Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're back this week with part two
Speaker 1: of our exploration of fire technology and specifically the Match,
Speaker 1: the Humble Match, the enticing Match, the intoxicating Match. Well
Speaker 1: I'm getting carried away here. Yes. In our last episode,
Speaker 1: we we really covered a lot of ground. We started
Speaker 1: with an ancient Earth incapable of sustaining fire, and we
Speaker 1: moved on to humanity's earliest uses of the Pilford flame.
Speaker 1: From there, we discovered the great leap forward into fire
Speaker 1: creation technology, namely fire drills and flint and pye rite
Speaker 1: or flint and steel. And we also talked about fuel
Speaker 1: manufactured fuel such as shopping wood and create you know,
Speaker 1: creating more suitable types of fuel for your fire, but
Speaker 1: also specialized fuel. And this led to little sticks of
Speaker 1: wood for moving fire from one place to another and
Speaker 1: ultimately the origins of the sulfur match, in which a
Speaker 1: little uh, a little piece of wood is then dipped
Speaker 1: into sulfur to create a piece of a fuel that
Speaker 1: lights up very readily, allows you to transfer fire from
Speaker 1: one place to another. Right now. One of the things
Speaker 1: we talked about in the last episode and we needed
Speaker 1: to make is a very clear distinction, was that the
Speaker 1: sulfur match that was very invented in ancient China may
Speaker 1: also have existed in ancient Rome. According to a few
Speaker 1: references um there uh that this was a chemical match
Speaker 1: and that was used to quickly catch fire. But it
Speaker 1: was not a friction match. It was not a match
Speaker 1: that you would be able to light by striking it
Speaker 1: across the surface. Right. If you were to travel back
Speaker 1: in time, uh, you know into two uh to to
Speaker 1: China at the time, request to match and an attempt
Speaker 1: to strike it, you would just be a match destroyer.
Speaker 1: And people would we wondered, what you're trying to do?
Speaker 1: Why are you rubbing? Uh? This the special what was
Speaker 1: the term for it? Um the light bringing slaves? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Why are you taking our light bringing slaves and just
Speaker 1: destroying them against a brick wall? Uh? Yeah. But they
Speaker 1: would still be quite useful even though they could only
Speaker 1: be ignited by existing heat or flame, because they'd be
Speaker 1: useful for say, transferring fire from one place to another.
Speaker 1: You want to take fire, say out of a pot
Speaker 1: and light a candle or something. Right, Yeah, and one
Speaker 1: of the I think the big take comes. Certainly, go
Speaker 1: back and listen to that episode of view you haven't,
Speaker 1: but I think one of the big take comes, uh.
Speaker 1: And one of the biggest discoveries for me was just
Speaker 1: thinking about fire as a process, as a thing that happens,
Speaker 1: and then all these fire technologies are ways of managing uh,
Speaker 1: that process to transform an event into like a tangible substance.
Speaker 1: You know. A lot of times that means sort of
Speaker 1: putting the fire in a kind of suspended animation, like
Speaker 1: reducing the fire as much as possible without actually extinguishing
Speaker 1: it to make it manageable. And this was also something
Speaker 1: we talked about as an ancient technology that existed probably
Speaker 1: even before humans had the ability to make their own fires. Uh,
Speaker 1: they had various methods they'd come up with to carry
Speaker 1: fire around without it going out. So, for example, we
Speaker 1: talked about the possessions of Otsy the Iceman, who was
Speaker 1: found in the Italian Alps in ninety one, this neolithic
Speaker 1: mummy who was frozen there in the glacier, and one
Speaker 1: of the things he had on him was a little
Speaker 1: container made out of birch bark, that appeared to be
Speaker 1: for carrying coals around, So you could take a coal
Speaker 1: out of one fire, put it in this little container
Speaker 1: rapid in leaves, and you'd have a coal that would
Speaker 1: continue to burn for hours in case you need to
Speaker 1: make camp really quickly. You know, one thing I kept
Speaker 1: thinking about when we were talking about it in the
Speaker 1: last episode is Disney Christmas Carol, in which Cratchett played
Speaker 1: by Mickey Mouse, brings home a hot coal from Ebenezer
Speaker 1: scroogees uh stove to to light his own stove at home. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I even remember this. I believe
Speaker 1: if that is the case, unless I'm misremembering, there is
Speaker 1: any um if it wasn't that it's some other version
Speaker 1: of a Christmas Carol that I've seen and it wasn't
Speaker 1: doubting that I'm saying, I'm not aware. It's also possible
Speaker 1: that it wasn't Cratchett bringing home the code, but perhaps
Speaker 1: Scrooge bringing home a hot coal from his office place
Speaker 1: to ignite some small fire at his home. He is
Speaker 1: all about efficiency. Yeah, but but you know, it makes
Speaker 1: a lot more sense now that one really gets down
Speaker 1: and considers the pain of having to start a fire.
Speaker 1: You know, it makes sense to bring that hot coal
Speaker 1: home if you have the ability to transfer transfer it. Now,
Speaker 1: in this episode we are going to be getting into
Speaker 1: the origins of the actual friction match. But I started
Speaker 1: to wonder. Okay, so we know based on the last
Speaker 1: episode that there were several things that were called a
Speaker 1: match before the friction match existed. So where does this
Speaker 1: term match come from? Yeah, we mentioned Mandarin terminology, we
Speaker 1: mentioned a little Latin. But as James Whisney I points
Speaker 1: out in his match is the Manufacturer of Fire from
Speaker 1: two thousand five published in the Indian Journal of Chemical Technology,
Speaker 1: the word match seems to come from the French uh
Speaker 1: meche I think, and this would be a wick as
Speaker 1: in a lamp, and it likely refers back to the
Speaker 1: Latin uh um might mix us. I believe it is
Speaker 1: a mix of mixa, which would be the wick of
Speaker 1: a lamp. But the key technology that led to the
Speaker 1: naming of the match dicks see, it seems was what
Speaker 1: is known as the slow match. Now, this is something
Speaker 1: that's probably gonna be confusing yet again because this has
Speaker 1: some things in common with matches of today. In the
Speaker 1: matches we've been talking about other things very not in common. Right,
Speaker 1: The slow match was essentially a slow burning cord or
Speaker 1: twine uh fuse that early musketeers and soldiers used to
Speaker 1: ignite early firearms and cannons. To put it in pirate
Speaker 1: terms for everybody, because this may ring a bell legendary
Speaker 1: pirate to Edward Blackbeard Teach who lives sixteen eight through
Speaker 1: seventeen eighteen, is said to have twisted slow matches under
Speaker 1: his hat, like in his hair um, and then they'd
Speaker 1: be lit on both sides to frighten his enemies slash victims.
Speaker 1: So when you hear the phrase slow match, you need
Speaker 1: to think fuse. It is it is like a rope
Speaker 1: like object that has been made to burn slowly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And but that's the other thing. When you think fuse,
Speaker 1: don't think a firecracker fuse like you you have probably
Speaker 1: some experience with today, or like a cartoon fuse, you know,
Speaker 1: where it's just zipping around really quickly and there's just
Speaker 1: a fast um transfer of that spark to the explosive. No,
Speaker 1: this would be a slow, smoldering string twine cord type object. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, generally you're talking about some rope or cord
Speaker 1: soaked in potassium nitrate, which is a key constituent of gunpowder,
Speaker 1: and then it would be dried, you'd light it, you'd
Speaker 1: you'd blow out the flame, but then a red ember
Speaker 1: would continue to burn and work its way down the cord.
Speaker 1: So really, if you if you think of a fuse
Speaker 1: like a firecracker refuse with all the sparking, and you
Speaker 1: think about it going really slowly, that's essentially what's happening.
Speaker 1: Very similar thing actually to the carrying of the coal
Speaker 1: in the in the birch bark container. It's something to
Speaker 1: keep a low fire smoldering for a long period of
Speaker 1: time that can be used to reignite something else quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: basically getting that fire into a state of suspended animation
Speaker 1: where it's there when you need it. But it's also
Speaker 1: you're not just like carrying around a big flaming torch,
Speaker 1: especially if you're having to deal with gunpowder. Though, as
Speaker 1: we'll discuss in a minute, it didn't come without dangers. Yes,
Speaker 1: So another place some of you might have seen this
Speaker 1: is you would you would typically find the slow match
Speaker 1: physically attached to a weapon such as a musket or
Speaker 1: clipped to the matchlock mechanism of a matchlock weapon. Yes.
Speaker 1: For a really great recent media example, if you've seen
Speaker 1: the horror movie The Witch, directed by Robert Egger's, Uh,
Speaker 1: there is a scene in the movie where actually, throughout
Speaker 1: the movie, um, the characters carry around a musket and
Speaker 1: it is a matchlock musket. There's a scene where the
Speaker 1: father played by Ralph Ineson is trying to hunt He's
Speaker 1: trying to shoot a rabbit. Uh, And you can see
Speaker 1: it has this long tail of cord sticking out of it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they carry it with the cords sort of wrapped
Speaker 1: around what looks like a cleat of some kind on
Speaker 1: the stock. And in the scene where he tries to
Speaker 1: hunt a rabbit, you can watch him going through these
Speaker 1: kind of tedious, dangerous, laborious steps of like pouring out
Speaker 1: the powder, packing it, getting the slow match lit and
Speaker 1: then blowing on it to make it smolder, and then
Speaker 1: clipping it into the hook. Like it looks like it
Speaker 1: would be a very difficult weapon to use, and in
Speaker 1: one sense it is like, but you might wonder, watching
Speaker 1: all of this laborious stuff, why was the matchlock musket
Speaker 1: actually an invention? What would this be an improvement over? Uh?
Speaker 1: So I was reading about this, and apparently previously gunpowder
Speaker 1: based weapons would usually have to be lit by hand.
Speaker 1: So try to imagine that, like in the moment, the
Speaker 1: gunner would have to carefully set fire to the priming powder,
Speaker 1: which was in a small receptacle called the flash pan,
Speaker 1: and they would have to do that by hand, and
Speaker 1: then of course the ignition of the powder and the
Speaker 1: flash pan would in turn set off the main charge
Speaker 1: inside the barrel and then propel the ball out towards
Speaker 1: the target. But just imagine trying to do this aim
Speaker 1: a weapon at a target while you're trying to carefully
Speaker 1: light the flash pan by hand. I mean, it's it
Speaker 1: seems borderline impossible. And generally weapons before this period were
Speaker 1: not handheld. You'd be talking about cannons, you know, mounted
Speaker 1: artillery and stuff, but the musket was something that you
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to hold in your hands and aim.
Speaker 1: And the match lock provided a huge advantage here by
Speaker 1: freeing the musket carrier's hands to hold and aim the weapon.
Speaker 1: So here, after you pack the weapon, so you you
Speaker 1: put the powder for the main charge down the barrel,
Speaker 1: you'd pack the ball in you you'd smash it down
Speaker 1: with the stick and then what you would do is
Speaker 1: s the end of the slow match this fuse like cord.
Speaker 1: You'd set the end of that burning, you'd blow on it,
Speaker 1: get it smoldering, and then you'd clip the burning end
Speaker 1: of the slow match into a little metal arm called
Speaker 1: a serpentine, and then you put the powder in the
Speaker 1: flash pan. And after you've done all that, you could
Speaker 1: aim the weapon and pull the trigger. And what would
Speaker 1: happen when you pull the trigger is that the metal
Speaker 1: serpentine would automatically lower the smoldering slow match down into
Speaker 1: the flash pan to ignite the charge. And this was
Speaker 1: a big improvement over the hand lighting of the powder.
Speaker 1: But as you can probably tell from the description, it's
Speaker 1: still going to be very slow firing, laborious. It could
Speaker 1: still be dangerous because you'd probably be like trying to
Speaker 1: manage a burning slow match as you're like pouring powder
Speaker 1: into various parts of the gun. Uh So there are
Speaker 1: several drawbacks of course to the matchlock must get Number one,
Speaker 1: you would have some kind of giveaways to the enemy,
Speaker 1: right Like, so you're trying to line up to shoot
Speaker 1: at night, and you'd be having to light these fires
Speaker 1: and have the slow match burning. You would be able
Speaker 1: to smell it. Uh, and then of course there's the
Speaker 1: danger of the smoldering thing next to all this powder
Speaker 1: you're juggling around. This makes me wonder, you know, all
Speaker 1: these various first person shooter video games, they often devote
Speaker 1: a great deal of detail to how guns are loaded
Speaker 1: and reloaded and and then brought back into position for firing.
Speaker 1: But it happens really fast. I wonder if if there
Speaker 1: is a game out there that gives even like a
Speaker 1: halfway accurate depiction of the use of a matchlock weapon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a fifteenth century first person shooter where it takes,
Speaker 1: you know, at least thirty seconds to load every shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be that'd be an interesting call of duty
Speaker 1: game right there. Well, I think maybe it actually could
Speaker 1: be that kind of the stakes, and I think it
Speaker 1: would be It would be interesting. Yeah. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: at least one or two archaic weapons in the Fallout games,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's all on auto reload. You just push.
Speaker 1: Reloading just takes a while. It would be interesting if
Speaker 1: there was a game where you you actually had to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, do this maneuver with one joystick and another
Speaker 1: with the other joystick and whereas it was so that
Speaker 1: actually reloading this weapon required uh more of a you know,
Speaker 1: a cognitive responsibility on the part of the player, and
Speaker 1: if you screw up while you're reloading, it literally explodes
Speaker 1: in your face and kills you. And then but so
Speaker 1: there's a funny thing here where the progression of the
Speaker 1: firing mechanism in in gun technology actually goes kind of
Speaker 1: opposite of what we've been talking about in the progress
Speaker 1: of firelighting and matches, because you go in history from
Speaker 1: the matchlock musket to the flint lock musket, and the
Speaker 1: flint lock was said to be an improvement because you
Speaker 1: didn't have to have a fire lit there. Instead, you
Speaker 1: just have the powder in your flash pan and it
Speaker 1: would be ignited by the striking of the flint that
Speaker 1: happens when you release the hammer. Interesting. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: that has its own problems. With the flint lock, I
Speaker 1: think there was a greater chance of the weapon misfiring, right,
Speaker 1: maybe you don't get a good spark or something. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting content x for the idea
Speaker 1: of the match. You know, when you think about the
Speaker 1: way it works with the weapon, is it's there to
Speaker 1: be a fire that's ready whenever you need it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is really, I mean, this is key to
Speaker 1: so many technologies, right, I mean again coming back to
Speaker 1: even the the hot water heater in in in the household.
Speaker 1: You know, it's how do you make sure the fire
Speaker 1: is there when you need it, but in a safe way,
Speaker 1: in a way that is not going to endanger everybody.
Speaker 1: So as far as matches and the match lock and
Speaker 1: the slow match, basically, Whisneak writes that the match was just,
Speaker 1: you know, basically with with more of a modern match.
Speaker 1: It's just a way of having a fire ready for
Speaker 1: you when you need it. And so it's you know,
Speaker 1: quite reasonable transfer of names here to talk about the
Speaker 1: wooden match with the legacy of the slow match. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's great because ultimately, what we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to with the friction matches that you don't need to
Speaker 1: have a fire burning at all, and yet it's still
Speaker 1: ready the moment you need it, right, and it's it's
Speaker 1: certainly gonna be a little bit more like the the
Speaker 1: the flint lock scenario that we're just talking about. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we discussed in the last episode how humans have spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time poking around in the fire and
Speaker 1: using fire among other means to understand the nature of
Speaker 1: various substances. And that's eventually essentially how we got to
Speaker 1: the notion of using sulfur or potassium nitrate. Even right
Speaker 1: there are these substances, we figured out how to in
Speaker 1: some cases you know, refine them. And then what happens
Speaker 1: when we had fire to them, Well, they spark or
Speaker 1: they explode or they they they catch fire more readily
Speaker 1: than other substances, and that they can ultimately, like sulfur
Speaker 1: can if coding the end of a little stick can
Speaker 1: make that stick a better fuel to use for transferring
Speaker 1: flame from one point to another. Now, the flame bringing
Speaker 1: power of sulfur as we know goes back way into
Speaker 1: the ancient world that was known about by you know,
Speaker 1: the ancient Chinese, by the ancient Romans. But there are
Speaker 1: going to be new chemicals coming online that may serve
Speaker 1: this job even better. Yes, humans began to under uncover
Speaker 1: new substances such as is even new elements such as phosphorus,
Speaker 1: which in the seventeenth century became the first new element
Speaker 1: not known since ancient times. And some arguments have been
Speaker 1: made for other chemists othern you know, discoveries haven't been
Speaker 1: having taken place earlier or around the same time, but
Speaker 1: credit is typically given to the German alchemist hinting Brand
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty nine. Now, a quick note on alchemy,
Speaker 1: which is a rich topic unto itself, but we're largely
Speaker 1: dealing with a proto scientific mixture of chemical research and
Speaker 1: occult magic, the continuation of mystery traditions, etcetera. I love
Speaker 1: the period of alchemy. It's so culturally and historically interesting,
Speaker 1: especially when you're thinking about the history of science, because
Speaker 1: it is a time when in some cases, real knowledge
Speaker 1: is advancing right alongside what people believed were equivalent advances
Speaker 1: in knowledge about like demonology and how to you know,
Speaker 1: how to do spells, at the same time that people
Speaker 1: really are learning things about, say, uh, chemistry and the
Speaker 1: curing of certain diseases. Yeah. Like, for instance, in Bronze case,
Speaker 1: he was seeking the legendary Philosopher's Stone. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a substance of that was said to have miraculous powers.
Speaker 1: It was capable of transforming metals into u into other metals.
Speaker 1: You know, this is that lead into gold, uh scenario,
Speaker 1: but it could also provide immortality. That's why it factors
Speaker 1: into a Harry Potter novel, for instance. But Broun sought
Speaker 1: it in urine, in urine, distilling it down to a
Speaker 1: white material that glowed in the dark. And this was phosphorus.
Speaker 1: Mirabulous or miraculous bearer of light. Who would have known
Speaker 1: that PP was so illuminating? Indeed, it was all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we will return to the mysteries of the urine, and
Speaker 1: we will talk about phosphorus. Alright, we're back. So as
Speaker 1: one might expect, given its alchemical origins, UH, phosphorus was
Speaker 1: a secret. At first, it was traded and it was sold,
Speaker 1: but it eventually it became known beyond these chambers of secret. Uh.
Speaker 1: Its most impressive attribute is that it instantly combusts in air,
Speaker 1: making it a nasty element in many ways. And and
Speaker 1: we see we see this today with the use of
Speaker 1: a white phosphorus munitions, which popped up in the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: and then they are still used today by some militaries,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that this and other incendiary weapons have
Speaker 1: been banned by multiple international laws. UM white phosphorus munitions
Speaker 1: can produce additional like terrible burns via burning particles as
Speaker 1: well as harmful vapors. Yeah, I was reading an article
Speaker 1: about this in Reuters from two thousand nine because I
Speaker 1: tried to sort this out before. It's sort of complicated
Speaker 1: and confusing because phosphorus based incendiaries have both legal and
Speaker 1: illegal uses in war these days. Um, and that can
Speaker 1: lead to, you know, arguments about specific uses. So white
Speaker 1: phosphorus today, as it would be used as a munition,
Speaker 1: is this colorless or sometimes kind of yellow waxy substance
Speaker 1: I've read this. Router's article mentioned that it sometimes smells
Speaker 1: like garlic. I did not know that, but that it
Speaker 1: ignites in the air very easily at temperatures of something
Speaker 1: like thirty degrees celsius or about eighty six degrees fahrenheit,
Speaker 1: and it can be very hard to put out once
Speaker 1: it's ignited. Um. But apparently common uses of white phosphorus,
Speaker 1: in addition to you know, just being a direct incendiary weapon,
Speaker 1: are in like tracer ammunition, so to help you know
Speaker 1: see where where the line of fire is going. Right,
Speaker 1: If anyone's ever watched any of those old like World
Speaker 1: War two, World War two cockpit footage of of of
Speaker 1: of machine gun fire. You know, you're seeing the tracers
Speaker 1: the lights that mark which direction of the bullets are going.
Speaker 1: Another common use for it apparently is in marking targets, so,
Speaker 1: which would mean, you know, so you need some kind
Speaker 1: of target flare, so you're trying to aim artillery or
Speaker 1: something like that, you can mark the target on the
Speaker 1: ground that you're trying to hit with white phosphorus apparently. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then finally to create smoke screens, which would be
Speaker 1: useful in hiding the maneuver of friendly troops. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: basically comes down to how are you using it or
Speaker 1: using it to illuminate or using it to obscure, or
Speaker 1: are you using it in a way that is either
Speaker 1: intentionally or or or nearly intentionally uh, incendiary against human
Speaker 1: beings or or human infrastructure, using it to burn people
Speaker 1: in buildings. Right, that does seem to be the main difference.
Speaker 1: So the uses I mentioned have been more generally permitted,
Speaker 1: but it is against international law to use white phosphorus
Speaker 1: as an incendiary weapon, especially against civilians or in areas
Speaker 1: where civilians are clustered. And this us I think leads
Speaker 1: to disputes because they're like these controversial uses where the
Speaker 1: forces who used it said well, we were using it
Speaker 1: for one of these permitted reasons, and then their critics say, no,
Speaker 1: you were using it as an incendiary weapon. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember. I grew up in a house so where
Speaker 1: we know, we talked a lot about military technology, and
Speaker 1: and my my dad always he always stressed the just
Speaker 1: horrible nous of incendiary weapons, such as the flamethrower, which
Speaker 1: on a video game can look pretty cool until you
Speaker 1: think about what a flamethrower actually is and what a
Speaker 1: horrible weapon it is. Uh. And likewise, phosphorus, I remember
Speaker 1: him telling me that, like you've if you would have,
Speaker 1: if you would have particles of phosphorus, like in your skin,
Speaker 1: they would have to immerse your your like your arm
Speaker 1: in water then to remove it. Uh, thus you know,
Speaker 1: degating the flare ability of it when it's exposed to
Speaker 1: oxygen or free atmospheric oxygen. Yeah, that that goes everything
Speaker 1: I've read about phosphorus as a direct weapon is just
Speaker 1: a toe total nightmare. But all this would come later.
Speaker 1: We're fast forwarding a little bit with the phosphorus weapons,
Speaker 1: because at first phosphorus, you know, when it first crept
Speaker 1: out of the alchemist workshop, it was one of these
Speaker 1: substances that clearly had a lot of potential and you
Speaker 1: didn't have to be a war pig to see it,
Speaker 1: because no, no, surely this is an element that would
Speaker 1: enable one to produce instant fire, because that's what it does.
Speaker 1: It can busts in the air itself. Yeah, what a
Speaker 1: like eighty something degrease fahrenheit. I mean that that's that's unusual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like even in uh you know, I mean, because we're
Speaker 1: talking about even like in a cold environment with minimal friction,
Speaker 1: you would be able to reach that point. However, it
Speaker 1: would take a good a hundred and fifty years after
Speaker 1: its discovery for us to see really the beginnings of
Speaker 1: of actual technology that utilized it. And this would be
Speaker 1: um the pyro phosphorus fire carrier that came around. This
Speaker 1: Whisney I explains, was quote a sealed glass or ampool
Speaker 1: containing a finely divided pyro four powder free of phosphorus,
Speaker 1: which ignited spontaneously when the tube was broken and the
Speaker 1: contents scattered. And he adds that pyrophoric powers are chemicals
Speaker 1: in finely powdered and reactive state which catch fire on
Speaker 1: exposure to air. So yeah, so you'd have a sealed
Speaker 1: capsule that you would rupture in order to either combine
Speaker 1: things or just expose something to the air and instantly
Speaker 1: create a flame. Which I don't know that that version
Speaker 1: of the of the instant strike alite sounds a little
Speaker 1: scarier than the normal match. Yeah. I was reaching about
Speaker 1: a few who uh, really terrifying versions of this technology
Speaker 1: that rolled out early on. So one was Wilhelm Homberg
Speaker 1: created a mixture that could be sprinkled under dry cotton,
Speaker 1: which would cause it to catch fire. Okay. Then Robert
Speaker 1: Hare who eight had a version that again entailed a
Speaker 1: sealed glass tube. But another, I think the scariest one
Speaker 1: is known as Rosling's pyrophorus. And I couldn't find any
Speaker 1: information on who Rosling is in this scenario, like what
Speaker 1: their first name was, etcetera. But the description I ran
Speaker 1: across is that it was the powder was packed on
Speaker 1: top of tobacco in a pipe and you ignited it
Speaker 1: by sucking air through it. I think rose Ling was
Speaker 1: the uncle of molok. Yeah. Now, another one that comes
Speaker 1: up is the phosphoric taper or the ethereal match, and
Speaker 1: this was a sealed glass tube with wax paper and
Speaker 1: phosphorus inside it, you'd break the tube, according to Whisney
Speaker 1: at quote with the aid of the teeth or otherwise,
Speaker 1: I've ready and withdrawal the phosphorus impregnated taper into the air. Um.
Speaker 1: These were indeed not only were these dangerous, but they
Speaker 1: were also pricey. So there so ultimately you have a
Speaker 1: technology there's just not practical for everyday use for for
Speaker 1: for two huge reasons. It costs too much and you
Speaker 1: might blow your face off. Yeah. I think I've read
Speaker 1: about at least a couple of matches along these lines
Speaker 1: that were like kind of glass container that you were
Speaker 1: the most people would rupture with their teeth and that
Speaker 1: would start the fire. Yeah. Yeah, that even without things
Speaker 1: blowing up, you're breaking the glass cylinder with your teeth,
Speaker 1: which just that alone gives me the all over us. Now.
Speaker 1: There were some other advancements made in fire creation technology
Speaker 1: that are worth at least touching on. One came from
Speaker 1: Johann Wolfgang Doberiner, who lives seventeen through eighteen forty nine UM,
Speaker 1: and he was a German chemist who in eighteen three
Speaker 1: created what some dubbed the first lighter, the Doberinos lamp,
Speaker 1: which It's also known as a like a hydrogen lighter.
Speaker 1: Hydrogen produced from Z passes through a jet with sulfuric
Speaker 1: acid over spongy platinum on a platinum wire. The gas ignights,
Speaker 1: producing a flame. So the sponge here catalyzes a reaction
Speaker 1: with oxygen heats the catalyst, igniting the hydrogen. Uh. This,
Speaker 1: I've seen pictures of it. It It does. It looks kind
Speaker 1: of like a I mean, it looks like a lamp.
Speaker 1: If you were just solid setting on a shelf in
Speaker 1: an antique story, might think it looks kind of neat,
Speaker 1: but it might not realize like what it is. But
Speaker 1: these apparently had a good hundred year run as being
Speaker 1: a good way of producing flame. Yeah. If I were
Speaker 1: just looking at this, I would not guess it was
Speaker 1: something that produced flame. I would guess that it was
Speaker 1: a lamp of some kind, something that carried for Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just at first glance, it just looks like a lamp.
Speaker 1: Another fire technology innovation at the time worth mentioning is
Speaker 1: the pneumatic tinder box, also known as a light syringe
Speaker 1: or a fire piston. Now, it depended on the rapid
Speaker 1: stroke of a piston to generate heat to ignite tinder
Speaker 1: and interestling enough, this is one of these inventions that
Speaker 1: that emerged in Europe around that time, but essentially was
Speaker 1: a much older Southeast Asian invention, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: to say that the technique certainly shows up their first
Speaker 1: hundreds of years earlier, but it's unclear if into what
Speaker 1: extent this directly influenced European fire pistons or it's just
Speaker 1: you know, much later, Uh, Europeans got around to it
Speaker 1: through other technological roundabouts. You know. One thing I'm really
Speaker 1: picking up on from these past couple of episodes is
Speaker 1: the general impression that fire creation technology gets around fast. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it basically comes down to the fact that
Speaker 1: any human culture is going to need it, like it
Speaker 1: is such an important part of of of the human experience,
Speaker 1: Like you need to be able to create fire. And
Speaker 1: so if it's a new kind of match like that
Speaker 1: that's going to spread, if it's a new element, You're
Speaker 1: only gonna be able to keep that a secret for
Speaker 1: so long because the potential there is just too high. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we've talked about chemicals, elements, friction. I think you
Speaker 1: can see where this is going. Maybe we need to
Speaker 1: take a break and then we come back, we can
Speaker 1: talk about the invention of the friction match. All all right,
Speaker 1: we're back, We're finally here. We were reaching the point
Speaker 1: where something more or less like the modern match is possible. Right,
Speaker 1: So the invention of the friction match, the match that
Speaker 1: you like by striking it across the surface, is often
Speaker 1: credited to a single individual, a British chemist named John Walker,
Speaker 1: who lived in the nineteenth century in a town called
Speaker 1: Stockton on Tees, which is in County Durham up in
Speaker 1: northern England. Now I've come across a few sort of
Speaker 1: conflicting claims of primacy, though most sources site Walker. But
Speaker 1: for example, there is a nineteen twenty two Dictionary of
Speaker 1: Applied Chemistry written by the prolific British chemists Sir Thomas
Speaker 1: Edward Thorpe, and it claims quote in eighteen sixteen, friction
Speaker 1: matches tipped with a composition containing phosphorus are stated to
Speaker 1: have been manufactured in Paris by a friend. Sois de Rone,
Speaker 1: who by Gentle and others, is regarded as the first
Speaker 1: maker of the phosphorus friction match. But I'm sure exactly
Speaker 1: what to do with claims like this, because pretty much
Speaker 1: all modern sources I can find give the credit to Walker. Uh,
Speaker 1: the Walker wouldn't create his invention until later in the
Speaker 1: eighteen twenties, So this proceeds Walker by at least ten years.
Speaker 1: And Thorpe himself does claim that Walker invented the first
Speaker 1: quote practical and useful matches ignitable by friction. Uh, So
Speaker 1: I guess he's saying that maybe that, according to Thorpe,
Speaker 1: at least somebody else in France created a friction match earlier,
Speaker 1: but it was not practical and useful enough to count.
Speaker 1: And that kind of raises a general question, like when
Speaker 1: we give somebody credit for an invention, how impractical does
Speaker 1: a version of an invention need to be before it
Speaker 1: doesn't count at all? Right? Right? Yeah, And we we
Speaker 1: discussed this a little bit, and we discussed this time
Speaker 1: and time again on the show. Really, but it came
Speaker 1: up when we were discussing cocktails with with Jeff Beach
Speaker 1: von Berry, Like, if it's one thing to be able
Speaker 1: to make the cocktail in your home kitchen, another to
Speaker 1: be able to serve it. It's one thing to be
Speaker 1: able to create something like a match in your workshop,
Speaker 1: but to produce it on scale to be able to
Speaker 1: actually uh get it out. There is a dependable way
Speaker 1: of sparking a flame. Yeah, and Thorpe doesn't really go
Speaker 1: into more details. So I don't know what exactly was
Speaker 1: so impracticable about Francois Drone's friction match, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like it it didn't work very well, or at least
Speaker 1: according to Thorpe's diagnosis here. Um so, so here we're
Speaker 1: left with John Walker. He's the one who almost always
Speaker 1: gets the credit. He was born in seventy one. I
Speaker 1: was reading a blog post about him by Andrew Haynes
Speaker 1: for The Pharmaceutical Journal, and it described Walker's father as
Speaker 1: a grocer, a draper, and a druggist, just a lot
Speaker 1: of jobs. John was the third son in the family
Speaker 1: and originally he was on the road to become a surgeon,
Speaker 1: which was of course a very exciting road to occupy
Speaker 1: at this time and place. You know, think late eighteenth
Speaker 1: century in northern England. He's probably pretty close to the
Speaker 1: medical colleges of Scotland. Uh see our episodes about the
Speaker 1: Casket from last October if you want more wonderful medical
Speaker 1: mischief of that time and place. But so he served
Speaker 1: an apprenticeship with the town's head surgeon, and he was
Speaker 1: eventually appointed an assistant surgeon in the town. But John
Speaker 1: Walker had a bit of a problem with this career path.
Speaker 1: He was reportedly quite squeamish and he could not stomach
Speaker 1: the sight of blood and all those gaping holes in
Speaker 1: human bodies, and ultimately this led him to quit his
Speaker 1: career path and say, I just can't do surgery. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's understandable. That would have been a tough hurdle to
Speaker 1: get over, especially at that time. Yeah, So he reversed course.
Speaker 1: He left surgery behind and he went back to study
Speaker 1: pharmacy in Durham and in York. And after he completed
Speaker 1: his education in pharmacy, he moved back home and in
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen he opened his own whatever you would want
Speaker 1: to call it for this period, an apothecary, a pharmacy shop, uh,
Speaker 1: that kind of business in Stockton on Tees, his hometown.
Speaker 1: So friction matches are another one of these inventions that
Speaker 1: is at least alleged to have been partially discovered by accident.
Speaker 1: So how did this work? Well, John Walker already had
Speaker 1: an interest in fire production and in practical chemistry and
Speaker 1: sometime in the eighteen twenties, he started creating and selling
Speaker 1: a mixture of potassium chlorate and antimony sulfide bound together
Speaker 1: with gum arabic and he called this flammable product percussion powder.
Speaker 1: So he's already making a flammable mixture the on a
Speaker 1: regular basis and selling it in his Druggist shop. But
Speaker 1: one day in eighteen six, John Walker was preparing a
Speaker 1: mixture of the percussion powder, and while mixing the chemicals together,
Speaker 1: he used a little wooden stick to stir them, which
Speaker 1: of course became coated at one end in this lighting fluid.
Speaker 1: And the story goes that he happened to scrape this
Speaker 1: stick across the rough stone of his hearth, and then
Speaker 1: the chemical coded part burst into flames. Now, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of accidental discovery that could if situations were
Speaker 1: just right or just wrong enough, perhaps it could well
Speaker 1: be the last discovery you make. It could be a
Speaker 1: really um, a really final Eureka movement. Uh yeah, you say,
Speaker 1: if it was too close to the rest of his powder,
Speaker 1: he had a big mass of it there or something.
Speaker 1: But a Walker immediately knew that he had an important
Speaker 1: new product on hand, one that could easily produce fire
Speaker 1: from no original fire with little effort, and it was
Speaker 1: very portable to boot. So on April seven, seven we
Speaker 1: know from his diaries that was the day he began
Speaker 1: selling these early strike matches in his pharmacy under the
Speaker 1: name friction Lights. Now, the ones he sold were made
Speaker 1: by hand out of first cardboard and later little wooden splints.
Speaker 1: I read that he apparently hired people from the town
Speaker 1: to just sit around cutting up tiny little wooden splints
Speaker 1: for him, and then he would coat the ends of
Speaker 1: them in potassium chloride antimony sulfide bound together with gum arabic.
Speaker 1: And he sold the friction lights with a piece of
Speaker 1: glass paper or sand paper, and the instructions were to
Speaker 1: fold the sand paper over the head of the match
Speaker 1: and then pull the stick out sharply. Now the sand
Speaker 1: paper in this case did not have any special chemical
Speaker 1: properties of its own. It was just regular sandpaper. It
Speaker 1: was just there to be a very rough surface to
Speaker 1: provide the heat from the friction when striking, because there's
Speaker 1: not necessarily going to be a brick on hand to
Speaker 1: strike it off right, and the friction would ignite the
Speaker 1: dried paste and then you would have your flame. But
Speaker 1: Walker did not acquire a patent on his process, and
Speaker 1: this turned out the worse for him. Within just a
Speaker 1: few years, other producers and you know, almost immediately just
Speaker 1: swooped in began selling copycats. Some of the best known
Speaker 1: friction like copycats were produced by A Samuel Jones of London,
Speaker 1: and these friction matches were known at the time as Lucifers.
Speaker 1: Apparently they had more not just the antimony sulfide, but
Speaker 1: they had a more direct sulfur content. They might have
Speaker 1: just been sulfur, and the name Lucifer has something to
Speaker 1: do with that. The fact that they were sulfur dipped
Speaker 1: is from the sulfur aus smell that would be released
Speaker 1: when you ignited it, so it would it would smell
Speaker 1: like the fires of hell when you're like one of
Speaker 1: these matches, the Brimstone Tenders uh. And then there were
Speaker 1: other copycats also who were soon on the market. Thorpe
Speaker 1: mentioned sulfur dipped competitors sold in London by Jones competitors
Speaker 1: Geff Watts uh and by Richard Bell and Company, which
Speaker 1: sold theirs as improved Lucifer's. Improved Lucifer's that sounds like
Speaker 1: a Redemption arc for the for the Fallen Angel. Yeah uh,
Speaker 1: And apparently John Walker himself was not a fan of
Speaker 1: the name Lucifer's Matches. He didn't like it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that was if that was him being precious
Speaker 1: about his invention, or if he was a pious man
Speaker 1: or what interesting, but for some reason he wasn't into
Speaker 1: that it. Also, it is kind of a clunky name, right.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to say, hey, do you have a light?
Speaker 1: Do you have a match? Excuse me? So, do you
Speaker 1: have any Lucifers on your person? I mean, that's why
Speaker 1: go with three syllables when you when all you need
Speaker 1: is one. Just call them Devil's devil would work? Or
Speaker 1: you again, just a light? A match like the Summit
Speaker 1: rolls off the tongue a lot easier. Hast thou a
Speaker 1: prince of darkness in my pocket? Do you have a
Speaker 1: spare belzebub to spare with me? A mephistuff LEAs perhaps? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, once you get to do a bunch of
Speaker 1: clunky devil names, easier just to go back to the light.
Speaker 1: So I've got a really funny but wait, well that
Speaker 1: does remind me that, of course, the other part of
Speaker 1: the name is Lucifer means bringer of light, of course
Speaker 1: it does. Yeah. So it is a great name. It's
Speaker 1: a double yeah. It is also a little clunkey. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh So there's a great addendum to this story just
Speaker 1: happened to come across. So in the English town of
Speaker 1: Stockton on Tees, this town in northern England that John
Speaker 1: Walker is from where the friction match was invented, there
Speaker 1: is a statue to honor John Walker. It was erected
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, which would have been the one
Speaker 1: hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the first year that he
Speaker 1: sold the matches. Remember that was eighty seven. But there's
Speaker 1: a twist I was reading about in uh in the
Speaker 1: Times of London. Apparently in nineteen ninety the Borough Council
Speaker 1: of Stockton on Tees found out that the town statue
Speaker 1: of John Walker was based on the likeness of the
Speaker 1: wrong John Walker. It had been made from an etching
Speaker 1: of a London actor named John Walker, who never invented anything,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, never even visited Stockton on Tees.
Speaker 1: And after they found this out, they kept it a
Speaker 1: secret until just a few years ago when they were
Speaker 1: a number. There were some newspaper articles that came out
Speaker 1: about it. It would be like, if you know, centuries
Speaker 1: from now, uh, someone decided to to to create a
Speaker 1: statue to honor the physicist Brian Cox, and but instead
Speaker 1: of the dashing scientist, they found h an image of
Speaker 1: the you know, perhaps less dashing but certainly charismatic act
Speaker 1: Brian Dare you how I mean? Dare you? Skill of
Speaker 1: the actor Brian cots Okay when his younger years, I
Speaker 1: imagine he was he was more dashing, but generally he
Speaker 1: is uh, I would say he is. He has more
Speaker 1: of a severe look to modern audiences, people who know
Speaker 1: him from like Man Hunter On. In fact, that may
Speaker 1: be the earliest film I can remember seeing with with
Speaker 1: with him in it. I really don't have any familiarity
Speaker 1: with the younger Brian Cox. He's got a small role
Speaker 1: in the early seventies film Nicholas and Alexandra about the
Speaker 1: last family of the Romanovs, in which he plays Trotsky.
Speaker 1: Is he recognizable. I don't know. It's been a long
Speaker 1: time since I saw the movie, but but he's in
Speaker 1: there all right. I just mainly associating with like a
Speaker 1: fearsome bear of a man um, you know, with a
Speaker 1: very very haggard look and voice, um, very different from
Speaker 1: the physicist. So did they back to this the statue
Speaker 1: though of John Walker? Did they fix it? Did they?
Speaker 1: Haven't read anything about fixing. I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're dealing I do not know the resolution of
Speaker 1: this story. I just know it was the wrong guy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it's when you're dealing with historical
Speaker 1: figures of of this caliber. I mean, what does it matter, right?
Speaker 1: I mean, at least we're remembering their name and their accomplishments,
Speaker 1: even if we essentially have an actor playing them in
Speaker 1: the statue. What if that statue of RoboCop in Detroit
Speaker 1: was based on the wrong RoboCop. Oh, No, that would
Speaker 1: be blasphemous. Yeah, like like the RoboCop three RoboCop was it? Wait?
Speaker 1: Was it a different actor in RoboCop three? I'm sure
Speaker 1: it was, yeah, Or the RoboCop the TV show RoboCop.
Speaker 1: It just would not be the same. Or the reboot RoboCop. Oh,
Speaker 1: that would be the worst. That reboot that was not good.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it. Well, Actually it was one of
Speaker 1: those movies I had complex thoughts about it. It felt
Speaker 1: like a movie that might have been a better movie
Speaker 1: in an earlier draft of the script, but the script
Speaker 1: had been rewritten to make it worse. That that was
Speaker 1: my intuition. Okay, that sounds about right. Um, back to
Speaker 1: two matches. Your talking about the use of the sand
Speaker 1: paper and folding it over. This brings back so many
Speaker 1: memories of of using matches as as a kid um
Speaker 1: and sort of getting comfortable with them. Because a match,
Speaker 1: especially if you're told to be careful with matches enough,
Speaker 1: it can be intimidating to strike one um, especially if
Speaker 1: you're using the little cardboard matches that are in the
Speaker 1: little cardboard folding apparatus. Uh you know those. You sometimes
Speaker 1: have to get your fingernails rather close, perhaps uncomfortably close
Speaker 1: to the tip of the match to do the strike,
Speaker 1: and then you have to sort of backtrack really quickly.
Speaker 1: Uh and it might get a little warm on the
Speaker 1: tips of your fingers and uh and and sometimes you're
Speaker 1: tempted to do the fold over method, which can result
Speaker 1: in just destroying a match because you might be pinching
Speaker 1: it to pull the head off. You'll pull the head off,
Speaker 1: or it's just there's there's kind of like a and
Speaker 1: then it's gone funny enough, I know the exact minute
Speaker 1: mechanical complaint you're talking about. Uh. And then likewise, and
Speaker 1: sometimes you'd have like the big box of matches, you know,
Speaker 1: like a proper fireplace box of matches, and you would
Speaker 1: use it so much that the strike plate would be
Speaker 1: the sand paper area would be worn down where you
Speaker 1: couldn't even effectively strike anything anymore. Um. And and then
Speaker 1: there were people would have various tricks too, right, I
Speaker 1: mean you'd see people who could do the finger the
Speaker 1: fingernail um striking of the match, or use it a
Speaker 1: belt buckle or a brick or something. I never had
Speaker 1: any luck with any extracurricular striking records. That's like pony
Speaker 1: Boy and Dally kind of stuff. Plus I'm thinking, like
Speaker 1: your fingernail, that always seemed a little dangerous, Like couldn't
Speaker 1: you risk getting a little um like match head up
Speaker 1: underneath your fingernail? That just doesn't sound pleasant. Real Greece
Speaker 1: is too tough to care about that probably, So still
Speaker 1: it beats biting through a glass cylinder right a one degree? Alright,
Speaker 1: So I think we're gonna have to call this episode there,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna be back for one more part of
Speaker 1: our exploration of matches next time, where we will explore
Speaker 1: more of the role of phosphorus and match manufacturing and
Speaker 1: the safety match. All right. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: want to check out other episodes of Invention, you can
Speaker 1: find us anywhere you get your podcasts. If you go
Speaker 1: to invention pod dot com, that'll shoot you over to
Speaker 1: the I heart page for the show. Wherever you get
Speaker 1: the show. All we ask is subscribe, rate review. These
Speaker 1: are all things you can do to help out the show. Also,
Speaker 1: just tell a friend spread the word like like a fire,
Speaker 1: spread from one match head to another. As a child
Speaker 1: plays through an entire box of matches in their backyard
Speaker 1: without their parents knowledge. I know we keep referencing this.
Speaker 1: By the way, if small children are listening, don't play
Speaker 1: with matches kids. I know it is fun, but you know,
Speaker 1: yes we were. We were reminiscing on playing with matches,
Speaker 1: but even at the time it felt very dangerous and
Speaker 1: I guess that's the thrill of it, right, But yes,
Speaker 1: don't play with matches. Um, they they fire, they catch fire.
Speaker 1: They can catch fire. With fire comes great responsibility. All right, huge,
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode, UH, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hi, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention
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