WEBVTT - From the Vault: Early Days Electric, Part 1 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.520 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.639 name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And this 0:00:10.680 --> 0:00:13.319 week we are going back in time. We were reaching 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.000 into the vault and retrieving the first of two episodes 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:18.720 that we did on the early days of electricity, How 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.880 people thought about electricity when it was a a new 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.440 discovery slash invention. You know, since these episodes came out, 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:30.440 we have read some interesting stuff about the language used 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:35.160 to describe electricity, especially about this sort of spiritual gendered 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.000 terms used to describe electrical power, that it was very 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:42.120 often associated with, this kind of like hidden female goddess. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:43.640 I wish I had known about that at the time 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.520 we recorded this. But so when when did this first 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.800 episode come out? This would have been February nine. Okay, 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:53.400 so if you are ready, we're going to take a 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:58.480 journey into the vault for Early Days of Electricity, Part one. 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.240 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from How Stuff 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:15.080 Works dot Com. Now, therefore, you are hereby order, commanded 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.360 and required to execute the said sentence upon him, the 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:23.520 said William Kimmler, otherwise called John hort Upon some day 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.479 within the week, commencing on Monday, the twenty four day 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.720 of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand, 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.039 eight hundred and eighty nine, and within the walls of 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:37.080 Auburn State Prison, or within the yard or enclosure adjoining 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.000 there too by then, and they're causing to pass through 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.119 the body of him, the said William Kimmler, otherwise called 0:01:45.200 --> 0:01:49.200 John Hort, a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.920 cause death, and that the application of such current of 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:58.120 electricity be continued until he, the said William Kimmler, otherwise 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:03.840 called John Hort, be dead. Gentlemen, I wish you all 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:06.639 good luck. I believe I'm going to a good place, 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.480 and I'm ready to go. I only want to say 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.440 that a great deal has been said about me that 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.200 is untrue. I'm bad enough. It is cruel to make 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:22.720 me out worse. Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.240 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:27.960 those were a couple of quotes concerning the death of 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.840 one William Kemmler, the first person in the world ever 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.680 to be legally executed by electric chair. That's right. This 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.120 was eight nine, and as will roll out in these 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:41.799 episodes this week on electricity, on the sort of the 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:47.040 weird history of electricity. Uh. This this episode, this electric 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:51.280 execution kind of serves as like the the final thrashing moment, 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:56.440 uh for the mysticism of electricity, the sort of supernatural 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.720 zeal that surrounded it for so long. I remember when 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:01.720 I was is growing up and I learned that the 0:03:01.760 --> 0:03:06.480 Constitution of the United States prohibited cruel and unusual punishment 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:11.800 of criminals. And then I tried to reconcile that with 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.480 the fact that people were executed by electric chair. It 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:19.920 was just hard to think of a stranger way to 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:23.560 kill somebody on purpose. Yeah, And I think that will 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:26.400 I think that will become clear to everyone, especially in 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.520 the second episode when we get into the details of this, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.440 about how how this came to be on the table, 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.840 how the argument was made that we should electrocute a prisoner, 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.800 why it was a good idea, and and why it 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:41.240 was the most modern and humane and hygienic thing to do. Yeah. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:42.800 So this is going to be the first part of 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.320 a two part series on the Weird History of electricity, 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.640 as we've said, and we want to focus on a 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:51.520 different side of the story of electricity than you probably 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.200 learned about in school, So you've probably learned about things 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.920 like Benjamin frank some of Benjamin Franklin's experiments and uh, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.520 and how the battery was invented and the voltaic pile 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.720 and eventually Thomas Edison and uh and maybe if your 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:09.640 teacher was pretty cool Nicola Tesla and the you know, 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.640 the current wars and and stuff like that. But what 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:14.640 we want to look at a different side of how 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:19.240 electricity came to be a fixture of of our society today, 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:23.680 and not just the technological journey, but the spiritual journey. Yeah, exactly. Now. 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:25.679 You know, if you want more on that technical journey, 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:28.120 do go to how stuff works dot com and check 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.479 out the article how electricity works. That's by Marshall Brain, 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:35.080 William Harris and uh and me to a very limited extent. 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:36.840 I think I touched up that article at one point, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:39.479 but mostly it's it's Brain and Harriss. That could be 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:41.880 a thank for that article. But do you have to 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.680 add updates all the new things we've discovered about electricity 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:46.960 in the past period. Basically, did punch up on it 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.080 in the same way that you know a comedian might 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.839 punch up a script. I like went in there and uh, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:53.960 made it a little more fun at the beginning and 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.920 updated the references, but otherwise left all the technical information 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.680 as is. But but but yeah, this is about sort of 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.839 This is the spiritual journey of of electricity, the cultural 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:10.520 journey of electricity from from the realm of the magical 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:13.000 to the realm of the mundane. And as I was 0:05:13.040 --> 0:05:16.279 thinking about these episodes actually this morning in the shower 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:18.640 and on the drive into work, I kept thinking of 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:22.880 it in terms of a transformer. Okay, like like you see, 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:27.760 you know, on with high tension wires. So the times, 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:30.039 experiments and thoughts that we're going to present in this 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:33.160 pair of podcast that they serve as a sort of transformer. 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.480 So a transformer decreases the voltage of alternating current, turning 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.160 a dangerous high voltage current that's capable of traveling long 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.640 distances into a lower voltage current that's appropriate for just 0:05:45.800 --> 0:05:49.520 mundane use in your home. So these events that we're 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:51.880 going to discuss are are the inner workings of the 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:57.320 cultural transformer that transformed electricity from a magical, holy, spiritual, 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.600 otherworldly energy into something that you can just completely take 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:04.280 for granted every day of your life. Okay, Well, let's 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.240 let's go back in time from the execution of William 0:06:07.320 --> 0:06:10.839 Kimmler and go all the way back to the earliest 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.479 things we know about electricity, because before humans began to 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:18.440 recognize and test electromagnetism as a force of physics, we 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.039 were aware of it in several natural settings. For example, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.400 lightning that's pretty obvious, the shocks of electric fishes, and 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:31.159 objects that naturally pulled toward one another through some invisible attractions. 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.080 So you might have a loadstone, or you know the 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.080 name for magnetite, or or you might find that friction. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.960 You know, we're just rubbing one object against another could 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.000 cause attraction. And before we had even the slightest idea 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:48.760 what electricity was, its power found a way into our metaphors. 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:53.920 We naturally recognized that there was something very mysterious and 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.800 important going on in these invisible forces. So, for example, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.840 in Plato's Mano dial log you know you remember this 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:05.760 one may know, he compares socrates style of argument to 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.080 a torpedo ray, which is it's a type of electric fish. 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.480 It's a genus of a ray that stuns prey and 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.720 enemies with jolts of electric charge issued through the water 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:19.880 and the point of the comparison is that Socrates stuns 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:24.160 his interlocutors into a state of just utter perplexity by 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:29.160 illuminating the aporia, the realization of an internal contradiction in 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:33.280 one's worldview. Okay, in other words, he's dropping truth bombs, exactly, 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.000 stunning you with his truth bombs. That that's a very 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:39.080 similar metaphor, I'd say, except they wouldn't say truth bombs 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:41.960 because they didn't have bombs, but they did have electric fish. 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.720 So so he's dropping truth torpedo fish. And just in 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:50.280 a side, there are there are numerous electric fish out there. Uh. 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:54.120 The the electric eel, which is more of an electric catfish, 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:55.920 tends to get most of the press because it is 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.720 the most electric fish. But they are varying levels of 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.800 elect trick fish out there, ranging from those that stunned 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:03.400 their prey to those that use it as more of 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.520 a communications sensory scenario. Yeah, and then there's a the 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.640 Lease of my Leads. So this is a Greek philosopher 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.080 known as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, and 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.200 he may have been the first human to really study electricity, 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.240 and this would have been around a six hundred BC. Now, 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.080 he was the one who was doing friction experiments. He 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:27.600 would take amber, so you know, fossilized tree resin the 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.400 stuff from Jurassic Park. Yeah, well, hopefully there's an insect 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:33.000 in there, something that kind of you know, crippled and 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.800 and frozen in time. But he didn't come up with 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.960 the idea to get its DNA out. No, he wasn't 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.440 quite up to that level unless you want to view 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:42.920 the resulting spark here is like the soul of the 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.760 bug leaving the amber. So he'd rubbed the amber with fur, 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.559 and he was able to attract dust, feathers, and other 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:54.439 lightweight objects. And so these were the first experiments with electrostatics, 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.360 the study of of stationary electric charges or static electricity. 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.680 In fact, the word electricity comes from the Greek electron, 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.640 which means amber. Yeah, and what else the ancients knew 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:10.800 about electricity, It's it's hard to know. There. There is, 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.680 of course, the quite famous Baghdad battery, which I think 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:18.200 most archaeologists now think was not actually a battery, but 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.320 the idea there was that there was a clay jar 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.440 and then found near it were some metal elements that, 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.200 if arranged in the right way, perhaps could have accumulated 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:31.240 electric charge. I've read that archaeologist now just almost all 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.960 agree that it was just a normal, ordinary storage jar. 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.439 It was not actually a battery. But one could hope, 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.680 you know, you always, you always kind of think, wouldn't 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.000 it be cool if there was some ancient person who 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.000 who had knowledge way ahead of their time, and and 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.199 it was just lost to history because I don't know, 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.000 they didn't write it down or nobody would believe them. 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:53.000 But people recognized there was a force at work. There 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:58.839 was electromagnetic attraction, there was static discharge, shocks, sparks, arcs, 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:03.160 But what is it? People commonly spoke about it using 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.920 sort of familiar but vague or incorrect points of comparison, 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.840 Like Benjamin Franklin, in his letters and notes in the 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.800 mid seventeen hundreds, spoke of the electrical fire. This was 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:16.280 a common point of comparison. People would speak of the 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:21.160 fire that that carries the electrical fluid or in even 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.480 in eighteen eighty nine, so much later, Thomas Edison, who 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:27.880 worked with electricity in a technological sense, he could command 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:31.480 electricity to do his bidding, Yet when asked what it was, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:35.199 he vaguely explained that electricity was a mode of motion. 0:10:35.360 --> 0:10:37.960 A system of vibrations. Yeah. I love this quote because 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:40.120 apparently Edison was just out there pressing the flash. It 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:42.560 was like a formal engagement. I think he was having 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.760 lunch with somebody at the Eiffel Tower and then somebody 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.480 asked him, So, Edison, electricity is your thing, Tell me 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.720 what is it? This is all really come up with. Yeah, 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:57.080 And so even after people were performing experiments with electricity, 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.920 even creating some electrical technologies that they were using for 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.200 for purposes in uh in say, medicine, whether or not 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:08.040 those purposes were quite on the money in terms of 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.800 improving people's health. People were using electricity, but they they 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.480 didn't know what it was. Even in seventeen sixty seven, 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:19.000 after a lot of these famous experiments like Benjamin Franklin's experiments, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:23.760 Joseph priestly described electricity as the youngest daughter of the sciences, 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:26.240 which I think is kind of a sweet thing to say. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:31.120 But what was the invisible fire? The electrical fire? It 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.160 seemed it was a natural force of the world people understood, 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:37.520 and yet it commanded a sense of mystery because it 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.400 was invisible most of the time. It could act at 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.120 a distance like a ghostly force, almost you know, the 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.280 attraction between objects could be like a ghost reaching out 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.240 through the ether to pull things toward one another. It 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.640 could spark in the dark, and these were strange and 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.480 mysterious phenomena. Even when people began to be able to 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.160 control it, they didn't know what it was. So the 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.400 modern era of electrical research, I think is often traced 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.760 back to the add to the creation of the Leyden jar. Right, So, 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.880 the Leyden jar was a thing that was invented in 0:12:10.920 --> 0:12:14.040 the seventeen forties, usually cited a seventeen forty five or 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.520 forty six, discovered independently by different people at different times. 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.079 But the laden jar was what was then known as 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.319 a condenser. But it's what we now call a capacitor. 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.200 So in simple terms, this is a device capable of 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.400 storing and quickly discharging a large amount of electricity. Yeah, 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:34.000 I've read the laden jar, particularly the one that was 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:38.200 created by a Dutch instrument instrument makers Edwald von Kleist 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:42.920 and Peter van mussen Bruck. This was basically a glass 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.959 jar full of water and had a nail in it, 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.240 and this was this was able to They were able 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.679 to use this to store an electrical charge. Yeah, they 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:53.680 had the different metals on the inside it outside, and 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:57.520 the differential between them could allow electric charge to accumulate 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.000 and then you could discharge it. Yeah, and and pretty 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.400 massively like apparently the first time muschen Brock used the jar, 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:06.960 he basically shocked the hell out of himself. I mean 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.480 didn't die, but tremendous amount of shock coming out of 0:13:10.520 --> 0:13:13.800 this jar of water and nail. Well, but once you 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.800 look at what this kind of jar is capable of 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:20.640 delivering a shock like that, obviously some applications could come 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.160 to mind, and they sure did come to some minds, 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:27.520 especially the mind of one Benjamin Franklin. So you might 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:31.600 know about some of Benjamin Franklin's experiments with electricity. Probably 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:35.040 the most famous story is one we only have second hand, actually, 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:37.960 and that's the story about Franklin flying a kite tied 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:41.000 to a key in a thunderstorm to demonstrate the electrical 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.600 nature of lightning. You know, we only have been in 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.080 me that Disney cartoon to really go by, I don't 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:47.599 know what that is. What is how they did a 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.320 whole cartoon about Benjamin Franklin and the kaite. But there's 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.240 this mouse that's really the brilliance behind Ben, and he's 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:59.280 constantly urging Ben on. I mean, just in the Ben 0:13:59.280 --> 0:14:01.880 Franklin Actuly of it is that are acceptable for children 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.800 to watch? You know? I think this story was propaganda 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:09.240 invented by the kite maker's lobby. No, but seriously, so 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:11.800 we don't know if this story actually happened or not. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.960 It probably did. We get the story from Franklin's friend 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.320 Joseph Priestley, who reported it later, so not from Franklin himself. 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:22.840 But Franklin certainly did do lots of experiments on electricity. 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:26.560 He invented the lightning rod, which is a rod mounted 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:28.920 on top of a building that's connected to a wire 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:31.440 leading down to a ground rod embedded in the earth. 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.960 And what this does is it gives the lightning a 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.800 an avenue of travel from the top of the building 0:14:36.800 --> 0:14:39.920 to the ground, sort of a harmless path, rather than 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.480 it going through the building, starting fires, potentially damaging people 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.040 or structural elements. It's like the expressway going around a 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:49.720 major population center so that the traffic doesn't have to 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.280 go directly through town where it can cause all sorts 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:54.600 of havoc. Yeah, so you've probably heard about these things, 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:58.840 but you might not have heard about Franklin's experiments in 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:03.280 the electric slaughter of large fowl, a specifically the turkey, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:05.480 which I do want to just throw in really quickly 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:09.280 that Franklin famously said that that he thought the turkey 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:13.160 should be the national bird. Yeah, a lot of thanks 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:17.120 he gives it. He's like, national bird, you will die. Yeah, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:18.840 why I you would think he would maybe go out 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:21.520 and get shocked the eagle, since he saw the eagle 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:26.080 is this kind of horrible, moral, morally offensive bird as 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.840 opposed to that the noble, slightly vain and preposterous but 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:33.120 but courageous turkey. Yeah, well he what he did, see 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:35.800 the eagle as a thief and a scavenger, right, yeah. Yeah, 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.520 he's like, that's that's really not our in our spirit, 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:41.240 it should be the turkey. Well, I guess there's no 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:43.840 law that says don't kill what you believe is noble, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.320 because he believed the turkey to be noable, but he 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.680 also wanted to roast it with electrical current and eat 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:54.920 its flesh. Well, I guess it's easier to obtain a 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.640 turkey than an eagle. That's true. The eagles fight back. Yeah. 0:15:58.960 --> 0:16:03.560 So on April nine, Franklin wrote to the scientist Peter 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:07.160 Collinson a letter detailing the results of some recent experiments 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.480 he'd done in electricity, and he ended with a strange 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:15.680 proposal for a quote party of pleasure on the banks 0:16:15.760 --> 0:16:18.720 of the Schookole the river. And so this is what 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.680 he said, quote a turkey is to be killed for 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.080 our dinners by the electric shock and roasted by the 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:29.040 electric jack before a fire kindled by the electric bottle, 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.320 when the healths of all the famous electricians in England, 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.080 France and Germany are to be drank in electrified bumpers 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.880 under the discharge of guns from the electric battery. Okay, 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:42.360 first of all, what's an electric bumper? This is great? 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.320 So Franklin explains this in a marginal note. He says, 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:50.800 an electrified bumper is a small, thin glass tumbler near 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.960 filled with wine and electrified. This, when brought to the lips, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.680 gives a shock if the party be close shaved, and 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.000 does not breathe on the liquor. Was that not factoring 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:03.800 into modern exology that you think that would? I can 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.480 see that going over huge at trendy bars, right especially. Yeah, well, 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:09.359 it seems like it would really go with that you 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:11.639 know those trends in the nineteen I guess was at 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.680 the fifties where they'd have electric movie seats that would 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:18.320 shock you harm. Yeah, so they should have served drinks 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:22.360 that would shock you as well. So anyway, Franklin's attempt 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.879 to slaughter turkeys with the electric discharge of Leyden jars, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.159 which is what he was using, the laden jars we 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.919 talked about earlier. Those were his electric bottles. This happened 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:34.760 in seventeen fifty, and it did not go so well. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:37.800 According to a letter from one William Watson to the 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:42.560 Royal Society in London. Quote, he first made several attempts 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.720 on fouls and found that two large thin glass jars 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.840 guilt holding each about six gallons, and such as I 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.639 mentioned I had employed in the last paper I laid 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.200 before you upon this subject, were sufficient win fully charged 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.920 to kill common hens out right. But the turkeys, though 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.360 thrown into violent convulsions and then lying as dead for 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:05.159 some minutes, would recover in less than a quarter of 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.800 an hour. So they had turkeys coming back from the dead. 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:13.480 I mean, that's pretty messed up. Watson continues, however, having 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.840 added three other such to the former too, and he's 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.840 talking about the laden jars there, uh, though not fully charged. 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.600 He killed a turkey of about ten pounds weight and 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.000 believes they would have killed a much larger He conceded 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.159 as himself says that the birds killed in this manner 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:34.159 eat uncommonly tender. You know, that's that's one heck of 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:37.800 a yell p review. But but but I do appreciate 0:18:38.400 --> 0:18:40.440 the spirit of the thing that the spirit of the 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.720 dinner was. We're just gonna have a completely electric dinner. 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.840 Everything from the death of the bird, to the cooking 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:48.720 of the bird, to the the curious way that the 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:51.720 drinks make your lips tinkle, everything is going to be 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:56.399 powered by this this this divine energy that we are 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.560 now harnessing with our modern science. Well, it almost sounds 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:03.600 like the scientific counterpart to those spirit parties people would 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:05.720 have where you know, where you'd have a seance and 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.600 you have people doing all kinds of spiritualist games and demonstrations. 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:12.000 Here it's the other side of the coin. But they're 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.239 using natural phenomena. So then again, how natural because all 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.840 these mysteries remained, what is the electrical fire? Like? Ultimately, 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:24.040 they're playing with something that they don't completely understand. Um, 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.159 you know, now with that, I have to add the 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.119 caveat that had a lot of us today do not 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:33.520 really completely understand the electricity that we're we're employing, right, 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:35.879 We're we're fine to let it power our toaster ovens 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.240 and cook our ego waffles, but we don't really We 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.440 couldn't engineer electrical dynamos ourselves exactly, and of course that's 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:44.920 just part of modern life. And then it should also 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.320 be stressed as well that we haven't completely filled in 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.959 all the all the blanks, all the spaces in our 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.760 understanding of electricity itself, umo are, which is kind of 0:19:56.800 --> 0:20:00.320 weird to imagine. Yeah, but back to the din Or party, 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:05.600 how did our host recover from this setback of reanimated turkeys? Well, yeah, 0:20:05.680 --> 0:20:08.000 you might think that the turkeys coming back from the 0:20:08.040 --> 0:20:11.040 dead would be enough to stun you into silence, But 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.520 but Franklin was in for another shock, because he actually 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.720 managed to shock himself so bad that he was knocked unconscious. 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.920 Watson writes later in this same letter that he says 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.080 from this experiment, maybe seen the danger even under the 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.320 greatest caution to the operator when making these experiments with 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.080 large jars for it is not to be doubted but 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:34.600 that several of these fully charged would as certainly by 0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.840 increasing them in proportion to the size, kill a man, 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:41.600 as they before did the turkey. Alright, So here we 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:44.840 see the two sides of the coin. Like. On one hand, 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.359 electricity can be managed, It can be used, uh, it 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.920 can be played with. But it can also prove dangerous 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:56.960 uh in high enough quantities. Certainly, and indeed electricity experiments 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.760 could prove deadly if proper care was not taken. I 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.360 to look at one example, which is gae Org Wilhelm Rickman. 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:07.760 So he was a scientist, he was experimenting on electricity. 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.399 He was conducting an experiment involving an insulated lightning rod 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.280 during a storm in St. Petersburg in seventeen fifty three, 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.840 and Rickman got dead. He was struck dead in his 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.520 lab by what has been described as a burst of 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.720 ball lightning. I want to read out the account here, 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.040 which is bizarre and fascinating. So this is a letter 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:32.280 to the Pennsylvania Gazette from March seventeen fifty four explaining 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:35.879 what happened to Rickman. It says the place for the 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.720 experiment was a kind of gallery with its entrance toward 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:41.399 the north, and a window towards the south. Whether the 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:44.199 window was open is not known. All that is certain 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.119 is that near the window was a cupboard four ft long, 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.760 on which replaced the electrical needle, and a vessel of water, 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.119 partly filled with brass filings, over which came an iron 0:21:55.160 --> 0:21:58.480 bar about an inch thick and a foot long, fastened 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.720 at the top to a wire which came down from 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.040 the roof of the house through the gallery door. So 0:22:03.080 --> 0:22:06.080 they were sort of playing with death here. They're saying, Okay, 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.040 we've got a lightning rod on the top of the house. 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:10.840 We've got it running down to an insulated wire in 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.000 the room that suspended over this bowl, and so they continue. 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.480 The professor, judging from the needle that the tempest was 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.640 at a great distance, assured Mr soko Law that there 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.280 was no danger, but there might be at the approach. 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.520 So they don't think the storm's hit yet. But Mr 0:22:27.600 --> 0:22:31.160 Rickman stood about a foot from the bar, attentively observing 0:22:31.200 --> 0:22:35.480 the needle. Soon after Mr Sokolow saw the machine being untouched, 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.320 a globe of blue and whitish fire about four inches 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:43.400 in diameter dart from the bar against Mr Rickman's forehead, 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:47.960 who fell backwards without the least outcry, which is a 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:51.600 creepy way to die, right, You'd expect a person to scream. Instead, 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.679 he just silently falls right, And this is important to 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.919 keep in mind later. This sort of accidental electrical electrical 0:22:59.000 --> 0:23:05.879