WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Louis Le Prince 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.440 Thinking Sideways is not supported by bees who make heptagon 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:07.000 shaped hives. Instead, it's supported by the generous donations of 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:10.280 our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon dot com slash thinking 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:18.599 sideways to learn more and thanks Thinking Sideways. I don't 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:28.960 understand you never know stories of things we simply don't 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:34.320 know the answer to. Hi there, Welcome to another episode 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:38.320 of Thinking Sideways. I'm Joe, your host, joined as always 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.720 by Devin and Steve, and we're here this week to 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:46.320 talk about another cool mystery. Yeah. This week we're going 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.600 to talk about Louis La Prince who mysteriously vanished. Let 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.440 me start off without few biographical details about Louis La Prince. Um. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:58.480 He was born in France in one moved to Leeds, 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.480 England in eighteen sixty six, taking taking a job working 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.560 for a college friend in a brass foundry. I think 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:08.160 he was an engineer. Um. He eventually married, moved to 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:11.920 the US for a while, and began experimenting with motion pictures. 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:14.720 He was trying to build himself a movie camera. He 0:01:14.800 --> 0:01:18.760 produced a sixteen lens camera which was kind of so so. Essentially, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:22.920 what it did is it took sixteen sequential photographs, but 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.120 didn't quite work out so great because every photograph was 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.280 taken from a slightly different vantage point, so it gave 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.800 kind of a jerky result. If you're trying to picture 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:34.039 it almost looked like to figure out how to lens 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:37.399 configuration is it's almost like the buttons on a double 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:42.520 breasted suit. Yes, yeah, that's exactly I mean. Or you 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:44.280 can go and look up pictures of it on the internet, 0:01:44.280 --> 0:01:47.000 because we have pictures of the machine. Yeah, it wasn't. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.200 It wasn't a really accurate machine. No, that didn't. But yeah, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:54.320 so he he began because he didn't like the results 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:56.000 on that when he got a patent on it. Anyway, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.400 but started, Yeah, I started working on a single lens 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.160 camera and it eventually produced a prototype and also a 0:02:02.160 --> 0:02:05.920 prototype projector. And he actually is credited with making the 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:10.160 world's first moving pictures. Yeah. That was in Leeds where 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:13.359 he made those films in England. Yeah, Leeds, England. Yeah, 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.440 he tested his prototypes for moving to the US. Yeah, okay, 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.760 well no, I think this is after he came back 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:21.640 from the US and back to Leeds and that's where 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.240 he made his first films, which was and by the way, 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.640 those films can be found online. They're incredibly short. Is 0:02:29.320 --> 0:02:32.320 to second, like the running what's the running horse one? 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.400 That's that's not this guy? Right? Yeah? Yeah, So do 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.520 you want to talk about that stuff? About that stuff 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.360 before we talked about as this mysterious disappearance. You know, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.800 let's let's talk about let's just go through the story 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:45.680 and then we'll talk about the technology and then we 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:47.480 can go from there. And that's probably the better way, 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:49.639 so we don't break it up too much. Okay, all right. 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.440 Generally Thomas Edison and the Louiser brothers, who are French guys, 0:02:55.240 --> 0:02:57.359 they get all the credit for the invention of the movies, 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.040 but Louis Le Prince actually was the first out of 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.240 the gate. He produces prototype several years I think before 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.799 Edison produced his. After he had a good functioning single 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:11.920 lens prototype and projector, he made plans to go to 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.280 New York to put on a public demonstration. Uh. And 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.280 so that would have been eighteen nine when that happened. 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.840 So that was a year ahead of when Thomas Edison 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:24.000 applied for his parents. Wasn't that kind of a trend 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:28.920 in Thomas Edison's career? Was? Yeah, we're talking about that. 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:34.359 Okay we are yeah, yeah, how can we not? Yeah? 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:39.200 So okay, now we get talked about his disappearance. Yeah, okay. 0:03:39.760 --> 0:03:44.240 In September eighteen, Louis la Prince went to Dijon to 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:49.160 visit his brother Albert. Yeah. Well yeah, he used to 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:54.360 be great. Poupon to change Yeah yeah, dejon actually in 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.720 French means dijon. I don't know if you knew that. 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:02.640 Can we stop the mustard joke? Okay. On September six, 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:06.120 eight nineties, brother Albert took him to the Dijon railway 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:08.920 station and put him on a train to Paris, where 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:11.840 Louis was supposed to meet up with friends to continue 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:14.280 the journey to his journey to the UK and then 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:18.280 on to America for the demonstration. Louis le Prince had 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.000 his prototypes with him as well as his luggage. Long 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.560 story short. When the train arrived in Paris, Louis Le 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:26.839 Prince was not on the train and a mystery was born. Also, 0:04:26.960 --> 0:04:29.640 his long age and his prototypes were gone to None 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:32.599 of the passengers reported seeing anything strange happening. Nobody saw 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.359 somebody getting beaten or somebody getting drug off, or you know, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.000 they did, They say they noticed a dude with like 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:45.039 really big bags. Everybody had really big luggage in those days. Yeah, 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:47.560 it appears that nobody really noticed him. Was actually an 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.520 in and of itself as a little strange because he 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:51.920 was actually a big guy. He was like six three 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:53.760 or four, you know, he was. He was a pretty 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.280 big guy. French police search to train. Then they searched 0:04:57.279 --> 0:04:59.599 the train line all the way back from Paris to Dijon, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.039 which is, by the way, quite a trip, that's quite 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:04.560 a lot along a big swath of territory to search. 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.400 They found no sign of Louis le Prince, and his 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:10.320 disappearance is a mystery to this day. Can I ask 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.640 a quick question, how soon did they search the train? 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.560 I've never been able to find details. I have not either. Yeah, 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.680 this you know, this happened, like you know, obviously more 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.360 than years ago. So details are a little sketchy. Well, 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.479 it depends on the telling. Though. Sometimes it almost makes 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:29.320 it sound as if the train arrived and police immediately 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:35.200 swarmed over the train. There's no way, but that's when 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:36.920 you do the reading. Some of the stuff you come 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:41.600 across gives that impression. But I don't Trains don't normally 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:46.040 stay at the station first exactly, Paris is the end 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:48.320 of the line, though maybe maybe it would have stayed 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:49.920 there for a little bit. But the thing about it 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:52.039 is is I'm not sure exactly when anybody raised the 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:54.640 alarm about him. It might have been one of these things. 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.400 Maybe it's even there's been some distortion introduced to the 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.240 whole thing, and maybe railroad employees eventually searched the train, 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.160 maybe the police did it. It might have been days afterwards. 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:05.640 Even it could have been one of those things where 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:07.760 it's like maybe somebody murdered him and stuffed his body 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:10.080 and some little nook. Yeah. But alternately, it could have 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:11.880 been one of those things where, you know, his friends 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.360 were waiting to pick him up, they didn't see him. 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:16.919 The conductor said, you know, okay, we're all board, and 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:18.560 somebody said, oh no, wait, wait wait, my friend was 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:20.479 supposed to get off here. Can you just go check 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:23.040 make sure he's not asleep? You know, they said, yeah, 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:25.520 they were discovered that he was not there, and they 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.359 said uh, and you know, they thought, oh yeah, and 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:30.880 so or something. They went, yeah, and they went through 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:32.719 the train and all that stuff, And so I don't 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:35.400 know how thorough the search was. But but yeah, and 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:37.719 again it's time before cell phones, so it's not exactly 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.840 like you just yeah, hey, where are you and he 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:46.200 doesn't respond and you go, oh no. But also you know, 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:48.360 he can't just say, oh, I missed the train, I'll 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:51.160 be on the next one, which is so you could 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:52.960 just make the assumption of he missed the train, he'll 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:56.880 be on the next one. Yeah. So anyway, that's our mystery. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:58.480 This is a pretty short intro to this one. We're 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.279 going to descend right into the theory actually talk about 0:07:01.680 --> 0:07:04.520 we need to explain kind of what he's doing here 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.360 based on the time frame, because this if you haven't 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.960 ever done any research into the history of photography, this 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.960 makes no sense in terms of how cameras worked. I mean, 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.240 I don't know if you guys have had to do that. Okay, 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:21.040 you're giving me looks like, well, I don't know what 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:22.960 you're asking if you've had to do any research on 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:28.160 the history of photography. Okay, yeah, I haven't. Artist in 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.240 this room. I took classes, so I know that I 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:35.000 know that they invented the cell phone, and then they 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.080 and then they invented the camera and go in and 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.200 then they invented the selfie and then they invented the internet. 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.000 Okay somewhere in there. Yeah, that's what I know. Well, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:50.760 so I know that this is part of Louise's history, 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:56.240 is that he was his family friends with Because if 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:57.960 you've ever heard, you may have heard of the phrase 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.680 a Dagara type, and that's a type of photographic image. 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.560 That means a Daguera type is a very it's a 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.640 very simple way of making a photo. You basically take 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.960 polished silver a plate and you put chemicals on it. 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:15.480 They're light sensitive. You expose it like you would a film, 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:18.360 you know, photographic film. It's the same principle, but it's 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.040 chemicals on a plate, and then you process it and 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.160 then you put a sheeted glass over because what has 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:27.280 been exposed, Um, I can't remember whether it's what's been 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:30.920 exposed stays dark or if what hasn't been an exposed 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.160 washes away. One of the two, it leaves an image, 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.080 and that's a Dagara type, and you'll see him. There's 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.800 all these old tin photos of like Confederate soldiers and 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:43.280 stuff like that that's there. They're a version of that. 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:47.319 But he Liew of the Prince, was family friends. That 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.160 that was a buddy of his dad. So I spent 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:52.880 a lot of time hanging out with him and learned 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:54.600 a lot and got him I'm sure that got him 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.320 started off. Yeah, so he so he knew about games 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.800 from that. And then the other guy that you brought 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.880 was Moybridge. And people will know Moybridge that they probably 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.320 won't know. His work is if you've ever seen I 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.640 think it's a horse galloping is the name of it. 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:12.520 But it is a series of images that they put 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:15.800 in a spirograph that they caught. Not a spirograph when 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.240 it's a cylinder with images on the inside and you 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:21.880 can spin it and it makes it look like the 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:27.000 images moving. It's a very early crude version of actual movies. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:32.640 It's actually it's it's actually the earliest gift, yeah, because 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.680 it repeats well yeah, And that's what Devil was talking about, 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.800 is he took these images of a horse that was running, 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.480 but he didn't actually make a movie. It was like 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.160 it was stop motion photography, is what it was. He had. 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.960 There was a bet to figure out if a horse's 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.560 feet ever all four left the ground at once, so 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.680 to be able to figure this out, and needed a photograph, 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.880 so he had I think it was sixteen or twenty eight, 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.080 something like that, sixteen cameras in a row. Threads run 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:06.760 across the course that pulled the shutter, so as the 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:10.760 horse crossed it and snapped the thread, it would take photo. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.120 And then he assembled those and that's how you get 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.280 the actual first movie. If the horse had gone galloping 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:19.240 down the course and all the cameras had toppled over, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.600 maybe that happened the first time out. He's like, should 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:32.480 not have used rope. But the point is is that 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.120 uh La Prince wasn't the first one to invent this 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:38.920 kind of technology. People have been working on this, while 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.080 Boybridge is the first one who proved that you could 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:45.200 make a moving image. And then from there everybody else. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.080 This was the age of you know, the gentleman inventor. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:53.800 Everybody was making these things the renaissance, Yes, the renaissance man. 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.560 But that's that's how this whole technology worked. And that's 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.080 what his sixteen lens camera was was the equivalent of 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:06.560 in one box with Moybridge had done with sixteen individual cameras. Yeah, 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:08.800 and of course he was shooting on papers, so it 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:10.959 wasn't as good. He's the one who figured out how 0:11:11.000 --> 0:11:14.040 to use celluloid. Yeah, he did, and to make an 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:16.280 image he started. Yeah, he would take sheets of celluloid 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.040 and cut it in strips and stuff like that, and 0:11:18.920 --> 0:11:21.440 which is why the movies are so short. Well, yeah, 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.240 I know. The interesting thing about this too is that 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.920 eventually Thomas Edison basically owned the movie industry and it 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:31.199 was all run out of Mental Park, New Jersey, and 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:33.959 he formed a formed a company. I can't remember what 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.080 the company was called, but they essentially set the rules 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.520 for filmmaking and the theaters. They one of the things 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:42.600 that they insisted on was that no movie be longer 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:45.000 than twenty minutes, because they were of the opinion that 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.880 the attention span of the American public was too short 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.880 for anything. That I would kind of agree with that. Yeah, 0:11:52.080 --> 0:11:55.680 it's amazing we've gotten away with the length we've gone. Yeah, 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:58.679 but he's got that. But but he had a kind 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.079 of a stranglehold everybody had. Everybody had to pay him 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.920 royalties because he sewed up the whole thing with those 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:07.040 patents and everything. And so that's why Hollywood got created. 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.360 It is because of Thomas Edison. Because all these people 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.120 from the East Coast were fed up with him, you know, 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:17.000 setting the rules, making it, making them pay royalties whenever 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.400 they wanted to show a film in the theater, and 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.680 and telling them how long their movies could be etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 0:12:23.080 --> 0:12:27.200 So they moved That's California, which is in nine, which 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.440 is as far away from Edison as they could possibly get, 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:33.160 and the reigning the reigning court out there was a 0:12:33.240 --> 0:12:37.880 ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and so the Ninth Circuit 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:43.280 was not particularly sympathetic to monopolies such as what Edison 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:45.120 had going. Oh he was trying. He tried to set 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:47.400 a monopolies constantly. Oh yeah, I mean, we're going to 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.960 talk about it. But he was a complete and total 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:55.040 a whole everything that I've I mean, he did great things, 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.640 but he was also a dirty businessman. Oh yeah, very much. 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.080 So yeah, yeah, and yeah, and then the whole story 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.040 of him and Tesla is kind of interesting. It so 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.280 Lawrence a lot of reading. If you've never done that, 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:09.480 you need to. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah yeah. But 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.280 that was a big there was a big war, you know, 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.240 over the whole thing between direct current and alternating current, 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:19.520 you know. Oh yeah, and Tesla invented alternating current. Alternately, 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:25.760 you can watch the Bob's Burgers episode topsy. Yeah, could 0:13:25.800 --> 0:13:29.240 you imagine how screwed up our infrastructure would be if 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.320 we had direct current? It would be different. It would 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:38.800 be terrible. Be better, no, direct curric better. You are 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.880 quoting at You're quoting a cartoon. I'm not saying it'd 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:45.760 be no, I'm personally saying it'd be better. I'm not 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:49.040 quoting power plants every five miles or ten miles because 0:13:49.040 --> 0:13:52.360 that's all you can transmit electricity. Yeah, oh yeah, that'd 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:54.640 be a great. Yeah, just right at the arcs right, 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:58.840 you just have an arcing in between things. Just have 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:03.920 tesla coils every perfect Yeah, we can just generate power 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:11.160 in our own homes. I have no sor. I'm working 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:15.840 on a small nuclear reactor myself. Back to Louis the Prince. Um, 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.440 we're gonna talk about theories as to how and why 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:23.400 he disappeared. Okay, first theory up, Thomas Edison did it? 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.720 I believe it. Yeah I don't actually yeah no, Actually, 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:31.880 the like the Prince's widow, believe that Edison was responsible 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:34.800 for a little foul play. I could see why though, Yeah, 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:37.840 well he had he actually did have an interest in 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.400 this whole thing. He applied for his first moving picture 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:46.840 patent a year later in after the disappearance, After the disappearance, Yeah, 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.800 in France, the louis Are brothers staged their first moving 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.840 picture show in Paris. In so it does appear that 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:59.440 these people, especially Edison, really benefited from Louis the Prince's disappearance. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.240 And now, um, let me ask about the patent thing, 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:06.720 because I never I could never find conclusive answers to this. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:11.360 As you read that the Prince applied for a patent 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.560 for the single lens camera in the United States and 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.040 it was denied, and then two years later Edison applies 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:21.880 for it and gets it without a hitch, and they denied. 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:24.960 According to the readings that I've seen, it was denied 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.360 because it infringed on another patent. Yeah. But but but 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:31.880 Edison's design infringed on the same path. Correct. But but 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:34.040 is there truth to that or do you know? I 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.320 couldn't find out if that was true or not. I 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.080 have not been able to fit to find that out 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:40.840 for a certain book. Didn't Edison? Didn't? Edisone work in 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:46.320 the patent office for a while. No, that's Einstein. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:50.280 but famous guy. Wrong, famous guy. You sort of wonder 0:15:50.280 --> 0:15:52.160 when it comes to Edison though, if you maybe didn't 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.120 have a didn't have a like a mole in the 0:15:54.160 --> 0:16:00.160 patent office. Yeah, patents like mad though, that's the thing 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.240 he filed so through what's the what was the name 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:07.760 of the place that he had Edison mean Menlo Park, 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.760 Menlo Park, thank you? Through Menlo Park. He filed for 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.560 bunches and bunches and bunches of patents. So I I 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:17.480 almost wonder if his patent went through because somebody went 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.840 another Edison patents stay up go. Yeah, that could be 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.640 or I think it could be too, because it might 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:28.200 be one of those deleos where you kind of got 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.200 to like bribe somebody. Yeah yeah, I mean that was 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.160 this was a time where that was not uncommon. Yeah country. Yeah. 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.760 So anyway, Edison gets his patent and louis La Prince 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.120 does not. But I was I was saying Edison really 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.320 benefited from the Prince's disappearance, and the family felt like 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:50.480 Edison and Louisier's were taking credit for louis La Prince's invention, 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:53.920 but apparently they couldn't sue. I read in one place 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:56.840 that only Louis la Prince could take legal action into 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.480 American law about anything we're regarding patent infringement, and so 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:05.800 the family could have taken legal action if Louis was dead, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:11.040 but he wasn't legally considered dead. He took like seven 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.119 years and then he was declared I think he was 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:17.400 declared legally dead in eighteen seven. Yeah, it's too late. 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:20.280 I mean they're often running and so yeah, uh so 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:22.840 on the way, years went by, and this is fairly recently, 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:26.280 like we're talking, like you know, probably ten or so 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:29.840 years ago. A guy named Alexis Bedford was a grad 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.280 student at New York University, and he was doing research 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:36.119 into the history of motion pictures. And he was in 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.520 the archives in the New York Public Library researching Thomas 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.320 Edison's work, and he found this warn leather book, which 0:17:42.320 --> 0:17:44.920 turned out to be one of Edison's notebooks, which I 0:17:45.160 --> 0:17:48.679 assume he had lots of. Yeah, And in this book 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.679 he he found a note dated September eight nine in 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.280 Edison's handwriting, which read quote Eric called me today from Dijon. 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.960 It has been done, Princess, no more. This is good news. 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:02.240 But I flinched when he told me murder is not 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.359 my thing. I'm an inventor and my inventions for moving 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:10.359 images can move forward unquote. So Alexis Bedford took that 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:13.560 journal back to New York University UH and gave it 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.680 to a story in their named Robert E. Meyer for authentication. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:21.640 And this guy Meyer examined the journal that included handwriting 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:26.359 comparisons and some sort of computer tomography scan or a 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.680 cat scan UH, and he decided the journal was real. 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:33.040 The note dated September eighteen ninety was in Edison's handwriting, 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.480 so it was a real deal. It was a smoking gun, 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:42.560 Thomas A. Edison crime king. At this point there was 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:49.240 another a similar mysterious disappearance of another inventor who Addison Edison. Yeah, 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.760 this was a while later. Yeah, in nineteen thirteen. Rudolph 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:57.000 Diesel disappeared in September nineteen thirteen. He boarded the Steamer 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:01.920 Dresden in Antwerp, Belgium, down for the UK, and that 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:08.520 was September September UH and the day of he uh disappeared. 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:10.879 Apparently the next day he was supposed to show up 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.440 at breakfast and he didn't, so they wouldn't check his cabin. 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.280 The bunk had not been slept in. He was nowhere 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.640 to be found. They searched the ship, couldn't find him. 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.240 And they looked at his journal and the last entry, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.159 which was September twenty nine, was nothing more than a cross. 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:28.399 And the cross looks suspiciously just like one that Edison 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:32.560 would have drawn. Was Edison on the ship? Edison was 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:34.080 not on the ship, but you don't know that his 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.000 agents weren't. So for anybody who hasn't picked up on 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.840 it yet, though, Joe, why why is this guy important? Diesel? 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:44.720 Rudolph Diesel. He invented the diesel engine. Yeah, yeah, and 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:46.679 that obviously is you know, the diesel engine is a 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:52.400 real big deal. Yeah, that's an okay deal. It's kind 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:56.120 of a big deal. Yeah, drives like half the world. Yeah, 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:59.719 it's since Yeah, ships and trucks and trains and how 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:03.359 am I God, Yeah, there's diesels all over the place. Yeah. 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.159 Eleven days after Rudolph Diesel disappeared, to ship ran across 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.040 a body in the general area. And they didn't really 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.399 actually feel like dragging the body on board their ships. 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.040 I don't know why, but they did get into it, 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:17.800 and they especially lowered a boat went over rifle. The 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:20.879 pockets took some personal effects, and in the end it 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.520 turned out the personal effects were diesels. I bet there's 0:20:23.520 --> 0:20:26.280 some superstition that goes on there. There might be. I 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.160 don't really want to bring a dead body onto a ship. Well, yeah, 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.200 this is eleven days later, so the body was probably 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:34.480 kind of ripe. Yeah. And also it's totally possible that 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:37.159 they didn't know by then, Right, what where was he 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.359 going on the ship? He was going from Antwerp to 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.080 the UK. Oh, so they after a visit to the 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:47.760 U S. Right, got it, Yeah, so he was going 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:50.439 to US. It's possible they would have not known yet 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:53.560 that somebody was missing. But well, yeah, they just saw 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:55.919 a body. They want they want to get some identifying 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:57.480 things off of it, you know, and then they just 0:20:57.560 --> 0:20:59.960 let it go. So Diesel died in So Diesel died. 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:01.840 So said, you had another guy with a connection to 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:09.280 Thomas Edison, you know, mysteriously dies Yeah, so Thomas Edison. Uh, Well, anyway, 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:11.439 that the whole story about the journal from the New 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.720 York Public Library, it kind of has a stink of 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:15.439 BS all over it. I think, I don't know what 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.640 you guys think. Well, based on the legwork you did, 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.200 I'm gonna agree. Yeah. Well, yeah, I called New York University. 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:23.800 They've never heard of this historian named Robert E. Meyer, 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.840 and uh, I asked him. I said, well, what if 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:28.439 he used to work for you, but it doesn't anymore, 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:31.640 And they said, well, you know, if you worked for us, 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.600 if he was on our faculty, he would have published stuff. 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.240 And so if you do an Internet search, that stuff 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:40.440 will turn up. And it didn't not. And I had 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:42.479 done those searches and none of that stuff turned up. 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.120 This guy, as far as I could tell him, never existed, 0:21:45.640 --> 0:21:49.520 which means likely this journal ever existed. Yeah, exactly. But 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:53.320 well and frankly it's it doesn't really pass the smell test. 0:21:53.600 --> 0:21:56.720 If it did, who does that? Yeah, oh yeah, murdered 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:01.639 somebody I know really Uh. And as for as for 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:04.480 Rudolph Diesel, I don't think Addison actually had any interest 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.240 in developing a diesel engine. Apparently that was one of 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.800 one of Diesel's disappointments as he tried to tried to 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:14.200 spark some interest for that in America and apparently because 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:18.000 of diesel engine is more efficient. Uh. He thought, well, 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.480 who could not want this? Right, but also didn't I mean, 0:22:22.040 --> 0:22:27.960 the diesel engine was already a thing right when Diesel died. No, 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:32.280 gasoline powered engines were a thing, but not Diesel, because 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:34.600 Diesel invented the diesel That's what I mean. By the 0:22:34.640 --> 0:22:39.800