WEBVTT - AI and Radioactive Shoe Salesmen 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.480 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.520 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.720 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.160 tech are you? So? This morning I was thinking, as 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:29.160 I often do, about artificial intelligence and how quickly various 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:34.040 people and companies are rushing to apply AI to just 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:38.559 about everything. And this isn't exactly new. It would be 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.839 naive and reductive to say it. We're so Researchers have 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:46.560 been developing AI for decades, with a focus on different 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:51.360 aspects of AI throughout the ages generative AI, while splashy 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.319 is really just one of the more recent implementations that 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.040 have has caught our attention. So while we can't say 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.920 that AI has exactly crept up on us, the push 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:07.080 to make use of AI, when one could argue we 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.840 don't even have a full appreciation for what it can do, 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:13.600 both in good and bad scenarios, means that we're being 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:18.160 a little premature. And this actually reminds me of shoe stores. 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.880 Now that's a pretty big leap, but I promise I'm 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.760 going somewhere. I'm sure you've all heard the phrase history 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:30.880 repeats itself, or maybe the slightly more florid version. Those 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.959 who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Well, 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.560 once upon a time there was an era in which 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:43.120 people made use of a powerful technology for a trivial purpose, 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:48.120 and many people potentially paid the price for that decision. 0:01:49.120 --> 0:01:52.400 This is just one example. Obviously, there are lots of others, 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:55.200 some of which are famous enough to have had entire 0:01:55.280 --> 0:02:00.680 documentaries made about their stories. But I am talking about 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:07.720 when shoe salespeople were regularly irradiated as part of their job. Okay, 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.600 so let's set the scene, and it's the last decade 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.480 of the nineteenth century, eighteen ninety five in fact, and 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:21.440 a German smarty pants by the name of Wilhelm Konrad 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:27.360 Runtgen was working as the director of the Physical Institute 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.880 at the University of Fursburg. Now I don't mean he 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.880 was working at a physical school and other people were, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.919 I don't know, working in some sort of philosophically hypothetical 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.320 school that would be putting discartes before the horse. Rather, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.959 I mean Runtgen specialized in physics. In the eighteen nineties, 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:55.160 he was experimenting with a fairly new technology. What essentially 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.560 was a cathode ray tube or CRT. This is the 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.760 technology that would later be responsible for producing images in 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:08.600 old television sets, the big, boxy kind that you might 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:13.800 remember from decades ago. Runtgn was studying how high voltage 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:18.000 electricity could pass through low vacuum tubes, like essentially a 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.079 cathode ray tube. Now, the story goes that one day 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:23.760 he was shutting things down for the evening in his 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.800 lab and he noticed something peculiar. So he had covered 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:34.960 the cathode tube with a piece of black cardboard, and 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.600 when he powered up the tube and turned off the light, 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.920 he saw that there was something glowing in his lab. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.720 So he investigates and he discovers the glowing is coming 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.920 from a piece of paper that has a coating of 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:55.600 barium platinu cyanide on it, and that this is what 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.440 was glowing in the dark, and it was several feet 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.680 away from the tube, which again was covered by black cardboard. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.560 It was far enough away from the tube that Runkan 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:09.920 thought the tube would not be able to illuminate this 0:04:10.000 --> 0:04:13.400 particular piece of paper. Moreover, there was some sort of 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:19.119 energy outside of visible light happening here, something that could 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:24.280 stimulate the barium platinus cyanide to fluoresce and something that 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.919 could pass through this black cardboard. Now, Runkan was a 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.919 methodical sort, and he repeated this somewhat accidental experiment many 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.359 times to make certain that what he was seeing was 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:40.520 actually real, that there was something to it. He further 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.279 investigated the phenomena for weeks before deciding to publish any 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.320 papers or even discuss the matter with anyone else. He 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.400 knew that lots of other people were doing experiments with 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.400 these low vacuum tubes, so he didn't want to tip 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:59.919 his hand too early and perhaps lose out on snag 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:03.479 a really big scientific discovery. Turns out, this was a 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.400 really good idea because there were no shortage of people 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:10.440 who were absolutely certain they had discovered something new and exciting, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.880 and then after other people looked into it, they found 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.680 out that there wasn't really any discovery there at all, 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.800 which could be pretty humiliating, but this was not the 0:05:19.800 --> 0:05:23.320 case with Rutgin. He had made the first documented observation 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.720 of what we would call X rays, in fact, what 0:05:26.839 --> 0:05:31.080 he would call X rays X rays because X represents 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:37.799 an unknown variable. What's more, Runkin noticed something really darn cool. 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.040 So let's say that he hung up a sheet of 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.640 paper that had a coating of barium platino cyanide on it, 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:49.640 and he put that a few feet away from the tube, 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.560 and then he energizes the tube, he turns it on. Essentially, 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.160 if he put his hand between the tube, which was 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:00.880 serving as a lamp and the sheet of paper, then 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:03.680 on the sheet of paper he would see projected the 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:06.360 bones of his hand. It was as though he could 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.239 see straight through his flesh and look at the skeleton inside. Clearly, 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.520 he couldn't just keep this a secret, so he had 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:18.000 to tell his closest friend. He brought his wife to 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.120 his lab and showed her the discovery. He had her 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:25.840 hold her hand against a sheet of this paper, and 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.559 then he exposed her hand for a fifteen minute long 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:35.280 X ray exposure, and instead of it just projecting the 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.440 images of the bones on the sheet of paper, it 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:40.680 actually made a record of it, an image like a photograph, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:46.400 the first radiograph known on record. She reportedly exclaimed, I 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:50.360 have seen my own death, meaning she had seen her 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:55.039 own skeleton. Those the Rengins really knew how to turn 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.640 up the romance. It tells you anyway, after weeks of 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:03.240 investigative work, Jen reached a point where he felt confident 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.200 in coming forward to his peers to present his findings, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:10.160 and once he did, it caught on like a house 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.080 on fire. His paper published at the end of eighteen 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.000 ninety five in December of eighteen ninety five. By eighteen 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.800 ninety six, people were making practical use of X rays. 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.600 Mostly this was in the medical field, but not exclusively, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.920 because suddenly it was possible for physicians to gaze into 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.280 the human body, you know, looking into a patient without 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:36.520 first having to make an opening, which, as you can imagine, 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.760 presents certain advantages. All right, but now it's time to 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:46.200 jump to a different smarty pants, someone who was quite 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:50.560 the opportunistic smarty pants. In fact, some people could argue 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:55.040 that the true smarty pants nature of this man is 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.880 that he found new ways to claim authorship over work 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.120 that really just happened within him his place of business. 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:06.560 I am talking about Thomas Edison. Now, whether you think 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:12.200 of Edison as a truly brilliant inventor responsible for inventing 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.480 countless things in his lifetime, or you think of him 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.680 as someone who was more likely to employ people who 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:24.440 did most of the actual inventing, and then he would 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:26.960 put his names on the patents. I'll leave all that 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.880 to you. The truth of the matter is probably somewhere 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.320 in the middle. But the important part of our story 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:36.520 is that Edison and his staff were working on a 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:40.040 technology that would leverage X rays in a really interesting way. 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:44.800 So the basic concept wasn't that different from what Reunjin 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.600 had been experimenting with in his lab. The invention would 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:52.040 have a screen that would be coded with some sort 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.200 of fluorescent material on it and would thus fluoresce when 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.440 exposed to X rays. There would also be a lamp 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.720 capable of generating those X rays, and if you were 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.040 to place something between the lamp and the screen, you 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:09.439 would be able to see the stuff that blocked X 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.040 rays from hitting the screen. Now, your flesh would let 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.080 X rays pass right through it, so you would see 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.320 your bones on the fluorescent screen behind, and you can 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.120 have the lamp on, you can move your hand back 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:23.600 and forth, and you can watch the bones in your 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:29.599 hands move in real time. Edison called his invention the vitascope, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:32.920 and I'm pretty sure later on he thought that was 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.840 a really ironic name, a poor name for him to 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:40.320 pick for this invention because vita means life, you can 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.520 see that in words like vitality. But the vitoscope would 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:48.000 actually lead to the death of one of Edison's most 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:55.040 loyal members of staff. That person was Clarence Madison Dally. He, 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.800 like his father and his brothers, would work as a 0:09:58.840 --> 0:10:02.960 glassblower for T. Thomas Edison. Dally worked closely with Edison 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:08.720 while trying to design a practical incandescent lamp. Again, Essen 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.319 didn't really invent the light bulb, but in his lab 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.559 the light bulb was turned into something that was actually 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:20.560 of practical use. Now, upon runk Jen's discovery of X rays, 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:23.400 Dali would actually shift his own work to focus on 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:28.360 creating X ray lamps as well as a fluorescent sheet 0:10:28.800 --> 0:10:32.880 that actually used calcium tungue state as the fluorescing material 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:38.800 instead of the barium platinum cyanide. This was seen to 0:10:38.920 --> 0:10:44.360 produce sharper images and thus a higher fidelity kind of image. 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:48.000 For years, Dali worked in the lab developing this technology, 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:52.240 perfecting it, and over time he began to experience some 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:57.600 pretty not just pretty, some truly serious health problems. His 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:01.880 hands showed signs of radiation burns, particularly his left hand, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:07.240 which he used to demonstrate the X rays by waving 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.280 it in the path of the X rays. He began 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.240 to develop skin lesions, which are part of you know, 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.600 radiation burns. His problems progressed to the point that he 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.120 actually had to have his left hand amputated, but that 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.559 was only the beginning. Later on he had to have 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:27.360 more of his left arm amputated, then several of the 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.400 fingers on his right hand, and then ultimately he had 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.920 one arm amputated to the elbow and the other arm 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.920 amputated to the shoulder. But the damage was even more severe, 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.400 and in nineteen oh four, when he was not even 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.839 forty years old, Dally passed away from terminal cancer. This 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:49.760 experience hit Edison very, very hard. He truly liked Dali, 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.280 and it also convinced him that X ray technology was 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:58.200 far more dangerous than beneficial, and he was quoted to say, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.080 don't talk to me about x I am afraid of them. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.680 But Edison's team had already invented the fluoroscope at that point, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.520 and there were all sorts of potential applications for that technology. 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:12.920 When we come back, I'll talk about some of those, 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.200 but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:29.600 All Right, before the break, I mentioned that Edison's fluoroscope 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:32.800 would end up having various applications, So the most obvious 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:36.080 ones were in medicine, right, and there was a darn 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.839 good reason to lean heavily on medicine in the early 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:43.640 twentieth century. You had a real provocative reason why you 0:12:43.679 --> 0:12:50.160 wanted to advance the science of medicine. Several million reasons, 0:12:50.160 --> 0:12:54.160 as it turned out, because in July nineteen fourteen, World 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:58.200 War One began. Of course, back then we didn't call 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:03.080 it World War one because being optimistic anyway. One of 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:07.400 the big challenges presented by the World War involved making 0:13:07.440 --> 0:13:11.120 sure soldiers had the right equipment, and that included a 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:15.439 good pair of boots. Soldiers could end up having terrible injuries. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:17.640 If they weren't wearing the right boots. They wouldn't be 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.400 able to march as far. They could suffer from things 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.200 like trench foot, So they needed to make sure the 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:25.600 boots were as well made and as good a fit 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:29.560 as was practical for the purposes of mass producing them 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.720 for soldiers. This is a delicate thing to balance, so 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:36.320 the thought was we should make sure that soldiers had 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:38.439 boots that would give them the support they needed and 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.920 not create a source of distraction or injury. And so 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.600 a guy named Frank Keefer created a book that he 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:50.600 titled a Textbook of Military Hygiene and Sanitation. This was 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.600 all with the goal of trying to keep soldiers as 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.960 healthy as possible before they were forced to march out 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.959 in front of a German machine gun in this time. 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:04.760 Next book, Kiefer included X ray images also known as radiographs, 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.559 in order to show how a soldier's foot should fit 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.640 inside a boot and what it would look like if 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:15.520 the soldier were wearing the wrong size boot. So this 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.040 was really just to illustrate the importance of matching the 0:14:19.120 --> 0:14:22.360 size to the soldier. Keifer was not suggesting that the 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:26.280 army invest in thousands of fluoroscopes and check each recruit individually. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.840 This was just to demonstrate the importance of a good fit, 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:37.360 but his idea sparked other ideas. A doctor named Jacob J. 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:43.120 Lowe used a fluoroscope to examine wounded soldier's feet without 0:14:43.160 --> 0:14:45.520 having to first take off their boots. And you can 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:48.400 definitely understand how that could be a really useful thing 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:51.160 to do. You know why, would you potentially make an 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:55.600 injury worse or perhaps even create a new injury if 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.640 you can get a look in a non invasive kind 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:01.840 of way, and it works so well that Low thought 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:05.640 it would make sense to bring the technology to pediatrists 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.240 and to shoe stores in general. Why just use this 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.760 on soldiers when you could have a fluoroscope in your 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.840 local shoe shop, Customers could try on a pair of 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.040 new shoes. They could step up to the fluoroscope, the 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.800 staff could check to make sure that the shoes were 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.480 actually a really good fit. Maybe they could even employ 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:29.200 someone who could take a look at those images and say, oh, 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.640 you know what, you need special shoes because otherwise you're 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.560 not going to get the support you need and your 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.640 feet are going to hurt. Right, You could actually employ 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.000 people who could be experts in this. They could be 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:42.960 like the equivalent of a foot doctor working in a 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:47.680 shoe store and practice preventive medicine. It would be incredible. 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:52.880 So Low files for a patent in nineteen nineteen for 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:58.080 a shoe store version of this technology. However, it would 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:00.960 take nearly a decade for the patent off to grant 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.320 a patent. He called it the foot of scope, and 0:16:04.400 --> 0:16:07.800 I am not making a joke about that. That is 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:09.880 actually what it would be called. And yeah, the idea 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.480 is that the customer would stick their feet into this 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.760 machine I'll describe it in a second, and the shoe 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.640 store salesperson would be able to look through a visor 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.160 and determine if the shoe was a good fit or not. 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.720 Low was not the only person pursuing this dream, believe 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.720 it or not. There were others around the world who 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:36.840 were filing similar patents. And while they filed their patents 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:40.280 after Low had already submitted his to the US Patent Office, 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.040 and at least a couple of cases, they got their 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:47.640 patents first. So kind of shows the great injustice of 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.640 global commerce, right, But eventually it all shook out that 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.240 really there were two major companies that would use this 0:16:55.360 --> 0:17:01.040 technology to create machines for shoe shops. So in England 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.280 you had a company called the Petoscope Company, and here 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.560 in the United States you had the X Ray Shoe 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:13.520 Fitter Incorporated. Now, these fluoroscopes looked a lot like a 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.080 tall wooden cabinet, maybe like a little bit higher than 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.679 waist tall. So the customer would approach the cabinet on 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.280 one side, and the customer would be standing up and 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:28.800 they would step up onto a step at the base 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.240 of the cabinet, and at that point in the cabinet's 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:35.959 wall there was kind of a little alcove where they 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:39.320 could slide their feet into this thing, so it's inside 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:42.600 the cabinet, So you're standing on the step, your feet 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.520 are now inside the cabinet. On the inside of the cabinet, 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:50.159 the X ray lamp would actually be below the customer's feet, 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.120 pointing up at a fluorescent screen, and the fluorescent screen 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.080 would be above the customer's feet, so the lamp would 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.760 blast X rays up through the shoes, through the flesh 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:05.680 of the customer's feet, and would leave a moving image 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.320 of dim bones on the fluorescent screen, which staff could 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:13.280 view from above. So on the opposite side of the 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.639 cabinet were the controls that the staff would use, so 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.560 pretty simple stuff. They would have, you know, like a 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:24.160 switch to turn the fluoroscope on, and at that point 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:28.240 they would start powering up the cathode ray tube and 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.360 start beaming X rays toward the fluorescent screen. There would 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.480 be at least one, but usually several viewing ports that 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.439 would look down from the top of the cabinet into 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:43.120 the cabinet itself. Now, these ports remind me a little 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:46.360 bit of like a submarine periscope, you know, has kind 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.000 of like a visor kind of of attachment that fits 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.040 around the eyes, which of course obviously blocks out the 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.399 ambient light of the shop while you're looking at the 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.480 tootsis inside the cabinet. And the multiple visors meant more 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.159 than one per and could look at a time. So 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:04.680 maybe it's the shoe salesperson, maybe they have an assistant, 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.520 and there's probably some curious lookilu who wants to take 0:19:08.520 --> 0:19:12.840 a look that skeleton bones. In fact, I'm sure there 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.879 was no shortage of variations of the phrase oh honey, 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:18.760 I can see your skeleton feet and these shoe shops 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:23.000 at the time. Anyway, the idea was the shoe salesperson 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.199 would be able to study the feet inside the shoe 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.640 and determine if the shoe really was a good fit. 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.920 Though I'm sure in many, perhaps most cases, the real 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.320 use of the technology was that it attracted customers and 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:41.560 it helped move sales. Sure, I bet in some cases 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.600 the clerk might say, this pair of shoes looks like 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.679 it's on the small side. For you or maybe you 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.840 need a wider pair of shoes or something along those lines. 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:52.080 But most of the time, I bet it was really 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.560 just a way to get folks into the door. Now, 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.399 as I'm sure you've all gathered, this practice was also 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:03.280 extremely dangerous. Customers might get a large dose of X rays, 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:06.120 a larger one than they would in a normal year, 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:10.040 especially these days. But the real risk was for the 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:13.280 staff who were using these machines over and over on 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.840 multiple customers a day. The first of these machines hit 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.320 the market in nineteen twenty seven, we wouldn't even settle 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:24.400 on a standard unit of measurement for radiation, the run Gin, 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.399 named after the guy who discovered X rays. We wouldn't 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.560 decide on that till nineteen twenty eight the following year, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:34.760 and we still didn't have that much data to draw 0:20:34.840 --> 0:20:38.080 conclusions as to how much or how little radiation exposure 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.240 was really safe or harmful. Now you had some scientists 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.960 who were arguing that it would be a really bad 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:50.040 idea to make use of radiation technology in an environment 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.399 like a shoe store, that it represented a true risk 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:59.119 to employees, that radiation really was no joke. Then you had, 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.640 on the other side the owners of the stores, who 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.639 essentially said shut up. The stores were claiming that the 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.960 X rays would let them create real like osteopathic solutions 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:15.119 to foot problems, but in reality, almost no one had 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.240 that kind of expertise or knowledge or experience. They had 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:22.600 no way of making any real meaningful decisions based on 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:25.040 what they were seeing. It was just a gimmick and 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:28.360 a gravy train. And by golly, they didn't need some 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.479 boffin telling them that their killer sales pitch was going 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:36.520 to give them cancer. And so the machines prospered for 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.639 a couple of decades. In fact, by the nineteen forties, 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:44.560 there was something like ten thousand fluoroscopes in the United 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:48.600 States alone, There were another say, three thousand in the UK, 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:50.800 and there were a few thousand more in a couple 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.920 of other countries. So just imagine for a moment all 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:58.320 those store employees who absorbed way more X rays than 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:01.920 any person is supposed to in a day. Just most 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:05.400 people wouldn't even absorb that much in a full year, 0:22:05.520 --> 0:22:08.159 And day after day, these folks were getting blasted by 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:11.360 X rays. When in the mid nineteen forties, the American 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.560 Standards Association made a determination about X rays. They concluded 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.919 that at max, a person should encounter less than zero 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.880 point one rent gens worth of radiation per day. Now, 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:28.000 in nineteen forty eight, there was a survey done of 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:32.240 around forty something machines that were being used in Detroit, 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:36.720 these fluoroscope machines, and in that study they found that 0:22:37.000 --> 0:22:43.000 the machines emitted radiation at a level between sixteen to 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:47.000 seventy five rent gens per minute. You were not supposed 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:49.160 to absorb more than point one per day. Now, keep 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:54.320 in mind the standards those are for, like super protective, 0:22:54.880 --> 0:22:59.480 let's be extra careful, let's limit liability as much as possible. 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.440 So you could argue that it's overly cautious, if you 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.320 want to take that point of view. But the point 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:09.920 being that these machines were putting out way more radiation 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.840 than what people were supposed to be encountering in a 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:19.440 work environment. They were dangerous, and they were largely unregulated. 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:22.280 In the United States, laws about these devices were on 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.879 a state by state basis. In fact, it wouldn't be 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:28.280 until the nineteen seventies that you would start to see 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.879 laws across the country limiting their use and requiring the 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:36.120 machines to adhere to strict rules for manufacturing and operation. 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.560 Pennsylvania was the first US state to ban them outright, 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.359 That was in nineteen fifty seven. Even by nineteen seventy 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.560 only thirty three states had a ban in place. The 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:52.400 federal government couldn't take action until the early nineteen seventies 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:55.840 because there was no legal basis. The FDA, which was 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:58.640 the most likely organization to be able to step in, 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:02.439 had no authority for anything that had to do with 0:24:02.560 --> 0:24:07.280 radiation that was not part of their responsibilities, so there 0:24:07.320 --> 0:24:09.560 was nothing they could do. There was no legal basis 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.840 to make any kind of action on a federal level. 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:17.480 This was a case where technology and science had far 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.840 outpaced our laws and our capacity to do anything from 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:25.439 a legal standpoint, which sounds familiar to me as I 0:24:25.520 --> 0:24:29.520 talk about this, and as I talk about things like AI. Now. 0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:32.080 One thing that may have somewhat taken the wind out 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:37.159 of the fluoroscopes sales was the Second World War. Before 0:24:37.160 --> 0:24:40.359 the introduction of the atom bomb, radiation was thought of 0:24:40.440 --> 0:24:44.280 as more like this amazing kind of energy that could 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:48.600 do phenomenal stuff, like like you could use radiation for 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:52.119 anything to in science fiction, it was to blast around 0:24:52.160 --> 0:24:56.600 in space, or fly at incredible speeds over the land, 0:24:56.800 --> 0:24:59.840 or all sorts of things, and you'd be able to 0:24:59.920 --> 0:25:03.800 use is it for industry? Radiation was wonderful, you know, 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.840 maybe you'd even power a superhero. But then you get 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:10.280 to the end of World War Two, when Fat Man 0:25:10.359 --> 0:25:15.080 and Little Boy demonstrated the dreadful power of the atom, 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:19.359 and the stories of radiation poisoning and terrible things of 0:25:19.400 --> 0:25:22.359 that nature really changed the picture. Pretty quickly. People saw 0:25:22.560 --> 0:25:26.919 the destructive nature of radiation, or the destructive capability I 0:25:26.920 --> 0:25:30.359 guess I should say of radiation. And so now the 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:36.200 perception shifted dramatically. They went from space age energy to 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:39.280 this is something we should be scared of. It's an 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:43.320 invisible killer. Be afraid. You know, you get into the 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:47.560 Cold War, the threat of nuclear war, all this perception 0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:51.800 of radiation changes. It was a massive cultural shift. Keep 0:25:51.840 --> 0:25:55.280 in mind, the radiation itself never changed. It was the 0:25:55.320 --> 0:25:58.280 same from beginning to end. It was that way before 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:00.359 we got here, it'll be that way after we leave. 0:26:01.560 --> 0:26:06.280