WEBVTT - From the Vault: Bathysphere, Part 2 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.640 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.319 name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.480 time to go into the vault for part two of 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.680 our exploration of William Beebe and the Bathosphere. That's right. 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.680 This episode originally aired March eighteen, technically not even a 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.520 year ago, but we're re airing the Bathosphere episodes because 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.080 they concerned the deep ocean and the mysteries of the deep. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:32.640 And we've got a new fiction podcast venture launching January 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:37.400 thirty one, titled Transgenesis UM that I wrote and created 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.680 and worked with a whole host of people here at 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.879 How Stuff Works and people from outside the organization, including Joe. 0:00:42.960 --> 0:00:45.800 Joe's on the podcast as well. Oh I am, oh, yeah, 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.360 I guess I am. Yeah. So everyone should should tune 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.600 in for that. If you want to check that venture out, 0:00:50.960 --> 0:00:54.600 head on over to Transgenesis dot show. That's the website. Uh. 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:56.520 And also, I think by the time you're listening to this, 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.120 you should be able to look up Transgenesis and begin 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.920 subscribing to it. If not, that'll be coming soon. We're 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.320 all so excited about that. Robert, you shouldn't sound so 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.479 bashful you should be shouting from the rooftops. Well, it's 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.280 still early days. I'm working up to shouting. So hopefully 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:13.520 the next of all episodes, I'll do more shouting. Okay, 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:17.080 Transgenesis is coming also check that out. But today please 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:24.280 enjoy part two of our exploration of the atmosphere. Welcome 0:01:24.319 --> 0:01:26.960 to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff Works 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:35.680 dot com. Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:01:35.760 --> 0:01:38.160 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.000 we're back with part two of our two part exploration 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.840 of the depths of the see the History of Knowledge 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.240 and Exploration of the deep Sea. And this this time 0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:49.520 we're really going to be focusing in on William b. B. 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:52.920 That's right. We we alluded to him at the beginning 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:58.840 of the last episode. So he was an American naturalist, explorer, author, 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:02.920 uh he of from eighteen seventy seven to nineteen sixty two, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:07.040 and h he was. He was a very interesting fellow, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:11.080 just to put it mildly. Before there was Neil de Grass, 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.920 Dyson or Carl Sagan or even Jacques Gusteau, there was 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:19.560 William Beebe, who some writers have called the first celebrity scientist. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.320 So he traveled around and lectured, he wrote books, he recruited, 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:26.960 we received quite a bit of media coverage, and he 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.000 was actually in writing books. He was a good writer, 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.520 this thing that helps. Yeah, he was a good popularizer 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.520 of science. He was a great science communicator before this 0:02:36.680 --> 0:02:39.640 was really that much of a thing. Yeah, I often 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.639 think of Darwin as a great science communicator, but yeah, 0:02:42.680 --> 0:02:44.920 Beebe really took it to the next level, especially as 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.840 we'll talk about in a minute, by employing all kinds 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.160 of people to help spread the message of scientific discoveries 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.320 in ways that are easily digestible to the public. Yeah. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.560 So he he was an ornithologist at the New York 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:03.519 Zoological Society and uh he he actually left college before 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.000 completing his degree in order to to to work, uh 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:09.920 for for the society. But he just he's one of 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:13.360 these guys who just seemed to really just ascend once 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.120 he you know, once he hit the ground working he 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.359 was he would have ended up being becoming the founder 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.119 of the Society's Department of Tropical Research. And he conducted 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.160 he conducted research, it's worth noting across two world wars 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:28.720 and the Great Depression, like that was the time period, 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.480 the Trying time period, a time when most of the 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:35.520 energy in the world seemed to be aimed at either 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:42.600 conducting warfare, surviving warfare, surviving economic depression. UH. But he 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.360 was able to successfully carry out a great deal of 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:49.560 research and UH and then communicate the Department of the 0:03:49.640 --> 0:03:52.440 Tropical Researches work as well. And to do this he 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.800 enlisted not only scientists but also historians, writers, and artists. 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.160 And by this I mean he took artists with him 0:03:59.160 --> 0:04:03.280 on his expedition, generating some really captivating artwork and b 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.600 B himself sketched the creatures that he saw in the depths. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.440 I mean. It's really kind of surprising, however, though, that that, 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.720 given that he was such a celebrity at the time, uh, 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.440 that that we don't see him celebrated as much in 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.680 pop culture today. Like he's certainly again, he's remembered, it's 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.040 not like he's forgotten and lost to history. But you 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.560 would just think that he would have more of a 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.240 like a tesla status today. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:34.359 will say that again. Before we went to this recent 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.400 exhibit at the American Museum and Natural History in New 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.200 York about the Unseen Depths of the Ocean had some 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.800 stuff about BB before that. I think maybe I was 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:46.480 a little bit aware of him, but didn't really know anything. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.719 And that's crazy, because his life and his work was 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:54.280 so interesting. Yeah, I mean for starters, he influenced a 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:57.880 number of notable people. Um For instance, E. O. Wilson, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:01.400 who we've discussed on the show before, has has pointed 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:06.280 to William Beebe as someone who inspired his scientific career. Yeah. 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.680 There are a lot of interesting things about Bebe's legacy. 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.279 One cool one that does get mentioned sometimes is the 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.359 fact that he was criticized during his life for hiring 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.359 and mentoring female researchers, which a lot of irritable sexist 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.640 establishment scientists of the time thought was an indication that 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.600 his work was not serious or was unprofessional. Uh, of 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:28.760 course they were wrong, right. BB helped give a leg 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.160 up to a great scientists like Joscelyn Crane, who studied, 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.840 among other things, invertebrate ethology, so the behavior of invertebrates, 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.760 with a special focus on fiddler crabs, and also the 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:43.400 explorer and research scientists Gloria Hollister, who pioneered lab techniques 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.280 for preparing marine specimens, and she herself actually performed a 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:51.000 dives in the capsule that we're gonna be talking about 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.719 more in this episode of the Bathosphere, the steel ball 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:56.960 that finally took us down into the depths. Some of 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.720 the females he employed were also artists as well. There's 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:04.280 actually a wonderful New York Times article that came out, uh, 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:08.400 just last year about an exhibition of various works from 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.560 this period that I recommend everyone check out it. If 0:06:11.560 --> 0:06:14.880 you just look for William Bbe Department of Trapical Research illustrations, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.800 you'll find it. And there's some just some fabulous illustrations 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.400 of say, the Bathosphere descending into the depths with strange 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.800 creatures swirling around it. Yeah, if you get a chance, 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.400 you should look up illustrations. Especially I would say of 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.080 the artist Elsa Bostelmann, who she was one of the 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.400 artists who accompanied his research, and she sketched and painted 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.599 what bb and and his companion Notice Barton saw in 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.200 the deep from the Bathosphere, which we're gonna be talking 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.039 about more later. But her work is just beautiful and 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:47.680 weird and superb. It's uh, it's excellent science art. Yeah, 0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:51.279 for reasons that will become obvious as we proceed of 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.640 photography or certainly film was just not an option aboard 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:58.640 the Bathosphere, so they had to depend on sketches. Uh. 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.920 And and also just you have considered the time during 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:03.880 which all this have taken place. For instance, so one 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.839 of his dives was actually broadcast on NBC Radio, which 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:11.640 is a testament to the popularity of his work, but 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:15.800 also just shows you the limitations of the visual technology 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.000 at the time. Now. Of course, another great weird note 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:22.680 in pop culture is that BB's collaborator Otis Barton, who 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:25.480 was his his co pilot in the Bathisphere and one 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.080 of the people, I think the designer, the main designer 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.160 of the Bathosphere made a movie, made a movie based 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:35.720 on what they did. Yeah, Titans of the Deep. And 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:38.440 if you look at the poster art for this film, 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:40.320 and I'll try to include it on the landing page 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.800 for this episode, is stuff to blow your mind. It 0:07:42.920 --> 0:07:47.080 creates certain expectations of the content. Yeah, I will say, 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.800 it's so it's supposed to be like a documentary film, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.480 right they's they made it as a documentary apparently, And 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:56.720 even though it's like BB is mentioned uh on the 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.480 on the poster, it's really apparently BB wasn't himself super 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:03.320 involved in the production. Yeah, I've seen it actually described 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:06.360 as more of like an action movie or an exploitation 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.400 horror movie. I couldn't. I couldn't find this movie, so 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.720 I don't. I didn't get to watch it. Yeah I 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:15.720 would have. I was not able to find, uh, even 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.160 any footage from it or a trailer or what would 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.680 pass for a trailer. But you can definitely get a 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:22.440 sense of the vibe they were going for if you 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.120 just look at the poster, which of course has like 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.400 a vague whale shaped sea monster with this big saw 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.440 tooth face and then a dude with a harpoon poise 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.440 to hit it. It looks in composition like the much 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.360 later poster for the movie Journey to the Seventh Planet, 0:08:38.679 --> 0:08:42.240 which is this nineteen sixty two sci fi barbecue about 0:08:42.280 --> 0:08:45.880 a bunch of astronauts who fly out to explore Uranus 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.000 and then get this they essentially end up with a 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:53.160 d intellectualized version of the plot from Solaris and the 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:57.800 movie stars, of course, John agar Ah, yes a frequent 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.720 a frequent name for anyone's ever plunged the depths of 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.880 of B movies from that era. But if you look 0:09:03.920 --> 0:09:06.160 at this poster for Journey to the Seventh Planet. It's 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:08.360 I don't know if it was actually inspired by Titans 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:10.199 of the Deep, but they look very similar to me. 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.679 I also found an image this was an advertisement. But 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:19.240 it turns out even Otis Barton, who accompanied William bb 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.920 in the Bathosphere. He was famous enough at the time 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.760 to appear in a camel advertisement for Camel cigarettes where 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.760 you see him featured there and he's saying, I smoke 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:30.720 as many camels as I like. They don't give me 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:34.360 jittery nerves. No, camels have a have a swell taste, 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:37.600 mild and yet with rich, mellow flavor. I smoked them 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.120 all in the Bathosphere. I don't I do not think 0:09:41.120 --> 0:09:46.160 the bathosphere is a good smoking environment. Two packs per dive. Well, 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.199 we've been teasing it enough. I think maybe we should 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:49.680 take a quick break and then when we come back, 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:56.360 we should discuss the bathosphere itself. All right, thank thank alright, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.720 we're back al right, So I will refer you to 0:09:59.800 --> 0:10:03.280 an image like a photograph of the Bathosphere on the 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:05.320 landing page for this episode is stuff to blow your 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:07.240 mind dot com. But we're also going to describe it 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.080 for you here so no need to pull the car 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.880 over what have you. Depending on how you're listening to us. Okay, so, 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.480 as you're trying to imagine the Bathosphere, it's probably best 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.480 to dismiss some of your more modern and TV friendly 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:25.440 notions of exploratory submarines, because the bathosphere was less of 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.520 a submarine and more of just a death trap. Right. 0:10:28.600 --> 0:10:30.840 It's like, would you like to get inside a bowling 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:32.920 ball and go to the bottom of the ocean? Yeah, 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:36.360 a steel ball that men climb inside and then it 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.280 is lowered into the ocean depths. Let's let's ask some questions. 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.400 Does this have a propeller? No? Does it have fins? No? 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.840 Does it have robotic arms? No? What does it have 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.760 really anything on the outside other than just a steel sphere? 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.120 I mean, basically, it is a steel bowling ball that 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.640 men climb inside through what what Baby referred to just 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.480 as the door? And then it has even door is 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.439 a little misleading, Yeah, I mean it's not really a door. 0:11:04.480 --> 0:11:08.960 They got in through a hole that was then bolted shut. Right. See, 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.280 it's sealed shut like a like an iron casket. And 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.760 then it has these three uh, the three portals that 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:20.360 they look out off that look kind of like stubby eyestalks. So, Robert, 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.680 how big was the athmosphere that these two people got into? Well, 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.440 here's a here's a quick quote from Baby from his 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.280 biography half Mile Down, which which we're gonna refer to 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.240 a lot. If if if we read a quote quote 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.400 from Baby in this and we don't fully attribute it, 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.880 it's from half Mile Down. Baby says it was not 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:41.840 as tall as a man, measuring only four ft nine 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.120 inches in diameter, but its walls were everywhere an inch 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:47.880 and a quarter thick, and it weighed five thousand, four 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.560 hundred pounds. A first casting had weighed twice as much, 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:53.520 but it would have been too heavy for any of 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.079 the winches available in Bermuda. And was jumped. Now about 0:11:57.160 --> 0:11:59.960 this steel ball. If you don't have an intuitive since 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:02.199 of numbers to physical scale, I want to pause for 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.000 a second and dwell on how tiny this is. You 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:09.280 can buy beach balls bigger than this undersea exploration vessel. 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:12.280 That's crazy. You included a picture here on our notes 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.840 showing what a sixty beach ball looks like next to 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.440 presumably an average sized individual. I guess there is probably 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.480 a tall guy, but but still imagine two of him 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.880 inside of it. That's unbelievable. And that's bigger than the 0:12:26.920 --> 0:12:31.040 bathosphere was. This was this thing was tiny. People like 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.360 they were crammed inside. But there was a reason it 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:37.320 had to be that small, right, Yeah, because, as William J. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.240 Broad points out in his book The Universe Below, the 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.360 smaller the sphere, the greater strength of its walls. If 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.560 you had more space in there, you need thicker walls, 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:50.000 which would of course mean increasing the weight of the thing. 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:52.400 So yeah, we run into the problem with with with 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.840 the winches that we've already discussed. It's almost like a 0:12:55.880 --> 0:13:00.160 parallel of the problems of shielding from radiation in space, 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:02.840 right Like, you want to send up a spacecraft that 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:06.360 will protect the astronauts with really thick shielding in the walls, 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.120 but you've got a problem with getting so much mass 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:11.720 up into space that you know, you could have all 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:15.360 these really really thick walls. It's like a parallel to that. 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:17.640 You know, you you could have really really thick walls 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:19.960 to make sure you're super protected from the pressure and 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.080 you've got enough room to move around, but it just 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:24.560 gets harder and harder to get you down into the 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.640 depths and back up safely if you do that. Yeah. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.839 So this was designed by BB an American engineer Otis Barton, 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.640 who already mentioned, and it featured three viewing portals and 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.760 these were This was not glass. You couldn't just look 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.800 out just normal glass because it needed to withstand the pressure. 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.520 This was fused quartz eight inches in diameter and three 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:46.920 inches thick, and the fittings again, they look like stubby 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:50.240 eye stalks. It's like a three eyed monster. Yeah. And 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.920 quartz was used because it was the quote strongest transparent 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:58.240 substance known and it transmits all wavelengths of light. Now, 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:01.360 earlier we mentioned the door that wasn't really a door. 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:03.959 What does BB say about the door. He describes it 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.480 as a quote round four hundred pound lid that quote 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:10.000 had to be lifted on and off by a block 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.840 and tackle and fitted snugly over ten large bolts around 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:16.400 the manhole. The ladder just big enough to permit the 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.400 passage of a slender human body. Babe was a very 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:21.720 slender guy, we should point out. I've seen pictures of 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:26.040 him and he is spind lee. Now on top of that, 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:29.120 let's discuss some of the other attributes of physical attributes 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.160 of the bathosphere. It had a single external light, just 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.720 one thousand watts and one light and you've flipped it 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.920 on or off from inside. And the sphere was lowered 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.920 on a single steel, non twisting cable nearly an inch 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.880 in diameter with a breaking strain of twenty nine tons 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.400 or a dozen bathispheres. Okay, So they wanted to be 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.360 real safe because, of course, if that cable breaks, you're 0:14:52.360 --> 0:14:54.640 in a world a hurt. Yeah, you're you're done for, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.240 and you have to worry about more than just the 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.560 what happens if the cable breaks, So you have to 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:01.840 worry about, well, what if they're stormy weather, et cetera. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:03.720 Now you mentioned there's a light on the thing, so 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.000 that means they got to get power down there somehow. Yeah, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.240 So they had an additional cable that carried both the 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.760 electrical power and the telephone wires. Oh, telephone wires. So 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:13.640 they had to have some way to communicate with the service. 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.080 I assume they couldn't just tug on the cable. Yeah, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.000 I don't think that would work. But but yeah, this 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.040 is this is kind of the limits of their connections 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.280 to the surface. They had electricity coming down and they 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.400 had that telephone wire. They did not have an air 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:32.600 tube coming down. No, but of course they had to breathe. 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:38.040 So the batmosphere included oxygen tanks with automatic valves. Uh. 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.240 That provided the atmosphere, and then they just had trays 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:43.840 of chemical setting out. I believe it was soda, lime, 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:46.720 and calcium chloride. Yeah. And this was to absorb moisture 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.480 and carbon dioxide. Yeah, because you don't just need fresh 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:51.320 air to breathe in, you need to scrub the carbon 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.960 dioxide that you're breathing out. Yeah. I would, I would 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:56.360 just want to drive home. How I mean, it's an 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:01.120 amazing invention, but how dangerously crude it can it can feel. 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:04.840 It reminds me of there was the film was it 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:10.600 The Voyagers the Explorers? Yes, where the kids build this 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.160 kind of spaceship that sets inside a like a magic 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.920 force field sphere. But they just build it, right, They 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.480 just constructed from what they have at hand, And there's 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:23.320 a there's a similar vibe with the bathosphere like that. 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:27.960 There's just it's just so ballsy to imagine climbing in 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.040 this thing and the depth. I mean, it is a 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:33.520 large ball, It is a it is a steel ball. Yes. 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.600 And even though it holds two divers and is essentially 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:42.280 a two man crew, uh BB says that the total 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.360 crew required to support this thing, uh, most of which 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.320 are going to be members on the surface. Uh, it 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:53.320 comes to around twenty eight people total, so two under 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:57.280 the water above the water. All right. So let's say 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.480 you're William Bbe and you're like, okay, I've got a 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.240 steel ball to die in. Um, where where are we 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.199 going to put this down in the water? Well, they 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.359 set their side some the deep seas off the coast 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:09.800 of Bermuda, UH, specifically a circular area about eight miles 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.639 in diameter near non Such Island, and here the depth 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.840 reached about a mile. The first dive occurred in nineteen thirty. 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:20.680 By June eleven, nineteen thirty, they'd reached a depth of 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.120 dred feet or four hundred meters, and in nineteen thirty 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:27.080 four they reached three thousand feet or nine hundred meters, 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.159 And that was, of course by far the world record. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.760 That they went much lower than anybody had ever been 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:35.640 able to explore before. Yeah, they were really breaking new 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:41.040 grounds with this. Now, the bathosphere greatly improved humanity's ability 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:44.080 to explore the depths. Uh. But again it was it 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.080 was ultimately a risky vessel to use, and it was 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:52.440 soon replaced by safer designs, including the bath Escape, which 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:58.080 positioned a traditional bathosphere beneath a large float, and even 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:00.639 the likes of the modern deep sea channel You're famously 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.800 piloted by James Cameron that boasts a pilot sphere position 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:07.280 beneath the rest of the vessel. So you can think 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:11.400 of post bathosphere designs as just basically being the bathosphere 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:18.359 attached to a larger system of flotation, a submarine based submarine. 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.040 Basically like, let's attach this to a submarine that has power, 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.000 that has the ability to to to raise and lower 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.040 itself within the water. But the bathosphere was was just 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.879 the sphere, just the this uh, this steel container for 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.600 the humans to descend in. Having your own power really 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:38.880 does seem to make a difference, right, I Mean, there's 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:41.520 a huge difference between being in a submarine that can 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.800 move and just hanging in a ball on a thread. Yeah, 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.479 I mean just the psychological uh notion here, just the 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:50.640 idea that they have some if I if I get 0:18:50.640 --> 0:18:54.399 tired of descending into the darkness of the deep sea, 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:56.560 then I can just I can. I can raise myself 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.000 out of this. I have some level of control, and 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:02.119 I'm not just hoping that everything is going okay up 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.520 there on the surface now. Of course, by virtue of 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:06.919 the fact that BB and his team went deeper than 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.120 anyone ever had before, he got to observe far more 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.720 than anyone ever had before. So I think we should 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.840 go into his scientific observations, and we'll do that right 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:21.639 after this break. Thank thank Alright, we're back. So William B. 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:24.200 B the modern Gilgamesh. He and his co pilot are 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:28.240 in the ball in the steel death trap, sinking down, down, 0:19:28.359 --> 0:19:31.080 down into the ocean, deeper than anybody's ever gone before, 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.639 and looking out the portholes to see what they can see. 0:19:34.080 --> 0:19:36.360 So let's talk about what they see. What did they 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.600 discover through this research method? Well? BB observed and sketched 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.680 again because cameras of the day were largely useless given 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.600 the conditions of the bathosphere in its environment. But he 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:51.360 described a world quote stranger than any imagination could have conceived, 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.639 and he writes about it very beautifully. Oh yeah, and 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.960 and he really brought the results. Between seven b B 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.760 and his team caught more than a hundred and fifteen 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.000 thousand animals from two hundred and twenty species, many many 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.480 of which were new to science, so they were combining 0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:11.679 different research methods at the same time. Now, before we 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:14.480 get into some of the specific creatures that he saw 0:20:15.119 --> 0:20:17.960 claim to have seen, uh, we should probably just talk 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.560 about his experience with darkness and light, because ultimately that 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.440 is the I mean that, that's kind of the defining 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:28.320 experience that he describes. Oh, exactly, so bb Right's quote, 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.359 in the course of the half mile down, although my 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.120 eyes were perfectly dark adapted, I could detect not the 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:39.199 faintest glimmer of light from seventeen hundred feet down, So, 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.800 as far as the human eye was concerned, conditions of 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:46.400 absolute darkness existed at these deeper levels. And then he says, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:50.080 from seventeen hundred feet down, animal light is the only 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.280 external source of illumination. So of course they did have 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:55.159 a light they could flip on, but they didn't want 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:56.920 to do that all the time, right, because that would 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.800 be affecting and changing the environment, So they didn't do 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:02.320 that at always. They would try to see often just 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.360 what they could see in the dark that was self illuminated. 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:07.600 And when you go that far down. There actually are 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.960 very many bioluminescent creatures that will illuminate themselves for you 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:13.960 to see. But they'll also illuminate the water so that 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:18.080 you can see other animals around them. And BB writes quote, 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.200 Occasionally the head of a fish would appear conspicuously against 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:26.240 the surrounding black, illumined by some indirect source of unknown lighting. 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.360 Eyes especially stood out, with no definite source of light visible. 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.520 When teeth were thus silhouetted, I knew it was from 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:37.719 a luminous mucus which covered them. Cheek lights flashed and 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:41.760 dimmed or vanished altogether, showing some control other than the 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:46.280 usual disappearance into an opaque epidermal trench. And I should 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.679 mention those last quotes I provided came from a paper 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.480 he published in Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:55.119 in nineteen thirty two or thirty three. Yeah, he was 0:21:55.560 --> 0:22:00.679 extremely impressed by the display of bioluminescence as as he descended, 0:22:00.920 --> 0:22:04.040 so he noted the lights of fish, jellies, and various 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:07.320 animals that he couldn't really identify in passing. And it 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.320 was something of a revelation to him. About a third 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:12.920 of a mile down he saw something that he described 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.240 as a quote pyrotechnic network and was and it was 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:21.200