WEBVTT - Tinkerers, Inventors and Madmen 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.400 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.560 --> 0:00:15.520 Forward Thinking. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking, 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.200 the podcast that looks at the future and says she 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.600 blinded me with science. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Vocal, 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.119 and I'm Joe McCormick. And that slow, condescending shake of 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.680 the head from Lauren means it's once again time to 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:32.120 dive into a discussion about the future and invention and 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.720 science and technology. And uh, this this week we're actually 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:41.160 talking about kind of uh the spirit of invention and innovation. Well, 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:43.639 we were kind of tying it into our buddies over 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:45.680 at maker Fair, and we thought, wouldn't it be fun 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:47.839 to sort of talk about some of the some of 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.680 the crazy inventors of the past who have come up 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:55.960 with really creative inventions. Uh. Many of these people are 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.480 ones who worked on inventions on their own and either 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:06.520 experienced amazing success or we've enjoyed their inventions though they 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:10.600 did not reap too many benefits from them at the time. Um, 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:12.760 but we do you make a point, Joe in that 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:17.759 in that episode that the not all inventions come from 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.760 like the crazy guy working in a garage somewhere. A 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.440 lot of them come from massive R and D departments. 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.399 I mean, if we want to get real, it's not 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:27.440 as fun to say, but it is true that most 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.520 of the biggest inventions come from well funded labs in 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.959 R and D departments, which is because it's easier to 0:01:33.080 --> 0:01:36.399 make a living when you're making a living. Obviously, when 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:39.559 when you've got the money where you've got endless resources 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.360 at your disposal to to invent, it makes it a 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:44.959 little bit easier to keep going down different roads. But 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:47.160 one of the points I wanted to make in the 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.800 video is that, um separating these two things is kind 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:53.880 of an artificial distinction, saying though, well, on one hand 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:56.880 you have these big, well funded invention projects, and on 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:59.040 the other hand you've got the little tinker. I mean, 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.920 these are two ways of operating that feed into each other. 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.080 They're they're both part of the inventing spirit. And lots 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.079 of these great inventors who you know worked for big companies, 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:14.239 were probably also hobbyists, many of them makers on their own. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.959 Many of them were very much makers on their own, 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:19.280 and that's kind of how they ended up being where 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.480 they they got this job. Yeah, so, uh, we wanted 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:24.799 to kind of look back at some of the kind 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:28.480 of the godfathers of invention in a way. And uh, 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.160 and one of the first ones we had was a 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.280 fellow who whose inventions may or may not have ever happened. 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.640 There's a lot of stories about his inventions that could 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:41.840 be completely apocryphal, and that is Archimedes Archimedies. Some of 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:45.000 his inventions are more well attested than others, I think, 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:50.120 but he's mainly known actually for his proofs, right, like, yes, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:56.200 stuff about physics and mathematics, calculating volume density, hydrostatics, so 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.320 like how how you know, well, is this really made 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:02.480 of pure goal old or something? Right? Right? The whole 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.480 idea of displacement and things of that nature. Yeah, that 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.480 you could figure out if something was pure gold if 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:13.400 it displaced the correct amount of water. But he's also 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:17.400 remembered for all these strange inventions. Um. One of them, 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.480 of course is the is the screw right right? The 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.799 water lifting screw. And this is a pretty cool idea 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.960 for the ancient world. I don't know how they figured 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:28.760 this out, but well, yeah, it's kind of neat. It's 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.200 so imagine that you have a an area of water 0:03:32.480 --> 0:03:35.040 that it's slightly lower than where you would like the 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:37.440 water to go. So, you know, when you're trying to 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:42.600 irrigate a large part of of landscape to make it farmland, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.040 this is obviously something that you you know, if if 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:49.080 the biggest source of water is further down, like downhill, 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:51.720 how do you get that to come uphill? You could 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.280 just dig a really deep trend. You could, but that's 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.240 not necessarily easy or safe to do. So what our 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:00.400 commedees discovered was that by creating a actually what I 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.160 think imagine a rod angled down so that the bottom 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.200 of the rod is underneath the water and wrapped around 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.680 this rod is essentially what amounts to be a straw 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.800 or a hose, And by turning this you can actually 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.599 scoop water into that hose. And because of the way 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.679 that the uh, the hose curls, you keep on changing 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.200 what the lowest point of that curl is and you 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:27.200 urge the water. Yeah, so it's essentially a pump in 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.200 a way well that the angle the screw meets the 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:35.119 water creates a little sort of moving bucket. Yeah. Yeah, 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:38.760 So it's it's it's difficult to envision unless you actually 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.080 have a picture in front of you. But that and 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.160 this is something that's attributed to Archimedes, and as far 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.800 as we know, that is in fact the origin of 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.480 this particular invention. But even this is one of those 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.600 that's a little under contention. Well, one of the big 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:56.839 ones that everybody always remembers is the death ray. Yeah, 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.200 the Martian the one that was tested on mythbus is 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:03.360 actually where multiple times. Actually yeah, and this was the 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:05.480 way passionate about it. We really want a death ray, 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:07.120 and so we're kind of upset when it doesn't work, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.680 but it's no. But this is this is actually the 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:15.360 romantic inventor concept that we were just talking about, because 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.760 we have death rays. I mean, we have really really 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.360 good death rays that we can make with modern technology. 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.080 But people are still they're so attached to this idea 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:29.200 that Archimedes made a death ray. So so here's the story. Um, 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:34.080 Archimedes say, wants to defend a Greek city against attackers. Well, 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:36.760 how do you do it? Um? What if you were 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:41.320 to get a whole bunch of mirrors and polish them up. 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:43.760 And of course, in in Archimedes time, they didn't have 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:45.920 really good polished mirrors like we have now, so would 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.960 have to be like a highly polished copper or bronze 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:52.920 or something, and you lined a bunch of those up 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.479 so they all catch the sun's rays and you angle 0:05:56.600 --> 0:06:01.839 them toward a central pointed up. Yeah, creing a focal point, 0:06:02.120 --> 0:06:05.440 so that whatever the target is, we'll get heated up 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.240 very very rapidly. And this is actually it's not a 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.800 bogus idea. In fact, this is how we create solar 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:13.839 thermal power, isn't it. Yeah, I mean you just focus 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.760 mirrors on something to collect the heat and turn that 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.560 into usable energy. In this case, the usable energy would 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:24.160 be death. Well that in this case the usable energy 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.159 is heat, and the heat converts things what date of 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:32.240 wood into fire like converts to death. Um, yeah, I know. 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.600 The various tests that have been done on this have 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:39.760 shown that it's it's a feasible uh object, but it 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.880 may not actually work in any kind of practical use 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.560 like you could you can set Yeah, you might have 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.720 to wait a while. Yeah. I read about some mixed results, 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:53.400 like some experiments were like, yeah, this this would work 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.080 pretty good, but of course when MythBuster did it got 0:06:57.120 --> 0:07:00.760 busted twice. Yeah, they just couldn't. They couldn't make it 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:02.919 work in any reasonable amount of time. It was like 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.840 they had to sit there for a long You have 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.120 to ask ask the Roman forces if they wouldn't mind 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.280 waiting just a little while longer before they actually disembark 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.920 from their ships and invade your city a cloud. You know, 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.400 we've got to start over. Uh. And of course there's 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.960 just the fact that it would probably be way easier 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:27.360 to just go and light the ship on fire or 0:07:27.360 --> 0:07:30.240 shoot it with a flaming arrow or something, right, right, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:33.800 But I mean, the idea of a device that could 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:38.320 inflict huge amounts of damage without any visible sign of 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:44.400 projectile was something that could easily frighten your enemies terrifying. 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:47.560 There were you know, the reason why Archimedes came up 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.119 with some or at least why we attribute these ideas 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.800 to Archimedes and the whether or not they ever actually 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:55.440 came from him or that's a matter of debate. But 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:58.840 the reason why all of these were coming from this guy, 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.000 this this brilliant inventor, because he was in Syracuse, which 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:06.880 was under siege for like two years by Roman forces. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.000 And another one of his supposed inventions was a giant 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.320 arm that could rush or not. Yeah, the idea mean 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.000 that you would be able to destroy incoming ships or 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:23.320 foul them in some way, so that uh a besieging 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:27.000 force would be toppled, at least the the naval part 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.560 of it would be toppled. These these these are things 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.640 that repeat throughout history. I mean, it's it's we We've 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.760 we've got the maker fare here in a giant robot arm, 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:37.959 cruscious stuff. And then you know, and everyone is always 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.800 talking about Tesla's hypothetical and sorry that you were going 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:44.600 to say, oh no, well, I was just gonna say. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.319 It's funny how with the arm, there's this great diversity 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:50.959 of how people have envisioned it. I've found some site 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.520 on the Internet that just had this huge list of 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.840 different illustrations of the arm, and they all completely different. 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.080 Like one looks like a literal arm. It's like a 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.440 big metal hand that slapping down on the ship somehow, 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:06.240 and I don't know how that would work. The other 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.880 ones that seem more feasible is that it's um it's 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.800 using a big sort of grappling hook, like it shoots 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.559 over the ship and then you can pull it using 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.720 the leverage of this big lever back at the joint. 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.240 Sounds slightly more useful maybe than just um, but who knows. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.160 And he certainly worked on things like block and tackle 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.720 systems and stuff that made it a lot easier to 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.439 move very large heavy loads by just a few people, 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:37.800 really simple machines, right, And he's famous for his discussions 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.920 about the lever and the applications of a lever. And 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.559 you know, of course there's the saying that's attributed to him, 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.160 you know, find me the right place to stand and 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.880 I can move the world. You know, that kind of idea, UM. 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:53.400 And also you know there are other UH inventions that 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.840 are attributed to him. His death, of course completely tragic. 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:01.320 That was the story that the invading Romans were sacking Syracuse, 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.720 and that the Roman soldiers had been given the UH 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:08.360 the order not to hurt our Coimedes because he was 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:15.480 considered to be two precious, right and yet Braun. But 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.360 but a soldier killed him, and they're different reports on 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:20.480 what happened, Like some people say that what happened was 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.840 the soldier commanded our commedees to come to meet with 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:25.120 the general, and our commedees refused, and the soldier got 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.679 upset and then put a sword through our comedies. And 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:29.880 then there are other ones that said that our committees 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.360 was carrying some equipment that he used in his experiments, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:35.559 and the soldier thought that they were valuables, and so 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.840 he killed our committees to loot his body. At any rate, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.240 our commedees was a casualty of war. And so, uh, 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.200 the big inventions he had suggested weren't actually built. But 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.360 that's one of those early examples of someone who was 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:54.480 really creative and came up with some very uh, out 0:10:54.520 --> 0:10:59.080 of the box ways of of inflicting huge amounts of damage. 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:01.120 Um the night. This one I have on my list 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.640 is similar to that in that he took many commissions 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:08.160 for instruments of war, even though he himself was not 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:12.000 someone who was particularly warlike. And that's Leonardo da Vinci. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.480 So good old Leo came up with lots of different ideas. 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:21.120 He did also improve over previous ideas things that had 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.599 already been invented, like ball bearings. That was one of 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.480 those things that had been around since Roman times. But 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.079 Leonardo kind of showed new applications for ball bearings. Were 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.640 were devices that needed to be able to turn freely 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.680 without too much friction and um, and began to show 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.680 some of the first really practical uses for ball bearings. 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.439 Da Vinci invented or not invented, but designed a tank. 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.559 Didn't he look like had Yeah, it looks kind of 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.800 like a flying saucer. It had thirty six guns. Uh 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:54.080 in the design and uh what's interesting about that tank 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.520 is if you really take a close look at the drawings, 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.720 it was supposed to move based on a big series 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:02.960 of gears, and you would, you know, turn these gears 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.280 and that would make the wheels turn. But if you 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:07.440 really pay attention to the way the gears are laid 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:10.560 out in the drawing, it would never move because the 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:13.199 front wheels would be turning one way while the back 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:15.440 wheels would be turning the other way. So you would 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.839 what he needed in there was a transmission. We need 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.760 to have some sort of differential. But what what what 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.079 some people suggest is that da Vinci was a pretty 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:27.000 smart guy and that maybe maybe you know, it could 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:29.559 have been a mistake. But it's also possible that maybe 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:31.680 he put it in there on purpose because he one 0:12:31.800 --> 0:12:34.680 didn't want anything to ever really, no one. He didn't 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:37.880 want anyone to really build it and to and too 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.320 he thought that or to maybe that he wanted to 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:42.440 do this in case it ever fell into the wrong hands. 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:44.600 Whoever did get a hold of it would not be 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.080 able to make a working tank because if they followed 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.240 the instructions in the in the drawings, they would have 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.040 an immobile structure. So it would be more like a 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:55.560 hut with a whole bunch of guns in it. Um, 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:57.880 that's not guess. In the Renaissance period of tank was 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.880 kind of like a nuclear bomb. Well, you'd just be 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.960 he definitely, he definitely came up with other ideas that 0:13:03.000 --> 0:13:06.120 were equally terrifying in this and and part of that 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:11.280 was these were inventions that were never actually built. Uh 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:15.040 And and maybe it was just that you knew that 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.160 da Vinci had designed this thing, and that would give 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.400 you second thoughts before you tried to muscle in on 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:22.520 one of da Vinci's patrons. You know, this is a 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:27.040 guy who received patronage from various very wealthy people. And 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:30.200 so one of the inventions was a thirty three barreled gun. 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.319 And so imagine imagine a triangle. All right, So you 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.960 got a triangle, and you got it mounted on a tripod, 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.720 and across each edge of the triangle you have eleven guns. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:42.680 Now the idea was that you would be able to 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.200 fire those eleven guns along the top edge and then 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:50.240 you would rotate at once one click. Now when it's rotated, 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:53.680 that those eleven guns start to cool, and then you 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.520 can fire the next eleven guns. So now you fired 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.160 off twenty two, you rotate it. Now that second of 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.720 guns is starting to cool while you start to load 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:05.040 the first set of guns, and you can still fire 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.600 the third set. So the idea is that you're constantly 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:11.400 cooling and reloading these guns while firing off the top 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.040 level of guns. So it's kind of like a very 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:18.520 primitive version of a machine gun, although it's all still 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.840 you know, manually reloaded, and you know, it's not that 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.480 you would fire all eleven simultaneously, but it would allow 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:26.800 you to fire them in quick succession right right, and 0:14:26.840 --> 0:14:28.960 you know, in comparison to the to the muskets of 0:14:28.960 --> 0:14:30.960 the day, right where you would fire and then three 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:32.760 minutes later you'd be able to fire again. I mean, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:35.360 if you were really really good, you could probably fire 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:39.760 I think it's it might be as frequently as three 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.760 times in a minute if you were really really good, 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.000 But otherwise it was just like boondock Saint style if 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:46.960 just you know, like drop the guns, pull out more 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.640 more kind Yeah, why why reload? I have more guns? Yeah? 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:56.000 And then the he had other inventions that were never built, 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.240 things like the aerial screw. So you know, our commedees 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.360 figured out how to use a screw to to pull 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:04.840 water out of a low area into a higher area. 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:07.880 Uh da. Vinci was looking at using the screw shape 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.360 to try and generate lift. So this is sort of 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.080 a precursor to the helicopter. And the idea would be, 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.360 if you could turn this screw fast enough, you might 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:17.680 be able to generate enough lift to get off the ground. 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:21.880 He also tried to design oriandopters, didn't he yep, which 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:27.200 kind of a precursor to airplanes or gliders. Flapping wings. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.440 Flapping wings, and the wings were more were designed more 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.120 after the wings of a bird. Um right, Yeah, not 0:15:34.160 --> 0:15:36.680 not stiff enough to actually create the lift that we 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.200 would need to. Yeah, but none of them would have 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:43.920 really generated enough lift for anyone to to get off 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.720 the ground or survive a great fall, if that's how 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.360 you wanted to start. Uh He also but he didn't 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.040 invent parachutes which would have worked. Um. They again, we're 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.960 not built, but they would have worked had they been built. 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.000 People have built parachutes based upon his designs and shown 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.640 that they would have slowed the descent so that you 0:16:02.800 --> 0:16:07.120 would be able to, uh, in his words, throw yourself 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.920 down from any great height without suffering injury. Although without 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.840 suffering injury part may not be completely valid. But you 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:17.880 wouldn't you probably wouldn't die. Um, so right there. Yeah, 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:19.800 but you know, davincion bounce in that day. We're not 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:24.080 a good You might die later, um, or you might 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.720 just find yourself a couple of legs short, um, significantly 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.720 shorter than the da Vinci though, was you know, truly 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:35.480 the Renaissance man, right, I mean, that's the guy we 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:37.200 think of when we think of the Renaissance. Is this, 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.000 here's this guy who was an artist and a scientist 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:43.720 and an inventor. He had sort of the leading one 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.320 of the leading thinkers of the day. Uh. And then, Lauren, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:50.680 you have some information about another person who just a 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.680 few decades after da Vinci, well more like a century 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:57.720 after da Vinci, was really taking that role. Yeah, sir 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.320 Isaac Newton you might have heard of him. He built 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.840 the first reflecting telescope. I believed that another fellow had 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:05.960 created a design for it earlier, but he was the 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:09.200 first person who actually put it into practice. UM. And 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.440 I was also just doing some of the most important 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.080 mathematical stuff, you know, really building the Western foundation for 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:20.760 calculus and um, doing important work with with gravity and 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:27.639 light and uh and stuff. Yeah, he designed this, um, 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:30.440 this so called orbital cannon, which was basically a thought 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:34.560 experiment to explain how how we could put an object 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:38.280 in orbit of the Earth and you know which which 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:42.800 which in is that the late sixtus was pretty cool, 0:17:42.840 --> 0:17:46.119 I mean, you know, and in the design involved putting 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:47.760 a cannon on top of a mountain so high that 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.760 it was in space, so it was not really feasible, 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.040 but as a thought experiment was really cool. Um. This 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.840 whole idea of that you're falling at the same rate 0:17:56.920 --> 0:17:59.480 that the Earth is turning, so therefore you're just constantly 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:02.960 in that same position relative to the Earth. I mean 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:06.280 that's the basis of orbit, which is that's a pretty 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:13.560 pretty yes. Yeah. Um. He He also, according according to 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.840 some sources, was was a great animal lover. And although 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:20.280 you know, he never really had um any any deep 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.280 friendships or deep romantic relationships that he had a lot 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.480 of cats and dogs kind of running around in his life, 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.440 and uh supposedly at Cambridge UM he created the first 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:32.119 cat door to to let so so that cats would 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.359 stop scratching at the door and interrupting his calculus. I 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.720 think I think we can all blame Newton for all 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:39.760 the cat videos that are on the internet. I think 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:41.640 I think that if you were to trace it all back, 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:45.760 there's some some contention about that maybe, but maybe you 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:50.919 could argue ancient Egypt. But um also one of one 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.440 of Newton's contemporaries, Robert Hook is occasionally referred to as 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.280 the British Da Vinci. He he was. He was, you 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:03.400 know again living in the sixteen seventeen hundreds and created 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.040 what was also working with with light and gravity in 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.280 conceptual ways and created just a lot of really pervasive 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:14.919 simple machines. The he was the one. Hook's law, the 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.119 that the extension of a spring is proportional to the 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.240 weight hanging from it, is named after Robert Hook. Also 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:23.040 Hook's joint or the universal joint, which is a way 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:26.200 of connecting two immobile rods in a way that lets 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.800 them uh create rotational force around each other. Also compound 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.159 microscopes kind of an important thing. He was doing a 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:36.040 lot of research into biology. He was the one who 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.680 coined the term sell in terms of like a unit 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:42.439 of biology um, which he was a He was a 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:47.040 connected to the Catholic Church and they these these He 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:51.480 was examining cork under a microscope under a microscope, and 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:55.080 the walls of the cork reminded him of monastery cells. 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:58.919 So supposedly that's where that comes from. Well, uh, moving 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.080 forward just a bit, we get up to uh to 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:08.760 an American Benjamin Franklin, known for his uh inventiveness. He 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:13.879 invented lightning. Right, you gotta go stand the corner for 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:23.000 the rest of the episode. Uh, I'm just gonna sit 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.480 over here, Allison in the corner. You guys take over now. 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.680 Benjamin Franklin, who invented many things. He's also known for, 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:33.320 you know, his his diplomatic missions over to Europe. He's 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:35.679 known as one of the founding fathers of the United States. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.199 One of the things Benjamin Franklin, well he didn't invent it, 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.840 but he did improve upon it was the odometer. Odominters 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:43.879 has been around for quite some time, but he created 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.080 a really practical precise one. And the reason he made 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:50.720 one was because he was working with the postal service 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.920 at the time. This is before the Revolution, so he's 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:55.880 technically working for the British authorities at this point, and 0:20:56.640 --> 0:20:59.440 they were having trouble figuring out how to get mail 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:02.480 from various cities and in a way that was efficient 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:07.119 and made sense. Franklin the first post pastor of General Yeah, yeah, 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:09.400 you know, we think about him when we talked about 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:11.520 the post office as well. But he so what he 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.360 did was he actually designed this odometer as a set 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:18.200 of gears that would fit on against the rear wheel 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.000 of his horse drawn carriage, and he took the carriage 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:26.040 between cities and every four hundred revolutions of the wheel 0:21:26.760 --> 0:21:29.520 would be equivalent to a mile or one point six 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.080 kilometers and uh and it turned out to be pretty 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.520 pretty accurate, and so he was able to measure the 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.680 distance between the different cities and with those measurements start 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:42.640 to help plan out more efficient routes. So that uh 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.520 so that mail carrying even made sense in a place 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.280 has spread out as the United States, and so that 0:21:49.400 --> 0:21:52.119 was a pretty cool early invention. He's also known, of 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.199 course for the invention of the Franklin stove. Um. He 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:57.439 was working in Philadelphia at the time, which if you 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:00.359 are unaware during winter, it can get a bit chili 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:05.480 and uh. Fireplaces are not terribly efficient at generating heat 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:07.919 in a way that is useful for us. A lot 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:09.800 of that heat just goes straight up the chimneys, so 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:11.879 you're losing a lot of the energy that you are 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:13.640 trying to generate, which meant that you were going through 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:18.200