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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, we've got a holiday

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Speaker 2: here today, so we are bringing you an episode from

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Speaker 2: the vault. This one originally published on June twenty third,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty, and it is our episode about the invention

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Speaker 2: of fireworks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so use your star pumps safely out there today, everybody.

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Speaker 2: That'll make sense once you get to the end. Okay, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: have fun.

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're doing fireworks. Hey, Robert,

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Speaker 2: did you grow up in a place where, whatever the

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Speaker 2: actual law was, you at least thought that fireworks were

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Speaker 2: illegal and that setting them off in your yard might

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Speaker 2: summon the police.

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Speaker 1: No. I grew up in places where it seemed that

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Speaker 1: fireworks were just part of life, and you could just

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Speaker 1: go out and play with a bunch of firecrackers in

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Speaker 1: the afternoon by yourself, and it wasn't any big deal.

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Speaker 1: You know, strap them to g I, Joe and there

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Speaker 1: in build little volcanoes. Out of dirt and then blow

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Speaker 1: them up to get some scotch tape and see how

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Speaker 1: many what bottle rockets you could lash together and still

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Speaker 1: achieve something that would fly through the air. That sort

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Speaker 1: of thing.

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Speaker 2: So definitely, when I was a little kid, I had

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Speaker 2: the impression that using fireworks was illegal. I don't know

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Speaker 2: if it was, but I think that's because you couldn't

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Speaker 2: buy them in the county where I lived. So when

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Speaker 2: Fourth of July or New Year's or whatever was coming

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Speaker 2: up and we wanted to get fireworks, we had to

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Speaker 2: go on a road trip up or down the interstate

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Speaker 2: to one of the more lawless evil counties where you

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Speaker 2: could go to Big Daddy's Firecrackers, or you know, one

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Speaker 2: of these other places. I remember when I was a

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Speaker 2: kid one time buying a you know, using my little

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Speaker 2: allowance money to buy a firecracker that was very exciting

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Speaker 2: looking because it was shaped like a tank. It was

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Speaker 2: made of cardboard, and I thought, now, this thing's going

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Speaker 2: to be like a piece of mobile artillery. It's going

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Speaker 2: to roll around and shoot out stuff. I recall it

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Speaker 2: didn't really do much, and it was one of my

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Speaker 2: earliest experiences of spending money on something, expecting it to

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Speaker 2: be great and it being a total flop.

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Speaker 1: I remember being really impressed with the tanks and the

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Speaker 1: little sort of novelty items because basically, when Fourth of

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Speaker 1: July or New Years would roll around, they'd set up

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Speaker 1: a tent or a couple of tents in town in

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Speaker 1: a place where I grew up, and you know, they

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Speaker 1: would sell the fireworks there. I always wanted to get

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Speaker 1: things like the tank, but generally a parental or grown

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Speaker 1: up unit that was present would say, no, no, no,

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Speaker 1: that's a waste of money. You want something that goes

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Speaker 1: up in the air and blows up. My fondest memory

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Speaker 1: I remember, I think my grandparents got this one was

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Speaker 1: one that went up, exploded and dropped tiny parachute men

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Speaker 1: out of it, Like yeah, and that was that was crazy.

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Speaker 1: That was awesome because it's dropping something. Then you then

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Speaker 1: find that's not just total garbage. I mean, it's essentially garbage,

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Speaker 1: but not total garbage.

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Speaker 2: No, it's great because then you strap a firecracker to

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Speaker 2: that army man and built it up.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess. But then I also remember being really

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Speaker 1: impressed by the ones that looked like actual rockets. The

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Speaker 1: more rockety, the better. Right, And I distinctly remember talking

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Speaker 1: my parents into getting this this one rocket, and then

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Speaker 1: we brought it home. And as it turned out, one

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Speaker 1: of the problems with this particular rocket is it's supposed

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Speaker 1: to have a launching rod, you know, like a rod

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Speaker 1: that sticks into the ground that ensures that it takes

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Speaker 1: off in a you know, a with a straight skyward trajectory.

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Speaker 1: That rod had been misplaced prior to purchase, so it

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Speaker 1: did not have one. So we set this thing off

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Speaker 1: and it, instead of going straight up into the sky

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Speaker 1: and exploding, it went straight up and made a turn

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Speaker 1: and then went through a narrow gap in the sliding

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Speaker 1: glass door of our house and hit my uncle in

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Speaker 1: the face. No, fortunately didn't like blow up in his

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Speaker 1: face or anything, but like, you know, kind of puncture

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Speaker 1: his cheek a little bit, and then like skittered around

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Speaker 1: on the carpeted floor shooting sparks everywhere. So that was exciting.

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Speaker 2: Did you get to keep playing with fireworks after that? U?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it did inspire me to be a

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Speaker 1: little like it was a little more careful after that,

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Speaker 1: and I certainly didn't get into the total recklessness of

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Speaker 1: you know, people launching roman candles at each other, that

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Speaker 1: sort of thing that you hear about I was generally about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you hear about or hear horror stories about.

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Speaker 2: Or that your friends did in high school.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for me, it was just firecrackers and bottle rockets,

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Speaker 1: so you know, low level and firework ammunition here, not

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Speaker 1: getting into like cherry bombs.

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Speaker 2: And I have personal stories about firecracker use in high

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Speaker 2: school that I'm just not going to share on the

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Speaker 2: podcast because I do not want to inspire imitators and

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Speaker 2: have kids get body parts blown off.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I have to say as a parent, I certainly

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Speaker 1: am far more protective when it comes to fireworks. A

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Speaker 1: I'm not like super into them as a grown up.

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Speaker 1: I like watching professional fireworks every now and then, but

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Speaker 1: then again, I'm not going to really go out of

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Speaker 1: my way to see them. If they're around, I will

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Speaker 1: look up, you know. And I'm more protective of my son,

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Speaker 1: like I don't really like the idea of him even

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Speaker 1: playing with fireworks to the degree that I did growing up.

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, one safe alternative that has always puzzled

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Speaker 2: me is one of the most bizarre genres of home

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Speaker 2: media that I've ever seen. I recall seeing these, I

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Speaker 2: think in the gift shop area of a cracker barrel

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Speaker 2: and DVD's of fireworks displays.

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Speaker 1: Oh man, I only vaguely remember seeing these. I never

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Speaker 1: watched one, that's.

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Speaker 2: For Yeah, I didn't either. But I'm just wondering, what,

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Speaker 2: So does somebody buy this DVD and take it home

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Speaker 2: and just put it on. It's like, yeah, I just

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Speaker 2: want to watch some fireworks in the living room.

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Speaker 1: I guess, you know. I mean, is it that different

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Speaker 1: from watching the Hearth on Netflix every Christmas?

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Speaker 2: I think it's somewhat different. I mean, neither one's going

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Speaker 2: to give off heat the way that it would in reality.

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Speaker 2: But you know, a real fireworks display, you sort of

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Speaker 2: feel the sound. There's this booming thing, and it's live,

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Speaker 2: so you're usually experiencing it along with many other people

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Speaker 2: who are celebrating something. Yeah, just having one on the TV,

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like you get closer to

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Speaker 2: the reality of a fire burning in your fireplace with

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Speaker 2: a fire on the TV.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, probably so probably so. Then again, I do know

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Speaker 1: that they televise, or at least in the past, they

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Speaker 1: would televise some of these big fireworks shows, and I

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Speaker 1: remember I remember those being on TV when I was

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Speaker 1: a kid.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess so.

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Speaker 1: So as as everyone can guess. Here we are talking

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Speaker 1: about fire works today. This is going to be one

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Speaker 1: of our Invention themed episodes. Are an exploration of the

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Speaker 1: origin of fireworks, which is a fascinating story that I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of us probably know, like the broad

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Speaker 1: strokes of it. I think a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: probably at the very least vaguely aware of the Chinese

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Speaker 1: origins that we're going to be discussing here, But even

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Speaker 1: just the Chinese origins of fireworks, it's just such a

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Speaker 1: wonderful tale, full of mystery and magic and also goblins.

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Speaker 1: And then likewise we're going to get into the European

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Speaker 1: history of it as well. There is a lot of

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Speaker 1: magic and mystery there as well. Totally, so we're not

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Speaker 1: going to run through the entire history of pyrotechnology here,

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Speaker 1: but suffice to say that the human ability to manipulate, sustain, control,

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Speaker 1: and produce fire is key to technological advancement as a whole.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's just difficult to overstate the importance of

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Speaker 1: fire mastery in human history.

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Speaker 2: It's not just key, it's the master key. It's yeh,

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Speaker 2: the thing that unlocks almost everything else. Again, there's a

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Speaker 2: reason that broadly historical technological regimes are characterized in terms

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Speaker 2: of metal working, like what types of things you could

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Speaker 2: make tools out of, And you couldn't really have metal

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Speaker 2: working without fire.

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Speaker 1: That's right. If you want a more detailed breakdown of

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Speaker 1: sort of like the basic fire technology history of humanity,

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Speaker 1: check out what was it? A three part series we

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Speaker 1: did on the match stick for Invention, our other show

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Speaker 1: which has now been folded back into this show, but

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Speaker 1: all those episodes about the match stick are still available

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Speaker 1: for your listening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the fire extinguisher too.

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Speaker 1: We talked to us, right, yeah, we kind of we continue,

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Speaker 1: So it was ultimately more like a six part journey

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Speaker 1: through some major moments in pyrotechnology.

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Speaker 2: I feel like this show is maybe against our wishes,

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Speaker 2: revealing some Freudian preoccupations going on in both of our brains.

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Speaker 2: What with explosive fireworks. Yeah, we can't stop thinking and

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Speaker 2: talking about firecrackers, fires, setting fire to stuff.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Well. Also, we're coming up

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Speaker 1: on July fourth, and I think that was one of

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Speaker 1: the main issues here too, is we've been talking about

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Speaker 1: doing a fireworks episode forever and then finally work asked us, hey,

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Speaker 1: do you have anything in the catalog that's July fourth themed,

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Speaker 1: And we're like, well, no, not really, but we've been

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Speaker 1: wanting to do fireworks, so here we are. So one

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Speaker 1: of the things that we touch on in those pyrotechnology

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Speaker 1: episodes is that in many ways, the campfire itself, the

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Speaker 1: long standing important aspect of human culture, is in itself

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Speaker 1: an ancient laboratory, a place where humans experimented with the

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Speaker 1: addition of various fuels and substances to learn what burns,

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Speaker 1: what doesn't burn, and sometimes what burns really well or

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Speaker 1: what combusts.

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Speaker 2: You know, I didn't think of this until just now,

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Speaker 2: but this is also bringing to mind the recent episodes

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Speaker 2: we did about buildings made out of mammoth bone that

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Speaker 2: we're found in what is now Russia and Ukraine. But

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Speaker 2: in this ancient Ice Age culture, and a big part

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Speaker 2: of that culture seemed to be based around the burning

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Speaker 2: of bones as fuel, something we wouldn't even normally think

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Speaker 2: of as possible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Like bones are one example of a combustion

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Speaker 1: source that has played an important role in human history.

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Speaker 1: Another one, of course, is dung. Some listeners, particularly in

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Speaker 1: some cultures may not be aware of just how important

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Speaker 1: dung has been and still is in many cases as

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Speaker 1: a fuel.

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Speaker 2: You know, you can almost still feel the instinct in yourself,

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Speaker 2: or at least I can. Whenever you are sitting around

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Speaker 2: a fire and you have some kind of novel item,

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Speaker 2: there's almost this primordial urge to just see what it's

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Speaker 2: like if you just throw that in the fire. What

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Speaker 2: does it look like when it burns? What does it do?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? I see that with my son especially. We recently

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Speaker 1: were putting up we had some tomato plants and we're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: let's get some sticks to brace these suckers, and then

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Speaker 1: we realized, oh, no, the last time we had a

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Speaker 1: fire in the backyard, the boy burned everything, like every

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Speaker 1: piece of dry wood was consumed.

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Speaker 2: So, oh, I sympathize.

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Speaker 1: So it shouldn't come as any surprise then that there are,

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Speaker 1: you know, various accounts of pre fireworks substances and materials

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Speaker 1: that would combust or burn in a certain way that

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Speaker 1: was notable. And one of the really key examples here

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Speaker 1: that is central to the origin of fireworks is bamboo.

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Speaker 1: Now bamboo, I think everyone's familiar with bamboo, but it

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Speaker 1: is a hollow hearted grass. It's especially common in East Asia,

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Speaker 1: but you'll find it throughout the world's tropical regions. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know many of you have enjoyed this exact experiment,

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Speaker 1: and if you haven't, I suggest you try it the

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Speaker 1: next time you have a campfire of it at all possible.

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Speaker 1: Dry bamboo can burn quite readily, and in some cases

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Speaker 1: the drying out process causes those hollows in the bamboo

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Speaker 1: to crack open, but other times there remains a sealed

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Speaker 1: pocket of air in there. So if you throw the

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Speaker 1: bamboo into the fire, the heat will cause the air

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Speaker 1: within that hollow to expand, and it will expand enough

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Speaker 1: that it pops and produces a startling bang when it explodes.

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Speaker 2: I've never done this personally, but now I really want to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's tremendous fun. I mean it. We can

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Speaker 1: well imagine that this was one of the key attractions.

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Speaker 1: It's like, we put this into the fire and it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's alarming, it's entertaining, it's uh, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: it's raising your your awareness. It's something that I think,

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Speaker 1: you know, we can when we experience it. We're experiencing

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Speaker 1: the the primal experience of burning bamboo as well.

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Speaker 2: Now, this property of bamboo is something that has been

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Speaker 2: recognized since ancient times.

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Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, you know. It also brings to mind another

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Speaker 1: interesting idea that we recently discussed in our Fardinomicon episodes,

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Speaker 1: Mary Roach in her her book What was It Gulp,

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Speaker 1: I believe she has this conversation with the University of

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Speaker 1: Alabama's Stephen Secor about snakes, and he has this theory,

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Speaker 1: that hypothesis rather that perhaps the myth of fire breathing

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Speaker 1: dragons has some origin in dead constrictor snakes bloated with

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Speaker 1: prey being brought to the fireside and then a post

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Speaker 1: mortem exhalation of stomach gases ignites the flames or makes

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Speaker 1: the flames roar up, which you know, I don't know

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Speaker 1: if there's a whole lot of evidence for that, but

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Speaker 1: it was an interesting idea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, highly speculative, but I like it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And it gets again, it kind of touches in

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Speaker 1: the same area that we're touching on here with bamboo,

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Speaker 1: the idea that there's this inevitable amusement to be had

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Speaker 1: in burning it in the fire. So it would it

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Speaker 1: would seem impossible to truly date how far back this

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Speaker 1: practice goes of observing that bamboo pops in a fire,

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Speaker 1: But given the necessary components, you know, and the obvious

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Speaker 1: lack of archaeological evidence, we have to consider that it

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Speaker 1: goes like pretty much all the way back in as

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Speaker 1: far as there have been peoples around bamboo that are

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Speaker 1: capable of producing fire, and in Chinese history, we at

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Speaker 1: least can consider it as long as we've had Chinese writing,

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Speaker 1: and that is where we see some early evidence that

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Speaker 1: this was an established thing. So I was reading some

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Speaker 1: writings by Hiwang Yuan of Western Kentucky University, where he's

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Speaker 1: a professor of Library science, but he's also a guest

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Speaker 1: professor of the Foreign Languages College at Nankai University in China,

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Speaker 1: and he's written several books on Chinese proverbs and legends.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand and eight, he wrote a piece on

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Speaker 1: Chinese fireworks, and he points out what we're talking about

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Speaker 1: here is boo jou, which is exploding bamboo, like that's

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Speaker 1: the word for it, and it later becomes used for fireworks,

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Speaker 1: and he points to a few early mentions of this

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Speaker 1: sort of thing. He points to the Tussong dynasty writer

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Speaker 1: Wang and Anshi, who lived ten twenty one through ten

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Speaker 1: eighty six, who wrote a poem in which one of

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Speaker 1: the lines translates as follows, quote, amidst the crackling of

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Speaker 1: exploding bamboo, a year is gone in the warmth of

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Speaker 1: a spring wreeze. We drink the wine of suzu.

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Speaker 2: Now to me, that's availing itself of multiple interpretations. When

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Speaker 2: the year is gone amidst the crackling of bamboo? Is

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Speaker 2: that because crackling bamboo is meant to signal the turning

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Speaker 2: of the new year? Or is it that a year

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Speaker 2: is gone in a flash as fast as bamboo cracks.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's nice. It's some wonderful poetry to it, But

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Speaker 1: certainly it does seem to be describing, you know, whatever

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Speaker 1: it's alluding to. Metaphorically, it is also alluding to the

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Speaker 1: Chinese custom that the New Year spring festival celebration of

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Speaker 1: burning bamboo to create loud, startling noises as a part

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Speaker 1: of celebrations.

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Speaker 2: This was actually making me wonder about the linguistic conceptual

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Speaker 2: history of exploding or the idea of an explosion. Before

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Speaker 2: a culture had combustible chemicals like say, black powder, would

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Speaker 2: the culture have had a concept or a word that

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Speaker 2: means exactly what explode means to us today. I'm trying

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Speaker 2: to think what other chances to observe natural explosions would

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Speaker 2: have been. Obviously, bamboo seems like a good one, but

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Speaker 2: what beyond that? You can think of volcanic eruptions, but

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Speaker 2: that wouldn't be something that people observed often enough you

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Speaker 2: would think to have its own dedicated word for it.

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Speaker 2: And it seems to me like many early writings about

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Speaker 2: chemical combustion actually use words related to other, much more

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Speaker 2: common natural phenomena that aren't exactly explosions, things like thunder

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Speaker 2: and lightning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because I guess my mind does instantly go to

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Speaker 1: things that are more I guess bursting or erupturing, for instance,

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Speaker 1: the popping of a pimple or a blister or some

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Speaker 1: sort of skin ailment, or the bursting of say a

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Speaker 1: blood filled tick, that sort of thing. But those are again,

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Speaker 1: it's more of a bursting or a rupturing, and I

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Speaker 1: you know, we wouldn't necessarily compare it to an exploding. Likewise,

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Speaker 1: if you were doing something with, say, bladders of animals

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Speaker 1: that have been inflated with air or water, and then

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Speaker 1: you're bursting them in some fashion. It's still probably a

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Speaker 1: different thing than just explosion.

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Speaker 2: I can imagine that with a bladder, because it seems

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Speaker 2: like the important phenomena are the ones of like suddenly

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Speaker 2: relieving large amounts of pressure with a sound or some

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Speaker 2: kind of some kind of like tactile blasts that you

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Speaker 2: can feel.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're just not going to get that with

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Speaker 1: a blood filled tick or with a pimple.

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Speaker 2: I mean, if you could, that'd be pretty impressive.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a mental popping sound,

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Speaker 1: but it's not really a naudible sound. It's just more

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Speaker 1: of an experience, right. And then again we're probably to

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Speaker 1: what extent are we thinking about explosions when we engage,

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Speaker 1: and you know, it's like the idea of the explosion

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Speaker 1: then informs how we're thinking about rupturing and bursting. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I mentioned there was another bit of poetry here

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Speaker 1: that refers to He refers to writings in the Book

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Speaker 1: of Songs, one of the five classics of Chinese poetry,

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Speaker 1: said to be compiled by Confusus himself, and this is

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Speaker 1: from the late Western Joe dynasty, which would be ten

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Speaker 1: forty six BCE through seven seventy one BCE. And it

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Speaker 1: translates as follows, how goes the night? It's not yet midnight,

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Speaker 1: but the ting lao is already blazing. So king lao

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Speaker 1: apparently refers to a kind of torch made of bamboo,

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Speaker 1: and as it burns, it makes these crackling, perhaps popping noises.

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Speaker 1: So it's an upgrading of the bamboo popping effect into

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Speaker 1: a different sort of pyrotechnic device.

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Speaker 2: Not just desultory poking into the fire with a piece

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Speaker 2: of bamboo such that it pops, but making a torch

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Speaker 2: that is designed to pop as it burns.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's my understanding of it. Yes, Now it's easy

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Speaker 1: to simply extrapolate our modern enjoyment of such pops and

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Speaker 1: bangs to ancient peoples. And I do think it's perfectly

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Speaker 1: fair to assume this is a large part of it.

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Speaker 1: You know, like a startling sound is amusing, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you start it, you're scared for a second, and then

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Speaker 1: you're relieved and you're laughing like that's I think that's

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Speaker 1: just part of the universal human experience, and it's been

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Speaker 1: that way for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm reminded of the psychological attraction people have to

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Speaker 2: popping bubble wrap. Why do people like doing that so much?

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Speaker 2: I think we hypothesized in a previous episode of Invention

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Speaker 2: that it might have something to do with grooming instincts maybe,

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Speaker 2: but back to pimple popping and tit bursting right exactly.

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Speaker 2: But I think part of it also, especially when you

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Speaker 2: see children do it, it seems a little bit less

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Speaker 2: like anxiety relieving grooming behaviors with them and more like

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Speaker 2: a game of Jack in the Box or Pop Goes

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Speaker 2: the Weasel or Peekaboo or something. It's just repeatedly startling

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Speaker 2: yourself with the sound and enjoying it absolutely.

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Speaker 1: And so I think it again, it's perfectly fair to

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Speaker 1: say this is a large part of what we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here. But another part of the tradition is the

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Speaker 1: use of loud noises to frighten away spirits monsters. The

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Speaker 1: more recent version of this is the idea of frightening

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Speaker 1: away the New Year's beast, the nun Shao. Now there's

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Speaker 1: some discussion about whether this is actually how old this

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Speaker 1: tradition goes back. There's some that say that it's essentially

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Speaker 1: a recent tradition that's popped up. And this gets into

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Speaker 1: some of the Chinese New Year celebrations that most of

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Speaker 1: us are familiar with seeing, you know, the idea of

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Speaker 1: like a lion dance taking place and firecrackers going off,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But it also correlates to an

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Speaker 1: ancient tradition that Juan discusses, the Shanzhau. According to the

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Speaker 1: Han dynasty classic the Book of Gods and Spirits, these

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Speaker 1: strange creatures would harass campfires in the night, and they

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Speaker 1: were also said in some traditions to carry a disease

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Speaker 1: that could cause chills and fevers. So what you did

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Speaker 1: is you use bamboo firewood, because that would of course

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Speaker 1: pop at regular intervals and create these frightening noises that

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Speaker 1: would keep these monster spirits creatures whatever you want to

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Speaker 1: call them away from your fire.

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Speaker 2: So it is not just amusing to have exploding bamboo around,

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Speaker 2: but it's also somewhere between a real repellent of maybe

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Speaker 2: some kind of creature that would threaten your campfire, or

397
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Speaker 2: at least imagined as some kind of apotropaic magic to

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Speaker 2: keep the demons away.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. So Obviously, quite unexpectedly, goblins were popping up

400
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Speaker 1: in the research, so I decided to look a little deeper.

401
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Speaker 1: One of the sources we came across is a book

402
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Speaker 1: by Richard von blah titled The Sinister Way, the Divine

403
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Speaker 1: and the Demonic and Chinese religious culture, and in it

404
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Speaker 1: he says that shanzhau sometimes translated as mountain goblins and

405
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Speaker 1: described as being ape like in various ways, and he

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Speaker 1: says that basically these are quote a class of petty demons,

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Speaker 1: changeling spirits inhabiting the wild mountains and forests.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Overall, he's seems to characterize them as a kind

409
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Speaker 2: of a very classic type of monster, actually, the monster

410
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Speaker 2: that embodies the chaos of the wilderness as opposed to

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Speaker 2: the order of civilization.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course you see this in European traditions.

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Speaker 1: You see this in cultures around the world, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: the dark is frightening, The wilds are frightening, especially if

415
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Speaker 1: they're not your wilds. And that's something that he points out.

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Speaker 1: Von Glan points out that after the loss of northern

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Speaker 1: China to foreign conquerors in three seventeen, the Chinese rulers

418
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Speaker 1: were displaced to the south, where they encountered a dense, humid,

419
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Speaker 1: subtropical environment along with rugged mountains, along with new wildlife

420
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Speaker 1: and native peoples. So he says that this was to

421
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Speaker 1: the rulers that had come down from northern China, this

422
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Speaker 1: was a place of barbaric peoples, of savage spirits. And

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Speaker 1: thus you see that it may be strengthening predispositions for

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Speaker 1: this sort of folkloric motif.

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Speaker 2: Though then again, I wonder how much the idea of

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Speaker 2: like mountain goblins that are considered somewhat humanoid, somewhat ape like,

427
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Speaker 2: might have been inspired by encounters with actual wildlife like

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Speaker 2: I know, of course, gibbons traditionally occupied much of ancient

429
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Speaker 2: China and there and there's a lot of consciousness of

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Speaker 2: gibbons in Chinese culture and poetry.

431
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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and apparently some reads on the Shengzau certainly

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Speaker 1: point towards, you know, actual apes as being at least

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Speaker 1: part of it, you know, because indeed, what do we

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Speaker 1: know about a lot of monkeys species in the monkeys,

435
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,560
Speaker 1: especially in the wild, is that they can be curious,

436
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 1: they can be they can be a manner of a

437
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:46,720
Speaker 1: pest when they encounter human activities. And you know, I

438
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:48,639
Speaker 1: don't know how much we should read into the idea

439
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 1: of illness being caused by them, because You see this

440
00:23:51,320 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 1: a lot with mythical creatures, right, and mythical and magical

441
00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:58,120
Speaker 1: beings and magical peoples. They cause disease. They're a way

442
00:23:58,119 --> 00:24:01,919
Speaker 1: of explaining illness in a pre germ theory world, right.

443
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:04,720
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know, obviously one can

444
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: transmit illnesses from wild animals, so that could potentially be

445
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,880
Speaker 1: a part of it. I guess. However, you do see

446
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:15,720
Speaker 1: folks that go in an entirely cryptid direction with all

447
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: of this, and they're like, oh, well, this is clearly

448
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: you know, we're clearly talking about sasquatches here.

449
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:23,399
Speaker 2: Was there an X Files episode about the Shanziao?

450
00:24:23,880 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: I don't know. You're the one to tell me about

451
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 1: the whether there's an X Files episode or not.

452
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 2: I don't remember one. But you know, they churned through

453
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 2: a lot of cryptids over the course of that show.

454
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 2: There is a lot of seasons to fill. At some

455
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 2: point they were even doing the Jersey Devil, so you know,

456
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 2: they were really really rooting around in the bottom of

457
00:24:42,000 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 2: the bucket.

458
00:24:42,800 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 1: But that does also point to you know, you can

459
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: point to plenty of other cultures that have some sort

460
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: of a wild Man of the Woods kind of creature

461
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: or multiple creatures in their mythology, like and to a

462
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: certain extent, the number of these could be inspired by

463
00:24:58,960 --> 00:25:01,879
Speaker 1: observances of ape creatures in the wild.

464
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:03,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, I mean that that's always one of the

465
00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 2: great mysteries when you're dealing with mythical beasts, is like

466
00:25:07,040 --> 00:25:10,199
Speaker 2: what percent of it is imagination and what percent is

467
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 2: inspired by something people saw, either like you know, seeing

468
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 2: a person and misunderstanding what you saw, or seeing some

469
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 2: seeing wildlife and misunderstanding.

470
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,119
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, Now, Von Glen points out that there are

471
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,639
Speaker 1: other things that were sort of classified as as also

472
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,920
Speaker 1: being shanzhau in essence. One of them was this these

473
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: entities called the wutong Shin that I think we talked

474
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 1: about in the past and the show, because there in

475
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: some ways, in some versions of them are comparable to incubi,

476
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: demons and European traditions. But these are as you often

477
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,439
Speaker 1: see with with mythical creatures and beings in cultures. The

478
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:50,440
Speaker 1: wutong Shin end up like changing over time and become

479
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: being more like gods and being something that should be revered,

480
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: Whereas von Glen points out that the Shanzhou goblins just

481
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:03,480
Speaker 1: remain untried transformed in cultural traditions, they remain these pesky

482
00:26:03,960 --> 00:26:07,840
Speaker 1: goblins of the wild. And one issue that I found

483
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: rather interesting here that I don't really have a firm

484
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,120
Speaker 1: answer on is why in some cases, like a number

485
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: of cases, they're they're described as ape like, but sometimes

486
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 1: they have inverted feet and then perhaps in some cases

487
00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: a single leg. And that made me think of these

488
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: other cases of monopeds which are described in various traditions,

489
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 1: including by plenty of the elder. The notion of one

490
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: legged wood spirits that one might encounter in the wild.

491
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:39,680
Speaker 2: Again, entirely speculative here, but I just wonder if that

492
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 2: kind of concept could be inspired by seeing the different

493
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 2: locomotion of apes like gibbons who walk or climb or

494
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,160
Speaker 2: hang with the aid of very long arms.

495
00:26:49,560 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, or kind of like a side profile kind of

496
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:55,040
Speaker 1: issue where you're just looking at them from the side

497
00:26:55,080 --> 00:26:57,199
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, they're kind of moving like a

498
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 1: human might move if they had one leg and a

499
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 1: of crutches, that sort of thing. So you know, that's

500
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,639
Speaker 1: always a possibility one of the And then also you

501
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:11,320
Speaker 1: could also throw in, well, it's a minimally counterintuitive creature design, right,

502
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,880
Speaker 1: what if not two legs but one. Likewise, you could

503
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: compare it to congenital deformities in human beings. But one

504
00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,560
Speaker 1: interesting hypothesis that I ran across was from the scholar

505
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: Carl ap Ruck, who proposed that at least some of

506
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: these might be connected to Vedic traditions involving soma, which

507
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 1: of course is soma. Was this essentially some sort of

508
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:39,719
Speaker 1: drug that is described in ancient texts, and the actual

509
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: botanical reality of soma remains something of a mystery, with

510
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: explanations ranging from psilocybin to something like a fedra. Okay,

511
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:54,399
Speaker 1: but Ruck's proposition here is that this idea of a

512
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: one armed being in the woods is essentially tied to

513
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:02,119
Speaker 1: a botanical description. Specifically, he wrote about shade foots, a

514
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 1: fabulous tribe from India who were thought to jump about

515
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 1: on a single foot that could be used as a paracel.

516
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,919
Speaker 1: And apparently the idea is that what if this is,

517
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 1: you know, it's an exaggerated anthropomorphic description of a plant

518
00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:21,439
Speaker 1: that you would encounter in the wild. I don't know.

519
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: I don't have a firm answer what It's an interesting idea.

520
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 2: I'm trying to picture it a plant that could metaphorically

521
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: be described as a person with one foot who can

522
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 2: also use their foot as a parasol.

523
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:37,240
Speaker 1: I guess I mean, so my family recently went mushroom

524
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: foraging and also just sort of identifying mushrooms, and you know,

525
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: we have a number of them. We have. The Old

526
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: Man in the Woods is one of The Old Man

527
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: of the Woods is one of the mushrooms you encounter.

528
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: You know, the chicken or hen of the woods is another.

529
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of the sort of thing that

530
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: goes on with the naming of and certainly the non

531
00:28:54,560 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: scientific naming of various organisms in the wild. So you know,

532
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: it seems totally possible, even I don't know that there's

533
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: actually any evidence for it if it may just be

534
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: pure speculation, but it's something to think about. As for

535
00:29:08,720 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: von Glenn himself, he ultimately summarizes that he thinks, quote,

536
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: it seems likely that these demonic images derived from frightening

537
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: encounters with denizens of the mountains, both human and ape.

538
00:29:21,440 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 2: Okay, so it might be just sort of conflating of

539
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 2: stories of people encountering gibbons, people encountering other people they

540
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 2: weren't familiar with, and it turns into monster stories, but

541
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:34,640
Speaker 2: ultimately leads to this consciousness of a thing you can

542
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 2: do to repel the monsters of the wild, the monsters

543
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 2: of the mountains, is that you can have a bamboo

544
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 2: torch that explodes and frightens and drives them off.

545
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, you may. And it's one of those

546
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:47,959
Speaker 1: things which it makes sense if you're dealing with an

547
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 1: actual frightening animal or you know, in the wild, makes

548
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: some loud noises scare it away. But also it's something

549
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 1: you can do against even ideas of darkness, right, more

550
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: supernatural premises about the nature of reality. You know, I

551
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 1: am frightened, but hey, I can make a loud noise

552
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: and that's gonna that's at least something.

553
00:30:08,600 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 2: There's something actually very instinctual. I think about the idea

554
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 2: of making noise when you are frightened, especially in the

555
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 2: dark or in the wild. You know, there's the old

556
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 2: expression whistling, whistling past the graveyard, or you'll just notice

557
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 2: it in people when they start getting scared walking around

558
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 2: in a place, like kids sometimes maybe start talking louder,

559
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,200
Speaker 2: or start talking to themselves or snapping their fingers or

560
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: whistling or humming. We've got this natural sense that making

561
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 2: noises provide security.

562
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember thinking this while watching the movie It,

563
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 1: the recent adaptation of Suphin King's It. You know, where

564
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: these the children are encountering this horrifying supernatural entity, and

565
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: it just kept thinking like, Oh, man, if I encountered

566
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,520
Speaker 1: Pennywise the clown, I would just yell at him. I

567
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: would just yell at him. He wouldn't even know what

568
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,479
Speaker 1: to do, you know, Like, that's one way you can

569
00:30:58,520 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: diffuse the supernaw natural adversary of fear. He didn't expect

570
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: you to go on the offensive and shout things at him.

571
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 2: So yeah, maybe it's connected to that.

572
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:09,640
Speaker 1: I don't know.

573
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:12,200
Speaker 2: Should we take a break and then come back to

574
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,240
Speaker 2: talk more about the invention of fireworks.

575
00:31:14,360 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: Yes, we'll take a quick break for the ad goblins

576
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: and then we'll be back with more content.

577
00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,480
Speaker 2: Okay, we heard from the ad goblins, but we used

578
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: some popping devices to drive them away, and now we're

579
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 2: back into the history of proto fireworks at least.

580
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, yeah, we've talked about proto fireworks, but we're

581
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,560
Speaker 1: to actual fireworks enter the picture. Things that we can

582
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: that we would actually look at, say on a table,

583
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: and say, oh, look at that. That's a firework that's

584
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: a firecracker, et cetera. So basically the idea is that

585
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: the Chinese simply augmented their fire and noise maker practices

586
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:54,959
Speaker 1: with chemically volatile substances once those substances were discovered. So,

587
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: as we discussed in our mash episodes, sulfur tipped matches

588
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: were already in use in China by the sixth century CE.

589
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: But the key to fireworks is, of course, this special

590
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: array of chemicals that come together to make gunpowder. There's

591
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: of course saltpeter, which is potassium nitrate, which was already

592
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: being stuffed into bamboo during the Southern Song period of

593
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 1: eleven twenty seven through twelve seventy nine in order to

594
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: create a more impressive bang with the bamboo. And between

595
00:32:26,440 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: these two periods, potassium nitrate is said to have emerged

596
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:31,360
Speaker 1: from the realm of Chinese alchemy.

597
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe we should stop for a second to

598
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 2: look at the chemical properties of potassium nitrate and understand

599
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 2: the role it plays in the development of firecrackers. So

600
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 2: back to the principles of fire. You know, we've talked

601
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 2: about a number of times what does fire need in

602
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 2: order to burn? It needs fuel, it needs heat, and

603
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 2: it needs oxygen because fire is a chemical reaction in

604
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 2: which fuel reacts with oxygen underheat to produce byproducts of

605
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: primarily carbon dioxide and water vapor. With a there trace

606
00:33:01,040 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 2: elements and molecules given off, and potassium nitrate or saltpeter

607
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 2: can aid in the process of combustion because of its

608
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:13,239
Speaker 2: chemical composition. So potassium nitrate is made out of one

609
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:18,479
Speaker 2: nitrogen atom, one potassium atom, and three oxygen atoms, and

610
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,240
Speaker 2: the key to its role in combustion is is those

611
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 2: three oxygen atoms. It is an oxygen donor to the

612
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 2: combustion process. Fire can only burn as fast as it

613
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 2: can access oxygen to react with the fuel. Remember it's

614
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 2: a reaction.

615
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: Now.

616
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 2: Of course, the atmosphere is full of oxygen, so there's

617
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 2: you know, on Earth, it's pretty easy to get a

618
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 2: fire going if you have enough heat and fuel because

619
00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 2: there's just free oxygen all over the place. But the

620
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 2: surface of a burning log can still only access so

621
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 2: much atmospheric oxygen at once, right, Like you know, it's

622
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 2: giving off chemicals and gases as it burns, of course,

623
00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 2: and then there's it can really only react with the oxygen.

624
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 2: This sort of touching right along the edge of the log.

625
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:08,280
Speaker 2: So there's a limit to the rate of combustion imposed

626
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 2: by the amount of oxygen available to react. At the

627
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 2: same time, potassium nitrate plays the role of an oxidizer

628
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 2: in the combustion reactions. It provides a ready supply of

629
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 2: extra oxygen, so in the presence of heat and fuel,

630
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 2: saltpeter will massively accelerate the speed at which fuel burns,

631
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 2: meaning you get often something beyond simple burning, in something

632
00:34:32,160 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 2: that qualifies as an explosion.

633
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 1: And this is where the Chinese alchemists come in now.

634
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: And now we refer to them as alchemists, but obviously

635
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:43,279
Speaker 1: we're using we have Western alchemy and then we have

636
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: Chinese alchemy, and they're directly comparable in a number of ways.

637
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, you're dealing with people on both sides

638
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:53,879
Speaker 1: that are attempting to figure out what substances do and

639
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 1: what they can achieve in various combinations with each.

640
00:34:56,360 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 2: Other, right, And these practices are usually some combination actually

641
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,320
Speaker 2: of real scientific study of the material properties of different

642
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 2: chemicals and a lot of magical beliefs mixed in.

643
00:35:06,719 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: Yes, And in this particular case, it's said that the

644
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 1: alchemists in general were attempting to create pills of immortality

645
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: or dan, which interestingly involve mixing up a compound of saltpeter, sulfur,

646
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,440
Speaker 1: and charcoal. And you might be wondering why these particular

647
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: substance as well. For instance, sulfur was used for skin ailments,

648
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,520
Speaker 1: saltpeter for fever. And the thing is, when you hit

649
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: just the right percentages here, according to one for saltpeter,

650
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: sulfur and charcoal, it would be like sixty one point

651
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: fifty four percent, thirty point seventy seven percent, and seven

652
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: point six percent. Put it all together, and you have gunpowder.

653
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that gunpowder comes together because you have mixed

654
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 2: up the oxidizer which is the saltpeter, the potassium nitrate,

655
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 2: and the fuel which is the charcoal and the sulfur.

656
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 2: And so once you mix them all together like that,

657
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 2: they can create something that burns suddenly, very rapidly.

658
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: Now, in traditions some accounts this discovery is attributed to

659
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: a particular individual, Sun Simao, who would have been born

660
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:13,319
Speaker 1: in five forty one CE, and he was the so

661
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: called King of Medicine. He wrote in these translations of

662
00:36:17,320 --> 00:36:21,480
Speaker 1: the titles essential formulas for emergencies worth one thousand pieces

663
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: of gold, and then a follow up supplement to the

664
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,879
Speaker 1: formulas of a thousand goldworth. And even in translation, those

665
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:29,320
Speaker 1: are simply marvelous titles.

666
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 2: So it's yeah, that's great. My next novel should be

667
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 2: called the Story That's Worth a million bucks.

668
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:42,320
Speaker 1: There you go, it's just good marketing. Now, it seems

669
00:36:42,360 --> 00:36:46,400
Speaker 1: like it's unlikely that this individual actually invented gunpowder, but

670
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: he certainly recorded its usage in particularly in a book

671
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 1: Optimization of Alchemical Processes by Sulfuric method translation. And it's

672
00:36:55,640 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: seemingly the oldest known reference to gunpowder, so we can

673
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 1: trace it roughly to his lifetime or or you know,

674
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:07,719
Speaker 1: probably before. And interestingly, with its medicinal roots, gunpowder continued

675
00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 1: to be used as a curative property in traditional Chinese

676
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 1: medicine for things like ringworm and various skin issues into

677
00:37:15,200 --> 00:37:16,240
Speaker 1: the sixteenth century.

678
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course, saltpeter had many uses outside the

679
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 2: creation of, say, elixirs of immortality or the creation of gunpowder.

680
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 2: For example, saltpeter has long been a preservative for certain

681
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 2: kinds of foods. You know, it's been a preservative for

682
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 2: meat in a way it's an elixir of immortality for

683
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 2: salami exactly.

684
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: Now, obviously, gunpowder has its own enormous history and it's

685
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: going to end up playing a much bigger role in

686
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 1: global affairs in the centuries to follow. But the Chinese,

687
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: this is essential, essential to point out. The Chinese realized

688
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: its military potential pretty early on, like during the Tang dynasty,

689
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 1: and it was compiled in Chinese military text by ten forty.

690
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,400
Speaker 1: And this is notable because there's something of this myth

691
00:38:03,560 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: in Western traditions that while a Chinese invention, gunpowder would

692
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: ultimately require Western ingenuity to take off as a weapon,

693
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:15,240
Speaker 1: the idea that the Chinese invented something but didn't really

694
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 1: understand what they'd invented, and nothing could really be further

695
00:38:18,120 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: from the truth. Because they developed rockets, fire arrows, fire lances.

696
00:38:23,239 --> 00:38:27,400
Speaker 1: They were using long bamboo tubes that were packed with

697
00:38:28,200 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: gunpowder as early as like eleven thirty two, and there's

698
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: evidence of bronze cannons as early as thirteen thirty two

699
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: or eleven twenty eight. Even so, the use of military

700
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 1: gunpowder advancements was very much a part of the Chinese

701
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,839
Speaker 1: world at the time, and it's just spread outward from there,

702
00:38:45,880 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: transforming warfare everywhere it went.

703
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 2: And it's interesting to consider the ongoing relationship between recreational

704
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 2: fireworks and warfare, because obviously the same chemicals can be

705
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 2: used for both. You know, you can use gunpowder to

706
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 2: make a harmless celebratory device or to make a cannon

707
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 2: that kills people. And it's interesting how this association has

708
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 2: remained in people's minds throughout the centuries because very often

709
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 2: celebratory fireworks not always, but very often are used to

710
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 2: celebrate things like military victory. Is it's almost like they

711
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 2: call to mind the battle that you're thinking back on

712
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 2: and celebrating.

713
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:27,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, we see that in the United

714
00:39:27,600 --> 00:39:30,000
Speaker 1: States with the Star Spangled banner, which is talking about

715
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,479
Speaker 1: stuff blowing up in the sky, and then especially around

716
00:39:33,480 --> 00:39:37,880
Speaker 1: the Fourth of July is paired with actual fireworks exploding

717
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: in the sky. To get back into this world of

718
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,319
Speaker 1: fireworks proper. In the Chinese origins, we can see how

719
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 1: explosive and combustive substances come together with bao jou. You know.

720
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,080
Speaker 1: But let's not forget the other aspect of fireworks, the

721
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: part that you might not think about as much when

722
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: you buy a bunch of fireworks, or even when you

723
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: set them off at night. But the next day when

724
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,400
Speaker 1: you go to clean up yard, you're going to encounter

725
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:06,160
Speaker 1: the reality of all the paper and cardboard that makes

726
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: a firework possible.

727
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, it often looks like there has been like a

728
00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:14,640
Speaker 2: battle between armies of toilet paper rolls that just hacked

729
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 2: each other to bits.

730
00:40:15,880 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, because even today fireworks depend on paper and cardboard.

731
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: That tank you were describing earlier was inevitably made out

732
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: of cardboard and paper. But as we explored in our

733
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: recent two parter un Stuffed, will your mind about the

734
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:32,280
Speaker 1: invention of the book the history of the book, paper

735
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: was an expensive luxury in olden times. Chinese paper had

736
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: already been around for centuries, but it was a high

737
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 1: priced substance. This was not the kind of thing you

738
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: would just readily fill with gunpowder and set off or burn.

739
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,680
Speaker 1: But then during the Song Dynasty we see the creation

740
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 1: of bamboo paper, which was much more affordable, and so

741
00:40:53,920 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: this was finally paper that was cost effective enough to

742
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 1: use in fireworks or fireworks the kind of fire not

743
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 1: just the things that might amuse you know, individuals of

744
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 1: great wealth, but something that could be you know, a

745
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:09,800
Speaker 1: little more available to everyone else.

746
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:14,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is. There's the main explosive charge, and that's

747
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 2: wrapped together with a time dignition device, which is the fuse.

748
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 2: It used to be called the match.

749
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: Now a number of you are probably thinking, well, that's

750
00:41:22,239 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: a firecracker, and maybe that is essentially a bottle rocket.

751
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: But obviously there are plenty of more elaborate fireworks. I mean,

752
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:33,400
Speaker 1: there are just thousands of types of fireworks today, and

753
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: these the more traditional, these sort of exploding, sparkling, colorful fireworks.

754
00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: This sort of thing didn't become popular in China un

755
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:43,919
Speaker 1: till apparently the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, during the last

756
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: dynastic period of China, the Qing dynasty, and one writes

757
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: that some historians credit fireworks credit these type this type

758
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: of firework technology to a specialist by the name of

759
00:41:55,440 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: Lee Thai, saying that he basically invented these four when

760
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,840
Speaker 1: he was asked by the Jong Xing emperor to create

761
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: something special. And the story goes that he's, you know,

762
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: he's been asked to create some sort of special firework.

763
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,480
Speaker 1: He goes out and he notices all the colorful sparks

764
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: that are inside of a black myths shop as the

765
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: blacksmith is is pounding away at the steel and he

766
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:21,280
Speaker 1: decides to experiment with different sizes of iron particles mixed

767
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:22,160
Speaker 1: with the gunpowder.

768
00:42:22,640 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this actually does connect to the way that

769
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:30,120
Speaker 2: most colored fireworks displays are created today. They're often produced

770
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:34,680
Speaker 2: by packing fireworks shells with these little pellets known as

771
00:42:34,760 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 2: stars that include different types of chemicals. Often metal salts

772
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 2: that wind burned create different colors. So, for example, red

773
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:48,600
Speaker 2: fireworks often have some kind of strontium content like strontium carbonate,

774
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 2: or orange fireworks might have calcium chloride and so forth. Apparently,

775
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:56,319
Speaker 2: blue fireworks are one of the hardest colors to make,

776
00:42:56,400 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 2: and that requires copper copper chloride content. But the most

777
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:05,280
Speaker 2: common form of fireworks you see in big festival displays today,

778
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:07,680
Speaker 2: you know, not the little firecrackers you set off in

779
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,439
Speaker 2: your yard, but big festival displays. These would generally use

780
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,480
Speaker 2: what might be known as the mortar or the shell model.

781
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,399
Speaker 2: So you've got a core explosive charge that's usually made

782
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:21,080
Speaker 2: out of black powder and a lift charge. It burns quickly,

783
00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:23,960
Speaker 2: it expands and turns into heat and gas. It shoots

784
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 2: it up into the sky and then it is the

785
00:43:26,640 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 2: fuse is timed so that when it's way up in

786
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 2: the sky, it will reach the center charge, and then

787
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 2: it will explode and the shell will be packed with

788
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:39,480
Speaker 2: all these little things, these little explosive balls called stars.

789
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:43,400
Speaker 2: And the stars can be packed in special arrangements, and

790
00:43:43,440 --> 00:43:46,600
Speaker 2: the arrangements of the stars within the shell is usually

791
00:43:46,600 --> 00:43:49,680
Speaker 2: what gives rise to the patterns of the exploding fireworks.

792
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:53,640
Speaker 2: And there are actually artisans who will make special fireworks,

793
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:56,560
Speaker 2: like custom packing of the stars inside to give you

794
00:43:56,600 --> 00:43:58,880
Speaker 2: the color you want and the shape of the explosion

795
00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,040
Speaker 2: you want, so you can get hearts, you can get

796
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 2: smiley faces or whatever. And I just got to share,

797
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 2: by the way, I found a Wikipedia article with one

798
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,080
Speaker 2: of the best sentences in English I've ever read. I

799
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: was looking at this the other day. It's from a

800
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 2: Wiki article about pyrotechnic stars, and the sentence goes, pumped

801
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 2: stars are stars that have been pumped using a star pump.

802
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 1: I love that because, out of context, it's just a

803
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: sentence that says nothing.

804
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 2: I was trying to think, are there any other ways

805
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:32,560
Speaker 2: you could plug words into that sentence structure to make

806
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 2: it work? I was thinking, wait a minute, cooked rice

807
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,880
Speaker 2: is rice that has been cooked using a rice cooker

808
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 2: doesn't quite work though, because you can cook rice other ways.

809
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,640
Speaker 1: I don't know, but a star pump has only one function,

810
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 1: and that is to pump stars.

811
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 2: It's true.

812
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: All right. On that note, we're going to take one

813
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: more break, but when we come back we'll get into

814
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 1: some of the Western tradition of fireworks. All right, we're back.

815
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,919
Speaker 2: So I wanted to look at a post on the

816
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 2: always Wonderful Medieval Manuscripts blog on the British Library website.

817
00:45:06,719 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 2: This post is by Alison Ray. I feel like I've

818
00:45:09,640 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 2: mentioned pieces by this blog on the show before. I

819
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 2: think we discussed an awesome one they had about anti

820
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:18,799
Speaker 2: theft curses in medieval manuscripts. Yes, it's just a really

821
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 2: great blog to follow, and I'm actually going to reference

822
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:24,520
Speaker 2: a couple of posts that I came across in this episode.

823
00:45:24,760 --> 00:45:27,759
Speaker 2: So this one talks about how fireworks have been a

824
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 2: popular source of entertainment in England since as early as

825
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 2: the fifteenth century. Rey writes that the first recorded use

826
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 2: of fireworks in England was at King Henry the Seventh's

827
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:42,399
Speaker 2: wedding celebration in fourteen eighty six. And I have seen

828
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 2: this historical claim made all over the place, and I

829
00:45:45,040 --> 00:45:48,359
Speaker 2: was trying to find contemporary documentation, or at least the

830
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 2: earliest documentation of it I could, and I could not

831
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 2: find that. It makes me wonder how modern writers know this,

832
00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:57,960
Speaker 2: But I assume that the British Library bloggers have their

833
00:45:58,400 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: history sorted out, so I'll trust them on this one.

834
00:46:01,560 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 2: So the wedding of King Henry the seventh. King Henry

835
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 2: was also known as Henry Tudor, and his assent to

836
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 2: the throne was the ultimate conclusion of the Wars of

837
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 2: the Roses, where the houses of Lancaster and York had

838
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 2: struggled for control of England for like three decades. This

839
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:23,120
Speaker 2: is chronicled with some propagandistic slant in Shakespeare's play Richard

840
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 2: the Third. Of course, Richard the Third was the last

841
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 2: of the York kings. Henry had some kind of roughly

842
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 2: thirty seventh in line succession claim to the throne through

843
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 2: the line of Lancaster, but he really came to power

844
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 2: through some political maneuvering and military victory, so his claim

845
00:46:41,200 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 2: was of course through the Lancaster line. But he apparently

846
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 2: got in position for power by swearing to marry Elizabeth

847
00:46:48,000 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 2: of York, which would unite the two houses if he

848
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 2: was victorious, and Richard the Third had enemies within his

849
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,600
Speaker 2: own house. So with some French support, Henry the seventh

850
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:01,719
Speaker 2: landed in Wales in four fourteen eighty five. He led

851
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 2: an army against Richard's power center in London. Richard took

852
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 2: an army out to meet him. Henry and Richard's forces

853
00:47:08,520 --> 00:47:12,480
Speaker 2: fought a conclusive battle at Bosworth Field on August twenty second,

854
00:47:12,640 --> 00:47:15,720
Speaker 2: fourteen eighty five, where Richard was killed in the fighting,

855
00:47:16,040 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 2: allegedly while trying to like strike deep behind enemy ranks

856
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:22,680
Speaker 2: and kill Henry himself to in the war immediately, and

857
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:25,800
Speaker 2: Richard the Third was apparently the last English king killed

858
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 2: in battle. So after the battle Henry is victorious, He's like, well, okay,

859
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 2: you know, I've basically got a claim to the throne

860
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 2: by succession. I just won in battle, which means God

861
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,240
Speaker 2: must want me to be king. So Henry was crowned

862
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:42,480
Speaker 2: at the end of October fourteen eighty five, and true

863
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:45,480
Speaker 2: to his promise, he married Elizabeth of York in January

864
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 2: fourteen eighty six. And this marriage was of greater than

865
00:47:49,480 --> 00:47:52,919
Speaker 2: normal political importance. It was more than just the pageantry

866
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 2: of a royal wedding. It was in some ways the

867
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 2: symbolic extinguishment of a dynastic war that had been raging

868
00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,880
Speaker 2: for about thirty years. So why not a little extra celebration,

869
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 2: Why not blow something up right. Ray's blog post also

870
00:48:08,320 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 2: points to a fourteenth century manuscript known as the British

871
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 2: Library royal Ms twelve b. Twenty five. This is primarily

872
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 2: a medical text. It talks about bodily humors, herbal medicines, astrology,

873
00:48:24,120 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 2: but it's got a recipe for fireworks, specifically fireworks, rockets,

874
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:34,160
Speaker 2: and the burning glass. And according to Ray, the opening

875
00:48:34,200 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 2: to the section on the recipes for combustion begins with

876
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:42,239
Speaker 2: references quote to Greek fire, an incendiary weapon first used

877
00:48:42,280 --> 00:48:46,080
Speaker 2: by Byzantine forces against Arabic naval fleets steering sieges on

878
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:49,719
Speaker 2: Constantinople in the late seventh century. So I think it's

879
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:54,240
Speaker 2: very interesting that a fourteenth century writer in English would say, Okay,

880
00:48:54,239 --> 00:48:58,800
Speaker 2: here's a recipe for making fun recreational fireworks, but let's

881
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 2: introduce it by talking about this terror weapon.

882
00:49:01,520 --> 00:49:05,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the terror weapon of the Byzantines, which we

883
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,280
Speaker 1: have an entire episode on in the vault if anyone

884
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: wants to listen to it.

885
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:12,400
Speaker 2: But apparently because of the danger posed by fireworks, the

886
00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:16,799
Speaker 2: manuscript accompanies its recipes with protective magic spells that you

887
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:18,400
Speaker 2: can use against the fire.

888
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:19,400
Speaker 1: Quote.

889
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:23,959
Speaker 2: The protective charms against fire invokes Saint column Seal also

890
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 2: known as Columba or column Kill, and Saint Agatha for protection.

891
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 2: Saint Agatha was a patron saint against fire, lightning, and

892
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 2: volcanic eruptions. Protective charms may seem unorthodox to us today,

893
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 2: but they were often employed in the same manner as

894
00:49:41,719 --> 00:49:45,120
Speaker 2: medical recipes and religious prayers. And this is something we've

895
00:49:45,160 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 2: talked about on the show before. How in late medieval

896
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:51,160
Speaker 2: and early modern writing in Europe, there's a lot of

897
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 2: thinking that just blends magic and naturalistic or scientific knowledge,

898
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:58,799
Speaker 2: as if there were no real difference between them. You know,

899
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 2: here's how to make an explode of powder. Here's a

900
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 2: magic spell to cure wartz. Here's a recipe for toothpaste.

901
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 2: Here's how to know if a witch is giving you

902
00:50:06,880 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 2: a rash. There's another British Library manuscript profile. I wanted

903
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 2: to mention, this one by curator Maddie Smith in twenty seventeen.

904
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 2: And this is of a seventeenth century book called Pyrotechnica,

905
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:23,400
Speaker 2: written by a gunner named John Babington. And it's the

906
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,719
Speaker 2: first book in English that is known to be entirely

907
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:29,880
Speaker 2: about how to make fireworks for fun. It's entirely a

908
00:50:29,920 --> 00:50:33,279
Speaker 2: book about recreational fireworks. Now again, this is a much

909
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 2: later work, maybe almost three hundred years later than the

910
00:50:36,200 --> 00:50:40,960
Speaker 2: previous manuscript. It is widely attested that Queen Elizabeth the

911
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,280
Speaker 2: First of England loved fireworks. And note that Queen Elizabeth

912
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 2: the First is different from Elizabeth of York, who married

913
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 2: Henry the seventh. Queen Elizabeth the First ruled from fifteen

914
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,440
Speaker 2: fifty eight until her death in sixteen oh three. I

915
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:58,000
Speaker 2: was looking for examples of her legendary love of fireworks,

916
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 2: and I came across a letter written by a man

917
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 2: named Laneham describing the Queen's visit to Kenilworth Castle in

918
00:51:06,120 --> 00:51:10,560
Speaker 2: fifteen seventy five. And Laneham describes it like this quote.

919
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 2: On the Sunday night, after a warning piece or two,

920
00:51:14,560 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 2: there was a blaze of burning darts flying to and

921
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:22,799
Speaker 2: fro beams of stars, chorus, scunt streams and hail of

922
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 2: fire sparks, lightnings, of wildfire on the water and on

923
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 2: the land, flight and shot of thunderbolts, all with such continuance,

924
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:37,239
Speaker 2: terror and vehemence. The heavens thundered, the water surged, and

925
00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 2: the earth shook.

926
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's that's a great description. Shades of deep purple,

927
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:43,440
Speaker 1: but a great description.

928
00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it doesn't it doesn't sound fun. It

929
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:47,760
Speaker 2: sounds really scary.

930
00:51:48,480 --> 00:51:52,000
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean that's those were my earliest experiences

931
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 1: of fireworks, just being terrified. So you know, feeling a

932
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: sense of terror or safe terror is kind.

933
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 2: Of part of it, right, Yeah, that might be true.

934
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 2: Of course. Shakespeare mentions fireworks in a number of his plays,

935
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 2: or at least in one or two plays. There's a

936
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 2: scene in Love's Labor's Lost where a character says, quote,

937
00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:12,840
Speaker 2: the King would have me present the Princess sweet Chuck

938
00:52:13,280 --> 00:52:17,520
Speaker 2: with some delightful ostentation or show or pageant or antique

939
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 2: or firework.

940
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:19,319
Speaker 1: Huh.

941
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 2: And apparently Queen Elizabeth liked fireworks so much that she

942
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:27,080
Speaker 2: commissioned a lord of fireworks to be in charge of

943
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:30,120
Speaker 2: the whole process. That would come to be known as

944
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,760
Speaker 2: the fire Master of England, whose assistants were called green

945
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 2: men because they wore hats made out of leaves to

946
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,160
Speaker 2: protect their heads from fire and sparks. So Queen Elizabeth

947
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 2: had a pyromancer.

948
00:52:45,360 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 1: That's awesome, and they're running about in the in these

949
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,239
Speaker 1: green hats you made out of like green leaves. I mean,

950
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:56,000
Speaker 1: that sounds very Elvin. That reminds me of what we've

951
00:52:56,000 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: discussed in the past about these taboos against wearing green

952
00:52:59,320 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 1: because that is the color of the fairies.

953
00:53:01,239 --> 00:53:04,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. I think those ones we talked about in

954
00:53:04,600 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 2: the past were specifically superstition about young women wearing them

955
00:53:08,640 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 2: or they would make the fairy princesses jealous. But yeah,

956
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, if you're already dealing with

957
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 2: fire and fireworks for a living, why not put some

958
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 2: leaves on your head.

959
00:53:18,520 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: Yeah.

960
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:22,520
Speaker 2: But so, anyway, back to this book Pyrotechnica by Babbington.

961
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 2: It describes how to make a number of regular shell

962
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:28,640
Speaker 2: style fireworks of the kind we were talking about earlier,

963
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 2: and how to achieve different colors. Quote, for stars of

964
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 2: a blue color, a combination of gunpowder, saltpeter and sulfur

965
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 2: vive did the trick. He then progresses to making silver

966
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:46,080
Speaker 2: and gold rain firework wheels and fizz gigs a French

967
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:48,560
Speaker 2: firework that fizzled before it exploded.

968
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: Fizz gig, Yeah, fizgig like in the dark Crystal, all right.

969
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:55,360
Speaker 2: But beyond that, Babbington goes on in his book to

970
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 2: give instructions for these elaborate displays, such as the dragon.

971
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 2: The dragon was a giant wooden frame in the shape

972
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:08,000
Speaker 2: of a winged serpent that was filled and ornamented with

973
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:11,600
Speaker 2: all kinds of combustibles that would make it breathe fire

974
00:54:11,800 --> 00:54:15,160
Speaker 2: and spark with fury. And one popular way of doing

975
00:54:15,200 --> 00:54:19,120
Speaker 2: this dragon demonstration was to have both a wooden dragon

976
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:23,359
Speaker 2: crammed with fireworks and either a rival dragon or a

977
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:26,360
Speaker 2: figure of Saint George, and then you would make them fight.

978
00:54:27,600 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 2: So this is from Smith. Quote in Pyrotechnica, Babbington instructs

979
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 2: the reader to strap the dragon and Saint George together

980
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,879
Speaker 2: so that when a wheel is turned quote, they will

981
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 2: run furiously at each other. They had to be well balanced,

982
00:54:42,000 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 2: as otherwise quote they would turn their heels upward, which

983
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,760
Speaker 2: would be a great disgrace to the work and the workmen.

984
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 2: It sounds like more of a disgrace, that sounds maybe

985
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 2: like an extreme safety hazard.

986
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: You included a shot here of a woodcut illustration from

987
00:54:57,560 --> 00:55:00,440
Speaker 1: this book, and I have to say that that combined

988
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,640
Speaker 1: with the description this is pure burning man, like this

989
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,120
Speaker 1: is the exact spirit of that, sort of like a

990
00:55:05,200 --> 00:55:08,719
Speaker 1: large scale pyro technical display.

991
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:12,719
Speaker 2: Yeahctly this is Elizabethan burning man. But so there's a

992
00:55:12,719 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 2: big question here, right, So if fireworks were probably invented

993
00:55:16,600 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 2: in China and were super popular with the English monarchy

994
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 2: by the fifteen hundreds, how did they make that journey?

995
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:27,080
Speaker 2: How did they get from China to Europe and specifically

996
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 2: early modern England. Well, it turns out that the first

997
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:35,640
Speaker 2: known European to describe the creation of black powder was

998
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 2: doctor Mirabolus himself. Roger Bacon, the thirteenth century English philosopher,

999
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 2: proto scientist and Franciscan friar and doctor Mirabolis. I think

1000
00:55:46,640 --> 00:55:49,840
Speaker 2: it means technically wonderful teacher in Latin, but I like

1001
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:53,880
Speaker 2: to think of him as doctor wonderful. So Roger Bacon

1002
00:55:54,000 --> 00:55:56,719
Speaker 2: was born somewhere in southwest England, either I think in

1003
00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 2: Somerset or in Gloucestershire, between the year's twelve fourteen and

1004
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 2: twelve twenty. More recent sources places birth. I think around

1005
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:08,080
Speaker 2: twelve nineteen or twelve twenty, and he became a brother

1006
00:56:08,120 --> 00:56:11,360
Speaker 2: of the Franciscan order and a scholar of great esteem

1007
00:56:11,440 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 2: and controversy. In the modern day, he has this reputation

1008
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:19,880
Speaker 2: for being an early advocate of something approaching scientific empiricism,

1009
00:56:19,960 --> 00:56:24,040
Speaker 2: the study of nature through observation rather than just deductive

1010
00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:27,239
Speaker 2: principles about the divine order. Like, maybe you know what

1011
00:56:27,320 --> 00:56:30,200
Speaker 2: if Aristotle says something about nature and then you do

1012
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,759
Speaker 2: an experiment and discover that Aristotle is wrong, I think

1013
00:56:33,800 --> 00:56:36,200
Speaker 2: a lot of people might had the tendency to say, like, well,

1014
00:56:36,239 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 2: you know, you must have done some wrong. Aristotle's probably right.

1015
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:41,399
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Aristotle's above reproach.

1016
00:56:41,120 --> 00:56:46,399
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah. So Bacon studied and wrote on language, on mathematics,

1017
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:49,879
Speaker 2: on alchemy, astronomy, and optics. You might remember in our

1018
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:53,600
Speaker 2: Camera Obscura episode of Invention, we talked about how Bacon

1019
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 2: had read the works of the eleventh century Arab scholar

1020
00:56:57,560 --> 00:57:01,520
Speaker 2: Iban Alhytham, who described the principle of a pinhole camera

1021
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 2: for projecting images into a dark room, and Bacon picked

1022
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 2: up on this and conducted experiments based on Alhytham's writings.

1023
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 2: He apparently built or at least used a camera obscura

1024
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:16,240
Speaker 2: chamber for the purpose of safely observing solar eclipses in

1025
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 2: his lifetime. But he also described the use of spectacles

1026
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,960
Speaker 2: based on glass lenses, which were not yet in wide

1027
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 2: use at the time. He conducted alchemy experiments, and he

1028
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 2: speculated on the idea of a flying machine. He kind

1029
00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:32,360
Speaker 2: of had a reputation as something of a wonder worker

1030
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 2: or a wizard. And again this is something that wasn't

1031
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 2: unheard of for curious scholars of the medieval and early

1032
00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:42,680
Speaker 2: modern period. The doctor Faustus kind of image Robert. You

1033
00:57:42,720 --> 00:57:45,400
Speaker 2: might remember that one of the earliest theories on the

1034
00:57:45,440 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 2: authorship of the Voynage Manuscript attributes the manuscript to Roger Bacon,

1035
00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 2: though I don't think we ever found any good evidence

1036
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 2: supporting this claim. It seemed more like people just might

1037
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 2: have thought, well, who's some messed up wizard who could

1038
00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:01,600
Speaker 2: have created this weird book. I think the dating of

1039
00:58:01,640 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 2: the actual materials put the book as much later than

1040
00:58:05,960 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 2: Bacon's life.

1041
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if you could make a better case

1042
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:10,920
Speaker 1: for John D. Than you could for Bacon.

1043
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:16,000
Speaker 2: Right, But Bacon really did apparently advocate experimentalism, though this

1044
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 2: doesn't mean, he was the kind of like skeptic materialist

1045
00:58:19,360 --> 00:58:22,960
Speaker 2: naturalist you might imagine today. It seems he advocated an

1046
00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 2: empirical or experimental approach to both natural science and alchemy

1047
00:58:27,360 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 2: and magic, which you know, I can see as that

1048
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,240
Speaker 2: might have been a reasonable mindset if you were living

1049
00:58:32,240 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 2: in thirteenth century England. But anyway, he produced some important

1050
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:41,480
Speaker 2: encyclopedias of learning, beginning with his Opus Magis and following

1051
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 2: with some other I think other works that were called

1052
00:58:44,600 --> 00:58:48,520
Speaker 2: like Opus Lesser or Opus Tertiary. So where does the

1053
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 2: gunpowder come in? Well, in the twelve forties and a

1054
00:58:51,560 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 2: couple of his major works, Bacon just straight up described

1055
00:58:55,040 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 2: a recipe for making gunpowder as seemingly out of nowhere.

1056
00:58:58,440 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 2: So I'm going to cite a passage from the scholar

1057
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 2: Joseph Needham's work on Bacon and gunpowder in a book

1058
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:09,840
Speaker 2: called Science and Civilization in China from Cambridge University Press,

1059
00:59:09,920 --> 00:59:13,600
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven, where he combines a couple of nearly

1060
00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:18,520
Speaker 2: identical passages about gunpowder from Bacon's Opus Magis or Maeus

1061
00:59:18,640 --> 00:59:22,560
Speaker 2: and Opus Tertium together. But first we should look at

1062
00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 2: how Bacon introduces this section, which is he talks about

1063
00:59:26,560 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 2: Greek fire. He writes, certain of these work by contact only,

1064
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:35,520
Speaker 2: and so destroy life. Malta or naphtha, which is a

1065
00:59:35,600 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 2: kind of bitumen plentiful in the world, when projected upon

1066
00:59:39,360 --> 00:59:43,600
Speaker 2: a man in armor, burns him up. Similarly, yellow petroleum

1067
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:47,640
Speaker 2: i e. Oil produced from the rocks, when properly prepared

1068
00:59:47,720 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 2: or distilled, burns everything it meets by a consuming fire,

1069
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 2: not extinguishable by water, and only with great difficulty by

1070
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:59,600
Speaker 2: other things. Certain inventions disturb the hearing to such a

1071
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:02,280
Speaker 2: degree that if they are set off suddenly at night

1072
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 2: with sufficient skill, neither cities nor armies can endure them.

1073
01:00:06,680 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 2: No thunderclap can compare with such terrifying noises, nor lightning

1074
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 2: playing among the clouds with such frightening flashes. And then

1075
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:19,840
Speaker 2: he goes on. So this is the combined two passages

1076
01:00:19,920 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 2: about gunpowder itself. We have an example of these things

1077
01:00:24,160 --> 01:00:27,320
Speaker 2: that act on the senses in the sound and fire

1078
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:30,880
Speaker 2: of that children's toy, which is made in many diverse

1079
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: parts of the world, i e. A device no bigger

1080
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:38,360
Speaker 2: than one's thumb. From the violence of that salt called saltpeter,

1081
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:43,080
Speaker 2: together with sulfur and willow charcoal, combined into a powder

1082
01:00:43,640 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 2: so horrible a sound is made by the bursting of

1083
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:49,160
Speaker 2: a thing so small, no more than a bit of

1084
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:53,160
Speaker 2: parchment containing it, that we find the ear assaulted by

1085
01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:56,600
Speaker 2: a noise exceeding the roar of strong thunder, and a

1086
01:00:56,640 --> 01:01:00,520
Speaker 2: flash brighter than the most brilliant lightning. Specially if one

1087
01:01:00,560 --> 01:01:04,760
Speaker 2: is taken unawares. This terrible flash is very alarming. If

1088
01:01:04,760 --> 01:01:08,000
Speaker 2: an instrument of large size were used, no one could

1089
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:11,480
Speaker 2: withstand the noise and blinding light, And if the instrument

1090
01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:14,960
Speaker 2: were made of solid material, the violence of the explosion

1091
01:01:15,040 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 2: would be much greater.

1092
01:01:16,600 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: I love this. There are aspects of it that may

1093
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:21,760
Speaker 1: be sound like an overstatement of the power of a

1094
01:01:21,760 --> 01:01:24,680
Speaker 1: simple firework, but he does get at the heart of

1095
01:01:24,720 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 1: it here. Well.

1096
01:01:25,400 --> 01:01:28,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this is Bacon in this work in the

1097
01:01:28,400 --> 01:01:32,560
Speaker 2: middle of the thirteenth century, describing a totally accurate recipe

1098
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 2: for making an explosive charge. Remember, he's got all of

1099
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:37,760
Speaker 2: the ingredients we talked about in the chemistry section earlier.

1100
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:41,120
Speaker 2: He's got the fuel there, he's got the sulfur. He's

1101
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:43,800
Speaker 2: got the saltpeter as the oxidizer. He says, you grind

1102
01:01:43,840 --> 01:01:46,000
Speaker 2: them together, you make a powder out of them, and

1103
01:01:46,040 --> 01:01:47,919
Speaker 2: that's how you get this charge. And then of course

1104
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:50,840
Speaker 2: you pack it in to a roll of parchment, he says,

1105
01:01:51,120 --> 01:01:54,520
Speaker 2: which parchment, being a rather expensive material, also seems like

1106
01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:56,600
Speaker 2: maybe not a great use for it. But I don't

1107
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:58,520
Speaker 2: know what else would you use at the time, I guess,

1108
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 2: But he described, I said, is some kind of pre

1109
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:05,720
Speaker 2: existing children's toy, without saying where or when this toy

1110
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:09,960
Speaker 2: would have been observed, and ends with the unmistakable observation

1111
01:02:10,160 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 2: that this combustible powder could obviously be used for violence,

1112
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:18,200
Speaker 2: could be used in warfare. So a lot of historians

1113
01:02:18,240 --> 01:02:20,720
Speaker 2: claim that this is the first time knowledge of black

1114
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:24,760
Speaker 2: powder is acknowledged anywhere in Europe. But where did Bacon

1115
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,320
Speaker 2: get this idea from. He doesn't claim to have come

1116
01:02:27,360 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 2: up with it himself. Instead, he speaks of this toy

1117
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 2: from other parts of the world without saying where. So

1118
01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 2: there's an interesting question of cross fertilization of ideas here.

1119
01:02:38,080 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 2: Needham Joseph Needham, in his book argues that there is

1120
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:46,040
Speaker 2: ample reason for thinking that Chinese firecrackers and general explosive

1121
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 2: chemistry would have made their way back to Europe by

1122
01:02:49,240 --> 01:02:52,960
Speaker 2: around the time Bacon was writing. So Needham writes quote.

1123
01:02:53,280 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 2: This description inescapably suggests to us that a sample of

1124
01:02:56,800 --> 01:03:00,720
Speaker 2: Chinese crackers had come into Roger Bacon's possession and that

1125
01:03:00,840 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 2: he knew what the constituents of the mixture were inside them.

1126
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:08,400
Speaker 2: By twelve sixty seven. That would have been perfectly possible

1127
01:03:08,720 --> 01:03:11,600
Speaker 2: for his fellow friars had been traveling back and forth

1128
01:03:11,680 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 2: between Western Europe and the Mongol Court at Kara Kuran

1129
01:03:15,600 --> 01:03:19,280
Speaker 2: since twelve forty five, when the Franciscan John of Plano

1130
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:23,360
Speaker 2: Caprini had been sent as an envoy from Innocent the Fourth,

1131
01:03:23,440 --> 01:03:27,120
Speaker 2: that's Pope Innocent the Fourth to the Great khn And

1132
01:03:27,160 --> 01:03:32,280
Speaker 2: then he documents plenty of other recorded instances of Franciscans

1133
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:35,960
Speaker 2: and Dominicans and other Europeans traveling back and forth to

1134
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:39,520
Speaker 2: China to the Mongol Court and says that there's just

1135
01:03:39,600 --> 01:03:43,960
Speaker 2: really no problem imagining that someone may maybe knowing of

1136
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:46,520
Speaker 2: Roger Bacon and saying, hey, he's this kind of like

1137
01:03:47,280 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 2: out there wizard guy. He would enjoy a chemical curiosity

1138
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:52,760
Speaker 2: from the other side of the world. Let's bring some

1139
01:03:52,840 --> 01:03:56,160
Speaker 2: firecrackers back for doctor Wonderful to look at.

1140
01:03:56,280 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, now this would make perfect sense. Everything lines up here.

1141
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:05,000
Speaker 1: The needs to the Mongols and then via these traveling

1142
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: clergymen back to Europe.

1143
01:04:08,120 --> 01:04:11,440
Speaker 2: But I would say it also seems possible that firecracker

1144
01:04:11,520 --> 01:04:14,680
Speaker 2: chemistry could have entered late medieval Europe through the Arab world,

1145
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 2: which was a conduit for a lot of scientific and

1146
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:20,959
Speaker 2: technological knowledge from both farther East stand from the Arab

1147
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:23,920
Speaker 2: world itself, but also from the lost libraries of antiquity

1148
01:04:23,920 --> 01:04:25,720
Speaker 2: that you know, a lot of knowledge came back into

1149
01:04:25,720 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 2: Europe that way.

1150
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's also where we see more

1151
01:04:28,520 --> 01:04:32,640
Speaker 1: of a direct military stream of ideas from China than

1152
01:04:32,960 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 1: down through through Central Asia and into the Middle East.

1153
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:42,160
Speaker 2: And this instance of Bacon making this first record of

1154
01:04:42,560 --> 01:04:46,040
Speaker 2: a recipe for gunpowder in Europe is interesting in how

1155
01:04:46,080 --> 01:04:49,160
Speaker 2: it feeds into how we should think about the role

1156
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:52,040
Speaker 2: of Roger Bacon in the history of science and stuff,

1157
01:04:52,040 --> 01:04:56,360
Speaker 2: because despite his reputation for experimentation, which he did of

1158
01:04:56,400 --> 01:05:00,560
Speaker 2: course support and principle, Bacon's actual legacy the history of

1159
01:05:00,600 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 2: knowledge might just as well be understood as one of

1160
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:08,880
Speaker 2: voraciousness for sources of learning far and wide, as much

1161
01:05:08,920 --> 01:05:12,560
Speaker 2: as it was for actual experimentation. I mean, again, the

1162
01:05:12,600 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 2: idea is not that Bacon was doing chemistry experiments and

1163
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:20,920
Speaker 2: discovered how to make gunpowder. He probably got a firecracker

1164
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:24,840
Speaker 2: from somewhere that had been made based on Chinese technology,

1165
01:05:25,160 --> 01:05:28,560
Speaker 2: and then either was told or figured out how it worked.

1166
01:05:29,280 --> 01:05:31,200
Speaker 2: But that's a very important role in the history of

1167
01:05:31,200 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 2: knowledge as well, just being like a great collector of

1168
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:36,400
Speaker 2: ideas from anywhere you can get them, that's right.

1169
01:05:36,440 --> 01:05:40,320
Speaker 1: Just simply being exceedingly well read at a time where

1170
01:05:40,680 --> 01:05:44,720
Speaker 1: relatively few individuals were in the grand scheme of things.

1171
01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:48,360
Speaker 2: Right, So what came of Bacon's publishing on the subject

1172
01:05:48,400 --> 01:05:52,320
Speaker 2: of gunpowder. Well, some sources allege that later in his

1173
01:05:52,360 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 2: life Roger Bacon suffered trouble of the roughly inquisitional sort,

1174
01:05:57,000 --> 01:06:00,600
Speaker 2: that he was imprisoned in the late twelve seventies by

1175
01:06:00,720 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 2: his brothers in the Franciscan order. From what I can tell,

1176
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,600
Speaker 2: the earliest record of this imprisonment comes from a work

1177
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,480
Speaker 2: published in the thirteen seventies, so this would have been

1178
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:13,520
Speaker 2: around one hundred years after the supposed events, called Chronicle

1179
01:06:13,560 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 2: of the twenty four Ministers General of the Franciscans. So

1180
01:06:17,320 --> 01:06:20,440
Speaker 2: I think it's not one hundred percent clear that Bacon

1181
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 2: really was jailed. We don't have an autobiographical account or anything,

1182
01:06:25,480 --> 01:06:28,560
Speaker 2: but it is widely alleged, and if he was in

1183
01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:32,320
Speaker 2: fact thrown into prison, the exact cause of this imprisonment

1184
01:06:32,400 --> 01:06:34,960
Speaker 2: is not clear. I've seen it alleged in materials by

1185
01:06:34,960 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 2: the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK that Bacon's

1186
01:06:38,880 --> 01:06:43,080
Speaker 2: description of and possible experiments with gunpowder were what got

1187
01:06:43,200 --> 01:06:46,400
Speaker 2: him into trouble with the Church, since quote, only God

1188
01:06:46,440 --> 01:06:50,479
Speaker 2: could produce thunder and lightning. But I haven't really found

1189
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:54,320
Speaker 2: any evidence that looks very good for this specific technological

1190
01:06:54,400 --> 01:06:58,400
Speaker 2: blasphemy being the cause of his imprisonment. Apparently the historical

1191
01:06:58,440 --> 01:07:01,720
Speaker 2: record is vague hold that it was due to something

1192
01:07:01,880 --> 01:07:07,240
Speaker 2: simply translated as suspected novelties in his teachings, and I

1193
01:07:07,240 --> 01:07:09,439
Speaker 2: guess it's not out of the question that this could

1194
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 2: refer to technology or something like gunpowder. But it could

1195
01:07:13,240 --> 01:07:16,640
Speaker 2: also just refer to heretical religious beliefs having to do

1196
01:07:16,680 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 2: with the end of the world and the Church modeling

1197
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:23,280
Speaker 2: itself on the idea of the poverty of Christ. Or

1198
01:07:23,320 --> 01:07:26,600
Speaker 2: it could have to do with reliance on contemporary prophecies

1199
01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:29,160
Speaker 2: or astrology. Just seems like there are a lot of

1200
01:07:29,160 --> 01:07:31,040
Speaker 2: things you could get in trouble a lot of kinds

1201
01:07:31,080 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 2: of thought crime at the time, and it doesn't necessarily

1202
01:07:34,000 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 2: need to be gunpowder that got him into trouble.

1203
01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:41,080
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, there are so many other established paths to

1204
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:44,600
Speaker 1: alleged heresy without having to draw a new line to

1205
01:07:44,720 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 1: gunpowder here.

1206
01:07:45,800 --> 01:07:48,320
Speaker 2: But of course it wasn't long after Bacon's writings that

1207
01:07:48,360 --> 01:07:52,320
Speaker 2: you really start to see, for example, firearm technology being

1208
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:55,800
Speaker 2: experimented with in Europe. So this was sort of a

1209
01:07:56,760 --> 01:08:00,280
Speaker 2: germinal point in the transfer of knowledge about gunpowder to Europe.

1210
01:08:00,560 --> 01:08:02,240
Speaker 2: And then, of course we've already talked about all the

1211
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: ways that recreational fireworks became popular in the following centuries.

1212
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:10,400
Speaker 1: It's interesting again we come back to this idea of

1213
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:13,400
Speaker 1: gunpowder as being one of these prime inventions we can

1214
01:08:13,400 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: look at and we can see, like the way it

1215
01:08:15,080 --> 01:08:17,840
Speaker 1: is used to harm other people and the way it

1216
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: is used as pure amusement, the dual nature of invention. Right.

1217
01:08:22,840 --> 01:08:26,000
Speaker 1: But then also we're talking about how it travels, and

1218
01:08:26,479 --> 01:08:28,560
Speaker 1: so it seems entirely possible that we're looking at a

1219
01:08:28,560 --> 01:08:32,120
Speaker 1: situation where it is via novelty that the technology more

1220
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 1: readily travels to the West. For a number of reasons,

1221
01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:38,760
Speaker 1: one of which being that a culture is going to

1222
01:08:38,760 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 1: be far less willing to share the secrets of its weaponry,

1223
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:47,719
Speaker 1: but in terms of its mere enjoyments, that may travel

1224
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:48,479
Speaker 1: a little easier.

1225
01:08:48,960 --> 01:08:52,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can totally see that. You know, something that's interesting.

1226
01:08:52,160 --> 01:08:55,400
Speaker 2: I was reading about fireworks in the contemporary world. Obviously,

1227
01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:57,640
Speaker 2: we know that in the United States people tend to

1228
01:08:58,240 --> 01:09:01,720
Speaker 2: use a lot of firecrackers and fireworks around the Independence Day,

1229
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:04,920
Speaker 2: the fourth of July. But I was reading that even today,

1230
01:09:04,960 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 2: the vast majority of the world's fireworks are still made

1231
01:09:08,360 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 2: in China. I was reading an article on CNN that

1232
01:09:11,000 --> 01:09:15,559
Speaker 2: reported that as of twenty sixteen, over ninety percent of

1233
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 2: the fireworks used on American Independence Day were manufactured in China.

1234
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:23,160
Speaker 2: And there are still all kinds of artisans and crafts

1235
01:09:23,200 --> 01:09:26,400
Speaker 2: people working in China that like hand make fireworks.

1236
01:09:26,880 --> 01:09:30,400
Speaker 1: That is impressive to think about that, because generally, when

1237
01:09:30,439 --> 01:09:33,759
Speaker 1: I think of fireworks, I think of the seemingly mass

1238
01:09:33,760 --> 01:09:38,120
Speaker 1: produced examples that one finds at firework stores and firework tents.

1239
01:09:38,479 --> 01:09:42,040
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, and I'm sure some fireworks are mass produced

1240
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 2: by a more automated process. But yeah, I was watching

1241
01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:49,280
Speaker 2: some short documentary segments about actually like companies that still

1242
01:09:49,360 --> 01:09:52,559
Speaker 2: just have basically people making them by hand using sort

1243
01:09:52,600 --> 01:09:54,679
Speaker 2: of hand cranked machinery and stuff.

1244
01:09:55,000 --> 01:09:58,200
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yeah, you certainly don't see any here in

1245
01:09:58,240 --> 01:10:00,519
Speaker 1: the States at farmers markets. Where so when is like,

1246
01:10:00,680 --> 01:10:03,240
Speaker 1: these are my fireworks? I made these, you can watch

1247
01:10:03,280 --> 01:10:07,920
Speaker 1: me make them. I roll my own Roman candles, et cetera.

1248
01:10:08,240 --> 01:10:10,000
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm just going to the wrong farmer's markets.

1249
01:10:10,000 --> 01:10:10,400
Speaker 1: Who knows.

1250
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:12,920
Speaker 2: No, this is an interesting point you raise. Rachel and

1251
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:14,519
Speaker 2: I were actually talking about this here at the house,

1252
01:10:14,560 --> 01:10:19,080
Speaker 2: about whether you know you would have like craft fireworks

1253
01:10:19,080 --> 01:10:21,320
Speaker 2: in the same way you see, I don't know so

1254
01:10:21,400 --> 01:10:24,720
Speaker 2: much of an artisanal craft movement with other types of

1255
01:10:25,080 --> 01:10:27,120
Speaker 2: products and food items these days.

1256
01:10:27,560 --> 01:10:30,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, and would you would one trust that more or less?

1257
01:10:30,560 --> 01:10:32,960
Speaker 1: I feel like my instinct, and maybe this is by

1258
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:37,439
Speaker 1: virtue of just not being accustomed to it, I feel

1259
01:10:37,439 --> 01:10:41,040
Speaker 1: like I would be suspicious of handmade fireworks that just

1260
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:45,840
Speaker 1: some random stranger made I don't know, and maybe again

1261
01:10:45,880 --> 01:10:50,360
Speaker 1: just because it's something I've not encountered before. Personally, I

1262
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:52,120
Speaker 1: guess it's I want there to be some sort of

1263
01:10:52,160 --> 01:10:54,320
Speaker 1: like factory standard for my explosives.

1264
01:10:54,360 --> 01:10:56,439
Speaker 2: I guess right, you want to know that it's been

1265
01:10:56,479 --> 01:10:59,840
Speaker 2: through the inspections or something. Yeah, isn't it weird that

1266
01:11:00,120 --> 01:11:03,160
Speaker 2: intuitions sometimes work that way. You think like, oh, a

1267
01:11:03,200 --> 01:11:07,680
Speaker 2: mass produced item that seems safer, that seems like that

1268
01:11:07,760 --> 01:11:09,680
Speaker 2: seems like it's been through a process.

1269
01:11:10,120 --> 01:11:12,439
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from anyone out there who

1270
01:11:12,880 --> 01:11:15,599
Speaker 1: makes their own fireworks or know someone who does, for

1271
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:19,080
Speaker 1: any insight into this, because just I haven't researched this

1272
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:21,960
Speaker 1: in full, but just glancing around, it looks like there

1273
01:11:22,000 --> 01:11:26,600
Speaker 1: are advocates out there for making your own fireworks and

1274
01:11:27,600 --> 01:11:30,960
Speaker 1: even doing so safely. But this is just a whole

1275
01:11:30,960 --> 01:11:32,600
Speaker 1: world I have no exposure to.

1276
01:11:32,760 --> 01:11:36,000
Speaker 2: Well, quick liability check. We're not advising people to do that.

1277
01:11:36,680 --> 01:11:40,000
Speaker 1: No, no, we're not advising you to make your own fireworks.

1278
01:11:40,840 --> 01:11:43,280
Speaker 1: Just if you are, if you already have knowledge of

1279
01:11:43,320 --> 01:11:45,800
Speaker 1: this world, let us know about it. I would like

1280
01:11:45,880 --> 01:11:49,120
Speaker 1: to learn more. I would not like to buy any

1281
01:11:49,160 --> 01:11:49,679
Speaker 1: of them, though.

1282
01:11:49,880 --> 01:11:51,599
Speaker 2: You know, what I want to know from an expert

1283
01:11:51,640 --> 01:11:54,559
Speaker 2: on fireworks is whether pumped stars or stars that have

1284
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 2: been pumped using a star pump or not?

1285
01:11:56,840 --> 01:11:58,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then how do you make the star pump?

1286
01:11:59,120 --> 01:12:01,760
Speaker 1: Do you have to? Is there something made from like

1287
01:12:02,040 --> 01:12:05,200
Speaker 1: residue from pumping a star I don't know, could all

1288
01:12:05,200 --> 01:12:05,960
Speaker 1: be interconnected?

1289
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:09,960
Speaker 2: The star pump sounds like a wonderful science fiction device.

1290
01:12:10,000 --> 01:12:15,800
Speaker 1: It does. Yeah, some sort of crazy Kardashev level two technology. Yeah,

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01:12:15,840 --> 01:12:19,439
Speaker 1: bust out the star pump. But anyway, that is it

1292
01:12:19,560 --> 01:12:23,519
Speaker 1: for fireworks for this episode. Hopefully we know provided some

1293
01:12:23,560 --> 01:12:28,760
Speaker 1: additional insight into the origin of fireworks and how this

1294
01:12:28,880 --> 01:12:33,200
Speaker 1: technology then took off in Western Europe as well. So

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01:12:33,320 --> 01:12:35,160
Speaker 1: a little more to think about. Then. If you find

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01:12:35,200 --> 01:12:39,080
Speaker 1: yourself staring up at the sky in the next few months,

1297
01:12:39,120 --> 01:12:42,880
Speaker 1: in the next point, over the next year, and watching

1298
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:47,280
Speaker 1: these various colorful, glittering explosions take place, you know, understanding

1299
01:12:47,520 --> 01:12:51,400
Speaker 1: what is chemically going on and also what is culturally

1300
01:12:51,439 --> 01:12:54,559
Speaker 1: and historically going on before you. In the meantime, if

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01:12:54,560 --> 01:12:56,240
Speaker 1: you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff

1302
01:12:56,240 --> 01:12:58,080
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you can find us wherever you

1303
01:12:58,120 --> 01:13:01,400
Speaker 1: get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. You

1304
01:13:01,439 --> 01:13:05,760
Speaker 1: can help us out by rating, reviewing, and subscribing. Those

1305
01:13:05,800 --> 01:13:08,280
Speaker 1: are the three acts of kindness you can do to

1306
01:13:08,320 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 1: help out the show. But also just tell other human

1307
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:14,040
Speaker 1: beings about us. Next time you need to recommend a podcast,

1308
01:13:14,520 --> 01:13:16,360
Speaker 1: you know, maybe mention an episode of Stuff to Blow

1309
01:13:16,400 --> 01:13:18,559
Speaker 1: Your Mind that tickled your fancy.

1310
01:13:18,840 --> 01:13:24,160
Speaker 2: That's right, be our star pumps anyway, huge thanks as

1311
01:13:24,160 --> 01:13:27,519
Speaker 2: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1312
01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:28,960
Speaker 2: you would like to get in touch with us with

1313
01:13:29,040 --> 01:13:31,559
Speaker 2: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1314
01:13:31,600 --> 01:13:34,040
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hi, you

1315
01:13:34,080 --> 01:13:37,000
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

1316
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:45,800
Speaker 2: Mind dot com.

1317
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:48,800
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1318
01:13:48,880 --> 01:13:51,679
Speaker 3: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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01:13:51,840 --> 01:14:11,080
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.