Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. When it comes to advancements in science, education
Speaker 1: is key. Each generation learns from those who came before them,
Speaker 1: studying their experiments and findings. Students then apply what they've
Speaker 1: learned to keep things moving forward. Often children get their
Speaker 1: first taste of scientific exploration at home. They might receive
Speaker 1: a microscope for Christmas, or a chemistry set on their birthday,
Speaker 1: mixing baking soda and vinegar to produce volcanic explosions in
Speaker 1: their kitchens. But one scientist discovery led to a new
Speaker 1: kind of educational toy, one that was far more dangerous
Speaker 1: than anyone realized. His name was William Crooks, born in
Speaker 1: England in eighteen thirty two. William came from a big family,
Speaker 1: the oldest of eight surviving siblings out of a total
Speaker 1: of sixteen. Though his father and grandfather had been Taylor's
Speaker 1: Williams set out on his own path. He enrolled at
Speaker 1: the Royal College of Chemistry when he was just sixteen,
Speaker 1: paying his own way while living at home. He was
Speaker 1: also responsible for buying his own materials, including the chemicals
Speaker 1: used in his academic experiments. But his hard work paid
Speaker 1: off and he earned a scholarship for his sophomore year.
Speaker 1: William worked his way up, assisting the school's director, August
Speaker 1: Wilhelm von Hoffmann in the lab and with his research.
Speaker 1: As he got older and gained more experience, William also
Speaker 1: made connections with scientists from other fields. Michael Faraday, for example,
Speaker 1: experimented with electromagnetism and electro chemistry. The physicist George Stokes
Speaker 1: studied fluid dynamics and how light traveled. It's likely that
Speaker 1: both men influenced William heavily as he pursued his true
Speaker 1: passion optical physics. Now, optical physics dealt with the study
Speaker 1: of light and how it interacted with matter. William's father
Speaker 1: noticed this fascination with optics when the boy was just
Speaker 1: nineteen and built him a lab right in the family garden.
Speaker 1: Over the next several decades, William utilized several new testing
Speaker 1: methods including spectral analysis to track how matter reacted to
Speaker 1: electromagnetic radiation, and in eighteen sixty one, his techniques helped
Speaker 1: him discover a brand new element for the periodic table, thallium.
Speaker 1: William wrote papers, he developed new tools, and published numerous
Speaker 1: findings over the course of his life. In though everything changed,
Speaker 1: Marie Currey and her husband Pierre disc covered radium, and
Speaker 1: news of the breakthrough traveled around the world. Naturally, journalists
Speaker 1: sought out experts for their opinions on the finding, and
Speaker 1: one of those experts happened to be William Crooks. By
Speaker 1: nineteen o three, he had already started experimenting with radium
Speaker 1: on his own. He had taken a screen treated with
Speaker 1: zinc sulfide and placed it close to a small amount
Speaker 1: of radium, observing as the elements alpha radiation caused a
Speaker 1: fluorescent reaction. Unfortunately, during his tests, he spilled some of
Speaker 1: the radium over his workplace. Not wanting to lose a
Speaker 1: single grain of the expensive substance, he employed his microscope
Speaker 1: to help him find it all. He noticed during his
Speaker 1: search that some of the radium had wound up on
Speaker 1: the zinc sulfide screen, which caused tiny flashes of light
Speaker 1: to explode before his eyes. William realized that he needed
Speaker 1: a way to safely examine these flashes, so he created
Speaker 1: a device to contain the reaction. It was a metal
Speaker 1: tube with a smaller zinc sulfide screen. Inside, a needle
Speaker 1: held a tiny grain of radium at its tip close
Speaker 1: to the screen, the proximity of which could be adjusted
Speaker 1: thanks to a thumb screw. The reactions inside were viewed
Speaker 1: through a lens, which helped to seal the radioactive material
Speaker 1: inside the tube. He called it a spintheroscope, from the
Speaker 1: Greek spin thyro voglia, meaning scintillation. William died in nineteen
Speaker 1: but the popularity of his spintheroscope continued to grow. It
Speaker 1: proved so popular, in fact, that it became a hot
Speaker 1: toy for kids growing up in the nineteen forties and fifties.
Speaker 1: The Gilbert's You two thirty eight Atomic Energy Kit contained
Speaker 1: everything the budding nuclear physicists needed to smash the atom,
Speaker 1: all from the comforts of their bedroom. The kits even
Speaker 1: included a small amount of radioactive uranium or Yes. William
Speaker 1: Crooks might have given us thallium and the cathode ray tube,
Speaker 1: but his legacy, however, indirectly exposed children to something a
Speaker 1: bit more dangerous, nuclear powered toys. Conflict resolution is an
Speaker 1: important part of any relationship. Being able to work through
Speaker 1: our differences means we can form stronger bonds and collaborate
Speaker 1: more closely. It may take something as simple as a conversation,
Speaker 1: or as elaborate as multiple discussions in a conference room
Speaker 1: with the help of a mediator. Old sitcoms occasionally had
Speaker 1: episodes where two characters who disliked each other would suddenly
Speaker 1: find themselves locked in a room or a closet together,
Speaker 1: forced to work until help arrived. They would talk through
Speaker 1: their issues until by the end of the episode they
Speaker 1: came to a mutual understanding. But that was fiction. Real
Speaker 1: problems take real solutions, and sometimes the worst thing to
Speaker 1: do is lock people in a room and for the best.
Speaker 1: For over a millennia, though, the residents of Glencast, Scotland,
Speaker 1: did just that, well, sort of. They understood that it
Speaker 1: was beneficial to squash any conflict between two parties. They
Speaker 1: also knew that life in the village would be tough
Speaker 1: if people were getting into fights all the time, so
Speaker 1: they came up with their own way to bring about peace,
Speaker 1: and it didn't require a conference room at all. Glen
Speaker 1: Coe was no stranger to conflict. On February thirteenth of
Speaker 1: sixteen ninety two, soldiers from the Scottish government killed thirty
Speaker 1: members of Clan McDonald who had refused to align themselves
Speaker 1: with William the third and Mary the Second, the country's
Speaker 1: new king and queen. But even though the monarchy was
Speaker 1: violently forcing the stubborn clans into loyalty, the chiefs of
Speaker 1: those clans found a more civilized way of dealing with
Speaker 1: their differences. In fact, they had already figured out how
Speaker 1: to keep the peace without using violence at all. One
Speaker 1: way was by imposing fines on the chiefs for infractions
Speaker 1: committed by their clansmen. If the two parties were having
Speaker 1: a significant agreement, though the kind that couldn't be peacefully
Speaker 1: resolved or quickly resolved, there was a place they could
Speaker 1: go to hash things out. It was called the Island
Speaker 1: of Discussion, located in luck Levin. The tiny Island of
Speaker 1: Discussion was one of seven islands in the area. The
Speaker 1: people of Glencoe marooned the arguing parties there with a
Speaker 1: bundle of cheese, oatcakes and whiskey until they had worked
Speaker 1: out their problems. They were not allowed to leave until
Speaker 1: they were done, and they did this for over fifteen
Speaker 1: hundred years. No matter how heated things got, it seems
Speaker 1: like almost everyone was able to come to some kind
Speaker 1: of understanding. In fact, in all the time the island
Speaker 1: was used for conflict resolution, only one murder was said
Speaker 1: to have taken place, but lack Levin was home to
Speaker 1: more than just one island. The others were also used
Speaker 1: to vary in degrees. For example, once a land dispute
Speaker 1: was solved on the Island of Discussion, those involved were
Speaker 1: whisked away to a different island where the paper were
Speaker 1: was drafted to validate the agreement between both individuals, hence
Speaker 1: its name the Isle of Covenant or Ratification. Yet another
Speaker 1: island in luck Levin, was used as the final resting
Speaker 1: place for many of Glencoe's clans for hundreds of years,
Speaker 1: and like the Island of Discussion and the Isle of
Speaker 1: Covenant or Ratification, this one was an island of peace,
Speaker 1: not just for the dead, but for the living as well.
Speaker 1: Even if they were in conflict, clans would still share
Speaker 1: the work of keeping the place clean and maintained, and
Speaker 1: even when someone left Glencoe or the surrounding area, their
Speaker 1: final request was often to be returned and buried on
Speaker 1: that island. The last person to do so died in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, having moved to London years before. Glenco's
Speaker 1: clans have no shortage of ways to keep the peace,
Speaker 1: but it's hard to beat a good old fashioned time out,
Speaker 1: even more so when that involved an entire island for
Speaker 1: them to sort out their problems, plus the cheese and whiskey.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure some parents out there I would love
Speaker 1: to do the same. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.