Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Degla And
Speaker 1: Julie I was looking around the Internet the other day
Speaker 1: and I found this amazing theory which is completely out there,
Speaker 1: completely non factual, but it's it's kind of the genesis
Speaker 1: for this, uh, this podcast, and it captured your imagination
Speaker 1: after is my imagination and serves to exemplify why this
Speaker 1: is an amazing uh concept, the idea of the technology
Speaker 1: of the ancients. Because the theory involves vedic nuclear war.
Speaker 1: We're talking here right right, We're talking um atomic warfare
Speaker 1: in uh the first millennium BC, which is a crazy idea.
Speaker 1: And let's let me just get to get it out
Speaker 1: before I go into the details. Here. We do not
Speaker 1: buy into this at all. No, but I see a
Speaker 1: movie here, like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. Well it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I actually was looking around and Grant Morrison, who's a
Speaker 1: graphic novel comics sky brilliant, brilliant and weird Scottish dude.
Speaker 1: He's apparently doing some sort of like sci fi adaptation
Speaker 1: of the you know, the ancient Vedic epic, the Mahabarata,
Speaker 1: and so so some people were thinking along these lines.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this this theory which you'll find if
Speaker 1: you do a search for Mahabarata and uh, we're just
Speaker 1: for nuclear warfare ancient India. You'll find just tons and
Speaker 1: tons of websites, all of them saying that, hey, um,
Speaker 1: they're like radio There are these you know, the remains
Speaker 1: of these ancient cities and their radioactive and there's a
Speaker 1: big crater and it's because there was nuclear warfare going
Speaker 1: on way back in the days, because the ancient ancients
Speaker 1: had all this advanced technology that it took us centuries
Speaker 1: millennia to to catch up with again after their fall
Speaker 1: all and they point to the Mahaparata as showing proof
Speaker 1: of this. Yeah, and I should mention too that if
Speaker 1: you go on such a quest on the internet, you
Speaker 1: may find yourself in some very odd places down the
Speaker 1: rabbit hole without like a rope. So yeah, we should
Speaker 1: just warn people of that, and certainly without a scientific rope.
Speaker 1: So so then, just to give a little background on
Speaker 1: the Mahaparata, this is a is an epic of ancient
Speaker 1: India written in Sanskrit, and it's full of imagery of
Speaker 1: warring kings using utilizing like flying machines, terrifying energy weapons
Speaker 1: and and magic and gods. It's um it's the story
Speaker 1: of a great rivalry between two royal houses, the Kurus
Speaker 1: and the Pandavas and uh and it it kind of
Speaker 1: has its genesis in the first millennium BC in the
Speaker 1: form of just popular stories about gods and kings and
Speaker 1: so forth, UH and the But then it eventually gets
Speaker 1: written down and their additional date for the war uh
Speaker 1: that it's that's the central event of this epic is
Speaker 1: a thirteen O two PC, but most historians as signed
Speaker 1: it actually a later date. So you'll find a lot
Speaker 1: of these web these crazy websites UM citing the Mahaparata.
Speaker 1: But they'll but they'll do this really annoying thing where
Speaker 1: they'll have like they'll have like a particular um, you know,
Speaker 1: section of texts here and here where they're where it
Speaker 1: sounds you know, it's like, hey, it sounds like they're
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, somebody using some crazy advanced technology
Speaker 1: to blow up the city. And they're talking about people
Speaker 1: fleeing burning cities and food becoming contaminated. That's great. And
Speaker 1: then you go and then you know, I'm looking at that,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, hey, let me look up the original on that,
Speaker 1: because I just want to be sure since this is
Speaker 1: a crazy website. And then it's bund is green against
Speaker 1: that black background. I'm like, well, let me let me
Speaker 1: research this. But and then you look down to where
Speaker 1: they site it, and they just put site the Mahaparata.
Speaker 1: The mob Haaparata is one is a one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: verses long. See, you can't just say, oh, it's like
Speaker 1: me saying God is love, dude, quote the Bible. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't, you know, give me a little specific to
Speaker 1: go on. I found somewhere they'd actually say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is from the drown up Purva section of the Mahaparata.
Speaker 1: But that section in and of itself has over two
Speaker 1: hundred subsections of text. So, um, the best I could find,
Speaker 1: like find just I'm on my own time when without
Speaker 1: just killing days trying to track down what sources these
Speaker 1: guys may or may not be quoting from. Um, if
Speaker 1: you don't mind, I'm just gonna read like a real
Speaker 1: quick bit no no, because I think again it captures
Speaker 1: your imagination is this idea, is of this ancient warfare
Speaker 1: and kings and flying saucerers. Even perhaps I don't know.
Speaker 1: So here's here's a little bit from section thirty four
Speaker 1: of book eight the Karna, and uh it goes a
Speaker 1: little something like this, I'm gonna use the kind of
Speaker 1: the door. I'm not gonna wrap, but I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do a voice, you know, kind of like um.
Speaker 1: Then he called Nila Rohita, that terrible deity, robed in skins,
Speaker 1: looking like ten thousand suns enshrouded by the fire of
Speaker 1: superabundant energy, blazed up with splendor that discomforter of even
Speaker 1: him that is difficult of being discomforted. That victor, that
Speaker 1: slayer of all haters of Brahma, called also Horror, the
Speaker 1: rescuer of the righteous and destroyer of the unrighteous, the
Speaker 1: illustrious Fanu, accompanied by many beings of terrible might and
Speaker 1: terrible forms that were endued with the speed of the mind,
Speaker 1: and capable of agitating and crushing all foes, as if
Speaker 1: with all fourteen faculties of the soul awake about him,
Speaker 1: looked exceedingly resplendent. So it's yeah, so it's like lots
Speaker 1: of that and that's that's awesome, and you can made
Speaker 1: even better by your Charleton Heston like voice. By the way,
Speaker 1: I could have handed up even more. But but some
Speaker 1: of the some of the words are a bit uh
Speaker 1: bit out there. Yeah, the names and all. But okay,
Speaker 1: but you know there's an example of yeah, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of crazy stuff going on in here. There are
Speaker 1: these references to these like these different ostras, which are
Speaker 1: some people think are weapons, and then there are these jantras,
Speaker 1: which people think are machines. And if you go to
Speaker 1: some of these websites, they'll even get real detailed with
Speaker 1: it and say, this is referring to a flying machine,
Speaker 1: this is talking about nuclear weapons, this is talking about
Speaker 1: a TV screen or a heat ray or a holographic device,
Speaker 1: and uh, these are interpretations of this text, right yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then to the ruins there there we
Speaker 1: do have ruins of the ancient cities of Harappa and
Speaker 1: Mahineodaro and these were once give great metropolises of the
Speaker 1: Indus Valley civil civilization, some of the earliest urban centers
Speaker 1: in the world. And you know now they're gone. But
Speaker 1: you see these references talking about radio radiation in these sites,
Speaker 1: and there's just no I could not find a single source. Actually,
Speaker 1: I applaud you for for looking into it so intently,
Speaker 1: because I have to admit that when I was looking
Speaker 1: into it and I started to see some talk of
Speaker 1: anti matter, I started back away because I knew that,
Speaker 1: like right around the corner, aliens were hanging out there.
Speaker 1: So I was like, it is is a very intriguing thing.
Speaker 1: And I think what's so intriguing about it is because
Speaker 1: people were thinking about warfare and technology UM in a
Speaker 1: very complex way much before they could even actually put
Speaker 1: it into use. Right, We've seen this over and over again.
Speaker 1: We see we've seen this with da Vinci and drawings
Speaker 1: with all sorts of ideas of how to create stuff
Speaker 1: that he just was way too ahead of his time
Speaker 1: to put into motion. Yeah, it drives some the real
Speaker 1: examples we're going to look at here, the ones that
Speaker 1: are actually that we can actually say, yes, this happened
Speaker 1: or this probably happened, and are not related to atomic
Speaker 1: wars between demigods and in a primal age um. These
Speaker 1: are these are all examples of that did really show
Speaker 1: how how much the human mind can accomplish even if
Speaker 1: it does and have the same tools that minds have today.
Speaker 1: Like I kind of like to think of it as
Speaker 1: imagine you give one guy a sheet of paper and
Speaker 1: one guy a poster board, and then both of them
Speaker 1: are artists, and you say, fill it up with some
Speaker 1: art for me, you know, give me some art and uh,
Speaker 1: and if they're they both have the same amount of skill,
Speaker 1: one guy is gonna be able to fill up one uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sheet of papers worth of art they have.
Speaker 1: The guy's gonna fill up one poster boards worth of art.
Speaker 1: And today we can fill up more of a poster
Speaker 1: board size because we have the science we were able
Speaker 1: to stand on the backs of giants. We uh, we
Speaker 1: we have a much much more advanced technology to aid
Speaker 1: the human mind and developing these things. But still given
Speaker 1: the limited, um, you know, restraints of the time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Some of these guys you know in the you know,
Speaker 1: for common era back but you know, in BC time,
Speaker 1: they were accomplishing amazing things with their technology and and
Speaker 1: in their understanding of the visible universe. Yeah, which became
Speaker 1: a pretty nuanced understanding for for that time. In those capabilities.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, Um, I did want to talk about
Speaker 1: really quickly. A couple of things that I came across
Speaker 1: which are kind of low fi um tech. Uh, I
Speaker 1: guess you could say inventions of warfare. And this is
Speaker 1: from the Christian Science Monitor. It's called articles called early
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction and they cite a king and
Speaker 1: Asia minor of the second century b C. Who was
Speaker 1: defeated when Hannibal quote catapulted live snakes on two ships,
Speaker 1: which I thought. It's creative, right, yeah, it's the sort
Speaker 1: of warfare. It's the kind of thing you would more
Speaker 1: expect from ancient times as opposed to dazzling weapons of light.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, you see, like you know, flamethrowers, snakes.
Speaker 1: I mean, the snakes thing I do have to say
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of Pee Wee Herman a little bit,
Speaker 1: like if he catapulted snakes. No, I mean he he uh,
Speaker 1: he released some snakes of going from a pet store,
Speaker 1: but if he were to go into warfare, I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure that's how he would do it. Um. And then
Speaker 1: there's sort of an example of early bio warfare and
Speaker 1: the the Hittite sent plague victims into the land of
Speaker 1: their enemies, and this is from the same article. They
Speaker 1: basically say in this article quote, the principle of summoning
Speaker 1: plague for self defense maybe related to the reality that
Speaker 1: invaders are immunologically naive and therefore more vulnerable to epidemic
Speaker 1: diseases in foreign lands than the local population. So there
Speaker 1: was some sort of understanding about disease and other cultures
Speaker 1: perhaps not having or being vulnerable to it. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: this is this is a bit of an extrapolation of
Speaker 1: the idea. But again there's this idea that that humans
Speaker 1: are sitting around saying, how is how can I best
Speaker 1: my enemy? I've got snakes at my disposition, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of plague victims. You know, what else can
Speaker 1: we do here? Yeah, it's a lot more nuanced than saying,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, we really want to take uh these
Speaker 1: other this other tribes the stuff. So let's go pokem
Speaker 1: with sharp sticks. Everybody get a sharp stick. Let's go,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Yeah. Yeah, that sharp stick I di
Speaker 1: didn't work out so well last time? What else can
Speaker 1: we do? Um? So this has kind of brought us
Speaker 1: to actually what we were talking about before, just these
Speaker 1: much more complex mechanisms that people began to look into
Speaker 1: to better understand the world and can navigate it. And
Speaker 1: in particular, there's something called the Islamic astrolabe. Very cool thing. Yes,
Speaker 1: the astrolabe is pretty amazing. And I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put together, as usual, a blog post to accompany this,
Speaker 1: and I'll be sure to have an image of an
Speaker 1: astrolabe because it's you've probably seen it before and uh,
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm talking about here, But but
Speaker 1: you have to look at them because they're just be
Speaker 1: beautiful art um. As was common in those days. When
Speaker 1: you're creating an artifact um that's going to aid you
Speaker 1: in anything, you're also going to g's you know, it's
Speaker 1: like illuminated manuscripts. It's descightful, but let's make it beautiful
Speaker 1: as well. And it's the same. I was trying to
Speaker 1: think about how to best describe it, and it's obviously
Speaker 1: it's this disk that has these different inlays on it,
Speaker 1: and with inlay a sort of like carvings too, and
Speaker 1: all sorts of um information and symbols on it and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. But it reminds me of
Speaker 1: something that like that you would create now as a
Speaker 1: steampunk piece. Of jewelry. Yeah, it does have that kind
Speaker 1: of look to it. It's basically it's a small circular
Speaker 1: device usually made of wood or brass, sometimes paper, um
Speaker 1: varying degrees of like we said, artistic embellishment. And essentially
Speaker 1: it's a model of the stars in the sky and
Speaker 1: you can move them to show where the stars would
Speaker 1: be at any time in the year. And then you
Speaker 1: flip it over and you and there's like a gear
Speaker 1: and you can in this site concerns the sun and
Speaker 1: the moon, and it's uh, the basic idea. The concepts
Speaker 1: originate around three b C. And the the Arabs of
Speaker 1: the ninth century were the ones to perfect it. And
Speaker 1: and this is what's crazy. After they perfected it in
Speaker 1: the ninth century, it was the basic astronomer's tool for
Speaker 1: the next seven hundred years. That's how much staying power
Speaker 1: this device goes. Nowadays, my my iPad or my my
Speaker 1: pod or iPhone or any kind of technological device I have,
Speaker 1: it has like what a shelf life of of maybe
Speaker 1: a year before a new version comes along. And granted
Speaker 1: they were you know, and a lot of this time
Speaker 1: they were adding little features apps, if you will, to
Speaker 1: the astro labor astrolabe and uh, but but still the
Speaker 1: basic concept was just held strong, right, And we should
Speaker 1: probably mention too that it's the design and the execution
Speaker 1: of the design is credited with Appollonius and two fifty BC,
Speaker 1: So that'll just kind of ground everybody. And and what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here in this timeline, and again you
Speaker 1: talked about the actual idea of it being around around
Speaker 1: three and that, yeah, and that's that's because people had
Speaker 1: to hold on a concept called stereographic projection, which is
Speaker 1: used in this device. Um. The ironic thing to me
Speaker 1: about this is that, yes, this app that if you
Speaker 1: know how to use it, you've got like thousand different
Speaker 1: choices on different data that you can access. But if
Speaker 1: you were to put it and you are its hands today,
Speaker 1: it would be like putting up in nana our hands
Speaker 1: and being like, hey, you used just to find out
Speaker 1: what time it is? Yeah, we'd have we'd just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is pretty Yeah, it would it would be as
Speaker 1: lost in our hands as my iPhone would be in
Speaker 1: the hands of somebody from well, probably we would be
Speaker 1: more lost because I think that I would just say
Speaker 1: it's so intuitive. I think they'd start doing you know,
Speaker 1: oh the screen moves, okay, and then that individual would
Speaker 1: rule the world inside a week with that. With that, well,
Speaker 1: now we probably wouldn't be able to get three g
Speaker 1: if you travel back. And it's true, but but no,
Speaker 1: an astrolabe can let you tell the day and time,
Speaker 1: calculate distances determined prayer times. Uh. You know this is
Speaker 1: especially drawing to its uh, its origins in in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, and it's perfection in the Middle East is
Speaker 1: that people U Muslims were able to use this to
Speaker 1: make sure they knew what times they needed to pray. Likewise,
Speaker 1: it could be used to determine the direction of Mecca,
Speaker 1: so you know which direction to pray, and can determine
Speaker 1: building heights, can be used in surveying longitude, latitude, altitude, horoscopes,
Speaker 1: um position of the planets, various occult usages that are
Speaker 1: tied in with with the position of the heavens. Well,
Speaker 1: and there's the astrological events that correspond to the Islamic
Speaker 1: faith too, right, So um, that was important for them
Speaker 1: to know as well. Yeah, so I mean it was.
Speaker 1: I mean for a long time, if you were a
Speaker 1: learned individual, uh, you probably had an astrolabe Yeah. And
Speaker 1: this is the cool thing too about this is that
Speaker 1: Islamic astronomists they really did work on this for centuries
Speaker 1: and centuries, as you say, perfecting it. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: is not something that we've seen in the past with
Speaker 1: other mechanisms or technology that you know, a group of
Speaker 1: people would um or a faith even would work on
Speaker 1: something so diligently to try to make it the best
Speaker 1: that it could be. Usually what happens is that technology
Speaker 1: is created and then someone somewhere over on the other
Speaker 1: side of the world, you know, reinvents the wheel um
Speaker 1: or you know, the technology itself may fall away or
Speaker 1: become distorted, but yes, you know, these scholars kept it
Speaker 1: um alive for so many years that by the time
Speaker 1: that it became used in the Age of Discovery, it
Speaker 1: was just sort of poised to actually usher in the
Speaker 1: Age of discovery, right because all of a sudden, we
Speaker 1: have this, this incredible instrument that you could navigate with,
Speaker 1: and that just kind of opened up the whole world, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I was looking through um. One of James
Speaker 1: Brooke's books, i think was Connections, talking about the way
Speaker 1: different inventions sort of timeline to each other and the
Speaker 1: astrolabe is one of these like you look it up
Speaker 1: in the index and it shows up just dozens of
Speaker 1: times because it was it's an important step in our technological,
Speaker 1: uh and its scientific evolution. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say that if it wasn't the place
Speaker 1: that it was at the time, then the just discovery
Speaker 1: would not have happened. We'd be living in a very
Speaker 1: different world most likely. Well, hey, we're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick right here, and when we come back, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about a little something called the Antiquathera mechanism.
Speaker 1: This presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of
Speaker 1: tomorrow and we're back the So the Antiqathera mechanism. I
Speaker 1: did want to mention something really quickly, is this is
Speaker 1: just one of those like cool fact things about the astrolabe.
Speaker 1: The first technical manual on it. Oh yes, yes, it
Speaker 1: was actually written by Jeffrey Chaucer for his eleven year
Speaker 1: old son so he could understand how it worked. Great writer,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest writers of all time, as technical
Speaker 1: manual for a device, possibly the first code monkey. Maybe,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of like her kind of
Speaker 1: a loose use of the term. But that's like kind
Speaker 1: of like how stuff works own Tracy V. Wilson, she
Speaker 1: used to do technical technical manuals. I think, yes, that's
Speaker 1: what I've heard anyway. And I'm pretty sure that she
Speaker 1: has an astro lebe Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I've
Speaker 1: seen her. I've seen her on Marta pull it out
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, train is running late again. That was
Speaker 1: before she got the she upgraded to an iPhone, but
Speaker 1: now she's in the fold. So um, let's look at
Speaker 1: this anti Cathera mechanism. Now, this you may recognize from
Speaker 1: if you've seen images of it. It kind of looks
Speaker 1: like a rusted gear, kind of green looking gear embedded
Speaker 1: in a big lump of stone. Yeah, and I love
Speaker 1: the idea that these divers found it, right yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're um sponge divers and they spotted it, and you
Speaker 1: think that there it was probably covered in barnacles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're probably like, what is this hunk of junks
Speaker 1: sitting here at the bottom of the sea. Like I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have thought to pick it up and bring it
Speaker 1: with me. If I saw on somebody's garden, I might
Speaker 1: be like, Oh, that's that's the neat use of an
Speaker 1: old gear looking rock, but I wouldn't have thought it
Speaker 1: was amazing. Yeah, all that I was thinking about in
Speaker 1: the context of that period of time where there was
Speaker 1: so much archaeological discovery that I'm sure that divers all
Speaker 1: the time we're probably looking for ship breckx um. And
Speaker 1: this was in fact part of a shipwreck that was
Speaker 1: off the island of Anti Cathera so so named for
Speaker 1: that island. Yeah, and it it turns out, as best
Speaker 1: we can, we can understand it. It was very much
Speaker 1: like the astrolabe, and it was an astronomical device representing
Speaker 1: the movements of the heavens, which to the ancient Greeks
Speaker 1: was five planets, because that's all they knew of. Again,
Speaker 1: think to that, you know, the whole paper versus poster
Speaker 1: board painting. You know, they were working within the limits
Speaker 1: of their their understanding. But but it had a really alarmingly,
Speaker 1: you know, complete understanding of it. Um studies of the
Speaker 1: wreck and the cargo it carries it up to the
Speaker 1: ships that sailing around sixty five b C. And it
Speaker 1: was heading west from Asia Minor. It was a Roman
Speaker 1: ship and it was carrying Greek loot back to Rome.
Speaker 1: I love it the rogue part of it, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: almost like it was cursed, like you know, they took
Speaker 1: it and then the vessel. But um, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: for them. Just fun to think about. Yeah, though it
Speaker 1: did uh you know, it did have Greek inscriptions on it,
Speaker 1: which is another key, you know, way that we're able
Speaker 1: to to try and understand what it was. And these
Speaker 1: inscriptions the device dated back you know, U two around
Speaker 1: one hundred BC, and it suggests that it was already
Speaker 1: a few decades old when the ship sank. So now
Speaker 1: it seems more likely that it was actually made in
Speaker 1: Syracuse and then then it was taken east to show
Speaker 1: off to the scholars at Rhodes. So what we're now
Speaker 1: where Syracuse gets interesting is that Syracuse was the hometown
Speaker 1: of Archimedes, the the ancient mad genius mathematician, and now
Speaker 1: he lived He lived a century before this mechanism was made,
Speaker 1: so there's no way he could have made it. Uh,
Speaker 1: he couldn't have created it, but he pioneered the use
Speaker 1: of gear wheels to achieve different force ratios with weights
Speaker 1: things like that. So um, based you know, based on
Speaker 1: what we know, Um, it's it seems he a lot
Speaker 1: of his ideas may have wound up in this device. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very likely that that he may be even held
Speaker 1: onto one himself, m giving given his sort of penchant
Speaker 1: for stuff and gears and um, I guess you could
Speaker 1: say that he was a gear head of yesteryear. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is from the Anti Cathera mechanism research project. Is
Speaker 1: a question that says, does does the mechanism favor a
Speaker 1: heliocentric or a geocentric universe? So is the Sun at
Speaker 1: the center of the university depicts or is the Earth
Speaker 1: at the center of the university depicts? Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: a really interesting question. You and I have talked about
Speaker 1: this both wrong but right. But still they represent a
Speaker 1: drastic change in our thinking about the cosmos. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this gives us a little bit of a clue to
Speaker 1: of how well they understood the world. And uh So,
Speaker 1: the the answer um from this organization is, in a word, neither.
Speaker 1: The purpose of the mechanism is clearly to position heavenly
Speaker 1: bodies with respect to the celestial sphere with reference to
Speaker 1: the observer's position on the surface of the Earth. In
Speaker 1: order to achieve this, this mechanism has to use a
Speaker 1: geocentric model However, this does not imply that the manufacturer
Speaker 1: favored a geocentric model the universe. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: Aristarchos of Samos around who first proposed a heliocentric solar
Speaker 1: system in two Unfortunately, proponents of the helocentric universe were
Speaker 1: increasingly persecuted for the beliefs in ancient Greece and in
Speaker 1: later times. It is highly probable that the maker of
Speaker 1: the mechanism was aware of the heliocentric universe, but it
Speaker 1: does not imply he favored it. So I think it's
Speaker 1: really just interesting to know that maybe they were politics
Speaker 1: going on at that time, that if you were creating
Speaker 1: this instrument, that you might not necessarily talk about what
Speaker 1: the implications of it might be in terms of understanding
Speaker 1: the world or even understanding religion or society with this mechanism. Um.
Speaker 1: Of course we've talked about then in another podcasts uh,
Speaker 1: in much more detail. But we should probably get to arguments,
Speaker 1: because again, this guy mad genius. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like he's the Byron of his time. Yeah, minus the
Speaker 1: pet bear and the skull full of wine? Right, yes? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or is it the moose? You know? I got confused
Speaker 1: with ta Yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, I get drunk
Speaker 1: animals people like at those confused. But this guy, he
Speaker 1: had something called death ray. Yes, Now did you ever
Speaker 1: have it or do you just have the plans for it? Well,
Speaker 1: we all have plans for death rays. This is in debate,
Speaker 1: right right, right, he had his drawings, We know that
Speaker 1: for sure, but we think that it's it's let's just
Speaker 1: say that it's up for debate, but it's highly probable.
Speaker 1: And um, this is from Josh Clark's article what was
Speaker 1: our Committee's Death Ray? Basically, it's a series of mirrors
Speaker 1: that reflected sunlight onto Roman enemy ships that were moored
Speaker 1: in the Arc Committee's hometime of Syracuse. The ships were
Speaker 1: earned by the collective condensed sunlight and cause the entire
Speaker 1: fleet to catch fire. So this was the idea. So
Speaker 1: this guy is sitting around thinking, okay, we're about to
Speaker 1: be attacked. What it was my what sort of tools
Speaker 1: do I have laying around here? The sun? Um? And
Speaker 1: this is someone again who when you go back to uh, creativity,
Speaker 1: humans and and trying to figure out a better way
Speaker 1: to well, in this case, exact revenge. But that that's
Speaker 1: what happens throughout our history of science. Yeah, It's true.
Speaker 1: It's true. Um. I mean this guy was thinking about it,
Speaker 1: you know he was. He was sitting at home in
Speaker 1: his hammock if he had a hammock. Um, I thinking
Speaker 1: how can I utilize the Sun's energy best? Which is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing for this time period. Right we're talking about
Speaker 1: eight MNBC. Yeah, we're talking about just you know, thinking
Speaker 1: about advanced usage of optics and mirrors and uh yeah.
Speaker 1: What I like best from this article is the quote
Speaker 1: that is ascribed to him to Arcumentives, which is, and
Speaker 1: I'll try my best with Charlton husband. Here, give me
Speaker 1: a lover long enough in a place to stand, and
Speaker 1: I will move the world. Okay that got n at
Speaker 1: the end, Yeah it did. But I love that this
Speaker 1: is a guy who was again just no holds barred. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, you get something for me to do,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean that's the way. He was technically
Speaker 1: a freelancer, you know, so you've got to when you're
Speaker 1: in a freelancing situation, you gotta put yourself out there
Speaker 1: like that. You you know, you're like, what, you need
Speaker 1: me to write an article about this? Yeah, give me
Speaker 1: a pen. I can write it. You know what I
Speaker 1: like givebot. This guy t is that he just did
Speaker 1: not like go gently into and you know, into the world. There.
Speaker 1: I mean, at the end of his life at seventy
Speaker 1: five years old, a Roman soldier came to get him
Speaker 1: and he was giving a calculation and he was he
Speaker 1: was basically saying, step off, I'm in the middle of something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was completely ignoring the fact that this guy was
Speaker 1: his doom and uh you know, and so he died
Speaker 1: doing math. I can imagine being like carry the one
Speaker 1: and then hey, I almost had it. Yeah, this dangerous
Speaker 1: work math. Yeah. So that leads us to another interesting
Speaker 1: possible past technology, if not an actual technology, then again
Speaker 1: people thinking about the technology, and that is robots. Yes,
Speaker 1: I know when people are gonna be like, no, really,
Speaker 1: you guys found a way to go back to robots. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah we did. Yeah, but these are different robots and
Speaker 1: these are not This isn't you know, as much joke.
Speaker 1: Can we make a robot that can lie to people?
Speaker 1: Or can we make a robot that can fall in
Speaker 1: love with people? I mean these were these were you know,
Speaker 1: back to like the thirteenth century, even guys looking at
Speaker 1: the human form and saying, well, you know, the human
Speaker 1: body is basically a machine, and I'm pretty good with machines. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you go a building one, see what happens,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, what their idea of a machine could be.
Speaker 1: Or even if you were trying to replicate a human
Speaker 1: at that time. So we're talking about a lot of
Speaker 1: wood here and screws, um, and these stories are there.
Speaker 1: The kind of things were like if you were making
Speaker 1: a even if you're just making basically a mannequin with
Speaker 1: with moving parts, Uh, that would be kind of outrageous.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna cause stories. If I did that, people
Speaker 1: would say, I don't know what he's doing. He's he's
Speaker 1: got a mannequin in his house and it it moves.
Speaker 1: There's something fishy going on. So even more real, girl,
Speaker 1: and you've got like this wooden mechanical, life size thing
Speaker 1: next to Yeah, people are gonna talk. So our stories
Speaker 1: of these are often a little elaborated. Um Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's a thirteenth century Albertus magnus Um, you know, great
Speaker 1: thinker um later candonized by the church. Um. But he
Speaker 1: was he worked on this automaton uh that he supposedly
Speaker 1: had given quote the powers of speech and thought. Um
Speaker 1: it was. It was said to be composed of metals
Speaker 1: and unknown substances chosen according to the stars, and uh
Speaker 1: endowed with the spiritual qualities of magical formulas and so forth.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a time of alchemy, um and
Speaker 1: a which in in in some ways was a crude
Speaker 1: science and was sort of science mixed in with a
Speaker 1: little um magic and and and folk ideas. It was
Speaker 1: just kind of unformed. It's kind of like sciences in
Speaker 1: the oven cooking. It's a pie, but if you were
Speaker 1: to take it out and eat it as alchemy, it
Speaker 1: would be a bit gut shot and running, like you
Speaker 1: still needed a little while to actually cook before it
Speaker 1: became early science. Yeah, I think if it is like
Speaker 1: the the wood chips in your backyard, they're supposed to
Speaker 1: become strawberries in that pie. They never became strawberries. It
Speaker 1: was a wood chip pie. Yeah. And that that's the
Speaker 1: problem with alchemy, right. It was a great idea, but
Speaker 1: not based in anything actually scientific. Yeah. So supposedly this
Speaker 1: thing could walk, it could speak, it could perform domestic chores.
Speaker 1: Now this we're just gonna go ahead and cast away
Speaker 1: the idea that this thing was walking around like a human.
Speaker 1: But it's easy to imagine this guy that was interested
Speaker 1: in the way the human body works creating something that
Speaker 1: that could move when you pulled on some pulleys or something.
Speaker 1: Or supposedly there was like a like a brass head
Speaker 1: that could speak, you know, So I mean it could
Speaker 1: have basically been a puppet he and he may may
Speaker 1: have had a sense of humor. You know, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at the press head talk and it's freaking out.
Speaker 1: But well see that, I'm thinking all Magnus was sitting
Speaker 1: there doing some ventriloquism maybe, but it worked on his disciple,
Speaker 1: Thomas Aquinas, because he allegedly decided that the device was
Speaker 1: diabolical and destroyed it with a hammer. That's because he
Speaker 1: just got annoyed with ventriloquism. Yeah, that could have been
Speaker 1: he was just he was tired of it. So there's
Speaker 1: that story. Like I said, there's not a lot to
Speaker 1: go on there, but it's it's one that I love
Speaker 1: to think about. Um And then in the fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: of course, Leonardo da Vinci, right, yeah, yeah, we have
Speaker 1: a great article that's called Top ten Leonardo da Vinci
Speaker 1: Inventions UM by Christopher Lampton, and he actually wrote about
Speaker 1: da Vinci built actually built this, because most of the
Speaker 1: times he would just create plans for your drawings. But
Speaker 1: he had a plan for a robotic night that was
Speaker 1: based on his working knowledge of anatomy and mechanics. And um,
Speaker 1: he built it right, this life size night and it
Speaker 1: uh it did not survive, unfortunately, and no one is
Speaker 1: exactly sure of what it was capable of doing. But
Speaker 1: apparently it could walk, sit down, and it could even
Speaker 1: work its jaw. So again we're seeing the ventriloquism here. Um.
Speaker 1: It was frequently brought out at parties thrown wealthy Leonardo Patron,
Speaker 1: load up, you take it, viz. Yeah, you're better with
Speaker 1: the Italian I think so. Yeah, it's probably awful, but
Speaker 1: better than mind. But anyway, the mere fact that the
Speaker 1: robot is making appearances at drunken parties. Uh so I
Speaker 1: think into the idea that that it it wasn't actually
Speaker 1: a you know, too elaborator a thing, that it was
Speaker 1: that it had a certain comic element to it, that
Speaker 1: it was maybe kind of a big puppet. I'm seeing
Speaker 1: some sort of thread here with becoming an icon, right,
Speaker 1: if you're going to be Tico bra Hay or Da
Speaker 1: Vinci or you're going to be Byron. You've got to
Speaker 1: have something that you roll out at parties that involved drinking, right,
Speaker 1: And I mean it's a moose or a drunk dog,
Speaker 1: a bear bear and then your robotic night Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know you had to had to stay kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: kind of dangerous. Yeah. So I mean, just I'm just
Speaker 1: noting that for anybody he wants who's going for icon status, yea,
Speaker 1: that's something that you probably want to work into your stick.
Speaker 1: But um, but yeah, I mean this is still a
Speaker 1: really cool thing. And it was used or driven by
Speaker 1: a system of pulleys and gears, so back in the
Speaker 1: damn sure that it was absolutely shocking. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century here's a there's another notice when
Speaker 1: there's not a lot to really go on here, But
Speaker 1: I still find it amusing. Uh. There was the notion
Speaker 1: that French philosopher and at Cards so allegedly had I
Speaker 1: should probably say allegedly allegedly like use it twice just
Speaker 1: to drive home, had a beautiful automaton named Francine which
Speaker 1: he built to replaces de cease daughter, and he would
Speaker 1: take on when he had to sail somewhere. Um, he
Speaker 1: would have the the the androids stored in a crate
Speaker 1: under under deck. But many things wrong with that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just there are a lot of things wrong, especially
Speaker 1: the felidity of it. Um. I don't think there's anything
Speaker 1: to it. But according to Alison Murray in her book
Speaker 1: The Enlightenment Cyborgs, she makes the case that this was
Speaker 1: a time where and you see roots of this with
Speaker 1: da Vinci and Magnus, We're we're learning more and more
Speaker 1: that the human body and many um in many ways
Speaker 1: is a machine. We're coming to grips with the mechanical
Speaker 1: nature of humanity, and it it leads to this kind
Speaker 1: of weird identity crisis of what are we? You know,
Speaker 1: we're not this well, you know, we're not quite this
Speaker 1: magical divine creation where something else and we're not even this,
Speaker 1: you know, spark of life and meat were some sort
Speaker 1: of some sort of machine and we're so it leads
Speaker 1: to questions like, well, then can we make a machine?
Speaker 1: And it's and to a certain extent, we're still we're
Speaker 1: still troubling over that today, except in in fields such
Speaker 1: as genetics and and and other related films and to
Speaker 1: start to a larg extent still in robotics. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean actually robotics, um, as you say, in biology and
Speaker 1: neo evolution, this is a big topic that's coming up,
Speaker 1: right and how we can or can we actually use
Speaker 1: the question influence our evolution? Um, should we, should we stop?
Speaker 1: So on and so forth, and um, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's all, it's just all a very fascinating question. And well,
Speaker 1: also the Blue Brain project, right, we've talked about this
Speaker 1: before about there are people who are trying to reverse
Speaker 1: engineer the human brain so we can actually put a
Speaker 1: blue print together. So you're saying all these different things converge.
Speaker 1: So actually, it's what's really interesting about this is that
Speaker 1: there is a thread between the you know, ancient technology
Speaker 1: and future technology. And you look at robotics expert Mark Rusham,
Speaker 1: who used da Vinci's notes to build a working model
Speaker 1: of a Da Vinci robotic night and then some of
Speaker 1: those concepts were actually used for design a planetary exploratory
Speaker 1: robots by NASA. So you see that blueprint back in
Speaker 1: time being used the well, because these guys were basically
Speaker 1: trying to do what roboticists today continue to try and
Speaker 1: do um or some roboticists working on how do you
Speaker 1: make a machine that moves like a person? Um, And
Speaker 1: part of you know, there's a little bit of human
Speaker 1: vanity is still tied up and there can I make
Speaker 1: the thing that I am. But also as we try
Speaker 1: to make robots that can navigate a human environment and
Speaker 1: and live alongside humans, it becomes, you know, ideal to
Speaker 1: have a machine that moves like us and can manipulate
Speaker 1: the same objects that we manipulate, so that you know
Speaker 1: that a human can use the same screwdriver as a
Speaker 1: robot and vice versa. Yeah, it's the Geppetto conundrum, what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it? And uh yeah, so let's see,
Speaker 1: I don't I guess we're beginning to run out of
Speaker 1: time of bit in this I wanted to touch real
Speaker 1: quick on the idea of ancient mathematics. UM. I have
Speaker 1: a blog post about this that I did a while
Speaker 1: I'm back that I'll probably linked to in the accompanying
Speaker 1: blog post for this podcast. There's a really good neat
Speaker 1: idea that was put forth by Mark A. Peterson in
Speaker 1: the Geometry of Paradise and uh. He points out that
Speaker 1: that Dante um Uh fourteenth century author of Inferno. You
Speaker 1: know the Divine Comedy, Um, there's a lot if you
Speaker 1: ever read the Divine Comedy, there's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: math thrown there, a lot of science. Like Dante was
Speaker 1: interested in everything, and you see him throwing math and
Speaker 1: science into his imagining of this, uh, these different afterworlds.
Speaker 1: And so Peterson points out that Dante could have easily
Speaker 1: excelled as a mathematician had he been born into a
Speaker 1: time when geometry was more fashionable, but instead he lived
Speaker 1: in an age of languishing mathematics between the Hellenistic period
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. So here's a quick quote he's
Speaker 1: Peterson says, medieval cultures were in the particular peculiar condition
Speaker 1: of being being unmathematical cultures in possession of sophisticated mathematics.
Speaker 1: They possessed in it the sense of having the books,
Speaker 1: studying them and translating him and even doing some mathematics,
Speaker 1: but they had no clear indication where this rich subject
Speaker 1: had come from or what it would be good for.
Speaker 1: They did not know, in our terms at least, what
Speaker 1: it was. So I go into that a bit more
Speaker 1: of the block post. But but I love the idea,
Speaker 1: you know, because I think that's what's what's fascinating about
Speaker 1: about concepts such as the crazy idea that there was
Speaker 1: a vedic nuclear war and then then they had this
Speaker 1: advanced technology in the old days. Is the idea that
Speaker 1: we could forget it. It's the reason we love the
Speaker 1: idea of of a post apocalyptic scenarios where we have
Speaker 1: to re understand past technologies. Um the idea that that
Speaker 1: that math would had kind of been forgotten for a while,
Speaker 1: and then it was this thing that you know, it
Speaker 1: was like us picking up a an astrolabe and saying,
Speaker 1: what is it? How does it work? I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty let's put it up there on the on
Speaker 1: the wall. Yeah. And and the fact that we're going
Speaker 1: through a similar period just because we have such advanced
Speaker 1: technology that we no longer need the basic fundamentals I'm
Speaker 1: wanting to say fundamentals. I mean, it's some of the
Speaker 1: more complex um aspects of math we just don't need
Speaker 1: to master anymore because we simplified our existence. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: could not build an iPhone obviously, But to your point
Speaker 1: about um Dante, what I think is really interesting is
Speaker 1: that during that time period, I mean, those were the
Speaker 1: scholars that were that they it was the scholars that
Speaker 1: were sort of keeping this alive right to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: and it was in the real house, not necessarily, um,
Speaker 1: something practiced by the public at large. And if Dante,
Speaker 1: who wrote in Italian rather than Latin because he wanted
Speaker 1: to reach more people, want to reach the people, right,
Speaker 1: if he had a better understanding of that would be
Speaker 1: very interesting to see how that might have influenced the
Speaker 1: masses during that time. Yeah. But of course if Dante
Speaker 1: had gone into map we would have we might have
Speaker 1: missed out on one of the greatest pieces of literature
Speaker 1: the world has ever seen. So here here well, hey,
Speaker 1: so advanced technology of the ancients. It's a great subject.
Speaker 1: I really love it. Um, but let's get some listener
Speaker 1: mail in here before Garry drives us out of here. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: First we have one from Jackie. Jackie right fan, and
Speaker 1: she says hello. First of all, thanks for the podcast
Speaker 1: on meditation. I've recently begun meditating, and just as I
Speaker 1: started wondering what was happening in my brain, you show
Speaker 1: up with the here. Hey, I'm actually writing with a
Speaker 1: request that I'm sure you've received before. How will the
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse work? After all, we have an official emergency
Speaker 1: plan and the zombie proof House. H Yeah, both of
Speaker 1: those I think have showed that. We've discussed the the
Speaker 1: emergency plan from the CDC in a blog post last week,
Speaker 1: and the zombie proof House I can get shown up
Speaker 1: on our Facebook feed. Um blow the minds quote? Anyway,
Speaker 1: Jackie goes on to say, anyway, thanks for a great podcast,
Speaker 1: keep up the good work. Um. Yeah, the zombie apocalypse
Speaker 1: is an interesting scenario and just trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know, how we respond to um, two scenarios of
Speaker 1: a pandemic disease. The CDC, of course, has jumped on
Speaker 1: it recently as easy as a way to to sort
Speaker 1: of get the message out about emergency preparedness, because the
Speaker 1: emergency preparedness kit that you might have for the zombie
Speaker 1: apocalypse is more or less like what you would have,
Speaker 1: you know, in case there was an energy crisis or
Speaker 1: disease or fire or earthquake or any number of things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a brilliant way to to bring
Speaker 1: attention to that, just to you know, basically parallel it
Speaker 1: with the zombie apo apocalypse. Yeah, and I highly recommend
Speaker 1: anybody who's interested in zombies if you haven't already read
Speaker 1: Max Brooks World War Z. This is a really fun read,
Speaker 1: not only because it concerns zombies and people you know,
Speaker 1: in a post apocalyptic environment trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: they're doing, but he does a great job of taking
Speaker 1: the idea of the zombie apocalypse and applying it to
Speaker 1: different regions of the planet, different situations, and asking like, hey,
Speaker 1: how would the zombie apocalypse UH affect relations between Indian
Speaker 1: Pakistan and UH? And there's a really thought provoking way
Speaker 1: of looking at it. So so I would recommend that
Speaker 1: to any listeners out there who are into zombies. We
Speaker 1: also have a quick email from Chris with a K
Speaker 1: Chris with a K right, and it says thanks for
Speaker 1: having such a great show. While listening to the prolonged
Speaker 1: lifespan episode that's Birthday Candles, I immediately began to wonder
Speaker 1: if suicide rates would jump along with the increased lifespan.
Speaker 1: Even though people could be healthy physically, the mental toll
Speaker 1: of such longevity would be extreme. Trying to find purpose
Speaker 1: in life may be difficult, and I don't want to
Speaker 1: work until I'm sixt five now What would I feel
Speaker 1: like if I had to work until I was six
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years old before I could retire? That alone,
Speaker 1: Uh makes a person prompt suicide? Um, major societal changes
Speaker 1: would have to occur before I want to live to
Speaker 1: be a thousand if we were if we lived at
Speaker 1: that aide, we'd be in school until we were two
Speaker 1: hundred years old. UM wouldn't have children or get married
Speaker 1: until we were three hundred, and that would bring up
Speaker 1: the point of marriage. The thought of spending a lifetime
Speaker 1: with the same person seems astronomical in these terms. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having such a great podcast and keep up
Speaker 1: the good work. Indeed, these are you know, all the
Speaker 1: different things you have to think about. We have human
Speaker 1: life lifespan. Was to jump from less than a century
Speaker 1: to more than nine centuries, how would that effect the
Speaker 1: flow in the basic definition of what it is to
Speaker 1: be human? Right? Can you up mode another person's brain
Speaker 1: to your own? Brighton? Could you have a different experience?
Speaker 1: Could you completely start over at two D and become
Speaker 1: a different person? And all sorts of questions? Could you
Speaker 1: go from being a TV starting the movie starting back
Speaker 1: to being a TV star again? Um? Career I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean Tom Hanks, we don't You
Speaker 1: don't see him going back to t v D No,
Speaker 1: not yet. So hey, um, if you have anything to
Speaker 1: add about the technology of the ancients, be it a
Speaker 1: really cool corner from history that we missed or a
Speaker 1: really out there theory about how you know the ancient
Speaker 1: Babylonians had submarines or something, then hit us up with it,
Speaker 1: share it with us on Facebook again, we are blow
Speaker 1: the Mind there and you can also find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter also Blow the Mind, and we update both those
Speaker 1: feeds with stuff all day long, different different links here
Speaker 1: on this one and on the other, so that there's
Speaker 1: a little diversification. Yeah, and also make sure that you
Speaker 1: check out the article what was Archimedes Death Ray give
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Speaker 1: coolness that he created, and you can just pop that
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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. In the meantime, you can send
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