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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Jean McCormick. And Robert,

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Speaker 1: did you ever have a geology textbook or any kind

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Speaker 1: of old science textbook that showed those illustrations way back

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Speaker 1: in the day of what the Earth looked like, what

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Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth looks like before, you know,

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Speaker 1: in previous geological eras you go way way back, what

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Speaker 1: was it like to be on planet Earth? And and

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Speaker 1: you always see the like the volcanoes and they've like

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Speaker 1: caught right in the middle of an illustration some kind

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Speaker 1: of meteor bombardment, you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's always some sort of cataclysmic scenario going on, you know,

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Speaker 1: something that makes for a nice painting other than just say,

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Speaker 1: you know, a dead sea. Yeah. And in the really

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Speaker 1: early ones where you see the Earth as a kind

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Speaker 1: of primordial landscape, there is very often I have found

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Speaker 1: on a red orange tint to them, you know what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about, Yeah, Like they paint the Earth at

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Speaker 1: that period as a world of fire like that at

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Speaker 1: one point, Earth was how we imagine hell yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: I believe the the original Fantasia film has a as

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Speaker 1: a segment in there which is sort of the primordial

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Speaker 1: Earth that invokes some of this sort of imagery sort

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Speaker 1: of red orange. I think, so that may be a

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Speaker 1: little more technicolor huge, but but I think there's some orangine.

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Speaker 1: Never sure as if there's like an off screen fire

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Speaker 1: that's illuminating everything gels. But so I want to go

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Speaker 1: back to say, okay, let's look at what we do

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Speaker 1: know about the geological history of the Earth and try

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Speaker 1: to paint a picture of the landscape from say, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe some early part of the Archean eon. So going way,

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Speaker 1: way way back, if you were wells time traveler in

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Speaker 1: the time machine and you accidentally you know, you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't lean your leg up against the dial, and

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Speaker 1: I went back all the way, what would it be like. Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, we're gonna be talking about a time

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Speaker 1: when the Earth has a very different atmospheric composition. So

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Speaker 1: it's got a reducing atmosphere with almost no significant amount

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Speaker 1: of free oxygen gas. And if you look across the landscape,

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Speaker 1: you're going to see a lot of rocks, but you

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Speaker 1: are not going to see visible plants or animals. Because

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Speaker 1: the land part of the Earth has not been colonized

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Speaker 1: by life. You're gonna see a hot, barren, rocky landscape.

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Speaker 1: But there is life in this period. So where's the life. Well,

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Speaker 1: if you go to the coastal regions, you might see

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Speaker 1: these strange vertical bulbs protruding up out of the tidal

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Speaker 1: pools around the Rocky coast and they're like black brains

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Speaker 1: that are just jutting up out of the surf. These

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Speaker 1: are the stramatolites. Have you seen these roberts? I don't

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Speaker 1: think I've seen an image of this now. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: so some of them still exist on Earth today. You

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Speaker 1: can look at things that there were probably things very

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Speaker 1: much like the stramatellites. Just Google image search. It is

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Speaker 1: pretty cool. They're little black brains coming up out of

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Speaker 1: the water. And these are these crazy bio sedimentary structures

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Speaker 1: made by mats of of cyanobacteria, you know, these these small,

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Speaker 1: tiny photosynthetic organisms trapping grains of minerals to build these

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Speaker 1: bacterial mountain bulbs. And it's probably hot. It's probably hot out,

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Speaker 1: but if you think about it, this is a world

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Speaker 1: completely without fire. Yeah, there's no fire on planet Earth.

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Speaker 1: And it's not just in a sense of like, oh,

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Speaker 1: there are no there are no people having camp fires,

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Speaker 1: there's no there's no there's no fire to be maintained. No,

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Speaker 1: this is a time when Earth was a a fireless world,

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Speaker 1: like fire was not possible. It was a time before fire. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so you can create some some very hot scenes in

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Speaker 1: this geological period, but there's not going to be any ignition.

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Speaker 1: There will be no fire on planet Earth at this period. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's immordial as fire is to us. It's it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's just mind boggling to think back on a time

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Speaker 1: when it didn't exist. It was it's almost as if

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Speaker 1: it had not been invented yet. Yeah, and that's crazy,

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Speaker 1: because how could there be a world without fire. Fire

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Speaker 1: is not like an invention of human beings as as

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Speaker 1: you just alluded to. It's a natural product of chemistry.

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Speaker 1: It seems like it's should be something that's just universal.

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Speaker 1: There should be fire everywhere, right, it's physics and chemistry.

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Speaker 1: But I guess we should look at what it takes

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Speaker 1: to make a fire. Yeah, so most people are probably

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Speaker 1: familiar with this. You have a have three prerequisites for fire,

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Speaker 1: the fire pyramid, the fire fire triangle. Yeah, when we

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Speaker 1: were researching this, I found some rather elaborate ways to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: the stuff that makes a fire. Uh so you gotta

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Speaker 1: have your heat obviously, that's one's that's one line. You've

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Speaker 1: got to have your fuel. Another, what is burning? You

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Speaker 1: gotta have something that burns, and you have to have

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Speaker 1: oxygen for that fire to consume oxidizer. Yeah. So one

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Speaker 1: of the things that you can see from this, though,

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Speaker 1: is that fire is the interaction of these three elements.

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Speaker 1: It's not so much a thing in itself as it

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Speaker 1: is an event or a process. It's an interaction between

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Speaker 1: these three elements. And that's kind of counterintuitive to us

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Speaker 1: because like when you carry a torch and it feels

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Speaker 1: like you're carrying a substance of something somewhere. Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: don't think of it as is the same as being

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Speaker 1: a sayn explosion, which of course is also a chemical reaction,

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Speaker 1: but it's more of an instantaneous effect. A fire is

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Speaker 1: almost you can almost think of it as a as

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Speaker 1: an explosion and slow motion or something like that. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's a but but since it takes place over time,

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Speaker 1: we think of it as a thing as a substance, right,

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Speaker 1: But it is an interaction. So let's look a little

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Speaker 1: deeper at this interaction. What happens when a fire starts? Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, it comes back to those three ingredients we're

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Speaker 1: talking about. Uh, and it's interesting to to break down

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Speaker 1: each of those and get where they come in to

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Speaker 1: the long deep history of planet Earth. Okay, Well, one

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Speaker 1: source is heat. That's not really a problem, right, That's

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Speaker 1: never really been a problem obviously on the planet. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, a sparkle do it, Lightning strikes, Volcanic activity

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Speaker 1: is sparking rocks like one rock falling down, scraping another one, Um,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing, meteorites, all of these have taken

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Speaker 1: place throughout Earth's deep history. So that's that's never been

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Speaker 1: We've never wanted for heat. Okay, so we've got heat,

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Speaker 1: But what about the other two planks oxygen and fuel?

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Speaker 1: Was we alluded to earlier? You had a different atmosphere

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Speaker 1: back exactly? Yeah, Uh, it wasn't until five hundred and

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Speaker 1: forty million years ago, that's the beginning of the Paleozoic era,

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Speaker 1: that the photosynthetic organisms essentially terraformed the planet's atmosphere into

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Speaker 1: an oxygenated balance, capable of providing the necessary the necessary

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Speaker 1: second ingredient for fire, that being oxygen. Right, they did

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Speaker 1: to Earth what what we might want to do to

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Speaker 1: Mars in a thousand years or something. Yeah, transformed, it

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Speaker 1: changed its atmosphere through some chemical engineering. And uh, and

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Speaker 1: one thing you might have noticed is, and when I

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Speaker 1: was painting the picture earlier, you know, I said, we

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Speaker 1: had some photosynthetic organisms, but we didn't really have an

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Speaker 1: oxygen atmosphere yet. It took a while, right, So, photosynthetic

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Speaker 1: organisms appeared, and they were creating some oxygen, but for

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Speaker 1: a long time it seemed like oxygen was accumulating in

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Speaker 1: the oceans or sort of reacting with stuff on the

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Speaker 1: surface of the Earth and oxidizing it. But over time

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Speaker 1: we did start to build up a serious oxygen atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: And uh, this didn't go so well for a lot

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Speaker 1: of organisms, right, yeah, yeah, I mean it was an apocalypse.

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Speaker 1: Everything became great poison of everything that came before. But

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Speaker 1: you know, okay, so so at this point, we've got

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Speaker 1: our we've got our heat, and we finally have our

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Speaker 1: oxygen available, and this of course brings us to fuel

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Speaker 1: what is actually going to burn yeah, you can't burn rocks, right,

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Speaker 1: have you ever tried? That doesn't work out? So well, Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is actually the last ingredient. They became available for

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Speaker 1: hire since you've got to have a terrestrial plant matter

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Speaker 1: that builds up and you know, is burnable, and terrestrial

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Speaker 1: plant matter was scarce in this early age. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the earliest evidence of charred vegetation dates back a mere

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Speaker 1: four hundred and forty million years ago. That's not that

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Speaker 1: long ago, I mean geologically speaking. So that's the evidence,

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Speaker 1: of course, right, But so if the Earth has been

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Speaker 1: here four point five billion years and so it's only

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Speaker 1: been within the last billion years that we have evidence

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Speaker 1: of fire on Earth. But then it took off after that,

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Speaker 1: because we'll be exploring it got huge. It's really big. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it became a rather big deal. Um. It came to

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Speaker 1: define the new Earth. You had geologic ages in which

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Speaker 1: fluctuating oxygen levels contributed to the rise and fall of

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Speaker 1: terrestrial burn rates. Um. And then and of course the

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Speaker 1: humans eventually came along. They took a shine to fire,

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Speaker 1: and the rest is history. You know. I think it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to think about Earth as the fire planet, right,

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Speaker 1: because where where else in the universe, do we know

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Speaker 1: for sure there is fire? It is my understanding that

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Speaker 1: there is nowhere else in the universe that we know

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Speaker 1: for sure has fire. Now, there could be fire, there

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Speaker 1: could be, but what you would need that triangle you'd

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Speaker 1: write the fuel, you'd need the oxidizer or the oxygen,

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Speaker 1: and you need the heat and that just I don't

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Speaker 1: know of anywhere else other than Earth that you have

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Speaker 1: all three of those things, right we Yeah, we do

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Speaker 1: not know of a place that has fire other than

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Speaker 1: the Earth right now. Maybe out there many people believe

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Speaker 1: it exists, but for now, there is no such thing

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Speaker 1: as extraterrestrial fire. You know, they call Earth the water planet,

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Speaker 1: but this makes me think that we should also think

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Speaker 1: of it as the fire planet. I mean, fire seems

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Speaker 1: even more unique to Earth than water does. There's water

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Speaker 1: ice on plenty of other planets or moons and stuff

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Speaker 1: in the Solar system, right And of course one can

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Speaker 1: certainly imagine a water world in which fire is possible,

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Speaker 1: but even more rare because if you just have oceans,

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Speaker 1: if you don't have we well just to wet, or

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Speaker 1: if you don't have plenty of dried materials around, they're

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Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna be able to fill that uh that

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Speaker 1: the third notch on the ingredients list, then it's not

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Speaker 1: gonna happen. Yeah. This also makes me think about how

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Speaker 1: the atmospheric composition and just the basic nature of a

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Speaker 1: planet create the environment under which fire can arise. But

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Speaker 1: also it sort of turns the knobs, right, It's not

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Speaker 1: just like you can have fire or you can't. Fire

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Speaker 1: is a chemical reaction, and chemical reactions tend to be uh,

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Speaker 1: they tend to be degrees of susceptibility to them, right,

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Speaker 1: Like you can increase all of the catalytic conditions that

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Speaker 1: make this chemical reaction right to take place. So, for example, uh,

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Speaker 1: can you imagine a science fiction story? Can you imagine?

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Speaker 1: Of course you can. You have a great imagination. Let's

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Speaker 1: imagine the science fiction story where space space explorers they're

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Speaker 1: flying around, they're looking for a safe planet they can

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Speaker 1: land end on with a breathable atmosphere because they're having

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Speaker 1: engine trouble or something, and the only planet nearby is

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Speaker 1: this planet that has an oxygen atmosphere. But they sat

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Speaker 1: down and they realized, whoa, it's got a really oxygen

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Speaker 1: rich atmosphere. So not just oxygen, but much higher concentrations

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Speaker 1: of oxygen than we're used to in Earth's atmosphere today.

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Speaker 1: And then let's also say it's got high temperature, is

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Speaker 1: in low moisture, you could actually have a sort of

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Speaker 1: maximally flammable planet, right because it would be Yeah, for

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Speaker 1: the same reason one does not smoke while using an

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Speaker 1: oxygen mask, exactly. Yeah. And also for the same reason

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Speaker 1: that you can see tragedies in like NASA history for example,

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Speaker 1: So you know the crew deaths during testing for the

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Speaker 1: Apollo one mission. They were during testing for this mission,

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Speaker 1: they were they were trying to test the capsule for liftoff,

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Speaker 1: and there was a cabin fire. It was probably ignited

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Speaker 1: by a spark from some bad wiring, but the problem

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Speaker 1: was that the capsule was filled with pure oxygen environment,

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Speaker 1: which combined with the high pressure and then the presence

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Speaker 1: of flammable materials in the cabin meant that any fire

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Speaker 1: could just completely easily rage out of control in a

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Speaker 1: in a heartbeat. And that's exactly what happened, and it

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Speaker 1: killed the three astronauts while they were testing on in

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Speaker 1: January nine seven. Then that was grisome, white and chaffey,

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Speaker 1: and so you can imagine in a in a whole

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Speaker 1: planet like this, if like your whole planet's atmosphere is

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Speaker 1: somewhere closer to what it was like in that Apollo

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Speaker 1: one test cabin. That's not that's not an easy place

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Speaker 1: to live, right, and to the environment, right, wander around like,

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Speaker 1: am I afraid of dropping a tool and accidentally causing

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Speaker 1: a spark? And you'd have to also be careful way

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Speaker 1: for your compost, that's, of course, because that's another way

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Speaker 1: that you can have a combustion, the sort of spontaneous

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Speaker 1: combustion that occurs certainly with compost hay bales, but arguably

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Speaker 1: with people as well. Uh, spontaneous seeming combustion, which is

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Speaker 1: another topic. Wait, Robert, you've got to give me the

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Speaker 1: straight on this. Okay, spontaneous human combustion. Is it real

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Speaker 1: or not? It's been a while since I researched it.

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Speaker 1: We have, we have an older episode on it, which

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Speaker 1: I can link to on the landing page for this episode.

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Speaker 1: As I recall, it is certainly possible, but it gets

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Speaker 1: difficult when you look at individual instances because a lot

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Speaker 1: of times there are other explanations that could could be

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Speaker 1: in place. Yeah, I remember some skeptical takes, at least

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Speaker 1: thinking that I'd come across people saying, you know, almost

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Speaker 1: all these cases can be explained just by people accidentally

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Speaker 1: setting fire their clothes, smoking in this sort of thing.

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Speaker 1: Um as I recall, though there are some there are

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Speaker 1: some theories for how it could take, how it could occur,

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Speaker 1: had it. But it's kind of a case by case

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Speaker 1: situation though. So if it can happen with fertilizer, could

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Speaker 1: happen with us. Yeah, if your body is enough like fertilizer,

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Speaker 1: then you then then then you could go up like

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Speaker 1: a torch. I think my body is much like fertilizer.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna do a quick break and when

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Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to discuss how fire shaped

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Speaker 1: life on Earth. I want to position yourself for career success.

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Speaker 1: we're back, so today in this episode, we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: referring to this excellent two thousand nine paper from Bioscience

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Speaker 1: called a Burning Story, which would be a great Pixar movie.

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Speaker 1: But it's a Burning Story call and the Role of

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Speaker 1: Fire in the History of Life by Julie GI Pausas

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Speaker 1: and John E. Keiley, and I want to start with

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Speaker 1: a quote that they have from their paper that they

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Speaker 1: write quote, A world without fires is like a sphere

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Speaker 1: without round nous. That is, we cannot imagine it. Wildfires

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Speaker 1: have shaped our world since long before humans emerged. We

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Speaker 1: cannot understand our biota and biota means all of the

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Speaker 1: biomass that makes up a certain area, you know, all

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Speaker 1: all of the life there. They say, we cannot understand

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Speaker 1: our biota in terms of adaptations and ecosystem distribution without

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Speaker 1: including fire as a process in the natural history of

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Speaker 1: the planet. So they're they're saying fire is not just

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Speaker 1: something that happens occasionally and you know it's suddenly like,

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Speaker 1: oh there's a fire, freak out, got a run from it.

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Speaker 1: They're they're casting fire more as a very standard, regular

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Speaker 1: part of Earth life that shaped the life forms that

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Speaker 1: exist on the planet today. Yeah, because they think back

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Speaker 1: to the three ingredients, think back to the the the

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Speaker 1: ways that those things occur um. So you have lightning strikes, meteorites,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, volcanic activity, these are all things that can

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Speaker 1: that can and do touch off natural wildfires, and so

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Speaker 1: periodic wildfires in the exact um you know, the schedule

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Speaker 1: of the wildfires, the exact regime of the wildfires, which

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Speaker 1: we'll get into a bit, will vary, but you're going

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Speaker 1: to have whole ecosystems that evolve with fire being in play.

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Speaker 1: Now on our planet. It's important to note there is

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Speaker 1: no such thing as a fireproof organism, and certainly we

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Speaker 1: have some wonderful examples of creatures in sci fi and

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Speaker 1: fantasy that you know that roll aroun sound in fire,

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Speaker 1: or particularly thinking of in Dungeons and Dragons, you have,

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Speaker 1: you know, an entire plane of fire, and they're all

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Speaker 1: these like salamander like beings that live there and fire elementals.

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Speaker 1: But life as we know it here on Earth is

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Speaker 1: not so rugged. Now I'm trying to think what that

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Speaker 1: would even be. Let's let's cut out the magic, no

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Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons stuff. No, no, no dark curses or protections,

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Speaker 1: just biologically. Could there be an organism that survives in fire.

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Speaker 1: I don't really see how that would happen, unless maybe

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Speaker 1: if it's something kind of like a weird like combination

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Speaker 1: of a turtle and like B B eight from the

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Speaker 1: Force awakened, so it's like a shell all around with

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Speaker 1: maybe some holes that it can slide open and close

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Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. I mean, we certainly have species that

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Speaker 1: are fire resistant, and we have plenty of species that

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Speaker 1: are able to to varying degrees game wildfires and certainly

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Speaker 1: exploit the benefits of wildfire fires. But we haven't We

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Speaker 1: have nothing that is fireproof. Nothing that that that that

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Speaker 1: is not destroyed by the flame, its flame is present

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Speaker 1: in sufficient amounts, right exactly, So fire excites molecules. The

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Speaker 1: structure of our molecules is rather important to us. You'd

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Speaker 1: have to find some organism to which I guess it's

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Speaker 1: surrounded by molecules that can be burned and don't really

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Speaker 1: matter fire. And this is important for the ways that

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Speaker 1: humans use fire, Like fire breaks things down, Fire changes

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Speaker 1: the chemistry of things. Uh and uh and and it's

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Speaker 1: we're just not I mean, we're just highly susceptible to that. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 1: the the fire world is a real part of the world,

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Speaker 1: and it's something that all kinds of organisms have come

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Speaker 1: up with these adaptations too. So like, like we said,

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Speaker 1: there's no fireproof organism, but what does it mean to

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Speaker 1: be a fire resistant organism? Okay? Well, one example that

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Speaker 1: often comes up or sequoias. Okay, So, so some plant

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Speaker 1: species actually depend on fire is part of the reproductive cycle,

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Speaker 1: while some simply evolved long ago to weather regular wildfires.

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Speaker 1: So some can get through it, right. Uh. Sequoia seeds,

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Speaker 1: for example, actually remain dormant until fire breaks down the

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Speaker 1: outer coating as such a good control. Burn can can

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Speaker 1: also aid the environment by stimulating local vegetation. Um, you know.

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Speaker 1: And on on top of this, you have a situation

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Speaker 1: where the fire is going to uh, it's not going

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Speaker 1: to burn down the larger plants in the various forest

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Speaker 1: environments are just gonna be scorched. And yes, some will succumb,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, it's gonna be the smaller

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Speaker 1: things that get burned away, the undergrowth, and then that

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Speaker 1: opens up that area for new vegetation to move in.

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Speaker 1: It also allows various animals new opportunities to thrive. So

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Speaker 1: it it's a dynamic aspect of of many different environments

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Speaker 1: and and it's not just limited like it's easy to think, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: you know, like California dry hills or grasslands, and certainly

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Speaker 1: those are areas dry areas with vegetation are going to

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Speaker 1: be very susceptible to wildfire. But wildfire also exists in

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Speaker 1: tropical jungle environments. There are plenty of examples of that.

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Speaker 1: Because those areas are gonna have dry spells as well,

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Speaker 1: there's gonna be combustible materials, and therefore it's a part

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Speaker 1: of those environments is as well. Yeah, totally you see

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Speaker 1: it in grasslands, you see it in savannahs. There is

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Speaker 1: such a thing as desert fire. And also one of

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Speaker 1: the things about fire on earth is that wildfires trigger

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Speaker 1: cycles of wildfires. Fire begets fire in a certain way because,

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Speaker 1: for one thing, you can look at how fire prevents

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Speaker 1: bigger fires. This makes any sense, there's another reason for

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Speaker 1: control burns, Yeah, exactly. So, like small fires in a

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Speaker 1: certain area will clean out the underbrush, you know, dry

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Speaker 1: vegetation near the ground that if allowed to grow unchecked

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Speaker 1: by fire, could eventually lead to larger fires that actually

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Speaker 1: catch you know, the crowns of trees on fire, and

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Speaker 1: those become very hot and spread very uncontrollably. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: there was There was certainly a time in like forest

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Speaker 1: management and agriculture where I think we we just we

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Speaker 1: just said, Okay, fires are bad, We're gonna we're gonna

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Speaker 1: cut them out wherever possible. But yeah, you just you

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Speaker 1: just destabilize the natural environment and the environment's ability to

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Speaker 1: roll with periodic wildfires. And on the subject of periodic wildfires,

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Speaker 1: we mentioned regimes of fire rightlier, and that's a that's

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Speaker 1: a great term, yeah, because it sounds like, you know,

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Speaker 1: fire demons ruling them a broken world, a new flaming

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Speaker 1: king since to the throne of coals. Yeah, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: some dark imagery, Joe. But but it's a good day

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Speaker 1: for that sort of thing. Um. Yeah, So you have

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Speaker 1: you have a single forest fire that's an event, just

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Speaker 1: a fire event, but then a series of fires over time.

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Speaker 1: That's a fire regime, and that a fire regime. That

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Speaker 1: is what organisms evolve to roll with, not an individual fire,

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Speaker 1: but but regimes of fire. It's sort of like how

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Speaker 1: organisms are not going to be adapted to an individual storm,

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Speaker 1: but they will be adapted to the local climate, right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And of course the regimes are gonna vary in some areas,

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Speaker 1: some areas gonna be more prone to wildfires than others,

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Speaker 1: as we discussed, because you're talking about about the various

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Speaker 1: factors here. Human agriculture of course alters the situation somewhat.

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Speaker 1: You have interactions of humidity, conditions, fuels, ignition sources. All

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Speaker 1: these determined the particular regions fire regime. You also have

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Speaker 1: to take into account topography and wind, like what's gonna

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Speaker 1: how are those going to affect the spread of the flames.

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Speaker 1: And certainly I think any of our listeners who live

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Speaker 1: in more in places where wildfires are more of a

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Speaker 1: regular concern um. And so we think about California, Arizona,

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Speaker 1: places like that. You know, you're gonna be far more

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Speaker 1: familiar with these realities than than a lot of our listeners.

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Speaker 1: You know, one of the craziest looking wildfires I've ever

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Speaker 1: seen was from some footage I saw of wildfire in Australia.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever seen video of like the the Australian

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Speaker 1: fire storms and like Canberra? Oh? I don't think I have.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, it's otherworldly. It does not look like Planet

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Speaker 1: Earth where it is like those old illustrations from the

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Speaker 1: previous geological areas where the entire sky is orange and

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Speaker 1: like flames and sparks are just whipping around in the wind.

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Speaker 1: It is unreal. You should look that up. Fun fact.

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Speaker 1: I bring up Ian and Banks a lot in his

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Speaker 1: Culture series of novels because he always has some fabulous

415
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Speaker 1: sci fi visions that he's discussing being a technology or

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Speaker 1: certainly visions of alien life in alien worlds. And in

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Speaker 1: his just absolutely excellent book The Player of Games, Uh,

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Speaker 1: there is a there's a planet that pops into it

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Speaker 1: since it's a it's a water world. So you just

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Speaker 1: have this ring of land with this constant fire that

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Speaker 1: moves all the way around it, and it's an essential

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Speaker 1: part of the of of the the eco system. So

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Speaker 1: if the fire were to get put out, that seems

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Speaker 1: like that could just be like the end of life

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Speaker 1: terrestrial life on this planet. Yeah. Yeah, it's like this

426
00:23:56,960 --> 00:23:59,360
Speaker 1: alien vision on It is even more dependent on fire

427
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,680
Speaker 1: than anything we could, you know, experience here on Earth.

428
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,080
Speaker 1: But it serves as a kind of an interesting model too,

429
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:10,200
Speaker 1: to exemplify the importance of wildfires in our own ecosystem,

430
00:24:10,320 --> 00:24:13,040
Speaker 1: to say that, yes, they do occur, and they and

431
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: in the appropriate cycles, they play an important role. All Right,

432
00:24:17,160 --> 00:24:18,800
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break and when we come

433
00:24:18,840 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 1: back there will be more about alien worlds and fire. Hey.

434
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 1: I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and we're the host of

435
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:28,760
Speaker 1: Stuff you should know the podcast, that's right, And if

436
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:32,480
Speaker 1: you're into understanding cool and unusual and seemingly ordinary and

437
00:24:32,520 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: even boring things that are made interesting, you should check

438
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: us out. Please and thank you. We're on iTunes, Spotify,

439
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 1: Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts. All right, we're back, Okay, Robert,

440
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,680
Speaker 1: I have a question for you because thinking about alien

441
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: worlds and fire and the fact that we live on

442
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:58,359
Speaker 1: the only fire world, and the fact that we know

443
00:24:58,480 --> 00:25:00,360
Speaker 1: of a time in the history of the Earth where

444
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,080
Speaker 1: fire was not possible on this planet was just chemically

445
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 1: not going to happen. Um, my question is could technological

446
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: civilization arise on a planet that doesn't permit fire? So

447
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,919
Speaker 1: we think about um, other planets and other other biologies

448
00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: were always considering this. You know, we're like, oh, you know,

449
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: our closed minds. We think everybody's got to be like

450
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,000
Speaker 1: us in the universe in order to have some kind

451
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 1: of technological intelligence. Maybe our our minds are not too closed,

452
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 1: Maybe they're too open when we're trying to imagine, uh,

453
00:25:37,800 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: you know, powerful alien technologies, aliens with spaceships and radio

454
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,919
Speaker 1: transmitters and stuff like that, arising on planets that have

455
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: different atmospheric compositions, or might be water worlds or something

456
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 1: like that. Because I just started to think, how on

457
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: Earth could we put on Earth it not intended? How

458
00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:01,400
Speaker 1: could we possibly have generated tech knowledgy on this planet

459
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 1: without the chemical readiness to create fire in our atmosphere?

460
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 1: Just imagine the life forms that arise on a planet

461
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: with a non oxygen atmosphere and no other gases that

462
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: could play the role of an oxidizer. First of all,

463
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:19,200
Speaker 1: you've got the question about how how would they cook

464
00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: food and stuff like that, And actually, we're gonna do

465
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a two part episode about fire.

466
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: In the second episode, we're gonna talk more about the

467
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: ideas of how cooking informed the intelligent beings we became.

468
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: But also here's a maybe even a much bigger one.

469
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: What about smelting or to create metal tools? Like, how

470
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: do you create metal tools without fire? You might be

471
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 1: sitting there thinking for a second, like, well, you know,

472
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 1: there's other hot things, and uh, really, what else could

473
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,520
Speaker 1: you use? What are you saying you would stand over

474
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: a volcano and somehow find a way to use that

475
00:26:51,800 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: to create metal tools? I mean it is it starts

476
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: becoming very difficult trying to figure out how you would

477
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,919
Speaker 1: do this. And then without metal old tools, could you

478
00:27:00,960 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 1: actually expect discoveries of things like electricity, optics, fundamental forces.

479
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:09,120
Speaker 1: Um So, it just made me wonder, well, is there

480
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 1: any non fire equivalent? Is there a margarine of fire

481
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: in the chemistry that's available to this universe? You know,

482
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: is there some other universal exothermic chemical reaction, a reaction

483
00:27:21,880 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: that puts off heat that that can be transported around

484
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 1: as easily as fire and started as easily as fire. Yeah,

485
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's easy to think of various sci

486
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,440
Speaker 1: fi visions of sort of you know, organic purely organic

487
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: species that have organic spaceships and organic technology. And you know,

488
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: I'm not totally discounting that vision, but when you start

489
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: breaking it down and look at look at the only

490
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: model we have for technological ascension, that the role of

491
00:27:50,119 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: fire just cannot be divided front it right, Yeah, we're

492
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: forcing one of the scenarios where we just we cannot

493
00:27:57,320 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: envision or it's very difficult to envision another system that works.

494
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: You know, I did think of one example, one counterexample

495
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: for cooking, and it's when when Rachel and I were

496
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:09,880
Speaker 1: in Iceland. We were we went to a little town

497
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: called hivera Garthy where they have a basket that you

498
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 1: can boil an egg and well it's not boiled, where

499
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: you can steam an egg by putting in a in

500
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 1: a basket that hangs over a geothermal vent. This team

501
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: comes out of Yeah, I can see that working. I

502
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: thought you were going to go with the other like

503
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:30,840
Speaker 1: fermentation methods of preparing food, because certainly you can make

504
00:28:30,880 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: an argument there, right, oh yeah, yeah, but that's that's

505
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,880
Speaker 1: not cooking. Well, it's in a way it's cooking. It's

506
00:28:36,880 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: a it's it's cuisine. It's cuisine. Yeah, but yeah, it's

507
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: it's reatherly different from cooking. I guess. Uh. So we

508
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 1: were talking about this the other day and we're and

509
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: we were looking around and thinking, you know, somebody, somebody

510
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 1: has to have tackled this. There has to be a

511
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: scientist out there who's really gone in deep on this

512
00:28:52,560 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: question of technological without fire. No, I I gotta say, Robert,

513
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,560
Speaker 1: this is all you. I had no idea anybody would

514
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: have written on this. Well, uh yeah, because I was surprised,

515
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: pleasantly surprised to find this a wonderful article by a

516
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 1: scientist by the name of Michael D. Swords. Swords Like

517
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: the Weapon right, uh, is titled could extraterrestrial intelligences be

518
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: expected to breathe Our air? And it was published in

519
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: a edition of the Journal of Scientific Exploration. Okay, now

520
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: we should put up a big skeptics asterisk here and

521
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,960
Speaker 1: say that the Journal of Scientific Exploration is a publication

522
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: that deals with friends fringe science like u apology and

523
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: the paranormal, the horizons of science, as they would put it. Yes,

524
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: and it has been accused by critics of promulgating pseudoscience.

525
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: I don't know how to adjudicate that here, But we

526
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: don't want to give the impression of an endorsement in

527
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: general of this journal or its contents. Uh just put

528
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: up this big red asterisk on the credentials of the

529
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:53,960
Speaker 1: journal in general. But we do want to talk about

530
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:58,440
Speaker 1: this one very interesting and at least seemingly solid paper. Yeah.

531
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: And and likewise, Sword himself is certainly no pure skeptic either.

532
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:05,320
Speaker 1: He uh is was an editor for the journal. If

533
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: you have a UFO Studies board member of the J.

534
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:11,640
Speaker 1: Allen Heineck Center for UFO Studies. Uh So, he's very

535
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 1: much a man who wants to believe he's retired now,

536
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: but at the time of this publication he was with

537
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:21,280
Speaker 1: Western Michigan University. Uh and uh and and yeah, I

538
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: think that the paper itself, though, so a gainfully employed

539
00:30:24,680 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: scholars right right. So this is not like a guy

540
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: in a cabin somewhere writing about UFOs. This is this

541
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: is a and this was. And also it's worth pointing

542
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: out this again, this is a pure of view journal,

543
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 1: you know, for what it's worth. But again, when you

544
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:37,320
Speaker 1: when you look at the actual paper, I think the

545
00:30:37,320 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: paper holds up pretty well. Well yeah, well, let's let's

546
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: see what it says. Being judged for yourself. All right. So, Swords,

547
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 1: whose doctorate studies are centered around the history of technology,

548
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: points out in this article that the essential nature of

549
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 1: fire is often overlooked by academics. He said, quote, the

550
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: role of fire is partially obvious and maybe not so obvious.

551
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: The maybe not is the necessar city of fire control

552
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: fire to manipulate materials and break them down into their

553
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: elemental components. Breaking materials down is the road, the only

554
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 1: road to establishing material technology that makes sense to me.

555
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,520
Speaker 1: I think that's in line with what I was just saying. Yeah.

556
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:19,160
Speaker 1: He mentions that the critics of this only road approach

557
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: that insisted there are alternatives such as depending on additive

558
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: approaches uh, the addition of one substance to another components elements, alloys, etcetera.

559
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:33,560
Speaker 1: As a means up for new material science is without fire. Wait,

560
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: how would you create alloys without fire? Well, that's the

561
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: that's the argument point, isn't it. Uh So this is

562
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,720
Speaker 1: this is how he responds to those critics, he says,

563
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: and he has some wonderful vinegar here to his response.

564
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: He says, I am open to someone demonstrating this sort

565
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:53,040
Speaker 1: of non fire based material science. But where these components,

566
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: elements and alloys will originally come from without fire somewhere

567
00:31:57,120 --> 00:31:59,640
Speaker 1: down the road remains a complete puzzle to me. It

568
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:03,200
Speaker 1: is in the breakage, manipulation and recombination of materials that

569
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: one achieves achieves metallurgy, much of chemistry, glass technology, polymers, etcetera.

570
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: Without fire leading to metals technology, there is no control electricity,

571
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: no electric age, and certainly no nuclear age. Yeah. That

572
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 1: that's a totally different thing here too. Uh. Nuclear age

573
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: makes me think about the energy we use to power

574
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: our society, not just the creation of tools, but we

575
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 1: depend on on free access to two easy energy for

576
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,440
Speaker 1: everything that makes modern life, you know, easily livable and

577
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,800
Speaker 1: modern science easy to do with all the equipment and

578
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: electronics and stuff like that we have. Uh, in a

579
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: world without that, what would your energy source be? I mean,

580
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: I guess you could have I don't know, hydroelectric dams.

581
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: But if you don't have metals to conduct, I don't know.

582
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I'm I'm I'm at a loss. Yeah.

583
00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: He kind of summarizes this all by saying, all technology

584
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: on a fireless world would be the simple utilization of

585
00:33:07,080 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: what nature gives one, an almost passive interaction. Fire is

586
00:33:11,120 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 1: the gate to the possibility of high technology, the only gate.

587
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,280
Speaker 1: So so the idea is that certainly you could have

588
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: individuals finding stuff, exploiting natural environments, boiling their fish and

589
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: event or what have you. But can they actually make anything?

590
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: Can they actually achieve high technology? Can they build a

591
00:33:28,080 --> 00:33:32,000
Speaker 1: spaceship or say even a toaster? Uh? The argument Swords

592
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 1: would make is no, and he sort of And he

593
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: also goes on to sort of challenge anyone out there

594
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: show me an idea that's not complete, like fantasy, fantasy

595
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 1: sci fi. Uh, and I will accept it, but I

596
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet. Well, I guess for me, the

597
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: question would be looking at chemistry. I mean, I was

598
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: trying to find is there an example of something else

599
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:53,400
Speaker 1: like fire? Again, with fire not being a substance so

600
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: much as a chemical reaction and interaction or process, is

601
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 1: there another universal exother chemical reaction you could come up

602
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,840
Speaker 1: with where well, if you mix heat and these other

603
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:09,239
Speaker 1: two readily available types of substances, you will get an

604
00:34:09,360 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: easy to produce chemical reaction that heats things up, and

605
00:34:13,200 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: you can do it almost anytime anywhere on the planet.

606
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know of any evidence of

607
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: what that would be, but perhaps there is such a thing. Yeah,

608
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 1: he he goes on in his paper to say, I mean, basically,

609
00:34:26,280 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 1: you need to have that free oxygen um. You know

610
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: you can. You can. There their arguments for other combustion supporters,

611
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:37,319
Speaker 1: chlorine and other halogens, mainly, he says, but but really

612
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: you keep coming back to the necessity for oxygen. Now.

613
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: He also brings up we mentioned sea worlds earlier, the

614
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:46,240
Speaker 1: other water world or whatever you want to call them, um,

615
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: And in the past episode we tried to imagine this too.

616
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,400
Speaker 1: If you had like a dolphin race on a on

617
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: a on a water world, would they be capable of

618
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,719
Speaker 1: achieving technology? Would mermaids be able to build your soul

619
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: like a like a race of intelligent dolphin creatures, not

620
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:02,719
Speaker 1: like a dolphin race, like they're trying to get to

621
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: the finish. No, no, not not a not not a

622
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: race in that sense, but but powerful civilization, right, yeah,

623
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: would that be possible? Or mermaids or deep ones or

624
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,959
Speaker 1: whatever a vision of undersea life you want to toy

625
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,600
Speaker 1: with here, Cathulhu has no technology. Yeah, I mean that

626
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 1: would be the argument here, because this is what what

627
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: old Mike Swords has to say. He says, for those

628
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:27,359
Speaker 1: who suggest that an alternative world not caring about such

629
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: wildfires because it was all oceanic is a possibility for

630
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: a high oxygen atmosphere, I say the idea is clever,

631
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: but all wet. The technological life form needs to control

632
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 1: fire where it lives. Underwater seems a poor combustion environment.

633
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: Occasional fire seeking dog paddling at the surface seems worse.

634
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,680
Speaker 1: We need a land animal, and we therefore need a

635
00:35:50,719 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: well behaving atmosphere with oxygen in a controlled fire zone.

636
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,840
Speaker 1: So that kind of that that kind of underlines it

637
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,719
Speaker 1: rather well, I think. Okay, Well, so it seems like

638
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:05,600
Speaker 1: doctor Swords here is agreeing with our intuitions about the

639
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: necessity of fire for the development of technological civilization. But

640
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: I still I would like to hear arguments to the contrary.

641
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,799
Speaker 1: I haven't found any. I don't know if you did

642
00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: not run across any other in any other voices on this.

643
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: But yeah, if y'all out there have any have any

644
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,960
Speaker 1: great ideas about how no, here's the way they could

645
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 1: do it, Here's how you could make metal tools without fire,

646
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: I would love to hear them. Yeah, I'm fascinated, and

647
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: I don't think uh Swords has necessarily dropped the final

648
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:35,400
Speaker 1: word here, But but so far I remained with my

649
00:36:35,440 --> 00:36:39,640
Speaker 1: mind unchanged. Uh. And certainly there have to be some

650
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:43,840
Speaker 1: great examples from sci fi out there as well, varying

651
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: levels of you know, scientific authenticity, But I'd love to

652
00:36:46,840 --> 00:36:49,600
Speaker 1: love to hear those models. Okay, I mentioned this earlier

653
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: in the episode, I think, but this is actually going

654
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 1: to be part one of a two part episode we're

655
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:56,919
Speaker 1: doing about the scientific history of fire, where this time

656
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: we tried to look at a little bit more at

657
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: the chemistry of the world, the atmosphere, possibilities on a

658
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 1: on a no oxygen planet, and how fires shaped life.

659
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 1: But next time we are going to be turning our

660
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: eye to the world of the human, the divine spark,

661
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:16,400
Speaker 1: and what fire means for human life. In the meantime,

662
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 1: be sure to check out stuff to blow your mind

663
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: dot com. That's where we'll find all the podcast episodes,

664
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 1: blog post videos, links out to our various social media

665
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:27,520
Speaker 1: accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, and more. And

666
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: as always, if you want to get in touch with

667
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: us directly with feedback about this episode or any other,

668
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,359
Speaker 1: or with a great idea about how aliens on an

669
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: oxygen free, fireproof world can make some exothermic reactions and

670
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: get some swords maybe or other metal metal tools, you

671
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 1: can email us at blow the Mind at how stuff

672
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and bathands of

673
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com. Y

674
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 1: f F Far Far far f