Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: we're back with part three of our series on Horror
Speaker 1: VAKUI or Fear of the Void, which we have We've
Speaker 1: been mainly focusing I think on like art and design
Speaker 1: in the past couple of episodes, but today I wanted
Speaker 1: to take a look at the history of the vacuum
Speaker 1: and specifically resistance to the idea of the vacuum in
Speaker 1: philosophy and physics. And to begin, I was reading about
Speaker 1: the scientific history of vacuum physics in a book called
Speaker 1: The Void by Frank Close from Oxford University Press in
Speaker 1: two thousand seven. Frank Close is a professor of physics
Speaker 1: at at Oxford I think emeritus now, But anyway, I
Speaker 1: was reading about this and he included a quote from
Speaker 1: the rig Veda that I thought was very interesting. This
Speaker 1: is from the creation Hymn of the rig Veda, which says,
Speaker 1: in translation, there was neither non existence nor existence. Then
Speaker 1: there was neither the realm of space nor the sky,
Speaker 1: which is beyond what stirred where and I really like
Speaker 1: this because it I think it encapsulates a kind of,
Speaker 1: uh a fascinated but challenging history of attempts to conceptualize
Speaker 1: empty space, to even imagine what empty space would mean
Speaker 1: if it were to exist. Because I noticed kind of
Speaker 1: a gap here. As far as I can tell, most
Speaker 1: people all around the world today, even in various you know,
Speaker 1: different cultures, whatever, really, as as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: don't seem to express any major problems making sense of
Speaker 1: the idea of empty space. Obviously, there's a lot we
Speaker 1: don't know about the nature of space. What is space,
Speaker 1: where does it come from, what different kinds of space
Speaker 1: could there be, and so forth. So space is still
Speaker 1: a vessel of many mysteries. It's not like we've got
Speaker 1: it all solved. But if you just simplify the idea
Speaker 1: to the basics, I and I think most people don't
Speaker 1: have any problem imagining the concept of an area of
Speaker 1: three dimensional space with no particles in it. That just yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that that makes sense as an idea to me. But
Speaker 1: if you read about how ancient Greek philosophers wrote about
Speaker 1: this question, I do not get the impression that the
Speaker 1: same was generally true for them, not only did many
Speaker 1: of them deny the possibility of empty space existing. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I get the feeling that they are struggling to even
Speaker 1: imagine what the concept would mean. Do Do you know
Speaker 1: what I'm getting out here? Rob, Yeah? Yeah, this, Um,
Speaker 1: this is something we talked a little bit about off
Speaker 1: my before the the episode here. Um it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of complicated. I mean at one level, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're They're always going to be linguistic possibilities in play.
Speaker 1: For example, I was looking into some sources on the
Speaker 1: void in Chinese philosophy and you run into, for example,
Speaker 1: that they're separate terms for such concepts as emptiness, nothingness,
Speaker 1: and the infinite or the absolute and and one source
Speaker 1: here is looking at foundling law in Frontiers of Philosophy
Speaker 1: and China from two thousand ten contends that their subtleties
Speaker 1: involved that quote English language is unable to capture. So yeah,
Speaker 1: we have to acknowledge linguistic possibilities. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: like thinking about like what is it as a modern human,
Speaker 1: Like why do I like you have no problem imagining
Speaker 1: a vacuum um or or even of a void, And
Speaker 1: I think part of it maybe like just the mechanical
Speaker 1: possibilities that we have now in the media evidence thereof. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, when I think about a perfect vacuum, I
Speaker 1: can I can imagine a device that mechanically makes it
Speaker 1: so within say a closed space. I can think back
Speaker 1: to footage of someone in a It's not a perfect vacuum,
Speaker 1: but a place that has no air, that's sort of vacuum.
Speaker 1: Because I guess we get into differences too. Are we
Speaker 1: talking about a space without air um in which say
Speaker 1: a scientist in a suit may drop a feather in
Speaker 1: a bowling ball and do that whole experiment, or are
Speaker 1: we talking about something that that is a true vacuum
Speaker 1: with nothing in it at all, like a like an
Speaker 1: absolute void um. And and there are differences there, but yeah,
Speaker 1: as far as just like maybe it gets into the
Speaker 1: idea of imagining a space with air in it. Like,
Speaker 1: we we have this clear idea of what atmosphere is
Speaker 1: and what air is, and we can also see and
Speaker 1: behold and sort of to some degree understand the mechanics
Speaker 1: by which that air may be removed from a space.
Speaker 1: And therefore you could have a space where the visible
Speaker 1: is not present and the invisible has been removed as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. And I think for like
Speaker 1: one major difference, maybe the UH unsettled question of like
Speaker 1: whether the air itself has wait for much of human history,
Speaker 1: Like if if you don't have that worked out, it
Speaker 1: may just be harder to imagine what space devoid of
Speaker 1: even gas particles would be. Yeah, but I want to
Speaker 1: turn into some examples that Frank Close looks at in
Speaker 1: this book, especially his his first chapter on sort of
Speaker 1: the ancient history of the void in UH in physics,
Speaker 1: to to look at how how this idea was thought
Speaker 1: of before the modern era. So the pre Socratic Greek
Speaker 1: philosopher Thals of Melitas, who lived from the seventh to
Speaker 1: the sixth century b c. Writing about the idea of
Speaker 1: emptiness or void without substance, is actually kind of tempted
Speaker 1: to ask can there be such a thing as nothing?
Speaker 1: If someone is able to think about it, wouldn't thinking
Speaker 1: about it mean it was something? And again this raises
Speaker 1: an interesting question for me. I mean, my initial reaction
Speaker 1: is just like no, Like, you know, so imagine a
Speaker 1: container with empty space in it. I don't think by
Speaker 1: thinking about that we change the nature of what's in
Speaker 1: the container. But this does kind of raise the specter
Speaker 1: of like if there could be a vacuum for people
Speaker 1: like Thiley's maybe this has almost more sort of totalizing
Speaker 1: cosmic implications that the ability of a vacuum to exist
Speaker 1: says something about the universe as a whole, not just
Speaker 1: one region of the universe, say inside of a glass
Speaker 1: bottle or something. So that's one level in which I respond.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand, I can sympathize with
Speaker 1: thoughts like this knowing some things about modern physics, because
Speaker 1: in a very real sense, empty space is I think
Speaker 1: you can make the argument that it is not nothing.
Speaker 1: Empty space is something even though it is not matter.
Speaker 1: Uh So this may come from a failure to distinguish
Speaker 1: between space and a concept like nothingness, in which case,
Speaker 1: like if you're imagining space is something like space has properties,
Speaker 1: then in fact it couldn't be nothing, which is what
Speaker 1: Thai Las was thinking about. Yeah, this perhaps distinction between
Speaker 1: nothingness and emptiness. Um, this whole thing about thinking about
Speaker 1: it making it maybe less nothing. Um. This reminds me
Speaker 1: of another paper I was looking at, Being in Nothingness
Speaker 1: in Greek and Ancient Chinese philosophy by Ji Ming shin
Speaker 1: philosophy East and West nine. Uh. This author points out
Speaker 1: that in both Chinese Taoism and Greek philosophy you see
Speaker 1: this culmination of things and nothingness. Quote, nothingness is the
Speaker 1: nature of being in itself, which is absolutely transcendent and nameless.
Speaker 1: So if I'm interpreting this correctly to sort of dual
Speaker 1: identity of nothingness in these two different thoughts systems, nothingness
Speaker 1: is ultimately that which comes before substance but also comes
Speaker 1: before human attributed meaning. Um So yeah, like even thinking
Speaker 1: of even giving it a name changes the nothingness of
Speaker 1: it at least from these perspectives. Yes, though with Greek philosophy,
Speaker 1: I know it very much depends on which philosopher you're
Speaker 1: talking about, because a lot of these big Greek philosophers, Uh,
Speaker 1: they were emphatic and specifically rejecting the idea that the
Speaker 1: universe could have come from nothingness, that there could ever
Speaker 1: have been nothingness, or that the universe would ever disappear
Speaker 1: into nothingness like that was specifically uh, part of what
Speaker 1: the cosmological history that the Ley's was arguing for. According
Speaker 1: to Theiles, it would be impossible for the universe to
Speaker 1: have come from nothingness. And it would be impossible for
Speaker 1: it to ever become nothing. There's just sort of like
Speaker 1: infinitely the same stuff. Without getting into the exacts of
Speaker 1: it all though, when you hear some of these sweeping
Speaker 1: explanations of what, say, the universe would be if it
Speaker 1: were reduced to a singularity, you know, uh, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing like, that's not nothing, it's something, but it's
Speaker 1: such a strange and alien concept, so different from certainly
Speaker 1: our perceivable reality, that it might as well be nothing.
Speaker 1: You know. Yes, that's a good point. And of course,
Speaker 1: again to highlight the difference between nothingness and empty space
Speaker 1: and nothingness I think is much harder to define. I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what we mean when we talk about nothingness.
Speaker 1: It's sort of a more uh slippery, mysterious concept, whereas
Speaker 1: empty space. Again, it's not that we understand everything about it,
Speaker 1: but it is something that has physical properties and can
Speaker 1: be manipulated. We know some things about it, Yeah, like
Speaker 1: even linguistically. When we talk about a vacuum, so we've
Speaker 1: formed an artificial vacuum inside of a reinforced steel chamber,
Speaker 1: does that steel chamber contain a vacuum and therefore the
Speaker 1: vacuum is not nothing because it is a thing by
Speaker 1: virtue of being different from everything surrounding it. Oh, because
Speaker 1: it is contained. Yeah, well that raises another question of um.
Speaker 1: When you ask whether a vacuum exists in nature, I
Speaker 1: mean in reality, whenever we're talking about a vacuum, we're
Speaker 1: talking about essentially low density gas. So and the question
Speaker 1: is how low density does the gas have to get
Speaker 1: before you are comfortable talking about a region of it
Speaker 1: as a vacuum. So like and say that, and we
Speaker 1: can come back to this maybe in in the next
Speaker 1: part of the series or something. But like an interstellar voids,
Speaker 1: there are still particles floating around out there. They're just
Speaker 1: very far apart compared to much closer to stars or
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere of a planet. But I guess the
Speaker 1: question would be how far apart does every individual particle
Speaker 1: of matter have to get before you say, okay, this
Speaker 1: is really a total vacuum. Mhm. But to come back
Speaker 1: to Thailey's for a second, Close makes an interesting argument
Speaker 1: about Thailey's sort of having something in his cosmology similar
Speaker 1: to uh to a kind of empty space, basically a
Speaker 1: primeval material or a sort of ground state for the universe,
Speaker 1: And Close argues that for Thailey's this ground state of
Speaker 1: existence was water. This belief is related to the fact
Speaker 1: that we can observe why are going through phase changes,
Speaker 1: so we can see water as solid, ice, as liquid
Speaker 1: as water, vapor and Close says that the LEAs assumed
Speaker 1: that the diversity of forms went on from there, and
Speaker 1: in fact water was the basis of every material on Earth. Rocks, plants, air, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Are all somehow water in some some extrapolated form, and
Speaker 1: so he writes quote, space for Thaile's is as empty
Speaker 1: as it can be when all matter in it has
Speaker 1: been turned into its primeval form, liquid water. Like the ocean.
Speaker 1: Water thus contains every possible form of matter. I think
Speaker 1: we've actually discussed this before. Yeah, in connection to his work,
Speaker 1: like you get down to the idea of a cosmic ocean,
Speaker 1: of a primordial ocean on which there is no land
Speaker 1: and no being. So there are definitely similarities between imagining,
Speaker 1: say the you know, the gods or the Creator or whatever,
Speaker 1: hovering over a great void and hovering over a gray ocean.
Speaker 1: That those are like similar ideas in some of these
Speaker 1: ancient cosmologies at least, But anyway, going on from there,
Speaker 1: in the fifth century b c. There's another pre Socratic
Speaker 1: Greek philosopher, Empedicalles, who argued that there were actually four
Speaker 1: fundamental forms of matter. Wasn't that everything came from water?
Speaker 1: Like they least thought that there was in fact earth, air, fire,
Speaker 1: and water, And empedically Is notably realized that air was
Speaker 1: itself a substance and not merely empty space. He also
Speaker 1: believed there was no such thing as empty space. But
Speaker 1: of course the discovery that air is not empty space
Speaker 1: does not mean that empty space cannot exist. But then
Speaker 1: we we come to the atomists, who are very interesting
Speaker 1: in their departure from these other ways of thinking. So uh.
Speaker 1: The atomists included a number of ancient philosophers like Lucippus, Democritus,
Speaker 1: and Epicurus, who believed, quite remarkably ahead of their time,
Speaker 1: that all matter is actually made up of imperceptible like
Speaker 1: tiny particles, which they called atoms from the Greek word
Speaker 1: adam moss, which is derived from something that means like
Speaker 1: cannot be cut or basically indivisible. Now, of course, today
Speaker 1: we know that atoms are not actually indivisible. They're made
Speaker 1: up of sub atomic particles like protons, neutrons, electrons, and
Speaker 1: even protons and neutrons can be further subdivided. But ancient
Speaker 1: atomists did not have the experimental apparatus needed to discover this. Instead,
Speaker 1: they arrived at the atomic view of physics primarily by
Speaker 1: way of thought, experiments, and everyday empirical observations, such as
Speaker 1: the observation of things like the erosion of solid matter
Speaker 1: in nature. So if you have a great, you know,
Speaker 1: a grand marble staircase, and you notice that over the years,
Speaker 1: the steps on the staircase are eroding. They're sort of
Speaker 1: like sagging in the places where people walk on them. Well,
Speaker 1: they're solid marble. Where are they going? How do marble
Speaker 1: steps wear away over the ages? It must be because
Speaker 1: each person who steps on them remove some tiny, invisibly
Speaker 1: small amount of matter. But that invisibly small amount of matter,
Speaker 1: those little atoms that are taken away accumulate over time
Speaker 1: and the steps are worn down. But importantly for this discussion,
Speaker 1: the atomists believed that there actually is such a thing
Speaker 1: as empty space. In fact, it was core to their
Speaker 1: theory that the universe was composed of atoms in motion.
Speaker 1: Those atoms in motion needed a space through which to move.
Speaker 1: And the atomists argued that if there were already something
Speaker 1: in the place and atom was moving to, the atom
Speaker 1: couldn't move there because then two atoms would be occupying
Speaker 1: the same space at once. So there had to be
Speaker 1: such a thing as empty space. That was the only
Speaker 1: way that such space could come to be occupied. You know,
Speaker 1: there has to be space for things to move into
Speaker 1: where nothing can move. But after this we get back
Speaker 1: to Aristotle because uh and we mentioned him at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the first episode in this series. For better
Speaker 1: or worse, Aristotle would pretty much have the last word
Speaker 1: on this question for centuries to come, until experiments in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth century would strongly challenge his decree. But Aristotle says,
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as empty space. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I was reading about the Aristotelian uh framework or foundation
Speaker 1: for the science of the early modern period in the
Speaker 1: Cambridge History of Science, volume three, edited by Lindberg at All.
Speaker 1: This was in a chapter called Physics and Foundations by
Speaker 1: the Princeton philosopher Daniel Garber. And uh. He makes some
Speaker 1: interesting points, But reading this chapter, this is the way
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it. So when we think of
Speaker 1: physics today, we usually think of it as a science
Speaker 1: contained within certain boundaries, like there are certain kinds of
Speaker 1: questions that are physics questions, and there are other questions
Speaker 1: that are not Physics. Is the study of properties of
Speaker 1: matter and energy something like that, And that's a huge field,
Speaker 1: so you can ask tons of stents in it, like
Speaker 1: how are stars formed? Or what is the relationship between
Speaker 1: particle mass and the Higgs field. But if in a
Speaker 1: physics journal today you tried to submit a paper on
Speaker 1: a question like what are the basic modes of existence?
Speaker 1: And what is being? And what is the relationship of
Speaker 1: those uh things to say, God, uh, this would probably
Speaker 1: be rejected as outside the scope of the physical sciences,
Speaker 1: you know, like the editors would say, you need to
Speaker 1: submit this to a different journal. However, this attempted limitation
Speaker 1: of scope was not always present in fields analogous to physics.
Speaker 1: Throughout history. There are many times in history where these
Speaker 1: things really kind of blend together, or at least, uh
Speaker 1: philosophical foundations are thought to have relevant things to say
Speaker 1: about physics theories. So uh, the these these philosophical foundations
Speaker 1: might include religious world views, so you can think about
Speaker 1: the way that um, the the scientists of the islam
Speaker 1: world in the Middle Ages might have thought of Islam
Speaker 1: as a theological foundation for the sciences, or the way
Speaker 1: that Christian natural philosophers of Europe might have thought about
Speaker 1: Christianity in the same way. But in the West there
Speaker 1: was a major secular philosophical foundation of early science also,
Speaker 1: and that was Aristotelianism, the philosophy of Aristotle, a fourth
Speaker 1: century BC Greek philosopher. And I think it's fair to
Speaker 1: say that for like hundreds of years, in the schools
Speaker 1: and universities of of medieval through early modern Europe, the
Speaker 1: philosophy of Aristotle was not taught in the way that
Speaker 1: it would be taught in a college class today. Like
Speaker 1: today you would teach it like here is an interesting
Speaker 1: piece of intellectual history, maybe providing a certain point of
Speaker 1: view and showing the development of how people thought about X,
Speaker 1: Y or z. Instead, I think it was often taught
Speaker 1: in a way that was closer to how people would
Speaker 1: have thought about the Bible. It's like Aristotle said it.
Speaker 1: That pretty much settles it. Yeah, So you end up
Speaker 1: with with various discussions and arguments coming down to either
Speaker 1: what Aristotle said or disagreements over what Aristotle did say
Speaker 1: or meant or what he would have said or meant
Speaker 1: about a given topic. Right so, and and to be clear,
Speaker 1: it wasn't always this way. It wasn't that everybody thought
Speaker 1: Aristotle was literally infallible. But it seems to me like
Speaker 1: he was often treated by the scholastics as something approaching infallibility,
Speaker 1: like it was just ludicrous to question Aristotle, though in
Speaker 1: some cases people did. Thankank thank so, we should discuss
Speaker 1: what Aristotle says about the void um. Aristotle denies the
Speaker 1: possibility of the existence of empty space, specifically in his
Speaker 1: book Physics Book for and, as is so often true
Speaker 1: with these ancient philosophers, he makes his case for the
Speaker 1: non existence of a vacuum not by like doing an
Speaker 1: experiment and describing it, but by cold, rash eosination. He
Speaker 1: is going to reason his way out of having to
Speaker 1: believe in empty space. Garber, in his chapter quotes a
Speaker 1: translation of Aristotle for one of his arguments along these lines.
Speaker 1: Aristotle says, now it space or place has three dimensions length, breadth, depth,
Speaker 1: the dimensions by which all body is bounded. But the
Speaker 1: place cannot be body, for if it were, there would
Speaker 1: be two bodies in the same place. What in the
Speaker 1: world then are we to suppose place to be and
Speaker 1: the implied answer is nothing. Uh, So not to kind
Speaker 1: of interesting contradiction, It seems to me at least that
Speaker 1: we had the atomists pointing to the fact that two
Speaker 1: objects can't be in the same place at the same
Speaker 1: time to prove that there must be empty space, because remember,
Speaker 1: moving particles have to have unoccupied space to move into.
Speaker 1: And here Aristotle is using the same ms in a
Speaker 1: way to say that space cannot exist independent of matter,
Speaker 1: or else it would have to occupy the same places
Speaker 1: matter at the same time. But coming back to close,
Speaker 1: he summarizes Aristotle's arguments by saying, quote, so for Aristotle,
Speaker 1: logic seem to require that empty space cannot be something
Speaker 1: and therefore is non existent. He defined the void as
Speaker 1: where there is no body, and since the basic elements
Speaker 1: of things exist eternally, there can be no place that
Speaker 1: is completely empty. Aristotle may have been getting some mileage
Speaker 1: here out of uh confusion over the difference between empty
Speaker 1: space as something and like nothingness as as in a
Speaker 1: way meaning non existence. Now. Garber, in his Physics and
Speaker 1: Foundations chapter writes that by the thirteenth century, writers in
Speaker 1: the Scholastic tradition in Europe who believed in Aristotelian dogmas
Speaker 1: had begun assuming the existence of a natural force known
Speaker 1: as horror vakay, again a phrase that Aristotle himself did
Speaker 1: not use, but which aligned with his teaching on this matter,
Speaker 1: that nature would not permit a vacuum, and the Scholastic
Speaker 1: writers characterized this as a force in nature which prevents
Speaker 1: vacuum of from emerging, almost like there's sort of a
Speaker 1: law of nature something going on that will not let
Speaker 1: a vacuum be created, and thus forces matter to fill
Speaker 1: in the gaps. So you can pump out that container
Speaker 1: as much as you want, but horror vakaye will prevent
Speaker 1: it from actually being empty inside. Uh And and another
Speaker 1: interesting thing I wanted to flag here is that Garber
Speaker 1: notes a conflict between this Aristotelian dogma and some religious
Speaker 1: reasoning that arose in the Church in the thirteenth century
Speaker 1: that eventually led to the famous Condemnations of twelve seventy seven,
Speaker 1: where we've got a bishop condemning Aristotle. Uh So, to
Speaker 1: read from Garber here, quote, one consequence was that without
Speaker 1: space outside of the finite world, not even God would
Speaker 1: seem to be able to move the universe if he
Speaker 1: chose to do so. This apparent consequence of Aristotelian doctrine
Speaker 1: was rejected in the famous condemnation of Aristotle by Etienne Tempier,
Speaker 1: the Bishop of Paris, in twelve seventy seven uh and
Speaker 1: then quoting in translation, here we can dimn the proposition
Speaker 1: that God could not move the heavens with rectilinear motion,
Speaker 1: and the reason is that a vacuum would remain. So
Speaker 1: Garber says, this really kind of put these scholastic Aristotelians
Speaker 1: in a bind because in some ways they they had
Speaker 1: to defend the possibility of some kind of empty space
Speaker 1: existing in the universe, at least potentially for theological reasons,
Speaker 1: but they didn't want to violate the principles of Aristotle
Speaker 1: to which they were loyal. Mhm. But anyway, going on,
Speaker 1: Frank Close makes an interesting argument that I think I
Speaker 1: would agree with it. We shouldn't be too hard on
Speaker 1: the prevailing Aristotelian belief in uh in orvakay because without
Speaker 1: special equipment and experiments, I don't know, it really just
Speaker 1: seems like that from everyday existence, like it seems like
Speaker 1: reality prevents voids from forming. Examples given by the ancient
Speaker 1: philosophers were things like, hey, you suck all the air
Speaker 1: out of an empty wine skin, the wine skin collapses
Speaker 1: like it shrinks in. Removing the air does not result
Speaker 1: in a void inside the skin. It causes the walls
Speaker 1: of the skin to shrink proportional to the amount of
Speaker 1: air you're able to remove. You could also use this
Speaker 1: belief in nature's hatred for the vacuum to explain the
Speaker 1: workings of pumps and siphons. So beyond the fact that
Speaker 1: Aristotle said it, it just kind of seemed right with
Speaker 1: everyday experience. Yeah, I mean again, you're not walking around
Speaker 1: your home and just suddenly walking into a vacuum, right Like,
Speaker 1: even the empty rooms are are full, they're they're teeming
Speaker 1: with with with matter. Uh. And these are I think
Speaker 1: all great examples where you could you can imagine someone saying,
Speaker 1: look proof right here, look at this wine skin. If
Speaker 1: you can form a void in this wide skin, then
Speaker 1: I'll believe you. Otherwise, absolutely not. So while horror Vakay
Speaker 1: had its critics for a long time, I think it's
Speaker 1: safe to say that it was really like the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century where this idea was laid to rest. So coming
Speaker 1: back to this idea of like when you suck on
Speaker 1: a straw, what is the force that actually causes the
Speaker 1: liquid in your drink to rise up the straw into
Speaker 1: your mouth. You could imagine it as a vacuum created
Speaker 1: that like sort of resists formation and thus sucks the
Speaker 1: liquid up. The same question was actually raised around the
Speaker 1: year sixteen hundred UH and brought to the attention of Galileo.
Speaker 1: There are some examples I've read about this. One is
Speaker 1: an example of UH. I think a scientist sort of
Speaker 1: at the time a natural philosopher who had been trying
Speaker 1: to construct a big siphon and encountered problems at at
Speaker 1: a certain height of the siphon. But then I've also
Speaker 1: read about an influence here being people digging wells and
Speaker 1: mine shafts who would try to remove water from these
Speaker 1: pits using like plunger based pumps to lift the water
Speaker 1: out through a pipe. There was a problem in all
Speaker 1: these cases with the siphons and the pumps. Basically, the
Speaker 1: pumps stopped working after a certain height, after the water
Speaker 1: was raised roughly ten point three meters or so, when
Speaker 1: you had ten point three ms worth of a column
Speaker 1: in the pipe, it would stop going higher, wouldn't climb
Speaker 1: the pipe anymore, and instead a gap would appear between
Speaker 1: the water column and the plunger or the piston or
Speaker 1: whatever you're using to pump it out. So what's going
Speaker 1: on here? What was the what was actually limiting the
Speaker 1: height of the water pump system. Well, Galileo investigated this question,
Speaker 1: and he suspected that the force that drew water up
Speaker 1: through a pump or a siphon may in fact be
Speaker 1: the force of horror Vakawi. So the vacuum is resisting
Speaker 1: formation and thus holding water up after itself. So when
Speaker 1: you try to run the pump, the fact that the
Speaker 1: universe is resisting creating a vacuum in that space in
Speaker 1: between is forcing water up. I love how this Uh
Speaker 1: this this also kind of implies that Galileo was maybe
Speaker 1: not solving a physics problem, but responding to a pump problem.
Speaker 1: Get Galileo on the horn. We got a problem with
Speaker 1: this pump here se if he see it has time
Speaker 1: this afternoon to look at it. Well, I mean that's
Speaker 1: the wonderful thing about Galileo. I mean, he he was
Speaker 1: at all ends of the spectrum here right working on
Speaker 1: theoretical problems and astronomy and every day you know, mechanical
Speaker 1: physics problems. But all, yeah, it is hilarious. Imagine. I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly when this was first raised to him,
Speaker 1: but it's it's fun to imagine somebody was like trying
Speaker 1: to get water out of their basement or their mind shaft,
Speaker 1: and that they were just able to call up Galileo,
Speaker 1: or maybe he arrives at his end. He's like a superhero. Yeah. Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he imagines that that maybe it is the force
Speaker 1: of natures existing the formation of a vacuum that pulls
Speaker 1: the water up the pipe. But then at a certain point,
Speaker 1: the weight of the water in the pipe is too much.
Speaker 1: There's too much water, and it's the vacuum resistance can't
Speaker 1: carry it any higher. It has reached the limit of
Speaker 1: the strength of nature's resistance to a vacuum. So fascinating question,
Speaker 1: but Galileo never solved it in his lifetime. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. Into a couple of other figures,
Speaker 1: we got a guy named Gasparo Bertie who lived sixteen
Speaker 1: hundred sixteen forty three, and Evangelista Toricelli sixteen o eight
Speaker 1: to sixty seven and Robbi I got a picture of
Speaker 1: tor Chelli for you to look at here. I think
Speaker 1: he is incredibly notable for having a Batman symbol as
Speaker 1: a mustache. Yeah, certain portraits of this guy, um have
Speaker 1: it worse than others, but yes, it has this. I
Speaker 1: guess it's sort of a Vandi though in other portraits
Speaker 1: it really feels uh cruciform. It feels like it looks
Speaker 1: I mean, it looks like he took a crucifix with
Speaker 1: flared arms and was perhaps kissing it so much that
Speaker 1: the barber had to uh shave him around that crucifix,
Speaker 1: resulting in this hairstyle. Um, it's um, it's a lot.
Speaker 1: I want my muzzle to make you think of the passion.
Speaker 1: It seems if it is a bold look. So these
Speaker 1: two Italian scientists, a Bertie and Torcelli performed similar experiments
Speaker 1: in the early sixteen forties that would clarify what was
Speaker 1: going on here. Bertie did an experiment with water, and
Speaker 1: then several years later Torcelli did a more definitive and
Speaker 1: more famous experiment with quicksilver, which we know today as
Speaker 1: elemental liquid mercury. So Torchelli's experiment went like this. You
Speaker 1: would get a glass tube about one meter long and
Speaker 1: fill it completely with liquid mercury. So this tube would
Speaker 1: be closed completely at one end and open at the other.
Speaker 1: So you fill it with liquid mercury, and you temporarily
Speaker 1: plug up the open end so one end is permanently
Speaker 1: closed one end, you know, put a finger over it
Speaker 1: to close it, and then you flip the tube upright
Speaker 1: vertical and sit the open end down in a big
Speaker 1: basin of more liquid mercury. So you've got like a
Speaker 1: tub of liquid mercury. So you flip it up. You
Speaker 1: have the the plugged open end facing down into the
Speaker 1: lake of mercury, and then you unplug it. You remove
Speaker 1: the finger or the plug. Now remember the tube started
Speaker 1: totally full of mercury, but now that it's unplugged, the
Speaker 1: mercury can flow down into the basin with the rest
Speaker 1: of the mercury. And when he tried this, the mercury
Speaker 1: and the tube did fall, but not all the way.
Speaker 1: It fell to leave a column of mercury about seventy
Speaker 1: six cimeters in height, and then a gap for the
Speaker 1: rest of the tube length up at the closed top.
Speaker 1: So what was the gap, Well, Torcelli reasoned that it
Speaker 1: was actually a vacuum. There was effectively nothing inside the
Speaker 1: tube for those empty centimeters above the column of mercury.
Speaker 1: The other guy, Gasparo Gasparo Bertie, had performed a similar
Speaker 1: experiment with water several years before, and they both Both
Speaker 1: of these experiments seemed to provide evidence that it was
Speaker 1: indeed possible for empty space to exist. But the question remained,
Speaker 1: what was holding up the water in the tube and
Speaker 1: why would the water only rise up the tube to
Speaker 1: a certain height, or, to put it in another way,
Speaker 1: why would the liquid only fall down to a certain
Speaker 1: consistent height uh in the tube. The answer was also
Speaker 1: illuminated by Torchli's experiment, for one thing, by comparing the
Speaker 1: difference between the height of a water column a tube
Speaker 1: and the height of a mercury column in a tube.
Speaker 1: They were different because water and mercury have different densities.
Speaker 1: And so what Torcelli proposed, and what in fact was correct,
Speaker 1: is that the force that kept the water or the
Speaker 1: mercury column raised in the tube was actually the force
Speaker 1: of atmospheric pressure, the pressure of the air pushing down
Speaker 1: on the water or the mercury in the basin. Below,
Speaker 1: and these tube systems assembled by Birdie and Torcelli were
Speaker 1: actually systems for establishing an equal librium between the weight
Speaker 1: of the liquid in this column in the tube and
Speaker 1: the weight the atmosphere exerts on the liquid in the
Speaker 1: basin below. The liquid and the sealed tube would fall
Speaker 1: until the weight of the column was equal to the
Speaker 1: atmospheric pressure, and then it would float and fall no more,
Speaker 1: leaving mostly a vacuum in the space above. However, there
Speaker 1: was another question. There was the question of what is
Speaker 1: causing this. It was important to demonstrate that the vacuum
Speaker 1: hume was not the thing exerting the force. Tori Shelley
Speaker 1: did this with another experiment involving two mercury tubes, one
Speaker 1: with a sort of bull on the sealed top end,
Speaker 1: and the bulb would mean that a greater volume of
Speaker 1: empty space was left at the top when the liquid
Speaker 1: fell after the bottom was unplugged. So would that make
Speaker 1: the mercury fall to a different level, And it turns
Speaker 1: out the extra empty space did not matter at all.
Speaker 1: The liquid fell to the same height regardless, So the
Speaker 1: force exerted on the column of water in the pipe
Speaker 1: or the tube was not a pull from the vacuum.
Speaker 1: It was not a pull proportional to the amount of
Speaker 1: vacuum created. It was a push proportional to the relationship
Speaker 1: between the atmospheric pressure and the density of the liquid.
Speaker 1: And this was further demonstrated in experiments performed by Blaze,
Speaker 1: Pascal and uh and I think with some input from Descartes,
Speaker 1: but Blaze, Pascal and collaborators testing a sim millarier experiment
Speaker 1: at different altitude, so you might you test it at
Speaker 1: the foot of a mountain and then go up to
Speaker 1: the top of a mountain and test again and see
Speaker 1: if there are differences. And indeed they found that higher
Speaker 1: up on a mountain, the column of mercury would be
Speaker 1: lower because the atmospheric pressure was lower. And in fact,
Speaker 1: these experiments in the apparatus used the apparatus what's the
Speaker 1: plural of that apparati or apparatus is anyway, they this
Speaker 1: stuff went on to become the basis of the invention
Speaker 1: known as the barometer, which is used to detect atmospheric pressure,
Speaker 1: and for much of history, one of the most common
Speaker 1: liquids used in it has been quicksilver or mercury. So
Speaker 1: people here in the seventeenth century had learned a number
Speaker 1: of things. Air has weight, the atmosphere does have weight,
Speaker 1: and it presses down and this affects all different kinds
Speaker 1: of fluid dynamics, enclosed containers, and at least in an
Speaker 1: approximate sense, vacuums can be created. But the scientific story
Speaker 1: does not stop there, and maybe in the next episode
Speaker 1: we can get into a little more detail on that history,
Speaker 1: because there's plenty more. But also we've got to talk
Speaker 1: about psychology and horror. Vakawy because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but you ever have that creepy feeling when you're reminded
Speaker 1: of like walking around at school when there was nobody there,
Speaker 1: or any other place when you were a kid that
Speaker 1: normally had people in it, but then there were no
Speaker 1: people in it and you were there and it just
Speaker 1: didn't feel right. I think about that all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And of course this this plays into a lot of
Speaker 1: our our horror movies as well, and a lot of
Speaker 1: our fantastic horror scenarios. So we'll discuss some of those.
Speaker 1: But but you know this, coming back to this, this
Speaker 1: realization that the air has weight, that atmospheric pressure is
Speaker 1: involved in these observations. Um, it's it's something that I feel.
Speaker 1: Even as modern humans. We have to remind ourselves with
Speaker 1: this time and time again, because we can also fall
Speaker 1: into that line of thinking where we think of an
Speaker 1: empty room is empty. We think of a clear sky
Speaker 1: as being empty. Uh. But of course none of those
Speaker 1: things are empty. All of those things are completely filled
Speaker 1: up with air exerting a pressure on us, but a
Speaker 1: pressure that is so ambient that we do not register
Speaker 1: it as being pressure. Absolutely, And the way that this
Speaker 1: pressure affects other things, say like chemical properties. I think
Speaker 1: about the boiling point of water and how that's affected
Speaker 1: by atmospheric pressure at different altitudes, and how that affects
Speaker 1: something is mundane as cooking, How like cooking has to
Speaker 1: be different at different altitudes. Yeah. Ultimately we have to
Speaker 1: realize that we are creatures that evolved to reside within
Speaker 1: an atmospheric body. And uh, and and even then only
Speaker 1: certain parts of that atmospheric body. And then if we
Speaker 1: want to bring fire with us and use it to
Speaker 1: boil matter to eat, we have to take into account
Speaker 1: that it's going to boil differently depending on how far
Speaker 1: up into that massive body of air we travel. We
Speaker 1: discussed this in a couple of episodes a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I think maybe they were the ones about sacred experiences
Speaker 1: on mountaintops people have had. But the fact about how
Speaker 1: basically like you can't boil potatoes on top of Mount Everest.
Speaker 1: People have tried. You try to boil food to cook it.
Speaker 1: The problem is the boiling point of water after a
Speaker 1: certain altitude gets too low, and so your water is
Speaker 1: boiling in the pot, but it's not hot enough to
Speaker 1: cook your food, Like boiling water is no longer sufficiently hot. Wow,
Speaker 1: And of course it's boiling. Can't get any hotter than boiling,
Speaker 1: so you're just stuck like it won't cook. It's hard
Speaker 1: to come up with a response to that. I've forgotten
Speaker 1: about that tidbit regarding cooking potatoes on Mount Everest for
Speaker 1: some reason. That's that's um, that's that's That's almost more
Speaker 1: mind blowing than anything we've we've discussed in this episode,
Speaker 1: I guess, because it comes down to what we were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, like the perceived world, the world we
Speaker 1: can relate to, versus the the world that seems to
Speaker 1: exist only within the the lofty conversations of philosophers and
Speaker 1: scientists like the experience of boiling potatoes but not being
Speaker 1: able to cook them through that boiling like that feels
Speaker 1: like the Twilight Zone. That feels like something that shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: Rod Serling is kind of a talking to you about this. Yeah, alright, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close this episode out, but we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more discussions of the vacuum, the void,
Speaker 1: and so forth in the meantime. Right into us. We'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there. Uh, what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts about some of the ideas we presented in
Speaker 1: this episode, and hey, we would we would love to
Speaker 1: hear your cooking anecdotes from from different altitudes if you
Speaker 1: have some of those right in. Uh, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear about your your mishaps with boiling potatoes and mountaintops.
Speaker 1: I know we have some mountaineers out there, Yes we do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a
Speaker 1: science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On
Speaker 1: Monday's we do a listener mail episode, on Wednesday's we
Speaker 1: do a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and
Speaker 1: on Friday's we do Weird How Cinema. That's our time
Speaker 1: to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about
Speaker 1: a strange film. Huge thanks to our audio producer J J. Pauseway.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listening to your favorite shows.