WEBVTT - From the Vault: Creature of the Gear 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:09.239 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:09.360 --> 0:00:13.960 Robert Lamb. Joe is away at the moment, but we're 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.080 gonna go ahead and slot in a vault episode for today. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.119 This is just helping us deal with some some some 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:24.760 late summer or at least late summer break um disruptions here, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:27.920 but we're gonna go ahead and play Creature of the Gear. 0:00:28.520 --> 0:00:33.479 This originally published on nine to one. UH. It's an 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:37.960 interesting look at gears and when did humans invent gears? 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.360 And also what do we find that are like gears 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:42.960 in nature? And we'll even look at a few wheel 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.280 based mythological creatures. Now, don't fret, we're gonna be back 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.040 on Thursday. We should be back on Thursday with a 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.440 fun interview episode and then we'll be back into the 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.040 regular schedule right after that. So, without further ado, let's 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:03.440 dive right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:13.039 production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:15.760 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.600 Joe McCormick. Today we're gonna be in a way we're 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:24.520 continuing on past discussions concerning the wheel Um, also past 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:29.800 discussions concerning UH like rolling creatures. But we're gonna be 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.880 getting more specifically into the realm of the gear in 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.880 this episode. Now, I have to say, I'm anytime we 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:41.720 get into one of these discussions, I'm always reminded of 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:46.800 a few lines from The Omega Man. Uh. In part 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:52.600 because it's in its own way, it's a weirdly interesting film. Also, 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.480 I probably listened to a bit too much Wide Zombie 0:01:55.520 --> 0:01:59.600 back in high school. Uh, because there's some or maybe 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.200 it's a zombie song that that samples this movie. But 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.680 there's this one wonderful line from Anthony zerve Is character says, 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:11.800 the creature of the Wheel, the lord of the infernal engines. Um, 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:13.920 what is he talking about the vampires? Or is he 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.760 talking about about Charlton Heston. He's talking about old Chuck Heston. There, 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:22.520 he's the This man represents the wheel and the technology 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:24.639 of the wheel and all the terrible things that we're 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:29.480 done with it. Um, but wait, I recall the vampires 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:32.000 using wheeled vehicles. Do they not? Don't they have like 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.840 a sort of zombie mobile. Yeah, I'm not saying it 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.239 makes sense. I'm not saying it's a fair criticism. I'm 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.519 just saying that Anthony Zerva had a really cool voice, 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.200 and uh and when he said these lines, it was like, yeah, 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.919 that sounds cool. I don't know what it means exactly, 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:47.880 but it sounds pretty cool. You know, it would be 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:50.680 a really good movie Monster Bug Fight and and both 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.480 are Charlton Heston movies. If you pick the vampires from 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:58.240 the Omega Man versus the Adam Bomb Cult from the 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:00.919 second Planet of the Apes movie, you know, they're they're 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.640 pretty similar. I think, pretty similar morbid humanoids. But I 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:08.240 would like to see them duke it out and Charlton Heston, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:10.760 I guess can just watch this time. Yeah, what was 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.320 that beneath the Planet of the Apes? I always like that. 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.160 As far as any eight movies that came after Planet 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:20.800 of the Apes, that one, that one always appealed to me. 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.760 I'm not sure why. Uh. I remember there's a part 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:28.600 where they sing a hymn to the atom bomb. You remember, Yep, 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:30.359 they have just a big old atom bomb in there 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.160 that they worship. I think it's like a minor key 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:37.720 version of all things bright and beautiful. But it's interesting 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.240 all these things are connected because we're dealing with with 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.160 a human technology and the idea of worshiping the technology, 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:48.560 being bound to the technology and and the wheel, and 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:52.400 by virtue of the wheel, gears and machines being this 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.760 thing that is particular to human beings, something that that 0:03:55.880 --> 0:03:59.160 that we have created. It's a part of our various civilizations. 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:01.960 And I think it's interesting to think about humans as 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:04.440 creatures of the wheel empire, because of course there have 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:08.280 been plenty of cultures and civilizations where the wheel, at 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:12.400 least in terms of of vehicles, has played no practical role. 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:14.240 Perhaps it you know, that you had the wheel as 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:16.600 a toy, perhaps it was used as a spiritual aid 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.720 or device that could serve as a metaphor. But then certainly, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.080 by the time we get to the you know, the 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.479 age of roads and engines, humanity very visibly becomes a 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.560 people of the wheel. But then, as we'll discussed in 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.960 this episode a little bit, you also get into this 0:04:31.040 --> 0:04:34.799 domain of wheels and gears, of of wheels doing things 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.599 that they don't have have anything directly to do with vehicles, 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.520 but it's all about using the energy of the wheel 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:44.200 to do other things. And yet at the same time, 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:46.800 and this also makes me think of the field of biomemetics, 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.000 bioble metics, of course, as when we we say, okay, 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:52.880 I have an engineering problem. I need to turn to 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.040 the realm of nature for a possible solution, because I've 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.359 only been working on this engineering problem for you know, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:03.120 X amount of time. But evolution has been working around 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:07.479 similar engineering problems just for for millions of years. So 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:10.640 perhaps we can we can cheat off of nature in 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.240 that regard. But of course, one of the problems is 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.360 that the wheel almost never comes up in nature itself. 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:23.039 Gears almost never come up in nature, So biomometically, you're 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.159 not going to turn to nature and say, oh, well, 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:28.640 well there's a there's a solution involving the wheel that 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:31.160 I might use. Oh let's look and see how this 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:37.240 particular creature uses rotary blades to fly that sort of thing. Yeah, 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.400 you know, I actually really enjoy thinking about this in 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:46.040 terms of comparing animal bodies to different types of machines, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.080 machine components, simple machines, you know, the stuff you learn 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:52.039 about in those first physics lessons when you're a kid. 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:54.520 So you know, you know the lever and the inclined 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.000 plane and the and the pulley and the screw and 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.680 all that. And I feel like when you do this exercise. 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:04.080 There is one type of simple machine that absolutely dominates 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.960 the landscape of biology, and that is the lever. Biology 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.800 is full of levers. I think you could make an 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.680 argument that almost all of the skeletal muscle in our 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.720 bodies is designed by evolution for the operation of levers. 0:06:18.839 --> 0:06:21.000 Maybe there are some exceptions that aren't occurring to me, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.640 but I would say, if not all of them, almost 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.560 all of them. So, for example, when you use your 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.520 bicep to do an arm curl, you're curling a dumbbell. 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.680 You know, the muscle primarily the bicep. I think also 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.480 somewhat the muscle in your forearm is exerting the effort. 0:06:35.560 --> 0:06:38.320 The load is what's in your hand, it's your your fist, 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:40.760 and the full crum is the elbow joint, and of 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:44.080 course the bone is the lever. So I think most 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.839 of the body's gross motor activity is based on the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.760 action of levers with joints as the fulcrum. Uh. And 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:53.280 then but then when you start looking for other simple 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.279 machines and animal bodies, you can turn up some examples, 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.560 but it suddenly gets a lot more difficult to scope 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.200 things out. Like you can maybe make the argument that 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:05.440 sharp teeth and fangs, or a type of wedge which 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.560 is technically a form of the simple machine known as 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:13.320 the inclined plane. But then there are other types of 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.600 of machines and machine parts that are pretty rare or 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.760 even non existent in nature, and the wheel is a 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.000 good one of these. There there are really only a 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:24.960 few examples that people can point to of things that 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:29.600 might be considered freely rotating wheels and axles. In biology, 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:34.520 sometimes people bring up versions of the bacterial flagella as 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.120 something that sort of operates like a wheel, kind of 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.880 spinning like a propeller to move the bacterium uh through 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.920 through a liquid medium and uh. And then there are 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:48.120 also I think some possible parts of animal digestive systems 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.320 that may function kind of like a wheel. But animal 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:55.600 body plans clearly favored the versatility of legs based on 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.040 levers instead of wheels. And you can make a few 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:02.800 different arguments about why evolution overwhelmingly goes that route. You 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:04.840 could you could say maybe it has something to do 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:09.680 with just morphological precedence, like that levers are easier to 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:14.240 evolve from the pre existing forms that were available for 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.200 animal bodies to work on when in you know, adapting 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.880 through small mutations. But you could also argue that there 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:25.040 are natural uh, terrain negotiation advantages to levers. You know, 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.680 if you're not in a world of clean paved surfaces, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.679 wheels can actually pretty easily get hung up on things, 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.160 and you need the articulation of levers and limbs in 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.319 order to say, uh, you know, get over rugged terrain, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:40.559 or to flip yourself back over if you fall on 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.199 your back. I think it's also telling that when we 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:47.960 look to the world of mythological creatures and beings, we 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.560 don't see a lot of wheels, or at least we 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.960 don't see a lot of wheels that are innately organic. 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:56.760 And then if we do, we tend not to see 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:00.280 a creature or a being that is supposed to be 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.240 of this world. Um and uh. And perhaps there's some 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:08.280 exception to this rule that I'm overlooking, but I thought 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:10.680 I might bring up a couple of examples. One and 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.360 I know I've mentioned this this critter on the show before. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.800 There is a demon by the name of Bure. I 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.720 believe it is b U e R described in Johann 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:29.240 of Viers fifteen sixty three. Grimore Pseudo Monarchia demonium Um. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:34.560 This covers a number of different of supposed demons, and 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.880 this demon Buer is the great President of Hell, kind 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.240 of a goblin faced lion with kind of a wheel 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.880 of five legs going around it, which I find reminiscent 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:49.520 of the pet rail wheel which I mentioned in a 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.600 previous Artifact episode, an experimental tank wheel that had legs 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:56.760 on it. Um. So as the wheel turns, the legs 0:09:57.000 --> 0:10:00.560 are are placed down onto the ground. Uh this case, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.720 they are goat legs, and I've I've read that they're 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:07.120 supposed to symbolize the demon's ability to move in any direction. 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:09.800 So I'm not entirely sure that we're even supposed to 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.600 imagine this creature turning like a wheel or like a 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.800 clock or something. But when I look at him, that's 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:18.360 all I can see. Like he basically moves on the 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.600 page or on the screen when I stare at him, 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:22.760 and I can imagine I'm kind of lumping around along. 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:26.400 You know. Well, I tend to think about um when 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:30.640 wheels are imagined in the imagery of mythology and religion, 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.040 it's often to say something about the fact that the 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.280 vision is boggling the mind. It You know that it's 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:42.160 transcending familiar forms and just completely awing you and humbling 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.800 you with confusion. Uh. So I think, for example, about 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.640 Ezekiel's vision of the wheels in in in the Hebrew Bible, 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.320 and and how the wheels there. Uh, it seems to 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:55.280 me at least, I mean, I'm you know, no professional 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.520 legs ag eat on that, but it seems like that 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.720 they symbolize something about a concept that sort of like 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:05.240 surpasses human understanding. You're looking at something that your mind 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.440 can't even fit around. Yeah, I mean, we can easily 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.560 imagine the various connotations that are being drawn in there 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.120 when you have a wheel like appearing in the sky, 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:17.800 because you have the idea of technology, something created by 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.440 rational beings. You have the idea of sort of cosmic 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.760 wheels and circular forms related to the movements of the 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.199 stars and the planets and so forth. Uh. And then 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.800 the idea too that if if this is mixed with 0:11:32.000 --> 0:11:36.199 some sort of biological or faintly biological or hybrid form, 0:11:36.240 --> 0:11:38.960 that that is again something that is not reflected in nature. 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:43.000 It is something there is something inherently unnatural about this, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:45.680 this hybrid being that is not even just part animal 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.040 and part human or part of this animal and part 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.680 that animal, but part flesh being and part cosmic or 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.240 technological entity. Now then again, in nature and biology, you 0:11:56.320 --> 0:12:01.319 do find all kinds of round mechanism and round bodies 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:03.880 and even rolling forms. You know, lots of animals can 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.560 roll up into a round shape and then roll their 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.160 whole body. What you what really seems to be unusual 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.600 in nature, And again maybe you can only find a 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:14.960 few examples here and there that would seem to fit. 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:19.200 This is a freely rotating wheel that somehow transfers energy 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.720 within a broader context. So like the wheel and axle 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.120 on a car that moves the car body the car, 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.080 you know, the chassiss stationary and then the wheel turns 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.840 to propel it forward. That's what you really don't find 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.520 much of in nature. But if you're content with just 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.600 like something round that rolls, you can have a wheel 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.080 spider rolling down a dune. You can have bugs that 0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.640 roll up into round shapes and roll all over the place. 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.720 Even some mammals do that. Yeah, there are some examples 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:51.000 of creatures that that form rolling shapes, granted if the 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.959 topography is correct. Uh. There's also, of course, the example 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.480 of goat poop I've seen brought up. Granted, goat poop 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.280 is not itself alive, but it is the product of 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:04.760 of a biological organism. And the idea here is that 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:06.520 the goat poop is nice and rounds so that it 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.520 can roll away and hide itself. Uh in these kind 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:15.439 of environments. But I advocate for goat poop personhood, okay, um. 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:17.839 But but of course, one of the things about any 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:19.960 of these rolling creatures is, of course, if it's gonna roll, 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:22.840 it's everything's gonna roll. There's not gonna be a stationary 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.440 part all of the rolling creature as in the same 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.000 way that say, there would be the cart portion of 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:32.200 an ox cart would remain the same. Uh. But when 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:35.520 we look to some of our supernatural models, we do 0:13:35.640 --> 0:13:37.559 see things that work like this, of course in a 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:43.280 very supernatural form. Uh. There's a wonderful wheel creature in um. 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.040 In Japanese traditions, there's a yokai known as one you know, 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.600 the fire wheel, and he's a he's a pretty famous yokai. 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.440 You've you've probably seen images of him, especially if you 0:13:54.080 --> 0:14:00.280 partake of various like anime um products, because he pops 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:01.480 up in a lot of things. I think he pops 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:04.200 up in some video games as well. He looks like 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.240 a grumpy, giant human head sort of haloed by a burning, 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:11.280 smoking ghost wheel, and we get the impression that the 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.160 wheel is moving in the head is remaining stationary. He 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.600 said to guard the gates of Hell, and I've also 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:19.640 read that in life he said to have been a 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.320 cruel ruler who burned people on the wheel, so this 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.160 is kind of his punishment. He haunts them the roads 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.400 at night. He made drag souls back to Hell. And 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.720 there's also a female variation called Catawaga. Okay, so this 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:36.600 would seem to be more like that mechanism you don't 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:39.760 really find in nature, if the head stays stationary while 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.560 the wheel turns around it right. And of course in 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:44.920 this too we have just a it's not even pretending 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.840 to be an entirely organic creature. It is this supernatural 0:14:48.480 --> 0:14:54.040 um combination of two or three different things. Um. But yeah, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:56.600 this is a pretty popular figure. The Power Rangers have 0:14:56.720 --> 0:15:00.000 even fought him on occasion. Um shows up in very 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.840 his anime titles, and I have to say sometimes he 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.320 looks a little bit like Dr robot Nick from The 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:09.080 Sonic games. So I wonder if Dr Robotnick was at 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.760 all inspired by this Yokai you know, a grumpy faced 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:16.160 man machine with kind of a spherical design. Because Dr 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.800 Robotnick is he's the Eggman, you know, so he's often 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:21.760 in some kind of little like little circular pod. Why 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.160 do I want to say that the the Dr Robotnick 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.320 was supposed to be based on the appearance of Theodore Roosevelt. 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:30.200 Do you know what I'm talking about? He does look 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.840 like Theodore Roosevelt. Yeah, so that might be it instead. 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.320 I don't know. I couldn't. I briefly looked around. I 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:38.400 couldn't find anything that connected at Dr Robotnick. There's not 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.240 a lot of scholarship on Dr Robotnick, it seems unless 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:44.360 I'm missing it. And if I am missing it, please 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:48.280 send it to me. I want to read your your thesis, Okay. 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:54.040 Our new podcast is an oral history of Dr Robotnick. Um, 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.720 now there's a there's another throw some I am the Walrus, 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.360 and some Teddy Roosevelt and little Blender and then there 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:01.280 you go, oh, yeah, there's definitely a It seems like 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.120 there's definitely a Beatles connection there as well. Now, um, 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:07.600 I was I was reading about this, particularly Yokai, and 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:09.480 there's one more little story I ran across it. I 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.840 have to share. This was I found this on Matthew Myers. 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:16.520 Yokai dot com has a profile of when Udo and 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.240 shares a brief story that I haven't found anywhere else. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.040 But it's it's too good not to share, and I'm 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.160 probably just missing accounts of it elsewhere. But quoting this website, 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.880 one famous story from Kyoto tells a woman who peeked 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.920 out her window at one Udo as he passed through town. 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.480 The demon snarled at her, saying, instead of looking at me, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:37.960 have a look at your own child. She looked back 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:40.040 at her baby, who was screaming on the floor in 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.080 a pool of blood. Both of its legs had been 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.080 completely torn from its body. When she looked back out 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.760 at one Udo, that child's legs were in its mouth, 0:16:47.840 --> 0:16:52.520 being eaten by the mad, grinning monster. What so it 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:57.720 did he teleport that? I don't Okay, yeah, yeah, I 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:00.360 don't know. He's eating those baby legs. He's a bad dude. 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:09.400 That that's a bad dude. So anyway, I'll stop there 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.200 with my wheel creatures. But this suffice to say, just 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:14.199 just bringing these up to drive home the fact that 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:17.720 that I think we we have long not expected to 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.200 find wheels and gears in the natural world. They are 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.760 things of our creation. We are the people of the wheel, 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:27.840 well especially the gear. So that that was my original 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:30.040 idea for the episode, was to focus on the idea 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.439 of artificial gears versus possible examples of gears in nature. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.160 And while you can make arguments for a few examples 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.199 of wheels in nature, the gear is really a different 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:43.200 kind of story, except for this one really cool example 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:45.960 that we're gonna be looking at today. So what is 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.040 a gear? Well, you've seen gears before, but to actually 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.240 define the concept what counts as a gear, I think 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.200 I think you could say a gear is a set 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:00.119 of rotating machine parts with interlocking teeth. So these can 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:03.600 often take the form of a kind of flat circular plate, 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.359 but they can also take the form of, say like 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.199 a long shaft that has teeth on the shaft, or 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:12.160 they can even be non circular. There are more kind 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:14.880 of square shaped gears and gears of all different kinds 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.320 of shapes and sizes, but what's common to all of 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:21.960 them is that they have teeth that interlock with each other, 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.879 and they use those teeth and rotation to transfer force 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.680 rotational force known as torque, So they can transfer torque 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.560 from one place to another, and they can also sometimes 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.920 transform that force in some way as it is transferred. 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:41.040 So gears can change the direction of rotational force. Like 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.479 if you picture two interlocking wheel shaped gears, you rotate 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.399 one of them clockwise, will actually rotate the other one counterclockwise, 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:53.119 so that'll that'll perform one kind of change. Or you 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.320 can change the orientation of the torque by having the 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.200 gears interlock at an angle. So think of for example, well, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.440 how if you imagine a car that has the engine 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.719 sending its rotational force its torque through a drive shaft 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.280 that runs along the length of the car, then that 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.400 energy has to be transferred to the wheels to get 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.479 them rotating in the direction that's parallel to the car's motion. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.520 So there are gears that interlock at angles there to 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.800 transfer that force eventually to the wheels. But gears can 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.320 also be used to gain mechanical advantage or change the 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:33.280 speed of a rotational force in a mathematically predictable way. So, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:35.760 for example, if you use a bigger gear with more 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.240 teeth to spin a smaller gear with fewer teeth. The 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:42.879 smaller gear will spin faster than the larger one, and 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:45.960 the change in speed will be proportional to the ratio 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.200 of the tooth counts between the two differently sized gears. 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.240 In other words, if you use a gear to drive 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:54.639 a second gear with half as many teeth as the 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:58.399 first gear, it will spin exactly twice as fast. To 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.679 a certain extent, it almost feels like like wheel wizardry, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:05.800 because the wheel is doing its thing and and and 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.639 if you're not going to do anything else, you can Okay, 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:11.480 you can do various tasks and carry out various acts 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:15.879 by interacting with that wheel on its terms. But by 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.840 the use of gears, you can transform it. You can 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:23.160 you can make the gear work in other ways. Um, 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:25.880 and I think that's that's one of the fascinating things. 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:27.600 So when we're when we're talking about sort of that 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.480 lead from from wheel to gear, and of course, and 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.240 this could be just as simple as well. I don't 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:36.680 want horizontal rotation, I want vertical rotation, that sort of thing, right, 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.600 But it can also this last thing I mentioned about 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:44.240 the predictable mathematical relationships between the intervals of rotation of 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.800 tooth to gears. The fact that toothed gears are quantized 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:51.000 right that you can like put a number to the 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:53.280 number of teeth on a rotation that allows you to 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.359 tightly control the ratios you know, how fast one spins 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:01.320 in relationship to another one. That actually has made gears 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.919 useful not just for say, applying force to things like 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.600 you know, powering a machine or something, but also for 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:13.080 tasks related to more abstract types of work, like measurements 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.840 such as measuring intervals of time UM, and not just 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:20.479 in straightforward timekeeping devices like clocks. Of course, gears are 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:24.600 very important in in UM analog clocks, but even more 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:27.720 complex applications like we see in one of the most 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:33.120 intriguing artifacts from the ancient world, known as the Antiquothera mechanism, 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:38.399 which is widely considered the first known computer not a 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.639 digital computer, but an analog computer, a computer that uses 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:48.520 gears instead of semiconductors for information processing. UH. The Antikothera 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:52.120 mechanism was discovered in a Roman era shipwreck in the 0:21:52.160 --> 0:21:56.240 Mediterranean around the r nineteen hundred UH, and this shipwreck 0:21:56.320 --> 0:21:59.240 traced back to a ship that sank probably in the 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.480 first since chere ce rob. I've got an image for 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.200 you to look at here that shows the actual remains 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:09.320 of the mechanism alongside a modern reconstruction that was sort 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.639 of reverse engineered and built by some experts who had 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.199 studied this machine. The mechanism is now understood to have 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:20.600 been an ancient mechanical or ory. An oorory is a 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.880 is a working model of the movement of heavenly bodies, 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:27.680 and this one would have been powered by a hand 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:32.280 crank that operated gears. And this or ory would allow 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.399 you to calculate the relative positions of heavenly bodies like 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:39.280 the Moon and the Sun as they traveled through the 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:43.280 zodiac out to specific future dates. Uh. And I think 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:46.520 it may it may also have tracked planetary motion as well, 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.399 but that's less certain. I think that's a hypothetical mechanism 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:51.760 that may have been present but may have been lost. 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:55.240 When I look at it, I'm instantly reminded of those uh, 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:59.639 those gear devices you find at museums and zoos where 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:01.520