Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: 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. It's been argued that one of the only
Speaker 1: jobs a person can get wrong and still keep is
Speaker 1: that of a TV news meteorologist. If a weather person
Speaker 1: said it was going to be sunny in seventy five,
Speaker 1: but you should have brought your parka and a snow shovel,
Speaker 1: you might think twice about believing them in the future.
Speaker 1: That happens less and less these days, though, as modern
Speaker 1: technology allows forecasters to better track weather patterns and storm
Speaker 1: paths up to the minute. But back in eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight that wasn't the case, and yet Irish astrologer and
Speaker 1: meteorologist Patrick Murphy still managed to shock London with a
Speaker 1: forecast nobody could have predicted, well, nobody except Patrick. He
Speaker 1: had come to England from Cork, Ireland in eighteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: A few years later he launched his first publication titled
Speaker 1: An Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of my Asthma
Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty five. My Asthma is defined as a
Speaker 1: vapor or fume that causes disease, like those coming off
Speaker 1: of a swamp. It's also used to describe an unsavory atmosphere.
Speaker 1: Patrick followed up his first book with a new one
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty entitled Rudiments of the Primary Forces in Gravity,
Speaker 1: Magnetism and Electricity. These two books were the start of
Speaker 1: his foray into pseudo scientific, writing about the various phenomena
Speaker 1: around us. Within his latest home, he expounded on a
Speaker 1: multitude of topics, including the movement of the Sun and planets,
Speaker 1: electrical forces, and the Earth's magnetic polls. These efforts all
Speaker 1: led to his magnum opus and the volume for which
Speaker 1: he has known to this day, Murphy's Weather Almanac for
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight. Now. The word almanac is believed to
Speaker 1: have come from the Greek word for calendar. It signifies
Speaker 1: books that were published with calendar entries for every day
Speaker 1: of the year, along with the various weather and astronomical
Speaker 1: phenomena expected on those dates. Almanacs have existed since before
Speaker 1: the thirteenth century, but they really picked up steam with
Speaker 1: the printing press. Among the most famous ever printed were
Speaker 1: the Poor Richard's Almanacs, published by Richard Saunders in seventeen
Speaker 1: thirty two. Saunders, of course, was the pen name for
Speaker 1: founding father Benjamin Franklin. Murphy's Weather Almanac of eighteen thirty
Speaker 1: eight wasn't much different from the compendiums that had come before.
Speaker 1: Each page was chock full of vital information designed to
Speaker 1: help farmers and readers know what to expect for the
Speaker 1: coming year. Now, even though almanacs have claimed to be
Speaker 1: as high as eighty percent accurate, a study conducted by
Speaker 1: the University of Illinois in nineteen eighty one found that
Speaker 1: the popular Farmer's Almanac was only about fifty two accurate
Speaker 1: in its forecasts. In other words, readers had just as
Speaker 1: much of a chance of successfully guessing the weather by
Speaker 1: pulling a prediction out of a hat. But Patrick thought
Speaker 1: better of his powers of prognostication, and one date in
Speaker 1: particular stuck out among all the others in his almanac, January.
Speaker 1: You see, London winters were notoriously cold. In fact, as
Speaker 1: we've discussed here before, the Thames was known to freeze
Speaker 1: over every now and then, allowing locals to set up
Speaker 1: shop on the ice and hold frost fares right on
Speaker 1: the river. Patrick, however, didn't just predict that January would
Speaker 1: be cold. He claimed that the weather that they would
Speaker 1: be fair, with the lowest degree of winter temperature. When
Speaker 1: the day finally came, temperatures dropped a whopping fifty six
Speaker 1: degrees to a frigid negative fourteen point eight. It was
Speaker 1: by far the coldest day in Courted London history, and
Speaker 1: would be for some time. Patrick had been shockingly correct
Speaker 1: in his forecast, and as a result, there was a
Speaker 1: run on his almanac. He printed forty five editions to
Speaker 1: keep up with demand. Police were even called to one
Speaker 1: shop to help preserve order among the throngs of shoppers
Speaker 1: demanding the book. Unfortunately, readers didn't bother to peruse his
Speaker 1: publication before buying it. If they had, they would have
Speaker 1: realized that he was about as accurate as every other
Speaker 1: almanac out there. One hundred and sixty eight days were
Speaker 1: half rights in their predictions, while one ninety seven were
Speaker 1: all wrong. Demand dropped like a thermometer on January after that,
Speaker 1: but Patrick Murphy had already earned his legacy In the
Speaker 1: years following, those who had survived the freezing tempts of
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight referred to that time as Murphy's Winter.
Speaker 1: He was never that accurate in his predictions again, and
Speaker 1: became something of a punchline later on. It seems that
Speaker 1: being a one hit wonder in the almanac world was
Speaker 1: something that Murphy I just couldn't weather Man plans and
Speaker 1: God laughs, Expect the unexpected, or the old boy scout motto,
Speaker 1: be prepared. We have plenty of sayings that all revolve
Speaker 1: around the same idea, stuff happens, and Edward was only
Speaker 1: too familiar with that concept. He was born in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighteen in the Panama Canal Zone and Unincorporated Territory in
Speaker 1: Central America. Edward and his family eventually made their way
Speaker 1: north to New Jersey, where he lived for most of
Speaker 1: his young life. After high school, Edward attended West Point,
Speaker 1: which prepared him for entry into the United States Army
Speaker 1: Air Corps just in time for World War Two. It
Speaker 1: was in nineteen forty one when he was sent overseas
Speaker 1: to serve even parts of China, India, and Burma. Edward
Speaker 1: had always had something of a scientific mind, so when
Speaker 1: the war was over and it came time for him
Speaker 1: to get a job. He found one as a research
Speaker 1: and development officer at Ohio's Right Patterson Air Force Base.
Speaker 1: He stayed there for a short time until a special
Speaker 1: project came a calling for him from the West coast.
Speaker 1: Over at Edwards Air Force Base in California, a series
Speaker 1: of rocket sled experiments were being managed by Colonel John Stapp.
Speaker 1: Rocket sleds were elongated platforms that slid on tracks which
Speaker 1: used actual rockets to propel them long distances at high speeds.
Speaker 1: It was common belief among aerospace experts that the human
Speaker 1: body could not withstand up to eighteen G forces before dying.
Speaker 1: Staff didn't agree and set out to prove the theory wrong.
Speaker 1: Previous test to disprove it had been performed using crash
Speaker 1: test dummies. The goal was to track the effects of
Speaker 1: rapid deceleration on a human body, and Staff, dissatisfied with
Speaker 1: the results, started using a chimpanz in his experiments, but
Speaker 1: even that proved unsatisfactory to the exacting kernel, so he
Speaker 1: started testing the G forces of the sleds on himself.
Speaker 1: He would strap himself onto the platform and let the
Speaker 1: rockets take him for a ride. On his first test,
Speaker 1: Staff reached ten g's over time. He was able to
Speaker 1: get that up to thirty five gs and still survive.
Speaker 1: Edward was tasked with analyzing the effects of these forces
Speaker 1: on Staff's body. He'd done it before, having created a
Speaker 1: series of sixteen censors and tools meant to gauge how
Speaker 1: test pilots were affected during centrifugal training back in Ohio.
Speaker 1: He suggested using modified versions of his sensors for the
Speaker 1: rocket sled tests. Staff agreed, and a new experiment was planned. Originally,
Speaker 1: the idea was to use another chimp as the test subject.
Speaker 1: The Air Force didn't want to sacrifice one of its
Speaker 1: own men in case something went wrong, but Staff knew
Speaker 1: a human being had to be in the driver's seat,
Speaker 1: so he switched places with the chimpanzee. Rolling with the change,
Speaker 1: Edward told his assistance to rig up the sensors two
Speaker 1: stabs safety harness while he tested the rest of the
Speaker 1: equipment before takeoff. After several safety checks and clearances with
Speaker 1: the sensors in place, Staff was given the green light.
Speaker 1: The rockets fired up, and the Colonel flew along the
Speaker 1: track like a bat out of hell. When he finally stopped,
Speaker 1: Edward checked the readouts. Nothing, not a single piece of
Speaker 1: evidence that Staff had ever been buckled in at all.
Speaker 1: The experiment had failed. As it had turned out, Edwards
Speaker 1: assistants had wired the sensors all wrong. They've been plugged
Speaker 1: in upside down, and Edward, angry at one assistant in particular,
Speaker 1: tossed off a short summation of his feelings, saying, if
Speaker 1: that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will.
Speaker 1: Staff took his words to heart and conveyed them to
Speaker 1: a shared philosophy among the research team. During a press conference,
Speaker 1: he explained the saying as a way of keeping his
Speaker 1: men on task and solving problems before they occurred. Although
Speaker 1: this being a press conference, the raise was shortened down
Speaker 1: a bit. Edward's original wording was condensed to a simpler one.
Speaker 1: If it can happen, it will happen. Today, however, we
Speaker 1: say it even more different than that, because without Edward
Speaker 1: a Murphy, we wouldn't have Murphy's law, which states anything
Speaker 1: that can happen will happen, or, perhaps more accurately, anything
Speaker 1: that can go wrong will go wrong. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.