WEBVTT - The Fire Extinguisher, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.720 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.520 you welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:14.720 I'm Joe McCormick. And it turns out we weren't done 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:18.200 playing with fire, that's right. Or or let's say this, 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:21.840 what is the natural next step from playing with fire? 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:25.239 It's having to hastily put out fire, that's true. And 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.040 so we're following up our three episode look at match 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:33.040 Sticks with a look at the fire extinguisher, because you know, 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:35.320 it's one thing to be a master of fire, but 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:37.640 we have to do more than just create and foster 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:39.400 the flame, right, We have to be able to manage 0:00:39.440 --> 0:00:42.120 it and snuff it out, especially when it gets out 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.640 of control. The fire has a mind and a life 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:47.600 of its own, and it will not be tamed so easily. 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.360 So when we're gonna ultimately talk about the modern fire extinguisher, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.360 but yeah, before we get to that, let's discuss like 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.600 what a fire extinguisher is, and just in general terms, 0:00:58.080 --> 0:00:59.920 you can think of it as an active fire protect 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:05.520 and device, or perhaps an active fire protection strategy or method, uh, 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:09.800 something that you do something it entails action and response 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:13.160 in order to deal with an unwanted or unruly blaze. 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:16.600 So not like a sprinkler system, not like a ditch 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.480 dug around a camp fire or something to that extent, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.000 but something that is done, something you can grab and use, 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:27.000 or some plan of action you can utilize against the blaze. 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.160 I see what you're saying. Not a static defenses, not 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.320 the walls around your city, but the culdron of boiling 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:37.000 tar you have on top of the ramparts. So I 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:39.479 think that's that's a good way to think of it. Now, 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.360 having just done these three episodes about matches and fire 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.600 creation technology, in a way, it's almost crazy to consider 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:49.160 the need to then put out a fire. I know, 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:51.520 we spent the last like three episodes trying to figure 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.360 out how to get one, yeah, and and contemplating say that, 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.640 you know, the vast time period really in human history 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:01.480 where the ability to manipulate fire existed, but the ability 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:03.520 to create it did not. You know, it was this 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.240 precious thing that had to be gathered, that had to 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.400 be obtained and then kept and nurtured and guarded, carried 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:11.720 from one spot to another. But then to to think 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:13.840 about on top of that, you might need to just 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.560 kill it. Sometimes this precious uh, this precious gleaming god 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.720 that you've rescued from a you know, a lightning struck 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.680 stumped in the woods. But you would need to do 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:27.200 this and for a number of key reasons. So first 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.400 of all, is as a means of keeping unwanted or 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.680 unruly fires in check. So maybe you have your camp fire, 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.480 but then what if the campfire spreads to uh, you know, 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.480 some hides or a tent or something that you do 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.520 not want on fire. You need to be able to 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:44.520 put it out. Also as a means of snuffing a 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:49.519 fire to prevent detection by enemies, namely other humans that 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.160 you might not want aware of your camp fire. Light 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:56.280 smoke gives you away, right, And then also a means 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:01.200 of preventing a blaze from growing out of control unattended. Now, um, 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.600 this this last one raises some interesting questions. I was 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.960 wondering and doing a little bit of research on this, 0:03:08.880 --> 0:03:12.480 trying to figure out did ancient humans really make many 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:15.400 efforts to prevent wildfires? You know, I guess a big 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.600 part of of having a camp fire today is your 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.040 you know, your knowledge that it needs to be maintained 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.799 properly needed to prevent this from getting out of control, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.040 and when you're done with it, you need to make 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:31.280 sure it's out. But aside from, you know, protecting yourself 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.760 from observation by other human groups out there, I wonder 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.200 to what extent that was really a matter of concern 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:42.040 for ancient people's. Maybe it was, maybe, maybe it wasn't. 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.080 I can't tell. Well, I don't know. I mean I 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:46.520 would say, if you live in a wooded area, you 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.800 would not want the woods to catch fire, right, Yeah, true. 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.640 I mean at the same time, of course, fire was 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.920 used rather destructively, um, you know, even in ancient times 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:01.560 as a as a means of controlling vegetation and controlling animals, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.080 and it uses the hunting tactic, et cetera, burning land 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:06.640 for agriculture, that kind of thing. But then again, that 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.240 is when when doing so would definitely benefit the people 0:04:10.240 --> 0:04:13.160 in question. So I guess it's not It's not unfair 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.560 to imagine that that there would have been some level 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.479 of concern for a fire going out of control, because 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:20.240 of course it went out of out of control, it 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.720 could become a danger to your people as well. Right. 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:28.839 I was reading a particular book by Frank Sharman titled 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.479 Fires and fire laws up to the middle of the 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.800 eighteenth century. And in this the historian points out that 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:38.719 humans would have known fire uh first as an enemy, 0:04:38.800 --> 0:04:40.839 which I think is an important point to make sure. 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.760 I mean the way animals do. Like the first reaction 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.080 to fire, if you recognize it, is to retreat from it, 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:50.479 right And eventually we realized so we can retrieve this, Okay, 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:52.719 we can use it. We can we can nurture it, 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.599 we can control it. But initially there is fire as 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:00.320 this thing that burns, that frightens. That is a dang sure, 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:03.840 and it's it's never really stopped being a danger to us. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.560 Even as we've even today, as we've learned to to 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.200 control it so well in certain environments and in certain circumstances, 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:15.680 wildfires are still a huge problem. Um. And you know, 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.120 fires and urban settings are still a big threat. We 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:20.960 have to have a great deal of emergency preparedness in 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.360 place to deal with those blazes. So even a well 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.520 maintained fire is something of a sleeping dragon. It can 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.160 it can wake up, especially if you're not careful. So 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.039 ancient fire masters would have discovered the means of putting 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.240 out fires. Obviously, they would have figured out the conditions 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.480 that cause fires to struggle and devise means of exploiting 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:43.279 these conditions as well. So basically these are the general 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.360 steps you'd want to take to deal with an unwanted flame. 0:05:46.000 --> 0:05:48.599 One would be to direct a substance onto the fire 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.320 that rapidly cools it, right, uh, And this is one 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:53.240 of the I mean, many of the things we do 0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.400 to put out fires do more than one different method 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:58.800 at the same time of putting out the fire. But 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:01.440 so one reason to throw water on a fire is 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:03.960 that water takes a lot of energy to heat up 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.120 and turn into steam. So it's rapidly cooling whatever you're 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.880 throwing it on, that's right. And and this gets into 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.240 our our next issue as well, direct a substance onto 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.719 the fire that deprives it of oxygen, because again, the 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.080 fire has to consume that oxygen to exist to be 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:21.800 this this flame at all. So if you uh so, 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.400 if you're able to get rid of the oxygen, you 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:26.360 kill the flame. Right. And this is why I say 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:28.680 smothering a fire with a blanket or with dirt or 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.359 sand works. It's because the oxygen now can't get to 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:34.000 the flame. Right. Another thing is, of course, is to 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.800 direct a substance under the fire that interferes with the 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.279 chemical reaction that's taking place. Yes, and this is often 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:45.239 like there are some modern fire extinguishers or recent fire 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:49.080 extinguishers that just have a chemical within them that inhibits 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:54.040 the chemical reaction that we call fire. And additionally, one 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:56.680 important way to control and ultimately fight a fire is 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.600 to deprive it of fuel as well. So much of 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.239 nurturing and maintaining a fire is about feeding it, and 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.200 to put it out you just need to you know, 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:07.920 take away what it needs to burn. And so this 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:11.760 continues to play an important role in firefighting techniques today. Uh, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:15.880 we see this with a control burn in the wilderness settings. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.880 So it's still an important tactic make sure that the 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.200 fire does not have its next meal. I feel like 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.280 removal of fuel is much more often a preventative firefighting 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:29.360 technique than I mean, it's hard to remove fuel to 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.200 put out an existing fire, Yeah, at least quickly. It's 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:36.240 like a ravenous flaming beast that is eating its meal. 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:38.000 You know, you can just pull the bone out of 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.920 its jaws, right, but you can perhaps remove the other 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:45.360 bones so that doesn't have somewhere to jump next so indeed, 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:46.680 a great way to deal with a small en a 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.640 fire is to stamp it out under your boots, uh, 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:51.520 to stuff it out with dirt with a candle. A 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.960 simple candle snuffer does the job very well. A pair 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:57.360 of wet fingertips will often do the job with a match. 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:00.720 But water has always been a st on candidate for 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.720 extinguishing a typical fire because, like you mentioned, a bucket 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.120 of water can put out a blaze, you know, extremely 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.680 well if it's the right side. And this runs the 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.440 gamut from just a bucket of water at your campsite 0:08:11.480 --> 0:08:15.680 to you know, the various high pressure, high velocity of 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.360 water hoses that you see used by firefighters. By the way, 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.560 another quote from that that from Sharman on how ancient 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.280 people dealt with fire and their their limited number of 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:30.960 tools to fight flames. Uh, he wrote, quote, Apart from 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.839 the obvious precautions of taking care of the handling of fire, 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.000 including extinguishing or covering fires at night, prayer was the 0:08:38.080 --> 0:08:42.080 chief means of fire prevention, especially as the fire gets bigger. Right, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.840 Because like as the fire gets bigger, the primitive tools 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.120 you would have had available, such as kicking dirt over 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.280 it or throwing water on it become less and less effective. 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:55.120 They're they're very swiftly outclassed by the blaze. But once again, 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:58.240 like you mentioned earlier, water remains a great way to 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:00.440 deal with fire, provided you can dump enough of it 0:09:00.480 --> 0:09:03.160 onto the blaze. Yes, and not just for the reason 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:04.719 I said earlier, like one of the one of the 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.920 reasons I mentioned, of course, is that it takes a 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.480 lot of energy to heat water up turn it into steam, 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:11.880 so that rapidly cools whatever you throw the water on. 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.199 But they're they're also downstream benefits and putting out fires. Yeah, 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:18.280 So when water comes in contact with the heat, you know, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.440 we have the cooling that we mentioned earlier, but the 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.760 water becomes steam and this this is the conversion that 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.360 absorbs that heat. And then also the resulting steam displaces 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:30.880 air from around the fire, thus removing the oxygen. So again, 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:32.920 two out of three, that's that's enough to get it 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.680 done again, provided there you have enough water to throw 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:37.960 at the problem. Right, it's a two fer. Yeah. Now, 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.920 And an important caveat to this, of course, is this 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:45.360 will not work on a fire with a liquid fuel source, right, say, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.000 like oil burning on top of water. You know, throwing 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.120 water on that doesn't really help much exactly, but but 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:56.079 certainly your standard sort of burning wood scenario, or certainly 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.400 a camp fire scenario, enough water dumped on it will 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.360 do the job. So when do we first started getting 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.400 fire extinguishers? Well, if we're extremely generous with our definition 0:10:07.440 --> 0:10:10.480 of a fire extinguisher, we might just give credit to 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:14.000 whoever invented the bucket, which which of course is just 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.680 lost to history. But we need not go back quite 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:21.000 that far if we rein it in just a little bit, 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:25.120 and we consider a particular invention and a particular inventor 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:28.520 from ancient Greece. So we're gonna look at someone we've 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.840 discussed on the show before. We discussed them in our 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.080 invention episode on the vending Machine, and we also discussed 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.040 them in the stuff to Blow your Mind episode on 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.640 the Singing Colossi of Memnon. That's right, we're talking about 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:44.200 Greek inventor and physicists to Sibius of Alexandria who lived 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.560 two eighty five through two two b c E. And 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.800 he's attributed with discovering the elasticity of air and creating 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:56.280 several inventions that depended on compressed air. So his his 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.760 His most famous inventions are probably the water clock and 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.720 so a water organ, and his writings do not survive, 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.440 but we know of him through the writings of Vitruvius 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.360 and also a hero. But he is said to have 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.160 also invented a gadget that could be used to pump 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.560 water onto a fire, So it's decipious we're basically talking about. 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.440 His invention would have consisted of a pair of cylinders 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:26.880 with pistons that discharge into a flaplike valve chamber and 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.840 out then out through a single outlet, so no hose 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.360 connections or anything like that. And it's been supposed that 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.679 each piston would have worked independently via its own lever. 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.679 But this means that short, quick strokes would be needed 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.320 to produce a steady jet of water. UH. So I 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:46.079 was I was reading a source on this. UH. One J. S. 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:51.280 Rainbird wrote about this in nine six UH seemingly very 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.840 well regarded book about the vigil Aise of Rome and 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:58.040 UH and in that he contends that a single lever 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.760 would have worked better the Tacibius's invention. He spends a 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.599 lot of time talking about about Tacibius and his UH 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.720 invention and later writers writing about that invention before he 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.560 gets onto the Roman situation, which we will also get 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:17.480 to shortly. Um but yeah, so so basically, Vitruvius centuries 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:21.400 later insisted no air was involved in this, which Rainbird 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.920 writes has bedeviled attempts to understand how it might have worked. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.040 So some think it might have used an air chamber 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:32.319 to study the water pressure, but Rainbird is not convinced. 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.000 He writes, quote the notion of Spiritus as a force 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:40.640 of for moving water probably reflects the Stoic belief in 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.400 a world spirit which was responsible for such a natural 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:46.760 phenomena as storms and currents of water. In order to 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.080 understand the mechanics of the pump, it is best to 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:53.240 leave these stoic connotations on one side, and translates Spiritus 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.160 as pressure, avoiding all mention of air. No ancient pump 0:12:57.240 --> 0:13:00.640 had an air chamber. That's interesting, So like a problem 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:03.079 with the translation of the idea. It could be it's 0:13:03.120 --> 0:13:06.000 it's almost like saying a way of saying, like the 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:09.280 laws of physics or by this mechanism we know of 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:13.280 physics such as pressure. But this has been misinterpreted as 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.680 there being literal air in there, yes, or at least 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.920 that was This was Rainbird's argument. I don't know to 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.720 what extent. You know, there's there's disagreement or agreement on 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:28.280 that count nowadays, but he seemed very convinced. So this 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.800 would have been originally created by Tissibius of Alexandria in 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.520 the third century BC. But we know that something like this, 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.480 maybe some derivative product, was being used in ancient Rome. 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.679 And to get to that, I think we should lay 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.160 a little bit of context about ancient Roman firefighting before 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:49.440 we get to the specific technology. And this is some 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.200 devilish territory. Yes, uh, maybe first we should take a break, 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:54.800 and then when we come back, we can talk about 0:13:54.800 --> 0:14:04.520 firefighting scams. All right, we're back. So the first century 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:09.720 b CE Roman statesman Marcus Crassus is sometimes given credit 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:13.800 for inventing the first organized firefighting brigade in ancient Rome, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.760 but it didn't work exactly like the firefighters we would 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.800 think of today, because what's the modern progression, right, You 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.280 you notice a fire, you call nine one one, you 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.440 say my house is on fire. The firefighters come, they 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.080 put the fire out, or they at least try to 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.920 put the fire out, and then you deal with the aftermath. Yeah, 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.520 firefighters in today's society like that they are they are 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.640 true heroes. These are people who come and risk their 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.120 lives to save the lives of individuals that are trapped 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.680 in houses or buildings are threatened by the flame. They 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.520 do what they can to protect you know, your your 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:51.000 your home and the items in it as well. And 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:52.760 and it's really hard to think of another class of 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.280 public servant that is that is really venerated in this way, 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.800 you know, I mean there's a kind of purity to 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.040 aid they provide. Yeah, like there's no I don't think 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.200 there are there even any movies about like dirty firefighters 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:09.200 or anything, you know, it would be funny, I mean not. 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:11.920 I mean maybe maybe it's exact. I'm sure there's there's 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.040 some case to be made. But for the most part, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.280 firefighters we tell our children about how they're great and 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.680 they're they're they're they're brave, and their their heroes. And 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.440 for the most part, like that remains true throughout your 0:15:23.440 --> 0:15:26.120 adult life, Like you realize that these are these are 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:27.840 this is an important role and the people who do 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:31.160 it are are doing very important work. But cross Us 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.360 he had a different model for how firefighting should work. 0:15:34.440 --> 0:15:36.800 So at the time of the republic in in the 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.840 first century b C. Rome was just going up in 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.040 flames all the time. Joseph J. Walsh, historian that I'm 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:46.880 going to quote from more later, calls Rome a city 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:51.040 of fires. The city was overcrowded, and the houses were 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.400 tall and packed tightly together. It was just kind of 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.680 a tinder box. Plus it did not have an organized 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.280 public system for fire fighting at this time. Whatever public 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:06.320 firefighting took place was probably voluntary and ad hoc. So 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.000 it's just whoever you can get together to try to 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.440 help you put out a fire, you're kind of on 0:16:11.480 --> 0:16:14.640 your own. But the ancient Greek author Plutarch, in his 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:19.600 biography writes that Marcus Crassis, despite all of his great virtues, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.880 was known above all for his avarice and for his 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:26.600 extravagant wealth. Quote the greatest part of this, if one 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.760 must tell the scandalous truth, he got together out of 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.200 fire and war, making the public calamities his greatest source 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.720 of revenue. So there's a disaster, crossis gets dollar signs 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.600 in his eyes. Uh. And Plutarch writes that, okay, so 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.520 how do you make money off of war? Well, that 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.680 was mostly by way of accepting or buying the properties 0:16:46.720 --> 0:16:49.680 of people who were put to death after military conquests. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.800 But how did he make money off of fire? Well, 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:57.920 here's what Plutarch writes, quote moreover, observing how extremely subject 0:16:58.040 --> 0:17:01.000 the city was to fire and falling down of houses 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.080 by reason of their height, and they're standing so near together, 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:07.920 he bought slaves that were builders and architects, And when 0:17:07.960 --> 0:17:10.200 he had collected these to the number of more than 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.600 five hundred, he made it his practice to buy houses 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.920 that were on fire and those in the neighborhood which 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.639 in the immediate danger and uncertainty the proprietors were willing 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.239 to part with for little or nothing, so that the 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.960 greatest part of Rome, at one time or another came 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.760 into his hands. That is so it's so slimy, Yeah, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.200 and it's beyond signing. Yeah. Imagine, so, like your house 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:36.240 is on fire, you call nine one one, and then 0:17:36.280 --> 0:17:40.399 what happens Instead of firefighters, a shady real estate developer 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:43.520 shows up with like five hundred guys with water buckets 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:46.760 just standing there, and he says, okay, you got a 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.080 couple options here. You can sell me this house for 0:17:49.119 --> 0:17:51.800 five thousand dollars right now, or you can watch it 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.920 burned down and get nothing. And you're like that, why, 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:57.320 that's like one percent of what my house is worth. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:01.000 I can't do that. And he's like, okay, four thousand now, um, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:03.720 and so that's your choice. And then meanwhile he's probably 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.040 he's got people going around all your neighbors saying like, 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.200 it looks like this one's about to go down yours 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:14.120 this catching fire? Next? What's your price? Yeah? Yeah, crossis is? Um. 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:16.560 He had quite a scheme going here. You know, there's 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:21.160 a there's a there's a series of Roman detective novels 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:23.520 that were written by an author by the name of 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.960 Stephen Saylure that I think I read all the I 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:30.040 read a lot of them when I was in college, 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:31.919 I think. And then there there are a lot of 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:34.040 fun you know they He does a great job of 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.320 putting you in this uh, this Roman setting, and the 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:41.560 main character is this, uh, this fictional detective type character. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:45.000 It was very similar in some ways to William of Baskerville. 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:47.600 And the name of the rose named Gordian is the finder. 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:50.000 And there is a scene in one of the books. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:54.480 I forget which one, uh it is, but there's a 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:57.399 scene where Gordianus is coming over. I think to to 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.600 speak with Crosses and Crosses in in is in the 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.000 process of negotiating with someone who's building is about to 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:08.760 catch fire via an adjacent building that's already in flames. 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:12.399 It is a level of like genius deviousness that I 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:14.560 don't know. It's hard to imagine, but I don't know. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.159 I feel like the Roman Republic period was full of 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:21.840 stuff like this. So this raises the question, right, Okay, 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.640 so they're they're offering to put out the fire um 0:19:24.880 --> 0:19:26.359 or to control of the fire in some way, what 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:28.240 are they gonna do? I mean, they're not really they're 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:30.720 not really offering to you. It's like they're only there 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.920 to put out the fire once his crasss his property. Right, yeah, 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:36.960 I'll put out my fire, but this is your fire. 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:39.680 I could buy this fire, and the thing is about 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:43.359 to consume off of you. Uh yeah. And so it 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.080 was a while before Rome actually got an effective fire department. 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.199 I was reading a book about this by Joseph J. 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.280 Walsh called The Great Fire of Rome, Life and Death 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.679 in the Ancient City from Johns Hopkins University Press, twenty nineteen, 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.960 and according to Walsh, Rome was finally able to estab 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.960 publish an effective public fire department only under Caesar Augustus 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.000 in the year six CE, and he writes that the 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.680 main reason was that Augustus had been able to consolidate 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.439 enough control over politics in the empire to make a 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.080 fire department either, you know, either make it palatable to 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.159 the other politicians in the city or just overrule whatever 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.600 their concerns were. Because during the Republican period in Rome, 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:29.639 Walsh argues that politicians and leaders feared a fire brigade. 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:34.040 Think what this literally consists of hundreds of men armed 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:37.719 with axes roaming around the city under control of some 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.320 bureaucratic commander. They they're thinking, okay, that could be a 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:44.360 weapon of a rival politician or political faction. They get 0:20:44.400 --> 0:20:46.920 control of the fire brigade, and then they could use 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.119 that for god knows what right. I mean, Well, I mean, 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:51.200 just look at what Crosses is doing with his own 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.240 private fire brigade. Imagine if there was a you know, 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:58.440 an even larger, more established presence that could be corrupted 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:01.120 in his fashion. You know. And also, like, we don't 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.440 know this, there's no direct evidence, but who's to say 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.280 Crassis didn't have people going out and starting fires, by 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.520 the way, I mean exactly when the city's a tinderbox. 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:11.920 So Augustus meanwhile, you know, he's basically a king at 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.359 this point. He's got supreme power, and he's he's got 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.080 at least enough power that he could create a fire 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:20.360 department and nobody could resist or complain. So he did. 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.560 And these firefighters were you mentioned their name earlier, the 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:27.720 vigil as meaning watchman or vigilant ones and their chief 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.879 was the prefect Us vigilium or director of the watchman. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.200 Uh So they were firefighters, but they were also more 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.199 than that. They were occasionally used as a kind of 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:42.040 auxiliary police force to you know, restore order in quotes, 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:45.000 during times of unrest. So it might make sense to 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.800 think of them as like eighty percent fire department riot 0:21:48.840 --> 0:21:52.120 police kind of. And Walsh writes that their modus operandi 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.840 is is right there in their name, it's watchfulness. The 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:59.280 vigilist would patrol the streets of Rome looking for uncontrolled fires, 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.960 and if they found one, they would immediately raise the 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.800 alarm and start fighting it. So what kind of technology 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:08.600 did they have at their disposal for fighting fires? Well, 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.399 Walsh rites that we actually know a decent amount about this. 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.959 First of all, they had the hammy or the water buckets. 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:18.600 Sometimes vigilist would simply carry buckets of water with them 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:21.800 as they patrol, which sounds heavy, but you know that 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.119 that's what you had to do at the time. But 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.800 there were also plenty of public fountains and these would 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.919 be positioned around the city, partially for the express purpose 0:22:30.280 --> 0:22:32.600 of filling water buckets in the event of a fire. 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.200 You know, one great thing about Roman infrastructure is they 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:38.360 did have the city supplied with a lot of fresh water, right, 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:40.520 so if you needed to run a bucket line or 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.080 a bucket brigade, you would not have to have it 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:45.919 go all the way across the city or something unrealistic 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.120 like that, right, you would have these points scattered all 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.800 throughout the town where you could get the water. And 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:53.280 as you mentioned that, there are a couple of main 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:56.040 methods here. One is just running buckets from the fountain 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:58.440 to the house that's on fire, and the other would 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.000 be if you could get enough people together, you could 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.280 form a bucket line where you know, you're handing off 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.800 the buckets and a kind of assembly line fashion. Another option, 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:09.399 of course, is rags or fire blankets. These could be 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:13.639 retrieved from nearby stations to smother household blazes. But the 0:23:13.680 --> 0:23:16.800 water bucket method and the rag method, these would be 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:21.880 more effective with smaller fires, almost useless against bigger fires. 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:24.520 So what are your options for when things really start 0:23:24.560 --> 0:23:26.480 to get out of hand, like when a whole house 0:23:26.520 --> 0:23:29.199 starts going up. Well, another thing that the vigil as 0:23:29.280 --> 0:23:31.399 would have carried with them would be the delibri or 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:34.720 the pick axes, and these would be partially for access, 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.320 just like firefighters would use them today, So knocking down doors, 0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:42.240 knocking through walls to get in, sometimes to rescue people 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.480 trapped inside. The Walsh rights that rescuing people was not 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.440 a major priority of the vigil as. They were more 0:23:48.480 --> 0:23:51.280 concerned with putting out fires and preventing the spread of fires. 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.200 Uh so, but that that could all access could also 0:23:54.240 --> 0:23:56.480 come in there because they could just get closer to 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:58.880 wherever the fire was, right, like if it was inside 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:01.480 the house and not outside yet they might knock down 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.359 a door to get in. But tools like hooks and 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.560 axes could in some circumstances help prevent the spread of 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:11.000 fire in their own right. How would this be, Well, 0:24:11.320 --> 0:24:13.919 if the fire is getting out of control, you start 0:24:13.960 --> 0:24:18.800 tearing things down. You destroy nearby buildings and structural elements 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:21.879 that could provide more fuel and spread the flames. This 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:25.640 is called a firebreak. It's the intentional destruction of any 0:24:25.720 --> 0:24:28.920 free standing fuel around a fire in order to keep 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:32.600 the fire contained. And sometimes this would even involve setting 0:24:32.640 --> 0:24:35.639 controlled fires around the main fire to rob it of 0:24:35.680 --> 0:24:39.600 potential fuel, as is sometimes done in wildfire fighting today. Yeah, 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:42.560 it's like some of the strategies of of wildfire fighting, 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:46.480 but using an urban setting. Yeah. Now, obviously there's only 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:48.439 so much you can do to tear down houses with 0:24:48.520 --> 0:24:51.879 handheld implements like hooks and axes. So did the Romans 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:55.960 have any better options? Why? Yes, Walsh writes, yes they did. 0:24:56.600 --> 0:25:00.240 One important technology in the ancient Roman firefighting arsenal was 0:25:00.320 --> 0:25:05.240 originally a class of siege weaponry, primarily the ballista. This 0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:08.800 was a large mobile piece of heavy artillery used for 0:25:08.920 --> 0:25:11.840 launching projectiles at the walls of enemy cities. You can 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:14.840 kind of picture a giant crossbow and it would have 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:19.080 required ten soldiers and one commanding officer just to operate it. 0:25:19.440 --> 0:25:22.159 And if firefighting context, this would have been used to 0:25:22.359 --> 0:25:26.199 blast houses down. So the fire couldn't consume them and 0:25:26.240 --> 0:25:29.879 spread further, so they would they would literally like wage 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:33.639 war against buildings that were in danger of spreading the 0:25:33.680 --> 0:25:35.719 flame to the rest of the city. Yes. Uh, And 0:25:35.960 --> 0:25:39.200 this isn't the only time in history when essentially bombs 0:25:39.280 --> 0:25:42.280 weapons heavy artillery has been used to stop the spread 0:25:42.280 --> 0:25:44.960 of a fire. Wall shrites that even in some cases 0:25:45.000 --> 0:25:47.120 in the twentieth century. You know, if there's some twentieth 0:25:47.200 --> 0:25:50.400 century urban fires in the United States where we had 0:25:50.400 --> 0:25:53.760 to resort to dynamiting areas of cities to create a 0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:57.080 firebreak within the within the city. Right, And of course 0:25:57.119 --> 0:25:59.720 we'll come back to other uses for explosives in the 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:03.600 few but back to water based options. Walsh does mention 0:26:03.680 --> 0:26:06.840 that the vigil As had access to pumps for spraying 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:09.560 water on the fires, but he does not think they 0:26:09.600 --> 0:26:12.280 would have been anything like the powerful fire hoses we 0:26:12.320 --> 0:26:15.199 see today. First of all, the Romans didn't have rubber, 0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:18.880 so they couldn't create hoses like ours, But they did 0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:21.160 have these pumps, he thinks they would be they would 0:26:21.160 --> 0:26:23.919 have been very limited in output, in the pressure and 0:26:23.960 --> 0:26:27.960 the volume that they could put out. Yeah. Rainbird comments 0:26:27.960 --> 0:26:30.000 on this as well and contends that these would have 0:26:30.000 --> 0:26:34.520 been basically useless, especially especially against any kind of sizeable flame. Yeah, 0:26:34.680 --> 0:26:37.840 not much better than a bucket. Nevertheless, they did exist, 0:26:37.880 --> 0:26:39.879 so at least somebody thought they were useful. That they 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:42.920 were pumped by hand, uh, and they would squirt out 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:45.200 a jet of water onto whatever, you know, you were, 0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:47.720 whatever you were trying to put out. Yeah, it does 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:50.040 seem like, yeah, they would have to be useful for something. 0:26:50.400 --> 0:26:52.879 So it basically comes down to either they were useful 0:26:52.920 --> 0:26:57.560 in in very specific circumstances small blaze, uh, you know, 0:26:57.640 --> 0:27:01.159 or a blaze like perhaps you know, in just the 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:03.439 right space where bucket wouldn't get to it and you 0:27:03.480 --> 0:27:06.520 needed to be a little more precise. Maybe the only 0:27:06.560 --> 0:27:09.000 other possibility would be if it had some sort of 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:12.200 symbolic importance, you know, but I don't think there's anything 0:27:12.200 --> 0:27:15.320 really to support that idea, and you must have had 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.480 some sort of practical importance. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting, 0:27:19.359 --> 0:27:22.679 But both the sources were looking at seems like there's 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.400 no indication that they would have been especially useful. Yeah. 0:27:25.480 --> 0:27:28.000 I guess the other option is somebody was connected and 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:30.439 made these and they're like, let's let's make sure all 0:27:30.440 --> 0:27:33.320 the firefighters have this new technology, it would be great 0:27:33.400 --> 0:27:38.600 the amazing pumps from Crassis, inc. So I mean that's that. Again, 0:27:38.680 --> 0:27:41.440 nothing I ran across, nothing to support that idea either, 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:44.520 but certainly it's within the realm of possibility. So I 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:46.760 want to quote a section from Walsh here that I 0:27:46.760 --> 0:27:49.720 thought was interesting. Walsh rights one of the great ironies 0:27:49.720 --> 0:27:51.960 of life in ancient Rome was that although the city 0:27:52.080 --> 0:27:56.439 was endowed with a remarkable, indeed unprecedented volume of flowing 0:27:56.480 --> 0:27:59.720 fresh water, the technology did not allow the Romans to 0:27:59.760 --> 0:28:03.840 take full advantage of that resource buckets and feeble pumps. 0:28:04.240 --> 0:28:07.960 The succession of fires grand and middling that our sources 0:28:08.000 --> 0:28:11.240 mentioned provides the proof. Still we do not and never 0:28:11.320 --> 0:28:14.680 will know how many small fires would have become significant 0:28:14.880 --> 0:28:18.000 had not the vigil as in their basic tools extinguished them. 0:28:18.240 --> 0:28:22.200 And the emperors continuing substantial investments in the fire service 0:28:22.480 --> 0:28:25.560 suggests that these investments had an impact. I think we 0:28:25.600 --> 0:28:27.640 alluded to this a minute ago, but it is such 0:28:27.680 --> 0:28:30.280 a weird irony that Rome was like the most water 0:28:30.400 --> 0:28:32.600 supplied city in the world at the time. You know, 0:28:32.680 --> 0:28:35.760 it's getting all this water flowing in through their infrastructure, 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:39.280 and yet it's also the city of Fires. Yeah. And 0:28:39.280 --> 0:28:41.200 and man, it's this is one of those things too 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:42.960 that I think I have any time I visit like 0:28:43.000 --> 0:28:45.200 a really big city if I you know, if I'm 0:28:45.200 --> 0:28:47.520 saying New York or something. You know, you just look 0:28:47.560 --> 0:28:49.719 around and you look at just the sheer number of 0:28:49.760 --> 0:28:53.200 people that that live in a in a very very 0:28:53.200 --> 0:28:56.440 small area, and you think of all the little fires 0:28:56.440 --> 0:28:58.800 that are going on all over the place, you know, 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:04.520 in you know, in a appliances and stoves, candles, burnt incense, 0:29:04.960 --> 0:29:09.240 cigarette lighters, etcetera. All these all these little fires, and 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:12.160 we all just kind of work together to keep them 0:29:12.160 --> 0:29:13.760 from getting out of hand. And then we have this 0:29:14.400 --> 0:29:17.160 you know, we have of course laws and regulations and 0:29:17.560 --> 0:29:19.680 uh and then we have safety procedures and we have 0:29:20.200 --> 0:29:23.480 the fire department doing their important work, but all these 0:29:23.520 --> 0:29:27.280 things working together to just keep the ever present fire 0:29:27.440 --> 0:29:29.880 at Bay. Yeah. I think one of the big differences 0:29:29.920 --> 0:29:32.160 now is that modern cities just tend to have more 0:29:32.280 --> 0:29:35.760 static fire protection. We've got sprinkler systems, we've got fire 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:39.240 resistant construction, we've got fire resistant city planning, all that 0:29:39.320 --> 0:29:42.760 kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And fortunately we don't 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:47.120 have to bust out the siege equipment. Right, all right, 0:29:47.160 --> 0:29:49.200 we're gonna take another break, but when we come back, 0:29:49.520 --> 0:29:53.040 we will continue our journey. We will continue our look 0:29:53.400 --> 0:29:58.080 at early sort of what proto fire extinguisher technology, and 0:29:58.120 --> 0:30:02.080 we're gonna take things into the explosive the age of alchemy. 0:30:07.440 --> 0:30:10.280 All right, we're back. So again when you ask the 0:30:10.320 --> 0:30:13.000 question who invented the fire extinguisher? You have to then 0:30:13.040 --> 0:30:15.720 decide what are you going to consider a fire extinguisher? 0:30:15.800 --> 0:30:19.880 What counts? Yeah, and for some people the individual we're 0:30:19.920 --> 0:30:24.880 going to discuss next, and their invention counts. Um, We'll 0:30:24.960 --> 0:30:27.000 leave you to decide whether you consider this a fire 0:30:27.000 --> 0:30:30.640 extinguisher or not. But it is definitely an active of 0:30:30.920 --> 0:30:34.760 fire prevention device. And and it is a device or 0:30:34.840 --> 0:30:37.240 is the individual who created it would call it a machine. 0:30:38.200 --> 0:30:42.840 We're gonna talk here about Ambrose Godfrey A k Ambrose 0:30:42.880 --> 0:30:47.480 Godfrey the Elder, a k Ambrose Godfrey hunk Wits A 0:30:47.640 --> 0:30:51.360 k Ambrose hunk Wits who lived sixteen sixty through seventeen 0:30:51.440 --> 0:30:56.400 forty one. So Godfrey was a German born British phosphorus 0:30:56.440 --> 0:31:00.600 manufacturer and apothecary. If you will remember from our previous 0:31:00.640 --> 0:31:05.080 match episodes phosphorus emerged via the work of German alchemist 0:31:05.200 --> 0:31:08.840 Hinnig Brand in sixteen sixty nine by an amazing method 0:31:08.960 --> 0:31:11.760 if you weren't listening to the earlier one. He basically 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:15.520 somehow got together about like fifteen hundred gallons of human 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:19.600 urine in his basement and then evaporated it. I guess 0:31:19.600 --> 0:31:22.320 he's like gently boiled it down until it became a 0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:25.440 waxy substance that he could play with, right, And I 0:31:25.440 --> 0:31:28.360 think in his original recipe he also called for it 0:31:28.400 --> 0:31:31.360 to u um. The word that was used in the 0:31:31.360 --> 0:31:33.560 source I was looking at in the previous episodes was rot. 0:31:34.120 --> 0:31:36.960 Let it set around and get even more stagnant. And 0:31:37.200 --> 0:31:40.720 what an amazing basement that must have been. And as 0:31:40.720 --> 0:31:44.520 the secret spread and the secret did spread, people realize, Oh, 0:31:44.560 --> 0:31:47.080 you don't actually have to let it get grosser. You know, 0:31:47.120 --> 0:31:49.920 it's basically ready to go. But I think he was 0:31:49.960 --> 0:31:53.280 actually a funny development on that is, so he's an alchemist. 0:31:53.360 --> 0:31:55.520 One of the things alchemists Soften wanted to do was 0:31:55.560 --> 0:31:58.440 find a way to turn various substances off in base 0:31:58.520 --> 0:32:01.840 metals like lead into goal old uh. He thought that 0:32:01.920 --> 0:32:04.680 maybe you could turn urine into gold, right, and he 0:32:04.720 --> 0:32:07.280 did get something valuable, but it wasn't gold, right, Yeah, 0:32:07.320 --> 0:32:09.640 because phosphorus does become, you know, as we discussed in 0:32:09.640 --> 0:32:13.560 the in the previous episodes, uh, of vital importance, especially 0:32:13.600 --> 0:32:18.040 in the match industry. So in its transition from alchemical 0:32:18.160 --> 0:32:22.040 secret to this to this industrial formula, Brand ends up 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:25.040 selling the secret to one de Craft of Dresden, and 0:32:25.080 --> 0:32:27.800 I believe Craft traveled around with it and kind of 0:32:27.800 --> 0:32:31.400 did like kind of magical performances with the phosphorus Traveling 0:32:31.520 --> 0:32:35.120 Urine show. Yeah. But then the urine secret passes on 0:32:35.200 --> 0:32:38.280 to a couple of individuals, uh, one of whom is 0:32:38.400 --> 0:32:42.800 English chemist Robert Boyle, and I believe Boyle like basically 0:32:42.840 --> 0:32:45.680 he was given most of the secret and then guest 0:32:45.760 --> 0:32:48.479 at the rest was able to apply sort of chemical 0:32:48.520 --> 0:32:51.120 knowledge to figure out what he needed to do. And 0:32:51.160 --> 0:32:54.880 then he ends up hiring Ambrose Godfrey at the young 0:32:54.960 --> 0:32:57.960 age of nineteen years old as an assistant who helps 0:32:58.040 --> 0:33:01.600 him crack the use of urine in the brewing a phosphorus. Wait, 0:33:01.640 --> 0:33:03.960 I'm sorry, I just remembered one more fact we couldn't 0:33:04.000 --> 0:33:08.040 skip over, is that Hennig Brand thought that you needed specifically, 0:33:08.040 --> 0:33:11.680 you needed beer drinkers urine. So I think he like 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:15.200 sent his steps on out or something, his his second 0:33:15.280 --> 0:33:16.960 wife's son, to like, go get me a bunch of 0:33:17.000 --> 0:33:20.760 beer drinkers urine. Well, I mean, I guess it's easier 0:33:20.800 --> 0:33:23.280 to obtain at the time than to say, go get 0:33:23.280 --> 0:33:25.040 me the urine of a bunch of people who don't 0:33:25.120 --> 0:33:27.560 drink beer. That's right, Yeah, I'm sure that you had 0:33:27.840 --> 0:33:32.160 volume issues. Yeah. So Godfrey himself goes on to become 0:33:32.200 --> 0:33:37.440 a major phosphorus manufacturer himself, and indeed invented a method 0:33:37.480 --> 0:33:41.000 of extinguishing a fire. I was reading that there that 0:33:41.120 --> 0:33:43.480 he there accounts of him as a chemist, he would 0:33:43.480 --> 0:33:47.080 occasionally burn himself and set small fires. So you know, 0:33:47.160 --> 0:33:50.240 in whether you're an alchemist or a chemist, there's going 0:33:50.280 --> 0:33:53.160 to be occasionally a fire that you do not wish 0:33:53.320 --> 0:33:55.880 to have in your presence. And it would behoove you 0:33:55.920 --> 0:33:58.040 to be able to have some sort of fire extinguishing method. 0:33:58.480 --> 0:34:01.200 And you don't want to waste your pre just urine 0:34:01.240 --> 0:34:03.280 throwing it on a fire to put it out right. 0:34:03.360 --> 0:34:07.760 That urine has his ear marked. So he invented a 0:34:07.760 --> 0:34:10.120 new method. He invented a new machine he called it, 0:34:10.440 --> 0:34:13.200 and uh, he wrote about it in an account of 0:34:13.239 --> 0:34:17.360 the New method of Extinguishing Fires by explosion and suffocation, 0:34:17.719 --> 0:34:20.640 And you can actually read this entire text. It's it's 0:34:20.640 --> 0:34:22.560 a little difficult to read at times because it's you know, 0:34:22.600 --> 0:34:25.440 the you know, the word edge and all is a 0:34:25.440 --> 0:34:29.520 little uh antique, shall we say. But he spends a 0:34:29.680 --> 0:34:33.480 you know, a short books worth of text discussing this 0:34:33.600 --> 0:34:36.239 new invention that he has unleashed on the world. And 0:34:36.560 --> 0:34:41.400 it is essentially a grenade, hand grenade to be used 0:34:41.440 --> 0:34:43.839 against an out of control fire. It was not a 0:34:43.880 --> 0:34:46.920 gadget that blasted a fire with water or powder or 0:34:46.960 --> 0:34:50.279 foam or anything. You threw it or rolled it into 0:34:50.320 --> 0:34:54.680 an out of control blaze and it would explode. Now this, uh, 0:34:54.719 --> 0:34:57.560 this is something that has been explored in other contexts. 0:34:57.760 --> 0:35:00.520 I know there have been some experiments with say, dropping 0:35:00.680 --> 0:35:03.960 bombs on wildfires to put them out, and I'm not 0:35:04.000 --> 0:35:07.280 sure that that has been ruled a very effective method overall, 0:35:07.320 --> 0:35:09.879 but it does have some efficacy because you know, an 0:35:09.880 --> 0:35:13.800 explosion robs the fire zone of some of the things 0:35:13.840 --> 0:35:15.959 it needs to do. There's like a burst, I'm sure 0:35:16.000 --> 0:35:19.640 that like pushes some oxygen a ount. Explosives do have 0:35:19.719 --> 0:35:24.920 some fire suppressant capabilities, absolutely, but but this one it 0:35:24.920 --> 0:35:28.480 has another element to it as well. So very you know, 0:35:28.560 --> 0:35:32.120 very briefly, he devised about three different sizes and these 0:35:32.120 --> 0:35:35.279 would have all been essentially kind of kind of like 0:35:35.360 --> 0:35:38.840 spheres or you know, or or bottles, and all of 0:35:38.880 --> 0:35:43.359 them contained a liquid mixture of a fire suppressant um. 0:35:43.520 --> 0:35:45.920 And then it also had a pewter chamber that was 0:35:45.960 --> 0:35:49.799 loaded with gunpowder. So you'd like this puppy or or 0:35:49.840 --> 0:35:52.040 throw it into the fire and it would it would 0:35:52.040 --> 0:35:54.960 explode and this would spread. The explosion would spread the 0:35:55.040 --> 0:35:59.400 flame suppressing mixture. So the explosion has some some flame 0:35:59.440 --> 0:36:03.439 suppressing powers, but he also was loading it with flame retardant, right, 0:36:03.520 --> 0:36:06.239 So it's one of those situations where we're probably hitting 0:36:06.239 --> 0:36:10.239 two out of the three ways of combating ablaze. And yeah, 0:36:10.320 --> 0:36:13.040 so obviously he was really behind this idea. He wrote 0:36:13.280 --> 0:36:16.640 the book that we mentioned already. He also apparently had 0:36:16.640 --> 0:36:20.080 a three story wooden house constructed and then set it 0:36:20.080 --> 0:36:24.279 ablaze to demonstrate the effectiveness of his machine. Uh So 0:36:24.440 --> 0:36:28.600 it didn't seem to really catch on to the extent 0:36:28.719 --> 0:36:31.920 that he wanted it to, but it seemed to work 0:36:31.960 --> 0:36:36.319 at least in with certain size fires and certain situations. 0:36:36.800 --> 0:36:39.400 But even though the technology did not become dominant right away, 0:36:40.080 --> 0:36:42.920 others continue to improve upon it. So during the eighteen 0:36:42.960 --> 0:36:46.440 hundreds and then the early nineteen hundreds, newer designs of 0:36:46.520 --> 0:36:51.400 fire grenades were invented, employing new chemical formulas for the 0:36:51.480 --> 0:36:55.520 fire suppressing mixture inside. Yeah, but the fire the fire 0:36:55.560 --> 0:36:58.120 grenades of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from what I 0:36:58.160 --> 0:37:01.560 was reading, we're substant really different. In the most of 0:37:01.560 --> 0:37:03.480 the ones I was reading about did not contain any 0:37:03.520 --> 0:37:08.680 explosive elements. They were more just like they were containers 0:37:08.719 --> 0:37:12.200 that were loaded with something like we can talk about 0:37:12.200 --> 0:37:14.160 the ingredients in a minute, but that you know, it 0:37:14.200 --> 0:37:17.640 wasn't like in the gunpowder mode as much anymore. It 0:37:17.719 --> 0:37:19.480 was more like this is something you can throw at 0:37:19.480 --> 0:37:21.719 a fire to quench it. So they were still they 0:37:21.719 --> 0:37:26.560 were definitely marketed as grenades. There's there's a wonderful image 0:37:26.560 --> 0:37:29.520 that I came across. Uh. It was actually in a 0:37:29.520 --> 0:37:33.600 a page on the Invisible website. The apparently did an 0:37:33.600 --> 0:37:36.239 episode on fire grenades at the point, and so they 0:37:36.239 --> 0:37:38.960 had a corresponding page with some images, and this one 0:37:39.040 --> 0:37:42.560 is for the hardened star hand grenade fire extinguisher, and 0:37:42.640 --> 0:37:45.080 you have to see it. It has like these two 0:37:45.520 --> 0:37:49.440 um panels, and in one panel you see this like 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:54.000 Victorian looking woman and a child child standing on a stool. 0:37:54.040 --> 0:37:55.839 There's some sort of fire in the middle of the room. 0:37:56.320 --> 0:37:59.040 And then in the next panel you have some minfolks 0:37:59.080 --> 0:38:01.680 standing around and one of them is hurling a fire 0:38:01.719 --> 0:38:04.640 grenade and the placement makes it look like that he 0:38:04.760 --> 0:38:08.080 is hurling it into the flaming room where where his 0:38:08.200 --> 0:38:11.040 like wife and child are standing with a fire. Right, 0:38:11.080 --> 0:38:12.759 it looks like they're trapped in the room and the 0:38:12.800 --> 0:38:15.960 dudes just outside the door chucking the grenades at them. 0:38:16.040 --> 0:38:18.120 You know, like, don't worry, darling, it's just a bit 0:38:18.160 --> 0:38:21.040 of glass. But if you really zoom in in the 0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:23.239 panel with the guy throwing the grenade, it looks like 0:38:23.239 --> 0:38:27.719 he's throwing it into a coat closet. Oh yeah it does. Yeah. 0:38:27.719 --> 0:38:30.080 So I mentioned a minute ago, like what did these 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:32.799 bombs actually have inside them? Some of them were very 0:38:32.880 --> 0:38:36.160 simple and didn't use didn't use any explosives, didn't even 0:38:36.280 --> 0:38:40.200 use any complex chemistry. From roughly the eighteen seventies until 0:38:40.239 --> 0:38:44.280 the nineteen tends, a very popular method of fire prevention 0:38:44.400 --> 0:38:47.640 was to equip buildings with these wall mounts that would 0:38:47.640 --> 0:38:51.080 just have fire grenades sitting in them, so you'd have 0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:53.040 like a little bracket up on the wall and just 0:38:53.080 --> 0:38:56.240 be there. Often it was painted red, but it would 0:38:56.280 --> 0:38:59.520 be a glass sphere very similar in shape to a 0:38:59.600 --> 0:39:04.279 light bulb. Will be usually filled with saltwater. Now, why saltwater? 0:39:04.400 --> 0:39:06.680 I read this and I was wondering to saltwater put 0:39:06.719 --> 0:39:10.440 out fires more effectively than freshwater, and I could not 0:39:10.520 --> 0:39:12.960 find any evidence that that's the case. And I think 0:39:12.960 --> 0:39:16.440 the reason saltwater was used was to lower the freezing 0:39:16.520 --> 0:39:18.520 point of the water inside the bulb, so you could 0:39:18.600 --> 0:39:20.920 leave it out year round without worrying it would freeze. 0:39:21.080 --> 0:39:23.000 Oh well, that does make sense, yeah, because it was 0:39:23.040 --> 0:39:26.360 just a it's like a cold warehouse environment, for example, 0:39:26.640 --> 0:39:29.640 it can conceivably be frozen solid and would be rather 0:39:29.760 --> 0:39:32.120 useless or mostly useless if you were to hurl it 0:39:32.160 --> 0:39:35.400 into a flame. Right. I found another brand in addition 0:39:35.440 --> 0:39:38.120 to the hardened Star, the the sure Stop s h 0:39:38.280 --> 0:39:43.800 u R Stop the automatic Fireman on the Wall. Another 0:39:43.840 --> 0:39:48.319 popular brand I read about multiple sources was called red Comet. Now, 0:39:48.320 --> 0:39:51.120 if you wanted a more potent fire suppressant, then just 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:54.560 playing saltwater, which again still works pretty well. You can 0:39:54.760 --> 0:39:58.320 buy glass grenades full of a chemical fire suppressant called 0:39:58.480 --> 0:40:02.520 carbon tetra chlora IT or CTC, which is now also 0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:07.240 known as tetra chloro methane. This was a dense, sweet smelling, 0:40:07.360 --> 0:40:12.840 extremely toxic, non flammable liquid that, when volatilized, inhibits the 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:17.640 chemical reaction that causes fire. It was a chemical flame suppressant. 0:40:18.200 --> 0:40:21.520 CTC was first synthesized by humans in eighteen thirty nine 0:40:21.560 --> 0:40:25.040 by reacting chlorine with chloroform, and it's had a lot 0:40:25.080 --> 0:40:27.920 of industrial uses over the years as a cleaning solvent, 0:40:28.080 --> 0:40:31.280 as a refrigerant, and yes, as a fire suppression chemical. 0:40:31.960 --> 0:40:35.120 But if you happen to come across a vintage CTC 0:40:35.320 --> 0:40:38.000 fire grenade, sometimes people still have these fire grenades in 0:40:38.000 --> 0:40:40.600 their houses. You know, they were still being manufactured up 0:40:40.640 --> 0:40:44.200 into the nineteen forties and fifties. I think, um, if 0:40:44.239 --> 0:40:46.440 you if you have one of these in your house, 0:40:46.560 --> 0:40:49.279 we would not advise trying to use it. I have 0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:53.480 come across multiple articles by like household goods, museums and 0:40:53.600 --> 0:40:56.960 antiques experts talking about this, saying if you've got one 0:40:57.000 --> 0:40:59.680 of these CTC grenades hanging around. You need to find 0:40:59.680 --> 0:41:02.560 a way to get it safely disposed of through a 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:06.600 local fire department or something, because CTC, we have discovered 0:41:06.719 --> 0:41:10.600 is extremely toxic. Just a few minutes of exposure can 0:41:10.680 --> 0:41:16.040 cause potentially fatal injury. It's hippotoxic, toxic to the liver, 0:41:16.200 --> 0:41:19.000 it's toxic to all kinds of stuff in the body. Uh. 0:41:19.440 --> 0:41:21.680 Absolute bad news. You do not want to break one 0:41:21.719 --> 0:41:24.759 of these things. And yet that's the whole mechanism, right, 0:41:25.040 --> 0:41:28.800 You're supposed to break it by throwing it into the fire. Yeah. 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:31.239 Generally these fire grenades would be made of very thin 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:33.880 glass so that it was sure to shatter on impact, 0:41:34.320 --> 0:41:37.840 but some of them had a heat activated trigger mechanism instead. 0:41:37.880 --> 0:41:40.880 An example of this might be a spring loaded cap 0:41:41.040 --> 0:41:43.840 on the container that's held in place by solder, and 0:41:43.840 --> 0:41:46.520 then when the solder is heated and melted by the fire, 0:41:46.600 --> 0:41:49.480 the cap gets released in the fire suppressant material escapes. 0:41:50.200 --> 0:41:52.360 But he would still be a it would still be 0:41:52.440 --> 0:41:54.799 a it wouldn't be a passive method, it would still 0:41:55.280 --> 0:41:57.799 be active, I think, so you'd still probably want to 0:41:57.800 --> 0:42:00.440 throw it in. I don't know, technically that might something 0:42:00.440 --> 0:42:02.359 that we were kind of like a sprinkler system. Yeah, 0:42:02.400 --> 0:42:03.879 if you had enough of them around. If you haven't 0:42:03.960 --> 0:42:08.279 had enough, um uh, you know, fragile spheres of of 0:42:08.280 --> 0:42:11.200 toxic chemicals just hanging around the place, like all throughout 0:42:11.239 --> 0:42:14.360 the ceiling. You've just got spheres of water that have 0:42:14.480 --> 0:42:16.680 like a solder cork on the bottom. And yeah, you 0:42:16.680 --> 0:42:18.080 could just stick with the water, that's right. You don't 0:42:18.120 --> 0:42:20.719 need to do the CTC version. Yeah. I I haven't 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:23.560 seen anything like that around, but but yeah, there'd be 0:42:23.600 --> 0:42:27.560 an interesting idea. Maybe somebody had that. But so anyway, 0:42:27.560 --> 0:42:30.719 these grenades style fire extinguishers eventually did go out of 0:42:30.760 --> 0:42:34.759 style because they were less effective than modern fire extinguishers. 0:42:35.080 --> 0:42:37.680 According to an article I was reading by David McCormick 0:42:37.719 --> 0:42:40.720 for the Antique Trader magazine, they were known to fail, 0:42:41.160 --> 0:42:43.319 and they were much more effective when a fire was 0:42:43.480 --> 0:42:46.640 just breaking out than once it was raging and extremely hot. 0:42:46.680 --> 0:42:49.720 This is a repeating theme we're seeing as we discussed 0:42:49.719 --> 0:42:52.440 a lot of these technologies, right, because it does seem like, 0:42:52.520 --> 0:42:55.920 especially if you're dealing with just a a grenade that 0:42:56.040 --> 0:42:58.960 is full of salt water, it's kind of a fancy 0:42:58.960 --> 0:43:01.280 bucket of water. Really, it's a bucket of water that's 0:43:01.320 --> 0:43:05.480 always available, ready to go, easier to throw. Maybe you could, yeah, 0:43:05.520 --> 0:43:08.480 you definitely get I think better distance on that, but 0:43:08.880 --> 0:43:11.839 it's still delivering about the same amount of water, maybe 0:43:11.840 --> 0:43:15.279 a little less. That is what's what the appeal of 0:43:15.440 --> 0:43:17.200 most of these grenades was. I think it was that 0:43:17.239 --> 0:43:19.520 they would be right there on the wall the moment 0:43:19.560 --> 0:43:21.839 you needed them. You wouldn't so if a fire breaks out, 0:43:22.239 --> 0:43:24.239 you wouldn't need to say, oh my goodness and run 0:43:24.239 --> 0:43:26.600 and get a bucket and get to the pump in 0:43:26.640 --> 0:43:28.920 the backyard and start. But you know, all that stuff, 0:43:29.080 --> 0:43:32.080 it would just be right there. Yeah, you know. Maybe 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:35.120 this was another advantage to use salt water so that 0:43:35.520 --> 0:43:38.320 like the local Homer Simpson does not drink them all 0:43:38.480 --> 0:43:43.839 because he's thirsty. Then again, salt is delicious. You might 0:43:43.920 --> 0:43:47.600 use them to marinate his meat and to wash his socks. 0:43:48.120 --> 0:43:51.399 I guess they'd be brining, brining his meat, brining pork 0:43:51.480 --> 0:43:54.120 chops in the with the fire grenade. So at this 0:43:54.160 --> 0:43:57.520 point we've we've discussed several of these different inventions, these 0:43:57.520 --> 0:44:00.680 different devices, these different approaches to comp adding the flame, 0:44:00.880 --> 0:44:03.799 and I guess one of the real take comes thus far, 0:44:04.480 --> 0:44:07.760 is that none of these devices kind of match the 0:44:07.760 --> 0:44:11.560 the you know, the the energy, the potency of the 0:44:11.640 --> 0:44:14.680 fire of the dragon fire, you know. And I think 0:44:14.680 --> 0:44:17.640 that's something about the modern fire extinguisher that is that 0:44:17.760 --> 0:44:20.000 is central to not only its effectiveness, but just sort 0:44:20.000 --> 0:44:21.520 of the appeal of it. Like it is a thing 0:44:21.880 --> 0:44:25.240 that blasts the fire back to put the fire out. 0:44:25.320 --> 0:44:27.840 It is like a uh, you know, the the opposite 0:44:28.160 --> 0:44:30.800 the anti dragon that is just on the shelf, ready 0:44:30.840 --> 0:44:33.239 to go, and it is St. George, Yeah, and it 0:44:33.360 --> 0:44:35.400 and it also he does utilize a number of the 0:44:35.400 --> 0:44:38.400 different is will explore in the next episode. The modern 0:44:38.560 --> 0:44:40.880 fire extinguisher uses a number of the principles that are 0:44:40.880 --> 0:44:43.719 employed in these earlier inventions, but it brings them all 0:44:43.760 --> 0:44:48.239 together into UH an even better technology. It's Ripley in 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:52.239 the loader coming up against the monster, all right, And 0:44:52.280 --> 0:44:54.960 we will explore that in the next episode of Invention, 0:44:55.000 --> 0:44:57.880 which will come out next Monday. In the meantime, if 0:44:57.880 --> 0:44:59.400 you want to check out other episodes, if you want 0:44:59.400 --> 0:45:01.960 to check out our three partner on Matches, which is 0:45:02.000 --> 0:45:03.600 not just to look at matches, but a look at 0:45:03.600 --> 0:45:07.520 the evolution of fire UH technology itself. You will find 0:45:07.520 --> 0:45:09.640 those anywhere you get your podcasts. If you head on 0:45:09.719 --> 0:45:11.879 over to invention pod dot com, that'll shoot you over 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:13.960 to the I heart page for the show. Wherever you 0:45:14.000 --> 0:45:16.960 get the show, just make sure that you subscribe, that 0:45:17.200 --> 0:45:19.719 you you know, you download, your rate, your review, you 0:45:19.800 --> 0:45:23.040 share with friends, all that good stuff. That's how we're 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:25.680 able to keep putting the show out huge thanks as 0:45:25.680 --> 0:45:29.279 always to our excellent audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If 0:45:29.280 --> 0:45:30.719 you would like to get in touch with us with 0:45:30.800 --> 0:45:33.440 feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:35.440 topic for the future, or just to say hi, you 0:45:35.440 --> 0:45:42.240 can email us at contact at invention pod dot com. 0:45:42.239 --> 0:45:45.360 Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts 0:45:45.400 --> 0:45:48.239 from my heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:45:48.320 --> 0:45:49.920 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.