1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 2 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:14,960 Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 3 00:00:15,160 --> 00:00:17,920 Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 4 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:21,120 Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And in our last episode, 5 00:00:21,320 --> 00:00:24,880 Speaker 1: we started to talk about the history of subsea cables 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:29,800 Speaker 1: requests from Entris and subsea cables trace their history back 7 00:00:29,800 --> 00:00:36,080 Speaker 1: to the olden days of telegraphic communication mid nineteen century, 8 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:40,640 Speaker 1: before the telephone, and way before stuff like fiber optics. Now, 9 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:44,760 Speaker 1: some early tests of undersea cables showed that while there 10 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:49,200 Speaker 1: were significant challenges to overcome, it could totally work. However, 11 00:00:50,479 --> 00:00:54,440 Speaker 1: there were some peculiar issues that cropped up, especially as 12 00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 1: you worked with longer and longer subsea cables, and we 13 00:00:58,000 --> 00:00:59,720 Speaker 1: talked a little bit about that, but I wanted to 14 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:03,760 Speaker 1: follow up on that specific part. So one person who 15 00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:09,760 Speaker 1: quantified this issue was William Thompson, later known as Lord Kelvin. 16 00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:13,000 Speaker 1: He would be knighted and then made a member of 17 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:18,240 Speaker 1: the Peerage, largely for his contributions to telegraphy, and we 18 00:01:18,319 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 1: talked about him a little bit in the last episode. 19 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:22,160 Speaker 1: We'll talk about him a lot more in this one. 20 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:26,240 Speaker 1: He had described the relationship of a signal speed passing 21 00:01:26,280 --> 00:01:31,000 Speaker 1: through an undersea cable as being inversely proportional by the 22 00:01:31,120 --> 00:01:34,360 Speaker 1: to the cable's length the square of the cable's length. Actually, 23 00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:36,360 Speaker 1: he said that as the square of the length of 24 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:40,080 Speaker 1: the cable increases, for any given diameter of a core conductor, 25 00:01:40,600 --> 00:01:44,320 Speaker 1: the speed of the signal passing through that conductor would decrease. 26 00:01:44,959 --> 00:01:48,080 Speaker 1: Uh He had discovered that a conductive cable insulated by 27 00:01:48,120 --> 00:01:52,000 Speaker 1: some sort of material like Gutta percha or later synthetic rubber. 28 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,760 Speaker 1: UH the surrounded by a conducting medium like saltwater acts 29 00:01:56,840 --> 00:02:01,240 Speaker 1: as a type of condenser. Now we are not talking 30 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,640 Speaker 1: about the kind of condenser you find in an air 31 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:10,360 Speaker 1: conditioner or a refrigerator. Condenser in this sense means capacitor. 32 00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:13,280 Speaker 1: It's kind of an old word for what we would 33 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:17,799 Speaker 1: call a capacitor today. And a capacitor stores electricity. It 34 00:02:17,960 --> 00:02:22,080 Speaker 1: stores an electrostatic charge in an electric field, and it 35 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:26,760 Speaker 1: builds up this electrostatic charge and it can rapidly discharge 36 00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:30,840 Speaker 1: under the right conditions. So a typical capacitor consists of 37 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,560 Speaker 1: a pair of conductive plates. They are separated by a 38 00:02:34,639 --> 00:02:39,120 Speaker 1: non conducting substance we call dielectric. So if you want 39 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,359 Speaker 1: to think of it like a sandwich. The bread of 40 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,560 Speaker 1: our sandwich are a pair of metal plates, one of 41 00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:47,639 Speaker 1: which has a positive charge, one which has a negative charge, 42 00:02:47,919 --> 00:02:51,720 Speaker 1: and the filling in our sandwich is tasty, tasty, non 43 00:02:51,720 --> 00:02:55,600 Speaker 1: conductive dielectric. So an electric terminal connext to each of 44 00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:57,960 Speaker 1: those plates. So, like I said, you have a positive 45 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,640 Speaker 1: side and a negative side pause of a negative electric charge. 46 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:04,000 Speaker 1: In other words, so when you connect this to a battery, 47 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:07,440 Speaker 1: the negative plate builds up electrons, it has a stronger 48 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:13,160 Speaker 1: negative charge. The other plate loses electrons. It becomes positively charged. 49 00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:17,520 Speaker 1: But the electrons from the negative plate cannot immediately pass 50 00:03:17,600 --> 00:03:20,160 Speaker 1: to the positive plate. You know, they want to do 51 00:03:20,240 --> 00:03:24,440 Speaker 1: that because opposite charges attract, so positive attracts negative. But 52 00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:28,640 Speaker 1: because we have that crumby dielectric sandwich filling coming up 53 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,880 Speaker 1: the two plates, the electrons cannot make that journey, so 54 00:03:32,919 --> 00:03:36,400 Speaker 1: they just keep accumulating and the negative charge on that 55 00:03:36,440 --> 00:03:41,480 Speaker 1: plate continues to grow. Effectively, we're storing that electric charge 56 00:03:41,640 --> 00:03:44,680 Speaker 1: in this capacitor. In fact, if we disconnect it from 57 00:03:44,680 --> 00:03:47,960 Speaker 1: the battery, that electric charge will still be in that 58 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:50,920 Speaker 1: capacitor for a good long while, as long as you 59 00:03:50,960 --> 00:03:53,560 Speaker 1: haven't created a way for it to discharge. So, in 60 00:03:53,640 --> 00:03:56,080 Speaker 1: other words, it's not connected to any other kind of circuit. 61 00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:58,680 Speaker 1: And this is why if you've ever seen a video 62 00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:01,960 Speaker 1: of someone smashing up old you know, cafod ray tube, 63 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:05,600 Speaker 1: television or monitor, you might have seen some some sparks 64 00:04:05,600 --> 00:04:08,440 Speaker 1: fly like almost like a little explosion. Well that's because 65 00:04:08,480 --> 00:04:11,680 Speaker 1: there are powerful capacitors in these old monitors and they 66 00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:15,000 Speaker 1: can still have a significant and harmful charge of electricity 67 00:04:15,040 --> 00:04:19,440 Speaker 1: inside them because, like I said, capacitors store electricity. This 68 00:04:19,520 --> 00:04:21,880 Speaker 1: is why it's a good idea to you know, not 69 00:04:22,080 --> 00:04:26,000 Speaker 1: smash them. Anyway, let's get back to capacitors. So you 70 00:04:26,080 --> 00:04:28,920 Speaker 1: got this capacitor and it's stored up an electric charge 71 00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,640 Speaker 1: from a power source. But if you connect that capascitor 72 00:04:31,720 --> 00:04:33,640 Speaker 1: to a circuit with a load on it, such as 73 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:36,960 Speaker 1: a flash bulb for a you know, a film camera, 74 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:40,640 Speaker 1: it allows the capacitor to release or you know, dump 75 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:45,000 Speaker 1: that entire electric charge all at once, you know, just 76 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,880 Speaker 1: in an instant. So you get this sudden electric discharge, 77 00:04:48,920 --> 00:04:51,880 Speaker 1: which is useful for your applications, like having a flashbulb 78 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:55,040 Speaker 1: go off. You see, energy from a battery has this 79 00:04:55,120 --> 00:04:58,320 Speaker 1: sort of ramping up situation. So if you had the 80 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:01,840 Speaker 1: flashbulb just attached to a switch with a battery attached, 81 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:04,159 Speaker 1: then the bulb would not go off as quickly. It 82 00:05:04,160 --> 00:05:06,960 Speaker 1: wouldn't just go off in an instant It will come 83 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:10,600 Speaker 1: on slightly more gradually and turn off more gradually, and 84 00:05:10,800 --> 00:05:13,800 Speaker 1: thus not be suitable for you to take a picture 85 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:16,520 Speaker 1: with like a film camera, where you want the aperture 86 00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,000 Speaker 1: to have just the right amount of light exposure when 87 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:23,120 Speaker 1: it opens. And it might seem to us when you're 88 00:05:23,360 --> 00:05:25,640 Speaker 1: using a battery that things are coming on instantly, are 89 00:05:25,680 --> 00:05:29,000 Speaker 1: going off instantly, but when you're talking about super high 90 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,640 Speaker 1: speed applications, that really makes a difference. A capacitor makes 91 00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:36,080 Speaker 1: it seem truly instantaneous to us. Anyway, the future Lord 92 00:05:36,160 --> 00:05:39,560 Speaker 1: Kelvin was kind of sussing all this out, that these 93 00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:43,200 Speaker 1: cables under the ocean can start to act like a 94 00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:46,680 Speaker 1: capacitor and store up an electric charge which interferes with 95 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:50,440 Speaker 1: signals passing through. And he saw that subseat cables wouldn't 96 00:05:50,480 --> 00:05:53,560 Speaker 1: behave the same way as terrestrial ones, would you know, 97 00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:57,400 Speaker 1: the ones above the waves. With terrestrial cables, you didn't 98 00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:00,640 Speaker 1: encounter the same issues of signal RETARDA is what they 99 00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:04,839 Speaker 1: called it the signal being slowed down like they overland 100 00:06:04,839 --> 00:06:07,560 Speaker 1: they weren't seeing this, but under the oceans they were. 101 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:12,080 Speaker 1: So he was advising engineers to consider this challenge and 102 00:06:12,120 --> 00:06:15,200 Speaker 1: to find new ways to approach subsea cables to account 103 00:06:15,200 --> 00:06:18,080 Speaker 1: for those differences. And one thing he advised was that 104 00:06:18,160 --> 00:06:22,120 Speaker 1: the cable should be a large diameter core cable, in 105 00:06:22,160 --> 00:06:26,680 Speaker 1: other words, thicker copper wires. He felt that a pure 106 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,400 Speaker 1: copper cable, like something as pure as you can make it, 107 00:06:30,040 --> 00:06:34,280 Speaker 1: with a pretty thick diameter would reduce the electrical resistance 108 00:06:34,440 --> 00:06:37,200 Speaker 1: of the cable, and he was right. But there were 109 00:06:37,200 --> 00:06:42,360 Speaker 1: other people like Michael Faraday, another brilliant engineer, and Samuel 110 00:06:42,360 --> 00:06:46,760 Speaker 1: Morse who was he was pretty sharp himself. They felt 111 00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:49,920 Speaker 1: that the copper wire really needed to be very narrow, 112 00:06:50,040 --> 00:06:53,640 Speaker 1: very thin, in order to reduce the effects of signal retardation. 113 00:06:53,680 --> 00:06:57,400 Speaker 1: They felt that that by being isolated from the water, 114 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:01,040 Speaker 1: in other words, having it thinner and surrounded by more installation, 115 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:05,240 Speaker 1: that that would solve the problem. Now, Thompson had his 116 00:07:05,279 --> 00:07:10,920 Speaker 1: own supporters, including another very important person on the team 117 00:07:11,040 --> 00:07:14,600 Speaker 1: who were you know, figuring this stuff out. But the 118 00:07:14,720 --> 00:07:19,200 Speaker 1: narrow cable also had lots of supporters, and perhaps more importantly, 119 00:07:19,760 --> 00:07:23,960 Speaker 1: a narrow cable would represent a cheaper option because you 120 00:07:23,960 --> 00:07:26,920 Speaker 1: needed less copper. Right, you weren't making as thick a 121 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:30,160 Speaker 1: copper wire. So I bet you can guess which one 122 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:33,800 Speaker 1: the Atlantic Telegraph Company went with. And now just a 123 00:07:33,840 --> 00:07:37,160 Speaker 1: quick digression. One thing that the pandemic has really taught 124 00:07:37,240 --> 00:07:41,560 Speaker 1: us today is that not everyone accepts scientific explanations as 125 00:07:41,600 --> 00:07:44,720 Speaker 1: being realistic. And I do grant that the process of 126 00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:47,680 Speaker 1: science means that you have to do lots of testing 127 00:07:47,680 --> 00:07:50,200 Speaker 1: of hypotheses in order to see if they actually hold up. 128 00:07:50,560 --> 00:07:54,120 Speaker 1: You can't just accept a hypothesis on the face of it, 129 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:58,720 Speaker 1: because sometimes we make hypotheses that are wrong. Sometimes we 130 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:02,040 Speaker 1: make some that are really wrong. But when we actually 131 00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:05,640 Speaker 1: have tested them and they have stood those tests, we 132 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:10,360 Speaker 1: should be ready to accept those scientific results. C. Thompson 133 00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,080 Speaker 1: was pretty thorough in his analysis, and others could have 134 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:17,640 Speaker 1: followed his lead and tested his findings themselves to their satisfaction, 135 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:20,880 Speaker 1: but they didn't really do that anyway. The reason I 136 00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:24,080 Speaker 1: even say all this is Lord Kelvin's work wasn't immediately 137 00:08:24,120 --> 00:08:27,840 Speaker 1: embraced by telegraphy companies because, for one thing, if he 138 00:08:27,920 --> 00:08:29,920 Speaker 1: was right, it would mean that these companies would all 139 00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:32,760 Speaker 1: have to spend way more money to make cables. Those 140 00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:37,840 Speaker 1: cables would be far more expensive. Um. And there were 141 00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:40,000 Speaker 1: some who just figured that all you really need to 142 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,280 Speaker 1: do was increase the voltage to sufficient levels to push 143 00:08:43,280 --> 00:08:46,280 Speaker 1: a signal through a very long cable, and that would 144 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:51,319 Speaker 1: end up causing issues. Um. Just as a reminder, voltage 145 00:08:51,559 --> 00:08:54,760 Speaker 1: in an electrical system is kind of like water pressure 146 00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: in a plumbing system. It's not how much electricity there is, 147 00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:05,240 Speaker 1: rather the difference in positive to negative electric charge, or 148 00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:07,040 Speaker 1: you know, you can think of it as how much 149 00:09:07,040 --> 00:09:09,480 Speaker 1: ooth the electricity has behind it. So you can have 150 00:09:10,280 --> 00:09:13,920 Speaker 1: high voltage with a low current, which means you're pushing 151 00:09:13,960 --> 00:09:17,840 Speaker 1: out a tiny stream of electricity at incredible pressure. Or 152 00:09:17,880 --> 00:09:21,680 Speaker 1: you can have low voltage but high current. In that 153 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:23,960 Speaker 1: case you're moving a lot of electricity but not with 154 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:26,240 Speaker 1: a whole lot of ooth behind it. Or you can 155 00:09:26,320 --> 00:09:29,920 Speaker 1: have both voltage and current be high or low. But 156 00:09:30,080 --> 00:09:32,400 Speaker 1: that's enough, because I talked about that in the previous episode. 157 00:09:33,160 --> 00:09:38,439 Speaker 1: So while the Future Lord Kelvin was exploring the limitations 158 00:09:38,440 --> 00:09:42,800 Speaker 1: of contemporary technology with regard to subsea cables, companies began 159 00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:48,400 Speaker 1: to lay more of those subsea cables over relatively short distances, 160 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:52,120 Speaker 1: and because you know, Lord Kelvin's discoveries showed that we'd 161 00:09:52,120 --> 00:09:57,319 Speaker 1: really only encounter significant limitations over great distances. Subsea cables 162 00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:01,320 Speaker 1: worked good enough in most cases, though companies would have 163 00:10:01,360 --> 00:10:04,200 Speaker 1: to replace them every couple of decades due to wear 164 00:10:04,200 --> 00:10:08,080 Speaker 1: and tear. But well before all those replacements, in the 165 00:10:08,120 --> 00:10:11,720 Speaker 1: mid eighteen fifties, there was a growing interest in creating 166 00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:15,640 Speaker 1: a cable long enough to connect Europe to North America. Now, 167 00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:19,760 Speaker 1: this would be significantly longer than any subseed cable produced 168 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:23,160 Speaker 1: up to that point. One person in America who was 169 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:27,199 Speaker 1: really pushing for this was a businessman named Cyrus west Field. 170 00:10:27,640 --> 00:10:31,319 Speaker 1: I've talked a lot about engineers and scientists in these episodes, 171 00:10:31,840 --> 00:10:35,680 Speaker 1: but we also have to remember that financiers and business 172 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:39,360 Speaker 1: folk are really important too, because you know, that's where 173 00:10:39,360 --> 00:10:42,400 Speaker 1: the money comes from. So Field had made his fortune 174 00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:46,480 Speaker 1: in the paper industry, uh, though not always smoothly. It 175 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:48,240 Speaker 1: took him a while to get there, but by his 176 00:10:48,320 --> 00:10:52,000 Speaker 1: early thirties he was so wealthy that he decided to 177 00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:57,200 Speaker 1: retire the rotten wats it anyway, he became interested in 178 00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:00,680 Speaker 1: telegraphy and he joined a venture proposed by and English 179 00:11:00,720 --> 00:11:05,480 Speaker 1: electrician Frederick in Gisborne, who was living in Canada and 180 00:11:05,520 --> 00:11:10,840 Speaker 1: Gisborne wanted a cable that connected Newfoundland with Nova Scotia 181 00:11:11,120 --> 00:11:14,719 Speaker 1: and to go across a body of water along the way. 182 00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:18,360 Speaker 1: So Field helped secure investors and the cable had been 183 00:11:18,400 --> 00:11:22,360 Speaker 1: designed and built and laid, though the project ended up 184 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:25,800 Speaker 1: taking much longer than Field had estimated due to the 185 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:29,319 Speaker 1: rugged terrain of Canada and the fact that Canada has 186 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:33,079 Speaker 1: a lot of natural dangers in it, such as bears, wolves, 187 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:37,360 Speaker 1: and tim Horton's but the cable's success convinced Field that 188 00:11:37,440 --> 00:11:41,800 Speaker 1: a subsea cable connecting North America to Europe would be invaluable, 189 00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:46,719 Speaker 1: particularly for business purposes, like if you have a partnership 190 00:11:47,040 --> 00:11:49,719 Speaker 1: and you've got, you know, a partner in London and 191 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:51,960 Speaker 1: you were in New York, it would be really useful 192 00:11:51,960 --> 00:11:54,400 Speaker 1: to be able to communicate with that person in near 193 00:11:54,520 --> 00:11:59,360 Speaker 1: real time. So the route that seemed the most promising 194 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:03,160 Speaker 1: would be Newfoundland to Ireland. That was a distance that 195 00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:07,280 Speaker 1: would equal somewhere between six hundred to two thousand miles. 196 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:12,240 Speaker 1: So Field attracted supporters and investors both in America and 197 00:12:12,320 --> 00:12:16,920 Speaker 1: in England. Our Buddy Billy the Future, Lord Kelvin Thompson 198 00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:21,680 Speaker 1: joined that project. Uh. Samuel Morris did as well. John 199 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:25,560 Speaker 1: Watkins Brett, who had overseen the first commercial subsea connection 200 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:28,720 Speaker 1: between Dover, England and Calais, France, which we talked about 201 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:31,120 Speaker 1: in the last episode. Uh, he also was part of 202 00:12:31,120 --> 00:12:34,680 Speaker 1: this endeavor. And Field brought on a British surgeon with 203 00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:41,000 Speaker 1: the amazing name Edward Orange Wildman white House to serve 204 00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:46,160 Speaker 1: as chief electrician. And you might think, huh, that's weird 205 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:51,000 Speaker 1: bringing a surgeon in to act in that capacity. Pun intended. 206 00:12:51,520 --> 00:12:54,400 Speaker 1: But this was a time when the fields of medicine 207 00:12:54,440 --> 00:12:59,320 Speaker 1: and science we're pretty darn mixed. Like you had engineers 208 00:12:59,320 --> 00:13:02,679 Speaker 1: whould become the positions and physicians who become an engineers, etcetera. 209 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:06,560 Speaker 1: And we were just starting to see people begin to 210 00:13:06,640 --> 00:13:10,360 Speaker 1: specialize in specific fields. Also, how do you say no 211 00:13:10,559 --> 00:13:13,640 Speaker 1: to a guy named wild Man? So the project got 212 00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:17,920 Speaker 1: started around eight fifty four, but it would take years 213 00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:21,200 Speaker 1: of work before the cable would be built, let alone deployed. 214 00:13:21,679 --> 00:13:25,760 Speaker 1: For one thing, the Atlantic Telegraph Company really needed to 215 00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:29,199 Speaker 1: find a good route to avoid issues with the c floor. 216 00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:31,559 Speaker 1: They knew they wanted to go from Newfoundland to Ireland. 217 00:13:31,600 --> 00:13:35,040 Speaker 1: But they need to plot the exact course. Now, there 218 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:37,880 Speaker 1: was no way to send signals down through the water, 219 00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:40,360 Speaker 1: to bounce off the cea floor and come back up 220 00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,679 Speaker 1: and give us kind of a map of what the 221 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:45,080 Speaker 1: bottom of the ocean looked like, which meant that you 222 00:13:45,080 --> 00:13:47,840 Speaker 1: had to do things in a much more low tech way. 223 00:13:47,880 --> 00:13:51,720 Speaker 1: That way involved a heavy weight on a rope. You know, 224 00:13:51,760 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: you might use something like a cannon ball, and you 225 00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:56,920 Speaker 1: would need a really long rope, you know, a couple 226 00:13:56,960 --> 00:14:00,480 Speaker 1: of miles long at least, and you would typically mark 227 00:14:00,480 --> 00:14:02,679 Speaker 1: off links of the rope so that way you can 228 00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:05,559 Speaker 1: see how deep the ocean is at any given point 229 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,199 Speaker 1: by plopping the weight over the side of the boat, 230 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:10,800 Speaker 1: letting it sink all the way to the bottom, and 231 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:14,800 Speaker 1: then reading off where on the water line the rope. 232 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:17,160 Speaker 1: It's like like, where on the rope is the waterline? 233 00:14:17,200 --> 00:14:20,280 Speaker 1: Is what I really meant to say. And you would 234 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:22,840 Speaker 1: need to do that many times as you went down 235 00:14:23,240 --> 00:14:28,000 Speaker 1: your proposed path, because what if the depth increases or decreases. 236 00:14:28,960 --> 00:14:31,720 Speaker 1: So using this method, ship Cruise found a route that 237 00:14:31,840 --> 00:14:35,200 Speaker 1: was at a depth of around two miles from the surface, 238 00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:38,480 Speaker 1: with a relatively flat seabed, and that was chosen to 239 00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:41,360 Speaker 1: be the site for the cable between Newfoundland and Ireland. 240 00:14:41,680 --> 00:14:44,160 Speaker 1: The cable would rest against the seabed without risk of 241 00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:47,640 Speaker 1: rubbing against like craggy rocks and breaking apart, and the 242 00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:51,040 Speaker 1: cable's design meant that it would be heavy enough to 243 00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:54,240 Speaker 1: sink down on its own without the need for additional weights. 244 00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:59,800 Speaker 1: Wildman designed the cable, which had seven copper wires in 245 00:14:59,840 --> 00:15:03,760 Speaker 1: it to carry signals that were kind of UH coiled together. 246 00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:08,240 Speaker 1: The wires were insulated by a triple layer of gutta percha. Now, 247 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:10,200 Speaker 1: in case you don't remember what that is, I talked 248 00:15:10,240 --> 00:15:13,400 Speaker 1: about in the previous episode. That was an extract from 249 00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:16,160 Speaker 1: a plant that had the same name, and the extract 250 00:15:16,160 --> 00:15:18,520 Speaker 1: could be heated to be made pliable and then would 251 00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:22,360 Speaker 1: behave pretty much like rubber does UH. And that meant 252 00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:25,240 Speaker 1: that it was also an electrical insulator. So the wires 253 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:29,320 Speaker 1: and gutta percha were nearly half an inch in diameter. UH. 254 00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:31,800 Speaker 1: This core of the cable would then't have a layer 255 00:15:32,080 --> 00:15:35,520 Speaker 1: of yarn soaked in tar, beeswax and other materials wrapped 256 00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:38,560 Speaker 1: around it, which added thickness and stability to the cable, 257 00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:42,760 Speaker 1: protecting the copper from damage, and then would come the armor, 258 00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:45,640 Speaker 1: which was made up of a weave of seven iron 259 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:49,920 Speaker 1: wires uh the core of the cable weighed one seven 260 00:15:49,960 --> 00:15:53,280 Speaker 1: pounds per nautical mile. This was about a quarter of 261 00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:58,760 Speaker 1: the weight that William Thompson had recommended. But the fully 262 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:01,400 Speaker 1: armored cable is weight, you know, once it had the 263 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:04,960 Speaker 1: iron sheath on it. That was a ton for every 264 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,640 Speaker 1: mile of cable, and the route chosen was about six 265 00:16:08,280 --> 00:16:11,960 Speaker 1: miles long. At the cable was about half an inch 266 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:15,000 Speaker 1: in diameter total at five eighths of an inch. By 267 00:16:15,240 --> 00:16:18,400 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven, the cable was ready. The United States 268 00:16:18,440 --> 00:16:21,800 Speaker 1: and UK governments each supplied a steam powered ship for 269 00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,360 Speaker 1: the purpose of laying the cable, and the American ship 270 00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:27,960 Speaker 1: was called the Niagara. The British ship was called the Agamemnon. 271 00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:31,480 Speaker 1: Each ship would carry half the length of the cable. 272 00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:34,040 Speaker 1: Is too much cable for one ship to carry At 273 00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:38,280 Speaker 1: that point, there was some disagreement over how this should 274 00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:40,920 Speaker 1: be done and how to join the two lengths of 275 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:44,840 Speaker 1: cable together. One of the project's leaders, an engineer named 276 00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:48,080 Speaker 1: Charles Tilston Bright, who was one of you know, William 277 00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,240 Speaker 1: Thompson's allies. One of the people who sided with Lord 278 00:16:51,320 --> 00:16:54,120 Speaker 1: Kelvin about what the cable should be like. He said 279 00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:57,080 Speaker 1: that what they should do is send the two ships 280 00:16:57,160 --> 00:17:00,960 Speaker 1: to sail to the middle of the Atlantic, join the 281 00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:05,320 Speaker 1: ends of the length of cable together to make one 282 00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:08,639 Speaker 1: single cable, and then have one ship sailed to the east, 283 00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:11,960 Speaker 1: which would be toward Ireland, and one ship sailed to 284 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:15,520 Speaker 1: the west towards Newfoundland, and that they just bring the 285 00:17:15,520 --> 00:17:19,320 Speaker 1: whole length of the cable out to the end destinations. 286 00:17:19,880 --> 00:17:22,000 Speaker 1: The two ships could remain in contact with each other 287 00:17:22,040 --> 00:17:24,400 Speaker 1: because they could send signals over that cable. They could 288 00:17:24,400 --> 00:17:28,800 Speaker 1: connect those to their instrumentation and actually send electric signals 289 00:17:28,800 --> 00:17:30,639 Speaker 1: from one ship to the other to make sure that 290 00:17:30,640 --> 00:17:36,080 Speaker 1: everything was working correctly. But the rest of the project 291 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:40,000 Speaker 1: did not really like this um They felt that this 292 00:17:40,160 --> 00:17:42,520 Speaker 1: was not the best way to do it. You know. 293 00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:44,360 Speaker 1: Bright was saying, Hey, if we do it this way, 294 00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:46,960 Speaker 1: then each ship is spending half the amount of time 295 00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:50,399 Speaker 1: out in the ocean once we start. That reduces the 296 00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:52,959 Speaker 1: chance that we run into bad weather. They said, no, 297 00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:56,320 Speaker 1: that sounds too risky. We would rather start in Ireland, 298 00:17:56,720 --> 00:18:01,520 Speaker 1: have both ships go across the ocean, and when the 299 00:18:01,640 --> 00:18:04,359 Speaker 1: length of cable runs out for ship number one. Ship 300 00:18:04,480 --> 00:18:07,240 Speaker 1: number two will splice the end of its cable to 301 00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:11,080 Speaker 1: that one and continue the rest of the way to Newfoundland. 302 00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:15,560 Speaker 1: So in the summer of eighteen fifty seven, numerous barges 303 00:18:15,920 --> 00:18:19,879 Speaker 1: transported the lengths of cable to these two ships, and 304 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:23,520 Speaker 1: once loaded, each coil of cable measured twelve feet high 305 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:26,920 Speaker 1: and forty ft in diameter. And the plan was for 306 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:29,639 Speaker 1: Niagara to go ahead and lay the first half of 307 00:18:29,640 --> 00:18:33,600 Speaker 1: the cable, with Agamemnon following with the second half, and 308 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:36,040 Speaker 1: once Niagara would reach the end of its cable supply, 309 00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:40,159 Speaker 1: that's where they would splice it all together. Unfortunately, it 310 00:18:40,160 --> 00:18:42,879 Speaker 1: wouldn't work out that way in eighteen fifty seven. And 311 00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:54,280 Speaker 1: I'll explain more if we come back from this break. Okay, 312 00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:57,480 Speaker 1: we had the Niagara and the Agamemnon, but those would 313 00:18:57,520 --> 00:19:00,720 Speaker 1: not be the only ships involved in this little project. 314 00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:04,560 Speaker 1: There were also support ships. There was the HMS Advice, 315 00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:09,560 Speaker 1: the HMS Willing Mind, and the HMS Cyclops. There were 316 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,280 Speaker 1: also two escort ships, the u s S Susquehanna and 317 00:19:13,359 --> 00:19:17,040 Speaker 1: the HMS Leopard. They all set sail to lay the 318 00:19:17,080 --> 00:19:21,960 Speaker 1: cable on August eightifty seven and right away, there were problems. 319 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,320 Speaker 1: So the first segment of the cable was the shore cable. 320 00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:29,439 Speaker 1: This was a shorter length that wasn't the full subsea cable. 321 00:19:29,840 --> 00:19:32,440 Speaker 1: This was the version of the cable that was to 322 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:36,440 Speaker 1: lay close to the shore, thus called the shore cable. 323 00:19:36,520 --> 00:19:39,840 Speaker 1: It was more heavily armored because it was going to 324 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,280 Speaker 1: be subjected to more wave action and potentially rub up 325 00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:46,080 Speaker 1: against stuff like rocks. Plus there was always the danger 326 00:19:46,119 --> 00:19:49,240 Speaker 1: of a ship anchor snagging the cable, so they wanted 327 00:19:49,240 --> 00:19:52,520 Speaker 1: it to be very heavily armored. But before Niagara could 328 00:19:52,560 --> 00:19:55,879 Speaker 1: even go five miles, the thicker part of the cable, 329 00:19:55,920 --> 00:19:59,240 Speaker 1: this shore cable, caught up in the machinery that was 330 00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:02,919 Speaker 1: used to feed the cable out into the ocean, and 331 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:06,000 Speaker 1: the cable broke. Now, the crew of the Willing Mind, 332 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:09,720 Speaker 1: which sounds like kind of an HP Lovecraft story, they 333 00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:12,720 Speaker 1: were able to retrieve the end of the snapped cable 334 00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:15,040 Speaker 1: under the sea, and the crew of the Niagara was 335 00:20:15,160 --> 00:20:19,000 Speaker 1: able to splice it back into place um and so 336 00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:22,400 Speaker 1: they were able to repair the cable and try again. 337 00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:25,240 Speaker 1: Uh they were able to lay the rest of the 338 00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:28,840 Speaker 1: shore cable segment without further incident, and then they spliced 339 00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,919 Speaker 1: the end of the shore cable to the length of 340 00:20:32,960 --> 00:20:36,680 Speaker 1: the sub sea cable, the the main cable they were carrying. 341 00:20:37,240 --> 00:20:41,639 Speaker 1: So now, over the next several days, everything worked pretty 342 00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:44,680 Speaker 1: much as planned. Uh, I mean there were some drawbacks. 343 00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:49,080 Speaker 1: Samuel Morris, who was on board the Niagara, got terribly 344 00:20:49,200 --> 00:20:52,960 Speaker 1: sea sick and so he was pretty much incapacitated. But 345 00:20:53,080 --> 00:20:56,479 Speaker 1: the other members, including William Thompson, they were fine, and 346 00:20:56,520 --> 00:21:00,720 Speaker 1: they remained in contact with wild Man white House, who 347 00:21:00,760 --> 00:21:04,080 Speaker 1: remained back in Ireland, using the cable to send signals 348 00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:08,200 Speaker 1: even as they were you know, spooling it into the ocean. Now, 349 00:21:08,240 --> 00:21:11,440 Speaker 1: I said that things worked more or less his planned, 350 00:21:11,440 --> 00:21:14,479 Speaker 1: But but that's smoothing over some stuff that was pretty tricky. 351 00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:17,280 Speaker 1: For one thing, the machine that was spooling out the 352 00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:20,080 Speaker 1: cable had a grooved wheel kind of like a pulley, 353 00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:22,320 Speaker 1: and the cable fit into this groove to be fed 354 00:21:22,320 --> 00:21:24,760 Speaker 1: out into the ocean. But sometimes the cable would slip 355 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:27,240 Speaker 1: off the wheel. That meant that they had to stop 356 00:21:27,320 --> 00:21:30,440 Speaker 1: in order to you know, get the cable back on 357 00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:33,680 Speaker 1: the wheel to get it back in place. Also, the cable, 358 00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:37,000 Speaker 1: if you remember, had a layer of yarn soaked in tar. 359 00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:41,440 Speaker 1: Some of that tar would occasionally seep outside of the 360 00:21:41,480 --> 00:21:43,439 Speaker 1: cable and get on the wheel, so they would have 361 00:21:43,480 --> 00:21:45,800 Speaker 1: to stop occasionally in order to clean the wheel off, 362 00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:49,240 Speaker 1: because otherwise the cable was sticking to it, so that 363 00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:54,240 Speaker 1: also made things a little slow. On August eleven, eighty seven, 364 00:21:55,119 --> 00:21:58,280 Speaker 1: the Niagara's crew ran into a serious problem. Now, the 365 00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:00,960 Speaker 1: intent was to lay the cable down at the same 366 00:22:01,080 --> 00:22:04,440 Speaker 1: rate of speed as the ship's movement, but several days 367 00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:08,639 Speaker 1: after Niagara had, you know, started this run, they noticed 368 00:22:08,680 --> 00:22:10,879 Speaker 1: that the cable was starting to feed out faster than 369 00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:13,359 Speaker 1: the ship was moving. So, in other words, they were 370 00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:15,720 Speaker 1: they were putting too much cable into the ocean as 371 00:22:15,720 --> 00:22:18,879 Speaker 1: they were going along, which could potentially mean that the 372 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,359 Speaker 1: ship would run out of its length of cable too early, 373 00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,679 Speaker 1: and that there was a chance that the cable wouldn't 374 00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,919 Speaker 1: reach all the way across the Atlantic, kind of like 375 00:22:26,960 --> 00:22:29,800 Speaker 1: an extension cord that's just a foot too short for 376 00:22:29,960 --> 00:22:32,520 Speaker 1: doing whatever it is you planned on doing. Now, the 377 00:22:32,600 --> 00:22:35,760 Speaker 1: Niagara's crew hit the brakes on the machine that was 378 00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:39,320 Speaker 1: feeding the cable out into the ocean on this spinning wheel, 379 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:41,919 Speaker 1: if you you know, if you want to imagine it, 380 00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,760 Speaker 1: and the weight of the cable was such that the 381 00:22:45,920 --> 00:22:51,440 Speaker 1: cable's tensile strength couldn't match the weight of the cable itself, 382 00:22:52,040 --> 00:22:54,720 Speaker 1: and uh Niagara was in the low point of a 383 00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:59,680 Speaker 1: wave when the brakes had engaged. But then, obviously waves 384 00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,359 Speaker 1: have troughs and they also have crests. So as the 385 00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,800 Speaker 1: wave was crusting and Niagara went up the wheel had 386 00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:07,840 Speaker 1: its brakes on, it wasn't going to move at all, 387 00:23:08,560 --> 00:23:12,399 Speaker 1: and that amazing amount of tension on the cable was 388 00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:16,560 Speaker 1: enough to make it snap. The machines brakes should have 389 00:23:16,720 --> 00:23:21,240 Speaker 1: released automatically once a certain amount of tension was achieved, 390 00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:24,439 Speaker 1: but it failed to do so, so there is no 391 00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:27,639 Speaker 1: salvaging the lost cable. It was a couple of miles 392 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:31,480 Speaker 1: down on the ocean floor. The first attempt of laying 393 00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 1: the Transatlantic telegraph cable was just a failure, but from 394 00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:38,679 Speaker 1: failure comes lessons learned, and the team was determined to 395 00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,199 Speaker 1: try again the following year. So joining the project at 396 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,560 Speaker 1: this point was William Everett, now the chief engineer for 397 00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:49,360 Speaker 1: the expedition. Everett went to work designing a new machine 398 00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:52,840 Speaker 1: to feed out the cable to the ocean. He created 399 00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:56,520 Speaker 1: a new breaking system to avoid making the same mistakes 400 00:23:56,560 --> 00:24:01,800 Speaker 1: as the eighteen fifty seven voyage, and in that year, 401 00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:07,520 Speaker 1: between two attempts, William Thompson, the future Lord Kelvin, would 402 00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:11,960 Speaker 1: create a sensitive instrument designed to detect electrical currents, even 403 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,359 Speaker 1: a very weak electrical current, for example, the kind of 404 00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:18,280 Speaker 1: current that might pass through a very long cable that's 405 00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:23,080 Speaker 1: under the water. This was his mirrored galvanometer. Uh and 406 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:25,959 Speaker 1: you might wonder what the heck is a galvanometer? Okay, 407 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,639 Speaker 1: So let's consider for a moment how the European telegraph 408 00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,760 Speaker 1: machines work. They had pharro magnetic needles, So passing a 409 00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,359 Speaker 1: current through an electro magnet would create a magnetic field 410 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:40,080 Speaker 1: that would attract the needles and make them deflect from 411 00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:45,560 Speaker 1: their normal orientation. The strength of that magnetic poll would 412 00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,800 Speaker 1: determine how much the needles would deflect. But what if 413 00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:52,320 Speaker 1: you have a very weak signal? Well, Thompson wanted to 414 00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,159 Speaker 1: create a device that was more sensitive and capable of 415 00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,880 Speaker 1: detecting those very very weak signals that would pass through 416 00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:03,679 Speaker 1: a transit lane cable. His approach was truly ingenious. He 417 00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,359 Speaker 1: created a housing that held a coil of conductive wire, 418 00:25:07,880 --> 00:25:11,159 Speaker 1: with the coil held in a horizontal orientation. So if 419 00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,199 Speaker 1: you're thinking, think of like, you know, a spring, but 420 00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:17,640 Speaker 1: you're holding the spring horizontally, you know, left to right. 421 00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:24,159 Speaker 1: And from this coil he suspended a small mirror using 422 00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:28,040 Speaker 1: some silk thread so that the mirror would hang in 423 00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:31,440 Speaker 1: the middle of the coil. And attached to the mirror 424 00:25:31,480 --> 00:25:35,399 Speaker 1: were permanent magnets, so when a current passed through the coil, 425 00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,080 Speaker 1: it would create a magnetic field that would either attract 426 00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:44,760 Speaker 1: or repulse the permanent magnet, turning the mirror slightly, having 427 00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:48,280 Speaker 1: it tilt a bit. Now that's one half of the gadget. 428 00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:50,720 Speaker 1: You would have that set up on, say a nice 429 00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:55,320 Speaker 1: sturdy desk. Across from that you would have the other half, 430 00:25:55,640 --> 00:26:00,560 Speaker 1: which was a calibrated scale that would be facing the 431 00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:05,000 Speaker 1: mirror of the first half. So the mirror is pointing 432 00:26:05,040 --> 00:26:08,320 Speaker 1: back at the scale, and behind the scale he put 433 00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,000 Speaker 1: an oil lamp. Now the scale above where the actual 434 00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,560 Speaker 1: calibrated scale was. But you know, set in a little 435 00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,280 Speaker 1: panel of wood, was a narrow aperture, so the lamp 436 00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,119 Speaker 1: is behind this right, think of like almost like a cabinet. 437 00:26:22,600 --> 00:26:24,800 Speaker 1: The lamp is behind the cabinet, but you have this 438 00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,520 Speaker 1: very narrow aperture. So some light can go through, kind 439 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,680 Speaker 1: of like a crack in a door. So light is 440 00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:35,240 Speaker 1: passing through this aperture. The light would come through, hit 441 00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:38,080 Speaker 1: the mirror, the mirror would reflect the light, and the 442 00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,200 Speaker 1: light would get reflected onto the calibrated scale. So think 443 00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,440 Speaker 1: of almost like a ruler, and you have this thin 444 00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,639 Speaker 1: ray of light essentially hitting the ruler on a specific point. 445 00:26:50,400 --> 00:26:52,560 Speaker 1: If a current were to pass through the coil, it 446 00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,240 Speaker 1: would cause the mirror to shift a bit. And that 447 00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:59,919 Speaker 1: was Thompson's genius because it created a system. And when 448 00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:04,800 Speaker 1: a telegraph operator sending a dot in Morse code would 449 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:07,920 Speaker 1: cause the mirror to tilt one way, so you would 450 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,440 Speaker 1: see the light shine like let's say our argument's sake 451 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:15,000 Speaker 1: a little to the left of where it's resting position was, 452 00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:17,440 Speaker 1: and a dash would make it go the other way, 453 00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:19,320 Speaker 1: so now you would see the light move over to 454 00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: the right of its normal rest position. It was very 455 00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,159 Speaker 1: very sensitive, so even weak signals would cause the mirror 456 00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,000 Speaker 1: to shift a bit, and if you were just paying 457 00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:32,639 Speaker 1: attention to the light, you could see what someone on 458 00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:35,639 Speaker 1: the other end was sending through, what sort of signals 459 00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,919 Speaker 1: they were sending through. It would become incredibly important because again, 460 00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,199 Speaker 1: those signals once they went from you know, one coast 461 00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,320 Speaker 1: to the other, pretty darn weak. Now in the summer 462 00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,520 Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty eight, the second expedition was ready to 463 00:27:51,640 --> 00:27:54,320 Speaker 1: try and once again they would rely on the agamem 464 00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:57,399 Speaker 1: Non and the Niagara. And this time they decided to 465 00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,639 Speaker 1: go with Bright's plan. That is, they were going to 466 00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:02,800 Speaker 1: start in the middle of the Atlantic. They would join 467 00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:05,959 Speaker 1: the ends of the cables of the two ships together, 468 00:28:06,520 --> 00:28:08,879 Speaker 1: and then they would lay the cables out as Niagara 469 00:28:08,920 --> 00:28:13,439 Speaker 1: headed to Newfoundland and Agamemnon headed to Ireland. They met 470 00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,080 Speaker 1: at approximately fifty two degrees north thirty three degrees west 471 00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:20,240 Speaker 1: in the middle of the Atlantic. It's more precise than that, 472 00:28:20,520 --> 00:28:23,440 Speaker 1: but I didn't want to go through the entire coordinates anyway, 473 00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,960 Speaker 1: Just getting to that location was rough. The weather had 474 00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,520 Speaker 1: turned as the ships headed to the middle of the ocean, 475 00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,399 Speaker 1: and at one point Agamemnon was actually pushed two hundred 476 00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,880 Speaker 1: miles off course due to the weather. Forty five crew 477 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:39,840 Speaker 1: members were injured during the passage because the ships were 478 00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,200 Speaker 1: kind of pitched back and forth, and you know, they 479 00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,520 Speaker 1: had this massive heavy coil on board the ship. But 480 00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:51,400 Speaker 1: fortunately no hands were lost On June, the two ships 481 00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:54,720 Speaker 1: met at the appointed spot and they spliced the cable 482 00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:57,480 Speaker 1: together and then they set off and for about one 483 00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,760 Speaker 1: kilometers the two ships were able to stay in contact 484 00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:05,280 Speaker 1: by sending messages through the joined cable. But then both 485 00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,560 Speaker 1: ships reported a failure in the line, and both crews 486 00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:10,600 Speaker 1: assumed that the problem had to be on the other ship. 487 00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,920 Speaker 1: Like that, Niagara was saying, ha, something's happened on the Agammemnon, 488 00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:16,360 Speaker 1: and the people on the agam m Now we're saying, 489 00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,680 Speaker 1: those yokels over at Niagara have totally mucked it up. 490 00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:24,320 Speaker 1: So they both returned to the origin point where they 491 00:29:24,360 --> 00:29:26,840 Speaker 1: first met, in the middle of the Atlantic, and then 492 00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,080 Speaker 1: they said, you know what, we're burning daylight, so let's 493 00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:32,400 Speaker 1: just cut the cable. So it was like a hundred 494 00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:36,240 Speaker 1: kilometers worth a cable that they cut, and they spliced 495 00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:40,240 Speaker 1: together again. They made a new splice and started off 496 00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:44,920 Speaker 1: second time. This time the Agammemnon ran into some problems 497 00:29:44,920 --> 00:29:47,840 Speaker 1: with the cable snapping. After the ships were hundreds of 498 00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,760 Speaker 1: kilometers apart from each other, the two ships both headed 499 00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,120 Speaker 1: back to Ireland and it looked like the project was doomed, 500 00:29:55,600 --> 00:29:59,800 Speaker 1: except Cyrus Westfield, the businessman and optimists, and Anglo File 501 00:30:00,280 --> 00:30:03,360 Speaker 1: convinced his partners to keep trying, and so on July 502 00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:07,400 Speaker 1: fifty eight they went for it yet again. And I 503 00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,240 Speaker 1: guess the third time was the charm, because this time 504 00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,240 Speaker 1: the ships were able to lay the cable in fair weather. 505 00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,000 Speaker 1: Niagara reached Newfoundland with the cable intact on August four, 506 00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:21,960 Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight, and the Agamemnon made it to Ireland 507 00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:26,480 Speaker 1: with its cable still working on August five, eight. So 508 00:30:26,560 --> 00:30:30,320 Speaker 1: on August ten, operators sent some test messages across the cable, 509 00:30:30,880 --> 00:30:34,840 Speaker 1: and by gum it worked. Europe was now connected via 510 00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:38,160 Speaker 1: wire to North America. The signals took a long time 511 00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:40,920 Speaker 1: to cross because the issues with induction on the ocean 512 00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:45,040 Speaker 1: floor were significant and the signal was quite weak, but 513 00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:49,680 Speaker 1: it was detectable thanks to Thompson's galvanometer. Now, when we 514 00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,600 Speaker 1: come back, I'll talk a bit about a very special 515 00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,760 Speaker 1: message sent across that cable, but first let's take another 516 00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:09,280 Speaker 1: quick break, Okay. On August six, eighteen fifty eight, we 517 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:15,640 Speaker 1: had an historic first. Queen Victoria, Regent of the United Kingdom, 518 00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:20,560 Speaker 1: sent a telegraph message to US President James Buchanan, and 519 00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:27,240 Speaker 1: it said, Dear Jimmy BRIT's rule Americans drul love Vicky. Okay, 520 00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:31,000 Speaker 1: I'm kidding. It didn't say that. It said, quote to 521 00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,720 Speaker 1: the President of the United States, Washington, the Queen desires 522 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:38,160 Speaker 1: to congratulate the President upon the successful completion of this 523 00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:45,360 Speaker 1: great international work. So then U. Buchanan reply back with quote, 524 00:31:45,840 --> 00:31:49,719 Speaker 1: may the Atlantic Telegraph, under the blessing of Heaven proved 525 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:52,960 Speaker 1: to be a bond of perpetual peace and friendship between 526 00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:57,080 Speaker 1: the kindred nations, and an instrument designed by Divine Providence 527 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:02,200 Speaker 1: to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world 528 00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:07,320 Speaker 1: end quote. So this was a huge deal. Okay, Like, 529 00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,040 Speaker 1: it's very hard for us to put this in the 530 00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:14,240 Speaker 1: context because in our world, instantaneous communication is the norm. 531 00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,280 Speaker 1: We can even chat with astronauts aboard the space station, 532 00:32:19,160 --> 00:32:24,800 Speaker 1: so it's pretty incredible. But back then this was truly monumental, 533 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:29,440 Speaker 1: and there were huge celebrations to commemorate the event. Things 534 00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,120 Speaker 1: got pretty rowdy, so much so that City Hall in 535 00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,960 Speaker 1: New York City got set on fire, not on purpose, 536 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,520 Speaker 1: I should add, this actually happened because of some fireworks 537 00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:43,600 Speaker 1: that went off. Course, the Atlantic Telegraph Company saw a 538 00:32:43,720 --> 00:32:48,000 Speaker 1: huge surge of investments because now we suddenly had a 539 00:32:48,000 --> 00:32:52,600 Speaker 1: connection between Europe and North America. Charles Bright received a 540 00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:55,800 Speaker 1: knighthood for his work on the project, and the crews 541 00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:58,440 Speaker 1: didn't need to use the full length of cable they 542 00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:02,040 Speaker 1: had on hand. They had some left over, so the 543 00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:07,400 Speaker 1: America's side, the Niagara side, those leftovers became sought after keepsakes. 544 00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:12,239 Speaker 1: So the famous jewelry company Tiffany and Company purchased the 545 00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:16,600 Speaker 1: excess cable and chopped it up into ten centimeter lengths 546 00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,560 Speaker 1: and sold it off at fifty cents a pop as 547 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:25,320 Speaker 1: souvenirs because capitalism. Alright, So the cable had been laid 548 00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,080 Speaker 1: and a few messages have been sent across it, but 549 00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,880 Speaker 1: the signal was pretty weak, and what's worse, it was 550 00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,160 Speaker 1: growing weaker. So Wildman white House, you know, the chief 551 00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:39,640 Speaker 1: electrician for this project, decided to go all Tim Allen 552 00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,680 Speaker 1: on the cable and he called for more power. He 553 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:47,080 Speaker 1: wanted to increase the voltage across the cable to try 554 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:51,520 Speaker 1: and push signals through and overcome the electrical resistance, pushing 555 00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,520 Speaker 1: it to somewhere around two thousand volts, which was a 556 00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,240 Speaker 1: tremendous voltage at the time. So he really wanted to 557 00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,920 Speaker 1: try and overcome the problems that William Thompson had been 558 00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:04,600 Speaker 1: warning everyone about for the last couple of years. But remember, 559 00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:08,080 Speaker 1: the company had decided to go with the thin wire 560 00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:12,680 Speaker 1: design that Michael Faraday and Samuel Morris had proposed, and 561 00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:15,520 Speaker 1: you know, Wildman white House was also part of that group. 562 00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:17,799 Speaker 1: He was also of the opinion that the narrow where 563 00:34:17,800 --> 00:34:21,080 Speaker 1: wires were the way to go. Now we cannot be 564 00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:25,920 Speaker 1: certain what ultimately caused this cable to fail just a 565 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:29,160 Speaker 1: few weeks after it was connected, because I did happen, 566 00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:34,680 Speaker 1: But the contemporaries at the time blamed white House. They 567 00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:38,200 Speaker 1: said that the increased voltage across the line led to 568 00:34:38,239 --> 00:34:42,120 Speaker 1: the cable essentially melting through its installation, and once that happened, 569 00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:44,840 Speaker 1: enough of the cable lost its signal to the salty 570 00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,680 Speaker 1: water around it. So, in other words, white House would 571 00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,880 Speaker 1: take the fall for the failure of the cable. Now 572 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:55,240 Speaker 1: do I think he was responsible, I'm not entirely sure. 573 00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:58,760 Speaker 1: I figure he's probably at least partly to blame because 574 00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,160 Speaker 1: he seemed to think that the stage was the solution 575 00:35:01,200 --> 00:35:04,560 Speaker 1: to any transmission problem. You know, just use enough voltage 576 00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:08,640 Speaker 1: and you can force your way through any obstacle, and 577 00:35:08,680 --> 00:35:11,759 Speaker 1: since he sided with Faraday and Morris, it did mean 578 00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,799 Speaker 1: that the cable had a much higher electrical resistance to 579 00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:19,360 Speaker 1: overcome than what Thompson was suggesting. However, there is a 580 00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,400 Speaker 1: historian named Donard de Coogan who investigated this matter in 581 00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:29,239 Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, and he examined some retrieved cable that 582 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,640 Speaker 1: was to be used on the project and noted that 583 00:35:31,680 --> 00:35:36,440 Speaker 1: the manufacture of the cable itself was not great. In 584 00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:38,440 Speaker 1: other words, he was saying that the quality of the 585 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:42,400 Speaker 1: cable was rather faulty and might have contributed to the failure. 586 00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,480 Speaker 1: He said the core of the cable was not uniformly 587 00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,120 Speaker 1: in the center of the insulator, so like your copper 588 00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:51,759 Speaker 1: wire wasn't in the center of the cable the way 589 00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:55,200 Speaker 1: it should have been, and that at some points along 590 00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:57,400 Speaker 1: the length of the cable it was really close to 591 00:35:57,400 --> 00:35:59,680 Speaker 1: the iron armor, so if the copper and the iron 592 00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:02,760 Speaker 1: were to touch, that would be almost like a short circuit. 593 00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,760 Speaker 1: He also noted that the Gutta purchase installation had likely 594 00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:12,160 Speaker 1: deteriorated over the months between eighteen fifty seven when uh 595 00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:16,400 Speaker 1: the unused cable. After after it snapped, crews returned with 596 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:18,880 Speaker 1: the unused cable, and they put it in storage, and 597 00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:21,840 Speaker 1: they used that same cable for the eighteen fifty eight expedition. 598 00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:26,239 Speaker 1: Sod Cogan said, it's quite possible that there was a 599 00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,920 Speaker 1: lot of deterioration within that year, that they didn't store 600 00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,560 Speaker 1: it properly, and that the the installation began to kind 601 00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:37,680 Speaker 1: of rought away from the copper. So the cable's usefulness 602 00:36:37,719 --> 00:36:41,600 Speaker 1: was likely limited from the get go, whether you put 603 00:36:41,600 --> 00:36:44,680 Speaker 1: more voltage through it or not. I think there's probably 604 00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:48,319 Speaker 1: a mixture of these two explanations going on here. That 605 00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:51,400 Speaker 1: white House was partly to blame, but the construction and 606 00:36:51,480 --> 00:36:55,440 Speaker 1: storage of the cable probably contributed to its failure as well. 607 00:36:55,680 --> 00:36:58,440 Speaker 1: And my guess is that no matter what, the cable 608 00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,840 Speaker 1: would have ultimately failed before a year had passed. But 609 00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:04,160 Speaker 1: the nice thing about having a person to point to 610 00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,160 Speaker 1: and say that's the guy who fouled it all up 611 00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:10,560 Speaker 1: is that the rest of the partners for the Atlantic 612 00:37:10,600 --> 00:37:14,279 Speaker 1: Telegraph Company were able to find more investors to do 613 00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,239 Speaker 1: the whole darned thing over again. You know, they had 614 00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,680 Speaker 1: proven that the cable actually worked, It could connect Europe 615 00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:24,600 Speaker 1: and North America. It was definitely possible. They just needed 616 00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,080 Speaker 1: to make some improvements so that it would work beyond 617 00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:32,640 Speaker 1: just a couple of months. Fun side fact, the failure 618 00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:35,560 Speaker 1: of the cable ended up being a big blow to 619 00:37:35,719 --> 00:37:40,080 Speaker 1: Tiffany and Company because they had bought all that excess 620 00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,520 Speaker 1: cable and then chopped it up to sell it as souvenirs. 621 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:46,560 Speaker 1: But no one was really eager to buy a length 622 00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:49,279 Speaker 1: of cable for a cable that stopped working just a 623 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:54,480 Speaker 1: few weeks after it went live, what say. So a 624 00:37:54,520 --> 00:37:57,080 Speaker 1: lot of those pieces of cable ended up just finding 625 00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,680 Speaker 1: their ways into all sorts of different you know, warehouses 626 00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:03,480 Speaker 1: and collections and stuff. You can still occasionally find it today, 627 00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,160 Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. But yeah, um it was. 628 00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,200 Speaker 1: It was not not the big financial windfall that Tiffany 629 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,840 Speaker 1: and Company expected it to be. Following the eighteen fifty 630 00:38:14,840 --> 00:38:18,800 Speaker 1: eight failure, the Atlantic Telegraph Company took several years before 631 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:21,880 Speaker 1: making another attempt, and part of that was because the 632 00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:25,840 Speaker 1: British government was conducting a thorough inquiry into the affair. 633 00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:29,960 Speaker 1: Uh this gave Charles Bright and William Thompson plenty of 634 00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,440 Speaker 1: opportunity to talk about their discoveries with regard to electrical 635 00:38:33,440 --> 00:38:38,480 Speaker 1: transmissions across great distances through undersea cables, and the inquiry 636 00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,839 Speaker 1: committee found those explanations to be really compelling, and so 637 00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:46,120 Speaker 1: the Atlantic Telegraph Company would defer to Thompson and Bright's 638 00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:50,960 Speaker 1: recommendations for the design of the next cable. So Thompson's 639 00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:54,760 Speaker 1: design would be much more expensive because he was calling 640 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:56,920 Speaker 1: for the purest copper that they could get hold of, 641 00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:01,120 Speaker 1: and to make thicker copper wires seven of them. Again, 642 00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:05,399 Speaker 1: he also called for better installation and had suggested as 643 00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:08,440 Speaker 1: to the amount needed of insulation to copper in order 644 00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,839 Speaker 1: to really give significant protection to the copper wires at 645 00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,640 Speaker 1: the core. The company named Thompson an electrical consultant. Now, 646 00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:21,000 Speaker 1: he didn't possess direct authority over any of the project. 647 00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:24,680 Speaker 1: It's not like he could send out directive commands to 648 00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:28,480 Speaker 1: the engineers who were working on building the cable. However, 649 00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:32,239 Speaker 1: he could make recommendations to the A. T. C. And 650 00:39:32,280 --> 00:39:35,680 Speaker 1: the company could then take those suggestions seriously, and they did, 651 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:39,440 Speaker 1: and they became an important part for the next expedition. 652 00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:43,280 Speaker 1: This one would not take place until eighteen sixty five, 653 00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,280 Speaker 1: probably for a few reasons. I mean, between eighteen fifty 654 00:39:47,360 --> 00:39:49,600 Speaker 1: eight and eighteen sixty five, the United States had a 655 00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:55,600 Speaker 1: little Civil War, so that probably was a deterrent to 656 00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:00,320 Speaker 1: giving a transatlantic cable laid while you're also link with 657 00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:04,960 Speaker 1: a war you know, going on within one of the countries. Um, 658 00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,560 Speaker 1: But it also just took time to re engineer things. 659 00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,960 Speaker 1: The new cable would have seven copper wires of greater 660 00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:13,840 Speaker 1: diameter than the eight fifty eight version. They were insulated 661 00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,799 Speaker 1: with four layers of gutta percha as well as some 662 00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:22,879 Speaker 1: other stuff that made up the outside layer of of insulation. 663 00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:26,640 Speaker 1: The main length of cable had an armored sheath of 664 00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:32,240 Speaker 1: ten wires, uh the shore end cables had an additional 665 00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:37,600 Speaker 1: layer of twelve triple stranded iron wires to add heavier 666 00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:41,520 Speaker 1: armor for near the shore. A company called Telegraph Construction 667 00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,520 Speaker 1: and Maintenance made the cable, and another company called Webster 668 00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,520 Speaker 1: and Horsefull provided the iron wires for the armoring. This 669 00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:53,279 Speaker 1: time it would be a single ship, a big steamship 670 00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,720 Speaker 1: called the Great Eastern that was used to lay the cable, 671 00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,920 Speaker 1: and it would carry the entire length, so there was 672 00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,000 Speaker 1: no need for a second cable ship. The Great Eastern 673 00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:07,040 Speaker 1: left in the spring of eighteen sixty five from Ireland. Unfortunately, 674 00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:11,680 Speaker 1: after traveling hundreds of miles and getting past the midway 675 00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:15,480 Speaker 1: point in the Atlantic. As they were feeding out the cable, 676 00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:19,880 Speaker 1: it snapped. This still was not the end of the 677 00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:24,239 Speaker 1: Atlantic Telegraph Company's attempts. The company planned once again to 678 00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,120 Speaker 1: try and connect Europe with North America, and they would 679 00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:31,840 Speaker 1: do this in eighteen sixties six. Samuel Canning, an engineer 680 00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,400 Speaker 1: who had been part of all the previous expeditions, was 681 00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,480 Speaker 1: named the leader, the engineering leader for this project, and 682 00:41:38,520 --> 00:41:43,160 Speaker 1: it was July eighteen sixty six to lay out a 683 00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:49,400 Speaker 1: new cable. The Great Eastern took its journey. The cable held. 684 00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,600 Speaker 1: It took two weeks for the Great Eastern to cross 685 00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:56,879 Speaker 1: the ocean, but on July the Great Eastern arrived at 686 00:41:56,960 --> 00:42:02,560 Speaker 1: Heart's Content, Newfoundland. But that wasn't all. They weren't going 687 00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:07,320 Speaker 1: to rest on their laurels having successfully connected North America 688 00:42:07,480 --> 00:42:13,040 Speaker 1: to Europe with another stronger telegraph cable. No, they had 689 00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:26,719 Speaker 1: even more planned. I'll explain after this last break. So 690 00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,600 Speaker 1: the Great Eastern set sail. You say, set sail, it's 691 00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:33,440 Speaker 1: a steamship. I guess you do. It set sail again 692 00:42:33,640 --> 00:42:37,760 Speaker 1: on August nine, eighteen sixty six, and it headed back 693 00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:41,080 Speaker 1: to the point in the Atlantic Ocean where the eighteen 694 00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:46,200 Speaker 1: sixty five cable had snapped. The previous crew on the 695 00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:50,680 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five expedition had actually marked the location of 696 00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:54,640 Speaker 1: the snap with a buoy. They had anchored a buoy 697 00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:58,160 Speaker 1: at that spot. So the Great Eastern found the buoy 698 00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,680 Speaker 1: and several ships took art in an effort to define 699 00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,400 Speaker 1: where the line was. They used you know, soundings to 700 00:43:04,440 --> 00:43:07,000 Speaker 1: try and seek out where the line was along the 701 00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,080 Speaker 1: sea floor, and they marked the path with more buoys. 702 00:43:11,040 --> 00:43:15,520 Speaker 1: The Great Eastern tried to hook the eight six cable, 703 00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:19,920 Speaker 1: and hooking meant using a very large grapnel kind of 704 00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:23,400 Speaker 1: like what you see in spy movies where people are 705 00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:26,759 Speaker 1: throwing a grapple up the like a grappling hook up 706 00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,319 Speaker 1: a wall so that they can scale it. Same sort 707 00:43:30,320 --> 00:43:35,040 Speaker 1: of thing, only way bigger and way more heavy duty. 708 00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,680 Speaker 1: And attached to this was a rope or line that 709 00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,800 Speaker 1: measured six and a half inches in circumference. The rope 710 00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,799 Speaker 1: was made out of iron and twisted hemp, so not 711 00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:49,000 Speaker 1: just a you know, a rope made out of rope, 712 00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:52,000 Speaker 1: It was a rope made of iron as well. It 713 00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,840 Speaker 1: had to be super strong to carry the immense weight 714 00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,040 Speaker 1: of the cable should they hook it. And this one 715 00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:01,759 Speaker 1: was rated to carry up to thirty The rope was 716 00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,240 Speaker 1: wound around a drum connected to a steam powered winch. 717 00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:08,200 Speaker 1: And because they were anticipating that they would be pulling 718 00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:11,160 Speaker 1: a weight of several tons, the winch had to be 719 00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:14,560 Speaker 1: a real monster, and that that engine to turn it 720 00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:17,160 Speaker 1: also had to be And the idea was to lower 721 00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:20,800 Speaker 1: the grapnel down to the sea floor and then drag 722 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:23,520 Speaker 1: it slowly across the sea floor in an attempt to 723 00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:27,719 Speaker 1: snag the cable. Now, how would you know if you 724 00:44:27,840 --> 00:44:32,959 Speaker 1: got a quote unquote bite. Well, an engineer monitored a dynamometer. 725 00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:36,920 Speaker 1: Now these days, a dynamometer measures engine torqu and r 726 00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,480 Speaker 1: p m s. In the original days of dynamometers from 727 00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,400 Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, they were meant to measure muscle output, 728 00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:50,000 Speaker 1: so like actual human or animal muscle output. But at 729 00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:53,680 Speaker 1: this point we're talking about steam engine dynamometers, and they 730 00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:59,080 Speaker 1: measured steam pressure inside engine cylinders. I'll read a description 731 00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:05,319 Speaker 1: of much a device. This comes from the Victorian collections. 732 00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:10,600 Speaker 1: They actually have one in their collection, and here's the description. Quote. 733 00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:15,360 Speaker 1: It has an oscillating recording drum with vertical silver clip 734 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:19,279 Speaker 1: attached for holding paper in place around the drum. The 735 00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:23,000 Speaker 1: drum oscillates left to right. There is a pulley attached 736 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:26,200 Speaker 1: to a length of cord which is attached to the drum. 737 00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:30,279 Speaker 1: Beside the drum is a fine metal arm vertically adjustable 738 00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:35,279 Speaker 1: small hole in the end to hold a pencil end quote. Now, 739 00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:38,080 Speaker 1: whether the one aboard the Great Eastern resembled the one 740 00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,799 Speaker 1: that's in the Victorian collections, I don't know. I have 741 00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:44,120 Speaker 1: no clue if it does or not, nor do I 742 00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,920 Speaker 1: actually fully understand the working mechanism of this device. I 743 00:45:47,960 --> 00:45:49,920 Speaker 1: almost started to look into it, but then I figured 744 00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:54,359 Speaker 1: I've done enough tangents for this episode already, so we'll 745 00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:56,680 Speaker 1: just say that this was acting like you know, when 746 00:45:56,719 --> 00:45:58,879 Speaker 1: you cast a fishing line and you've got that little 747 00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,120 Speaker 1: bobber on the surface of the water, and you watch 748 00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,760 Speaker 1: the bobber and when you see the bobber jiggle around, 749 00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,040 Speaker 1: you know you've got a bite. Same sort of thing, 750 00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:09,000 Speaker 1: except you're looking at an indicator, and when you see 751 00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:12,360 Speaker 1: that there's an indication that the engines having to work harder, 752 00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:17,680 Speaker 1: like the pressure is increasing. You can, you know, deduce 753 00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:20,160 Speaker 1: the reason why the engines having to work harder is 754 00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:25,839 Speaker 1: because it's pulling more weight. It's snagged that cable. It 755 00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:30,040 Speaker 1: took two weeks of attempts to do this, but they 756 00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:33,840 Speaker 1: finally succeeded. They actually partially succeeded a couple of times, 757 00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:36,560 Speaker 1: but they lost the grip on the cable, but they 758 00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:39,400 Speaker 1: kept at it, and after two weeks they finally got it. 759 00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,280 Speaker 1: They pulled the end of the cable aboard the Great 760 00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:47,080 Speaker 1: Eastern and they brought that end to the ship's instrument room, 761 00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,600 Speaker 1: and there they connected it to a signaling device. So 762 00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:53,200 Speaker 1: they sent a signal over the cable back to Ireland, 763 00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,120 Speaker 1: and then they waited and after a couple of minutes 764 00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:59,920 Speaker 1: they received an answer. So the cable was still operational 765 00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:03,279 Speaker 1: even after being under the ocean for a year, and 766 00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:06,360 Speaker 1: because it still worked, it meant the crew could splice 767 00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,520 Speaker 1: some new cable to the end of the snapped one. Actually, 768 00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,560 Speaker 1: technically the new cable was unused cable from eighteen sixty five. 769 00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:17,560 Speaker 1: It was the amount that had remained on board after 770 00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:22,480 Speaker 1: the cable had initially snapped. So they repaired the cable 771 00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,640 Speaker 1: and they laid it again, and they returned to Heart's Content. 772 00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:30,799 Speaker 1: So this meant that in eighteen sixty six the Atlantic 773 00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:37,840 Speaker 1: Telegraph Company successfully laid not one but two transatlantic cables. 774 00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,880 Speaker 1: So this was a huge success. The investment in eighteen 775 00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:44,880 Speaker 1: sixty five was no longer a literal sunken cost, like 776 00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:48,480 Speaker 1: people have pretty much written that one off, But now 777 00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:50,560 Speaker 1: it was actually working. So the thing that they had 778 00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:55,160 Speaker 1: funded a year ago was now actually operational, and it 779 00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:57,960 Speaker 1: meant that they had twice the signaling capacity as they 780 00:47:58,000 --> 00:48:02,160 Speaker 1: did before. Like if eighteen sixty five had been successful, 781 00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,480 Speaker 1: then they would have done the eighteen sixty six expedition 782 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:07,640 Speaker 1: and they would have had half the capacity. Now they 783 00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:11,120 Speaker 1: had twice what they had planned. So the eighteen sixty 784 00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:14,719 Speaker 1: six cable was actually a huge improvement over the one 785 00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:16,840 Speaker 1: that they laid in eighteen fifty eight, the one that 786 00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:20,200 Speaker 1: only worked for a few weeks. The transmission speed on 787 00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:26,000 Speaker 1: the eighteen fifty eight line was painfully slow. Seems like 788 00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:31,839 Speaker 1: it's an understatement. It took two minutes for a single 789 00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:36,440 Speaker 1: character in Morse code to transmit from one side to 790 00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:40,840 Speaker 1: the other. Two minutes just for one letter or number. 791 00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,479 Speaker 1: So when Queen vic sent that message to Jimmy the Buke, 792 00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,839 Speaker 1: it took about sixties seven minutes to just send that 793 00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:53,359 Speaker 1: one message. I read earlier, but the eighteen sixties six 794 00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:58,520 Speaker 1: cable could carry eight whole words per minute, not characters. 795 00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:03,800 Speaker 1: I'm talking words now. Yes, this was still incredibly slow, 796 00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:06,880 Speaker 1: but at least could be practical compared to the eighteen 797 00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,759 Speaker 1: fifty eight version. But then considering that the alternative was 798 00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,040 Speaker 1: to take a two week journey on a steamship to 799 00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,560 Speaker 1: carry a message from say, London to New York, and 800 00:49:17,600 --> 00:49:20,920 Speaker 1: then another two week voyage to take the return message 801 00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,000 Speaker 1: from New York to London, this was a huge improvement. 802 00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,560 Speaker 1: You weren't waiting a month to hear back about the 803 00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:31,640 Speaker 1: thing that you wrote about. The eighteen sixty six expedition 804 00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:34,480 Speaker 1: was the culmination of more than a decade of work 805 00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:38,920 Speaker 1: and experimentation and a lot of failures. Then those failures 806 00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:43,080 Speaker 1: taught us a ton of lessons. William Thompson made several 807 00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,799 Speaker 1: observations that later generations of scientists and engineers would build upon. 808 00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,920 Speaker 1: They would solve engineering problems to make faster communication possible 809 00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:56,719 Speaker 1: across subcede lines, and of course, much much later we 810 00:49:56,760 --> 00:50:01,320 Speaker 1: had telephone lines and then subsee power lines and fiber 811 00:50:01,320 --> 00:50:05,120 Speaker 1: optic lines. Now a lot more had to happen to 812 00:50:05,239 --> 00:50:08,759 Speaker 1: get to the point where we are today, and we 813 00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,600 Speaker 1: are not still relying on those old telegraph wires like 814 00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:16,960 Speaker 1: those days are over. However, that being said, the process 815 00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:23,120 Speaker 1: of laying modern lines across the ocean is pretty darn 816 00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:25,200 Speaker 1: similar to the way we did it back in the 817 00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:29,200 Speaker 1: old days. I mean, it's about spooling up these enormous 818 00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,960 Speaker 1: power lines or transmission lines and then unspooling them as 819 00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,279 Speaker 1: a ship sails across the ocean. It's it's pretty much 820 00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,239 Speaker 1: the same thing we did back in the nineteenth century. 821 00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,440 Speaker 1: So some stuff hasn't changed all that much. Now. If 822 00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,760 Speaker 1: there's interest, I'll do some more episodes about subseded cables. 823 00:50:46,280 --> 00:50:49,600 Speaker 1: We'll talk about the various inventions that made stuff like 824 00:50:49,680 --> 00:50:53,359 Speaker 1: signal boosting possible below the waves, because a lot had 825 00:50:53,360 --> 00:50:56,319 Speaker 1: to happen to make these powerful enough so that we 826 00:50:56,320 --> 00:50:59,840 Speaker 1: could do things like transmit Internet signals, for example. Obviously, 827 00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:03,880 Speaker 1: if you were relying on the transmission speed of the 828 00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,400 Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six cable for your Internet, you would never 829 00:51:07,440 --> 00:51:09,960 Speaker 1: get anything done. It would take way too long. So 830 00:51:10,800 --> 00:51:15,759 Speaker 1: there are things that we've devised that improve signal transmission 831 00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:20,600 Speaker 1: in subsea cables that we're not really possible back in 832 00:51:20,640 --> 00:51:23,640 Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties when this first cable had been laid. 833 00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,719 Speaker 1: So if there is interest, I'll continue down this pathway 834 00:51:27,080 --> 00:51:30,960 Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some of those uh inventions. But 835 00:51:31,239 --> 00:51:34,200 Speaker 1: for our next episode, I anticipate talking about a different topic. 836 00:51:34,520 --> 00:51:36,279 Speaker 1: It's just if I hear people say, hey, I want 837 00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:39,320 Speaker 1: to know more about like how those subsea cables evolved 838 00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:42,560 Speaker 1: over time, We'll totally come back and talk about it more. 839 00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:47,040 Speaker 1: This was a fun thing to research, tons and tons 840 00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,160 Speaker 1: of reading of historic documents, which was a blast. It 841 00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:54,680 Speaker 1: was a lot of fun. Actually got a little tiresome because, 842 00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,600 Speaker 1: let me tell you, those writers must have been paid 843 00:51:57,680 --> 00:52:01,920 Speaker 1: by the word because you think I'm wordy. I mean 844 00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:05,480 Speaker 1: I am, but these these journalists of days of old, 845 00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:12,280 Speaker 1: they make me seem rather curt and uh and quick 846 00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:15,600 Speaker 1: of speech by comparison. All right, well, that rouse up 847 00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:18,359 Speaker 1: this episode. If you have suggestions for topics I should 848 00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,960 Speaker 1: cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to 849 00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:23,240 Speaker 1: me on Twitter. The handle we use for the show 850 00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,799 Speaker 1: is text stuff h s W and I'll talk to 851 00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:35,080 Speaker 1: you again really soon. YEA. Tech Stuff is an I 852 00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,720 Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, 853 00:52:39,040 --> 00:52:42,200 Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 854 00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:43,800 Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows,