WEBVTT - Invention Playlist II: The Wheel, Part 1 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:12.280 Hey, everyone, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:14.720 and I'm Joe McCormick, and just heads up. This is 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:16.840 going to be part one of a two part episode 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.160 because we get going on wheels and we can't stop. Robert, 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.320 I thought today we should start with some poll results. 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:25.759 Are you ready to consult the masses with me? Nothing's 0:00:25.760 --> 0:00:29.320 more exciting than starting with poll results. Let's do it. Okay, 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.680 So in Time magazine and Qualcom, they partnered to do 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.479 a survey. They pulled more than ten thousand people across 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:41.160 seventeen countries to find out some views about invention and inventiveness. 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:43.760 And there's some interesting questions here we might want to 0:00:43.760 --> 0:00:46.440 come back to in the future about public opinion about 0:00:46.479 --> 0:00:49.640 how invention happens. But uh, they asked people to rank. 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:51.720 As one of the questions here, what are the most 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:55.160 important inventions of all time? And three got singled out 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.480 in the results here. You had the Internet, all right, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:01.640 you know it's a great eight invention. A terrible invention 0:01:01.720 --> 0:01:04.959 is the Voldemort of inventions. Okay, Yeah, it's like odin 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:07.959 it's wise and tricksy, it's great and terrible. Yeah, I 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:11.000 mean that that's all inventions. Really, any kind of any 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.560 kind of fabulous new technology is going to bring at 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.480 least equal portions of both. I got the second one 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:21.400 is electricity. I'd say that's a really good qualifier that 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.360 should be near the top. Yeah. Uh. Then the third 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.959 one singled out as the most important is the wheel. Now, 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.760 these three are all strike me as very different because 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.200 electricity is not a technology. We invented the technology to 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:40.679 utilize electricity and to harness its power. Uh And and likewise, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.000 as we'll discuss, similar with the wheel, the Internet, we're 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.280 still trying to figure out how to actually harness it 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.000 and keep it from you know, shocking us. Yeah, there 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:53.360 is no internet in nature, is there? No? Not? And 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.760 people might say there are no wheels in nature, though 0:01:55.800 --> 0:01:57.880 you could make an argument either way on that, and 0:01:57.880 --> 0:01:59.720 we'll come back to that in a minute. But it's 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.920 true that people really do often single out the wheel 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:06.600 as like the most important invention in history. Right. It's 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:09.440 it's in all the Gary Larson cartoons for a reason. No, Yeah, 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:11.919 they're there, at least they're they're probably more than two. 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:14.720 But I ran across at least to Gary Larson cartoons 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.920 about caveman inventing the wheel. We're trying to invent the wheel, 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.160 generally getting something drastically long wrong, like like riding strapped 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.360 to the outside of it because you're about to go 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.880 down the hill. There's so many it is, there's so 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.520 many bits of fiction that have explored the idea of 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:36.120 inventing or reinventing the wheel. The Hulu show Future Man 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:40.000 recently explored this with a time traveler going to a 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:43.840 post apocalyptic future and and and having a job in 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.560 this primitive society as a wheelmaker, and so he keeps 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.080 trying to improve upon the design and it's you know, 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:53.480 there's they're they're catching on fire, they're they're they're falling 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:56.280 over until he finally gets the design right. Well, yeah, 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.120 I love how it's it's this cliche that it's the 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.720 quintessential example of like an already perfected technology that you 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:05.960 don't need to mess with anymore. Right, Like the the 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.240 cliche is, let's not reinvent the wheel, meaning let's not 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:12.920 waste time overthinking something right, sort of equivalent to if 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:14.920 it ain't broke, don't fix it. Though I think this 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:16.960 is ironic given what we're going to talk about in 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:21.400 today's episode because throughout history the wheel has undergone lots 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.840 of reinventions and refinements that make it work better or 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.840 adapt it to a particular use. Let's not reinvent the 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:32.440 wheel is actually a really stupid saying, because we're constantly 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:36.600 reinventing the wheel, and we're much better off for those reinventions. Yeah, 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:38.920 like in this episode, we're not even going to really 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.000 get into the tire all that much. But certainly the 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.040 next time you need a new tire for your vehicle, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.200 just go to the mechanic and ask for a wheel. 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:50.320 Give me one of those wheels. It's it's it hasn't 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:54.880 been improved upon since medieval or or prehistoric times. Right, 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:56.640 just just throw a wheel on there. I don't care 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.160 how what kind, Just just put it on their stone, 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.400 would doesn't matter. Well, this brings up a really good 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.080 point that we should make at the beginning. It's a 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.480 caveat that we must raise. While the wheel is in 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.640 a way a simple machine, it's simple and principle, the 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:13.160 history of the wheel is a vast, complex subject, full 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.200 of questions that aren't yet and may never be answered 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:19.560 or solved, like where and when the wheel was truly 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.200 first invented that. We'll talk about some ideas about that today. Uh, 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.920 there's just obviously not a chance we can do justice 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:28.359 to the entire history of the wheel in a single episode. 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:30.640 So I think today we're gonna have to consider this 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.839 sort of a a first foray, trying to cover some 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:37.159 of the basics, some interesting observations or things that seemed 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:40.279 interesting to us, and leave ourselves the opportunity to come 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.279 back and visit more the particulars from the invention history 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.160 of wheel technology in the future. For example, as you 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:49.240 say about tires, a you know, we we wouldn't have 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:52.520 the wheeled vehicles we have today without tires, and that's 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:54.839 just something that we didn't even get into. Now. We 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.799 typically consider wheels, again, the product of human ingenuity alone. 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.920 Yet the basic form pops up in nature as well, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.599 and not only in the form of creatures that can 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.680 curl up into productive balls. What's your favorite creature that 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:14.839 curls up into a protective ball, I mean, sonic, the hedgehog. Um. Actually, 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:16.600 there are there are a few that come to mind. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.960 I'll get to get to one in a second. Um. 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:22.000 One animal we do have to focus in on is 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:27.320 certainly the rhoda for the microscopic aquatic animal whose very 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.720 name is Latin for wheel bearer. Okay, so does it 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.440 have wheels? Does it roll around in the microscopic world? 0:05:33.640 --> 0:05:35.960 Not exactly, but it's the name is a reference to 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.360 the crown of cilia around the rhodofer's mouth, which move 0:05:39.520 --> 0:05:43.640 rapidly to aid locomotion and feeding. But contrary to its name, 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:47.120 they don't. They themselves don't actually rotate, so it's more 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:50.640 kind of like circle bearer. Yeah. Now you do have 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.359 creatures like the mount Lyle salamander and the mother of 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.600 pearl caterpillar, both of which curl their bodies into hoop 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.120 type forms in the little ball all like forms and 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.800 can roll away from threats in their hilly environments. Yeah, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.040 likewise the Robert Have you ever seen video of the 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.760 wheel spider? Oh? I don't think I have no. This 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.240 is really cool that it shows up in some documentaries. 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.080 So it's a spider that's native to the Namib Desert, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.200 and the wheel spider is it's a groundwalking spider. Obviously 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.279 it's in the desert. It's a huntsman spider. It's not 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.719 a web spinner, but it burrows down in the sand 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.560 dunes of the desert, and it has a mortal enemy, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.200 a parasitoid wasp. Now, even if you don't like spiders, 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.880 if you don't know much about parasitic wasps, watching what 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:38.880 a parasitic wasp does to a spider can be. This 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.679 is worse than any horror movie. It's like the most 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.040 horrifying thing. If you're sympathizing with the spider. If you're 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.520 on team Spider, which I guess you are, Joe, I 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:50.480 guess I am. You're you're into just like putting an 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.120 egg on something that ends up eating that thing. I 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.840 know your general proclivities. I'm well, I'm on team Wasp 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.240 whenever it's wasp versus Spider. If it's Spider, this is 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.560 pretty much anything else. I'm intamed spiders. Well, I guess 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:05.080 that's the other way to think about it, that the 0:07:05.120 --> 0:07:08.320 wasp is a miracle of nature that is really awesome. 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.560 So yeah, So the parasitic wasp lays an egg on 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:15.040 the spider after paralyzing the spider, then the egg hatches 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.800 and the larva can eat the spider at leisure, sometimes 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.640 sort of from the inside out. Uh So, when a 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.640 wasp attacks, obviously this spider is desperate to escape. It 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:25.760 doesn't want to get paralyzed and eaten by a larva. 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:30.000 But it can't crawl across the dunes fast enough to 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.200 get away from the wasp. So what does it do 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.520 if it can? The wheel spider cart wheels down a 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:39.720 sand dune, rolling away at high speed to escape becoming 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.360 a host. And I've read that it can travel it 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.440 like more than forty revolutions per second. That's awesome. And 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:47.840 again this is this is dependent though upon a hilly environment, 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:51.160 you know, some sort of um slope down which it 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.280 may roll. Yeah, and the spider being near the top 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.160 when it gets attacked, right like if it's at the 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.200 bottom when it gets attacked, no dice. But of course 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.120 these rolling in almost in a way or not true 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.520 wheels in a technological sense, because when humans use wheels, 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:08.720 what's crucial is that the wheel is paired with an axle, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.760 and that the wheel and axle together provide continuous rotational 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.560 force that can be used to move a fixed body. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.400 So it's not just a wheel rolling by itself. Right 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.760 with thag and the Gary Larson cartoon tape to the 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:23.400 outside of a round stone rolling down a hill, So 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:26.280 the question is is there anything more like a true 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.080 wheel in the natural world where something rotates around a 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:33.800 fixed body to move it. I mean, there's nothing quite 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:37.440 like a wheel uh in nature. But there is a 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:40.880 rare example of a similar movement that takes place, and 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:45.559 that's with bacterial flagellum uh structure found in species such 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:48.880 as E. Coli. Uh. The flagellum essentially amounts to a 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:53.040 long helical screw that rotates to propel the bacterium through 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:55.880 its environment, much like a boat's propeller. Yeah, and a 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:59.200 boats propeller isn't pretty much a wheel, I would say, yeah, 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:01.760 depends on the same sort of movement. Now, of course, 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:03.640 lots of things in the natural world that are not 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.080 alive also roll. Oh yeah, I mean snowballs are going 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.440 to roll downhill and get bigger. Um, pebbles are going 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.840 to roll uh. So that you know, these are certainly 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.040 examples that early people would have been in various cases, 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:18.520 had had access to they could have seen in action 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:22.000 and seen what rolling consists of. But another one we 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:26.800 often forget about is the rolling world of poop. Yeah. 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:29.880 I mean, consider, for instance that the near constant poops 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:34.160 of the goat are essentially self hiding rolling away from 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:38.080 these hill roamers, which gives them an advantage against stalking 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.400 predators with a nose for their scent. And then on 0:09:41.440 --> 0:09:43.319 the other end of the spectrum you have the poop 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.120 of the wombat, that is, that is more cubicle in shape. 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.520 And one of the theories here is that since their 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.280 poop is an essential calling card for other members of 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.079 their species, like essential for you know, territory and mating 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.200 and so forth with the wombat, it pays for these 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.800 poops to not roll away and hide themselves, and thus 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.320 they have this kind of cubicle structure to them. Um. 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:09.920 And then in addition to poop, various seeds and fruit 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.800 as well, uh certainly roll away after they have fallen 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.600 and outside of the actual uh you know, movement of rolling. 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.960 We should also note that the basic form of the 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:23.920 wheel is but what a circle a disc? And one 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.160 needs only glimpse the sun or the moon in the 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:29.760 sky or see various other circular forms in nature to 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.400 grasp the idea of if not a disk in rolling motion, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.719 then at least a disk like you it's not it's 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.760 it's it's essential shape can be found fairly easily in 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:45.079 the natural world. Absolutely. Now, one of the things I 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.480 think we have to also acknowledge upfront is that when 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:51.960 people say that the wheel is like the most important 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:56.000 invention of all time, I think what they're usually thinking 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.000 of is the wheel for transportation. But we should also 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:03.440 know acknowledge that, like the wheel is like way bigger 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:07.480 than just transportation applications, even in technology. Are you saying 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.760 like they could be a complete psychopath and they're like, well, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:13.680 the breaking wheel obviously the greatest invention. How did we 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:17.520 ever strap people down and break all their limbs before that? 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:19.920 That is, no, they they're missing out on that. But no, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.199 I was thinking more of, uh, we like the milling 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.120 wheel or the Potter's wheel. I mean, these these are 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:29.719 incredibly important inventions, but I think they're not usually what 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.960 people have in mind when they think of the wheel. Right, 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:36.760 So we're not going to really explore the like milling 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.200 wheel Potter's wheel in this episode, but just to give 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:43.679 you everybody an idea of the time frame we're talking 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.959 about here. The Potter's wheel was common in Mesopotamia in 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:51.080 the Near East from thirty five hundred BC onward, and 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:56.400 introduced into Egypt and the Aegean region around BC. And 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.160 this is simply the basic idea here is it's a 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:04.640 centrifugual force that allows the potter to squeeze and shape uh. 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.120 The the the the the item that they're crafting here 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.120 allows for better and faster production of pottery, and I 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.559 would guess more uniform as well. Right. Yeah. And then 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.320 of course we have wheels that exists purely for religious purposes, 0:12:19.360 --> 0:12:22.280 such as the prayer wheels of Tibet, where it served 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:26.000 as a mechanical manifestation of the Wheel of Dharma. And 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.079 up until the twentieth century I've read virtually this was 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.600 virtually the only Tibetan use for the wheel as it 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.839 and it was just a device for activating mantras to beat. 0:12:35.880 --> 0:12:39.040 After all, is a mountainous region where you can imagine 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.960 that the carts and chariots would be of of limited use. 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.880 That being said, Buddhist concepts, including the Wheel of Dharma, 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.199 entered Tibet by way of India, where the wheel dates 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:52.120 back you know, many thousands of years. Uh, and this 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.880 would have the Buddhist concepts would have entered into Bat 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:58.120 around the seventh century. See. I mean it is interesting 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:00.959 the extent to which the idea of the wheel has 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:05.360 permeated culture and language like that, I can scarcely think 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.560 of the idea of something recurring without recourse to the 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:10.920 image of the wheel. Yeah, and that's something that we're 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:12.960 going to keep coming back to again and again. It's like, 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.000 the technology of the wheel travels, but so does the 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.800 idea of the wheel. The symbolic legacy of the wheel, 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.520 you know, ancient technology that we can then use to 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.199 try and understand the human experience, or the passage of time, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:32.120 or the cosmos, or the machinations of the gods. Yeah. Well, 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:33.960 I mean I have no way to prove this, but 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:39.119 I have to wonder, like, do do cultures that use wheels? 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:41.880 Are they more likely to think of history in terms 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.440 of recurring cycles than cultures that don't. Well, certainly this 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.079 was the older way of looking at you know, at time, 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.000 was the cyclical nature of it. So so it does 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:53.360 it does make sense that those two would go hand 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.400 in hand. Now. Of course, the important thing to note 0:13:55.440 --> 0:13:57.120 about all of this is that even though the wheel 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:01.520 is an ancient invention and it's hard to nail down 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.960 exactly when it comes about, there was a time in 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.760 various cultures before the wheel, or at least before the 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.320 wheel was something that could really be utilized, but before 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:16.240 even the simplest wheel vehicle load was limited by the back. 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.840 Then in snowy climates, sled and ski technology developed because 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:22.160 you don't need a wheel for that. You just need 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.320 something you can drag through the across the surface of 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.960 the snow. Um other in other areas, you're limited by 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.720 animal carrying capacity. Right if you've domesticated a you know, 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:35.240 a horse or an ox or some other creature that 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:38.400 can that can carry things on its back for you, 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.440 so you do not have to carry them on your 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.160 back draft animals or pack animals. Yes, though certainly these 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:49.320 were advanced cultures. They had they had they had their technology. Well, 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:51.480 this is going to be something that will come back 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.880 throughout the episode, which is I think we want to 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:58.200 somewhat challenge the idea that the main uh sort of 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:02.720 bottleneck in the die option of wheeled technology is the 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.920 invention stage. I think actually we were gonna see some 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:10.960 pretty good evidence that you could perfectly understand the concept 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.560 of a wheel and even use it in some contexts 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:18.400 without transitioning your culture to wheel based transport. In general, 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.320 because it's not as useful to you as it might 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:25.000 be to somebody else. Now, before the wheel, if we're 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:29.280 gonna try and imagine the the the precursor to the wheel, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.960 it's likely a sledge type operation where and and this 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.600 would have worked exceedingly well in the snow. And this 0:15:36.640 --> 0:15:38.600 was the kind of technology that was likely used to 0:15:38.960 --> 0:15:41.920 haul stones to stone hinge. Yeah. We we've talked about 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:44.080 the building of the Pyramids on stuff to blow your 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.600 mind before. And one of the amazing things about the 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.680 Pyramids is the idea that we all the evidence seems 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.200 to indicate the Pyramids were built without wheels, you know, 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:57.240 the moving these gigantic blocks of stone across the desert 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:00.520 and and stacking them without the use of wheel. How 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:02.760 did they do it? Well, there's some evidence that they 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:06.080 they use teams to move them across the sand, dragging 0:16:06.120 --> 0:16:09.400 along and then sometimes I think one of the insights 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:12.080 that's come along recently is that archaeologists believe that they 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.200 had this process of wetting the sand in front of 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:17.640 the loads as they would be dragged along through the 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.160 across the ramps and through the desert. But that just 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.680 shows you you can do amazing things without wheeled transport. Yeah, 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:25.640 and certainly we can all Like if we were just 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:28.800 thrown into a random backyard with no access to wheels 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:30.760 and we had to move a bunch of lumber around, 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.440 I think we could all happen upon the technology of 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.000 the sledge pretty easily. You know, where you just need 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:40.600 some some horizontal beams kind of a fix together. You 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:42.240 can pile stuff on that, and then you can just 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.480 you can drag it. And then if you get to 0:16:44.520 --> 0:16:48.840 a point where you're stuck in mud or or snow 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.640 or what have you. Uh, something you could do is 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:55.440 to roll some timber underneath there. Uh, you know, put it, 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.560 put a kind of like a round, you know, limbless 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:01.920 portion of a tree log or something under the front, 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.000 and then pull it over and then collect your log 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:06.840 from the back and then put it back in the 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.320 front again. Um, you know, so you're feeding it like that. 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.000 And then the next logical step beyond that is to 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.200 set these logs, these timber rollers in place between pegs 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.959 and so this would be you know, basically a wheel 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.840 design without a true axle. And this would have been 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:28.639 like the the very earliest sort of immediate precursor to 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.520 a wagon and I think there are some examples of 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:35.679 early wheeled vehicles that, while they had wheels and an axle, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:39.000 rather than the axle being locked to the vehicle in 0:17:39.119 --> 0:17:42.399 some kind of like a closed clasp, instead they sat 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:46.000 beneath grooves and the weight of the cart would be 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.879 would keep them in the grooves. Yeah. I was tempted 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:50.879 to say, it's kind of like the cars that the 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.119 Flintstones had, but but they have something completely different. They 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:56.159 seem to have an axle, right, but then it's a 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.960 roller for the front wheels and the rear wheels. Of course, 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.560 you know, I'm embarrassed to say I am just failing 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.399 to picture a flint Stones car right now. I can't 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:07.919 think of it. Okay, well this we'll have to come 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.679 back to this later. The Flintstones car, to what extent 0:18:10.760 --> 0:18:15.240 does it or does it certainly not fat into any 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:20.359 uh any level of of of wheel innovation over the 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.320 course of human history. Well, you know, one of the 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.600 things about the Flintstones car that actually is going to 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:27.840 be useful is the idea that the Flintstones car, while 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.200 being a wheeled vehicle, is powered by humans. And plenty 0:18:32.240 --> 0:18:35.520 of wheeled vehicles throughout history have not been powered by animals, 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.440 but have been pushed or dragged by human beings. Isn't 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.440 it odd though that the not to spend too much 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.920 time on the technology of the flintstones, but they utilized 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:48.919 um animal labor in pretty much every other aspect of 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.399 their society, Like their garbage disposal is a small dinosaur. 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.040 You know, every household gadget is an enslaveive dinosaur. And 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:58.919 yet for their cars they just run around, they use 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.680 their own foot powers. It's a bit odd. I think 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.640 I am picturing their cars now. If I'm picturing correctly, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.199 their wheels are too wide. There'd be way too much friction. 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.119 Surely there's been a MythBusters one. Alright, well, let's take 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.720 our first break, and when we come back, we're gonna 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:26.639 try and trace down the origin or origins of the wheel. Alright, 0:19:26.640 --> 0:19:30.439 we're back, Okay. Now, As we said early on, the 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.320 fact is nobody knows for sure when the wheel was 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.040 first invented. We do have some evidence about the times 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:39.880 in history when it was first appearing in wide use. 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:45.600 We have some archaeological evidence, some you know, visual pictographic records, um. 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:48.480 But still the question is not fully settled. Who first 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.240 invented the wheel and when and where. The only thing 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.560 we can really be sure of is that Gary Larson 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.240 is is probably wrong. It was probably not a Stone 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.320 Age technolo oology. More likely this is something that is 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.280 emerging uh as as humans are are leaving the Stone 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.360 Age for the Bronze Age. Right. Yeah, pretty much all 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:11.760 the experts, I think tend to put it somewhere within 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.440 the boundaries of the fourth millennium BC, so like three 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:19.160 thousand BC to four thousand BC. And we'll be discussing 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.119 a couple of books that offer different theories about this now. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.080 While we will be talking about the wheel as an invention, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.240 I think one thing we want to emphasize is that 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.320 we shouldn't necessarily assume that any place and time in 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:35.840 history where we find a lack of wheel technology, whether 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.720 that's you know, the whole world earlier on or cultures 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:42.720 that didn't use a lot of wheel transport even more recently, 0:20:43.359 --> 0:20:46.320 that we should attribute that to the lack of the 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.520 ability to come up with the idea of a wheel. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:52.879 Because to the contrary, I think there are lots of 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.320 good reasons to believe that many cultures throughout history perfectly 0:20:56.400 --> 0:20:59.440 understood the concept of a wheel, like we already touched 0:20:59.440 --> 0:21:02.080 on the tibett An example, and and we'll be coming 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:07.320 back around to the the South and meso American example exactly. 0:21:07.440 --> 0:21:10.000 So they, yeah, they understood the idea of a wheel 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.560 just fine. They simply didn't have much use for it 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.919 in transport and could meet their transport needs better in 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:20.720 their environment with humans and animals than with wheeled vehicles. 0:21:21.280 --> 0:21:23.920 Uh so, And just as a quick analogy, this isn't 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:26.840 a perfect analogy, but just let's play a little imagination game. 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.080 Imagine yourself suddenly dropped into a Neolithic context because the 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.600 world without highways and all that stuff. How useful now 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.600 is your extremely advanced twenty first century car if you 0:21:38.640 --> 0:21:41.239 want to move stuff around, And that's a car with 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.600 rubber tires and suspension and all this stuff that the 0:21:44.640 --> 0:21:48.479 earliest four wheeled vehicles didn't have, right, you would have 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.960 to even assuming you had a four wheel drive vehicle, 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:56.080 a nice you know, like just the the most urbust rural, 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.200 mudd in truck you could possibly um, you know, acquire fire, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.639 and you took that with you back in time. You 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:06.159