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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey Brainstuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam here. Student life at the Georgia Institute

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Speaker 1: of Technology in Atlanta, known familiarly as Georgia Tech, is

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Speaker 1: not for the delicate of heart or the weak of mind.

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Speaker 1: Tech as a serious school for serious students who take

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Speaker 1: classes like competatorics, Deformable Bodies, quantum information and quantum computing,

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Speaker 1: and multi variable calculus. That last one, according to the

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Speaker 1: school catalog, covers linear approximation and Taylor's theorems, lagrange, multiples

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Speaker 1: and constrained optimization, multiple integration, and vector analysis, including the

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Speaker 1: theorems of Green, Gauss and Stokes, which means a need

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Speaker 1: a class just to understand what that class is about.

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Speaker 1: But it's also in this place that the big hearted,

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Speaker 1: practical joker George P. Burdell lives and flourishes. At Georgia Tech,

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Speaker 1: where the nerd quotient is admittedly and proudly high and

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Speaker 1: the academic pressures absurdly fire. It's important to have an

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Speaker 1: alumnus like old George as a beacon. You see, George

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Speaker 1: has made it through Georgia Tech and then some. The

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Speaker 1: man is a practical legend. Around Georgia Tech. Check that

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Speaker 1: George P. Berdell is in fact a literal legend at

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Speaker 1: Georgia Tech, and that's where things get interesting. Let's take

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Speaker 1: a step back. For the past twenty five years, Maryland

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Speaker 1: Summers has been running the Living History program at Georgia Tech,

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Speaker 1: designed to collect, preserve, and present stories of the institution,

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Speaker 1: which opened its stores to students in Summers has supervised

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Speaker 1: for posterity more than one thousand, one hundred on camera

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Speaker 1: interviews with alumni and other people who have a connection

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Speaker 1: to the school. She said, I learned something new about

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Speaker 1: Georgia Tech with every single interview I do. I know

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Speaker 1: more about Georgia Tech than I do about myself and nobody.

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Speaker 1: But nobody knows more about George P. Berdell than Summers.

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Speaker 1: The naturally reclusive Burdell, Summers says, has several degrees from Tech.

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Speaker 1: According to his rest Amy, Summers has the diplomas to

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Speaker 1: prove it. Burdell's first, a Bachelor of Science in General Science,

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Speaker 1: was awarded in nineteen thirty. Since then, Burdell has never

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Speaker 1: strayed far from Tech. According to Summers, he was registered

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Speaker 1: for more than three thousand hours of classes in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty nine, and in nineteen seventy five was registered for

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Speaker 1: every class in the spring semester. He was named a

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Speaker 1: regent's professor in nineteen seventy one. Throughout the years, he's

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Speaker 1: been named host of countless balls and dances on campus.

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Speaker 1: He's evidently lettered in both football and basketball. There was

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Speaker 1: a time even recently when you couldn't find a petition

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Speaker 1: at Tech that didn't have George Peeberdell's name on it.

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Speaker 1: Outside of Tech, he was reportedly involved in several flight

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Speaker 1: missions in World War Two and in the Korean War,

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Speaker 1: Vietnam Operation Desert Storm, and in the conflicts in both

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Speaker 1: Iraq and Afghanistan. His name has appeared on the membership

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Speaker 1: roles of just about every church in synagogue in the

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Speaker 1: greater Atlanta metro area. He is such an outside legend

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Speaker 1: now at sometimes dead Series Tech that a story is

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Speaker 1: told to everyone who attends FACET, the orientation program for

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Speaker 1: first year's Exchange and Transfer students, and their families. He

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Speaker 1: has become at this point as much tradition as legend.

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Speaker 1: It's probably important to point out here that George P.

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Speaker 1: Berdell technically was never alive. He sprung into being, as

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Speaker 1: it were, through the whim of a real life student,

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Speaker 1: William Edgar ed Smith. In Smith had an extra application

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Speaker 1: for the school, known then as the George's School of Technology,

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Speaker 1: and proceeded to fill it out with the name of

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Speaker 1: his high school principal, a University of Georgia alum by

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Speaker 1: the name of George Phineas Butler. Smith wrote in the

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Speaker 1: newspaper The Atlanta Constitution on September eleven of ninety seven,

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Speaker 1: nothing could be more amusing than to register him as

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Speaker 1: a tech freshman. But I lost my nerve after writing

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Speaker 1: George P. And finished with Burdell. Burdell was the maiden

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Speaker 1: name of his best friend's mother and was also, it seems,

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Speaker 1: the name of the family cat. Smith's creation took all

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Speaker 1: the classes that Smith did, with Smith and his friends

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Speaker 1: who were in on the prank helping with homework and tests. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: Burdell earned his first degree when Smith graduated in nineteen thirty,

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Speaker 1: the same year that George P. Earned that initial degree.

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Speaker 1: Other students took up where Smith left off. George P.

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Speaker 1: Berdell became part of tech lore, and the legend lives

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Speaker 1: on Summers tells the story of a tech military alum

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Speaker 1: returning bone tired from duty overseas, who heard this welcome

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Speaker 1: at the airport once he got home. George P. Berdell,

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Speaker 1: Please contact the concierge. She has endless stories like that.

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Speaker 1: George P. Has been paged in airports and restaurants and

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Speaker 1: sporting venues all over the world. At Florida Citrus Bowl

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Speaker 1: in Orlando, as Tech was on its way to winning

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Speaker 1: a share of the nineteen ninety National Football Championship, George P.

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Speaker 1: Was being called over the public address system. Tech students

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Speaker 1: passed and present all know and share in his exploits.

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Speaker 1: When Time magazine conducted an online poll in two thousand

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Speaker 1: one first person of the Year, Burdell edged his way

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Speaker 1: toward the top of voting until someone at the magazine

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Speaker 1: got wind and shut down his candidacy. New York Mayor

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Speaker 1: rute Off Giuliani was instead honored that year. Back in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, a rumor circulated among Atlanta institutes of

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Speaker 1: higher education that Burdell was engaged and later married to

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Speaker 1: one Ramona Cartwright of nearby Agnes Scott College, and Summers

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Speaker 1: says the union never took place, not only because of

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Speaker 1: Burdell's oft engaged but never married reputation and other more

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Speaker 1: corporeal reasons. But because miss Cartwright never existed either, George's

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Speaker 1: name still finds its way onto wedding registers all the

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Speaker 1: time and whenever summers can get her way onto the

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Speaker 1: guestbooks at the funerals of Georgia Tech alums in this

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Speaker 1: pressure packed school, though the name Burdell is most synonymous

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Speaker 1: with good hearted, mostly harmless pranks, unless that is your

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Speaker 1: local business person who have largely grown wise to his tricks.

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Speaker 1: Back in the day, it was said Burdell had furniture

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Speaker 1: delivered to rival frats and to campus offices cash on delivery.

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Speaker 1: He has signed up for countless magazine subscriptions, online rebates, sweepstakes, entries, surveys,

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Speaker 1: you name it. He's on LinkedIn and Facebook. Twitter has

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Speaker 1: several accounts in his name. He has a great record

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Speaker 1: on rate by professors one review. You can't make up

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Speaker 1: how good this guy is. He's listed under the faculty

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Speaker 1: section in Tech School of Mechanical Engineering. President Barack Obama

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Speaker 1: gave him a shout out during a packed speech on

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Speaker 1: the Tech campus in two thousand and fifteen. Quote now

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Speaker 1: I understand George Peberdell was supposed to introduce me today,

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Speaker 1: but nobody could find him. He is omnipresent. Summers calls

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Speaker 1: him the spirit of Georgia Tech. The Living History Programs

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Speaker 1: Endowment Fund bears his name. A few years ago, Summers

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Speaker 1: sat down with George P. For the Programs One interview,

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Speaker 1: still reclusive, so much so that he requested his face

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Speaker 1: and voice be obscured in the video. Berdell, born in

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Speaker 1: a manner of speaking on April Fool's Day of eight,

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Speaker 1: described his childhood in Augusta, Georgia, his days at Tech,

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Speaker 1: and the world of tech today. These days, more than

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Speaker 1: fifteen thousand undergraduates are enrolled at Georgia Tech. It ranks

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Speaker 1: among the nation's top eight public schools, among the top

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Speaker 1: feign innovation and the top foreign engineering. It's graduated a

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Speaker 1: president Jimmy Carter, numerous athletic icons, including golfer Bobby Jones,

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Speaker 1: several astronauts, a ton of business titans, a Southern bred

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Speaker 1: comedian Jeff Foxworthy, and kind of one George P. Burdell,

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Speaker 1: who stands today as it's most famous alum. Though to

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Speaker 1: be sure, fame can be a little bit problematic, Summer said,

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Speaker 1: if your name is Burdell, you can't order a pizza

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Speaker 1: within fifty miles of Atlanta. Today's episode was written by

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Speaker 1: John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clay. Brain Stuff is

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Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio's Has Stuff Works. For more

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Speaker 1: on this and lots of other legendary topics, visit our

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Speaker 1: home planet how stuff Works dot com and for more

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Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart radio becausit, the iHeart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.