Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. So we
Speaker 2: are reaching into the vault to bring you an older
Speaker 2: episode of the show. This one originally published on September
Speaker 2: twenty seventh, twenty twenty two. It was one we did
Speaker 2: on the invention of the gimbal.
Speaker 1: All right, let's dive right in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 4: And I'm Joe McCormick, and I want to start this
Speaker 4: episode of the quote just because this is where my
Speaker 4: mind instantly went for this episode, which is going to
Speaker 4: be about the gimbal.
Speaker 1: I thought of this, of this line from the poem
Speaker 1: The Jabberwockie by Lewis Carroll. Okay, twas brillig and this
Speaker 1: slyv toes to gyre and gimble in the wave.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I was about to say that every noun,
Speaker 2: verb and adjective in this in this couplet is nonsense,
Speaker 2: but then I realized there are actually a couple of
Speaker 2: real verbs in there. There's twas and there's did. In fact, actually,
Speaker 2: twas I think contains a noun and a verb because
Speaker 2: the t in twas is for it, so we get
Speaker 2: it was and did. But yeah, everything else I don't
Speaker 2: know what those words mean. And you're I think you're
Speaker 2: not supposed.
Speaker 1: To, well, gyre is real, to whirl or to gyright,
Speaker 1: do you.
Speaker 2: Think that's what it's supposed to mean in this context?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 1: I think yes, or mostly yes, sist oh, okay, good.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing about Lewis Carroll. A lot of
Speaker 1: nonsense words, and then gimble throws one off because when
Speaker 1: you look at this gimble as in the title of
Speaker 1: this episode, in case you don't have the title in
Speaker 1: front of you, is spelled g I mb A L,
Speaker 1: and in the Lewis Carroll poem it's spelled g I
Speaker 1: M B l E. And if you look that spelling
Speaker 1: of gimbal up in a dictionary, you get to make
Speaker 1: a face or to grimace, which does not seem to
Speaker 1: be what's going on here. The gimbal we're talking about
Speaker 1: is well to define more clearly, intern a bit a
Speaker 1: mechanism typically consisting of rings pivoting at right angles for
Speaker 1: keeping an instrument horizontal In a moving vessel or on
Speaker 1: a moving plane, that sort of thing. So that definition
Speaker 1: would seem to sort of line up more with what's
Speaker 1: going on here, the idea of some sort of gyre,
Speaker 1: some sort of revolution going on. But I was reading.
Speaker 1: I read a little bit more about this, and it
Speaker 1: turns out that Lewis Carroll is absolutely of no help
Speaker 1: to us today in this text. Apparently Humpty Dumpty himself
Speaker 1: weighs in. I either didn't know this or had forgotten
Speaker 1: this on the meaning of all this pointing out that
Speaker 1: toads are a kind of lizard badger creature, and that
Speaker 1: gimble in this context means quote to make holes like
Speaker 1: a gimblet. A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling
Speaker 1: small holes in wood. Slythy is a combination of lithe
Speaker 1: and slimy, so it's a slimy badger lizard that rotates
Speaker 1: and bores.
Speaker 2: Okay, I see, But wait a minute, I'm still confused
Speaker 2: when you say that gimble in this line means to
Speaker 2: make holes like a gimblet. Was that a general definition
Speaker 2: of the word at the time this poem was written,
Speaker 2: or is that unique to the meaning within the poem.
Speaker 1: My understanding is that this is a Lewis Carroll thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: Humpty dumpty is explaining it because, or at least in
Speaker 1: the dictionaries I was looking at, I did not see
Speaker 1: this as an accepted definition or alternate definition for gimbal gimbl.
Speaker 2: Well, in that case, that would support my initial interpretation
Speaker 2: that even though jyre is a real word, in this context,
Speaker 2: it is supposed to be a nonsense word.
Speaker 1: Right, but the nonsense being perhaps less removed from the reality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, that's I guess the delight of Lewis
Speaker 1: carroll text is you have all of these nonsense words.
Speaker 1: You have words that are being used, at the very
Speaker 1: least in the pursuit of some sort of nonsense.
Speaker 2: This may be the most whimsical opening ever to a
Speaker 2: podcast about a rotation mechanism.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably a bad opening since them, well, the
Speaker 1: example does not have a useful definition of the word involved.
Speaker 1: It's more of a tangent. But still, I mean entertaining.
Speaker 2: I would hope I enjoyed going on this little Lewis
Speaker 2: Carroll journey with you. But okay, so we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about gimbals today. What is a gimbal? I think
Speaker 2: we might need to do a little bit of concept sorting,
Speaker 2: because when I was searching for information about gimbals on
Speaker 2: the internet, first of all, a lot of what comes
Speaker 2: up is just camera equipment, and we can discuss that
Speaker 2: later in the episode. But even when you're just trying
Speaker 2: to find information about the underlying mechanical concept of what
Speaker 2: comes up seems to be references to a complex device
Speaker 2: made out of three parts that are in fact each
Speaker 2: individually called a gimbal. So anyway, I got this sorted
Speaker 2: out by consulting a reference manual. I went to the
Speaker 2: Oxford Dictionary of Mechanical Engineering. If that's not an authoritative source,
Speaker 2: I don't know what is. And according to this volume,
Speaker 2: a gimbal is quote, a pivoted support that allows rotation
Speaker 2: of a supported object about a single axis. Two orthogonal
Speaker 2: gimbals are used in supports of, for example, compasses. So
Speaker 2: I think the object mounted within a gimbal is most
Speaker 2: often going to be a platform that is supposed to
Speaker 2: maintain its orientation with respect to gravity, or it's some
Speaker 2: kind of detector, sensor or measuring device. But when I
Speaker 2: was thinking about simple examples that people might know from
Speaker 2: around their homes. I actually thought of the C shaped
Speaker 2: mounting for a globe. I actually was looking at a
Speaker 2: globe just the other day and admiring all of the
Speaker 2: names of countries that are no longer accurate on it.
Speaker 2: But on a globe you've got this. You know, often
Speaker 2: have this either a full ring or sort of a
Speaker 2: C shaped metal ring that connects to the globe at
Speaker 2: the poles and allows the globe to rotate within it.
Speaker 2: And of course this simulates the rotation of the Earth. Now,
Speaker 2: often when you read about references to gimbals, they will
Speaker 2: be referring to systems that use two or three or
Speaker 2: even more gimbals in combination in succession with one another
Speaker 2: to allow more dimensions of free rotation. For example, probably
Speaker 2: the most famous one is known as Cardan's suspension, and
Speaker 2: this is again according to the Oxford Handbook of Mechanical Engineering,
Speaker 2: quote a system that uses three gimbals with orthogonal axes
Speaker 2: orthogonal meaning at ninety degree angles orthogonal axes so as
Speaker 2: to support a component in a fixed orientation despite rotation
Speaker 2: of the mounting of the gimbals.
Speaker 1: Cardan, by the way, that's named for Geralamo Cardano, a
Speaker 1: sixteenth century Italian polymath who developed a or made use
Speaker 1: of a three ring gimbal.
Speaker 2: Right, And the handbook goes on to say that the
Speaker 2: cardan suspension is most often used to support gyroscopes for
Speaker 2: navigational use or for various types of experiments about freely
Speaker 2: rotating bodies. So to return to the globe analogy, imagine
Speaker 2: you've got a regular globe. It's got a sea shaped
Speaker 2: mounting that allows it to rotate freely on its axis.
Speaker 2: But then imagine you mount that sea shaped mounting to
Speaker 2: a ring that allows the sea shaped mounting to rotate
Speaker 2: freely on the equatorial axis. So that's two dimensions of rotation.
Speaker 2: And then say you mount that within a third ring,
Speaker 2: and within that ring you can actually have the globe
Speaker 2: rotate sort of say top front to back. And with
Speaker 2: these three rings you can rotate freely in all three
Speaker 2: dimensions of space, the dimensions that in the context of
Speaker 2: say talking about the attitude of an airplane, you would
Speaker 2: call pitch, roll and yaw. Now, there's normally no reason
Speaker 2: you would want a globe to rotate in three dimensions,
Speaker 2: but there are situations where it would be very useful
Speaker 2: to have an object mounted within two or three gimbals.
Speaker 2: For example, what if you want to create an object
Speaker 2: that maintains a fixed orientation with respect to some outside
Speaker 2: frame of reference, even though the ground or the housing
Speaker 2: in which the object is mounted will itself move. So,
Speaker 2: say you want a platform that maintains orientation with respect
Speaker 2: to the Earth, maybe the Earth's center of gravity, or
Speaker 2: maintains maintains orientation with respect to some point in the stars,
Speaker 2: or some fixed point of focus, say the subject of
Speaker 2: a frame when you're using a camera, all while being
Speaker 2: mounted inside a housing that is prone to moving and
Speaker 2: jostling around. For a simpler version of all that, just
Speaker 2: imagine you want you want a cup holder or any
Speaker 2: open reservoir for liquid that will stay upright and not spill,
Speaker 2: even though it's say, mounted in a ship that is
Speaker 2: expected to be going through rough seas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and looking around. I know, as you can get
Speaker 1: some gimbal drink holders for I think mostly boats. This
Speaker 1: reminds me, though, I think the earliest example of this
Speaker 1: mechanism that I remember seeing. I mean I would have
Speaker 1: seen compasses and so forth, But a situation for someone
Speaker 1: who's really calling out the gimbal technology was some sort
Speaker 1: of I don't know if this was like a Mister
Speaker 1: Wizard or Reading Rainbow or some Nickelodeon show, but it
Speaker 1: was like something with kid inventors, and kids were rolling
Speaker 1: out their inventions, and one of the kid inventions was
Speaker 1: essentially a gimbaled drink tray. So I think, if memory serves,
Speaker 1: these weren't round frames, but they were square frames. But
Speaker 1: it created the same sort of situation, and they demonstrated
Speaker 1: it showing like a glass of coke or PEPSI, you know,
Speaker 1: there in the middle of it. And I remember at
Speaker 1: the time thinking, well, this is phenomenal. This is what
Speaker 1: we should use all the time. And of course then
Speaker 1: you go back into the world and you realize, well, no,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess the engineering benefits of this design
Speaker 1: do not make this a better option than simply being
Speaker 1: careful with a tray. But at the time I remember
Speaker 1: being really impressed with it and thinking, well, this is
Speaker 1: the way, this is the way we should be carrying
Speaker 1: drinks around on trays. We should see this in every
Speaker 1: restaurant in every city around the world.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean when you're carrying your coffee cup
Speaker 2: and it's too full and it just starts slashing back
Speaker 2: and forth, and you're like, I can't, I've got to
Speaker 2: stop walking, or I've got a spill it there. That's
Speaker 2: pretty much it a sort of gimbaled sling for your
Speaker 2: coffee cup. I suspect would help overcome that problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or say a Martini glass where it's like this,
Speaker 1: this is a horrible design. I mean, yeah, I could
Speaker 1: easily go off on the Martina Glass's so easy to slash,
Speaker 1: but it makes you think, well, we got to have
Speaker 1: gimbal trays for these things. If we're going to insist
Speaker 1: on drinking out of these ridiculous glasses and not something
Speaker 1: more reasonable like a like a coop or a Nick
Speaker 1: and Nora, than well, then let's get specialized trays.
Speaker 2: You know, I think the poor design of the Martini
Speaker 2: glass is actually intentional. There's like a psychological effect of
Speaker 2: the fact that it slashes so easily. It makes the
Speaker 2: act of drinking the martini kind of delicate experience. So
Speaker 2: you imagine, I don't know, Don Draper having a martini
Speaker 2: or whatever, and he's not just knocking it back, you know,
Speaker 2: he's got to like hold it very carefully and sip
Speaker 2: it carefully, and it makes it a tender moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then I guess the threshold for becoming sloppy
Speaker 1: with your drink is that much closer. And therefore maybe
Speaker 1: the idea as well. If they're getting they're having too
Speaker 1: much to drink, they're going to spill more of it.
Speaker 1: They'll spill more of it on themselves, and they'll think
Speaker 1: twice about ordering more of this particular beverage. They'll realize,
Speaker 1: I maybe I should just get a water and go home.
Speaker 2: Maybe I should just get six dozen more oysters and
Speaker 2: then go to the meeting. Well, okay, anyway, a lot
Speaker 2: of sources if you try to look for the origins
Speaker 2: of the gimbal system. I think this is one of
Speaker 2: the many mechanical designs that we don't know for sure
Speaker 2: the actual origin of it. But one of the earliest
Speaker 2: mentions of a gimbal is often cited to a third
Speaker 2: century BCE Greek engineer and author named Philo of Byzantium
Speaker 2: or Phylon of Byzantium. I was reading about this in
Speaker 2: a book called Gears by Vincenzo Vulo, published by Springer
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, and there's just a short paragraph about
Speaker 2: Filo here a Vulo writes quote. Filo was also the
Speaker 2: first to describe a gimaimbo. It was applied to an
Speaker 2: eight side ink pot that could be turned any way,
Speaker 2: driven by gears without the ink being poured. This was
Speaker 2: done by suspending the ink well at a central plate
Speaker 2: after assembling this on a series of concentric metal rings
Speaker 2: which were stationary regardless of how the pot could rotate. Now,
Speaker 2: like many things, like many inventions mentioned in ancient Greek
Speaker 2: reference texts, this doesn't necessarily mean that Philo was the
Speaker 2: inventor of this object, or that Philo was the inventor
Speaker 2: of the gimbal or the gimbal system. But this does
Speaker 2: appear to be a very early, if not the earliest
Speaker 2: written reference to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in looking at and considering the history of the gimbal,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of our discussions of the wheel. So you
Speaker 1: look at the history, and certainly we have an invention
Speaker 1: episode on the wheel, at least one. I can't remember
Speaker 1: if it's a one part or a two parter, but
Speaker 1: one of the things we touched on is that it's
Speaker 1: one thing to happen upon the concept to invent the
Speaker 1: concept of the wheel, But then how practical is it
Speaker 1: if you don't have roads. And so if we have
Speaker 1: various examples of cultures where there wasn't really a practical
Speaker 1: use of the wheel, but the wheel was still around
Speaker 1: as a novelty, we'd see the one would see it
Speaker 1: in the use of toys or children, and so one
Speaker 1: can easily imagine a situation where the gimbal is much
Speaker 1: the same where craftsmen and curious minds would have happened
Speaker 1: upon this property, would have developed this. But if there's
Speaker 1: not something that you need to keep stable, then why
Speaker 1: roll it out? Why make any more of an issue
Speaker 1: out of it? Because again I come back to that
Speaker 1: example of the kid inventors with the tray, Like that's
Speaker 1: cool and all, but if it's not actually better than
Speaker 1: just carefully carrying a tray, then it's not an invention
Speaker 1: that's going to actually have any legs.
Speaker 2: Right, And in the end, a lot of the real
Speaker 2: uses of gimbal systems seem to be highly specialized. They're
Speaker 2: not usually like everyday use kind of objects. They're often
Speaker 2: for special kinds of detectors and sensors in special contexts
Speaker 2: of course, in scientific experiments, and later we'll get to
Speaker 2: this in space travel. After the invention of photography, but
Speaker 2: earlier than that, at least in the use of see navigation.
Speaker 1: Right, right, at what point do you have something where
Speaker 1: it makes sense to bust out this technology to keep
Speaker 1: it stationary. And you just said the word censor. You were,
Speaker 1: of course referring to a different spelling and usage of
Speaker 1: the word. But in this we're coming back to our
Speaker 1: discussion of incense and incense censors from the previous episodes
Speaker 1: of the show, because, as we teased towards the end
Speaker 1: of Incense Part two, this episode on gimbals is kind
Speaker 1: of a continuation of that journey. So while a great
Speaker 1: deal of the history of incense usage has more to
Speaker 1: do with religion and pure esthetics, there are still practical applications.
Speaker 1: And when we consider the technology of sensors again dedicated
Speaker 1: incense burning containers and devices, yeah, things get a bit
Speaker 1: more complicated. And indeed, in this case we see links
Speaker 1: between sensors and gimbal technology that will ultimately play a
Speaker 1: big role in say, the future of things like photography
Speaker 1: and marine navigation and even rocket science. But we can
Speaker 1: go back to very old traditions, very old technologies involving
Speaker 1: the use of incense and I guess you might wonder,
Speaker 1: why would you need to use a gimbal on an incense?
Speaker 1: At which point does it pass that kit inventor test
Speaker 1: of the practicality overpowering the pure novelty of the thing.
Speaker 1: So one of my main sources for this is a
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two article by art historian Bing Wong published
Speaker 1: in the journal Religions. He had several sources here, including
Speaker 1: the work of note sonologist Joseph Needham, whose writings we
Speaker 1: recently referenced on the show as well. This is an
Speaker 1: individual who casts a long shadow in the study of
Speaker 1: Chinese science and technology, especially in the West. His multi
Speaker 1: volume work on the History of Science and Civilization in
Speaker 1: China was very much a career defining work. So, as
Speaker 1: Huang describes here, it would seem based on Needum's research
Speaker 1: and writings. The Chinese knowledge of the gimbal dates back
Speaker 1: at least to the second century CE, but also possibly
Speaker 1: to the second century BCE. We have a poet by
Speaker 1: the name of Sima shang Ru who makes a reference
Speaker 1: to the jin zhun Shun. These are the metal rings
Speaker 1: containing the burning perfume, and this is in the marin Fu.
Speaker 1: This is Owdede on Beautiful Women, a poem that contains
Speaker 1: a seduction scene, and in doing so describes the various
Speaker 1: these bedchambers and the items inside that bedchamber. And it's
Speaker 1: inferred then in Needham's writing that, based on other texts,
Speaker 1: the artifact described here might in fact be a gimbal
Speaker 1: suspension to keep the burning perfume stable.
Speaker 2: Ah okay, So much like you might have, say a
Speaker 2: cup holder on a boat that could use a gimbal
Speaker 2: system in order to keep the drink from spilling while
Speaker 2: the boat rocks in the waves, this could potentially be
Speaker 2: a container for burning incense that would use a gimbal
Speaker 2: system to keep it stable, to make sure it didn't
Speaker 2: it didn't spill.
Speaker 1: Right now, you may be wondering about that again the
Speaker 1: kid inventor test here, like why is it really necessary? Well,
Speaker 1: there's a potential answer for that, and I'll get do
Speaker 1: that in a second. But if this is true, this
Speaker 1: would seem to position the earliest Chinese references to gimbal
Speaker 1: pretty early on. In some case, I don't know if
Speaker 1: this would necessarily be earlier than Philo, but certainly this
Speaker 1: would be pretty early on in Eastern traditions. Compared with
Speaker 1: Western traditions. I should note that when it comes to
Speaker 1: critics of need Him, a common one was that he
Speaker 1: tended toward Chinese superiority in his analysis. Apparently other critics, however,
Speaker 1: argued quite the opposite, that he struggled to shake free
Speaker 1: of the shackles of European exceptionalism in his sonology. So
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, I'm not sure exactly where the truth
Speaker 1: falls on all of that, but probably worth reminding everyone
Speaker 1: that need Him lived nineteen hundred through nineteen ninety five,
Speaker 1: and it was I think pretty active up and towards
Speaker 1: toward the end of his life. As like an editor
Speaker 1: of these volumes, but Huong does not raise the specter
Speaker 1: of either inclination, though he does look at new evidence,
Speaker 1: disagrees with a few Needum theories, but otherwise does not
Speaker 1: seem to oppose the second century BCE date, though does
Speaker 1: firmly base it in the analysis of Needen. So anyway,
Speaker 1: coming back to this question, Okay, why would you need
Speaker 1: your burning perfume? Why would you need your incense to
Speaker 1: have some sort of a mechanical system to keep it level?
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're taking it on a ship, are
Speaker 1: you running with it, right, like, what's the purpose? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: this brings us to consideration of the spherical incense burner
Speaker 1: that had been previously referred to by archaeologists as a
Speaker 1: perfume ball, but eventually written descriptions were discovered that referred
Speaker 1: to them as a sheng nang, which Huong translates as
Speaker 1: sachet in which Yablo Chinese, which is a website for
Speaker 1: translating Mandarin, translates as spice ball. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: these are metal spheres as opposed to silk or cloth
Speaker 1: bound bags of incense. So Loong points out that these
Speaker 1: metal spheres seem to have two primary uses. In Tang
Speaker 1: dynasty China, this would be we're moving ahead several centuries here,
Speaker 1: this would be period of six eighteen through nine oh
Speaker 1: seven CE, So they would have two purposes basically as
Speaker 1: an incense burner, but also as a hand warmer as
Speaker 1: well as quote a sensor amid the covers which allowed
Speaker 1: it to set or I guess even roll around on
Speaker 1: bedding without fear of tipping over. WHOA, Yeah, So this
Speaker 1: is something that based on some of the explanations I
Speaker 1: was reading, it kind of brings the mind this idea
Speaker 1: of like, here's this, and you can look up images
Speaker 1: of this there ornate. It's a metal sphere and inside
Speaker 1: there's a gimbled system to keep a tray of burning
Speaker 1: coals and incense from tipping over. And then you would
Speaker 1: be able to place this amid some regal bedding, and
Speaker 1: the fumes from it would of course make the bed
Speaker 1: smell nice. The heat from it would potentially warm the bed,
Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm not sure from the descriptions I
Speaker 1: was reading of this as something that would actually stay
Speaker 1: there all night. Maybe it would. And maybe that's the
Speaker 1: idea that you could be in the bed and you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to worry about kicking it over and you know,
Speaker 1: and burning your covers.
Speaker 2: Even with the gimbals. I don't know that that would
Speaker 2: kind of freak me out, but I guess I'm not
Speaker 2: used to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: fun history. I don't know if we could get a
Speaker 1: full Invention episode out of this, but when you get
Speaker 1: into the history of bed warmers, it's pretty fascinating the
Speaker 1: use of everything from essentially just hot bricks to of
Speaker 1: course bottles of water, and and then of course various
Speaker 1: technological systems. I think we did touch on some of
Speaker 1: these in our history of the bed, you know, ideas
Speaker 1: where you have bed and heating apparatus in a home
Speaker 1: far more integrated than we're used to today. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: many parts of the world world I should I should
Speaker 1: mention there are parts of the world where you still
Speaker 1: find this integration. So this is this is insightful. Here
Speaker 1: Whoong shares a description of this invention from a Western
Speaker 1: Hans source. The source is as the translated title of
Speaker 1: Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital, and it even credits
Speaker 1: some key inventors and innovators. Here quote Ding Huan, a
Speaker 1: skilled craftsman from Chang'an, made an always full lamp. It
Speaker 1: had extraordinary decorations, sporting seven dragons and five phoenixes, which
Speaker 1: were supported by lotus shaped platforms resting on stalks. He
Speaker 1: also created an incense burner which lay on the bedcloths.
Speaker 1: It was also called the censor amid the covers. The
Speaker 1: technique is original from feng Fing, a Han dynasty skilled
Speaker 1: artisan whose skills are unprecedented but now lost. It is
Speaker 1: not until Ding Juan that the technique is made possible again.
Speaker 1: To make it Ding Huan fashioned a series of mechanically
Speaker 1: connected rings. The censor could roll in any direction, and
Speaker 1: yet the central incense burning chamber would remain level. Thus
Speaker 1: one could position it on the bed covers. This is
Speaker 1: how it acquired its name.
Speaker 2: Wow, so it is like the polder on board a ship,
Speaker 2: except instead of the ocean, it is the rollicking tide
Speaker 2: and waves of the bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so this would be a situation seemed to
Speaker 1: be a situation where at least on some level it
Speaker 1: passes the kin inventor test and someone's like, no, look,
Speaker 1: we cannot have the bed covers burned anymore. We can't
Speaker 1: risk the bed covers being burned anymore. Is there not
Speaker 1: some sort of system we could employ here? And then
Speaker 1: once you see examples of it too, I think it's
Speaker 1: a situation where you kind of buy into the style
Speaker 1: of it as well, this idea that here's this sensor
Speaker 1: that has this internal novelty to it, but also looks
Speaker 1: quite beautiful and then apparently can also be picked up
Speaker 1: and held as a handwarmer. Like it allows the space
Speaker 1: between the heat source, which again would not be a
Speaker 1: roaring fire, but like some hot coals, and it would
Speaker 1: allow I think it's often when it's depicted or described,
Speaker 1: it's often like noble women or royal female, members of
Speaker 1: the of the king's entourage, of those kinds of individuals
Speaker 1: that might be holding one of these to keep them warm.
Speaker 1: So something fancy but also useful. Other inventions attributed to
Speaker 1: Ding Juan, by the way, include an evaporative cooling system
Speaker 1: and something that might have just been like a flip book,
Speaker 1: but might have been some sort of zootrope kind of device.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think historians are kind of split
Speaker 1: on exactly what this might have been. It also might
Speaker 1: have just been some novel form of sequential art.
Speaker 2: Work, the first graphic novel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe so. Yeah, the history
Speaker 1: of sequential art is quite quite fascinating. So some of
Speaker 1: these balls, these mental spheres, they had chains for hanging.
Speaker 1: Others did not. These were apparently more used for betting
Speaker 1: or handwarmers. So I think that's interesting as well, that
Speaker 1: you end up with with hanging varieties of these where
Speaker 1: I guess in I guess that would make sense. I
Speaker 1: don't know what would be shaking the room or the
Speaker 1: house so much, but I guess if you're gonna have
Speaker 1: something hanging from a chain, there's the potential for that
Speaker 1: movement to take place, and therefore the gimbal system would
Speaker 1: potentially be useful. And then during the Ming dynasty, it's
Speaker 1: also mentioned that specific types of incense could be used
Speaker 1: in one of these devices to ward away insects. So
Speaker 1: we have another practical use of the device here, and
Speaker 1: Wong describes that this design eventually spreads from China to
Speaker 1: the Islamic world and Venice quote possibly influencing the development
Speaker 1: of the gyroscope for maritime navigation in Europe. And he
Speaker 1: points out that while incense was widely used throughout the
Speaker 1: Islamic world, this was fascinating. It never became, according to
Speaker 1: this author, an essential part of Islamic ritual. But of
Speaker 1: course the same cannot be said for Christianity, as we
Speaker 1: discussed in those incense episodes. So we do see the
Speaker 1: appearance of spherical incense burners in Islamic cultures, though not
Speaker 1: in religious ritual again based on this paper, but also
Speaker 1: we do see spherical incense burners popping up in European
Speaker 1: churches and being involved in or very closely alongside religious
Speaker 1: rituals within Catholicism.
Speaker 2: Okay, so generally yes, secular but not religious uses of
Speaker 2: incense in the Islamic world. In Christianity, we talked about
Speaker 2: this in the in the previous series on incense, that
Speaker 2: incense was mostly missing from Christian religious use until around
Speaker 2: the fourth and fifth century. And then it seems to
Speaker 2: be concurrent with the with the overtaking of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 2: with Christianity as a dominant religion, that incense becomes an
Speaker 2: integral part of Christian worship.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, an important thing here and this is I
Speaker 1: thought this was a great point and it makes so
Speaker 1: much sense when you hear it spelled out. But when
Speaker 1: we talk about technologies and and ideas spreading from one
Speaker 1: culture to the next, we often think of just a
Speaker 1: very sequential arrangement, like you imagine something, say traveling on
Speaker 1: the Silk Road out of China, or in this case,
Speaker 1: you can imagine this ball like Okay, now the ball
Speaker 1: goes to goes to the Middle East, and it takes
Speaker 1: on Middle Eastern properties, and then it travels to Venice
Speaker 1: and then it takes on European properties. End of story.
Speaker 1: But one points out that it's it's not just a
Speaker 1: matter of the technology traveling from China eventually to Europe,
Speaker 1: but there's rather a fair amount of eventual back and
Speaker 1: forth involving not only European craftsmen but also Sasanian craftsmen.
Speaker 1: We of course talked about the Sasanian Empire in previous
Speaker 1: episodes as well Persian Iranian craftsmen adding their own touches
Speaker 1: to this type of technology, and then some of that
Speaker 1: flowing back. So quote the metal work utilized in the
Speaker 1: Tang dynasty sensor is a consequence of the chasing and
Speaker 1: hammering techniques taught to the Chinese by this Sanian goldsmiths
Speaker 1: of Persia, while the culture of burning incense is from
Speaker 1: Indian Buddhism. So there are various beautiful examples of where
Speaker 1: you can look up the Chinese examples of these incense
Speaker 1: spirits that you can also find some wonderful examples. For example,
Speaker 1: included a picture here for you, Joe, of one of
Speaker 1: these that was apparently forged in Damascus around the thirteenth century,
Speaker 1: and you can see like the elegant script in here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: So with this invention we see an early use of
Speaker 1: the gimbal, which at this time is largely I guess
Speaker 1: best used for just this purpose, Like, here is something
Speaker 1: that you would want to keep stable, So here is
Speaker 1: how you can keep it stable. And then and then,
Speaker 1: like the the the art artistry of the invention seems
Speaker 1: to take on a life of its own, and we
Speaker 1: see it employed in situations where maybe it doesn't doesn't
Speaker 1: make as much sense. But once you're crafting these beautiful
Speaker 1: globes of like silver and bronze and so forth in there,
Speaker 1: you can imagine them emitting this a sweet smelling smoke.
Speaker 1: It like kind of takes on a life of its own. Now,
Speaker 1: another example that came up in the research here is
Speaker 1: the pathechion. This is an example of a gimbal in action,
Speaker 1: and we have references to a device called the pathekion
Speaker 1: or little ape as it is often translated in a
Speaker 1: second century text on siege craft titled on Machines by
Speaker 1: an author that is referred to by historians as Athanaeus Mechanicus.
Speaker 2: Oh, i'd seen this is an interesting coincidence. I'd sometimes
Speaker 2: seen a Philo of Byzantium, the person sided with this
Speaker 2: early description of the gimble in the third century BCE,
Speaker 2: as sometimes called Philo Mechanicus. So I don't know where
Speaker 2: that appellation comes from.
Speaker 1: Apparently in this case it's because Athenaeus was a common
Speaker 1: enough name, and then they're in referring to this particular Athenaeus.
Speaker 1: We just add the title of the text. They're most
Speaker 1: known for On Machines, So this is Athenaeus Mechanicus. Okay,
Speaker 1: some historians identifying with Athenaeus of Solucia, but there are
Speaker 1: also some alternative theories as well. Again, this was a
Speaker 1: common name, and apparently some of the dating of it
Speaker 1: is based on the book's preface, which references one Marcellus,
Speaker 1: and according to historian David Whitehead, this causes the dating
Speaker 1: of the text to oscillate from as early as the
Speaker 1: late third century BCE to the mid third century CE,
Speaker 1: but and anyway, the Slucia idea would date this to
Speaker 1: mid to late first century BCE. Okay Whitehead here, along
Speaker 1: with pH blythe they're responsible for a two thousand and
Speaker 1: for translation of the On Machines text. So anyway, regardless
Speaker 1: on which Athenaeus wrote it and when exactly during this
Speaker 1: time period it was written, the book is largely concerned
Speaker 1: with siege machinery, and it's not that long of a
Speaker 1: text either. But later in the work, the author does
Speaker 1: make mention of the pathechion or the little ape. Whitehead
Speaker 1: describes it as follows in the twenty fifteen paper Athenaeus
Speaker 1: Mechanicus for the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Quote a device perhaps
Speaker 1: involving nets or gimbals, for stabilizing ship born machines when
Speaker 1: they are deployed in choppy c's.
Speaker 2: Why is this an ape? I'm so curious about the name.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I have a lot of questions about that
Speaker 1: as well, and I ultimately have maybe more questions than
Speaker 1: answers here for everyone. But apparently this does relate to
Speaker 1: Roman siege craft, in which they would take merchant ships
Speaker 1: them together to bear the weight of siege weapons in
Speaker 1: attacking coastal towns. The little ape here was used, and
Speaker 1: this is where I get kind of foggy. Apparently used
Speaker 1: to keep the machines from rolling around with the movement
Speaker 1: of the ships. That's one interpretation that I've seen, but
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that. The quote from the text
Speaker 1: from All Machines says you, quote, you must fix the
Speaker 1: pathechion on the platform attached to the merchant ships in
Speaker 1: the middle, so that the machine stays upright in any angle.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I mean, at this period of time,
Speaker 2: I don't know how much minute aiming would be involved
Speaker 2: in the use of siege weapons. But of course gimbals
Speaker 2: are very useful in the mounting of modern weapons, like
Speaker 2: of machine gun turrets and stuff like that, or if
Speaker 2: they're within like a ship or an airplane or something,
Speaker 2: they can be mounted within gimbals in order to stabilize
Speaker 2: for aiming purposes, because otherwise, like you're trying to aim
Speaker 2: while the ground or the housing is rocking all over
Speaker 2: the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a very hard time imagining a gimbal
Speaker 1: system big enough on a Roman ship that would accommodate
Speaker 1: some sort of really robust form of siege work machinery,
Speaker 1: you know, like some sort of large crossbow or catapult
Speaker 1: type device. It seems like it would make more sense
Speaker 1: if it was designed for some more subtle toubel of
Speaker 1: siege craft, some sort of as we see in the
Speaker 1: nautical tradition, something that would aid in the use of
Speaker 1: siege weapons, but not the siege weapon itself. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: when I looked around for more examples, more descriptions of
Speaker 1: what the Pathechion would have looked like, indeed why it
Speaker 1: is compared to an ape. I wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: much I was looking at. In one case, I was
Speaker 1: reading about deck based weapons. I was looking at the
Speaker 1: Navies of Rome by Michael Patassi, and they mentioned that
Speaker 1: during the war between Caesar and POMPEII, the later constructed
Speaker 1: three story towers the top merchant ships and mounted artillery
Speaker 1: on them and use these against Caesar's blockade, just as
Speaker 1: an example of something that the Romans would have done
Speaker 1: with merchant ships in some sort of a combat scenario.
Speaker 1: But there's no mention of gimbel technology in that book
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell. And he does cite
Speaker 1: a text by Athenaeus at one point, or by Unathenaeus.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so I wasn't really able to find much
Speaker 1: in the way of answers about exactly what the little
Speaker 1: ape was achieving. But it seems based on all these
Speaker 1: other examples, it seems like we would probably be talking
Speaker 1: about a way to keep some sort of measurement tool
Speaker 1: steady as opposed to some sort of large catapult or
Speaker 1: crossbow or what have you. Okay, I did find a
Speaker 1: wonderful illustration though this was used. I think this was
Speaker 1: in Huang's article. It could be mistaken on that, but
Speaker 1: it's a drawing from fifteen sixty seven by Jacques Bisson's
Speaker 1: book Let's say, what is this li Cosmo LABU le
Speaker 1: cosmo lab le cosmo LB. But it's a wonderful illustration
Speaker 1: of a ship. And we see this fascinating and I
Speaker 1: have a hard time imagining if this was ever built either.
Speaker 1: But we see like a table and chair like basically
Speaker 1: of the little desk, a little office mounted inside this
Speaker 1: large sphericle gimbal system that it takes up a large
Speaker 1: portion of the ship in this illustration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can see you gotta have a gimbal system
Speaker 2: if you want to like mount a platform on which
Speaker 2: you can put a pool table on a ship so
Speaker 2: that you can play pool or you can play ping pong.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wonder with illustrations like this if it's more
Speaker 1: about sort of illustrating the purpose, or if it's or
Speaker 1: a telephone game of relating what a gimbal is and
Speaker 1: how it functions and enable context. And then of course
Speaker 1: you're also probably getting into the situation. While it might
Speaker 1: if you're just familiar with the basics of the gimbal,
Speaker 1: you might think well, yeah, let's just put the whole
Speaker 1: office in the gimbal. Why can't we put the whole
Speaker 1: ship in the gimbal. Everybody on the ship is in
Speaker 1: the gimbal, and then nobody will get sick. And maybe
Speaker 1: the reality is probably a bit different from that.
Speaker 2: Once you get enough weight, you're probably putting a lot
Speaker 2: of strain on the little pivot hinges for those rings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you probably come up and come back to
Speaker 1: the situation. Then, either in practicality, through experimentation, or through
Speaker 1: just learning more about what they're actually doing out there
Speaker 1: at sea, you realize, no, this makes the most sense
Speaker 1: as a way to keep specialized tools steady, generally small
Speaker 1: measurement tools or burning incense.
Speaker 2: Certainly, Yeah, that makes sense to me. So we mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier that systems of orthogonal gimbals are used in many
Speaker 2: technologies today, and one major theater of use is space travel.
Speaker 2: And funny enough, I actually found an old house Stuff
Speaker 2: Works article about this by our colleague Jonathan Strickland of
Speaker 2: the podcast tech Stuff highlighting the use of gimbals by NASA.
Speaker 2: If you're not familiar, Rob and I we've been doing
Speaker 2: this podcast for a while, but we started doing it
Speaker 2: long ago under the auspices of a website called how
Speaker 2: Stuff Works. So in this short little article, Jonathan highlights
Speaker 2: a number of different uses of gimbals by NASA. For example,
Speaker 2: a harness mounted within a gimbal system is sometimes used
Speaker 2: to simulate spacewalks during astronaut training. So you want to
Speaker 2: get astronauts used to, you know, the different ways that
Speaker 2: their body will sort of float around and reorient smoothly
Speaker 2: in space if they're trying to do say, external repairs
Speaker 2: on a spacecraft or something. Of course, the gimbals will
Speaker 2: not remove the influence of Earth's gravity, but they will
Speaker 2: simulate other aspects of of space walking, the way that
Speaker 2: you can change your body's orientation in any direction in space.
Speaker 2: And then of course there are lots of other uses
Speaker 2: within spacecraft and the mechanical parts, So like you might
Speaker 2: have motorized gimbals to orient solar panels to keep facing
Speaker 2: the sun even as the position of a space station changes.
Speaker 2: Of course, there are detectors and sensors. For example, an
Speaker 2: instrument called the inertial measurement unit, which is a sort
Speaker 2: of mechanical inner ear. It measures the orientation of a spacecraft.
Speaker 2: So pitch, roll and yaw, and it also measures acceleration,
Speaker 2: and I guess this also highlights different ways that gimbals
Speaker 2: can be used. I mean, most of the gimbals we've
Speaker 2: been talking about have been free rotating gimbals that are
Speaker 2: supposed to allow, say a platform to keep its orientation
Speaker 2: with respect to the Earth's gravity no matter how the
Speaker 2: outer housing moves. So in that case it would just
Speaker 2: be the goal of the different gimbals in the card
Speaker 2: an suspension or the or you know, even just one
Speaker 2: or two gimbals. The purpose would just be that they
Speaker 2: can rotate easily and freely smooth movement to allow a
Speaker 2: naturally gravity oriented platform to stay as it is. But
Speaker 2: you can also, of course create motorized gimbals if you
Speaker 2: want to intentionally maintain the orientation of a central object
Speaker 2: or platform with some kind of external control mechanism, and
Speaker 2: gimbal systems like this have proven very useful for cameras.
Speaker 2: So imagine you are trying to shoot something, keep something
Speaker 2: in focus, keep a subject of a frame in focus
Speaker 2: while the camera itself is moving. You're shooting moving video.
Speaker 2: If you just hold a camera and then you walk
Speaker 2: or run. If you ever tried this, rob like you
Speaker 2: will often be very dissatisfied with the results. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of jostling.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, like like blair Witch effect times ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So to keep the movement smooth, you can make
Speaker 2: a mounting system with motorized gimbals that detect the movement
Speaker 2: coming up through the frame that's holding the camera, and
Speaker 2: then use little computers inside to algorithmically adjust the camera
Speaker 2: itself to cancel out that movement. So it's not just
Speaker 2: allowing the camera to sort of like rotate freely within
Speaker 2: the gimbal system, it's actually making adjustments deliberately to smooth
Speaker 2: out any jostling that comes through the housing.
Speaker 1: You know. In the natural world, of course, as we're
Speaker 1: looking around, there's kind of a gimbling effect just to
Speaker 1: our the way we position our head. But it's also
Speaker 1: been pointed out that the chicken is like a natural gimbal.
Speaker 1: It's nature's gimbal, the way a chicken can keep its
Speaker 1: head perfectly stationary whilst someone holding the chicken moves its
Speaker 1: body around. Oh yeah, there's some really fun videos of this,
Speaker 1: including one that I'm not sure if this was an
Speaker 1: April Fool's video or not, but it's a parody in
Speaker 1: which they're saying, well, we've discovered the ultimate for photography
Speaker 1: and film making gimbals. We just put a little camera
Speaker 1: on top of the chicken's head and then use the
Speaker 1: chicken as the gimbal, which I thought was very, very funny. Now,
Speaker 1: not only can you keep things stable with this kind
Speaker 1: of a layout, you can also, of course just mess
Speaker 1: with whatever is strapped in the middle. Particularly, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of those various gyroscope mounting systems. You would see these
Speaker 1: sometimes like carnivals. I remember seeing these perhaps a carnivals
Speaker 1: or in sort of like carnival type towns where you
Speaker 1: could come up, you paid your money, and they would
Speaker 1: strap you into one of these things and just spin
Speaker 1: you around. I think sometimes there's a virtual reality headset
Speaker 1: that is employed in these. And of course, if you
Speaker 1: have ever seen any kind of VR exploitation film, I'm
Speaker 1: particularly thinking of the lawnmower Man films here, but films
Speaker 1: like that, there's always going to be a scene where
Speaker 1: somebody puts some some sort of shiny jumpsuit, some VR goggles,
Speaker 1: and then they're put in some sort of like Neon
Speaker 1: Strobe light gyroscope or you know, or or gimbaled system
Speaker 1: and then they're spinning all over the place.
Speaker 2: It's Pierce Brasman get in one of those or is
Speaker 2: that just Jeff Ahee?
Speaker 1: I think they both do. Yeah, okay, I think also
Speaker 1: sometimes with Max. You see this, right. I can't remember
Speaker 1: if we saw this sort of outfit in Robot Jocks,
Speaker 1: but I feel like maybe they had it in I
Speaker 1: don't know, a Pacific Room or one of these type of shows.
Speaker 2: Well, we've hit our lawnmower man quota, so I think
Speaker 2: it may be time to call this episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but I thought this was fascinating, especially when
Speaker 1: you get again. It's kind of like the Wheel where
Speaker 1: you begin asking questions, All right, at what point in
Speaker 1: human history is this technology both possible and you know,
Speaker 1: achievable and also recognizable, Like, at what point might someone
Speaker 1: have made one of these? Is a lark? But then
Speaker 1: at what point does it become practical to put something
Speaker 1: in the middle of it? At what point point is
Speaker 1: it practical, uh, to to put to build a cart,
Speaker 1: to build even a very simple cart. At what point?
Speaker 1: What point does it become practical to build some sort
Speaker 1: of gimbaled system to keep something steady? If there's not
Speaker 1: truly a practical reason for it.
Speaker 2: When will we discover the meaning of the little abe?
Speaker 1: True? Yeah, so if anyone out there has insight on that,
Speaker 1: certainly right in let us know, and just in general,
Speaker 1: examples of amazing gimbals from other technologies, other cultures and histories,
Speaker 1: write in. We would love to hear from you, especially,
Speaker 1: would love to hear from anyone who's seen some other
Speaker 1: great examples of these uh these, these these globes that
Speaker 1: burn in sense in various cultures in which they were
Speaker 1: built and h and designed. Uh So, yeah, write in,
Speaker 1: let us know, send us your photos. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from. We would love to see them. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: will remind you that stuff to blow your mind at
Speaker 1: public Is It's core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and
Speaker 1: this stuff to blow your mind podcast feed. You'll find
Speaker 1: that feed wherever you get your podcasts these days and
Speaker 1: on Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do
Speaker 1: a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and then
Speaker 1: on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That is a
Speaker 1: time for us to set aside most serious concerns and
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film, and I have to
Speaker 1: say we didn't even think about the synergy between this
Speaker 1: episode and the movie that we're going to be discussing
Speaker 1: this Friday.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com.
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