Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Will? I was reading this
Speaker 1: whole story about a bank robbery that happened in so
Speaker 1: this guy walks into two banks, one after the other.
Speaker 1: He has no mask and no face cover. I mean,
Speaker 1: it didn't seem like he was trying to hide himself.
Speaker 1: And he gets caught on camera pretty clearly, and so
Speaker 1: obviously he's apprehended not long after that. But the weird
Speaker 1: thing is when the cops come fromm he was totally baffled. Well,
Speaker 1: he kept saying, I was wearing the juice. The juice, Well,
Speaker 1: apparently he poured lemon juice all over his face because
Speaker 1: he knew it could be used as this invisible ink
Speaker 1: for writing. And the poor guy, he was really bewildered
Speaker 1: because he said he tested it out, and the cops
Speaker 1: pressed him for details, and he said the lemon juice
Speaker 1: had gotten in his eyes the first time when he
Speaker 1: poured it all over his face, and then he took
Speaker 1: a selfie to see if it had worked. And the
Speaker 1: combination of squinting and not being accustomed to taking his
Speaker 1: own photo, I mean, this this was well, it made
Speaker 1: him take a photograph that he wasn't in and he
Speaker 1: just believed that he was invisible. I know you almost
Speaker 1: feel bad for the guy, but you know, reading up
Speaker 1: on his invisible face juice made me wonder what is
Speaker 1: the science of invisibility and what are some of the
Speaker 1: things going on that we can't see? And where is
Speaker 1: my invisibility cloak? So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh, I'll
Speaker 1: Ticketer and over there on the other side of the
Speaker 1: glass with the biggest smile that you can't see is
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil, our producer, And on today's show, we're taking
Speaker 1: a WorldWind tour of our invisible world and trying to
Speaker 1: get a better grasp of all things unseen. You know,
Speaker 1: the idea of invisibility is fascinated mankind for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: It's parts of our myths and our folklore and pop
Speaker 1: culture and even our psychology. Of course, there are lots
Speaker 1: of different kinds of invisibility, so this will be a
Speaker 1: super fun Hodgepodge episode where we cover as much as possible.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to a couple of insightful authors who have
Speaker 1: devoted years of study to stuff we can't see. So
Speaker 1: who do we have on the line today, Mango, Today
Speaker 1: we're talking to Bob Berman, one of America's top astronomy
Speaker 1: writers and author of a brand new book about the
Speaker 1: curious history of invisible light. It's called Zapped, and it's
Speaker 1: incredible and we'll have some wonderful quizzes along the way
Speaker 1: as usual. All right, So, in honor of Bob's new book,
Speaker 1: I want to dive straight into the science and talk
Speaker 1: about light, and more specifically invisible light. You know, obviously
Speaker 1: there are large portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that we
Speaker 1: have no trouble observing, but there's also a huge part
Speaker 1: that's totally invisible to us. That's the part that includes
Speaker 1: things like ultra violet light and for red light, radio waves, microwaves,
Speaker 1: X rays, gamma raves, you know, all that good stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I always knew there were parts of the
Speaker 1: spectrum beyond our range of vision, just like you know
Speaker 1: there's sounds outside the limits of human hearing. But reading
Speaker 1: Bob's book put the vastness of light in a completely
Speaker 1: new perspective for me, and it really blew me away.
Speaker 1: So Burman rights, there's more light in the universe than
Speaker 1: anything else. So if you were to add up every
Speaker 1: individual light photon in the cosmos, they would account for
Speaker 1: nine point of everything there is. And those forms of
Speaker 1: invisible light you listed off, that actually makes up the
Speaker 1: vast majority of the light. I actually can't wrap my
Speaker 1: head around that fact that it seems unbelievable, but you know,
Speaker 1: our eyes are designed to recognize only the Sun's most
Speaker 1: abundant energy, so we really can only see the colors
Speaker 1: that the Sun emits most strongly. And even though the
Speaker 1: whole universe is light, the bulk of it, it's completely
Speaker 1: invisible to us. We've actually figured out all kinds of
Speaker 1: ingenious ways to measure and observe forms of invisible light.
Speaker 1: And one of the most interesting things I came across
Speaker 1: while prepping for this episode was the way human observation
Speaker 1: actually affects the behavior of light. All right, well, I
Speaker 1: think this is pretty complicated, so why don't you break
Speaker 1: it down a little. Well. When quantum theory became all
Speaker 1: the rage in the twentieth century, scientists started noticing something
Speaker 1: super weird. They found that when they use special equipment
Speaker 1: to pinpoint the location of photons, these tiny bits of
Speaker 1: matter always behaved as particles. For example, they could pass
Speaker 1: through one tiny hole or another in a barrier, but
Speaker 1: not through both holes at once. All right, so far,
Speaker 1: so good, and particles do what particles do that. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything weird about that, right, But the
Speaker 1: scientists also discovered that when they didn't try to determine
Speaker 1: the exact location of each photon, the photons behaved as
Speaker 1: waves instead of particles. So the photons were then able
Speaker 1: to pass through both tiny holes in a barrier at
Speaker 1: the same time. And that's something that only waves can do,
Speaker 1: not particles. Okay, alright, I spoke through soon. That's really weird.
Speaker 1: And so you're saying that light, photons and other sub
Speaker 1: atomic matter act like particles, you know, when they know
Speaker 1: we're watching, and then like waves when they know we
Speaker 1: aren't looking. Yeah, it's something like that. So obviously the
Speaker 1: photons themselves aren't aware of us watching them, but they
Speaker 1: definitely seem to act differently based on how closely we
Speaker 1: observe them. And the best explanation, at least according to
Speaker 1: most physicists, is that when we look closely, our brains
Speaker 1: halt the wave pattern so that we can see the
Speaker 1: photon in a certain place as a particle. It just
Speaker 1: makes us feel better that way. That's really insane, all right,
Speaker 1: So where does that leave us? Does light exists as
Speaker 1: a wave or as tiny bits of almost invisible matter? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's both. So Bob Berman sums up the paradox this way,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to quote him here. He says, just
Speaker 1: a century ago, the local realism mindset of science and
Speaker 1: even common sense held that all objects, including atoms and photons,
Speaker 1: have an existence independent of our observation of them. But
Speaker 1: that's been replaced by a more modern view that our
Speaker 1: observation itself is necessary for the very existence of a
Speaker 1: photon or an electron. A spooky prospect, no kidding. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he continues, it possessed no real existence as an
Speaker 1: actual photon or electron or whatever it was. Rather, it's
Speaker 1: observed existence is it's only existence. The observation establishes reality,
Speaker 1: nothing else is certain. That's pretty trippy. Yeah, the stuff
Speaker 1: feels so philosophical, and especially when you go from a
Speaker 1: micro perspective to a macro one, because just like with photons,
Speaker 1: the color and brightness of light doesn't exist outside the
Speaker 1: experience of the observer. We only see light as a
Speaker 1: certain color because of how it stimulates the cones in
Speaker 1: our eyes and how our brain interprets those signals. Well,
Speaker 1: that's a good point, but it's also kind of a
Speaker 1: terrifying mean. It means the external world is really just
Speaker 1: as invisible as a UV ray, because outside of human observation,
Speaker 1: there is no color or brightness. It's just this mix
Speaker 1: of different invisible energy pulses. Actually, by the way, that
Speaker 1: this is off topic, but did you read about the
Speaker 1: women that supposedly have four cones in their eyes instead
Speaker 1: of three, and as a result, they can see hundreds
Speaker 1: of millions of color. That's a wild Yeah, they're called tetrachromats.
Speaker 1: But baby, we're clinging too tightly to the human experience.
Speaker 1: And you know, I actually did some digging to see
Speaker 1: if there were any animals whose vision best ours in
Speaker 1: terms of light perception, and it turns out there quite
Speaker 1: a few that put the invisible spectrum to pretty good use. Awesome,
Speaker 1: So give me the load down. Well, one case where
Speaker 1: plenty of animals have a speed is the ability to
Speaker 1: perceive ultra violet light. Invisible UV radiation is all around us.
Speaker 1: And while it's useful for getting a golden tan, it's
Speaker 1: also a menace because exposure to it can lead to
Speaker 1: melanoma and other illnesses. But that hasn't stopped some animals
Speaker 1: from making the most of UV light. There's some species
Speaker 1: of birds that have plumage that you know, to our
Speaker 1: eyes look the same between males and females. But if
Speaker 1: your vision allows you to see the UV range like
Speaker 1: those birds are able to see it, you know you'd
Speaker 1: be able to make out the uvy markings that distinguish them.
Speaker 1: So those markings make it easier for the birds to
Speaker 1: find a meh definitely, but that's actually only part of it.
Speaker 1: Some other birds determine which chicks to feed based on
Speaker 1: how much UV light you know their heads reflect. For
Speaker 1: whatever reason, the heartier birds tend to have a shinier
Speaker 1: crest than their weaker siblings, so when the mama bird
Speaker 1: has limited food to share, she'll go with whomever has
Speaker 1: the most shine. There's also the fact that urine and
Speaker 1: feces of mice and other small prey are visible in
Speaker 1: the ultraviolet range, so birds that are sensitive to UV
Speaker 1: light can use these traces to track their prey even
Speaker 1: in a place where everything is uniform in color, you know,
Speaker 1: like a green field or something like that. But you know,
Speaker 1: birds aren't the only ones that can do this. You
Speaker 1: have rodents and bats and even some marsupials that can
Speaker 1: see UV light for similar reasons. So I actually think
Speaker 1: I read something about butterflies also having great ev perception,
Speaker 1: and I think they use it to identify which flowers
Speaker 1: are currently producing nectar based on the color of the
Speaker 1: petals or something. Well, yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that,
Speaker 1: because butterflies with a high sensitivity light are often considered
Speaker 1: to have the widest visual range of any form of wildlife.
Speaker 1: It's crazy the invisible world might be the most visible
Speaker 1: to butterflies of all things. But before we move on,
Speaker 1: there's one last animal I want to talk about, and
Speaker 1: that's the reindeer. So I'm sure there's a Rudolph joke
Speaker 1: in here somewhere, but not telling reindeer can see ev risk. Well,
Speaker 1: it sounds strange at first, but reindeer of evolved to
Speaker 1: take full advantage of the ultraviolet range. And they're not
Speaker 1: the only ones. There are other Arctic mammals who make
Speaker 1: their home at the Earth's polls, and they have to
Speaker 1: deal with much higher levels of UV light. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: thinning ozone layer doesn't block as many rays as it
Speaker 1: used to, especially in those upper latitudes. Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: there was this study of the University College of London
Speaker 1: and the University of Tromso in Norway, and they found
Speaker 1: evidence that not only a reindeer resistant eye damage from
Speaker 1: intense UV rays, they're also able to see UV light
Speaker 1: and this helps them find food and avoid predators. And
Speaker 1: in the winter, reindeer primarily do two things. They eat
Speaker 1: lichen and they try to avoid being eaten by wolves.
Speaker 1: And wouldn't you know it, lichen and the fur of
Speaker 1: wolves both absorb UV light. So because snowy landscape strongly
Speaker 1: have reflect UV rays, you got reindeer that can spot
Speaker 1: lichen and wolves with ease. Yeah. That's really cool, And well,
Speaker 1: I think you and I could nerd out on reindeer
Speaker 1: facts for a while, Like how Norwegian scientists wanted to
Speaker 1: get closer to reindeers so they could study them better,
Speaker 1: So they wore polar bear costumes and did that work. No,
Speaker 1: not at all, like it's scared off the reindeer. But
Speaker 1: they also wrote a scientific paper on reindeers reactions to costumes,
Speaker 1: and we're hoping to redo the study with better costumes,
Speaker 1: like like a clown costume. I like how they just
Speaker 1: went off track there, Like that didn't work, So let's
Speaker 1: just do costumes. How about clowns? How about police officers?
Speaker 1: Science is great, but what I was saying was I
Speaker 1: think we should shift the topic a little. All right, well,
Speaker 1: what do you what do you want to talk about?
Speaker 1: Secret messages? So last year a group of scientists and
Speaker 1: friends developed a special kind of paper that can carry
Speaker 1: secret messages. It looks just like plain old paper, but
Speaker 1: you can use different wavelengths of UV light to read, write,
Speaker 1: or even erase the messages that can't be seen invisible light.
Speaker 1: So how does that work? So apparently the paper has
Speaker 1: this special kind of molecule bonded to its cellulose fibers
Speaker 1: that reacts and turns fluorescent when exposed to UV light.
Speaker 1: The idea is you can write messages on the paper
Speaker 1: using a stencil to produce dark and bright areas that
Speaker 1: react differently under the UV lamp. But the really cool
Speaker 1: thing is that the process is completely reversible. You can
Speaker 1: expose the used paper to a shorter wavelength of UV
Speaker 1: light that erases the message completely, and that way of
Speaker 1: paper can be used over and over. I mean, it
Speaker 1: is kind of cool, but what's the advantage over you know,
Speaker 1: the disappearing reappearing and visible length that our kids play
Speaker 1: with and stuff like that. So why is this better
Speaker 1: than that? So not only are the messages on this
Speaker 1: paper undetectable under visible light, they also can't be dissolved
Speaker 1: with other chemicals. So it's the super useful tool in
Speaker 1: anti counterfeiting and tracking operations. A good job, France, you know.
Speaker 1: I actually want to dive into some of the historical
Speaker 1: obsession with invisibility and the ridiculous potions humans used to make.
Speaker 1: But before we do that, how about we check in
Speaker 1: with Bob Burman and see if he can tell us
Speaker 1: a little about the cool properties of light and how
Speaker 1: humans have managed to turn something invisible to our advantage.
Speaker 1: So in this episode on All Things Invisible, we've been
Speaker 1: talking a little bit about this great book, Zapped, and
Speaker 1: we're really lucky to have one America's top astronomy writers
Speaker 1: on with us and the author of this book. It's
Speaker 1: Zapped From infrared to X rays, The Curious History of
Speaker 1: invisible Light. Bob Berman, Welcome to part time genius. Thank
Speaker 1: you great to be here. All right, well let's just
Speaker 1: start with the basics. So can you explain to us
Speaker 1: where light comes from. Well, all lights, except for gamma rays,
Speaker 1: comes from one source only, and that is atoms. If
Speaker 1: the atomy gets excited in any way, electricity, collisions, anything
Speaker 1: can may be excited, madam, so that the electrons are
Speaker 1: In the case of hydraten, it's only got one electron
Speaker 1: jumps to a higher orbit because it's excited. It really
Speaker 1: doesn't like to be there. So in a fraction of
Speaker 1: the second, it'll tumble down closer to its nucleus, and
Speaker 1: that is what causes any kind of light. And the
Speaker 1: distance that it tumbles down determines the color of the
Speaker 1: light and therefore whether it's visible or invisible. So I
Speaker 1: know you talk about this in your book, but what
Speaker 1: did ancient people think about light? And were they aware
Speaker 1: of invisible light? They felt about light as at first
Speaker 1: something that comes from the eye, and then later on
Speaker 1: as an interaction between a beam from the eye and
Speaker 1: external objects. So they got it wrong for a long time.
Speaker 1: They realized that it involves something very fast speed, but
Speaker 1: nothing more than that, and nobody foresaw invisible light until
Speaker 1: the time of the Renaissance of the Middle Ages. It
Speaker 1: was one of those things that no wise person or
Speaker 1: Greek philosopher, or scientists or religious order, nobody came up
Speaker 1: with the idea that there might be kinds of light
Speaker 1: out there that our eyes can't see well. In the Renaissance,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, you know, with this idea of invisible
Speaker 1: light being a possibility, how did this start to be discovered? Well,
Speaker 1: it's really William Herschel who found the first kind. He
Speaker 1: projected sunlight through a prism piece of cut glass onto
Speaker 1: a tabletop, so you had the whole rainbow of colors.
Speaker 1: And then he put a thermometer in each color, and
Speaker 1: he had other themometers on the side in the darkness
Speaker 1: to act as controls. And so he noticed that when
Speaker 1: the thermometer was in the blue or the green part
Speaker 1: of the spectrum, the temperature went up very little. In
Speaker 1: the yellow and went up more, and the red they
Speaker 1: went up still more. But then he took a break,
Speaker 1: and when he came back some minutes later, the sun
Speaker 1: had moved across the sky, so the spectrum on the
Speaker 1: table had shifted, and now his thermometer on the table
Speaker 1: was no longer in the visible light instead of was
Speaker 1: sitting in a spot of darkness outside of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: just beyond the red end of the spectrum. And he
Speaker 1: looked down on it, and now the thermometer was crazy.
Speaker 1: Who had it was registering much more heat than any
Speaker 1: color did. And so he repeated this and he realized
Speaker 1: that the blank spot beyond the red part of the
Speaker 1: spectrum was heat, was producing more heat. Well, he realized
Speaker 1: it had to be an invisible kind of light that
Speaker 1: was creating the heat. And he called these calorific rays.
Speaker 1: Later on we came to call it infrared. So that
Speaker 1: was the first kind of invisible light ever discovered. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1: And you also talked in the book about the discovery
Speaker 1: of of X rays and I'm curious what the you know,
Speaker 1: the public response was to this discovery. Well, X rays, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that changed the world too. That was Renkin, and he
Speaker 1: was boy. He had fame, and he would have had
Speaker 1: fortune too if he had patented it, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: Generously just allowed the world to use it, and almost
Speaker 1: right away people realized the value in medicine that you
Speaker 1: could use X rays and find a bullet wear a
Speaker 1: bullet was my body for someone who had been shot
Speaker 1: or were broken, bones were broken, And but nobody knew
Speaker 1: at the time that X rays also had a dark side,
Speaker 1: that it could produce harm as well as benefits. What
Speaker 1: new opportunities for the use of invisible light are the
Speaker 1: horizon and things like medicine or technology or culture, well
Speaker 1: everywhere you know, we use that more than visible light
Speaker 1: these days. Everybody knows about microwaves and used in for
Speaker 1: not just our ovens, but for broadcasting on the GPS
Speaker 1: signals that come down to us from the radio part
Speaker 1: of the spectrum. Really the microwave part of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: So whenever we use our GPS in our cars, or
Speaker 1: when when we're on a camping trip, or use our
Speaker 1: cell phones, those are all parts of the radio spectrum.
Speaker 1: And then we know about the infrared. We use heat labs,
Speaker 1: we use garage door openers, that are they're using infrared
Speaker 1: and ultra violet. That's boy, that's the one with the
Speaker 1: two edged sword. Ultra violet is both the most dangerous
Speaker 1: form and the most valuable for our health. And what
Speaker 1: makes UV rays so harmful to us, Well, they're the
Speaker 1: beginning of the part of the spectrum that has the
Speaker 1: power to ionize and others to strip electrons from adams
Speaker 1: and therefore to change genes, to change chromosomes, to alter DNA,
Speaker 1: and that could give rise to cancer, and it does
Speaker 1: the eight thousand or so melanoma deaths per year. Skin
Speaker 1: cancer are caused by generally too much UV, usually from
Speaker 1: from from a bad sudden burn in our youth. And uh,
Speaker 1: and that's why people nowadays know that they should be
Speaker 1: putting on sunscreen and wearing hats and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But bad thing has happened from that too, in that
Speaker 1: we've now blocked so much of the UV. That's strange
Speaker 1: things are happening to our bodies that that most even
Speaker 1: doctors are not aware of, although many are like like,
Speaker 1: like what you do have some examples of this? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and this has started. If I could give just a
Speaker 1: bit of background, There was a time, of course, when
Speaker 1: we were an agricultural society and we were out of
Speaker 1: doors a lot, and we got plenty of sunlight and
Speaker 1: therefore plenty of ultravolet, which is a few percent of
Speaker 1: the sunlight and stimulates our bodies to produce U V
Speaker 1: a vitamin D very quickly. That UV induced vitamin D
Speaker 1: is such a avalanchingly fast process that we get more
Speaker 1: U V from twenty minutes in the strong sunlight then
Speaker 1: you would from drinking two hundred glasses of milk. So
Speaker 1: somehow our bodies want lots of vitamin D production from UV.
Speaker 1: It's a natural thing. But as we moved indoors to
Speaker 1: be a manufacturing society, and then starting in the fifties
Speaker 1: and sixties had air conditioning so that we didn't have
Speaker 1: to open windows, and glass blocks UV and so it
Speaker 1: blocks the vitamin D production on our skin. And then
Speaker 1: worst of all, this is something that they Vitamin D
Speaker 1: Council talks about a lot because the doctors there, like
Speaker 1: John Cannell like are really getting frustrated with the fact
Speaker 1: that we've turned into kind of a race of of
Speaker 1: of mold people where we're blocking the sun entirely and
Speaker 1: not getting enough sunlight. They see it that it wasn't
Speaker 1: that many decades ago. The kids after school. Of course,
Speaker 1: during school they're not getting any UV and therefore not
Speaker 1: producing any vitamin D. But after school kids used to
Speaker 1: play outdoors and parents used to say, yeah, come back
Speaker 1: at dinner time, and between they'd be out doing whatever
Speaker 1: in the playground or climbing trees, and then that changed,
Speaker 1: so their UV levels in their and their blood has
Speaker 1: dropped to really, really low levels. So what does this
Speaker 1: do is turns out that u V is one of
Speaker 1: the strongest prevent ers of cancer. It stops cancers from growing,
Speaker 1: so when they're tiny, pre detectable tumors, they don't get
Speaker 1: any bigger. This year, for example, it was found that
Speaker 1: pancreatic cancer is prevented by by adequate vitamin D triggered
Speaker 1: by ultra violet light. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: health benefits also psychological benefits in terms of treatment for
Speaker 1: depression and and things like that. If you get enough
Speaker 1: sunlight induced h vitamin D, it's hard to strike that
Speaker 1: strike that perfect balance. Now you're so right. At the
Speaker 1: same time, you don't want to burn. So the people
Speaker 1: like Dr Canell in the Vitamin D Council, they say
Speaker 1: that we should get as much sun as we can
Speaker 1: without burning, because everybody is so different and how much
Speaker 1: sun they can handle before they start to burn. You know,
Speaker 1: blue eyed, blonde people tend to burn fast, and camp
Speaker 1: shouldn't get as much. Well, there are a thousand other
Speaker 1: questions we could ask. This such a fascinating book. I
Speaker 1: hope all of our listeners will check out zapp. But Bob,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius and we're talking about the peculiar allure
Speaker 1: of turning invisible, So mego. We mentioned at the top
Speaker 1: of the show that humans have been obsessed with the
Speaker 1: idea of invisibility from millennia, so I thought it might
Speaker 1: be fun to take a look at some of the
Speaker 1: weirdest attempts to go invisible that people have tried all
Speaker 1: over the years. Yeah, so I'm definitely game. I spent
Speaker 1: some time looking up medieval recipes and spells to turn
Speaker 1: yourself invisible, and as you might guess, they're insane. So
Speaker 1: one of my favorites is from the Ashmole, which is
Speaker 1: this anonymous fifteenth century manuscript that collected over a hundred
Speaker 1: eighty magical and magical recipes in English and Latin. So
Speaker 1: this is the invisibility spell. It goes, if you wish
Speaker 1: to be invisible, take a dead dog and bury it,
Speaker 1: and plant a bean plant over it, and place one
Speaker 1: in your mouth, and without a doubt you'll be invisible.
Speaker 1: That that's it. It's simple. It's like one of these
Speaker 1: great invisibility life hacks. But but don't worry. If you're
Speaker 1: fresh out of dead dogs or beans, there's another suggestion
Speaker 1: for you. Um this is also from the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1: Grind up an owl's eye with the ball of beetle
Speaker 1: dung and some olive oil and rub it all over
Speaker 1: your body. I like the addition of the olive oil,
Speaker 1: like weird stuff, and you just put some olive oil
Speaker 1: in there that I think I'd rather eat the dead
Speaker 1: dog being So why do they all have to be
Speaker 1: so gross? So most invisibility charms that ties to a
Speaker 1: cult practices so they tend to feature nasty ingredients like
Speaker 1: the ivan a for a heart of a bat or whatever.
Speaker 1: And one of them actually calls for the head of
Speaker 1: someone who committed suicide, but stuffed with fava beans. God,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine why any of these ingredients were
Speaker 1: picked to be the ones that would turn you invisible,
Speaker 1: But I don't know, and think about it. Might have
Speaker 1: something to do with our desire for power, which seems
Speaker 1: to be at the root of man's continuing quest for invisibility.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have stories going all the way back
Speaker 1: to antiquity that point to the dark side of going invisible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there are all kinds of myths and folk legends
Speaker 1: that warn about the corrupting power invisibility and how it
Speaker 1: can lead even the most pure of heart heroes into
Speaker 1: recklessness or voyeurism. And well, you know, these commonalities between
Speaker 1: fables from different cultures. I find these fascinating. In this case.
Speaker 1: They seem to suggest that we all know invisibility as
Speaker 1: a power that we probably shouldn't have, and you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't stop us from wanting it though. And in fact,
Speaker 1: the top two superpowers that people always cite is the
Speaker 1: ones they'd most like to have, are the ability to
Speaker 1: fly and the power to turn invisible. Yeah. So both
Speaker 1: of those provide the user a crazy amount of freedom,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why we find them appealing. You know,
Speaker 1: that could definitely be the case. But in keeping with
Speaker 1: the shady side of invisibility we've been talking about that
Speaker 1: there might be another explanation. And I couldn't find an
Speaker 1: actual psychological study of this, but there is some speculation
Speaker 1: about what the choice between flight and invisibility says about
Speaker 1: a person. William Barry was this psychotherapist and professor at
Speaker 1: Florida International University. He suggests that people who opt to
Speaker 1: go invisible are embracing their dark side, you know, the
Speaker 1: side of themselves that they typically don't like to acknowledge
Speaker 1: as being part of them. So this is the side
Speaker 1: of your psyche where all your most shameful thoughts and
Speaker 1: desires dwell. According to Barry, quote many of those who
Speaker 1: choose invisibility do so to hear what others say about
Speaker 1: them when they aren't around, or to spy on others,
Speaker 1: or to procure things that they don't have the money
Speaker 1: to pay for. It's easy to see how this relates
Speaker 1: to the dark side. Yeah, it really is, especially when
Speaker 1: you compare it to choosing flight, which is mostly appealing
Speaker 1: as this form of fast travel or experiencing this different sensation,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem to have any of the darker edge,
Speaker 1: right And you know, Barry found that people who choose
Speaker 1: power of flight generally see it as a way to
Speaker 1: add excitement or fulfillment to their lives, whether that's from
Speaker 1: you know, maybe rescuing people from burning buildings or just
Speaker 1: zipping across the world to have dinner in Italy or
Speaker 1: you know, something like that, which is interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: there's another commonality between invisibility fables that we should probably
Speaker 1: talk about, all right, and what's that invisibility cloaks. So
Speaker 1: ancient Greek myths described caps and cloaks with magical properties
Speaker 1: that made the were invisible to other mortal men, and
Speaker 1: from their invisibility, cloaks have popped up in everything from
Speaker 1: Welsh and Germanic folklore to modern day pop culture. Of course,
Speaker 1: and I'm guessing being a big fan, you think of
Speaker 1: Harry Potter definitely, so Harry Potter is never far from
Speaker 1: my mind. But scientists have been hard at work on
Speaker 1: cloaking devices for a while now, things that can mask
Speaker 1: or completely hide an object or a person from sight.
Speaker 1: And sometimes they're more successful than others, but all of
Speaker 1: the most promising ones involved something called meta materials, and
Speaker 1: it's just you know, some kind of super science cloth
Speaker 1: or something more or less. So meta materials are basically
Speaker 1: a kind of material that's engineered to have properties that
Speaker 1: that don't occur in nature, and in this case, it's
Speaker 1: a light bending property that manipulates the eye. So the
Speaker 1: reason objects are visible to our eyes at all is
Speaker 1: because objects distort light waves based on their shapes. But
Speaker 1: when the light from an object reaches our eyes, we
Speaker 1: see the object by recognizing those distortions. Alright, so meta
Speaker 1: materials they somehow counteract this or so. The idea is
Speaker 1: that the meta material forms a kind of shell around
Speaker 1: the object, or a cloak, so the light rays bends
Speaker 1: smoothly around the meta material and recombined on the other side.
Speaker 1: And one helpful example I came across is that it's
Speaker 1: kind of like water flowing around a rock and a stream.
Speaker 1: I viewer on the far side wouldn't see anything unusual,
Speaker 1: but both the meta materials shield and object in its
Speaker 1: center would be completely invisible to him. It would look
Speaker 1: like the lights bouncing off a smooth surface, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool. But I don't know. I have the say,
Speaker 1: I've read so many headlines over the last few years
Speaker 1: that claim we're this much closer to Harry Potter like
Speaker 1: invisibility cloak. And you know, there are definitely some similarities
Speaker 1: to what you're describing, but it's hardly a one to
Speaker 1: one I mean, I mean, natural materials get their special
Speaker 1: properties from the arrangement of atoms and there's no way
Speaker 1: what's going on with these meta materials is the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, And these cloaking devices are more like chunky
Speaker 1: rings and pyramids that fit over a stationary object right now,
Speaker 1: rather than any sort of sleek piece of fabric. But
Speaker 1: the technology is advancing pretty quickly. Well, I'm glad to
Speaker 1: know that we're on our way towards that. But why
Speaker 1: don't we break for a little quiz? Alright, So today's
Speaker 1: show us about invisibility. We decided to bring on to
Speaker 1: Seattle based artists who produced the delightful art series that
Speaker 1: only shows up when it rains. Welcome to the show,
Speaker 1: Peregon Church and Zach Fisher. Thank you great to be here.
Speaker 1: I am so excited to have you on. And and
Speaker 1: for you listeners who aren't familiar with rain Works, you
Speaker 1: should definitely check out the photo gallery at www dot
Speaker 1: rain dot works because it's fantastic. So can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how you came up with
Speaker 1: this idea of making invisible artwork that only shows up
Speaker 1: in the rain. I love thinking of ways to use
Speaker 1: materials that already exist in ways that they shouldn't be used.
Speaker 1: And I came across this stuff called super hydrophobic coatings. Basically,
Speaker 1: when you put it on the surface, he keeps it
Speaker 1: from getting wet. And I thought, wow, that's super cool.
Speaker 1: You're watching all this water roll off these clothes and
Speaker 1: shoes and whatever. What if you put it on something
Speaker 1: that changed color when it got wet, like concrete and
Speaker 1: so you since it's a spray on the thing, you
Speaker 1: could spray it through a stencil on the concrete and
Speaker 1: as long as it was invisible and dry, you can
Speaker 1: create art that was only visible when the surface is wet.
Speaker 1: Would you tell our listeners a little bit about some
Speaker 1: of the designs you do and how you make them interactive? Sure,
Speaker 1: we like to do things that are positive, things that
Speaker 1: don't make someone stay better. That's are really one of
Speaker 1: the big motivations behind it. Because in Seattle and the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwestern general, people tend to suffer from sad seasonal
Speaker 1: effect of disorder. The skies are gray and it's dreary
Speaker 1: and wet all the time. So we figured we could
Speaker 1: take that thing that causes the juriess the rain and
Speaker 1: use it to make people smile. We did a lock
Speaker 1: nest monster at a at a dock out in over
Speaker 1: a lake here in Seattle Green Lake so that people
Speaker 1: could stumble upon the monster while they were out on
Speaker 1: rainy days. We do games. Sometimes you've done like it
Speaker 1: Don't Touch the Lava game. Um, We've done like nostalgic
Speaker 1: references to like characters that we love as like when
Speaker 1: we were kids. So like we've done like a Peter
Speaker 1: Pan rainwork, and like the Calvin and Hobbs rain work.
Speaker 1: Basically just whatever we think would like cheer someone up
Speaker 1: or make them smile or make them think when they
Speaker 1: see it it's funny. I mean even hearing the examples
Speaker 1: makes you smile. That's pretty great. And you've now turned
Speaker 1: this into a business. So what are the best applications
Speaker 1: of your rain works? And you know that you've seen
Speaker 1: in the wild now, oh man, we've seen so many
Speaker 1: from all over the world. Some people have done like
Speaker 1: promposals or actual wedding proposals with them. We've seen people
Speaker 1: use public sountains to make like dolphins that appear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's one just like a day or two ago where
Speaker 1: they coated a canvas with it and through water balloons
Speaker 1: with like water based paint in them, through do a
Speaker 1: gender reveal. Right back that was what that was. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of works a little differently because our spray
Speaker 1: doesn't repel paint, but it like reacted with it in
Speaker 1: a certain way, so it does kind of make the
Speaker 1: letters pop, but like not in the way you expect.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting to see like a new application for it,
Speaker 1: and that's really been the coolest thing is like just
Speaker 1: since this started, it's really taken off just all around
Speaker 1: the world, and we get like new one's popping up
Speaker 1: in like Denmark and like Taiwan and like Armenia. Does
Speaker 1: having worked on this project make you look forward to
Speaker 1: rainy days? Like do you sit on benches waiting for
Speaker 1: people to interact with the art? Oh? Absolutely. It has
Speaker 1: completely changed our perspective on rainy days. And one of
Speaker 1: our favorite things to hear when we tell people about
Speaker 1: project is them the words coming out of their mouths,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I can't wait till it rains now,
Speaker 1: Like that means the world to us. We become so
Speaker 1: hyper sensitive to it that every time it starts to
Speaker 1: rain or like the forecast predicts range, like we're like
Speaker 1: on the edge of our chieves, like we're preparing, we're
Speaker 1: making work, our our whole work as well, depends on
Speaker 1: the weather. For sure. We'll tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about your connection with the Awesome Foundation. Sure. When I
Speaker 1: had this idea, it was just an idea, like on
Speaker 1: a note in my phone for a long time, but
Speaker 1: it was one of one of my favorites, and I
Speaker 1: started mentioning it to people and eventually mentioned it to
Speaker 1: a friend in Seattle who was part of the Seattle
Speaker 1: chapter of the Awesome Foundation. For anyone doesn't know, the
Speaker 1: Awesome Foundation is an organization that every month it's one
Speaker 1: dollars the person with a cool idea or an awesome idea,
Speaker 1: as they put it, No, it's things attached. So I
Speaker 1: submitted this rain activated our idea, but we're not called
Speaker 1: rain works do the Austin Foundation, And they accepted it,
Speaker 1: and that was what really gave it the first push.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I thought we should play a little
Speaker 1: game with these guys, and Mango, you came up with
Speaker 1: one that's appropriate from what what game are we playing
Speaker 1: with a Peregrine and Zach, it's called I'm Only have
Speaker 1: you in it rains? All right, we love your rainy
Speaker 1: Day project, and we figured we'd give you a quiz
Speaker 1: where all the answers involved rain and you can work
Speaker 1: together on this. So you guys, ready, ready, alright? He
Speaker 1: got five questions for you, all right. Number one, Gene
Speaker 1: Kelly had a one hundred and three degree fever when
Speaker 1: he danced the big number in this rainy movie. What
Speaker 1: classic film are we talking about? For one? Number two,
Speaker 1: Prince's manager questioned the decision to put When Doves Cry
Speaker 1: and this movie slash album because the song didn't have
Speaker 1: a baseline and he didn't think it would be a hit.
Speaker 1: What Prince movie are we talking about? Purple? Yes? Alright?
Speaker 1: Number three? All these culture references and depending on yours action,
Speaker 1: he's really pulling through alright. Number three. During the filming
Speaker 1: of this award winning movie, both Tom Cruise and Dustin
Speaker 1: Hoffman thought the flick would be a clunker. The whole time.
Speaker 1: They referred to it as two schmucks in a car.
Speaker 1: What movie are we talking about? Wait? I got this one, Ramon,
Speaker 1: alright with the big answer, here we go. Number four.
Speaker 1: Before this actor won the role of Dwight Shrut on
Speaker 1: the office seth Rogan had auditioned for the role. Who
Speaker 1: are we talking about? Wilson? Yes, they both got that one,
Speaker 1: all right. The last question see if you can get
Speaker 1: the perfect score number five. This song, written by Paul
Speaker 1: Shaffer and performed by the Weather Girls, was intended to
Speaker 1: be a gay anthe much like Y M c A.
Speaker 1: You know the name of the song, It's rain Man. Yes, alright.
Speaker 1: How did they do a mango our ols when astounding
Speaker 1: five for five, which means we'll be sending them our
Speaker 1: top prize, a handwritten note to their mom or boss
Speaker 1: singing their praises congratulations, m thanks so much. Yeah, that's awesome. Listeners,
Speaker 1: please check out rain dot works when you get a second,
Speaker 1: and thank you guys so much for all the work
Speaker 1: you do and for putting smiles on so many faces
Speaker 1: having us. Okay, well, so we talked about fictional invisibility
Speaker 1: cloaks as well as the closest things we have two
Speaker 1: real life ones. But there's one more thing I want
Speaker 1: to talk about, and it's the psychological sort kind of
Speaker 1: a psychological invisibility quote. I don't even know how that
Speaker 1: would work. Is like a helmet that would block your
Speaker 1: brain waves or something like that. Yeah that's a good guess,
Speaker 1: but no, nothing like that. I'm actually talking about the
Speaker 1: great study I came across about a nomena called it
Speaker 1: invisibility cloak illusion, and that's the name researchers at Yale
Speaker 1: University came up with for our mistaken belief that we
Speaker 1: observe others way more than others observe us. All Right,
Speaker 1: so this is kind of like us pretending that maybe
Speaker 1: we're under invisibility cloaks when we're out in public, if
Speaker 1: we're grocery shopping or walking our dogs or something like that,
Speaker 1: exactly pretty much any time we're in public, really, So
Speaker 1: the team describes it this way, and they're abstract. Quote,
Speaker 1: whether at a coffee shop, in a waiting room, or
Speaker 1: riding the bus, people frequently observe the other people around them,
Speaker 1: Yet they failed to realize how much other people engage
Speaker 1: in the same behavior, and that they therefore also are
Speaker 1: being observed. Because it's logically impossible that people, on average
Speaker 1: are the subjects of observation more than they are objects
Speaker 1: of it. The belief that one watches others more than
Speaker 1: one is watched is an illusion that's pretty wild. I mean,
Speaker 1: we feel like we're invisible when the fact that we
Speaker 1: observe others should tell us just the opposite. Of this,
Speaker 1: And I really can't understand why we make this silly mistake,
Speaker 1: because it's just that we're egoman acts, and you know,
Speaker 1: we think we're the observant person and the only observant
Speaker 1: person in the room. Yeah, that's definitely part of it.
Speaker 1: But at least there's a good reason why we think
Speaker 1: that way. And why is that? Well, the researchers that
Speaker 1: Yale concluded that social norms compel our neighbors to pretend
Speaker 1: to be busy with something else if it looks like
Speaker 1: we might catch them watching us. All right, so we've
Speaker 1: secretly scoped out the competition at a job interview, or
Speaker 1: a glance around the waiting room and a doctor's office,
Speaker 1: and you know, just in case we need an alibi,
Speaker 1: we have a magazine or something like that. It's funny
Speaker 1: that we all assume we're the only ones who do this, though, Right,
Speaker 1: so when it's actually so widespread and phenomena that it
Speaker 1: even has its own name, researchers call it civil and attention.
Speaker 1: I kind of like that. Yeah, But my favorite part
Speaker 1: of the study is this line from the conclusion, however
Speaker 1: irresistible the sensation of being invisible, maybe it is not
Speaker 1: to be trusted. That sounds exactly right, and it actually
Speaker 1: makes it me think of this this other study I
Speaker 1: read on the logic of the game Peekaboo. Apparently it's
Speaker 1: this great display of the kind of nonsensical logic that
Speaker 1: most kids share, namely the idea that you can make
Speaker 1: yourself invisible by just covering your own eyes. So the
Speaker 1: study was what like scientists rounded up a bunch of
Speaker 1: toddlers and had this epic peekaboo session, Not exactly, but
Speaker 1: but kind of. So the researchers at the University of
Speaker 1: Cambridge had a group of three and four year olds
Speaker 1: where I'm asked, and then they asked them whether they
Speaker 1: could be seen by researchers or if they were invisible
Speaker 1: to them. Then they asked the kids whether the researchers
Speaker 1: would be able to see adults if those adults were
Speaker 1: wearing eyemask like their's, and unsurprisingly, nearly all the kids
Speaker 1: said they were hidden from view while their eyes were covered,
Speaker 1: and most of them actually thought the imask would make
Speaker 1: the adults invisible too, which is super cute. But did
Speaker 1: the researchers have any ideas for why almost every child
Speaker 1: subscribes to that weird logic. Well, actually, here's where things
Speaker 1: get really interesting. And because when kids had their eyes covered,
Speaker 1: they felt invisible, which fair enough, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: we've all heard that before. But the researchers started to
Speaker 1: press them on what invisibility meant, and surprisingly, the kids
Speaker 1: conceded that their bodies weren't actually hidden it all. In
Speaker 1: the sixth so they admitted their bodies could still be
Speaker 1: seen even when their eyes were covered. So what do
Speaker 1: they mean by invisible? Well, that's the weirdest part and
Speaker 1: where this gets a little deep here. So the implication
Speaker 1: was that the kids felt it was their true self
Speaker 1: that was being hidden from view. So basically, they were saying,
Speaker 1: I know, you can still see my arms and my
Speaker 1: legs and all that when my eyes are closed, but
Speaker 1: you can't see me, which is which is pretty existential,
Speaker 1: you know, I know. It's it's like the children share
Speaker 1: some natural distinction between, you know, the physical body and
Speaker 1: the metaphysical self. And I just find this stuff fascinating.
Speaker 1: And you know, because most adults tend to think of
Speaker 1: their consciousness and their body being joined together in some way,
Speaker 1: and studies like this suggests that perception might be something
Speaker 1: we only adopt or maybe decide on later in life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's especially interesting when you think about how people always
Speaker 1: say the eyes of the window to the soul, or
Speaker 1: that eye contact Foster's understanding. I mean, in some ways,
Speaker 1: covering your eyes really is like withdrawing yourself from the
Speaker 1: world and making yourself from visible. Alright, well, Mango, you
Speaker 1: need to keep those eyes open, because there's only one
Speaker 1: thing you can't hide from, the PGG fact off exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, here's something I hadn't thought about. Any lightbeam
Speaker 1: weapon you see in the movies, from photon torpedoes to
Speaker 1: invisible rays, they're all things you won't see coming. So
Speaker 1: anytime a sci fi hero is in a jet dodging
Speaker 1: those rays, none of that's possible. You know that some
Speaker 1: of the things you see in movies you just ruined
Speaker 1: all movies did so I want to know a figure
Speaker 1: who's basically become invisible. Jeremiah Dummer. Most people know Yale
Speaker 1: University is named for Elihu Yale, but Dumber probably did
Speaker 1: more for the early university in terms of securing funds
Speaker 1: and building its reputation. The problem is, Dumber College isn't
Speaker 1: a great name. While reindeer are good at spotting polar bears.
Speaker 1: Cameras aren't, so when scientists decided to use infrared cameras
Speaker 1: to locate the bears, they were stunned. But polar bears
Speaker 1: are basically invisible to infrared cameras too. While cameras can
Speaker 1: pick up the heat off their nose and their breath,
Speaker 1: their blubber basically does such a good job of trapping
Speaker 1: the heat within that their fur is essentially the same
Speaker 1: temperature as all the snow around it. So despite all
Speaker 1: the safety features and cars with backup cameras and beeping sensors,
Speaker 1: people still back up into lampos. So researchers at Kyo
Speaker 1: University in Japan have come up with back seats that
Speaker 1: actually turned transparent when you back up. Basically, it's a
Speaker 1: backup camera that projects on the seats, but it does
Speaker 1: the trick of seeming transparent and of course making the
Speaker 1: children sitting in those seats disappear as another matter, definitely,
Speaker 1: all right, here's a fun one about not being seen.
Speaker 1: A building supervisor in Spain skipped work for six years
Speaker 1: and kept collecting his salary. You know the only reason
Speaker 1: he got caught. People got suspicious when he won an
Speaker 1: award for twenty years of loyal service. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and six, magician David Copperfield and his two assistants were
Speaker 1: walking down the street when Mugger's approached and demanded all
Speaker 1: their money and wild assistants forked over plane tickets, cell phones,
Speaker 1: and over five in cash. Copperfield used sleight of hand
Speaker 1: to show the gun wielding robbers that his pockets were empty.
Speaker 1: He reperformed the trick at the police station and wow
Speaker 1: the officers, showing them he actually had a passport and
Speaker 1: lots of cash on him the whole time. I know
Speaker 1: he's such a performer, but he did help catch the
Speaker 1: bad guys and I kind of love it all right. Well,
Speaker 1: in that case, I'm gonna have to give you today's
Speaker 1: championship belt. So that's it for today's episode. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening, Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius
Speaker 1: is a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be
Speaker 1: possible without several brilliant people who do the important things
Speaker 1: we couldn't even begin to understand. Chris and McNeil does
Speaker 1: the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and
Speaker 1: does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the
Speaker 1: exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier, our lead researcher, with support
Speaker 1: from the Research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and
Speaker 1: Lucas Adams and Eve Jeff Cook gets the show to
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Speaker 1: for us. Do we do? We forget Jason? Jason who