Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Humans are curious by nature. We're driven to
Speaker 1: explore our world and challenge what we know about our existence.
Speaker 1: Through the centuries, we've charted lands and oceans. We've invented
Speaker 1: and built a wide array of transportation methods to take
Speaker 1: us too far away places, and not just horizontal travel.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty three, two men reached the summit of
Speaker 1: Mount Everest, and in recent years we sent humans in
Speaker 1: submersibles through the Pacific Oceans, Mariana Trench, and then there's space.
Speaker 1: We've been to the Moon and landed probes on Mars.
Speaker 1: Despite the jokes, the moon is not made of cheese,
Speaker 1: although the ancient Greeks did exile a philosopher for believing
Speaker 1: the Moon was just a giant rock and not a god,
Speaker 1: which reminds me we've believed a lot of crazy things
Speaker 1: about the Earth over the years, and it's taken centuries
Speaker 1: to dispel a lot of those notions. But in early
Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds of America, we were still exploring and had
Speaker 1: a lot of questions. Curiosity is a good thing, after all.
Speaker 1: Captain John Cleaves Simes, Jr. Was a military captain who
Speaker 1: had served in the War of eighteen twelve. He was
Speaker 1: well educated and well read, but of all the subjects
Speaker 1: he had studied, the one that interested him the most
Speaker 1: was the Earth. He wasn't a scientist by any means,
Speaker 1: although he had a few theories about our planet and
Speaker 1: he thought we should explore them. He published a Pamplet's
Speaker 1: explaining his theories in detail, and had five hundred copies made.
Speaker 1: Then he toured the United States and handed them out
Speaker 1: to scientists and politicians during his lectures. His theories were
Speaker 1: met with plenty of skepticism, and he turned to his
Speaker 1: societal connections to give him some credibility. He held a
Speaker 1: fundraiser for an expedition to the North Pole. If there
Speaker 1: was proper funding, he proposed explorers would bring back all
Speaker 1: the proof necessary to back up his claims, and soon
Speaker 1: enough he caught the attention of one politician in particular,
Speaker 1: who had enough power to make his dream of exploration
Speaker 1: a reality, President John Quincy Adams. During his presidency, Adams
Speaker 1: established the Naval Observatory in Washington, d c. Which had
Speaker 1: drawn considerable ridicule. He had also been instrumental in establishing
Speaker 1: the Smithsonian Institute. John Quincy was the eldest son of
Speaker 1: John Adams, the second President of the United States. Considered
Speaker 1: highly intelligence, he had attended top schools all over Europe,
Speaker 1: eventually earning ad mission at Harvard, where he situated at
Speaker 1: the top of his class. And as a side note,
Speaker 1: Adams also loved to skinny dip and regularly swam nude
Speaker 1: in the Potomac River. It has no connection to our story,
Speaker 1: but if that little fact has to live inside my head,
Speaker 1: it gets to live inside yours as well. Like Simes,
Speaker 1: Adams loved the thrill of discovery and presented the project
Speaker 1: to Congress, but Congress didn't see the value in spending
Speaker 1: taxpayer dollars for such an endeavor, calling it ludicrous. At
Speaker 1: the time, though presidents didn't need as much approval, and
Speaker 1: Adams overrode Congress and back simes proposal anyway. Simes believed
Speaker 1: that the North and South Poles had deep caves and
Speaker 1: he wanted to explore them. He estimated that one men
Speaker 1: would be sufficient to carry out the study. At the time,
Speaker 1: no one knew what minerals or metals they might find
Speaker 1: along the way. But jun Quincy Adams didn't remain in
Speaker 1: office long, just one term. The next President, Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 1: had agreed with Congress that simes theories were ridiculous, and
Speaker 1: once he was an power he immediately canceled the project.
Speaker 1: By then, however, Sim's health had begun to fail and
Speaker 1: he was never able to garner attention for his theories. Again,
Speaker 1: well that's not exactly true. He may have inspired science
Speaker 1: fiction writers years later, and what exploration had the sixth
Speaker 1: President of the United States authorized a journey to the
Speaker 1: center of the Earth. You see, while both Symmes and
Speaker 1: Adams knew the Earth was round, they also believed that
Speaker 1: it was hollow. When we think of brilliant minds, we
Speaker 1: think of people like Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie, and
Speaker 1: Alan Turing, innovators who changed art, science, and every other
Speaker 1: way we understand our world. One mind, however, stands out
Speaker 1: as one of the greatest in his field. Albert Einstein
Speaker 1: was a man who was widely considered one of the
Speaker 1: most brilliant physicists who have ever lived. Just a mention
Speaker 1: of his name and one cannot help but think of
Speaker 1: his theory of relativity. He equals mc squared, an equation
Speaker 1: that everyone knows, but few actually understand. However, Einstein did
Speaker 1: quite a bit of work before that. One of his
Speaker 1: earliest papers was written on the topic of capillary action.
Speaker 1: Anyone who has dipped a washcloth into a puddle of
Speaker 1: water and watched the liquid creep upward has witnessed capillarity.
Speaker 1: It's also called wicking, name for what happens when hot
Speaker 1: wax moved toward a lit candle. Wick Einstein's article on
Speaker 1: it was published in nineteen o one, and it explained
Speaker 1: his theory that a force like gravity was what attracted
Speaker 1: the water molecules up the sides of a tube. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: his paper wasn't accurate, but it did set the stage
Speaker 1: for a breakthrough yet to come. Later. In nineteen oh five,
Speaker 1: Einstein t hackled the concept that had stumped English botanist
Speaker 1: Robert Brown a few decades earlier. Back in seven, Round
Speaker 1: had placed to drop of dust filled water beneath his
Speaker 1: microscope and noticed something odd. The bits of dust in
Speaker 1: the droplet were moving all over the place, shivering randomly.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until Einstein revisited Brown's observations for his own
Speaker 1: paper that he found an explanation. The dust wasn't shaking
Speaker 1: on its own. It was being pushed around the water
Speaker 1: by molecules that were invisible to the naked eye. Though
Speaker 1: the molecules would jostle the dust grains on all sides
Speaker 1: equally most of the time, they could also bump them
Speaker 1: from one side without warning, sending them careening elsewhere. And
Speaker 1: although it was Einstein who had uncovered the truth, today
Speaker 1: the concept is known as Brownie in motion. But Einstein
Speaker 1: didn't sit still. He continued to research and analyze for
Speaker 1: the next fifty years. For example, in nineteen seventeen, he'd
Speaker 1: been theorizing about something he called spontaneous emission. It was
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that occurred when an atom charged with photons
Speaker 1: left its high energy state by emitting those photons, which
Speaker 1: dropped into a low energy state. The process also worked
Speaker 1: the other way around, too, with low energy atoms absorbing
Speaker 1: photons to advance to a higher energy state. But Einstein
Speaker 1: had a problem. He wanted to accurately calculate the kind
Speaker 1: of radiation these atoms gave off, but other physicists were
Speaker 1: finding vastly different results in their own experiments. So Einstein
Speaker 1: went back to the drawing board. He looked at his
Speaker 1: formulas and hypothesized that photons moved together when they were
Speaker 1: in the same state. If the photons traveled in one formation,
Speaker 1: then a high energy atom would emit its own photon
Speaker 1: in the same direction. That had been the missing piece
Speaker 1: of the puzzle, and so Einstein changed his theory from
Speaker 1: spontaneous emission to stimulated emission. Thirty years later, when physicists
Speaker 1: used mirrors to reflect a stream of photons, they called
Speaker 1: their discovery this light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
Speaker 1: in honor of Einstein's paper, But that name was just
Speaker 1: too long for normal conversation, so they simply shortened it
Speaker 1: to laser, and those lasers are now used in military weapons,
Speaker 1: DVD players, and even toys that we can annoy our
Speaker 1: cats with. As for his work on Brownie and motion, well,
Speaker 1: it's been used to analyze how stock market prices change
Speaker 1: over time and to predict the performance of markets around
Speaker 1: the world, and six years after publishing his article on
Speaker 1: capillary action, it found its own real world application. A
Speaker 1: company from Pennsylvania had been looking for an alternative to
Speaker 1: cloth towels, which often became home to mold and disease
Speaker 1: from frequent use. What the company eventually produced was disposable, inexpensive,
Speaker 1: and absorbent. The Scott Paper Company unveiled their new paper
Speaker 1: towels in nineteen o seven, and ever since, Einstein's theory
Speaker 1: of capillarity is used every time someone needs to clean
Speaker 1: up a big spill. Sure, Albert Einstein knew a lot
Speaker 1: about the speed of light and theoretical physics, but he
Speaker 1: also contributed to some of the most important scientific discoveries
Speaker 1: in history. He may well have run into a few
Speaker 1: bumps along the way, but he wasn't the kind of
Speaker 1: guy to cry over spilt milk, because if he did,
Speaker 1: he knew he had the perfect tool to mop it
Speaker 1: right up. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works, I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.