. With that, well,
now we probably wouldn't be able to get three g
if you travel back. And it's true, but but no,
an astrolabe can let you tell the day and time,
(14:41):
calculate distances determined prayer times. Uh. You know this is
especially drawing to its uh, its origins in in the
Middle East, and it's perfection in the Middle East is
that people U Muslims were able to use this to
make sure they knew what times they needed to pray. Likewise,
it could be used to determine the direction of Mecca,
so you know which direction to pray, and can determine
(15:04):
building heights, can be used in surveying longitude, latitude, altitude, horoscopes,
um position of the planets, various occult usages that are
tied in with with the position of the heavens. Well,
and there's the astrological events that correspond to the Islamic
faith too, right, So um, that was important for them
to know as well. Yeah, so I mean it was.
(15:25):
I mean for a long time, if you were a
learned individual, uh, you probably had an astrolabe Yeah. And
this is the cool thing too about this is that
Islamic astronomists they really did work on this for centuries
and centuries, as you say, perfecting it. Uh. And this
is not something that we've seen in the past with
other mechanisms or technology that you know, a group of
(15:45):
people would um or a faith even would work on
something so diligently to try to make it the best
that it could be. Usually what happens is that technology
is created and then someone somewhere over on the other
side of the world, you know, reinvents the wheel um
or you know, the technology itself may fall away or
become distorted, but yes, you know, these scholars kept it
(16:07):
um alive for so many years that by the time
that it became used in the Age of Discovery, it
was just sort of poised to actually usher in the
Age of discovery, right because all of a sudden, we
have this, this incredible instrument that you could navigate with,
and that just kind of opened up the whole world, right. Yeah,
(16:28):
I mean I was looking through um. One of James
Brooke's books, i think was Connections, talking about the way
different inventions sort of timeline to each other and the
astrolabe is one of these like you look it up
in the index and it shows up just dozens of
times because it was it's an important step in our technological,
uh and its scientific evolution. Yeah, I mean, I think
(16:49):
it's fair to say that if it wasn't the place
that it was at the time, then the just discovery
would not have happened. We'd be living in a very
different world most likely. Well, hey, we're gonna take a
quick right here, and when we come back, we're going
to talk about a little something called the Antiquathera mechanism.
(17:09):
This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of
tomorrow and we're back the So the Antiqathera mechanism. I
did want to mention something really quickly, is this is
just one of those like cool fact things about the astrolabe.
The first technical manual on it. Oh yes, yes, it
(17:30):
was actually written by Jeffrey Chaucer for his eleven year
old son so he could understand how it worked. Great writer,
one of the greatest writers of all time, as technical
manual for a device, possibly the first code monkey. Maybe,
I don't know, it's kind of like her kind of
a loose use of the term. But that's like kind
of like how stuff works own Tracy V. Wilson, she
(17:50):
used to do technical technical manuals. I think, yes, that's
what I've heard anyway. And I'm pretty sure that she
has an astro lebe Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I've
seen her. I've seen her on Marta pull it out
and yeah, yeah, train is running late again. That was
before she got the she upgraded to an iPhone, but
now she's in the fold. So um, let's look at
(18:12):
this anti Cathera mechanism. Now, this you may recognize from
if you've seen images of it. It kind of looks
like a rusted gear, kind of green looking gear embedded
in a big lump of stone. Yeah, and I love
the idea that these divers found it, right yeah. Yeah,
they're um sponge divers and they spotted it, and you
(18:35):
think that there it was probably covered in barnacles. Yeah,
and they're probably like, what is this hunk of junks
sitting here at the bottom of the sea. Like I
wouldn't have thought to pick it up and bring it
with me. If I saw on somebody's garden, I might
be like, Oh, that's that's the neat use of an
old gear looking rock, but I wouldn't have thought it
was amazing. Yeah, all that I was thinking about in
the context of that period of time where there was
so much archaeological discovery that I'm sure that divers all
(18:58):
the time we're probably looking for ship breckx um. And
this was in fact part of a shipwreck that was
off the island of Anti Cathera so so named for
that island. Yeah, and it it turns out, as best
we can, we can understand it. It was very much
like the astrolabe, and it was an astronomical device representing
the movements of the heavens, which to the ancient Greeks
(19:20):
was five planets, because that's all they knew of. Again,
think to that, you know, the whole paper versus poster
board painting. You know, they were working within the limits
of their their understanding. But but it had a really alarmingly,
you know, complete understanding of it. Um studies of the
wreck and the cargo it carries it up to the
(19:41):
ships that sailing around sixty five b C. And it
was heading west from Asia Minor. It was a Roman
ship and it was carrying Greek loot back to Rome.
I love it the rogue part of it, right, Yeah,
almost like it was cursed, like you know, they took
it and then the vessel. But um, there's no evidence
for them. Just fun to think about. Yeah, though it
did uh you know, it did have Greek inscriptions on it,
(20:04):
which is another key, you know, way that we're able
to to try and understand what it was. And these
inscriptions the device dated back you know, U two around
one hundred BC, and it suggests that it was already
a few decades old when the ship sank. So now
it seems more likely that it was actually made in
Syracuse and then then it was taken east to show
off to the scholars at Rhodes. So what we're now
(20:28):
where Syracuse gets interesting is that Syracuse was the hometown
of Archimedes, the the ancient mad genius mathematician, and now
he lived He lived a century before this mechanism was made,
so there's no way he could have made it. Uh,
he couldn't have created it, but he pioneered the use
(20:50):
of gear wheels to achieve different force ratios with weights
things like that. So um, based you know, based on
what we know, Um, it's it seems he a lot
of his ideas may have wound up in this device. Yeah. Yeah,
it's very likely that that he may be even held
onto one himself, m giving given his sort of penchant
(21:12):
for stuff and gears and um, I guess you could
say that he was a gear head of yesteryear. Yeah.
This is from the Anti Cathera mechanism research project. Is
a question that says, does does the mechanism favor a
heliocentric or a geocentric universe? So is the Sun at
the center of the university depicts or is the Earth
(21:33):
at the center of the university depicts? Yeah, which is
a really interesting question. You and I have talked about
this both wrong but right. But still they represent a
drastic change in our thinking about the cosmos. Yeah, and
this gives us a little bit of a clue to
of how well they understood the world. And uh So,
the the answer um from this organization is, in a word, neither.
(21:55):
The purpose of the mechanism is clearly to position heavenly
bodies with respect to the celestial sphere with reference to
the observer's position on the surface of the Earth. In
order to achieve this, this mechanism has to use a
geocentric model However, this does not imply that the manufacturer
favored a geocentric model the universe. In fact, it was
Aristarchos of Samos around who first proposed a heliocentric solar
(22:18):
system in two Unfortunately, proponents of the helocentric universe were
increasingly persecuted for the beliefs in ancient Greece and in
later times. It is highly probable that the maker of
the mechanism was aware of the heliocentric universe, but it
does not imply he favored it. So I think it's
really just interesting to know that maybe they were politics
going on at that time, that if you were creating
(22:39):
this instrument, that you might not necessarily talk about what
the implications of it might be in terms of understanding
the world or even understanding religion or society with this mechanism. Um.
Of course we've talked about then in another podcasts uh,
in much more detail. But we should probably get to arguments,
(22:59):
because again, this guy mad genius. I mean, I feel
like he's the Byron of his time. Yeah, minus the
pet bear and the skull full of wine? Right, yes? Yeah?
Or is it the moose? You know? I got confused
with ta Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, I get drunk
animals people like at those confused. But this guy, he
(23:25):
had something called death ray. Yes, Now did you ever
have it or do you just have the plans for it? Well,
we all have plans for death rays. This is in debate,
right right, right, he had his drawings, We know that
for sure, but we think that it's it's let's just
say that it's up for debate, but it's highly probable.
And um, this is from Josh Clark's article what was
(23:48):
our Committee's Death Ray? Basically, it's a series of mirrors
that reflected sunlight onto Roman enemy ships that were moored
in the Arc Committee's hometime of Syracuse. The ships were
earned by the collective condensed sunlight and cause the entire
fleet to catch fire. So this was the idea. So
this guy is sitting around thinking, okay, we're about to
be attacked. What it was my what sort of tools
(24:10):
do I have laying around here? The sun? Um? And
this is someone again who when you go back to uh, creativity,
humans and and trying to figure out a better way
to well, in this case, exact revenge. But that that's
what happens throughout our history of science. Yeah, It's true.
(24:33):
It's true. Um. I mean this guy was thinking about it,
you know he was. He was sitting at home in
his hammock if he had a hammock. Um, I thinking
how can I utilize the Sun's energy best? Which is
pretty amazing for this time period. Right we're talking about
eight MNBC. Yeah, we're talking about just you know, thinking
about advanced usage of optics and mirrors and uh yeah.
What I like best from this article is the quote
(24:55):
that is ascribed to him to Arcumentives, which is, and
I'll try my best with Charlton husband. Here, give me
a lover long enough in a place to stand, and
I will move the world. Okay that got n at
the end, Yeah it did. But I love that this
is a guy who was again just no holds barred. Yeah,
(25:17):
it's like, hey, you get something for me to do,
you know. I mean that's the way. He was technically
a freelancer, you know, so you've got to when you're
in a freelancing situation, you gotta put yourself out there
like that. You you know, you're like, what, you need
me to write an article about this? Yeah, give me
a pen. I can write it. You know what I
like givebot. This guy t is that he just did
not like go gently into and you know, into the world. There.
(25:39):
I mean, at the end of his life at seventy
five years old, a Roman soldier came to get him
and he was giving a calculation and he was he
was basically saying, step off, I'm in the middle of something. Yeah.
It was completely ignoring the fact that this guy was
his doom and uh you know, and so he died
doing math. I can imagine being like carry the one
and then hey, I almost had it. Yeah, this dangerous
(26:03):
work math. Yeah. So that leads us to another interesting
possible past technology, if not an actual technology, then again
people thinking about the technology, and that is robots. Yes,
I know when people are gonna be like, no, really,
you guys found a way to go back to robots. Yeah,
yeah we did. Yeah, but these are different robots and
(26:24):
these are not This isn't you know, as much joke.
Can we make a robot that can lie to people?
Or can we make a robot that can fall in
love with people? I mean these were these were you know,
back to like the thirteenth century, even guys looking at
the human form and saying, well, you know, the human
body is basically a machine, and I'm pretty good with machines. Um,
I'm gonna take you go a building one, see what happens,
(26:44):
you know, Yeah, what their idea of a machine could be.
Or even if you were trying to replicate a human
at that time. So we're talking about a lot of
wood here and screws, um, and these stories are there.
The kind of things were like if you were making
a even if you're just making basically a mannequin with
with moving parts, Uh, that would be kind of outrageous.
(27:06):
And that's gonna cause stories. If I did that, people
would say, I don't know what he's doing. He's he's
got a mannequin in his house and it it moves.
There's something fishy going on. So even more real, girl,
and you've got like this wooden mechanical, life size thing
next to Yeah, people are gonna talk. So our stories
of these are often a little elaborated. Um Like, for instance,
(27:26):
there's a thirteenth century Albertus magnus Um, you know, great
thinker um later candonized by the church. Um. But he
was he worked on this automaton uh that he supposedly
had given quote the powers of speech and thought. Um
it was. It was said to be composed of metals
and unknown substances chosen according to the stars, and uh
(27:48):
endowed with the spiritual qualities of magical formulas and so forth.
I mean, this is a time of alchemy, um and
a which in in in some ways was a crude
science and was sort of science mixed in with a
little um magic and and and folk ideas. It was
just kind of unformed. It's kind of like sciences in
the oven cooking. It's a pie, but if you were
(28:12):
to take it out and eat it as alchemy, it
would be a bit gut shot and running, like you
still needed a little while to actually cook before it
became early science. Yeah, I think if it is like
the the wood chips in your backyard, they're supposed to
become strawberries in that pie. They never became strawberries. It
was a wood chip pie. Yeah. And that that's the
problem with alchemy, right. It was a great idea, but
(28:33):
not based in anything actually scientific. Yeah. So supposedly this
thing could walk, it could speak, it could perform domestic chores.
Now this we're just gonna go ahead and cast away
the idea that this thing was walking around like a human.
But it's easy to imagine this guy that was interested
in the way the human body works creating something that
that could move when you pulled on some pulleys or something.
(28:54):
Or supposedly there was like a like a brass head
that could speak, you know, So I mean it could
have basically been a puppet he and he may may
have had a sense of humor. You know, it's like, hey,
look at the press head talk and it's freaking out.
But well see that, I'm thinking all Magnus was sitting
there doing some ventriloquism maybe, but it worked on his disciple,
Thomas Aquinas, because he allegedly decided that the device was
(29:18):
diabolical and destroyed it with a hammer. That's because he
just got annoyed with ventriloquism. Yeah, that could have been
he was just he was tired of it. So there's
that story. Like I said, there's not a lot to
go on there, but it's it's one that I love
to think about. Um And then in the fifteenth century,
of course, Leonardo da Vinci, right, yeah, yeah, we have
a great article that's called Top ten Leonardo da Vinci
(29:38):
Inventions UM by Christopher Lampton, and he actually wrote about
da Vinci built actually built this, because most of the
times he would just create plans for your drawings. But
he had a plan for a robotic night that was
based on his working knowledge of anatomy and mechanics. And um,
(29:58):
he built it right, this life size night and it
uh it did not survive, unfortunately, and no one is
exactly sure of what it was capable of doing. But
apparently it could walk, sit down, and it could even
work its jaw. So again we're seeing the ventriloquism here. Um.
It was frequently brought out at parties thrown wealthy Leonardo Patron,
(30:21):
load up, you take it, viz. Yeah, you're better with
the Italian I think so. Yeah, it's probably awful, but
better than mind. But anyway, the mere fact that the
robot is making appearances at drunken parties. Uh so I
think into the idea that that it it wasn't actually
a you know, too elaborator a thing, that it was
that it had a certain comic element to it, that
(30:42):
it was maybe kind of a big puppet. I'm seeing
some sort of thread here with becoming an icon, right,
if you're going to be Tico bra Hay or Da
Vinci or you're going to be Byron. You've got to
have something that you roll out at parties that involved drinking, right,
And I mean it's a moose or a drunk dog,
a bear bear and then your robotic night Yeah yeah, yeah,
(31:10):
you know you had to had to stay kind of crazy,
kind of dangerous. Yeah. So I mean, just I'm just
noting that for anybody he wants who's going for icon status, yea,
that's something that you probably want to work into your stick.
But um, but yeah, I mean this is still a
really cool thing. And it was used or driven by
a system of pulleys and gears, so back in the
damn sure that it was absolutely shocking. Yeah. And then
(31:31):
in the seventeenth century here's a there's another notice when
there's not a lot to really go on here, But
I still find it amusing. Uh. There was the notion
that French philosopher and at Cards so allegedly had I
should probably say allegedly allegedly like use it twice just
to drive home, had a beautiful automaton named Francine which
he built to replaces de cease daughter, and he would
take on when he had to sail somewhere. Um, he
(31:54):
would have the the the androids stored in a crate
under under deck. But many things wrong with that, Yeah,
they're just there are a lot of things wrong, especially
the felidity of it. Um. I don't think there's anything
to it. But according to Alison Murray in her book
The Enlightenment Cyborgs, she makes the case that this was
(32:15):
a time where and you see roots of this with
da Vinci and Magnus, We're we're learning more and more
that the human body and many um in many ways
is a machine. We're coming to grips with the mechanical
nature of humanity, and it it leads to this kind
of weird identity crisis of what are we? You know,
we're not this well, you know, we're not quite this
(32:36):
magical divine creation where something else and we're not even this,
you know, spark of life and meat were some sort
of some sort of machine and we're so it leads
to questions like, well, then can we make a machine?
And it's and to a certain extent, we're still we're
still troubling over that today, except in in fields such
as genetics and and and other related films and to
(33:00):
start to a larg extent still in robotics. Yeah, I
mean actually robotics, um, as you say, in biology and
neo evolution, this is a big topic that's coming up,
right and how we can or can we actually use
the question influence our evolution? Um, should we, should we stop?
So on and so forth, and um, I don't know,
(33:21):
it's all, it's just all a very fascinating question. And well,
also the Blue Brain project, right, we've talked about this
before about there are people who are trying to reverse
engineer the human brain so we can actually put a
blue print together. So you're saying all these different things converge.
So actually, it's what's really interesting about this is that
there is a thread between the you know, ancient technology
and future technology. And you look at robotics expert Mark Rusham,
(33:44):
who used da Vinci's notes to build a working model
of a Da Vinci robotic night and then some of
those concepts were actually used for design a planetary exploratory
robots by NASA. So you see that blueprint back in
time being used the well, because these guys were basically
trying to do what roboticists today continue to try and
(34:04):
do um or some roboticists working on how do you
make a machine that moves like a person? Um, And
part of you know, there's a little bit of human
vanity is still tied up and there can I make
the thing that I am. But also as we try
to make robots that can navigate a human environment and
and live alongside humans, it becomes, you know, ideal to
have a machine that moves like us and can manipulate
(34:27):
the same objects that we manipulate, so that you know
that a human can use the same screwdriver as a
robot and vice versa. Yeah, it's the Geppetto conundrum, what
I'm gonna call it? And uh yeah, so let's see,
I don't I guess we're beginning to run out of
time of bit in this I wanted to touch real
quick on the idea of ancient mathematics. UM. I have
(34:47):
a blog post about this that I did a while
I'm back that I'll probably linked to in the accompanying
blog post for this podcast. There's a really good neat
idea that was put forth by Mark A. Peterson in
the Geometry of Paradise and uh. He points out that
that Dante um Uh fourteenth century author of Inferno. You
know the Divine Comedy, Um, there's a lot if you
(35:09):
ever read the Divine Comedy, there's there's a lot of
math thrown there, a lot of science. Like Dante was
interested in everything, and you see him throwing math and
science into his imagining of this, uh, these different afterworlds.
And so Peterson points out that Dante could have easily
excelled as a mathematician had he been born into a
time when geometry was more fashionable, but instead he lived
(35:31):
in an age of languishing mathematics between the Hellenistic period
in the seventeenth century. So here's a quick quote he's
Peterson says, medieval cultures were in the particular peculiar condition
of being being unmathematical cultures in possession of sophisticated mathematics.
They possessed in it the sense of having the books,
studying them and translating him and even doing some mathematics,
(35:53):
but they had no clear indication where this rich subject
had come from or what it would be good for.
They did not know, in our terms at least, what
it was. So I go into that a bit more
of the block post. But but I love the idea,
you know, because I think that's what's what's fascinating about
about concepts such as the crazy idea that there was
a vedic nuclear war and then then they had this
(36:15):
advanced technology in the old days. Is the idea that
we could forget it. It's the reason we love the
idea of of a post apocalyptic scenarios where we have
to re understand past technologies. Um the idea that that
that math would had kind of been forgotten for a while,
and then it was this thing that you know, it
was like us picking up a an astrolabe and saying,
(36:36):
what is it? How does it work? I don't know,
it's pretty let's put it up there on the on
the wall. Yeah. And and the fact that we're going
through a similar period just because we have such advanced
technology that we no longer need the basic fundamentals I'm
wanting to say fundamentals. I mean, it's some of the
more complex um aspects of math we just don't need
to master anymore because we simplified our existence. Yeah, I
(36:58):
could not build an iPhone obviously, But to your point
about um Dante, what I think is really interesting is
that during that time period, I mean, those were the
scholars that were that they it was the scholars that
were sort of keeping this alive right to a certain extent,
and it was in the real house, not necessarily, um,
something practiced by the public at large. And if Dante,
who wrote in Italian rather than Latin because he wanted
(37:20):
to reach more people, want to reach the people, right,
if he had a better understanding of that would be
very interesting to see how that might have influenced the
masses during that time. Yeah. But of course if Dante
had gone into map we would have we might have
missed out on one of the greatest pieces of literature
the world has ever seen. So here here well, hey,
so advanced technology of the ancients. It's a great subject.
(37:41):
I really love it. Um, but let's get some listener
mail in here before Garry drives us out of here. Yeah. Um,
First we have one from Jackie. Jackie right fan, and
she says hello. First of all, thanks for the podcast
on meditation. I've recently begun meditating, and just as I
started wondering what was happening in my brain, you show
up with the here. Hey, I'm actually writing with a
(38:02):
request that I'm sure you've received before. How will the
zombie apocalypse work? After all, we have an official emergency
plan and the zombie proof House. H Yeah, both of
those I think have showed that. We've discussed the the
emergency plan from the CDC in a blog post last week,
and the zombie proof House I can get shown up
on our Facebook feed. Um blow the minds quote? Anyway,
(38:23):
Jackie goes on to say, anyway, thanks for a great podcast,
keep up the good work. Um. Yeah, the zombie apocalypse
is an interesting scenario and just trying to figure out,
you know, how we respond to um, two scenarios of
a pandemic disease. The CDC, of course, has jumped on
it recently as easy as a way to to sort
(38:43):
of get the message out about emergency preparedness, because the
emergency preparedness kit that you might have for the zombie
apocalypse is more or less like what you would have,
you know, in case there was an energy crisis or
disease or fire or earthquake or any number of things. Yeah.
I thought it was a brilliant way to to bring
attention to that, just to you know, basically parallel it
with the zombie apo apocalypse. Yeah, and I highly recommend
(39:07):
anybody who's interested in zombies if you haven't already read
Max Brooks World War Z. This is a really fun read,
not only because it concerns zombies and people you know,
in a post apocalyptic environment trying to figure out what
they're doing, but he does a great job of taking
the idea of the zombie apocalypse and applying it to
different regions of the planet, different situations, and asking like, hey,
(39:31):
how would the zombie apocalypse UH affect relations between Indian
Pakistan and UH? And there's a really thought provoking way
of looking at it. So so I would recommend that
to any listeners out there who are into zombies. We
also have a quick email from Chris with a K
Chris with a K right, and it says thanks for
having such a great show. While listening to the prolonged
(39:54):
lifespan episode that's Birthday Candles, I immediately began to wonder
if suicide rates would jump along with the increased lifespan.
Even though people could be healthy physically, the mental toll
of such longevity would be extreme. Trying to find purpose
in life may be difficult, and I don't want to
work until I'm sixt five now What would I feel
like if I had to work until I was six
(40:15):
hundred and fifty years old before I could retire? That alone,
Uh makes a person prompt suicide? Um, major societal changes
would have to occur before I want to live to
be a thousand if we were if we lived at
that aide, we'd be in school until we were two
hundred years old. UM wouldn't have children or get married
until we were three hundred, and that would bring up
(40:36):
the point of marriage. The thought of spending a lifetime
with the same person seems astronomical in these terms. Anyway,
Thanks for having such a great podcast and keep up
the good work. Indeed, these are you know, all the
different things you have to think about. We have human
life lifespan. Was to jump from less than a century
to more than nine centuries, how would that effect the
flow in the basic definition of what it is to
(40:58):
be human? Right? Can you up mode another person's brain
to your own? Brighton? Could you have a different experience?
Could you completely start over at two D and become
a different person? And all sorts of questions? Could you
go from being a TV starting the movie starting back
to being a TV star again? Um? Career I don't know.
I don't know. I mean Tom Hanks, we don't You
don't see him going back to t v D No,
(41:18):
not yet. So hey, um, if you have anything to
add about the technology of the ancients, be it a
really cool corner from history that we missed or a
really out there theory about how you know the ancient
Babylonians had submarines or something, then hit us up with it,
share it with us on Facebook again, we are blow
(41:40):
the Mind there and you can also find us on
Twitter also Blow the Mind, and we update both those
feeds with stuff all day long, different different links here
on this one and on the other, so that there's
a little diversification. Yeah, and also make sure that you
check out the article what was Archimedes Death Ray give
us a little bit more into Kamedes and all the
(42:01):
coolness that he created, and you can just pop that
into our search bar, or perhaps it will be on
our homepage on the day that you come to how
stuff works dot com. In the meantime, you can send
us an email and blow the mind at how stuff
works dot com. Be sure to check out our new
(42:22):
video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow,
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Degla And
Julie I was looking around the Internet the other day
and I found this amazing theory which is completely out there,
(00:23):
completely non factual, but it's it's kind of the genesis
for this, uh, this podcast, and it captured your imagination
after is my imagination and serves to exemplify why this
is an amazing uh concept, the idea of the technology
of the ancients. Because the theory involves vedic nuclear war.
We're talking here right right, We're talking um atomic warfare
(00:49):
in uh the first millennium BC, which is a crazy idea.
And let's let me just get to get it out
before I go into the details. Here. We do not
buy into this at all. No, but I see a
movie here, like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Well it's interesting.
I actually was looking around and Grant Morrison, who's a
graphic novel comics sky brilliant, brilliant and weird Scottish dude.
(01:13):
He's apparently doing some sort of like sci fi adaptation
of the you know, the ancient Vedic epic, the Mahabarata,
and so so some people were thinking along these lines.
But but yeah, this this theory which you'll find if
you do a search for Mahabarata and uh, we're just
for nuclear warfare ancient India. You'll find just tons and
(01:36):
tons of websites, all of them saying that, hey, um,
they're like radio There are these you know, the remains
of these ancient cities and their radioactive and there's a
big crater and it's because there was nuclear warfare going
on way back in the days, because the ancient ancients
had all this advanced technology that it took us centuries
(01:56):
millennia to to catch up with again after their fall
all and they point to the Mahaparata as showing proof
of this. Yeah, and I should mention too that if
you go on such a quest on the internet, you
may find yourself in some very odd places down the
rabbit hole without like a rope. So yeah, we should
just warn people of that, and certainly without a scientific rope.
(02:20):
So so then, just to give a little background on
the Mahaparata, this is a is an epic of ancient
India written in Sanskrit, and it's full of imagery of
warring kings using utilizing like flying machines, terrifying energy weapons
and and magic and gods. It's um it's the story
(02:42):
of a great rivalry between two royal houses, the Kurus
and the Pandavas and uh and it it kind of
has its genesis in the first millennium BC in the
form of just popular stories about gods and kings and
so forth, UH and the But then it eventually gets
written down and their additional date for the war uh
that it's that's the central event of this epic is
(03:04):
a thirteen O two PC, but most historians as signed
it actually a later date. So you'll find a lot
of these web these crazy websites UM citing the Mahaparata.
But they'll but they'll do this really annoying thing where
they'll have like they'll have like a particular um, you know,
section of texts here and here where they're where it
(03:24):
sounds you know, it's like, hey, it sounds like they're
talking about, you know, somebody using some crazy advanced technology
to blow up the city. And they're talking about people
fleeing burning cities and food becoming contaminated. That's great. And
then you go and then you know, I'm looking at that,
I'm thinking, hey, let me look up the original on that,
because I just want to be sure since this is
a crazy website. And then it's bund is green against
(03:45):
that black background. I'm like, well, let me let me
research this. But and then you look down to where
they site it, and they just put site the Mahaparata.
The mob Haaparata is one is a one hundred thousand
verses long. See, you can't just say, oh, it's like
me saying God is love, dude, quote the Bible. It
just doesn't, you know, give me a little specific to
(04:06):
go on. I found somewhere they'd actually say, oh, this
is from the drown up Purva section of the Mahaparata.
But that section in and of itself has over two
hundred subsections of text. So, um, the best I could find,
like find just I'm on my own time when without
just killing days trying to track down what sources these
(04:28):
guys may or may not be quoting from. Um, if
you don't mind, I'm just gonna read like a real
quick bit no no, because I think again it captures
your imagination is this idea, is of this ancient warfare
and kings and flying saucerers. Even perhaps I don't know.
So here's here's a little bit from section thirty four
of book eight the Karna, and uh it goes a
(04:51):
little something like this, I'm gonna use the kind of
the door. I'm not gonna wrap, but I'm gonna I'm
gonna do a voice, you know, kind of like um.
Then he called Nila Rohita, that terrible deity, robed in skins,
looking like ten thousand suns enshrouded by the fire of
superabundant energy, blazed up with splendor that discomforter of even
(05:13):
him that is difficult of being discomforted. That victor, that
slayer of all haters of Brahma, called also Horror, the
rescuer of the righteous and destroyer of the unrighteous, the
illustrious Fanu, accompanied by many beings of terrible might and
terrible forms that were endued with the speed of the mind,
and capable of agitating and crushing all foes, as if
(05:34):
with all fourteen faculties of the soul awake about him,
looked exceedingly resplendent. So it's yeah, so it's like lots
of that and that's that's awesome, and you can made
even better by your Charleton Heston like voice. By the way,
I could have handed up even more. But but some
of the some of the words are a bit uh
bit out there. Yeah, the names and all. But okay,
(05:57):
but you know there's an example of yeah, there's all
sorts of crazy stuff going on in here. There are
these references to these like these different ostras, which are
some people think are weapons, and then there are these jantras,
which people think are machines. And if you go to
some of these websites, they'll even get real detailed with
it and say, this is referring to a flying machine,
(06:18):
this is talking about nuclear weapons, this is talking about
a TV screen or a heat ray or a holographic device,
and uh, these are interpretations of this text, right yeah.
And then and then to the ruins there there we
do have ruins of the ancient cities of Harappa and
Mahineodaro and these were once give great metropolises of the
(06:40):
Indus Valley civil civilization, some of the earliest urban centers
in the world. And you know now they're gone. But
you see these references talking about radio radiation in these sites,
and there's just no I could not find a single source. Actually,
I applaud you for for looking into it so intently,
because I have to admit that when I was looking
(07:00):
into it and I started to see some talk of
anti matter, I started back away because I knew that,
like right around the corner, aliens were hanging out there.
So I was like, it is is a very intriguing thing.
And I think what's so intriguing about it is because
people were thinking about warfare and technology UM in a
very complex way much before they could even actually put
(07:24):
it into use. Right, We've seen this over and over again.
We see we've seen this with da Vinci and drawings
with all sorts of ideas of how to create stuff
that he just was way too ahead of his time
to put into motion. Yeah, it drives some the real
examples we're going to look at here, the ones that
are actually that we can actually say, yes, this happened
(07:45):
or this probably happened, and are not related to atomic
wars between demigods and in a primal age um. These
are these are all examples of that did really show
how how much the human mind can accomplish even if
it does and have the same tools that minds have today.
Like I kind of like to think of it as
imagine you give one guy a sheet of paper and
(08:07):
one guy a poster board, and then both of them
are artists, and you say, fill it up with some
art for me, you know, give me some art and uh,
and if they're they both have the same amount of skill,
one guy is gonna be able to fill up one uh,
you know, sheet of papers worth of art they have.
The guy's gonna fill up one poster boards worth of art.
And today we can fill up more of a poster
(08:29):
board size because we have the science we were able
to stand on the backs of giants. We uh, we
we have a much much more advanced technology to aid
the human mind and developing these things. But still given
the limited, um, you know, restraints of the time. Uh.
Some of these guys you know in the you know,
for common era back but you know, in BC time,
(08:49):
they were accomplishing amazing things with their technology and and
in their understanding of the visible universe. Yeah, which became
a pretty nuanced understanding for for that time. In those capabilities.
As you mentioned, Um, I did want to talk about
really quickly. A couple of things that I came across
which are kind of low fi um tech. Uh, I
(09:11):
guess you could say inventions of warfare. And this is
from the Christian Science Monitor. It's called articles called early
weapons of mass destruction and they cite a king and
Asia minor of the second century b C. Who was
defeated when Hannibal quote catapulted live snakes on two ships,
which I thought. It's creative, right, yeah, it's the sort
(09:33):
of warfare. It's the kind of thing you would more
expect from ancient times as opposed to dazzling weapons of light.
Yeah yeah, yeah, you see, like you know, flamethrowers, snakes.
I mean, the snakes thing I do have to say
kind of reminds me of Pee Wee Herman a little bit,
like if he catapulted snakes. No, I mean he he uh,
he released some snakes of going from a pet store,
but if he were to go into warfare, I'm pretty
(09:55):
sure that's how he would do it. Um. And then
there's sort of an example of early bio warfare and
the the Hittite sent plague victims into the land of
their enemies, and this is from the same article. They
basically say in this article quote, the principle of summoning
plague for self defense maybe related to the reality that
invaders are immunologically naive and therefore more vulnerable to epidemic
(10:20):
diseases in foreign lands than the local population. So there
was some sort of understanding about disease and other cultures
perhaps not having or being vulnerable to it. Yeah, you know,
this is this is a bit of an extrapolation of
the idea. But again there's this idea that that humans
(10:42):
are sitting around saying, how is how can I best
my enemy? I've got snakes at my disposition, I've got
a couple of plague victims. You know, what else can
we do here? Yeah, it's a lot more nuanced than saying,
all right, guys, we really want to take uh these
other this other tribes the stuff. So let's go pokem
with sharp sticks. Everybody get a sharp stick. Let's go,
(11:04):
let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, that sharp stick I di
didn't work out so well last time? What else can
we do? Um? So this has kind of brought us
to actually what we were talking about before, just these
much more complex mechanisms that people began to look into
to better understand the world and can navigate it. And
in particular, there's something called the Islamic astrolabe. Very cool thing. Yes,
(11:28):
the astrolabe is pretty amazing. And I'm gonna I'm gonna
put together, as usual, a blog post to accompany this,
and I'll be sure to have an image of an
astrolabe because it's you've probably seen it before and uh,
and you know what I'm talking about here, But but
you have to look at them because they're just be
beautiful art um. As was common in those days. When
(11:48):
you're creating an artifact um that's going to aid you
in anything, you're also going to g's you know, it's
like illuminated manuscripts. It's descightful, but let's make it beautiful
as well. And it's the same. I was trying to
think about how to best describe it, and it's obviously
it's this disk that has these different inlays on it,
and with inlay a sort of like carvings too, and
(12:09):
all sorts of um information and symbols on it and
so on and so forth. But it reminds me of
something that like that you would create now as a
steampunk piece. Of jewelry. Yeah, it does have that kind
of look to it. It's basically it's a small circular
device usually made of wood or brass, sometimes paper, um
varying degrees of like we said, artistic embellishment. And essentially
(12:34):
it's a model of the stars in the sky and
you can move them to show where the stars would
be at any time in the year. And then you
flip it over and you and there's like a gear
and you can in this site concerns the sun and
the moon, and it's uh, the basic idea. The concepts
originate around three b C. And the the Arabs of
(12:56):
the ninth century were the ones to perfect it. And
and this is what's crazy. After they perfected it in
the ninth century, it was the basic astronomer's tool for
the next seven hundred years. That's how much staying power
this device goes. Nowadays, my my iPad or my my
pod or iPhone or any kind of technological device I have,
it has like what a shelf life of of maybe
a year before a new version comes along. And granted
(13:20):
they were you know, and a lot of this time
they were adding little features apps, if you will, to
the astro labor astrolabe and uh, but but still the
basic concept was just held strong, right, And we should
probably mention too that it's the design and the execution
of the design is credited with Appollonius and two fifty BC,
So that'll just kind of ground everybody. And and what
(13:41):
we're talking about here in this timeline, and again you
talked about the actual idea of it being around around
three and that, yeah, and that's that's because people had
to hold on a concept called stereographic projection, which is
used in this device. Um. The ironic thing to me
about this is that, yes, this app that if you
(14:01):
know how to use it, you've got like thousand different
choices on different data that you can access. But if
you were to put it and you are its hands today,
it would be like putting up in nana our hands
and being like, hey, you used just to find out
what time it is? Yeah, we'd have we'd just be like, oh,
this is pretty Yeah, it would it would be as
lost in our hands as my iPhone would be in
(14:21):
the hands of somebody from well, probably we would be
more lost because I think that I would just say
it's so intuitive. I think they'd start doing you know,
oh the screen moves, okay, and then that individual would
rule the world inside a week with that. With that, well,
now we probably wouldn't be able to get three g
if you travel back. And it's true, but but no,
an astrolabe can let you tell the day and time,
(14:41):
calculate distances determined prayer times. Uh. You know this is
especially drawing to its uh, its origins in in the
Middle East, and it's perfection in the Middle East is
that people U Muslims were able to use this to
make sure they knew what times they needed to pray. Likewise,
it could be used to determine the direction of Mecca,
so you know which direction to pray, and can determine
(15:04):
building heights, can be used in surveying longitude, latitude, altitude, horoscopes,
um position of the planets, various occult usages that are
tied in with with the position of the heavens. Well,
and there's the astrological events that correspond to the Islamic
faith too, right, So um, that was important for them
to know as well. Yeah, so I mean it was.
(15:25):
I mean for a long time, if you were a
learned individual, uh, you probably had an astrolabe Yeah. And
this is the cool thing too about this is that
Islamic astronomists they really did work on this for centuries
and centuries, as you say, perfecting it. Uh. And this
is not something that we've seen in the past with
other mechanisms or technology that you know, a group of
(15:45):
people would um or a faith even would work on
something so diligently to try to make it the best
that it could be. Usually what happens is that technology
is created and then someone somewhere over on the other
side of the world, you know, reinvents the wheel um
or you know, the technology itself may fall away or
become distorted, but yes, you know, these scholars kept it
(16:07):
um alive for so many years that by the time
that it became used in the Age of Discovery, it
was just sort of poised to actually usher in the
Age of discovery, right because all of a sudden, we
have this, this incredible instrument that you could navigate with,
and that just kind of opened up the whole world, right. Yeah,
(16:28):
I mean I was looking through um. One of James
Brooke's books, i think was Connections, talking about the way
different inventions sort of timeline to each other and the
astrolabe is one of these like you look it up
in the index and it shows up just dozens of
times because it was it's an important step in our technological,
uh and its scientific evolution. Yeah, I mean, I think
(16:49):
it's fair to say that if it wasn't the place
that it was at the time, then the just discovery
would not have happened. We'd be living in a very
different world most likely. Well, hey, we're gonna take a
quick right here, and when we come back, we're going
to talk about a little something called the Antiquathera mechanism.
(17:09):
This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of
tomorrow and we're back the So the Antiqathera mechanism. I
did want to mention something really quickly, is this is
just one of those like cool fact things about the astrolabe.
The first technical manual on it. Oh yes, yes, it
(17:30):
was actually written by Jeffrey Chaucer for his eleven year
old son so he could understand how it worked. Great writer,
one of the greatest writers of all time, as technical
manual for a device, possibly the first code monkey. Maybe,
I don't know, it's kind of like her kind of
a loose use of the term. But that's like kind
of like how stuff works own Tracy V. Wilson, she
(17:50):
used to do technical technical manuals. I think, yes, that's
what I've heard anyway. And I'm pretty sure that she
has an astro lebe Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I've
seen her. I've seen her on Marta pull it out
and yeah, yeah, train is running late again. That was
before she got the she upgraded to an iPhone, but
now she's in the fold. So um, let's look at
(18:12):
this anti Cathera mechanism. Now, this you may recognize from
if you've seen images of it. It kind of looks
like a rusted gear, kind of green looking gear embedded
in a big lump of stone. Yeah, and I love
the idea that these divers found it, right yeah. Yeah,
they're um sponge divers and they spotted it, and you
(18:35):
think that there it was probably covered in barnacles. Yeah,
and they're probably like, what is this hunk of junks
sitting here at the bottom of the sea. Like I
wouldn't have thought to pick it up and bring it
with me. If I saw on somebody's garden, I might
be like, Oh, that's that's the neat use of an
old gear looking rock, but I wouldn't have thought it
was amazing. Yeah, all that I was thinking about in
the context of that period of time where there was
so much archaeological discovery that I'm sure that divers all
(18:58):
the time we're probably looking for ship breckx um. And
this was in fact part of a shipwreck that was
off the island of Anti Cathera so so named for
that island. Yeah, and it it turns out, as best
we can, we can understand it. It was very much
like the astrolabe, and it was an astronomical device representing
the movements of the heavens, which to the ancient Greeks
(19:20):
was five planets, because that's all they knew of. Again,
think to that, you know, the whole paper versus poster
board painting. You know, they were working within the limits
of their their understanding. But but it had a really alarmingly,
you know, complete understanding of it. Um studies of the
wreck and the cargo it carries it up to the
(19:41):
ships that sailing around sixty five b C. And it
was heading west from Asia Minor. It was a Roman
ship and it was carrying Greek loot back to Rome.
I love it the rogue part of it, right, Yeah,
almost like it was cursed, like you know, they took
it and then the vessel. But um, there's no evidence
for them. Just fun to think about. Yeah, though it
did uh you know, it did have Greek inscriptions on it,
(20:04):
which is another key, you know, way that we're able
to to try and understand what it was. And these
inscriptions the device dated back you know, U two around
one hundred BC, and it suggests that it was already
a few decades old when the ship sank. So now
it seems more likely that it was actually made in
Syracuse and then then it was taken east to show
off to the scholars at Rhodes. So what we're now
(20:28):
where Syracuse gets interesting is that Syracuse was the hometown
of Archimedes, the the ancient mad genius mathematician, and now
he lived He lived a century before this mechanism was made,
so there's no way he could have made it. Uh,
he couldn't have created it, but he pioneered the use
(20:50):
of gear wheels to achieve different force ratios with weights
things like that. So um, based you know, based on
what we know, Um, it's it seems he a lot
of his ideas may have wound up in this device. Yeah. Yeah,
it's very likely that that he may be even held
onto one himself, m giving given his sort of penchant
(21:12):
for stuff and gears and um, I guess you could
say that he was a gear head of yesteryear. Yeah.
This is from the Anti Cathera mechanism research project. Is
a question that says, does does the mechanism favor a
heliocentric or a geocentric universe? So is the Sun at
the center of the university depicts or is the Earth
(21:33):
at the center of the university depicts? Yeah, which is
a really interesting question. You and I have talked about
this both wrong but right. But still they represent a
drastic change in our thinking about the cosmos. Yeah, and
this gives us a little bit of a clue to
of how well they understood the world. And uh So,
the the answer um from this organization is, in a word, neither.
(21:55):
The purpose of the mechanism is clearly to position heavenly
bodies with respect to the celestial sphere with reference to
the observer's position on the surface of the Earth. In
order to achieve this, this mechanism has to use a
geocentric model However, this does not imply that the manufacturer
favored a geocentric model the universe. In fact, it was
Aristarchos of Samos around who first proposed a heliocentric solar
(22:18):
system in two Unfortunately, proponents of the helocentric universe were
increasingly persecuted for the beliefs in ancient Greece and in
later times. It is highly probable that the maker of
the mechanism was aware of the heliocentric universe, but it
does not imply he favored it. So I think it's
really just interesting to know that maybe they were politics
going on at that time, that if you were creating
(22:39):
this instrument, that you might not necessarily talk about what
the implications of it might be in terms of understanding
the world or even understanding religion or society with this mechanism. Um.
Of course we've talked about then in another podcasts uh,
in much more detail. But we should probably get to arguments,
(22:59):
because again, this guy mad genius. I mean, I feel
like he's the Byron of his time. Yeah, minus the
pet bear and the skull full of wine? Right, yes? Yeah?
Or is it the moose? You know? I got confused
with ta Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, I get drunk
animals people like at those confused. But this guy, he
(23:25):
had something called death ray. Yes, Now did you ever
have it or do you just have the plans for it? Well,
we all have plans for death rays. This is in debate,
right right, right, he had his drawings, We know that
for sure, but we think that it's it's let's just
say that it's up for debate, but it's highly probable.
And um, this is from Josh Clark's article what was
(23:48):
our Committee's Death Ray? Basically, it's a series of mirrors
that reflected sunlight onto Roman enemy ships that were moored
in the Arc Committee's hometime of Syracuse. The ships were
earned by the collective condensed sunlight and cause the entire
fleet to catch fire. So this was the idea. So
this guy is sitting around thinking, okay, we're about to
be attacked. What it was my what sort of tools
(24:10):
do I have laying around here? The sun? Um? And
this is someone again who when you go back to uh, creativity,
humans and and trying to figure out a better way
to well, in this case, exact revenge. But that that's
what happens throughout our history of science. Yeah, It's true.
(24:33):
It's true. Um. I mean this guy was thinking about it,
you know he was. He was sitting at home in
his hammock if he had a hammock. Um, I thinking
how can I utilize the Sun's energy best? Which is
pretty amazing for this time period. Right we're talking about
eight MNBC. Yeah, we're talking about just you know, thinking
about advanced usage of optics and mirrors and uh yeah.
What I like best from this article is the quote
(24:55):
that is ascribed to him to Arcumentives, which is, and
I'll try my best with Charlton husband. Here, give me
a lover long enough in a place to stand, and
I will move the world. Okay that got n at
the end, Yeah it did. But I love that this
is a guy who was again just no holds barred. Yeah,
(25:17):
it's like, hey, you get something for me to do,
you know. I mean that's the way. He was technically
a freelancer, you know, so you've got to when you're
in a freelancing situation, you gotta put yourself out there
like that. You you know, you're like, what, you need
me to write an article about this? Yeah, give me
a pen. I can write it. You know what I
like givebot. This guy t is that he just did
not like go gently into and you know, into the world. There.
(25:39):
I mean, at the end of his life at seventy
five years old, a Roman soldier came to get him
and he was giving a calculation and he was he
was basically saying, step off, I'm in the middle of something. Yeah.
It was completely ignoring the fact that this guy was
his doom and uh you know, and so he died
doing math. I can imagine being like carry the one
and then hey, I almost had it. Yeah, this dangerous
(26:03):
work math. Yeah. So that leads us to another interesting
possible past technology, if not an actual technology, then again
people thinking about the technology, and that is robots. Yes,
I know when people are gonna be like, no, really,
you guys found a way to go back to robots. Yeah,
yeah we did. Yeah, but these are different robots and
(26:24):
these are not This isn't you know, as much joke.
Can we make a robot that can lie to people?
Or can we make a robot that can fall in
love with people? I mean these were these were you know,
back to like the thirteenth century, even guys looking at
the human form and saying, well, you know, the human
body is basically a machine, and I'm pretty good with machines. Um,
I'm gonna take you go a building one, see what happens,
(26:44):
you know, Yeah, what their idea of a machine could be.
Or even if you were trying to replicate a human
at that time. So we're talking about a lot of
wood here and screws, um, and these stories are there.
The kind of things were like if you were making
a even if you're just making basically a mannequin with
with moving parts, Uh, that would be kind of outrageous.
(27:06):
And that's gonna cause stories. If I did that, people
would say, I don't know what he's doing. He's he's
got a mannequin in his house and it it moves.
There's something fishy going on. So even more real, girl,
and you've got like this wooden mechanical, life size thing
next to Yeah, people are gonna talk. So our stories
of these are often a little elaborated. Um Like, for instance,
(27:26):
there's a thirteenth century Albertus magnus Um, you know, great
thinker um later candonized by the church. Um. But he
was he worked on this automaton uh that he supposedly
had given quote the powers of speech and thought. Um
it was. It was said to be composed of metals
and unknown substances chosen according to the stars, and uh
(27:48):
endowed with the spiritual qualities of magical formulas and so forth.
I mean, this is a time of alchemy, um and
a which in in in some ways was a crude
science and was sort of science mixed in with a
little um magic and and and folk ideas. It was
just kind of unformed. It's kind of like sciences in
the oven cooking. It's a pie, but if you were
(28:12):
to take it out and eat it as alchemy, it
would be a bit gut shot and running, like you
still needed a little while to actually cook before it
became early science. Yeah, I think if it is like
the the wood chips in your backyard, they're supposed to
become strawberries in that pie. They never became strawberries. It
was a wood chip pie. Yeah. And that that's the
problem with alchemy, right. It was a great idea, but
(28:33):
not based in anything actually scientific. Yeah. So supposedly this
thing could walk, it could speak, it could perform domestic chores.
Now this we're just gonna go ahead and cast away
the idea that this thing was walking around like a human.
But it's easy to imagine this guy that was interested
in the way the human body works creating something that
that could move when you pulled on some pulleys or something.
(28:54):
Or supposedly there was like a like a brass head
that could speak, you know, So I mean it could
have basically been a puppet he and he may may
have had a sense of humor. You know, it's like, hey,
look at the press head talk and it's freaking out.
But well see that, I'm thinking all Magnus was sitting
there doing some ventriloquism maybe, but it worked on his disciple,
Thomas Aquinas, because he allegedly decided that the device was
(29:18):
diabolical and destroyed it with a hammer. That's because he
just got annoyed with ventriloquism. Yeah, that could have been
he was just he was tired of it. So there's
that story. Like I said, there's not a lot to
go on there, but it's it's one that I love
to think about. Um And then in the fifteenth century,
of course, Leonardo da Vinci, right, yeah, yeah, we have
a great article that's called Top ten Leonardo da Vinci
(29:38):
Inventions UM by Christopher Lampton, and he actually wrote about
da Vinci built actually built this, because most of the
times he would just create plans for your drawings. But
he had a plan for a robotic night that was
based on his working knowledge of anatomy and mechanics. And um,
(29:58):
he built it right, this life size night and it
uh it did not survive, unfortunately, and no one is
exactly sure of what it was capable of doing. But
apparently it could walk, sit down, and it could even
work its jaw. So again we're seeing the ventriloquism here. Um.
It was frequently brought out at parties thrown wealthy Leonardo Patron,
(30:21):
load up, you take it, viz. Yeah, you're better with
the Italian I think so. Yeah, it's probably awful, but
better than mind. But anyway, the mere fact that the
robot is making appearances at drunken parties. Uh so I
think into the idea that that it it wasn't actually
a you know, too elaborator a thing, that it was
that it had a certain comic element to it, that
(30:42):
it was maybe kind of a big puppet. I'm seeing
some sort of thread here with becoming an icon, right,
if you're going to be Tico bra Hay or Da
Vinci or you're going to be Byron. You've got to
have something that you roll out at parties that involved drinking, right,
And I mean it's a moose or a drunk dog,
a bear bear and then your robotic night Yeah yeah, yeah,
(31:10):
you know you had to had to stay kind of crazy,
kind of dangerous. Yeah. So I mean, just I'm just
noting that for anybody he wants who's going for icon status, yea,
that's something that you probably want to work into your stick.
But um, but yeah, I mean this is still a
really cool thing. And it was used or driven by
a system of pulleys and gears, so back in the
damn sure that it was absolutely shocking. Yeah. And then
(31:31):
in the seventeenth century here's a there's another notice when
there's not a lot to really go on here, But
I still find it amusing. Uh. There was the notion
that French philosopher and at Cards so allegedly had I
should probably say allegedly allegedly like use it twice just
to drive home, had a beautiful automaton named Francine which
he built to replaces de cease daughter, and he would
take on when he had to sail somewhere. Um, he
(31:54):
would have the the the androids stored in a crate
under under deck. But many things wrong with that, Yeah,
they're just there are a lot of things wrong, especially
the felidity of it. Um. I don't think there's anything
to it. But according to Alison Murray in her book
The Enlightenment Cyborgs, she makes the case that this was
(32:15):
a time where and you see roots of this with
da Vinci and Magnus, We're we're learning more and more
that the human body and many um in many ways
is a machine. We're coming to grips with the mechanical
nature of humanity, and it it leads to this kind
of weird identity crisis of what are we? You know,
we're not this well, you know, we're not quite this
(32:36):
magical divine creation where something else and we're not even this,
you know, spark of life and meat were some sort
of some sort of machine and we're so it leads
to questions like, well, then can we make a machine?
And it's and to a certain extent, we're still we're
still troubling over that today, except in in fields such
as genetics and and and other related films and to
(33:00):
start to a larg extent still in robotics. Yeah, I
mean actually robotics, um, as you say, in biology and
neo evolution, this is a big topic that's coming up,
right and how we can or can we actually use
the question influence our evolution? Um, should we, should we stop?
So on and so forth, and um, I don't know,
(33:21):
it's all, it's just all a very fascinating question. And well,
also the Blue Brain project, right, we've talked about this
before about there are people who are trying to reverse
engineer the human brain so we can actually put a
blue print together. So you're saying all these different things converge.
So actually, it's what's really interesting about this is that
there is a thread between the you know, ancient technology
and future technology. And you look at robotics expert Mark Rusham,
(33:44):
who used da Vinci's notes to build a working model
of a Da Vinci robotic night and then some of
those concepts were actually used for design a planetary exploratory
robots by NASA. So you see that blueprint back in
time being used the well, because these guys were basically
trying to do what roboticists today continue to try and
(34:04):
do um or some roboticists working on how do you
make a machine that moves like a person? Um, And
part of you know, there's a little bit of human
vanity is still tied up and there can I make
the thing that I am. But also as we try
to make robots that can navigate a human environment and
and live alongside humans, it becomes, you know, ideal to
have a machine that moves like us and can manipulate
(34:27):
the same objects that we manipulate, so that you know
that a human can use the same screwdriver as a
robot and vice versa. Yeah, it's the Geppetto conundrum, what
I'm gonna call it? And uh yeah, so let's see,
I don't I guess we're beginning to run out of
time of bit in this I wanted to touch real
quick on the idea of ancient mathematics. UM. I have
(34:47):
a blog post about this that I did a while
I'm back that I'll probably linked to in the accompanying
blog post for this podcast. There's a really good neat
idea that was put forth by Mark A. Peterson in
the Geometry of Paradise and uh. He points out that
that Dante um Uh fourteenth century author of Inferno. You
know the Divine Comedy, Um, there's a lot if you
(35:09):
ever read the Divine Comedy, there's there's a lot of
math thrown there, a lot of science. Like Dante was
interested in everything, and you see him throwing math and
science into his imagining of this, uh, these different afterworlds.
And so Peterson points out that Dante could have easily
excelled as a mathematician had he been born into a
time when geometry was more fashionable, but instead he lived
(35:31):
in an age of languishing mathematics between the Hellenistic period
in the seventeenth century. So here's a quick quote he's
Peterson says, medieval cultures were in the particular peculiar condition
of being being unmathematical cultures in possession of sophisticated mathematics.
They possessed in it the sense of having the books,
studying them and translating him and even doing some mathematics,
(35:53):
but they had no clear indication where this rich subject
had come from or what it would be good for.
They did not know, in our terms at least, what
it was. So I go into that a bit more
of the block post. But but I love the idea,
you know, because I think that's what's what's fascinating about
about concepts such as the crazy idea that there was
a vedic nuclear war and then then they had this
(36:15):
advanced technology in the old days. Is the idea that
we could forget it. It's the reason we love the
idea of of a post apocalyptic scenarios where we have
to re understand past technologies. Um the idea that that
that math would had kind of been forgotten for a while,
and then it was this thing that you know, it
was like us picking up a an astrolabe and saying,
(36:36):
what is it? How does it work? I don't know,
it's pretty let's put it up there on the on
the wall. Yeah. And and the fact that we're going
through a similar period just because we have such advanced
technology that we no longer need the basic fundamentals I'm
wanting to say fundamentals. I mean, it's some of the
more complex um aspects of math we just don't need
to master anymore because we simplified our existence. Yeah, I
(36:58):
could not build an iPhone obviously, But to your point
about um Dante, what I think is really interesting is
that during that time period, I mean, those were the
scholars that were that they it was the scholars that
were sort of keeping this alive right to a certain extent,
and it was in the real house, not necessarily, um,
something practiced by the public at large. And if Dante,
who wrote in Italian rather than Latin because he wanted
(37:20):
to reach more people, want to reach the people, right,
if he had a better understanding of that would be
very interesting to see how that might have influenced the
masses during that time. Yeah. But of course if Dante
had gone into map we would have we might have
missed out on one of the greatest pieces of literature
the world has ever seen. So here here well, hey,
so advanced technology of the ancients. It's a great subject.
(37:41):
I really love it. Um, but let's get some listener
mail in here before Garry drives us out of here. Yeah. Um,
First we have one from Jackie. Jackie right fan, and
she says hello. First of all, thanks for the podcast
on meditation. I've recently begun meditating, and just as I
started wondering what was happening in my brain, you show
up with the here. Hey, I'm actually writing with a
(38:02):
request that I'm sure you've received before. How will the
zombie apocalypse work? After all, we have an official emergency
plan and the zombie proof House. H Yeah, both of
those I think have showed that. We've discussed the the
emergency plan from the CDC in a blog post last week,
and the zombie proof House I can get shown up
on our Facebook feed. Um blow the minds quote? Anyway,
(38:23):
Jackie goes on to say, anyway, thanks for a great podcast,
keep up the good work. Um. Yeah, the zombie apocalypse
is an interesting scenario and just trying to figure out,
you know, how we respond to um, two scenarios of
a pandemic disease. The CDC, of course, has jumped on
it recently as easy as a way to to sort
(38:43):
of get the message out about emergency preparedness, because the
emergency preparedness kit that you might have for the zombie
apocalypse is more or less like what you would have,
you know, in case there was an energy crisis or
disease or fire or earthquake or any number of things. Yeah.
I thought it was a brilliant way to to bring
attention to that, just to you know, basically parallel it
with the zombie apo apocalypse. Yeah, and I highly recommend
(39:07):
anybody who's interested in zombies if you haven't already read
Max Brooks World War Z. This is a really fun read,
not only because it concerns zombies and people you know,
in a post apocalyptic environment trying to figure out what
they're doing, but he does a great job of taking
the idea of the zombie apocalypse and applying it to
different regions of the planet, different situations, and asking like, hey,
(39:31):
how would the zombie apocalypse UH affect relations between Indian
Pakistan and UH? And there's a really thought provoking way
of looking at it. So so I would recommend that
to any listeners out there who are into zombies. We
also have a quick email from Chris with a K
Chris with a K right, and it says thanks for
having such a great show. While listening to the prolonged
(39:54):
lifespan episode that's Birthday Candles, I immediately began to wonder
if suicide rates would jump along with the increased lifespan.
Even though people could be healthy physically, the mental toll
of such longevity would be extreme. Trying to find purpose
in life may be difficult, and I don't want to
work until I'm sixt five now What would I feel
like if I had to work until I was six
(40:15):
hundred and fifty years old before I could retire? That alone,
Uh makes a person prompt suicide? Um, major societal changes
would have to occur before I want to live to
be a thousand if we were if we lived at
that aide, we'd be in school until we were two
hundred years old. UM wouldn't have children or get married
until we were three hundred, and that would bring up
(40:36):
the point of marriage. The thought of spending a lifetime
with the same person seems astronomical in these terms. Anyway,
Thanks for having such a great podcast and keep up
the good work. Indeed, these are you know, all the
different things you have to think about. We have human
life lifespan. Was to jump from less than a century
to more than nine centuries, how would that effect the
flow in the basic definition of what it is to
(40:58):
be human? Right? Can you up mode another person's brain
to your own? Brighton? Could you have a different experience?
Could you completely start over at two D and become
a different person? And all sorts of questions? Could you
go from being a TV starting the movie starting back
to being a TV star again? Um? Career I don't know.
I don't know. I mean Tom Hanks, we don't You
don't see him going back to t v D No,
(41:18):
not yet. So hey, um, if you have anything to
add about the technology of the ancients, be it a
really cool corner from history that we missed or a
really out there theory about how you know the ancient
Babylonians had submarines or something, then hit us up with it,
share it with us on Facebook again, we are blow
(41:40):
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us a little bit more into Kamedes and all the
(42:01):
coolness that he created, and you can just pop that
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our homepage on the day that you come to how
stuff works dot com. In the meantime, you can send
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