WEBVTT - Laurens Hammond: The Non-Musical Genius Who Changed Popular Music 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:02.280 Hey, everybody in Orlando. 0:00:02.360 --> 0:00:04.040 We feel pretty sure that you've heard the news, but 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:06.840 if you haven't, our show that was postponed has been 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:11.559 rescheduled for Friday, September eighth, which is great news. 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:13.800 Yeah, it is great news. If you thought a Saturday 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:15.720 show is going to be great, wait until you see 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.160 us on a Friday, Orlando. 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.720 That's right, and the Vinue should have gotten in touch 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:20.320 with you by now. 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.279 Your tickets are still good. If you cannot go, we're 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.800 very sad, but you can get a refund on that. 0:00:26.160 --> 0:00:29.280 And hey, if you're available now on Friday September eighth, 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:30.720 come and see us in Orlando. 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:33.239 Yeah, tickets are still available, and you can get all 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.440 the information you need by going to leaktree, slash sysk 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.000 or stuff youshould do dot com and check out our 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:46.720 on tour page and we'll see you September eighth. Welcome 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:56.160 to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.720 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. There's Chuck Cherry's 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:02.400 here too, and this is stuff you should know. Part 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:08.039 of our ongoing musical saga frequently overlooked, but when we 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.000 do him, can we hit him out of the Park. 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:13.280 Remember remember the one where we talked about pitch and 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.559 we got every single thing we could have possibly gotten 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:16.160 wrong wrong. 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.920 I file this more sort of in the same category 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.160 as the great episodes we did on Les Paul and 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:24.920 Leo Fender. 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:25.679 Yeah. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.000 Music, Yeah, but you know why you got to bring 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:30.120 up our worst music one? 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:33.840 What else have we're done some other musical stuff, haven't 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.959 we've done like actual genres punk and hip hop and. 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.679 Yeah disco, Yes, great one, you love that one. 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.800 We have a robust musical suite going, and this adds 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:45.440 to it. I think this is a good idea in 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.040 your part, because we're talking about a guy who I 0:01:48.080 --> 0:01:50.480 always thought his first name was John, and I couldn't 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.760 figure out why, and then I realized that Jurassic Park, 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:58.800 Jurassic Park, his name was John Hammond. It's funny, for sure. 0:01:59.760 --> 0:02:04.280 So its name actually isn't John, It's Lawrence. But I 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:07.160 think you pronounce it like Lawrence, but it's spelled Lawrenz. 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:13.359 Yeah, I've heard Lorenz Hammond. Oh really Yeah, anyway, by Larry, 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:14.320 so he'll just came Larry. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.760 Yeah, that's why I thought they probably pronounced it Lawrence. 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.600 But if you recognize his last name, not from Jurassic Park, 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.760 but from the electric organ. Because he was indisputably the 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.320 inventor of the electric organ. He was the first guy 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.280 to really put everything together and make it work. 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:35.160 That's right. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:41.760 Specifically obviously the Hammond organ and very much notably the 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.000 Hammond B three, which was one of the organs in 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:50.720 his line of organs. And if you are a piano 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.000 player or an organist, a keyboard person, then you're like, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.120 oh yeah, speak to me, baby. 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:58.840 If you're not, and you're like a Hammond B three, 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.440 what's that? It is the sound of rock and roll. 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:02.080 It is. 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:09.200 Refugee by Tom Petty and half the Songs of Boston, 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:12.560 and it's oh yeah, you know the big organ solo 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:16.200 in the Big Boston Suite. It is like a rolling 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.120 stone by Bob Dylan and a wider shade of Pale 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:20.400 by Procol Harum. 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.840 It is in so many songs that you know and 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:26.679 love one of the more. 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:30.240 And that's not to mention you know, jazz and everything 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:32.480 else that the Hammond B three was used for. But 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.720 it really made his mark on rock and roll in 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.680 the sixties and seventies. Even though it was built and 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:43.440 created in nineteen thirty five, and even though Larry Hammond 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:46.760 by all accounts was tone deaf and did not play 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:48.800 a note of any instrument ever in his life. 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.520 Yeah, I mean that by his own admission. From what 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.600 I understand, it's like Leo Fender. Yeah, I forgot about that. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.560 But yeah, one other I think one other group that 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.880 requires shouting. I think doctor Teith played a Hammond B three. 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:07.840 Of course, absolutely, I'm pretty sure. So, yeah, he Larry 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.640 Hammond didn't know what he was doing with music, but 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.640 he knew what he was doing with engineering, specifically electrical engineering, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.320 which at the time he was studying this he was 0:04:17.360 --> 0:04:20.520 born in eighteen ninety five, started studying in the first 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.960 couple decades of the twentieth century. This was some brand 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.960 new stuff. And this guy was at the bleeding edge 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.000 of the whole thing, leading, which I used correctly. Finally, 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.040 did you say leading or bleeding? I said bleeding. 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:37.839 No, bleeding is when it leads to bad things. 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:40.480 People have been electrocuted. 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.279 Okay, that's a good point. 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:42.800 Yeah. 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.359 So Hammond was born a young boy in just outside Chicago, 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.400 in the suburb of Evanston, Illinois, like you said, in 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.080 eighteen ninety five, and he was the only boy of 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.320 four kids. He had three sisters, had a father who 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.040 was a banker who died when he was two, and 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:05.359 a mother named is a great name, Idea Strong Hammond, 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:10.640 who was an impressionist painter and you know, pretty accomplished 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:15.760 in an artist and a creative. So once mister Hammond dies, 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:18.560 when little Larry's just too she says, you know what, 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.920 I'm packing up my three girls and my son and 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.720 we're going to Europe where you can be submerged in 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.000 the arts and get what I think is probably a 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:29.040 more proper education. 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.040 Yeah. So from the time they moved there when he 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.400 was four till the time they moved back to Evanston 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:39.040 when he was fourteen, they lived in Geneva, in Dresden 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.320 and Paris. And one of the things about Larry Hammond 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.839 was from an extraordinarily young age, he was a tinkerer. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.760 He wanted to know how things worked. And when they 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.760 landed in Paris, I'm not sure exactly what h he 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.080 was at the time. I think he was a tween possibly, 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:58.760 but France was like this was when the first cars 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.640 were really being designed to built and France was the 0:06:01.720 --> 0:06:05.800 epicenter of that, and Larry little Larry Hammond happened to 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:08.239 live there at the time, so he was taking apart 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:11.400 engines from a very young age and actually came up 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:16.599 with the crude version of an automatic transmission a decade 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.640 before it was ever actually patented. That's what this kid 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:21.000 was doing as a tween. 0:06:21.600 --> 0:06:24.880 Yeah, yeah, as a twelve year old, he was incredibly brilliant, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:27.520 probably a genius. I know that word is thrown around 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.440 a lot, but if you're doing that kind of thing 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.000 when you're twelve in the early twentieth century, then that 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:33.120 qualifies in my book. 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:35.640 Yeah, I was putting on like half a bottle of 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.480 Polo cologne and wandering around the mall. At this age, 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:42.039 I was. 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:46.279 In the basement hiding from Satan. 0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:50.119 There you go. That's another thing to do. That's another 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:50.480 thing to do. 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:53.120 So the Hammonds were, like I said, they were all 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.160 pretty accomplished. Well, the mom was pretty accomplished, and all 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:58.400 his sisters would go on to do great things. His 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.479 sister Unis was a writer and a poet and edited 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.600 a poetry magazine. His sister Louise was a missionary in 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.880 China who would transcribe Christian hyndls and religious books in 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:13.000 Chinese and his sister Peggy was a musician. She was 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.160 a cellist, a world class cellist, but young Larry was 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.680 not inclined musically. When they went back to Evanston, Illinois, 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.560 he continued continued to sort of experiment and take things 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:28.480 apart and put him back together, and eventually he got 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.080 a little taste of success early on, when he was sixteen, 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.400 he had his first US patent with a kind of 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.560 a new and improved barometer that he ended up making 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:39.840 a few hundred books off of which you know, was 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.160 pretty good for a sixteen year old. And the nineteen 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:45.600 what is this twenties at this point, teens. 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.680 Yeah, he would have been it would have been nineteen four, 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:56.640 nineteen nine, Okay, yeah, nineteen eleven, somewhere in there. All right, 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.880 So yeah, he ended up going on to car. I 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.040 don't think there was ever any question whether he was 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.200 going to or not, thanks to his mom and her 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.640 strong will about education and work ethic and he ended 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.880 up at Cornell in Ithaca, and apparently, according to the 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:18.160 Larry Hammond legend, he finally kind of came to understand 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.120 his own maybe mission in life, if not brilliant. From 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.040 when I read you had a bit of an ego 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:27.560 here or there, although he was generally a good guy. 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:29.720 This story kind of jibes. 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:33.760 I've never known any genius inventors to have large egos, right, 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:34.600 It's unusual. 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.240 Usually very meek and they hide in the basement from 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:37.839 Satan too. 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:38.480 That's right. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:44.160 But the night before exams, he and his friends went 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.840 out to Syracuse and were drinking, drinking, drinking, and caught 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.440 the last train back to Ithaca. And when they got 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.720 to class, they were still kind of drunk, and Larry 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:57.599 Hammond wandered into the wrong class. Did he not what 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:58.840 happened after that, Chuck? 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.040 Well, apparently he went in on exam day to an 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.360 electrical engineering class that he wasn't even taking an ACE 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:08.960 the final or ace the exam. 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:10.079 I don't know if it was a final. 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:13.320 And I think, like you said, as the legend goes, 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.080 that's when he was like, huh, I'm a pretty smart 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.320 guy and I am good at inventing things, and so that's. 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:20.439 What I'm going to dedicate my life to. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:23.360 Yeah, he's not only that he was going to be 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.040 an independent inventor. That is that's a life choice. 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:28.760 Right there, Oh right, like not going to work for 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:30.400 ge or Westinghouse or whatever. 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.079 Right, and he didn't. He ended up going somewhere I 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.000 don't remember where. He had a couple of jobs for sure, 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:39.559 especially to start out. But the first thing he did 0:09:39.640 --> 0:09:42.760 after Cornell was to go and list in World War One. Yeah, 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.800 and I think he was stationed in France for a 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.640 little while, was mistaken for a French deserter because his 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.600 French was so good. Another part of his legend took 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:53.959 a little story. But then after that he moved to 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.360 Detroit and he took a job. He became chief engineering 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:01.199 he's still very young, at a company made boat engines, 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:03.760 because remember he had spent a lot of his tweens 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:08.200 taking engines. Apart he could ace an electrical engineering final, 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:11.480 but he also was studying mechanical engineering at the time, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:13.480 so it makes sense that he was working at a 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:15.160 company that made boat engines. 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:17.880 Yeah, and he it was called the Gray Motor Company. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.280 And apparently the guy he was working for was someone 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:26.600 that served with him an army and said, I think 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:30.079 it wasn't enough money or something, and under the table, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:32.360 this guy paid him an extra three hundred bucks a 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.800 week that no one knew about, just to keep him 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:39.000 working on these boat engines. Man that he knew he 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.080 was that valuable and that he probably shouldn't be making 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.719 boat engines. So he greased the wheel, he greased the 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:46.840 palm a little bit, he greased the propeller. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.079 But remember he wanted to be an independent inventor. And 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.559 if you have the spirit of an inventor and the 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.440 ego of somebody who can ace an electrical exam without 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.520 taking the test, no amount of money is going to 0:10:59.600 --> 0:11:03.719 make you satisfied spending your life making boat engines for 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.559 somebody else. So he struck out, and I think he 0:11:06.640 --> 0:11:07.760 did it the spot. 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.840 Struck out as in failed like baseball, no. 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:15.160 The other way around, like struck out on his own exactly, 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:18.319 just so people know. I think he was still working though, 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:21.199 and like at night, he was working on his own stuff. 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.480 So this was while he was working at the boat company, 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:26.080 from what I understand. But he came up with something 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:31.240 called the tickless clock, not ticklish clock, a tickless clock 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.480 that you couldn't hear tick because apparently that drove him crazy. 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:38.000 And I feel this guy. If you've ever had a 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.680 loud clock in the room with you while you're trying 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.880 to sleep, there's nothing else you can concentrate on except 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.440 the stupid ticking of that stupid clock. And Larry Hammond 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:49.319 felt the same way, so he invented one that didn't 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:50.400 make the ticking sound. 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:54.040 That's right, and he was like, you know what, I'm 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:56.720 going to sell this idea. He sold that idea, made 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.520 some pretty good money on it, enough that he was 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:01.199 able to move to New York and open up his 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:07.240 own sort of invention factory, and he invented something there 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:09.720 that kind of was the beginning of what would end 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.920 up like informing his future career in a lot of ways. 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.400 And that was the synchronous motor. 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.520 In America, at the time we were making this is 0:12:20.600 --> 0:12:24.560 the early twenties, they were making the switch to sixty 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:29.320 herts from fifty herts. Westinghouse came along and they had 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.199 a lot of sway, obviously, and said, you know what, 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:33.880 this arc lighting system we have looks a lot better 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.920 at sixty herts. We need everything to be the same, 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.040 So United States, can we all move to sixty herts? 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:43.560 In the government said sure. 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:48.320 Right, yeah, oh sorry, So sixty herts is sixty cycles 0:12:48.679 --> 0:12:51.800 a second, and it's part of alternating current, which, as 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.400 we remember, won out the current wars because you can 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.440 send it over very long distances with very little loss 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:04.760 of of energy. Right. Yeah, So they switched over to 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.440 sixty cycles a second, and Hammond said, well, wait a minute, 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:11.920 that's that's precise. Like we're talking about a precise like 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.520 something is moving back and forth between the poles sixty 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:18.080 times a second, and we're talking about electrons. You can 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:22.600 set your watch by electrons basically. So his synchronous motor 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.240 plugged into that sixty cycle a second electrical current, and 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:33.960 it created a motion that spun just as reliably as 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.360 those electrons switch poles back and forth sixty times a second. 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:38.280 That's right. 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:41.199 And if you're thinking, I don't even know what this means, guys, 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.320 who cares? What this means is all of a sudden, 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:49.760 you can electrify things that were previously not electrified. Yeah, like, oh, 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.240 I don't know that tickless clock that you still had 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.959 to wind over and over, like every clock in the 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:56.880 world that you had to wind over and over. 0:13:57.400 --> 0:13:59.559 By the way, chuck, that tickless clock. The way it 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:04.240 was cliss is the motor was put into a soundproof box. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.040 Yeah, pretty easy, which. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.880 Means that you could also say it was a tick 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:15.640 in the box. Okay, So the synchronous motor though, this 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.000 was the fact that it was very precise, that it 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.680 was going to spin X number of times every second. 0:14:22.040 --> 0:14:24.120 That was a really big deal because if you have 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.520 something that is that precise and that has is current, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.600 is getting an electrical current that's keeping it that precise, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.680 no matter what, you can do all sorts of things, 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.000 Like you said he had an electrical clock. You can 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:40.520 make little shutter spin in front of people's eyes without 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.320 them even realizing that they're spinning. All sorts of things 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:45.320 you can do with a synchronous motor, and that was 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.200 the basis of a lot of his inventions that followed. 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:52.000 All right, I think that was a great little tease setup. 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:54.320 I'm sorry for teasing you everybody. 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.000 No, I love it because people are going like, what 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:57.280 do you mean shutters in front of your eyes? Well, 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.720 we're gonna explain that right after this. We'll be right back, 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:29.760 all right. So Josh left a great little tease. 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:30.320 Sorry. 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:32.840 I did mention that he started making these clocks, but 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.320 this next thing actually happened first because he did have 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:38.640 a lot of success with the Hammond Clock Company because 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:40.800 everyone was like these electric clocks are amazing. I don't 0:15:40.840 --> 0:15:43.040 want to wind my clock ever again, and you don't 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.080 have to. But before he found success there, he invented, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:52.800 basically invented three D movies in the silent era of 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:54.280 cinema insane. 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:58.680 So remember from our stereogram, our magic Eye episode, Yeah, 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.880 this is perfect for this. It's basically the same stuff 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.120 going on around the same time. But he came up 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.040 with something called the tell aview, and you basically created 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:11.920 a film with two cameras set a little bit apart, 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.240 and now all of a sudden you've got two slightly 0:16:14.280 --> 0:16:16.880 different perspectives of the same thing, which, as you remember 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.640 from our Stereograms episode, that I loves to turn into 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:26.000 depth and perspective. So then you project the movie onto 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:30.200 the screen using those two projectors, not overlapping, but alternating 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.440 very quickly between the right image and the left image 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.560 right image, left image. That sounds like a headache, and 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.760 it probably would be if it weren't for the viewers 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:44.520 that Hammond created that every seat had that you looked 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:48.160 at this movie through and when the left image was 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.920 up on the screen, a shutter closed over your right eye, 0:16:52.120 --> 0:16:54.280 so all you could see was your left image. And 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.880 then the same thing for your right eye with the 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.400 right image, and this all happens so fast that your 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.520 brain didn't make note of it. All it saw were 0:17:03.800 --> 0:17:07.880 two slightly different perspectives of the same thing and turned 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:12.159 it into what's called parallax depth based on your position 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.440 of where you're sitting and where you're viewing an object. 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:17.720 Amazing, And again, this is all possible because of that 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.720 synchredous motor which was spinning these two little things in 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:22.240 front of your eyeballs exactly. 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.600 And that nuts. This was the twenties, and this guy 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.080 came up with three D and it worked really well. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:29.360 It worked so well that people were a little put 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:29.920 off by it. 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:30.480 Yeah. 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.399 I read an article from The Atlantic that was written 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.080 in nineteen forty, a profile of John Hammond. They said 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.000 that the movie, the one movie that he made, Hello Mars, 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.800 was so crystal clear that it says close ups of 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.920 love scenes were almost embarrassing, and you could see the 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.399 sweat on the actor's faces. So apparently it was distracting. 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.639 It was so realistic and so lifelike that nobody was 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.000 following the plot and they were maybe even a little 0:17:59.040 --> 0:17:59.400 put off. 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:02.439 All right, so this isn't working out as far as 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:05.359 being a great business idea. But he was like, you 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.200 know what, I still you know, I could make this 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.120 thing without those little spinny goggles. He said, I could 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:13.040 actually do it with colored lenses, these little cheap cardboard 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.679 things that you know, in thirty years everyone was going 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:18.840 to think is the coolest thing ever. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:20.600 And he did that. 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.399 He created some for Zigfield himself and the Zigfield Follies, 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.120 which was the biggest show going in Vaudeville and New York. 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:30.199 He called this the shadow graph, and he had actors 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:34.720 standing behind a transparent screen and he backlit them with 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:37.639 red and a green light spaced a few feet apart, 0:18:38.160 --> 0:18:40.320 and then projected their shadows on the screen. And when 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.440 you wore those three D glasses, it again created depth 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:44.959 and it looked like they were sort of leaping off 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.159 the screen. And Zigfield loved this one. He was like, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.159 I'll pay you seventy five thousand dollars to use this 0:18:52.240 --> 0:18:55.240 stuff for two years, which is about one point three 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:56.160 million bucks today. 0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:58.880 Do you know how many drachmas it is? How many 0:18:59.280 --> 0:19:02.920 four hundred twenty million, five hundred and seventy eight four 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.120 plus drachmas today? Yeah? 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.480 So I mean by this point he's he's rich, or 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.119 at the very least, he can use that money to 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.480 fund doing whatever he wants to do invention wise. 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.560 Being an independent inventor. He's realized his dream by this point. 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.640 That's right in the twenty so he was in his twenties. Still, 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.200 it's pretty great stuff. Yeah. Also, I saw that this 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.440 is the only effect that Zigfield used over two seasons. 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:30.920 Zigfield like to keep things fresh and cutting edge, but 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.560 he loved this, this the shadow graph so much that 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:36.880 he used it over two different seasons, which is kind 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:38.360 of an honor in and of itself. 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:39.400 Super cool. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.120 So let's get back to that synchronous motor, the sixty 0:19:43.240 --> 0:19:46.119 cycle second that was so reliable you could never have 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:51.320 to wind a clock from it, right, all right, he Well, 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.399 let's go back even further than that, Chuck, Let's go 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.640 back to the eighteen nineties, which is the same year 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:58.880 Hammon was born, eighteen ninety five, and there's an American 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:03.440 inventor named that is Khill, who was the first person 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.080 to come up with an electro an electro mechanical not 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.440 strictly electronic, but it had some gears and stuff to it, 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.720 so it was electro mechanical. It's called the teleharmonium. And well, 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.080 let's go back even further than that, Chuck, okay to 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.320 the eighteen sixties, and we're going to hop on over 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:21.960 to Germany. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.520 All right, I'm picking up what you're laying down. There 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.080 was a German scientist named Hermann von Helmholtz. 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:31.080 And he. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:34.480 He knew music a little bit, and he's like, here's 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.960 one thing I know is that when you hear a 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.680 musical note, it's a sound way that you're hearing vibrating 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.160 at a frequency, like if you hear an a key 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:46.680 on a piano, it's vibrating at a very specific frequency 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:50.080 that makes the sound of what you would call an 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.520 a note. But here's the deal, he said, it sounds 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.040 more than an a note. It's very warm and there's 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.320 depth to it. And he figured out what you're hearing 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.080 is called a harmonic, which is, you know, when one 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.360 thing vibrates, things near it are also activated and maybe 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.840 vibrate a little bit, and these little background frequencies vibrating 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:13.280 along with that a note create this richer, fuller sound 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:14.080 called the harmonic. 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.920 Yeah, so, Hemholtz. This big contribution in the eighteen sixties 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.160