WEBVTT - Weight of the World 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:09.320 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:16.800 Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:20.520 is an open book, all of these amazing tales right 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.639 there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.880 to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:38.519 I think it's fair to say that Superman is an 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.400 American icon, so much so that his influence goes beyond fiction. 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.600 In fact, there was one curious moment in history where 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:50.120 Superman actually helped to defeat some real life villains. It 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.519 was nineteen forty six and Florida Borne Southern nurse Stetson 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.600 Kennedy had reached a dead end in his fight against 0:00:56.640 --> 0:00:59.520 the klu Klux Klan. It would be an understatement to 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:02.400 say that he hated them with a passion. He grew 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:05.240 up in the South seeing the promise of the reconstruction 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:09.720 era destroyed by the KKK through their implementation of segregation. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.000 He saw his black neighbors harassed, robbed, assaulted, and lynched 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:18.039 by this white supremacist gang. Stetson also had an uncle 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:20.800 who was actually in the clan, which made him deeply 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:24.840 ashamed his family tree included men who signed the constitution. 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:27.800 He saw having a relative in the clan as a 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:32.039 stain on his family's reputation, so Stetson did everything that 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.319 he could to stop them. He and his friend John 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:39.360 Brown infiltrated the clan's headquarters in Atlanta, posing as white supremacists. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.280 They attended meetings and learned as much as they could. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.600 They learned the silly greetings and the handshakes that they used. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:48.640 They learned that wealthy business owners were paying them to 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:51.960 violently break up union rallies. They learned that they were 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.680 targeting anti clan journalists by jumping them in the streets 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.760 and whipping them. And they learned how leadership charged new 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:02.560 members twenty five dods for their robes. They even sold 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.280 them useless insurance policies. It became clear that the KKK 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.120 was no more than a racket where wealthy white men 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:12.799 took advantage of poor white men and directed their anger 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:17.799 at minorities. Stetson passed information onto local unions, warning them 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.000 whenever the Klan planned to attack. He shared information on 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:24.680 the clans violent activities with the Georgia Attorney General, hoping 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:27.160 that they would be prosecuted, and he also wrote to 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.240 the governor of Georgia pointing out that the KKK was 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:33.880 registered as a nonprofit to avoid taxation, when in fact 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:37.639 it was profiting in several ways. However, none of these 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:40.720 attacks seemed to stick. The problem was that many of 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.200 the people in power in the South secretly approved of 0:02:44.240 --> 0:02:48.520 the KKK. Either they were white supremacists themselves, or they 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:53.079 were profiting off of the KKK's union busting activities. Stetson 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.360 sat in a park in Atlanta one day, dejected, trying 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.840 to think of how he could bring the clan to justice. 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:01.919 He saw children and it occurred to him that maybe 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.880 he would have to reach them if the adults wouldn't listen, 0:03:05.240 --> 0:03:07.720 and he knew just the way to do it. Throughout 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.160 the previous few decades, radio had become the primary source 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.440 of entertainment and news for most Americans, and one of 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.000 the most popular shows was The Adventures of Superman, a 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:22.080 weekly fifteen minute program that adapted adventures from the comic books. 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.960 Stetson reached out to the Anti Defamation League, who worked 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:29.280 to fight against hate groups like the KKK. In turn, 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.920 they reached out to the producers of The Adventures of 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.160 Superman and began to collaborate on a storyline for the 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:40.240 series where Superman exposed and fought the KKK. The storyline 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:43.360 ended up being called the Clan of the Fiery Cross 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:47.920 to avoid the potential legal consequences of actually depicting the 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:51.080 KKK by name, but despite the name change, it was 0:03:51.200 --> 0:03:54.600 very clear that the group was the KKK. They wore white, 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:58.240 pointy headed robes, they burned crosses, and they follow many 0:03:58.240 --> 0:04:02.160 of the same practices that Stetson covered. In the storyline, 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.280 a young white boy named Chuck is playing baseball when 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:08.560 a young Asian American boy named Tommy accidentally hits him 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.640 with the ball. Chuck's uncle, Matts immediately accuses Tommy of 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.680 trying to purposely harm Chuck and takes Chuck to a 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:18.159 meeting of the Clan of the Fiery Cross, where he 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:22.800 pressures Chuck into misrepresenting the accident with Tommy. During the scene, 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.480 the clan is depicted as using a strange two finger salute, 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:30.680 something that stets In potentially shared with the producers. In 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:34.400 the storyline, the clan attacks Tommy and his family, which 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.560 prompts none other than the Daily Planet reporters Jimmy Olsen 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.679 and Clark kent to investigate Chuck's uncle. Matt is also 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.440 shown climbing up the ranks of the clan until he 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.599 meets the leader, who reveals that the white supremacist angle 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.520 of the clan is all a cynical ploy to get 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:54.159 its members to buy robes. In the end, once Clark 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.840 uncovers the truth, he changes into his Superman costume and 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.960 beats up and arrests the members of the Klan. The 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:05.000 storyline was a huge hit. The radio show received accolades 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.600 in the press and from groups such as the National 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.520 Conference of Christians and Jews. The Adventures of Superman got 0:05:11.520 --> 0:05:14.440 the ball rolling on a sea change in the United States. 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.080 Soon enough, the KKK was seen as the strange, pathetic, 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.240 dishonest thugs they actually are. Politicians who were once privately 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.920 supporting them began to publicly denounce them. Within just a 0:05:25.960 --> 0:05:30.520 few years, the klans membership had sharply declined. Stetson had 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.840 been successful in his mission to hurt the KKK. Curiously, though, 0:05:34.960 --> 0:05:37.919 the reason he was successful was because he realized that 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:56.560 oftentimes fiction is more convincing than reality. On the outskirts 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:00.400 of Paris, six floors beneath the cobblestone city streets. Four 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.240 people moved swiftly and silently through a long, narrow corridor. 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.880 The precise constant chill of this floor crept into their bones, 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.880 making each movement a little stiff. Finally, though the four 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:18.160 arrived at their destination, a gleaming triple padlocked vault, one 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:21.400 of the four stepped forward the first of the three keyholders, 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:25.960 all present for this momentous occasion. With each key, another 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.400 of the three silver pistons retracted from the lock, until 0:06:29.440 --> 0:06:32.920 the door swung open to reveal the priceless treasure inside. 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.840 Not a painting, not a diamond, not a stack of 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.680 money or gold. It was a kilogram. Technically, it was 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.400 called LaGrand kilogram or lagran k, a small cylindrical weight 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.159 made of ninety percent platinum and ten percent iridium, and 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.080 even inside this vault it was also protected by three 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.679 glass clutches shaped like nested bells. But lagran k wasn't 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:04.080 an ordinary kilogram. It was the kilogram standardized, inarguable and exact, 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.880 the object around which all other international units of mass 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.520 are fixed. It might be hard to see why such 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.440 a thing would be necessary, but the idea actually came 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:18.000 as a solution to injustice. You see, during the French Revolution, 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.280 units of measurement were locally decided on and very imprecise, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.240 as traveling and trading became more common, though this created 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.600 real problems. A pound of flour in Leone might be 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:33.240 equivalent to two pounds of flour in Sant Dotienne. People 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.720 understandably were resenting pain more for less, particularly at a 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:40.960 time when economic injustice was enough to fan the flames 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:44.640 of all out war. So in seventeen ninety one, the 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.160 French National Assembly came up with a solution to all 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:52.560 of this chaos. Three agreed upon units, the meter, the leader, 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:56.240 and the kilogram. For this last measurement, they would keep 0:07:56.280 --> 0:08:01.040 a definitive weight for posterity. Water, clean or dirty, weighed 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.440 the same everywhere and was accessible to everyone. So the 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:07.480 National Assembly agreed that they would store one leader of 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.880 water inside a vault. That one leader of water would 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:15.320 equal one kilogram. But storing exactly one leader of water 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:19.720 for all time proved to be challenging. Water evaporates when 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.360 it's too hot, and it freezes when it's too cold, 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:27.360 It leaks, it spills, it's messy. So in eighteen eighty 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:30.440 the plan changed. One leader of water would still be 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:33.360 a kilogram, but instead of storing the water, they would 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.959 store this platinum iridium sphere of equal weight inside. Problem 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:41.680 solved right, well, not so fast. You see, when lagron 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.880 K was forged in eighteen eighty nine, France sent out 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:49.560 national prototypes to several other countries. These were official copies 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:53.000 that were meant to garner international cooperation through a single 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.880 standardized weight, and every few decades these copies were compared 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.479 to the original. The grand K stayed in an artificial 0:09:00.600 --> 0:09:04.080 environment six floors down in the International Bureau of Weights 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:08.200 and Measurements in Paris. Everything from humidity and temperature to 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.000 air pressure and dust particles were controlled for in the vault. 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.439 Exactly one century after lagron K was forged, in nineteen 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.920 eighty nine, four individuals made their way down through all 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:23.439 those levels of security to measure lagron K, and they 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:28.040 discovered something shocking. Lagron K was shrinking lighter than the 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.840 other copies by a whopping fifty micrograms, about the same 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:36.760 weight as a fly's wing. Q International panic lagron K 0:09:37.080 --> 0:09:40.360 is by definition the kilogram, which would mean that everything 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.520 we thought was one kilogram would actually be slightly heavier 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:47.840 than a kilogram, all because the kilogram was shrinking, as 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:52.280 you'd imagine, scientists scrambled for an explanation. After all, lagron 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:56.560 k was meticulously kept and maintained. Any change, even one 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.240 as small as a fly's wing, was seen as unacceptable. So, 0:10:00.400 --> 0:10:03.840 for example, had the highly vetted cleaning process damaged the 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:08.200 sample somehow. Alternatively, some physicists theorized the issue with something 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.680 called outgassing, where solid objects release microscopic amounts of water, vapor, 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.760 or cleaning solvents when exposed to a low pressure environment. Eventually, 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.320 the best explanation they could come up with was that 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.959 all physical objects absorb molecules from the air, and they 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.760 lose atoms when touched. And yes, atoms are small, but 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:31.440 multiply that over the course of a century, and that 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:35.920 could explain the difference of fifty micrograms. After widespread attempts 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.040 to find a solution, which included a perfectly round silicone sphere, 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:44.000 physicists had enough. Why should global science depend on a 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.440 physical object that could be damaged or lost. Remember, the 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.200 origins of lagron k came from a need for a 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.720 weight that everyone had access to, and so On November 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:58.200 sixteenth of twenty eighteen, representatives from sixty nations voted to 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:02.480 retire lagron K. Today, mass is defined by the plank 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:07.839 constant using a kibble balance, which measures weight via electromagnetic force, which, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.760 of course everyone knows right. Legrand k is still in 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.400 its vault in Paris Preserve for future research on changes 0:11:15.440 --> 0:11:19.400 in mass. While its loss as the definitive kilogram weighs 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.640 heavily on some of the scientific community, there is comfort 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:30.480 in knowing that this new definition actually holds water. I 0:11:30.520 --> 0:11:34.160 hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:37.800 This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:40.800 with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:44.320 Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.600 the show and the people who make it over at 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.880 Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.360 to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:58.040 bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.280 if you're looking for an ad free option, can sitter 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:03.600 joining our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.840 the interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:11.040 sign up over at patreon dot com. Slash Grimandmild, and 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:13.760 until next time, stay curious,