WEBVTT - Are We Really Breathing Julius Caesar's Last Breath? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.440 Guess what, mango? Do you remember that scene in Spaceballs 0:00:03.440 --> 0:00:05.600 where mel Brooks opens up a can of Perry Air? 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:08.400 Did you know that's actually kind of a thing in 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.680 China now? Is selling air there? Well? I don't think 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:14.720 that company actually exists, but Canadians are doing this. So 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:17.400 The Washington posted his story on this guy named Moses 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:20.040 Lamb and it started as kind of a gag, but 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.759 he put a zip block full of fresh Canadian air 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.599 on eBay. It took two months to sell, and it 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.200 sold for a whopping, which sounds like a great business. 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.199 But he was bored with his day job, so he 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.320 decided to try it again. And guess how much? The 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:40.720 next bag sold for a hundred and sixty eight dollars. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:43.360 So he started packaging it better and for thirty two 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.559 dollars a can, and they've been selling like hot And 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:48.320 he isn't the only one. I decided to do a 0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:51.360 little research on this, and there's a whole industry around this. There. 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.480 Eucalyptus lay six packs from Australia, Rocky Mountain air straight 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:58.800 from the Colorado, even air from the Swiss Alps, and 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:02.000 people in Beijing are going crazy for it. Does anyone 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:04.600 in China do the reverse, like, do they like package 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:07.640 their smog for people living abroad? Well, I know you're joking, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:09.760 but actually this does happen when I was doing the 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.800 looking into this. So novelty cans of Beijing air are 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:15.720 huge sellers, and the ingredients listed on them are pretty great. 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.559 It says nitrogen, oxygen and other stuff. But reading about 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.360 packaged there made me wonder what's actually in the stuff 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.120 around us and what crazy stories are hiding in every 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:47.760 breath we take. And that's what this episode is all about. Hey, 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:50.520 their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:52.440 Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:55.200 man guest how Ticketer, And in today's episode, we're talking 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.400 about the stories literally hanging in the air. But before 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:00.440 we get to that, we've got some housekeeping to take 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.680 care of. You're talking about Pan Piguan. Yes, you may 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:06.080 remember from a few episodes ago it was called what's 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.280 the most American Place. We challenged our listeners to come 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.120 up with this mnemonic device to help us remember the 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.959 five territories that are part of the United States but 0:02:15.040 --> 0:02:17.919 actually not one of the United States. Puerto Rico, Guam, 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:22.680 the US, Virgin Islands, American Samoa and Northern Mariana Islands. 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.560 And I think mine was pancakes grow under a nice 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.600 tree to help remember those? What was yours again? Uh? 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:33.680 What was it? It It was like pickles. Pickles get ugly 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.040 after negotiations. Yeah, that's what it was. So we asked 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.840 listeners to send in their own, and they came flooding in. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:41.760 It was pretty awesome to see. So I wanted to 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:43.920 recognize some of those, and we've got some prizes to 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.960 give away. One that I thought was pretty terrific was 0:02:47.120 --> 0:02:49.959 and very simple, but I thought easy to remember. From 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:55.760 Fred Kruk. We have pine nuts are unusually good, unusually good, 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:59.679 all right? The best trio of responses. Kelly Lawson in 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.000 Um Georgia sent this one, as she actually sent three, 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.839 and we've got pirates go ashore under nightfall, people get 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:11.200 uneasy around Ninja's and politics get ugly around November like 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.679 also are so good? All right? You got a T 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:16.239 shirt coming to you, Kelly. And let's see what other 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:17.679 we've got two more. We tried to come up with 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:19.520 the top three, but it was just too hard to 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:22.080 do this. I have to admit this might actually be 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:27.799 my favorite from Brett Wilkes in Massachusetts. Paul Giamat's undershirts 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:33.040 are nuanced, just so nuanced, all right. And then one 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:38.160 that was um actually used more letters to use both 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.520 letters and some of these pose Raven gave us vodka 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:44.560 and said never more, and I just thought that was awesome, 0:03:44.600 --> 0:03:47.600 all right, So you guys are winners. And then one 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:50.880 that was just crazy complicated, and I thought, because it 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.400 was even more difficult to remember than just remembering the names, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.360 I think deserves a prize. Rob Brown, Um, you're gonna 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.280 be getting a prize as well. So his explanation, Since 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:05.160 Demonic begins with a silent M, I suggest the following 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.440 Northern Mariana's American Samoa guam Us, Virgin Island, Puerto Rico 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:14.640 becomes Mascus viper. The end, of course, is silent pronounced 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:18.400 the Mascus with a silent like with us, which sounds 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.320 a little like Damascus, and then the rest sounds like viper. 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.760 It's so complicated, but but I love that, So Rob, 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.479 you're going to be getting a prize too, So thank 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:32.320 you all for participating in this contest. That is pretty awesome. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:35.160 But let's dig into today's episode topic, you know, one 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.719 of the things that really inspired this episode was Sam 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.200 Kaine's new book called Caesar's Last Breath. Yeah, that's right, 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.960 we'll have Samon in just a bit. And you know 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.160 what his book kind of reminded me of. So here's 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:47.880 a book that came out a few years ago called 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:50.800 Twinkie Deconstructed, where the author looked at the back of 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:53.240 a Twinkie package and realized there were like thirty nine 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.400 ingredients that go into Twinkies. Then many he didn't recognize. 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.480 A whole bunch of them were unpronounceable. So we decided 0:04:59.520 --> 0:05:02.440 to chase down the story for each one, and each 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:05.200 chapter is about a different ingredient. So he goes down 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.960 to mind Shaft and Idaho, He's chasing across this field 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.839 in China, and it's crazy, but that's kind of what 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.520 Sam does. Like he looks at a single breath of 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:15.560 air and goes down a rabbit hole on the elements 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:19.680 and compounds in air and it is fascinating. Yeah. But 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:21.719 the funny thing is, as soon as I started researching 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.520 air and this is so me, but I immediately wanted 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.560 to go to Tangent Town, like I know where someone 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.680 to be talking oxygen and nitrogen and argon and whatever. 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:34.400 But I immediately wanted to talk about like an air 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.440 hockey game some students invented, and air guitar competitions, and honestly, 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:42.120 anything but chemistry spoken like the son of a chemical engineer, 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.679 and that would be you. Yeah, well, just to be warned, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:47.919 I've got this pile of non essential facts for the 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:50.400 fact off that all have the word air in them, 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.200 like air fresheners. Can't wait for this. By the way, 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:55.560 do you know the inspiration for those little tree air 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.880 fresheners that hang in taxis? I mean, I've seen those 0:05:57.880 --> 0:05:59.440 a million times, but now I don't know where those 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:02.160 came from. You probably realize it's a bad smell, but 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.680 more specifically, they got to start when this chemist overheard 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:08.960 a milkman crying over spilled milk, or rather that he 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.120 hated the smell of the spilled milk in his truck. Anyway, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.760 the chemist wasn't immigrant from Europe, and he started thinking 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:17.600 that a little like alpine scent from his homeland could help. 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:20.880 So he designed the air freshener. But strangely, the first 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:23.880 ones weren't tree shaped. They were shaped like pin up girls. 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.960 But He didn't change the design because it was sexist. 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:28.960 It was just that it was easier to pull plastic 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:31.240 off a tree pattern, So that's why he changed it 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:33.480 from a woman's shop. It's weird to think about the 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:35.960 fact that there were just all these things that we noticed, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.400 but we don't ever stop to question why they're that way. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.440 You know, I've been again and hundreds of calves and 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:42.240 you just are like, oh, well, they're just all shaped 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.280 like trees. I don't really know why, but they are 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.480 the other awesome things that like, his family's owned this 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:49.960 company for three generations and they claimed that they've sold 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.560 as many air fresheners as McDonald's has sold Hamburgers over 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:55.360 the airs. Oh my god, I would imagine that things 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.080 are crazy profitable to all. Right, to keep us on 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:01.400 track here, So just like sleep flavor, two topics we've 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.720 covered here on the show, the reason we chose air 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:06.400 is that it's something that's easy to overlook, you know, 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.920 partially because it's invisible. But the other reason we don't 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:10.880 think about it very often is that, honestly, we just 0:07:10.920 --> 0:07:14.280 don't have to. Yeah, I mean, breathing happens automatically, and 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.520 I'm consciously under normal circumstances. So unless something is actually wrong, 0:07:18.960 --> 0:07:21.400 we're not really concentrating on our breath. That just keeps 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:23.960 going on in the background. But until we researched it 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:25.920 for this episode, like, I had no idea what the 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:28.160 numbers look like. Like you could have told me, like, 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.120 we take five thousand breaths a day or a million 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.960 breaths in a day, and I probably would have believed you. Yeah, 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:37.000 I probably would too, But what's the real number? Thank 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:39.000 you for crying that up. I actually have those numbers 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:42.520 right here. So the average adult takes a breath once 0:07:42.520 --> 0:07:44.800 every four seconds, So most people are taking somewhere in 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:47.360 the neighborhood of like twenty thousand breaths to day, and 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.200 it can be closer to fifty if you're really active. 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:53.200 But you can imagine if every one of those breaths 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.520 was a conscious action, we'd never get anything done. Yeah, 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:58.000 I mean, there's no way for us to be as 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:01.000 picky about our breathing as we are out eating or drinking. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:02.840 We'd lose our minds if it was something we actually 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:05.520 thought about. Yeah, And I'm so used to thinking of 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:07.680 airs like a single thing, but air is actually a 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.120 combination of tons and tons of different gas molecules. Like 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:13.880 in his book Sam keenes as a normal human breath 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.760 is about a half liter of air, which breaks down 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.440 to over twelve sex tillion molecules. That doesn't even sound 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:22.160 like a real number. I'm pretty sure you just wanted 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.400 to say sex. But so, how many zeros are at 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.160 the end of a sex tillion? I know, I had 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:29.600 to actually look this up. There are twenty one. Oh 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:31.920 my god, it's a staggering amount of zero. It's also 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:34.520 a crazy number of molecules for a single So that's 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:38.199 a single breath. Yeah, and imagine like we're taking twenty 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:40.400 thousand breaths a day. I don't even want to think 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.200 about that. That's crazy. Yeah. So what's even weirder is 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.360 that a large portion of the gas molecules and every 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:48.800 breath we take are recycled from someone else's. So no 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:50.800 matter where you are in the world, no matter how 0:08:50.840 --> 0:08:53.600 fresh and clean the air scenes, even if you're getting 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:55.640 it from like a six pack of your Rocky mountain 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:58.000 air that you're talking about, it's a certainty that some 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:00.840 of what you're breathing is really second and breath, or 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:03.360 third hand or fourth hand or fifth hand, which is 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:06.199 a little unsettling, but I don't know, maybe kind of sweet. 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:08.840 I mean, breath seems like this intimate thing to share 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.040 with someone. So the fact that we're all swapping it 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.400 around every four seconds, that means we're all tapping into 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:17.160 this invisible shared history between us. Yeah, it's like a 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.480 brotherhood of breath, which is this wonderful, poetic notion. I 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:24.120 was kidding, it's actually kind of gross, really, like, think 0:09:24.160 --> 0:09:28.160 about people breathing on you. But the really crazy thing 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.720 is how far back that shared history goes. Like the 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.959 air we breathe is never completely lost or destroyed, is 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.280 just redistributed. So the title of Sam's book hints at 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:40.280 this by bringing up Caesar. He breathes dying breath like 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.120 over two thousand years ago. But those sextillion gas molecules 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.880 they live on and wind spread them all over the 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.360 world in a matter of weeks, and Da've been breathing 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.480 and out in different combinations ever since. In fact, it 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:56.640 turns out that approximately one particle of Caesar's last breath 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:58.600 will be found in the very next one you take. 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:01.360 So multiply that by the number of breaths you take 0:10:01.400 --> 0:10:05.160 per day, and you're literally inhaling thousands of microsoftic bits 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:09.040 of Caesar's secondhand air every single day of your life. Wow, 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.000 that is pretty nuts, And I'm still sticking with the 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.520 fact that that's a little bit gross, but especially when 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.439 you consider that has to be true of every person's breath, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.760 not just Caesar's. Yeah, the other thing I didn't realize 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:22.319 was just how fluid there is. Like, in fact, any 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.000 expulsion of air anywhere in the world will reach you 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.240 within the span of two weeks, two months, or a 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.720 year or two depending on where you are in relation 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:31.920 to it. You can almost imagine it as the sea 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:34.400 of gas is flowing across the whole world. That is 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.559 really wild. Actually this isn't an air tangent. But what 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.480 about fluid dynamics. Do you know that scientists that you 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.040 see Santa Barbara have studied why we tend to spill 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:46.600 coffee from our mugs when we walk, Like apparently because 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.080 of our gate and the way the coffee moves, we 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.199 naturally create this oscillation that will spill the drink between 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.559 our seventh and tenth steps. I love that there's a 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:57.600 study around this. Yeah, so if you actually like slow 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.400 down every fifth or sixth step, you should be golden. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:02.560 That's pretty awesome. I actually I thought when you said 0:11:02.559 --> 0:11:03.880 you were going to do a tangent, I thought this 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:06.080 was going to be about how mosh pits actually follow 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:09.440 fluid dynamic models, and how people in mosh pits act 0:11:09.480 --> 0:11:11.680 the same way molecules and gas to I mean, they're 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.920 actually scientific papers on this. You know, it's crazy, Like 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:17.000 I was looking that up again and and I realized 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:19.839 that the scientists figured out that if you reshape how 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:24.560 a mosh pit works, people actually motion straight lines. They phenomenal. 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:27.640 I like the I like the phrase motion straight list. Yeah, 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.520 we'll have to do a totally different episode on like 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.040 fluid dynamics and the studies of like swimming in molasses 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:34.960 and whatever. All right, but now that we have an 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.319 idea on how air flows, why don't we talk about 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.640 its power and specifically how it's aided human flight. So 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:42.559 I'm guessing you want to talk about the right Brothers, No, 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:44.760 not the rights. I'm thinking we should go back to 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.600 the late seventeen hundreds, even before the rights, when another 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:52.760 Frenchman named Joseph Michelle Montgolfier was daydreaming about his wife's lingerie. 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:57.880 I love how much like laundren pin ups. So then 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.240 you mentioned the sextillion. It's just getting area to dirty fast. 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.880 But all right, so there's a great story here. Montgolfier 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:07.800 was watching his wife's laundry dry over a fire when 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.080 he noticed her underwear billowing and rising whenever the heat 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.400 from the flames increased. So he gets curious about what's 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.800 causing this lift, and he starts thinking about it, and 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.720 he decides that he could build this you know, sack 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:22.360 of air as he decides to lift himself in the 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:25.440 same way to possibly fly. So he tries a few 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.880 experiments and after some help from his younger brother, Montgolfier 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.320 succeeded in creating the world's first hot air balloon, which 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:35.800 he described as a cloud and a paper bag. That's 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:38.600 pretty amazing. So he figured that all out by watching 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.560 some laundry air. Well, that's the thing. So josephont Gulfier 0:12:41.720 --> 0:12:44.240 was an amateur scientist at best. I mean, he was 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.520 a fan of chemistry rock stars like Priestley and Labassier, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:50.600 but he could hardly claim to be an expert himself. 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.240 He actually thought it was the smoke from the fire 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:55.880 that would make the balloon rise, not the air itself. 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.439 So when the Montgolfier's held the first public demonstration of 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.840 an unman balloon flight, they got it airborne by building 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:08.520 the biggest smokiest bonfire they could. They burned wool, rabbit, skins, straw, 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.600 even old shoes. Can you imagine how bad the smelled? Terrible? 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:16.160 But the Montgolfier brothers had perfected their shoe burning technique 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.400 by the time they held their second flight. This time 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.559 they sent a sheep, a rooster, and I think a 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.400 duck airborne. And they were all in this little cage 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.480 that hung beneath the balloon, and the demonstration drew this 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.640 huge crowd. I think even King Louis the sixteenth was 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.080 there to watch this thing. As the balloon animals traveled 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.720 two miles before they touched down unharmed. Well, I'm glad 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:37.920 they arrived on harm But this is supposed to be 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.839 mankind's dream. Did the Montolfier has ever managed to get 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:43.320 a human airborne? They sure did, and King Louis had 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.040 suggested that their brothers send up two criminals first, just 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.880 in case something went wrong, But the Montgolfier's didn't think 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.160 the convicts worthy of the honor, so Instead, they decided 0:13:53.200 --> 0:13:56.520 to enlist a physicist and a local marquis for the task. 0:13:57.080 --> 0:14:01.320 It was on November three, and these men became the 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:04.480 first human beings in history to actually fly, which is 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.720 a huge honor. Yeah, though unfortunately the same physicist holds 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.680 a less prestigious title. Two years later, he became the 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.920 first flight fatality when his balloon caught fire. He was 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.199 trying to cross the English Channel at the time, which 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.520 is horrible. But before we move on, mind if I 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:20.120 cleared the air with one of my favorite hot air 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:24.520 balloon stories. All So, Tristan, can you cue the storytelling music? 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.120 So this is a story from East Germany in the 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:33.200 late nineteen seventies. He's two friends, Hans Strelzik and Gunther Wetzel, 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.480 both happened to watch a late night documentary on the 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.080 history of hot air balloons and it gave them this idea, 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:41.080 what if they used a balloon to flee communism and 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.440 hoped the Berlin Wall like It sounds obvious in theory 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.640 but pretty difficult in practice. And it helped that one 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.200 was a bricklayer and the other was this mechanic and 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.240 of course they had to work on the project in 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.360 total secrecy. They built an engine out of propane gas 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.240 cylinders that they somehow squirreled away, and they stitched a 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:01.000 balloon out of tafada. They had to buy the material 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.400 from different shops and space out their purchases so it 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.520 didn't look suspicious, and their wives got involved, like stitching 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.320 this giant balloon together. It had to be big enough 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.240 to hold both their families. But here's the crazy part. 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:15.240 Right on the night they decided to leave, Mrs Wetzel 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:18.320 gets nervous and backs out, says the strel They go 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.160 it alone. I mean it's rainy and the conditions aren't great, 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:23.080 and the engine on the balloon gives out after a 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.120 few minutes. But suddenly they get spotted by the border police. 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:28.880 Somehow they managed to escape to their car without getting caught. 0:15:28.920 --> 0:15:32.080 But now the Stazzi, you know, those terrifying East German 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.400 secret police, they have this evidence of the balloon and 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.720 they're on the trail. So now they're working against the 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.440 clock and there's really no option but to flee. The 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.360 families start over. This time they use canvas and bed 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:46.360 sheets to make a stronger balloon. They somehow source all 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:49.480 this material again, I mean sixty pieces of canvas go 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:51.920 into this thing in addition to all these bed sheets, 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.240 and they're working overtime, as it's told, and I don't 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:57.840 think this is false. Stazi is basically closing in on 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:00.160 the operation. So the two families take off and the 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.800 dead of night again. This time the conditions are better, 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.120 but there's no basket, just a platform and some metal 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.840 bits for these two wives and two husbands and four 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:11.040 kids to hold onto. And they're up in the air 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.800 at a height of eight thousand feet if I for 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.520 what feels like thirty minutes, just clinging on for their lives. 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.640 And finally they land and they have no idea where 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.240 they are, but when a cop spots them in the 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:25.120 field and approaches them, they quickly realized they made it 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:27.600 to West Germany. I mean, isn't that a great story? 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.240 They became heroes in the West overnight, and the hot 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:33.840 air balloon became for wild at least, the symbol of freedom. 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.200 That is crazy. Yeah, that's a that's that's a good story. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.200 I think maybe LaVar Burton needs to be worried about 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:42.320 story time with Mango. That is really good and I 0:16:42.360 --> 0:16:44.640 can't imagine trying to build a Hot Air Balloon on 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:46.520 my own. I mean now that we have the benefit 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.280 of YouTube, but back then based on what they learned 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.640 from a documentary, that seems insane. But before we return 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:53.880 to the topic of air, what do you say we 0:16:53.960 --> 0:17:02.080 take a break for a quiz? Sounds great, Samango, Who 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.000 do we have on the line today? We've got Stan 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.200 Hesse and Kyle Laxton from the U S Hot Air 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.119 Balloon Team out of Lancaster, p A wonderful Welcome to 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.320 part time genius guys, So stay and I see you 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:14.520 founded the company. Can you tell us how it all started. 0:17:14.840 --> 0:17:17.120 I went for a balloon ride one day back in 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:20.480 the early nineteen eighties, and UH decided I just had 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.840 to have one, got my first balloon, decided to um, 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:30.760 bigger was better, and the United States had her balloon team. 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:33.400 Just seemed like a natural extension, and we went to work, 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.080 and probably fifty balloons later, here we are. That's incredible. 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.760 So I heard you guys are on the NTV show Promposals, 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.280 and I was curious, what's the most romantic thing you've 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.919 seen in the air. You've got anything from you know, 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.760 proposals to people just coming out to hang out all 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:51.880 the way to drop on a couple of skydivers out 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.119 of the balloon. You know what I mean, it's just 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:55.520 you name it. If you could do it in the balloon, 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.240 you know, we're down to have some fun. Typically we 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:02.120 probably have an engagement or two every week in one 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:07.480 of our balloons. What about any surprising or memorable landings. 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:09.639 I mean, you gotta think, you gotta remember, you know 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.200 how your ballooning were always landed somewhere different every time, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.560 So I would say every flight is unusual and exciting 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:17.399 in its own way, you know, whether it be a 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.040 field in the middle of a farm or culd de 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:22.280 sac during Fourth of July, you know, when you've got 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:25.359 barbecues left and right. You know, it's it's just really 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:28.560 neat everybody coming out, either helping out put the balloon away, 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:30.400 or just come out and take pictures. You know. It's 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.119 just definitely makes for a good story at the end 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.320 of the day. And if I can offer, if I 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:41.280 can offer mine, I think that I probably would tell 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.800 you that the most memorable place that I've ever landed 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:49.880 a balloon a nudist colony, and it would have been 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:55.800 better that they had their clothes on. That's pretty great, Now, 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:58.520 was that an intentional landing? Did you mean to land 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.320 in a nudist colony? Actually, it was part of a 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:04.919 part of a contest where we're as part of the event, 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.640 all the participants were given we're given coordinates to where 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.680 they were supposed to land their balloon. We didn't know 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:14.840 it was the newest colony up front, but we tried 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:16.760 to fly to the coordinates and we and we come 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.520 into the coordinates and my goodness heard these people are 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.320 without clothing and we had no idea it was a 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.280 new dest colony. Do we land? Yeah? So you did? 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:27.280 You didn't offer any rides once you got there? I'm 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.159 guessing no, No, But it was it was it was, 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:32.480 It was different, It was different. Well, let's put these 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.639 guys to the test, Mango, What what quiz are we 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:37.439 playing with them today? We've got a really dumb quiz 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:40.560 called the air up there, or rather things that rhyme 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:42.920 with the air of their Okay, right, So, because we 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:45.679 like to make people say things that sound like phrases, 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:50.000 every answer in this quiz will be the blank up there. Um, 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.040 So here we go. Let's get started with question number one. 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:56.240 You guys ready, all right, let's do it you can 0:19:56.280 --> 0:20:00.640 work together. Question Number one. If lazy Way put too 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:04.720 many balloons on their furniture, it would be got that 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.479 one to chair up there? You got it, all right, 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.879 one for one. Number two, if Paddington or Winnie the 0:20:10.960 --> 0:20:14.600