Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I bet it's a
Speaker 1: safe bet that most people listening have heard of a
Speaker 1: Venn diagram. Seems likely, yeah, But the creator of the
Speaker 1: concept of the Venn diagram, whose name was John Vin,
Speaker 1: actually developed a much more complex set of relational diagrams
Speaker 1: than the simplified ones that we often reference casually or
Speaker 1: even see used in like, you know, newscasts or whatever,
Speaker 1: but perhaps even more interesting. Although he is an important
Speaker 1: figure in the fields of mathematics and logic, he eventually
Speaker 1: left that work behind to write historical accounts of the
Speaker 1: places and people that were important in his life. I
Speaker 1: love this about him. He was also an inventor, not
Speaker 1: of a lot of stuff, but of something really interesting.
Speaker 1: So he's just a fun person to talk about. So
Speaker 1: he is in the spotlight today. John Vin was born
Speaker 1: on August fourth, eighteen thirty four, to parents the Reverend
Speaker 1: Henry Vin and Martha Sykes Ven. He was their first child.
Speaker 1: He was born at Kingston upon hull Port in the
Speaker 1: East Riding of Yorkshire. In northeastern England. Martha died when
Speaker 1: John was pretty young, and at the age of twelve
Speaker 1: he attended Sir Roger Chumley's School in London, which is
Speaker 1: known more commonly as the Highgate School. This was a
Speaker 1: really interesting time to attend Highgate, as the headmaster at
Speaker 1: the time, the Reverend John Bradley Dine, significantly expanded the
Speaker 1: course offerings there to start, including mathematics and modern languages.
Speaker 1: Since then would eventually become well known as a mathematician.
Speaker 1: He seems to have benefited from this newer course of study.
Speaker 1: John went to secondary school at City of London Academy, Islington.
Speaker 1: Reverend Henry Ven, John's father, was rector of the Drypool
Speaker 1: Parish when John was born, and he was also secretary
Speaker 1: to the Society for Missions in Africa and the East.
Speaker 1: And he was not the only activist Anglican priest in
Speaker 1: the family. Henry's father, the Reverend John Vin, a lot
Speaker 1: of John Ven's were trying to separate him out. Was
Speaker 1: very influential in the church and had been the leader
Speaker 1: of a group called the Clapham Sect which lobbied for
Speaker 1: progressive causes and change within the church, as well as
Speaker 1: without and the Clapham sect supported the abolition of slavery
Speaker 1: and advocated for prison reform, among other causes. In John
Speaker 1: Ven's obituary in the Royal Society's Proceedings publication, it was written, quote,
Speaker 1: no one could have had a more uncompromisingly clerical ancestry
Speaker 1: and upbringing than had Ven his five or six immediate ancestors,
Speaker 1: whose lives he gave in his notable book The Annals
Speaker 1: of a Clerical Family were vicars or rector's, occupying positions
Speaker 1: of importance in the Church. When it was time to
Speaker 1: move on to higher education, Ben attended Gonvillin Keys College
Speaker 1: at the University of Cambridge, so often simply referred to
Speaker 1: as Keyes. There he earned a degree in math and
Speaker 1: ranked sixth among his fellow students in the final exam
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty seven, but it was just the beginning
Speaker 1: of a long relationship with the school. Ben went on
Speaker 1: to a fellowship at Keys, and when that was completed
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty two, he was hired as a lecturer.
Speaker 1: But Ben wasn't only a mathematician. During that same time period,
Speaker 1: he became ordained as a priest in the Church of England.
Speaker 1: Just like his father and grandfather and forebears. Starting in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine. After becoming a clergyman, he worked for
Speaker 1: a brief period exclusively in the church at Chesnent, Herstfordshire
Speaker 1: and Mortlake, Surrey, but then he decided to go back
Speaker 1: to keyes and mathematics, although he did retain his clergy status.
Speaker 1: As a lecturer, Ben taught an the discipline known as
Speaker 1: moral science, meaning he talked about logic and probability. This
Speaker 1: led to him serving as an examiner for the Moral
Speaker 1: History Tripos. Tripos Is are academic exams, and Cambridge is
Speaker 1: often cited as the place this term started. The origin
Speaker 1: of the word isn't known with certainty, but it might
Speaker 1: have come from the tripod stool that examiners used sitting
Speaker 1: on them during the test. Ven's own works would inform
Speaker 1: these exams later, a guide for students preparing for exams
Speaker 1: that was written in eighteen ninety one recommended reading several
Speaker 1: of Ven's books for the logic and methodology section of
Speaker 1: the test. But even when he was lecturing and serving
Speaker 1: as examiner himself, he said to have shifted the tripos
Speaker 1: in developing the exam to reflect developing concepts in probability theory.
Speaker 1: He eventually stepped aside as examiner because he wanted to
Speaker 1: focus on studying and writing about the school's history. He
Speaker 1: also wrote about his own res boots in genealogy, publishing
Speaker 1: that previously mentioned book Annals of a Clerical Family, which
Speaker 1: traced the Ven family history to Devin, with a likely
Speaker 1: earlier origin in Somerset. In his writing, John noted that
Speaker 1: the name Ben had first been spelled with an F
Speaker 1: instead of a V, but had changed at some point,
Speaker 1: and that the change was most likely to align more
Speaker 1: closely with the common pronunciation that was used in the
Speaker 1: West Country. A few years into his career teaching at Keys,
Speaker 1: Ben published a book titled The Logic of Chance that
Speaker 1: was in eighteen sixty six. Economist John Maynard Keynes is
Speaker 1: often quoted as praising Ben's book, saying it was quote
Speaker 1: strikingly original and considerably influenced the development of the theory
Speaker 1: of statistics. The book sought to shift the way people
Speaker 1: looked at probability, specifically by incorporating the idea of frequency
Speaker 1: into mathematical prediction models, meaning how often a thing might happen.
Speaker 1: He worked against the assay based probability interpretations that presumed
Speaker 1: causality when looking at effects, which was why he felt
Speaker 1: that longer runs of observation would offer greater insight. He
Speaker 1: also made the case that the margin of error on
Speaker 1: probabilities had to shift in proportion to the data set.
Speaker 1: Smaller data sets would have larger margins of error, and
Speaker 1: vice versa. These concepts were applied to scenarios like gambling
Speaker 1: and birth outcomes. In the book, The Logic of Chance
Speaker 1: became an important text in probability, and it had three
Speaker 1: editions printed between its original eighteen sixty six published date
Speaker 1: and eighteen eighty eight. This was a paradigm shift in
Speaker 1: its time. We know that, of course having more data
Speaker 1: means you have better models of probability, but prior to
Speaker 1: Ven's book, most of probability theory was based on the
Speaker 1: idea that the right formulas would be accurate predictors regardless
Speaker 1: of the data set, but that of course led to
Speaker 1: unpredictable outcomes. Then approach came to be known as frequentism.
Speaker 1: And in addition to being a big statement about how
Speaker 1: logic and probability should be applied, Then made another interesting
Speaker 1: statement with the book right out of the gate, because
Speaker 1: he said in the preface that he wanted the information
Speaker 1: in it to be accessible. Writing of probability quote, I
Speaker 1: am convinced moreover that it can and ought to be
Speaker 1: rendered both interesting and intelligible to ordinary readers who have
Speaker 1: any taste for philosophy. The year after The Logic of
Speaker 1: Chance was released, John Ven got married to Susannah Carnegie Edmondstone.
Speaker 1: Susannah was born in Marlborough in eighteen forty three, and
Speaker 1: like John, she was the child of an Anglican priest
Speaker 1: that was the Reverend Charles welland Edmondstone. After the two
Speaker 1: of them got married, they settled into married life in Cambridge.
Speaker 1: They eventually had a child named John Archibald, but that
Speaker 1: wasn't until sixteen years into the marriage, so Susannah would
Speaker 1: have been about forty at the time that she gave birth,
Speaker 1: which is an unusual situation for the time. Susannah is
Speaker 1: interesting in her own right because she was hardly idle
Speaker 1: in her time as a wife. Before John Archibald was born.
Speaker 1: She was in fact a novelist. As her husband was
Speaker 1: publishing books on probability, she was penning titles like The
Speaker 1: Gwillians of Bryn Gwillian, which was published in eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: and that told the story of a family of children
Speaker 1: who are raised by their father and governess after their
Speaker 1: mother dies. She wrote several more novels, and she also
Speaker 1: worked with John on some of his historical writing. All
Speaker 1: of her novels except the last, were initially published anonymously.
Speaker 1: Her last work of fiction, The Husband of One Wife,
Speaker 1: came out in eighteen ninety four, and that book tells
Speaker 1: the story that seems to mirror Susannah's own life. It's
Speaker 1: about a young woman who gets married and moves to
Speaker 1: Cambridge to live with her husband. We're about to get
Speaker 1: to the diagrams, but before we do, we will pause
Speaker 1: for a sponsor break. In eighteen eighty one, John Ven
Speaker 1: published another book, this one titled Symbolic Logic, and it
Speaker 1: was in this work that he introduced the concept of
Speaker 1: ven diagrams as part of set theory. Ven diagrams, as
Speaker 1: many listeners already know, often use overlapping circles to represent
Speaker 1: sets of data. The region that overlaps represents a commonality
Speaker 1: among those sets of data. This is the most basic
Speaker 1: way this concept is used in casual conversation, although it's
Speaker 1: really a visual way to parse information and figure out
Speaker 1: logic problems, and some ven diagrams can be much more complex,
Speaker 1: but all of them show the way that sets intersect
Speaker 1: and join together. For example, you might be given the
Speaker 1: information that out of a group of people, five are
Speaker 1: tall and three have green eyes, two are tall and
Speaker 1: also have green eyes, and five members of the group
Speaker 1: are neither tall nor have green eyes. Using a Venn
Speaker 1: diagram with two overlapping circles, you could assign the number
Speaker 1: two to the overlap section and label each of the
Speaker 1: circles remaining areas one for the tall people, one for
Speaker 1: the green eyed people. You've also accounted for two of
Speaker 1: the tall people in the overlap, so you know there
Speaker 1: are three more tall people, and the number goes into
Speaker 1: the circle labeled tall. We've accounted for two green eyed people,
Speaker 1: and you know that there's three, so a one goes
Speaker 1: into the circle labeled green eyes. The number five, representing
Speaker 1: the five people who have neither attribute, sits outside those
Speaker 1: two circles. To figure out how many people there are
Speaker 1: in total in the group, you'd add each of the
Speaker 1: numbers you'd written down together. So the two people who
Speaker 1: are tall and green eyed, plus the three people who
Speaker 1: are only tall, plus the one person who only has
Speaker 1: green eyes, plus the five people who have neither of
Speaker 1: those attributes, so you know there are eleven people total.
Speaker 1: There can also be ven diagrams with three circles, and
Speaker 1: those are used to represent syllogisms. Those are logic arguments
Speaker 1: in which two premises are a given and then a
Speaker 1: conclusion is reached using deductive reasoning. A simple example would
Speaker 1: be to say, all sneakers are shoes. That's premis ie.
Speaker 1: Premise two is that some sneakers are blue. Therefore, your
Speaker 1: deductive reasoning leads you to some shoes are blue. The
Speaker 1: three circles overlap in a way that a central section
Speaker 1: of the diagram is simultaneously part of all three circles.
Speaker 1: Those are the some blue shoes. Syllogisms were not new
Speaker 1: to John Ven. They go all the way back to Aristotle,
Speaker 1: and though his writings about them do not contain diagrams,
Speaker 1: some logicians over the years have suspected that he may
Speaker 1: have used them to work his ideas out. So the
Speaker 1: Ven diagram is a way to visually represent the existence
Speaker 1: and non existence of variables within sets. But this isn't
Speaker 1: really something that he came up with out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz of Leipzig, Germany lived in the seventeenth
Speaker 1: and early eighteenth centuries, and he studied the use and
Speaker 1: viability of diagrams to solve logic queries. He thought that
Speaker 1: Aristotle's concepts on the matter needed some more work, but
Speaker 1: to be clear, he was drawn to that work because
Speaker 1: he thought Aristotle's concept was compelling, writing quote, I hold
Speaker 1: that the invention of the form of syllogisms is a
Speaker 1: most beautiful of the human spirit. Leibnus's work started to
Speaker 1: include the use of circles and linear progression to work
Speaker 1: through syllogistic concepts, which when you look at them, are
Speaker 1: very clearly a precursor of the ven diagram. Leibniz did
Speaker 1: eventually favor using lines that created boxes as part of
Speaker 1: their logical grouping. Yeah, he got away from circles, but
Speaker 1: circles were favored by another logician, Leonard Euler, who was
Speaker 1: born in Basel, Switzerland in seventeen oh seven. Although he
Speaker 1: favored using circles to work out logic puzzles, he was
Speaker 1: very clear that the shape was not the important thing,
Speaker 1: noting in writing quote these circles, or rather these spaces,
Speaker 1: for it is of no importance what figure they are of,
Speaker 1: are extremely commodious for facilitating our reflections on this subject,
Speaker 1: and for unfolding all the boasted mysteries of logic which
Speaker 1: that art finds it so difficult to explain. Whereas by
Speaker 1: means of these signs, the whole is rendered sensible to
Speaker 1: the eye. We may employ, then spaces formed at pleasure
Speaker 1: to represent every general notion. And Euler's diagrams were well
Speaker 1: known in his time, although he wasn't applying mathematics or
Speaker 1: specifically algebra to them the way that then eventually would.
Speaker 1: They were just ways of grouping ideas. There were other
Speaker 1: mathematicians and logicians who worked in the manipulation of visual
Speaker 1: diagrams to work out logic, both numerical and theoretical, but
Speaker 1: John Ben's criticism of those who had come before led
Speaker 1: him to work out his approach. He wrote, for example,
Speaker 1: of Uller's work that it wasn't robust enough, stating quote,
Speaker 1: any system which merely exhibits the mutual relations of two
Speaker 1: classes to one another is not general enough. We must
Speaker 1: provide a place and a notation for the various combinations
Speaker 1: which arise from considering three, four or more classes. In fact,
Speaker 1: we must be prepared for a complete generalization. Ben also
Speaker 1: created way more complex diagrams than just two and three
Speaker 1: circle ones, and some of those are developing ideas put
Speaker 1: forth by the other two men we just talked about.
Speaker 1: Ben's book Symbolic Logic was also a defense and expansion
Speaker 1: of the work of George Boole, who had died twelve
Speaker 1: years earlier at the age of forty nine, and specifically
Speaker 1: his approach to algebraic mathematical logic. Boolean algebra represents relationships
Speaker 1: tween objects or ideas, so it works differently than ordinary algebra.
Speaker 1: For example, it doesn't require numeric quantities, but it can
Speaker 1: operate with variables like truth or falsehood. Boolean algebra is
Speaker 1: important because it's the foundation of things like probability and
Speaker 1: geometry of sets, but perhaps mostly so because in modern
Speaker 1: daily life it has impacted the way computer circuits are designed.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty three, Ben decided to resign from his
Speaker 1: position as an Anglican clergyman. He'd come to the decision
Speaker 1: that Anglicanism didn't really align with his beliefs anymore, although
Speaker 1: he did continue to be a part of the Church.
Speaker 1: According to an account written by his son Quote, it
Speaker 1: had long ceased to be regarded as an anomaly for
Speaker 1: a clergyman to preach the then circumscribed evangelical creed and,
Speaker 1: at the same time, without the slightest insincerity, to devote
Speaker 1: himself actively to philosophical studies, yet finding himself still less
Speaker 1: in sympathy with the orthodox clerical outlook, then availed himself
Speaker 1: of the clerical disabilities Act of a naturally speculative frame
Speaker 1: of mind. He was wont to say later that, owing
Speaker 1: to subsequent change and accepted opinion regarding the thirty nine articles,
Speaker 1: he could consistently have retained his orders. He remained, indeed
Speaker 1: throughout his life a man of sincere religious conviction. That
Speaker 1: same year, also eighteen eighty three, John Vin was elected
Speaker 1: to the Royal Society, and he received his science doctorate
Speaker 1: from Cambridge. Six years after these events, in eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: he published The Principles of Empirical or Inductive Logic, and
Speaker 1: the opening of the Principles makes clear that ven has
Speaker 1: been troubled by the way concepts of logic have been
Speaker 1: poorly defined in communication about them, and that not practicing
Speaker 1: clear establishing rules regarding logic arguments have hurt the field overall.
Speaker 1: This kind of a long quote, but I want to
Speaker 1: include it because it gives you grit insight into the
Speaker 1: way he thinks about things. Quote. Since logic, as conceived
Speaker 1: and expounded in this work is not an ultimate science
Speaker 1: in the sense of being concerned directly with really first
Speaker 1: principles of any kind, we find ourselves obliged, on a
Speaker 1: general survey of our province, to take for granted that
Speaker 1: a great deal has already been decided for us in
Speaker 1: various directions. In other words, we have to demand a
Speaker 1: variety of postulates, drawn partly from the region of metaphysics,
Speaker 1: partly from those of psychology, physical science, grammar, and so forth.
Speaker 1: Some of these postulates will be readily accepted. Others will
Speaker 1: be admitted by those who have had any philosophic training.
Speaker 1: Some might take it have hardly yet been duly appreciated
Speaker 1: or even recognized. This being so, it would seem convenient
Speaker 1: that the more important of these postulates should be prominently
Speaker 1: and definitely stated at the outset. For one reason or another, however,
Speaker 1: such a course seems seldom adopted, and the result has
Speaker 1: been disadvantageous in more ways than one. This neglect to
Speaker 1: state the postulates has, for instance, brought down upon the
Speaker 1: logician charges of inconsistency and shortsightedness, which might as fairly
Speaker 1: be brought against the representatives of most other sciences, but
Speaker 1: which sounded damaging when he had to meet them alone.
Speaker 1: It has also tended, as I shall trust to show
Speaker 1: in the sequel, to encourage mistaken views as to the
Speaker 1: functions and province of the science. Whilst the general objections
Speaker 1: to such an emission on the grounds of method are
Speaker 1: too obvious to need reinforcement. In a moment, we'll discuss
Speaker 1: how Ven seemed to sort of turn on a dime
Speaker 1: in terms of his interests and projects in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties. First, though, we'll hear from the sponsors that
Speaker 1: keep the show going. So before the break, we mentioned
Speaker 1: that in eighteen eighty nine John Ven published The Principles
Speaker 1: of Empirical or Inductive Life, and even before that in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, as he was working on the book,
Speaker 1: then seemed to have decided that it was going to
Speaker 1: be his last work in logic and probability theory, because
Speaker 1: he donated all of his personal Library on those subjects
Speaker 1: to the Cambridge University Library and after that then ventured
Speaker 1: into publishing non mathematical works at the end of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, although they were books related to his work
Speaker 1: in education. He published The Biographical History of Gonville and
Speaker 1: Keys College thirteen forty nine to eighteen ninety seven in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety seven. This was a four volume project and
Speaker 1: it included portraits of various people related to the school's history,
Speaker 1: as well as additional illustrations. He also wrote an entry
Speaker 1: for the Cambridge College series titled Simply Gonvillin Keys College.
Speaker 1: Ben wrote several books that mentioned Keys, including Early Collegiate Life,
Speaker 1: which walked through some accounts of what it was like
Speaker 1: in its early days, laid out as narrative sketches. The
Speaker 1: published lists of students who had been admitted to the
Speaker 1: college in the fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds. Then worked
Speaker 1: with his son John Archibald to assemble a list of
Speaker 1: Cambridge alumni, which was also published as Alumni Cantabrigenses. This
Speaker 1: included biographies of students and graduates, and it chronicle things
Speaker 1: like students who had held offices in various organizations. An
Speaker 1: unnamed colleague was quoted in Ven's obituary as saying, quote,
Speaker 1: it is difficult for anyone who has not seen the
Speaker 1: work in its making to realize the immense amount of
Speaker 1: research involved in this great undertaking. Apparently, Ven's research for
Speaker 1: this book involved going through the archives and records of
Speaker 1: not just the school, but also various churches to correctly
Speaker 1: list all of the available details of each alumnus's life.
Speaker 1: Like he would go to an alumnus's hometown church and
Speaker 1: go through all of their records and do that for
Speaker 1: all of these people on this list. It was like
Speaker 1: he must have loved research. An obituary for Ben that
Speaker 1: appeared in the British Medical Journal described his output about
Speaker 1: Keys this way quote. The works which he wrote about
Speaker 1: the college are somewhat voluminous and are characterized by thoroughness,
Speaker 1: but are for the most part full of human interest.
Speaker 1: As a rule, they are pleasant reading, though in parts
Speaker 1: they are necessarily statistical statistics. Asie, he clearly had a
Speaker 1: deep love for the school, where he had been both
Speaker 1: a student and a teacher, and his dedication was recognized.
Speaker 1: He was made president of Gonville and Keys College in
Speaker 1: nineteen oh three. In nineteen oh nine, there is this
Speaker 1: wonderful and curious moment in Ven's life story, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about it kind of to a disproportionate
Speaker 1: amount because it is one of those things that is
Speaker 1: both charming and surprising, but it also shows how broad
Speaker 1: the interests of his life were. He invented a bowling machine,
Speaker 1: not in the sense of the sport of bowling that
Speaker 1: we know it today in the US, but bowling as
Speaker 1: it relates to cricket. So for our listeners who are
Speaker 1: more familiar with baseball, bowling is similar to pitching. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry for any cricket officionados who are like, it's much
Speaker 1: more complex and nuanced than that. We're just going for
Speaker 1: wide strokes here. According to the saffron Walden Weekly News
Speaker 1: from June eleventh, nineteen oh nine, quote, the preliminary of
Speaker 1: what promises to be a sensation in the cricket world
Speaker 1: took place on Fenners on Thursday week. Doctor Vin, president
Speaker 1: of Keyes College, who is a Fellow of the Royal
Speaker 1: Society and a Doctor of Science, has, in conjunction with
Speaker 1: his son mister Javen, invented and patented a bowling machine
Speaker 1: which in all probability will supersede the drudgery of bowling
Speaker 1: at the practice nets. At the event mentioned in the article,
Speaker 1: a number of cricketers visiting from Australia were able to
Speaker 1: observe and test this machine, and they found it to
Speaker 1: be quite impressive. The write up continues, quote the mission
Speaker 1: can bowl any kind of ball at any variation of
Speaker 1: pace or length, and can produce a deadly break either
Speaker 1: from the leg or off side of the wicket. Batsman
Speaker 1: wishing to practice any particular kind of stroke or perfect
Speaker 1: himself in dealing with any kind of ball, may set
Speaker 1: the machine up at one end of the pitch and
Speaker 1: practice to his heart's content. And the Australians found it
Speaker 1: to be formidable. Apparently it got the better of one
Speaker 1: of their star players. Yes, some descriptions of this suggest
Speaker 1: that this was kind of a feather in the cap
Speaker 1: of England in terms of cricket reputation, to have vested
Speaker 1: the Australians with a machine made by an Englishman. This
Speaker 1: article describes the machine's design, noting that quote it is
Speaker 1: not beautiful to look at, but its utility seems to
Speaker 1: be undeniable, and it notes quote above, an ungainly base
Speaker 1: equipped with strong springs and cords towers a gaunt iron
Speaker 1: arm having at its summit a grip of four fingers
Speaker 1: which rotate in either direction. The article also mentions that
Speaker 1: people had been trying to invent a bowling machine for
Speaker 1: cricket practice for quite a while, but no one had
Speaker 1: been able to create one that could consistently deliver the
Speaker 1: wide array of pitches that a human could until the
Speaker 1: VENs did it. And they had, according to the paper,
Speaker 1: patented this machine in England, the US and Australia. So
Speaker 1: it seemed like they might be on the verge of
Speaker 1: a huge business opportunity, but that didn't happen. We're going
Speaker 1: to loop back to this machine in just a bit.
Speaker 1: Van wrote a biography of the school's second founder, titled
Speaker 1: John Keyes, which was published in nineteen ten for Keys's
Speaker 1: four hundredth birthday. John ven died on April fourth, nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty three, at the age of eighty nine. He had
Speaker 1: served as president of Gonville and Keys College right up
Speaker 1: until his death. To his last day, he had, according
Speaker 1: to the British Medical Journal obituary we mentioned earlier quote,
Speaker 1: retained to the full his clearness of mind and much
Speaker 1: of his activity of body. He was always willing to
Speaker 1: place his great store of knowledge at the disposal of others.
Speaker 1: His Royal Society obituary described then in his last years
Speaker 1: this way and it's quite charming, and the way I
Speaker 1: would love to be described one day quote A good
Speaker 1: field botanist, a bit of a mountaineer, a craftsman, and
Speaker 1: with a gift of dry humor. Then lived his long
Speaker 1: life to the full. Age treated him kindly, an active
Speaker 1: spare man. He retained his sprightly walk and his interest
Speaker 1: in work and play until the end. John's wife, Susannah,
Speaker 1: died eight years after him. John Archibald Ben continued publishing
Speaker 1: updates to the Cambridge Alumnilist after his father died for
Speaker 1: another thirty one years. The younger Van also followed in
Speaker 1: his father's footsteps in terms of academic leadership roles. He
Speaker 1: became president of Queen's College in nineteen thirty two, and
Speaker 1: like his father, worked until his death. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Hull Drypool Bridge got a makeover inspired by its famous
Speaker 1: logician historian. This was a pricey public art project. It
Speaker 1: cost or reported three hundred twenty five thousand pounds. Artist
Speaker 1: Sarah Daniels designed the artwork that adorns the bridge, which
Speaker 1: features interlocking circles in shades of yellow that repeat in
Speaker 1: a large scale pattern. Two reference, of course ven diagrams,
Speaker 1: and recently. That bowling machine was in the news in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty four, so just a little more
Speaker 1: than a month ago if you're listening to this. Around
Speaker 1: the time it's published, a whole slew of articles ran
Speaker 1: about a project headed up by Hugh Hunt, professor of Engineering,
Speaker 1: Dynamics and Vibration at Cambridge. Hunt was driven by the
Speaker 1: idea of showing what he called John Ven's quirky side,
Speaker 1: and by the desire to show students that mathematics and
Speaker 1: fun can absolutely mix. Hunt and his colleagues had only
Speaker 1: a photograph from when the machine was originally built in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds and a patent application to work
Speaker 1: from the head of Design at the Cambridge Engineering Department,
Speaker 1: Thomas Glenday led a group of engineers through the process
Speaker 1: of figuring out exactly how this machine worked and building
Speaker 1: it at one fifth scale to see if they had
Speaker 1: the details right. Since patent applications in their diagrams they're
Speaker 1: all about the concept rather than the technicality. The team
Speaker 1: had to do a lot of work to just re
Speaker 1: engineer this bowler, but they did. They tweaked the elements
Speaker 1: that weren't working on this miniature version before they built
Speaker 1: a full scale one, and that one works. Yeah. As
Speaker 1: of last month, I know there was at least one
Speaker 1: event where it was. I think it was at the
Speaker 1: Essex County Cricket Club where they were doing a presentation
Speaker 1: about it. I hope it gets put on display somewhere
Speaker 1: because it's a really cool idea to build an invention
Speaker 1: that somebody else made and that you have to figure
Speaker 1: out how it actually worked. So that is our discussion
Speaker 1: on John Benn, which I love because he's so much
Speaker 1: more than the diagrams, and even the diagrams are so
Speaker 1: much more than the way we usually hear or know
Speaker 1: about them. So yeah, I always like a little expansion
Speaker 1: of knowledge. I have a very very cute listener mail
Speaker 1: from our listener Don. The cute part is the picture.
Speaker 1: Don writes, good day, Holly and Tracy. I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to your episode on historical roads and Highways. I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to go to Italy in twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: with my mother and my sister. We drove the Autostrata,
Speaker 1: both to Florence and again to Storo, where we have family.
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe how large the rest stops were, with
Speaker 1: gas stations on both sides that often had a bridge
Speaker 1: across the highway to access the auto grill on either side.
Speaker 1: So convenient when you're driving either direction and need to
Speaker 1: stop for gas and food. The Church of the Autostrata
Speaker 1: seems so out of place, but knowing its history, it
Speaker 1: is in the perfect location. The toll system is not
Speaker 1: something I'd dealt with before, and we always held onto
Speaker 1: any change we got when shopping so we'd have enough
Speaker 1: on hand for the toll boosts that are throughout the Audustrata.
Speaker 1: I have attached a picture of my daughter's dog, Leo.
Speaker 1: He is very attached to me and I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what I will do when my daughter is ready to
Speaker 1: move out. Thank you for your wonderful work done. This
Speaker 1: dog is so cute. He's a little terrier. It looks
Speaker 1: like maybe a Yorkie maybe a little Yorky mix, and
Speaker 1: it's just one of those pictures where you just know
Speaker 1: he is curled up right next to her and just
Speaker 1: wants love and attention, and he's very cute. Those eyes
Speaker 1: Man dogs get me every time. I know all of
Speaker 1: this talk of the autostrata makes me want to go
Speaker 1: back to Italy sooner rather than later, So let's do that.
Speaker 1: You can write us if you have any email thoughts
Speaker 1: you'd like to share at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to subscribe and you haven't gotten
Speaker 1: around to that yet, you can do that easiest pie
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