WEBVTT - The Invention of Roller Skates

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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<v Speaker 3>My name is Robert Lamb.

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<v Speaker 4>And I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to be

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<v Speaker 4>doing one of our invention episodes, and the subject is

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<v Speaker 4>roller skates. I was going to say this is kind

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<v Speaker 4>of a sequel to an episode we did a few

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<v Speaker 4>weeks ago about the invention of ice skates, but it

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<v Speaker 4>might be more accurate to say that episode was a

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<v Speaker 4>prequel to this one, because from what I recall, Rob,

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<v Speaker 4>you wanted to look at skating as a subject because

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<v Speaker 4>your family has gotten into roller skating or blading lately.

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<v Speaker 4>Is that the case.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, and not a huge story really, But essentially,

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<v Speaker 2>I have some friends who got into roller skating during

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<v Speaker 2>the pandemic, which you know, increased my awareness of this

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<v Speaker 2>individual's involvement in various local skating meetups and so forth.

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<v Speaker 2>And my now thirteen year old also recently got into

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<v Speaker 2>the roller skating scene as well, and so I've just

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<v Speaker 2>been really impressed by, first of all, the fact that

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<v Speaker 2>roller skating is back. I remember, as a kid in

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<v Speaker 2>the nineties seeing various bits of media about roller blades,

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<v Speaker 2>and I was just like, oh, well, this is the future,

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<v Speaker 2>rollerblades of the future. Roller skating is just done.

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<v Speaker 4>Oh that's funny. I feel like when I was a

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<v Speaker 4>kid in the nineties, like I considered both roller skating

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<v Speaker 4>and blading to be in but blading was the more

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<v Speaker 4>extreme version. In a very nineties television commercial, coded kind

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<v Speaker 4>of way, it's the code red flavor of skating.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, I mean definitely. I mean, there were,

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<v Speaker 2>of course plenty of roller skating rinks around, so I

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<v Speaker 2>didn't think it was it was actually dead, but the

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<v Speaker 2>thing I would see on MTV and so forth, it

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<v Speaker 2>was the roller blading, and so it seemed like the future.

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<v Speaker 2>So it's nice to see that it's the roller skating

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<v Speaker 2>itself is back with such gusto. And then the other

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<v Speaker 2>part of the equation is that I've just really impressed

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<v Speaker 2>by the culture of many of these rollers blading groups.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, there's a lot of progressive and inviting aspects.

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<v Speaker 2>There's more than a little disco culture still thrown in there.

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<v Speaker 2>And so I was, yeah, I was interested in the

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<v Speaker 2>invention of the roller skate. And we quickly realized, well,

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<v Speaker 2>you can't talk about roller skates without talking about ice skates,

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<v Speaker 2>And so we ended up doing that whole episode just

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<v Speaker 2>on ice skates.

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<v Speaker 4>Right, because it just so happens that ice skating is

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<v Speaker 4>an earlier invention, so we had to talk about it first.

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<v Speaker 4>But here we are, sure, yeah, much earlier, but here

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<v Speaker 4>we are with roller skates today.

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<v Speaker 2>That's right, And I imagine we have a number of

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<v Speaker 2>skaters out there. I myself am not a roller skater.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh okay, I can't remember the last time I was

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<v Speaker 2>on skates. I'm not saying I won't pick it up

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<v Speaker 2>at some point in the future, but as of right now,

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<v Speaker 2>I just ice skate. Maybe once a year, though I

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<v Speaker 2>did not in the past year, so maybe it's every

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<v Speaker 2>two years I ice skate. But it is indeed a

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<v Speaker 2>big deal. I was not just basing it on my

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<v Speaker 2>own observations here. I looked up an article from twenty

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<v Speaker 2>twenty two who was published on NPR titled roller skating

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<v Speaker 2>feels a lot like love, and following is just part

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<v Speaker 2>of the process. This was by Kia Miyaka Ntez And Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>this article points out that there was this huge boom

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<v Speaker 2>in popularity during the pandemic after having fallen sharply in

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<v Speaker 2>popularity during the late twentieth century. Maybe, and I'm just

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<v Speaker 2>guessing here lining up with my nineties kid observations.

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<v Speaker 3>Of the rise of the roller blade.

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<v Speaker 4>This is funny because you're you're making this distinction between

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<v Speaker 4>roller skating and roller blading, which I considered really the

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<v Speaker 4>same thing, is just like different different forms of the shoe.

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<v Speaker 2>It may be an artificial distinction that I'm really harping

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<v Speaker 2>on here, because again I'm not a skater, So people

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<v Speaker 2>who are actually skaters can probably like chie in and

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<v Speaker 2>they may say, well, yeah, I sometimes aware these sometimes

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<v Speaker 2>were the others, or maybe there is some are there

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<v Speaker 2>are there differences between roller skaters and rollerbladers. I guess

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<v Speaker 2>some of the events that I've I've been to and

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<v Speaker 2>not participated in, I have seen people using both types

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<v Speaker 2>of skates. But this author here also aligns the popularity

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<v Speaker 2>of roller skating during the nineteen seventies with disco, and

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<v Speaker 2>again that's probably a strong reason why you see some

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<v Speaker 2>disco vibes to some of the current skating culture.

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<v Speaker 4>I think even in the nineties, one of the skating

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<v Speaker 4>rinks I went to in like Tennessee had a disco

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<v Speaker 4>ball in it.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but so you might be forgiven just you know,

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<v Speaker 2>via the consumption of media into thinking that okay, disco

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<v Speaker 2>is dead, it's not really dead and didn't die. You

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<v Speaker 2>might you might likewise think, well, skating also fell off

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<v Speaker 2>in popularity and it's never coming back. But then it

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<v Speaker 2>did come back and it's still holding on to that

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<v Speaker 2>popularity as well. It you know, survived in various groups,

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<v Speaker 2>maybe just under the radar of a lot of the mainstream,

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<v Speaker 2>and it's apparently big business today. According to Busines Research

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<v Speaker 2>insights from earlier this year, the roller skating market size

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<v Speaker 2>is quote valued it approximately USD four point eight billion

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<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty four and is expected to reach USD

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<v Speaker 2>seven point nine billion by twenty thirty two. So, whether

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<v Speaker 2>you're you're hip or square, whether you're concerned with the

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<v Speaker 2>culture or with just the raw numbers involved in it,

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<v Speaker 2>I think there's no denying the power of roller skating today.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's it's great exercise by most accounts, and

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<v Speaker 2>it's also a form of social expression, so I think

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<v Speaker 2>that's great.

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<v Speaker 4>I also have not tried it since I was a kid,

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<v Speaker 4>so I have no idea how hard it would be.

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<v Speaker 4>Like I literally I could put them on and just

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<v Speaker 4>pick it right up, or maybe it would be a

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<v Speaker 4>grueling discovery that I just can't do this anymore. I

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<v Speaker 4>really don't know.

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<v Speaker 2>I think you'd be comfortable, either of us would be

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<v Speaker 2>comfortable in like an hour or so.

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<v Speaker 4>That's encouraging. I was going to say I'd like to

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<v Speaker 4>pick it up, but that I was just now remembering

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<v Speaker 4>another reason that it was always kind of difficult when

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<v Speaker 4>I was a kid, because I did have a pair

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<v Speaker 4>of skates when I was a kid, but it was

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<v Speaker 4>that my neighborhood is like my house is on a hill,

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<v Speaker 4>so it was like I always felt like I don't

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<v Speaker 4>know if I can, like if I go down the hill,

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<v Speaker 4>can I get back up or I have to take

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<v Speaker 4>my skates off? Or am I going to careene into something?

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<v Speaker 4>So I don't know. Maybe maybe skating is easier if

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<v Speaker 4>you live in a very flat place.

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<v Speaker 2>Wait are you saying that you were trepidacious about skating

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<v Speaker 2>to the skating rink because there were.

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<v Speaker 4>Hills skating around my house, like around on the sidewalks

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<v Speaker 4>and streets around my house and stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh okay, yes, I see. Yeah, Because to be clear,

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<v Speaker 2>for anyone that's not familiar, like there are different modes

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<v Speaker 2>of skating, Like you just go and skate in a rink,

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<v Speaker 2>but then there are plenty of people who go out

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<v Speaker 2>and skate, you know, on various designated streets and so forth.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, and there are different types of wheels that

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<v Speaker 2>correspond with exactly what you're skating on.

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<v Speaker 4>So one surprising thing that I remember we discovered when

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<v Speaker 4>we were preparing for the ice skating episode is that

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<v Speaker 4>the core physics question of how and why ice skating works,

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<v Speaker 4>in effect, why is ice so slippery? Why can you

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<v Speaker 4>achieve such low friction motion over the top of it?

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<v Speaker 4>That question is not fully solved. We have much better

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<v Speaker 4>ideas than we used to about the answer to that,

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<v Speaker 4>but as of the past few years, it has still

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<v Speaker 4>been an active area of research. I do not believe

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<v Speaker 4>any such mysteries exist with regards to roller skating. It's

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<v Speaker 4>not like a baffling scientific question. Roller skating does not

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<v Speaker 4>rely on any strange, low friction quasi liquid layers at

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<v Speaker 4>the surface of ice. Instead, it's the principle of the

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<v Speaker 4>wheel and axle, which, at the risk of sounding hubristic,

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<v Speaker 4>I think we've got that one pretty well figured out. Yes,

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<v Speaker 4>but despite the fact that there's less scientific mystery involved

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<v Speaker 4>in how roller skating works doesn't mean that the history

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<v Speaker 4>is uninteresting. And there are a lot of twists and

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<v Speaker 4>turns here.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, more so than I was expecting. But you know,

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<v Speaker 2>then again, and then you get into inventions from this

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<v Speaker 2>time period, and it often does end up a.

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<v Speaker 3>Little more complex, with.

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<v Speaker 2>Parallel discoveries, parallel breakthroughs, different independent creations of the same thing,

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<v Speaker 2>and then of course folks trying to make money off

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<v Speaker 2>of those inventions.

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<v Speaker 4>That's right. So I think one thing we can definitely

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<v Speaker 4>say about the invention of roller skates is that there

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<v Speaker 4>is no clear moment in history that can be pinpointed

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<v Speaker 4>as the earliest roller skate. There was a from what

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<v Speaker 4>I can tell, very economically and historically important roller skate

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<v Speaker 4>model created in the eighteen sixties by an American businessman

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<v Speaker 4>named James Plimpton, and I think we'll come back and

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<v Speaker 4>discuss the success of that model in a bit, and

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<v Speaker 4>then other models around it. But it's worth identifying first

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<v Speaker 4>that we know for certain Plimpton was not the first

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<v Speaker 4>person to put wheels on shoes. We have many well

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<v Speaker 4>documented earlier examples. And then beyond that, I'd say because

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<v Speaker 4>of how obvious the concept is, like applying the wheel

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<v Speaker 4>and axle principle to the bottom of a shoe, we

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<v Speaker 4>can just guess that there were almost certainly even older

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<v Speaker 4>examples than the earliest ones we know about, probably going

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<v Speaker 4>back hundreds or even thousands of years. But we simply

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<v Speaker 4>don't have any evidence of those models, no written records

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<v Speaker 4>and no physical remains. But it would be it would

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<v Speaker 4>be foolish, in my opinion, to assume that they had

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<v Speaker 4>Nobody had ever done this.

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<v Speaker 2>Right right, And this ties ties in with our past

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<v Speaker 2>discussions on the wheel itself, because the wheel and the

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<v Speaker 2>wheel wheeled vehicle as concepts can be found in various

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<v Speaker 2>cultures in different times, even among people who did not

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<v Speaker 2>make use of the wheel for practical labor or conveyance.

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<v Speaker 2>A wheeled vehicle's usefulness, as we discussed, depends on the

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<v Speaker 2>underlying state of roads, and there's a similar situation in

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<v Speaker 2>play with roller skates to a large degree, though I

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<v Speaker 2>was surprised to find out that that off road roller

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<v Speaker 2>skating does seem to be a thing today. You can

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<v Speaker 2>find videos of it, you can buy these skates, but

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<v Speaker 2>for the most part, it was.

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<v Speaker 4>Not a thing like roller skating in the mud is like, I.

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<v Speaker 2>Guess people are going out there and getting it, so

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<v Speaker 2>more power to them. But yeah, I can only imagine

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<v Speaker 2>just as at various points in the past, probably lost

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<v Speaker 2>to the mists of history, you know, various people made

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<v Speaker 2>little toys on wheels. Some of those toys were stepped upon,

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<v Speaker 2>some of those toys were intentionally placed under feet, and

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<v Speaker 2>someone was a joker at a party somewhere.

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<v Speaker 4>Sorry, when we're done here, I got to look up

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<v Speaker 4>these off road skating and see what it's about. I'm

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<v Speaker 4>imagining people with like monster truck tires on their feet.

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<v Speaker 2>I can think that's kind of the vibe that. As

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<v Speaker 2>with all of this listeners right in, we want to

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<v Speaker 2>hear from rollerbladers, roller skaters, and any off road roller

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<v Speaker 2>skaters out there as well.

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<v Speaker 4>So I mentioned that we know very well about some

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<v Speaker 4>earlier roller skate models than the ones that achieved commercial

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<v Speaker 4>success in the nineteenth century. So what were some of

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<v Speaker 4>these earlier roller skate models for which we do have

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<v Speaker 4>solid evidence. There is a commonly cited book length work

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<v Speaker 4>on this which does get into the history out. Unfortunately,

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<v Speaker 4>I was not able to get a copy of this

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<v Speaker 4>book it's called The History of Roller Skating by James

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<v Speaker 4>Turner with Michael Zaidman, published by the National Museum of

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<v Speaker 4>Roller Skating. I think this is in Nebraska. Seems to

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<v Speaker 4>be out of print. You can get a used copy

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<v Speaker 4>on Amazon for only three hundred and sixty dollars. Should

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<v Speaker 4>we go in on that?

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<v Speaker 2>How we could have with more time, I guess so.

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<v Speaker 4>Anyway, wasn't able to get a copy of this book myself.

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<v Speaker 4>But Michael Pollock, the author of a short twenty fifteen

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<v Speaker 4>article in The New York Times called The History of

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<v Speaker 4>Roller Skates, apparently was able to get a copy somehow,

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<v Speaker 4>and he says that Turner and Zaidman, the authors of

0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.720
<v Speaker 4>this book, right that the earliest recorded inventor of roller

0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:11.679
<v Speaker 4>skates was an eccentric eighteenth century Flemish inventor and instrument

0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:17.720
<v Speaker 4>maker named John Joseph Merlin, aka the Ingenious Mechanic. And

0:12:17.760 --> 0:12:19.880
<v Speaker 4>that's mechanic with a C K at the end, so

0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.200
<v Speaker 4>you know it's legit. So John Joseph Merlin lived from

0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:28.040
<v Speaker 4>seventeen thirty five to eighteen oh three. I looked this

0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.520
<v Speaker 4>guy up and it turns out he was a real character.

0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.200
<v Speaker 4>So I would like to just sort of go into

0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:33.520
<v Speaker 4>his biography for a bit.

0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:36.680
<v Speaker 2>I mean, with a name like that, yeah, it's got

0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:37.000
<v Speaker 2>to be good.

0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.040
<v Speaker 4>So I want to mention a couple of nice accessible

0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:43.480
<v Speaker 4>sources on Merlin. One is a blog post hosted by

0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.439
<v Speaker 4>the Internet Cello Society, because he was also an instrument maker,

0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.240
<v Speaker 4>called Magical Merlin. This was written by an American cellist

0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.640
<v Speaker 4>and music professor named Sarah Freiberg. Also, I found a

0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.800
<v Speaker 4>good twenty eighteen post on a historical blog known as

0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:00.959
<v Speaker 4>London Historians by an author named Mike Rindell a bit

0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.960
<v Speaker 4>of basic biography. John Joseph Merlin was born in seventeen

0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.440
<v Speaker 4>thirty five in the city of Hui, which is today

0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.280
<v Speaker 4>in the country of Belgium. I think at the time

0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.800
<v Speaker 4>it was in a principality that doesn't exist anymore, and

0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.199
<v Speaker 4>I don't remember the name of But when he was

0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.480
<v Speaker 4>a young man, Merlin studied for six years at the

0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.040
<v Speaker 4>Academy of Sciences in Paris, where he learned a lot

0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.520
<v Speaker 4>of what would become useful in his career as a

0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:32.600
<v Speaker 4>mechanical inventor and engineer. In the year seventeen sixty, at

0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:35.960
<v Speaker 4>the age of twenty five, he moved to London first,

0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:38.960
<v Speaker 4>I think as part of a diplomatic group, shortly after

0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.360
<v Speaker 4>which he made friends with a bunch of fashionable and

0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:47.439
<v Speaker 4>influential people in london intellectual and artistic circles. Merlin was

0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:51.640
<v Speaker 4>a man of many talents. Most notably he invented a

0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:58.079
<v Speaker 4>bunch of beautiful and dazzling mechanical automata rob We've done

0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.719
<v Speaker 4>episodes on automatave from the period in the past. These

0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.640
<v Speaker 4>were sort of eighteenth century clockwork robots. So the word

0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.000
<v Speaker 4>robot could be a little misleading because that might imply

0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:15.280
<v Speaker 4>some level of decision making or agency. These machines did

0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:19.480
<v Speaker 4>not in any way exercise decision making, action, independence, agency,

0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:24.400
<v Speaker 4>anything like that. They were more like ingenious, complex wind

0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:29.040
<v Speaker 4>up toys that would go through a series of predetermined motions,

0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:32.520
<v Speaker 4>but still remarkable engineering achievements.

0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, as I recall, it kind of varies from creator

0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:42.400
<v Speaker 2>to create, or from one creation to another, But there

0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:45.760
<v Speaker 2>was sometimes a vibe of something more like pure novelty,

0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.520
<v Speaker 2>and then other times there was this kind of.

0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:51.880
<v Speaker 3>Aspect to it.

0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.640
<v Speaker 2>You know, sometimes you were supposed to really think about

0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:56.560
<v Speaker 2>what you were looking at other times it was maybe

0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.080
<v Speaker 2>like just a little more for humor sike.

0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:00.960
<v Speaker 4>Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about. I thought

0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:02.880
<v Speaker 4>you were going in a different direction though, but you're

0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.400
<v Speaker 4>exactly right. Some of these I think were meant to

0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:07.560
<v Speaker 4>illustrate there were kind of works of art in a

0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:12.640
<v Speaker 4>wayment to illustrate philosophical principles, to connect to different theories

0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:17.960
<v Speaker 4>about the origin of movements and even theology and cosmology

0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.640
<v Speaker 4>and what it meant for things to be alive and so, yeah,

0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.480
<v Speaker 4>we've talked about that in the past, how these works

0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:26.360
<v Speaker 4>connected to those different schools of philosophy at the time.

0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.040
<v Speaker 4>But the other distinction I was making was the ones

0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.720
<v Speaker 4>that are like, here's something interesting to look at and

0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.360
<v Speaker 4>you know, being very clear about how it works, versus

0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.000
<v Speaker 4>the ones where it was like, this is actually alive

0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.880
<v Speaker 4>and it's really making decisions and stuff, yeah, which was

0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:43.440
<v Speaker 4>not true.

0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:45.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and then sometimes there was kind of a little

0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.360
<v Speaker 2>trickery in the degree to which things were automated. Go

0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:52.280
<v Speaker 2>back into the archives, I believe we have episodes on

0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.320
<v Speaker 2>the pooping duck. Yes, this being like a key focal

0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:56.560
<v Speaker 2>point of some of these issues.

0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.040
<v Speaker 4>But like I said, despite the fact that they were

0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:02.400
<v Speaker 4>not actually like in dependent agentic robots in any way,

0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.840
<v Speaker 4>they were more like very intricate, complex wind up toys.

0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:10.480
<v Speaker 4>Still remarkable engineering achievements. And if you want to see

0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:15.600
<v Speaker 4>one of one of Merlin's co creations that he made

0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:17.760
<v Speaker 4>actually with the help of a bunch of other people,

0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.160
<v Speaker 4>I think, in a project that was helmed by a

0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:23.640
<v Speaker 4>guy named James Cox, who I'll get to in a minute,

0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.200
<v Speaker 4>you can look up the silver Swan automaton, which still

0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.760
<v Speaker 4>exists and you can see today, or at least could

0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:33.200
<v Speaker 4>as of recently I think, probably still today at the

0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:38.240
<v Speaker 4>Bows Museum in northern England. So just to describe it quickly,

0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.960
<v Speaker 4>this is a life sized swan made out of silver.

0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.080
<v Speaker 4>Apparently a huge mass of silver went into its creation,

0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.600
<v Speaker 4>and it's sitting on a tray a platform that represents

0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.680
<v Speaker 4>a stream where the water is made out of these long,

0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:59.280
<v Speaker 4>thin glass rods, and so this thing still works today.

0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:01.600
<v Speaker 4>You can wind it up and see it move and

0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:04.399
<v Speaker 4>when you do that, the glass rods move back and

0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:08.080
<v Speaker 4>forth and resemble running water, and the stream part is

0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:11.680
<v Speaker 4>surrounded by silver leaves. Again, you can look up video

0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:16.359
<v Speaker 4>of this. It's kind of amazing how graceful and smooth

0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.480
<v Speaker 4>and life like the movements of the swan itself are

0:17:19.640 --> 0:17:23.000
<v Speaker 4>the swan kind of swivels its neck and it does

0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.040
<v Speaker 4>that thing swans do where they turn around and they

0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:27.720
<v Speaker 4>like stick their head back under their wing or toward

0:17:27.760 --> 0:17:30.840
<v Speaker 4>their back. It does that, and then it dips its

0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.679
<v Speaker 4>head into the water and catches a fish althile. This

0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:37.359
<v Speaker 4>very mysterious little tune plays on hidden bells. Part of

0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:40.439
<v Speaker 4>the automaton is just a giant music box that plays

0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:45.200
<v Speaker 4>a selection of several different tunes. So it is an

0:17:45.240 --> 0:17:49.000
<v Speaker 4>amazing thing to watch in action, especially realizing that this

0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:51.359
<v Speaker 4>thing was completed in like the seventeen seventies.

0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.040
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I'm looking at a video that you sent me

0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:57.600
<v Speaker 2>of this swan in action, and yeah, these are very

0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.920
<v Speaker 2>fluid movements here. I was expecting something a lot clunkier.

0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:04.199
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, something more kind of start and stop jerking up

0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.400
<v Speaker 4>and you know that sort of thing. But no, it's

0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:09.840
<v Speaker 4>very graceful. And people at the time commented on this

0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:14.040
<v Speaker 4>like how graceful and lifelike it was. But John Joseph

0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.800
<v Speaker 4>Merlin was not on Sorry what.

0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:19.800
<v Speaker 2>I was just I was just thinking, like, was he

0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.119
<v Speaker 2>still a diplomat at the time, was there anything to do?

0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:25.520
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if he was. I don't know how

0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:27.359
<v Speaker 4>long he stayed in Diplomat, so.

0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.320
<v Speaker 2>Because a lot of work evidently went into this.

0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:30.280
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, huge amount.

0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:30.800
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.720
<v Speaker 4>But Merlin was not only a clock punk silver swancrafter.

0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.960
<v Speaker 4>He was also just an all purpose inventor and designer,

0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.680
<v Speaker 4>both of functional items things like medical devices and measuring instruments,

0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:50.040
<v Speaker 4>and also bizarre novelties like a like a real life

0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.960
<v Speaker 4>size mechanical chariot with an automatic horse whip that he

0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:55.679
<v Speaker 4>would ride around in Hyde Park.

0:18:56.400 --> 0:18:57.200
<v Speaker 3>Oh my goodness.

0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:02.119
<v Speaker 4>In addition, he was a renown instrument maker. One of

0:19:02.160 --> 0:19:05.520
<v Speaker 4>the sources I mentioned that post by cellis name Sarah Freiberg.

0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.520
<v Speaker 4>Her introduction to Merlin in writing this piece is actually

0:19:08.600 --> 0:19:11.600
<v Speaker 4>that she happened to acquire a Baroque cello that he

0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:15.679
<v Speaker 4>himself made in London in seventeen eighty four. So Merlin

0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.720
<v Speaker 4>was originally probably trained in the art of clockmaking, and

0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.480
<v Speaker 4>he would end up working for some time beginning in

0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.120
<v Speaker 4>seventeen sixty six for this British inventor and jeweler named

0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.040
<v Speaker 4>James Cox. Cox was one of the co creators of

0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:34.040
<v Speaker 4>the Silver Swan. Cox was also sort of a showman,

0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:37.560
<v Speaker 4>and he operated a museum or actually I think multiple

0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.359
<v Speaker 4>sort of arcades and museums, one of which was this

0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:45.720
<v Speaker 4>showroom for mechanical marvels at a street called Spring Gardens

0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:51.320
<v Speaker 4>in Westminster, and Merlin was Cox's chief mechanic. Merlin went

0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.879
<v Speaker 4>into business for himself in the seventeen seventies. He filed

0:19:54.880 --> 0:19:57.800
<v Speaker 4>his first patent in seventeen seventy three for a type

0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.639
<v Speaker 4>of Dutch oven that had a built in jack for

0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.480
<v Speaker 4>rotating meat. I've seen this described in some sources as

0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:08.560
<v Speaker 4>like the first rotisseriy. I don't know that, because I

0:20:08.560 --> 0:20:10.960
<v Speaker 4>feel like we've talked about earlier rotisseries. I don't know.

0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:13.320
<v Speaker 4>Maybe it's the first of some kind of rotisseriy.

0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:16.639
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I would venture that it's something like that. And

0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:18.600
<v Speaker 2>there's no dog involved in here, now.

0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:21.639
<v Speaker 4>No, that's what we talked about. Yes, animal operated belt,

0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.600
<v Speaker 4>the turn belt dog. Yes, the turnspit dog. That's what

0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.840
<v Speaker 4>it was. And Merlin also patented improvements to musical instrument designs.

0:20:30.280 --> 0:20:34.600
<v Speaker 4>He did some variations on the harpsichord. He also created

0:20:34.680 --> 0:20:37.080
<v Speaker 4>all new instruments, which, as far as I can tell,

0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.480
<v Speaker 4>none of these really caught on. One example that Freiberg

0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.360
<v Speaker 4>mentions as an instrument called a pentachord, which she describes

0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.719
<v Speaker 4>as a quote small five string cello which is tuned

0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:52.800
<v Speaker 4>C G D A D. At some point, James Cox

0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.680
<v Speaker 4>is the guy he was working for. James Cox's finances

0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.240
<v Speaker 4>kind of went south, and so Merlin decided to set

0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.720
<v Speaker 4>up his own museum. So in seventeen eighty three he

0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.840
<v Speaker 4>acquired a property at Prince's Street. This is also in Westminster,

0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.640
<v Speaker 4>and he called it Merlin's Mechanical Museum. I am exerting

0:21:10.760 --> 0:21:15.440
<v Speaker 4>extreme self control to not accidentally call this Merlin's Shop

0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.359
<v Speaker 4>of Mystical Wonders, but I would start typing that in

0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.760
<v Speaker 4>the note It's over. But no, it was Merlin's Mechanical Museum.

0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:26.119
<v Speaker 4>I also have heard it said. I think this was

0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.679
<v Speaker 4>by a museum tour guide who was showing off the

0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.000
<v Speaker 4>Silver Swan. I think said that it was sometimes called

0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:37.840
<v Speaker 4>Merlin's Cave. But anyway, this place was crammed with dazzling automata,

0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:43.600
<v Speaker 4>weird furniture, and other inventions and collectors pieces. Rendell and

0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.679
<v Speaker 4>his blog post mentions a bunch of other inventions by Merlin.

0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:48.600
<v Speaker 4>I just want to highlight a few of them. I

0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.240
<v Speaker 4>already alluded to the mechanical chariot complete with a whip.

0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.600
<v Speaker 4>This was interesting because it also had a type of

0:21:55.720 --> 0:22:00.919
<v Speaker 4>odometer to measure a distance measuring device distance traveled, which

0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:04.080
<v Speaker 4>that ties into another invention episode we've done in the past.

0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:06.760
<v Speaker 4>We did the odometer at some point, tracing that all

0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.320
<v Speaker 4>the way back to inventions in the ancient world. But

0:22:09.400 --> 0:22:12.960
<v Speaker 4>this had a version of an odometer, and Merlin called

0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:15.960
<v Speaker 4>that odometer the way Wise and he would apparently ride

0:22:16.000 --> 0:22:19.119
<v Speaker 4>this chariot around through Hyde Park to kind of advertise

0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.240
<v Speaker 4>his magnificent works. He has something else that he created

0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:27.800
<v Speaker 4>called the gouty chair. This was a form of wheelchair,

0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:30.880
<v Speaker 4>not with large wheels on the sides like you would

0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:33.760
<v Speaker 4>see on modern devices, but it had a set of

0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.040
<v Speaker 4>four smaller wheels near the floor. I was looking at.

0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:40.960
<v Speaker 4>You can actually look up pictures of this that exist today,

0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:42.879
<v Speaker 4>and so you can see sort of how it was

0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:44.919
<v Speaker 4>put together. But I couldn't figure out by looking at

0:22:44.960 --> 0:22:48.080
<v Speaker 4>these or reading descriptions exactly how it works. It looks

0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:52.200
<v Speaker 4>like it's operated by a pair of hand turned cranks

0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:55.720
<v Speaker 4>on the arm rests, and I'm not sure how these

0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.720
<v Speaker 4>would both steer and propel the chair at the same time.

0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:00.600
<v Speaker 4>Maybe there's some mechanism missing here.

0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:03.399
<v Speaker 2>Likewise, I can't tell what's going on with like the

0:23:03.400 --> 0:23:06.760
<v Speaker 2>foot pad down there, if it's just for resting your

0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.200
<v Speaker 2>feet on, or if there's some sort of pressure applied there.

0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.760
<v Speaker 4>Could it be like a pedal that maybe propels. Maybe Yeah,

0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.920
<v Speaker 4>but there is kind of a footrest below the chair,

0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:17.360
<v Speaker 4>But otherwise it looks like a regular piece of furniture.

0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.320
<v Speaker 4>It's just affixed with like all these wheels and cranks

0:23:20.320 --> 0:23:20.840
<v Speaker 4>and stuff.

0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, designed for individuals suffering from the gout.

0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:27.320
<v Speaker 4>I'm assume that's what I assume based on it being

0:23:27.359 --> 0:23:29.639
<v Speaker 4>called the gouty chair, though I assume it could work for,

0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:33.000
<v Speaker 4>you know, anybody who has mobility issues. And Merlin apparently

0:23:33.040 --> 0:23:36.639
<v Speaker 4>did design a number of devices, like medical devices and

0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:41.720
<v Speaker 4>devices to help people with various physical disabilities. He designed

0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:46.360
<v Speaker 4>a some kind of prosthetic gripping devices for people without arms,

0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:50.600
<v Speaker 4>and a set of playing cards which could be read

0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:54.040
<v Speaker 4>by the blind. This was presumably some kind of precursor

0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:56.320
<v Speaker 4>to Braille notation this would have been before braille, but

0:23:56.440 --> 0:23:58.879
<v Speaker 4>had I guess some kind of bumps or something that

0:23:58.920 --> 0:24:02.679
<v Speaker 4>could be felt. And he also invented a bunch of

0:24:02.760 --> 0:24:06.760
<v Speaker 4>types of mechanical moving furniture, or what was sometimes called

0:24:06.840 --> 0:24:12.119
<v Speaker 4>transforming furniture, and this ranged from relatively mundane creations like

0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.800
<v Speaker 4>you had, like you know, a rotating tea table, Okay,

0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:17.399
<v Speaker 4>it's not hard to imagine you might see things like

0:24:17.440 --> 0:24:21.400
<v Speaker 4>that today to something that Freiberg includes in her ride

0:24:21.480 --> 0:24:25.560
<v Speaker 4>up that was advertised as quote the Quarteto music cabinet.

0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.840
<v Speaker 4>It contains flutes, violins, and music books and by touching

0:24:29.880 --> 0:24:32.560
<v Speaker 4>a spring key it will rise to a proper height

0:24:32.840 --> 0:24:36.159
<v Speaker 4>and form music desks for four performers and thin.

0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:38.280
<v Speaker 2>It sounds very futuristic really.

0:24:38.280 --> 0:24:41.840
<v Speaker 4>Kind of like adjustable standing desk sort of but for musicians,

0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:46.000
<v Speaker 4>and includes like a complex opening and closing cabinet with

0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:50.440
<v Speaker 4>different compartments. He also, i think, put together a lot

0:24:50.440 --> 0:24:53.959
<v Speaker 4>of different kind of weights and measuring machines and then

0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:57.360
<v Speaker 4>also clocks, including he was he was a co creator

0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:01.040
<v Speaker 4>of a so called perpetual motion claw. This was again

0:25:01.080 --> 0:25:05.400
<v Speaker 4>with James Cox. Dubious about this one because obviously perpetual

0:25:05.440 --> 0:25:10.680
<v Speaker 4>motion machines that doesn't exist in reality. Cox i think

0:25:10.840 --> 0:25:14.080
<v Speaker 4>claimed this really was a perpetual motion machine, but from

0:25:14.160 --> 0:25:17.520
<v Speaker 4>what I've read, it was powered by a mercury barometer

0:25:17.880 --> 0:25:22.800
<v Speaker 4>responding to changes in atmospheric pressure in order to contract

0:25:22.800 --> 0:25:25.960
<v Speaker 4>the spring. And of course this would not be a

0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:30.080
<v Speaker 4>true perpetual motion machine. It would be requiring this external play.

0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:32.639
<v Speaker 2>Otherwise it would be like saying that a windmill is

0:25:32.680 --> 0:25:33.960
<v Speaker 2>perpetual motion machine.

0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:34.520
<v Speaker 4>Exactly.

0:25:34.600 --> 0:25:34.800
<v Speaker 3>Yes.

0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:38.520
<v Speaker 4>So Merlin was active in the London social scene of

0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:41.760
<v Speaker 4>his time, and he was known as kind of weird

0:25:42.040 --> 0:25:45.959
<v Speaker 4>and flamboyant, and he liked to party. I came across

0:25:46.000 --> 0:25:50.360
<v Speaker 4>comments written by the English novelist Fanny Bernie about Merlin.

0:25:50.680 --> 0:25:54.159
<v Speaker 4>She spent time with him because her father, the musicologist

0:25:54.280 --> 0:25:58.280
<v Speaker 4>Charles Bernie, was good friends with Merlin, so she knew

0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:01.119
<v Speaker 4>him well, and she wrote about him as follows. He

0:26:01.200 --> 0:26:04.160
<v Speaker 4>is a great favorite in our house. He is very diverting.

0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:08.160
<v Speaker 4>Also in conversation. There is a singular simplicity in his manners.

0:26:08.480 --> 0:26:12.240
<v Speaker 4>He speaks his opinions upon all subjects and about all persons,

0:26:12.280 --> 0:26:16.040
<v Speaker 4>with the most undisguised freedom. He does, not, though a foreigner,

0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:18.919
<v Speaker 4>want words. I mean he does not lack words. He

0:26:18.920 --> 0:26:21.439
<v Speaker 4>had a big vocabulary. He does not want words, but

0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:25.240
<v Speaker 4>he arranges and pronounces them very comically. He is humbly

0:26:25.280 --> 0:26:28.119
<v Speaker 4>grateful for all civilities that are shown him but is

0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:31.280
<v Speaker 4>warmly and honestly resentful for the least slight.

0:26:32.440 --> 0:26:34.399
<v Speaker 2>You know, this is exactly the sort of sort of

0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:37.840
<v Speaker 2>dude that you don't want to slight because I feel

0:26:37.880 --> 0:26:41.359
<v Speaker 2>like you run a great risk of being reduced in

0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:44.560
<v Speaker 2>size and forced to play around with the nutcrackers.

0:26:43.960 --> 0:26:44.680
<v Speaker 3>And the rap cans.

0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:48.720
<v Speaker 4>Yeah he Septimus Prtorious or something. No, Yeah, so he

0:26:48.880 --> 0:26:53.440
<v Speaker 4>was like fun and weird, but apparently also maybe kind

0:26:53.440 --> 0:26:56.680
<v Speaker 4>of a big mouth and quick to take offense. And

0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:00.960
<v Speaker 4>I've also read in other sources them are people mentioning

0:27:01.040 --> 0:27:03.760
<v Speaker 4>this thing. She says that he was known for having

0:27:03.800 --> 0:27:07.280
<v Speaker 4>a robust vocabulary, for not a native English speaker, but

0:27:07.640 --> 0:27:11.280
<v Speaker 4>for putting words in a weird order when speaking English.

0:27:11.359 --> 0:27:13.440
<v Speaker 4>So I'm kind of imagining him as Yoda.

0:27:14.280 --> 0:27:16.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, it's also weird the way it's his phrase,

0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:19.440
<v Speaker 2>because they're like, oh, he's basically sounds like they're making

0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:24.480
<v Speaker 2>fun of his accent while still crediting his vocabulary and

0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:26.200
<v Speaker 2>grasps with the English language.

0:27:26.520 --> 0:27:29.399
<v Speaker 4>This is so funny because he's conforming to what I

0:27:29.400 --> 0:27:33.199
<v Speaker 4>would think of as a later storytelling archetype, like the

0:27:33.440 --> 0:27:39.520
<v Speaker 4>eccentric foreign professor with a strange accent who is like

0:27:39.720 --> 0:27:43.600
<v Speaker 4>an inventor of curiosities. But this has got to be

0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.320
<v Speaker 4>before I thought such an archetype existed, So I don't know.

0:27:47.359 --> 0:27:49.840
<v Speaker 4>Maybe it's just a coincidence, or could it be based

0:27:49.840 --> 0:27:51.360
<v Speaker 4>on this guy in anyway, I don't know.

0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:54.840
<v Speaker 2>I mean, it would not surprise me. We've seen other

0:27:54.920 --> 0:27:58.480
<v Speaker 2>examples of various historical individuals having a great deal of

0:27:58.480 --> 0:28:03.080
<v Speaker 2>influence over how various stereotypes are interpreted.

0:28:04.280 --> 0:28:06.679
<v Speaker 4>But yeah, so anyway, he connected to a bunch of

0:28:06.880 --> 0:28:09.840
<v Speaker 4>famous people in his time. Johann Christian Bach, the son

0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:13.960
<v Speaker 4>of the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach, apparently performed instruments

0:28:14.280 --> 0:28:19.919
<v Speaker 4>performed on instruments made by Merlin. And another very important

0:28:20.040 --> 0:28:23.240
<v Speaker 4>historical connection this is mentioned in that blog post by Rendell,

0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:26.560
<v Speaker 4>is that there's a first hand account of a visit

0:28:26.840 --> 0:28:31.440
<v Speaker 4>to Merlin's museum by a young Charles Babbage, who would

0:28:31.520 --> 0:28:35.080
<v Speaker 4>go on years later to invent the very historically important

0:28:35.240 --> 0:28:40.280
<v Speaker 4>mechanical computing device known as the difference engine. Babbage's mechanical

0:28:40.400 --> 0:28:43.640
<v Speaker 4>computer designs and concepts laid the groundwork for the electronic

0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.920
<v Speaker 4>computers that would come to be the basis of you know,

0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:52.040
<v Speaker 4>most or maybe all of today's digital technology. So Babbage

0:28:52.360 --> 0:28:55.800
<v Speaker 4>wrote about this experience of going to Merlin's cave. He

0:28:55.840 --> 0:28:58.280
<v Speaker 4>says that Merlin took him on a tour of like

0:28:58.320 --> 0:29:01.280
<v Speaker 4>a private gallery to show him like the special projects,

0:29:01.920 --> 0:29:05.560
<v Speaker 4>and Babbage says, quote, there were two uncovered female figures

0:29:05.600 --> 0:29:09.640
<v Speaker 4>of silver, about twelve inches high, and he describes one

0:29:09.640 --> 0:29:12.840
<v Speaker 4>of the figures as an admirable dan Seuss, meaning a

0:29:12.880 --> 0:29:16.520
<v Speaker 4>female ballerina, and says she had a silver bird perched

0:29:16.520 --> 0:29:19.120
<v Speaker 4>on a forefinger of her right hand, and then the

0:29:19.120 --> 0:29:21.560
<v Speaker 4>bird would move, it would shake its tail and flap

0:29:21.600 --> 0:29:25.000
<v Speaker 4>its wings and also opening close its little beak. And

0:29:25.040 --> 0:29:27.960
<v Speaker 4>then of the silver ballerina herself, he said, quote, the

0:29:28.040 --> 0:29:32.000
<v Speaker 4>lady attitudinized in a most fascinating manner. Her eyes were

0:29:32.040 --> 0:29:37.320
<v Speaker 4>full of imagination and irresistible. And Babbage was so struck

0:29:37.360 --> 0:29:42.720
<v Speaker 4>by these little mechanical objects, these sort of precursors to robots,

0:29:42.760 --> 0:29:44.960
<v Speaker 4>that he would come back and buy the exhibits in

0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:46.920
<v Speaker 4>eighteen thirty four, after Merlin's death.

0:29:47.560 --> 0:29:51.000
<v Speaker 2>What fascinating individual so very much part of like a

0:29:51.120 --> 0:29:56.720
<v Speaker 2>very crucial technological ecosystem of the day. And to be clear,

0:29:56.760 --> 0:30:00.640
<v Speaker 2>like you pointed out, not just creating sheer novelties, seemingly

0:30:01.080 --> 0:30:05.480
<v Speaker 2>constantly innovating, and like I can only imagine like following

0:30:05.640 --> 0:30:10.400
<v Speaker 2>every idea, good or bad, useful or just entertaining that

0:30:10.440 --> 0:30:11.680
<v Speaker 2>seems to enter into his head.

0:30:11.920 --> 0:30:14.840
<v Speaker 4>Yes, yeah, you get the idea of just phrenetic energy,

0:30:15.240 --> 0:30:18.920
<v Speaker 4>constant moving about and doing different things, and being a

0:30:19.080 --> 0:30:22.080
<v Speaker 4>perhaps touchy but also beloved weirdo of the time.

0:30:22.640 --> 0:30:22.880
<v Speaker 3>Nice.

0:30:23.760 --> 0:30:27.960
<v Speaker 4>So anyway, onto Merlin's roller skates episode. This is back

0:30:28.160 --> 0:30:31.320
<v Speaker 4>back to the main event here. So one of John

0:30:31.400 --> 0:30:35.600
<v Speaker 4>Joseph Merlin's now most famous inventions was actually one of

0:30:35.640 --> 0:30:38.800
<v Speaker 4>the simplest, especially when you compare it to like the

0:30:38.800 --> 0:30:42.360
<v Speaker 4>intricate you know, clockwork ballet dancers and the silver Avians

0:30:42.400 --> 0:30:45.720
<v Speaker 4>and all that. And that was the roller skate. Now again,

0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:49.040
<v Speaker 4>was Merlin the first person ever to put wheels on

0:30:49.080 --> 0:30:52.920
<v Speaker 4>a show on a shoe? Very doubtful. In her article,

0:30:53.000 --> 0:30:58.240
<v Speaker 4>Freiberg mentions that Merlin quote probably improved skates which first

0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:02.600
<v Speaker 4>appeared in Holland in around seventeen hundred, but there is

0:31:02.680 --> 0:31:07.040
<v Speaker 4>no credited inventor or further detail of those earlier models.

0:31:07.280 --> 0:31:10.640
<v Speaker 4>It's just like some things like this probably existed and

0:31:10.680 --> 0:31:14.600
<v Speaker 4>he improved them. But again, Turner and Zeidman say, he's

0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:18.480
<v Speaker 4>the earliest recorded inventor of a roller skate. So one

0:31:18.520 --> 0:31:22.000
<v Speaker 4>of the things that makes Merlin's model historically interesting is that,

0:31:22.680 --> 0:31:28.680
<v Speaker 4>ever the showman Merlin staged a wild public demonstration of

0:31:28.720 --> 0:31:33.080
<v Speaker 4>his invention at a fancy masquerade ball around seventeen sixty,

0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:37.600
<v Speaker 4>and it went extremely badly. An account of this incident

0:31:37.640 --> 0:31:41.920
<v Speaker 4>appears in a book called concert Room and Orchestra Anecdotes

0:31:41.960 --> 0:31:46.400
<v Speaker 4>written by Thomas Busby in eighteen five, and Buzzby tells

0:31:46.440 --> 0:31:50.200
<v Speaker 4>the story as follows, speaking about Merlin, quote, one of

0:31:50.240 --> 0:31:54.000
<v Speaker 4>his ingenious novelties was a pair of skates. This is

0:31:54.000 --> 0:31:57.160
<v Speaker 4>spelled skaies.

0:31:57.480 --> 0:31:59.640
<v Speaker 2>That's sounds about right, Yeah, okay.

0:32:00.160 --> 0:32:04.960
<v Speaker 4>A pair of skates contrived to run on wheels. Supplied

0:32:05.040 --> 0:32:08.520
<v Speaker 4>with these and a violin he mixed in the motley

0:32:08.600 --> 0:32:12.640
<v Speaker 4>group of one of Missus Cowley's masquerades at Carlisle House.

0:32:13.080 --> 0:32:16.600
<v Speaker 4>When not having provided the means of retarding his velocity

0:32:17.080 --> 0:32:21.080
<v Speaker 4>or commanding its direction, he impelled himself against a mirror

0:32:21.120 --> 0:32:25.040
<v Speaker 4>of more than five hundred pounds value, dashed it to adams,

0:32:25.400 --> 0:32:29.400
<v Speaker 4>broke his instrument to pieces, and wounded himself most severely.

0:32:29.680 --> 0:32:31.920
<v Speaker 4>Oh my goodness, don't you hate when that happens. So

0:32:31.960 --> 0:32:35.160
<v Speaker 4>He's like, I have invented wheels for feet. I have

0:32:35.280 --> 0:32:37.480
<v Speaker 4>made wheels for feet. Everybody's got to see this, So

0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:40.760
<v Speaker 4>I'm gonna roll around the masquerade. Everybody's got their little

0:32:40.800 --> 0:32:43.080
<v Speaker 4>their masks and their fancy costumes. I'm gonna play the

0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:46.160
<v Speaker 4>violin while riding on these things. But he forgot to

0:32:46.200 --> 0:32:49.200
<v Speaker 4>put brakes in them, and so he crashes into a mirror,

0:32:49.320 --> 0:32:52.240
<v Speaker 4>shatters it to pieces, or to adams in the words

0:32:52.280 --> 0:32:55.520
<v Speaker 4>of Busby and h and everybody's I guess, I don't know.

0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:57.840
<v Speaker 4>Were they laughing at him? Were they mad? Were they

0:32:57.920 --> 0:33:00.680
<v Speaker 4>sorry for him? I doesn't say what the crowd's reaction.

0:33:00.880 --> 0:33:03.800
<v Speaker 2>I mean, given that he's also bleeding, perhaps severely at

0:33:03.800 --> 0:33:06.800
<v Speaker 2>this point, I can only imagine the stun silence.

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:13.120
<v Speaker 4>So to note Merlin's designed for these skates. It sounds

0:33:13.120 --> 0:33:15.920
<v Speaker 4>like it was a The wheels are an inline orientation,

0:33:16.120 --> 0:33:18.680
<v Speaker 4>so not side by side, and two wheels each two

0:33:18.680 --> 0:33:22.600
<v Speaker 4>wheels per foot. I don't I'm not a skater myself,

0:33:22.640 --> 0:33:24.880
<v Speaker 4>so I don't know. Sounds like that wouldn't be enough.

0:33:24.960 --> 0:33:27.360
<v Speaker 4>It sounds like you want more wheels. Maybe, I don't know.

0:33:28.600 --> 0:33:33.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and some of the the innovations that would come

0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:36.280
<v Speaker 2>after Merlin, but before proper what we would think of

0:33:36.320 --> 0:33:39.360
<v Speaker 2>as you know, more contemporary roller skates tended to have

0:33:39.400 --> 0:33:40.920
<v Speaker 2>I think at least three wheels.

0:33:41.160 --> 0:33:45.360
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but again this is important. Merlin's roller skate design

0:33:45.480 --> 0:33:49.160
<v Speaker 4>did not include brakes, and no toe brakes and no back,

0:33:49.320 --> 0:33:52.560
<v Speaker 4>no heel breks, so there was no built in ability

0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:57.720
<v Speaker 4>to slow down or stop or really change direction as

0:33:57.720 --> 0:34:00.920
<v Speaker 4>it says, So yeah, it was it was more This

0:34:00.960 --> 0:34:03.880
<v Speaker 4>strikes me as more of like an idea than something

0:34:04.040 --> 0:34:06.600
<v Speaker 4>really like honed in and made practical.

0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:11.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, very much a novelty that he was willing

0:34:12.160 --> 0:34:16.520
<v Speaker 2>and excited to pursue there in front of everybody. Again,

0:34:17.400 --> 0:34:19.400
<v Speaker 2>seems like the kind of individual who would just follow

0:34:19.760 --> 0:34:30.600
<v Speaker 2>any mechanical fantasy that seemed to enter his head.

0:34:34.120 --> 0:34:37.239
<v Speaker 4>So that is the John Joseph Merlin roller skating experience.

0:34:37.880 --> 0:34:40.239
<v Speaker 4>His model obviously would not be the last one, and

0:34:40.280 --> 0:34:43.440
<v Speaker 4>there were many innovations that would come along in the

0:34:43.480 --> 0:34:46.520
<v Speaker 4>following decades. People would keep making different kinds of little

0:34:46.600 --> 0:34:50.480
<v Speaker 4>roller skates, and roller skating did sort of seem to

0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:52.800
<v Speaker 4>catch on going into the nineteenth century.

0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:57.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, like Merlin's roller skating story is clearly the best,

0:34:57.400 --> 0:35:01.239
<v Speaker 2>it's the most entertaining. I think the basic reality is

0:35:01.280 --> 0:35:06.040
<v Speaker 2>that a lot of the subsequent and probably previous roller

0:35:06.200 --> 0:35:10.160
<v Speaker 2>skating invention stories were pretty boring in or lost to history.

0:35:10.239 --> 0:35:12.640
<v Speaker 2>Somebody made this novelty device that you strap under your

0:35:12.640 --> 0:35:15.319
<v Speaker 2>feet so you can skate around sort of like an

0:35:15.320 --> 0:35:19.160
<v Speaker 2>ice skater, but with nowhere near as much speed, power

0:35:19.239 --> 0:35:23.800
<v Speaker 2>or control, and then people just forgot that these inventions existed,

0:35:24.000 --> 0:35:27.880
<v Speaker 2>or they forgot about the inventor. But yeah, they were available.

0:35:29.200 --> 0:35:32.440
<v Speaker 2>And this is where we come back around to James Plimpton,

0:35:32.800 --> 0:35:36.440
<v Speaker 2>who of nineteen twenty eight through nineteen eleven, an American

0:35:36.520 --> 0:35:41.040
<v Speaker 2>inventor who This is one of those invention stories or

0:35:41.120 --> 0:35:45.080
<v Speaker 2>innovator stories that is also not that exciting, because it's

0:35:45.120 --> 0:35:48.640
<v Speaker 2>somebody like seeing a way that can improve upon something,

0:35:48.760 --> 0:35:52.000
<v Speaker 2>making that improvement and then being able to own it

0:35:52.560 --> 0:35:57.480
<v Speaker 2>and sell it and also litigate it. Those are the

0:35:57.719 --> 0:36:00.880
<v Speaker 2>I mean, those are also it's part of that, since

0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:04.160
<v Speaker 2>you've touched on stories related to that before on the show.

0:36:04.200 --> 0:36:07.520
<v Speaker 2>But I mean it's it's less magical when it's about

0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:10.120
<v Speaker 2>just suing people for infringing on your copyright.

0:36:10.360 --> 0:36:14.040
<v Speaker 4>That's a lot of history. There's yeah, pursuing intellectual property things,

0:36:14.160 --> 0:36:16.719
<v Speaker 4>or just figuring out a way to market something so

0:36:16.760 --> 0:36:19.160
<v Speaker 4>that it catches on, or finding a way to make

0:36:19.239 --> 0:36:23.359
<v Speaker 4>something to make a design profitable. That's a big thing too.

0:36:23.719 --> 0:36:25.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but still, I mean still, the story of Plimpton

0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:30.200
<v Speaker 2>is interesting in its own right. He had at least

0:36:30.280 --> 0:36:33.680
<v Speaker 2>one prior invention, because you know, to call yourself an inventor,

0:36:33.719 --> 0:36:37.200
<v Speaker 2>you need at least one or two in the in

0:36:37.239 --> 0:36:43.480
<v Speaker 2>the portfolio. He invented the eighteen fifty three Plimpton cabinet bed, which,

0:36:43.520 --> 0:36:47.560
<v Speaker 2>according to the Massachusetts Historical Society's Beehive blog, was seemingly

0:36:47.680 --> 0:36:49.759
<v Speaker 2>something he invented due to a practical need in his

0:36:49.800 --> 0:36:53.200
<v Speaker 2>own home, probably due to his own marriage the year earlier.

0:36:54.120 --> 0:36:55.640
<v Speaker 2>I think like at this point maybe they had a

0:36:55.680 --> 0:36:58.920
<v Speaker 2>kid on the way. It was his first major invention,

0:36:59.280 --> 0:37:01.680
<v Speaker 2>and this is another case where he did not invent

0:37:01.760 --> 0:37:04.719
<v Speaker 2>the cabinet bed a bed that folds up into a cabinet,

0:37:05.320 --> 0:37:07.279
<v Speaker 2>but he came up with a variation on it that

0:37:07.320 --> 0:37:09.480
<v Speaker 2>I'm to understand was aimed at requiring like a little

0:37:09.560 --> 0:37:12.880
<v Speaker 2>less effort to fold and unfold, and so kind of

0:37:12.920 --> 0:37:15.000
<v Speaker 2>like Merlin, you know, Plimpton seems like he was one

0:37:15.040 --> 0:37:18.839
<v Speaker 2>of these individuals who was, you know, always thinking about

0:37:18.840 --> 0:37:22.680
<v Speaker 2>ways to improve on a given device, though perhaps I

0:37:22.719 --> 0:37:24.759
<v Speaker 2>mean more than perhaps I think, certainly with more of

0:37:24.800 --> 0:37:28.360
<v Speaker 2>an entrepreneurial spirit to things as opposed to just a

0:37:29.600 --> 0:37:36.040
<v Speaker 2>more of a sheer exuberance for it, for invention and mechanisms.

0:37:37.160 --> 0:37:41.240
<v Speaker 2>And so basically, around eighteen sixty, according to the Beehive,

0:37:41.840 --> 0:37:45.000
<v Speaker 2>Plimpton takes ill, goes to the doctor, and the doctor says,

0:37:45.400 --> 0:37:47.719
<v Speaker 2>I think you should take up some physical activity. I

0:37:47.719 --> 0:37:50.759
<v Speaker 2>think you should take up ice skating. And Plimpton, being

0:37:50.800 --> 0:37:52.839
<v Speaker 2>a Northerner, would have would have been familiar with ice

0:37:52.840 --> 0:37:55.400
<v Speaker 2>skating and you know, maybe even had some history with it,

0:37:55.440 --> 0:37:57.239
<v Speaker 2>and maybe it was you know, falling back on something

0:37:57.239 --> 0:37:59.120
<v Speaker 2>he did as a kid. I'm not sure. We don't

0:37:59.120 --> 0:38:02.399
<v Speaker 2>have all the details, but what happens when summer rolls

0:38:02.440 --> 0:38:06.120
<v Speaker 2>around is you may find yourself unable to ice skate anymore,

0:38:06.480 --> 0:38:10.440
<v Speaker 2>and so keen to continue his wellness exercises, he bought

0:38:10.560 --> 0:38:15.080
<v Speaker 2>himself a pair of roller skates or what was passing

0:38:15.120 --> 0:38:18.719
<v Speaker 2>for roller skates at the time, and proceeded to think

0:38:18.719 --> 0:38:21.839
<v Speaker 2>about ways to improve upon them. Because much like we

0:38:21.840 --> 0:38:24.719
<v Speaker 2>were talking about with Merlin's roller skates. These would have

0:38:24.719 --> 0:38:28.680
<v Speaker 2>been very fixed, strapped onto your boots or your shoes.

0:38:29.080 --> 0:38:32.120
<v Speaker 2>They allowed you to go forwards or backwards, but not

0:38:32.200 --> 0:38:35.520
<v Speaker 2>take any turns. And also I think there may have

0:38:35.560 --> 0:38:38.000
<v Speaker 2>been some challenges with stopping when you needed to stop.

0:38:39.280 --> 0:38:42.399
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, there were various versions of this. I read

0:38:42.440 --> 0:38:45.560
<v Speaker 2>that there are some early roller skates attributed to a

0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:49.680
<v Speaker 2>Dutchman by the name of Hans Brinner from the same century,

0:38:50.360 --> 0:38:53.720
<v Speaker 2>but these are largely considered not true roller skates because

0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:56.560
<v Speaker 2>you could not turn in them. I mean, think about

0:38:56.560 --> 0:38:58.360
<v Speaker 2>a roller skating rink. Part of the whole field of

0:38:58.360 --> 0:38:59.840
<v Speaker 2>going to the old roller skating rink is going to

0:38:59.880 --> 0:39:03.320
<v Speaker 2>go round in a circle over and over again, or

0:39:03.320 --> 0:39:04.280
<v Speaker 2>at least in an oval.

0:39:04.640 --> 0:39:04.920
<v Speaker 4>Right.

0:39:05.480 --> 0:39:09.600
<v Speaker 2>So, at this point, again to be clear, commercially available

0:39:09.640 --> 0:39:14.840
<v Speaker 2>roller skates were very much around, and we've already I

0:39:14.840 --> 0:39:21.120
<v Speaker 2>think firmly established some early examples of things like roller skates,

0:39:21.120 --> 0:39:24.160
<v Speaker 2>and we speculated on even the ancient existence of things

0:39:24.160 --> 0:39:26.960
<v Speaker 2>like roller skates. But I know you and I kept

0:39:27.000 --> 0:39:31.160
<v Speaker 2>both both of us kept coming across mentions of a

0:39:31.239 --> 0:39:36.520
<v Speaker 2>seventeen forty three London theater production in which actors had

0:39:36.800 --> 0:39:41.960
<v Speaker 2>roller skates on simulating ice skating for theatrical purposes.

0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:45.440
<v Speaker 4>Yeah. I came across mention of this use in a

0:39:45.480 --> 0:39:48.879
<v Speaker 4>theater production in seventeen forty three in a j Store

0:39:48.960 --> 0:39:51.160
<v Speaker 4>Daily article that I think you and I both read.

0:39:52.040 --> 0:39:55.239
<v Speaker 4>But I had some questions about that. Did you say

0:39:55.280 --> 0:39:57.360
<v Speaker 4>you were able to dig into like what this claim

0:39:57.520 --> 0:39:58.640
<v Speaker 4>was about the play?

0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:02.000
<v Speaker 2>I dug into it more with no real satisfying answers.

0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:04.960
<v Speaker 2>So I would say, first and foremost kind of falling

0:40:04.960 --> 0:40:07.960
<v Speaker 2>along with things we've been discussing already, the idea that

0:40:08.920 --> 0:40:12.040
<v Speaker 2>in the year seventeen forty three, or even earlier or

0:40:12.080 --> 0:40:16.600
<v Speaker 2>certainly later, the idea that somebody staging a production of

0:40:16.640 --> 0:40:20.520
<v Speaker 2>some sort in London or elsewhere could have said, Hey,

0:40:20.960 --> 0:40:25.880
<v Speaker 2>what if in order to create the theatrical illusion of

0:40:25.920 --> 0:40:29.279
<v Speaker 2>ice skating, what if we used wheely skates instead? What

0:40:29.320 --> 0:40:31.840
<v Speaker 2>if we did that? Could we pull that off? It

0:40:31.880 --> 0:40:36.120
<v Speaker 2>seems perfectly reasonable to assume folks at least tried this out,

0:40:36.920 --> 0:40:39.719
<v Speaker 2>if not, you know, perfected to some degree, and you know,

0:40:39.800 --> 0:40:42.000
<v Speaker 2>did an entire series of performances.

0:40:42.239 --> 0:40:45.520
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but what is the origin of this claim? I

0:40:45.520 --> 0:40:47.000
<v Speaker 4>think that was the thing I was having a hard

0:40:47.000 --> 0:40:47.920
<v Speaker 4>time figuring out.

0:40:47.880 --> 0:40:51.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, as far as I can tell. Looking at various

0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:55.200
<v Speaker 2>sources that mentioned this, I just can't find any like

0:40:55.320 --> 0:40:58.920
<v Speaker 2>concrete details, and the details kind of vary too, Like,

0:40:59.000 --> 0:41:02.839
<v Speaker 2>for instance, the Jay Store Daily article mentions something about

0:41:02.840 --> 0:41:04.440
<v Speaker 2>how it might have been a production of a Tom

0:41:04.480 --> 0:41:07.560
<v Speaker 2>Lockwood play, and then I try and research that, and like,

0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:11.000
<v Speaker 2>who's Tom Lockwood? No evidence of such a playwright as

0:41:11.040 --> 0:41:12.359
<v Speaker 2>far as I could tell, Or maybe it's a really

0:41:12.360 --> 0:41:15.520
<v Speaker 2>obscure playwright or lost playwright, or it could be an

0:41:15.680 --> 0:41:21.000
<v Speaker 2>error of record keeping in history. I found another reference

0:41:21.160 --> 0:41:24.719
<v Speaker 2>to this idea in a nineteen ninety nine article by

0:41:24.800 --> 0:41:29.440
<v Speaker 2>Gilbert Nordon Passing Fashions but no Sustainable market A history

0:41:29.440 --> 0:41:33.280
<v Speaker 2>of roller skating in Austria before nineteen fourteen. Oh okay,

0:41:33.840 --> 0:41:36.680
<v Speaker 2>And it states that this was a performance at the

0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:41.200
<v Speaker 2>old Drury Lane Theater, which is still there in London's

0:41:41.200 --> 0:41:43.840
<v Speaker 2>West End. And this article states that it was a

0:41:43.880 --> 0:41:47.759
<v Speaker 2>play by Thomas Hood, or I should state, they should

0:41:47.760 --> 0:41:51.080
<v Speaker 2>stress at least a Thomas Hood, but certainly not the

0:41:51.160 --> 0:41:54.240
<v Speaker 2>Thomas Hood who lives seventeen ninety nine through eighteen forty five,

0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:58.239
<v Speaker 2>Nor could it possibly be his son Tom Hood, who

0:41:58.239 --> 0:42:02.799
<v Speaker 2>lived eighteen thirty five through eighteen seventy four. So we

0:42:02.920 --> 0:42:05.680
<v Speaker 2>run into a similar situation here like this, there's some

0:42:05.719 --> 0:42:07.640
<v Speaker 2>sort of error here. If it was a Tom or

0:42:07.719 --> 0:42:10.960
<v Speaker 2>Thomas Hood play, it had to be later, or if

0:42:11.000 --> 0:42:14.160
<v Speaker 2>it was in this given year of seventeen forty three,

0:42:14.239 --> 0:42:17.600
<v Speaker 2>it had to be a different playwright or a different theater,

0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:18.560
<v Speaker 2>and so forth.

0:42:18.719 --> 0:42:20.719
<v Speaker 4>I don't want to presume, because I was never able

0:42:20.719 --> 0:42:22.400
<v Speaker 4>to wrap my head around what the source of the

0:42:22.400 --> 0:42:25.239
<v Speaker 4>confusion was here. But I wonder if the error is

0:42:25.360 --> 0:42:28.040
<v Speaker 4>just that this was not actually a play in the

0:42:28.080 --> 0:42:30.640
<v Speaker 4>eighteenth century, but in the nineteenth century. If it was

0:42:30.719 --> 0:42:32.600
<v Speaker 4>the eighteen forties.

0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:35.360
<v Speaker 2>That would streamline things a lot, because then it could

0:42:35.360 --> 0:42:40.640
<v Speaker 2>be a Tom or Thomas Hood play, and even more importantly,

0:42:40.960 --> 0:42:46.040
<v Speaker 2>it would place it alongside a more well documented case

0:42:46.239 --> 0:42:49.600
<v Speaker 2>of roller skates being used to create the theatrical illusion

0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:52.880
<v Speaker 2>of ice skates, that being an eighteen forty nine French

0:42:52.920 --> 0:42:57.520
<v Speaker 2>opera production of Meyer Beers the Prophet, which featured performers

0:42:57.520 --> 0:42:58.400
<v Speaker 2>on roller skates.

0:42:58.640 --> 0:43:01.680
<v Speaker 4>Okay, yeah, that would make it. But again we can't,

0:43:01.760 --> 0:43:05.360
<v Speaker 4>so we can't adjudicate this question. But this seems possible

0:43:05.400 --> 0:43:05.600
<v Speaker 4>to me.

0:43:06.040 --> 0:43:10.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but the reality is, at some point in history, yes,

0:43:10.440 --> 0:43:13.960
<v Speaker 2>roller skates were used for perhaps the first time on

0:43:14.080 --> 0:43:17.080
<v Speaker 2>the stage to create the illusion of ice skating.

0:43:17.520 --> 0:43:20.760
<v Speaker 4>But okay, so back to the domain of business.

0:43:21.680 --> 0:43:24.600
<v Speaker 2>Yes, yes, so Plimpton comes around, he's trying these out.

0:43:25.000 --> 0:43:27.120
<v Speaker 2>The skates that he's trying are going to be crude,

0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:31.319
<v Speaker 2>they're going to be awkward. Apparently you but apparently some

0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:34.200
<v Speaker 2>of these you could make turns in, but with difficulty,

0:43:34.640 --> 0:43:37.440
<v Speaker 2>so nothing close to the maneuverability of ice skating. So

0:43:37.560 --> 0:43:41.120
<v Speaker 2>especially if you were hoping to trade in your ice

0:43:41.160 --> 0:43:44.600
<v Speaker 2>skates for roller skates during the summer and have anything

0:43:44.680 --> 0:43:47.600
<v Speaker 2>like the same experience, you were in for a great

0:43:47.640 --> 0:43:51.439
<v Speaker 2>deal of disappointment. I was reading about some of these

0:43:51.520 --> 0:43:57.240
<v Speaker 2>earlier commercially available skates, and according to the Birth rollers

0:43:57.320 --> 0:44:00.640
<v Speaker 2>of the roller skate by John Exell twenty eleven, on

0:44:00.800 --> 0:44:04.799
<v Speaker 2>the engineer an eighteen nineteen patented roller skate, the work

0:44:04.840 --> 0:44:10.239
<v Speaker 2>of French and Ventner m Petebled, had metal wheels and

0:44:10.400 --> 0:44:14.680
<v Speaker 2>were I don't know if this criticism holds true, but

0:44:14.840 --> 0:44:17.240
<v Speaker 2>there were arguments that you could barely lift your foot

0:44:17.360 --> 0:44:20.239
<v Speaker 2>with these on, and that on top of it, they

0:44:20.320 --> 0:44:23.839
<v Speaker 2>were so ugly that the quote fairer Sex would never

0:44:23.880 --> 0:44:28.200
<v Speaker 2>wear them Joe included an image here of this particular skate.

0:44:28.280 --> 0:44:32.879
<v Speaker 2>I think you'll agree it neither looks tremendously ugly or

0:44:33.040 --> 0:44:36.160
<v Speaker 2>really all that heavy. But maybe it was actually heavy.

0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:37.920
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, maybe it's made of tungsten.

0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:42.279
<v Speaker 2>I did. The wheels are supposedly metal. I can't tell

0:44:42.320 --> 0:44:43.120
<v Speaker 2>to what extent.

0:44:42.880 --> 0:44:46.200
<v Speaker 4>They are in this image, but solid metal, like not

0:44:46.280 --> 0:44:46.880
<v Speaker 4>even hollow.

0:44:47.400 --> 0:44:51.200
<v Speaker 2>Yeah yeah maybe so.

0:44:50.120 --> 0:44:53.000
<v Speaker 4>Well yeah, so this would have been a design that

0:44:53.360 --> 0:44:56.880
<v Speaker 4>comes well after Merlin, but well before Plimpton, kind of

0:44:56.920 --> 0:44:58.759
<v Speaker 4>in between, in the middle between them.

0:44:59.080 --> 0:45:02.520
<v Speaker 2>Another example would be the three wheel juvenile inline skate

0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:05.600
<v Speaker 2>that was The dates of these are found like eighteen

0:45:05.640 --> 0:45:09.279
<v Speaker 2>sixty through eighteen sixty three, including an image here for you, Joe,

0:45:09.280 --> 0:45:12.360
<v Speaker 2>and basically it is what it sounds like. Instead of

0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:16.520
<v Speaker 2>two wheels inline strapped beneath a shoe or boot like

0:45:16.560 --> 0:45:18.120
<v Speaker 2>we were referencing earlier, this would.

0:45:17.960 --> 0:45:19.360
<v Speaker 3>Be three yeah.

0:45:19.640 --> 0:45:22.080
<v Speaker 2>So this is what Plimpton was working with, and his

0:45:22.320 --> 0:45:25.960
<v Speaker 2>main adjustments to the skates of his time were just

0:45:26.480 --> 0:45:29.279
<v Speaker 2>largely related to the exact layout of the wheels. He

0:45:29.320 --> 0:45:33.680
<v Speaker 2>went with a quad wheel or rocker arrangement that was

0:45:33.760 --> 0:45:37.279
<v Speaker 2>more comfortable to wear and far easier to turn and

0:45:37.360 --> 0:45:39.920
<v Speaker 2>for the most part, this is the same design you

0:45:40.000 --> 0:45:43.000
<v Speaker 2>find on roller skates today. There have been all sorts

0:45:43.040 --> 0:45:47.480
<v Speaker 2>of minor adjustments to this, but essentially it is accurate

0:45:47.520 --> 0:45:51.520
<v Speaker 2>to say that Plympton Innovates Slash invents the modern roller

0:45:51.560 --> 0:45:55.680
<v Speaker 2>skate with his patent, and it largely remains the way

0:45:55.719 --> 0:45:59.720
<v Speaker 2>people were skating off of the ice until around nineteen

0:45:59.760 --> 0:46:02.600
<v Speaker 2>seven nine, and that's when there's an attempt to sort

0:46:02.640 --> 0:46:06.520
<v Speaker 2>of redo the ice to roller transfer, generating a modern

0:46:06.640 --> 0:46:09.760
<v Speaker 2>roller skate based on modern ice skates, and this becomes

0:46:09.760 --> 0:46:11.840
<v Speaker 2>the inline skate or roller blade.

0:46:12.520 --> 0:46:15.480
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so the history of roller skates really does start.

0:46:15.719 --> 0:46:19.200
<v Speaker 4>The early designs are pretty much all inline. They're the

0:46:19.280 --> 0:46:23.040
<v Speaker 4>roller blade, and then we get the innovation of the

0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:29.000
<v Speaker 4>quad design, the two axles each with two wheels in

0:46:29.040 --> 0:46:31.759
<v Speaker 4>the orientation like a car. This solves a lot of

0:46:31.800 --> 0:46:33.920
<v Speaker 4>problems with roller skates, and then we find ways to

0:46:33.960 --> 0:46:36.480
<v Speaker 4>go back to the inline design and make it more

0:46:36.480 --> 0:46:37.719
<v Speaker 4>comfortable and desirable.

0:46:38.280 --> 0:46:41.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, this really got me to thinking about the way

0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:44.719
<v Speaker 2>that we might think about inventions based on our own

0:46:44.800 --> 0:46:48.680
<v Speaker 2>sort of vocabulary of technology. Like, growing up, I kind

0:46:48.680 --> 0:46:51.160
<v Speaker 2>of thought of a roller skate as a car or

0:46:51.200 --> 0:46:53.880
<v Speaker 2>a toy car that is on the bottom of your foot.

0:46:54.120 --> 0:46:56.840
<v Speaker 2>But as we've been discussing, the roller skate was invented

0:46:56.880 --> 0:46:59.400
<v Speaker 2>as a playoff of the ice skate, and for the

0:46:59.440 --> 0:47:02.560
<v Speaker 2>most part, is not created with the idea of strapping

0:47:02.600 --> 0:47:05.759
<v Speaker 2>small carriages to the bottom of your feet. Yeah.

0:47:05.840 --> 0:47:08.000
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, A lot of times when we're thinking about the

0:47:08.040 --> 0:47:13.240
<v Speaker 4>history of technology, we like retrospectively, we don't have access

0:47:13.239 --> 0:47:17.160
<v Speaker 4>to the same chain of a visual analogies that people

0:47:17.200 --> 0:47:20.439
<v Speaker 4>were using when they were working prospectively. Does that make sense.

0:47:20.520 --> 0:47:24.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And this is all fascinating when you think. Like again,

0:47:24.280 --> 0:47:27.120
<v Speaker 2>I think back to being a kid in the nineties

0:47:27.160 --> 0:47:29.480
<v Speaker 2>seeing roller blades and thinking, well, that's brilliant. They're making

0:47:29.520 --> 0:47:33.200
<v Speaker 2>a roller skate like an ice skate. But of course

0:47:33.200 --> 0:47:34.880
<v Speaker 2>this was always part of the equation.

0:47:35.200 --> 0:47:37.480
<v Speaker 4>In the box looks like as lasers on it.

0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:41.400
<v Speaker 2>I love this quote, by the way, from The Beehive.

0:47:41.760 --> 0:47:44.160
<v Speaker 2>That kind of sums up what happened next for Plimpton.

0:47:44.400 --> 0:47:47.080
<v Speaker 2>Quote James Plimpton spent the rest of his life selling,

0:47:47.200 --> 0:47:51.280
<v Speaker 2>improving and litigating his patent. So I mean no shame,

0:47:51.400 --> 0:47:55.439
<v Speaker 2>you know, he is a businessman. But I was reading

0:47:55.480 --> 0:47:57.920
<v Speaker 2>various accounts of it, you know, in the language of

0:47:57.920 --> 0:48:03.400
<v Speaker 2>the day, talking about cotecting the roller skaters in Europe

0:48:03.600 --> 0:48:07.600
<v Speaker 2>by litigating various patents, you know, like we're looking after you.

0:48:07.640 --> 0:48:09.320
<v Speaker 2>We want to make sure that when you roller skate,

0:48:09.440 --> 0:48:11.320
<v Speaker 2>you're using real Plimpton skates.

0:48:13.600 --> 0:48:15.880
<v Speaker 4>I don't know why, but this is made funnier by

0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:18.480
<v Speaker 4>I looked him up earlier, and I know what James

0:48:18.480 --> 0:48:21.759
<v Speaker 4>Plimpton looks like, and he's not exactly what I expected.

0:48:21.880 --> 0:48:24.440
<v Speaker 4>He looks kind of like he's like Garth Hudson of

0:48:24.480 --> 0:48:28.840
<v Speaker 4>the band, like a big beard and somehow kind of

0:48:28.840 --> 0:48:29.680
<v Speaker 4>looks like an artist.

0:48:29.960 --> 0:48:33.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, hard to imagine him on roller skates just looking

0:48:33.320 --> 0:48:35.160
<v Speaker 2>at some of these images, but I mean, that's awesome.

0:48:35.640 --> 0:48:39.640
<v Speaker 2>So roller skating becomes quite the hit, obviously, and you

0:48:39.760 --> 0:48:42.400
<v Speaker 2>end up with these various phases where things really pick up.

0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:46.560
<v Speaker 2>They including the eighteen eighties. Oh man, I was. I

0:48:46.640 --> 0:48:49.839
<v Speaker 2>was looking around at some, you know, contemporary writings from

0:48:49.840 --> 0:48:54.280
<v Speaker 2>this time about about roller skating, and I ran across

0:48:54.280 --> 0:48:59.160
<v Speaker 2>an eighteen seventy six book titled Rinks and Rollers by J. A. Harwood,

0:48:59.200 --> 0:49:01.719
<v Speaker 2>And I want to you just a bit from this

0:49:01.840 --> 0:49:07.120
<v Speaker 2>because it's it touches on what on some thoughts at

0:49:07.120 --> 0:49:09.000
<v Speaker 2>that point regarding the future.

0:49:08.640 --> 0:49:09.480
<v Speaker 3>Of roller skating.

0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:15.080
<v Speaker 2>Okay, how long will this rage for rinking last? Everyone

0:49:15.160 --> 0:49:17.879
<v Speaker 2>is asking, to which the reply generally is except from

0:49:18.000 --> 0:49:21.640
<v Speaker 2>rink owners, Oh, it will soon wear itself out. For

0:49:21.719 --> 0:49:24.400
<v Speaker 2>my part, I doubt that it will die away so rapidly,

0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:27.240
<v Speaker 2>and think that rinking is destined to take a permanent

0:49:27.280 --> 0:49:32.320
<v Speaker 2>place among the institutions of civilized society. Rinking drinking. Yeah,

0:49:32.360 --> 0:49:37.440
<v Speaker 2>and the name rinking did not stick, thankfully, but I

0:49:38.280 --> 0:49:40.120
<v Speaker 2>think that the idea that it's becomes a part of

0:49:40.120 --> 0:49:45.000
<v Speaker 2>civilized society absolutely does stick, he continues. But probably there

0:49:45.040 --> 0:49:47.279
<v Speaker 2>will be some abatement in the present fever in a

0:49:47.320 --> 0:49:51.680
<v Speaker 2>short time, and proprietors will find it expedient to reduce

0:49:51.880 --> 0:49:56.160
<v Speaker 2>their prices of admission. These violent beginnings have violent ends.

0:49:56.440 --> 0:50:00.040
<v Speaker 2>People skate too much now, both for their purses and constitution,

0:50:00.560 --> 0:50:04.280
<v Speaker 2>and rink proprietors grow too rich. If prices were reduced,

0:50:04.680 --> 0:50:06.680
<v Speaker 2>there would not be such a desire on the part

0:50:06.680 --> 0:50:08.959
<v Speaker 2>of the public to have its money was worth, even

0:50:09.000 --> 0:50:12.320
<v Speaker 2>at the cost of excessive bodily fatigue.

0:50:13.040 --> 0:50:15.840
<v Speaker 4>Oh man, it's not good for your bodies to skate

0:50:15.880 --> 0:50:16.400
<v Speaker 4>this much.

0:50:17.160 --> 0:50:20.239
<v Speaker 2>And so basically, as he continued to explain that the

0:50:20.320 --> 0:50:23.040
<v Speaker 2>rinks were not open long enough and so people were

0:50:23.120 --> 0:50:26.120
<v Speaker 2>just really getting it during the two hours that they

0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:28.400
<v Speaker 2>could skate. And he was like, this is not healthy.

0:50:28.440 --> 0:50:30.879
<v Speaker 2>We need skating rinks to be open longer. It needs

0:50:30.920 --> 0:50:36.160
<v Speaker 2>to be cheaper because people cannot physically or monetarily.

0:50:35.520 --> 0:50:38.000
<v Speaker 3>Keep up with their desire to go. Ranking.

0:50:38.440 --> 0:50:42.719
<v Speaker 4>I love. That doesn't make sense in like three ways, but.

0:50:42.920 --> 0:50:47.719
<v Speaker 2>You know, a little snapshot into roller skating fads and

0:50:47.840 --> 0:50:48.959
<v Speaker 2>enthusiasm of the time.

0:51:00.160 --> 0:51:00.359
<v Speaker 3>Now.

0:51:01.120 --> 0:51:03.400
<v Speaker 2>I also was looking into this a little bit. I

0:51:03.440 --> 0:51:05.200
<v Speaker 2>thought it was interesting to think about roller skating in

0:51:05.239 --> 0:51:09.680
<v Speaker 2>combination with another major invention of this time period, that

0:51:09.800 --> 0:51:14.320
<v Speaker 2>being the moving picture, and the earliest depiction of roller

0:51:14.320 --> 0:51:18.400
<v Speaker 2>skating on film is generally considered to be nineteen sixteen's

0:51:18.520 --> 0:51:21.120
<v Speaker 2>The Rink starring the one and only Charlie Chaplin.

0:51:21.200 --> 0:51:25.160
<v Speaker 4>Okay, so not incidental. This is about This is about skating.

0:51:25.080 --> 0:51:27.600
<v Speaker 2>Right, Yeah, the whole thing is. And you can find

0:51:27.880 --> 0:51:31.279
<v Speaker 2>examples of this. They have it on YouTube, probably on Wikipedia,

0:51:31.560 --> 0:51:34.839
<v Speaker 2>certainly on archive dot org. But yeah, the whole thing

0:51:34.880 --> 0:51:38.000
<v Speaker 2>takes place on a skating rink. You can watch Charlie

0:51:38.040 --> 0:51:43.120
<v Speaker 2>Chaplin and the supporting characters skate about and you know,

0:51:43.360 --> 0:51:46.879
<v Speaker 2>it's entirely possible. There was some other, you know, very

0:51:46.920 --> 0:51:50.160
<v Speaker 2>short silent film project that involves someone skating in the

0:51:50.200 --> 0:51:54.120
<v Speaker 2>same way that there are various old silent films of

0:51:54.320 --> 0:51:55.160
<v Speaker 2>people doing.

0:51:54.960 --> 0:51:57.279
<v Speaker 3>Other things, you know, running around, riding.

0:51:57.000 --> 0:51:59.160
<v Speaker 2>A horse and so forth. But as far as I know,

0:51:59.239 --> 0:52:01.120
<v Speaker 2>it was lost, such a thing existed.

0:52:01.520 --> 0:52:03.000
<v Speaker 4>Lots of earlier films were lost.

0:52:03.280 --> 0:52:07.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there's also a nineteen nineteen silent film titled Don't Shove,

0:52:07.560 --> 0:52:10.280
<v Speaker 2>starring Harry Lloyd. And this one, this one was likely

0:52:10.320 --> 0:52:12.279
<v Speaker 2>inspired by the rink.

0:52:12.320 --> 0:52:13.200
<v Speaker 3>I'm to understand.

0:52:13.719 --> 0:52:15.840
<v Speaker 4>Is it like a public service announcement or is this

0:52:16.000 --> 0:52:16.760
<v Speaker 4>just what it's called.

0:52:17.080 --> 0:52:19.799
<v Speaker 2>It's just another funny, that's all it is. It's just

0:52:20.000 --> 0:52:23.719
<v Speaker 2>another comedy. I think don't Shove because there is some

0:52:23.760 --> 0:52:26.480
<v Speaker 2>shoving that occurs, and this was probably a rule, you know,

0:52:27.160 --> 0:52:29.440
<v Speaker 2>when you went to the rink, rinkers don't shove each other.

0:52:29.920 --> 0:52:31.840
<v Speaker 2>Not sure if they were still calling each other rankers

0:52:31.880 --> 0:52:35.200
<v Speaker 2>at that point, and then, according to Turner Classic Movies,

0:52:35.480 --> 0:52:37.120
<v Speaker 2>a couple of other key moments in the history of

0:52:37.239 --> 0:52:40.279
<v Speaker 2>roller skates cinema include Modern Times from nineteen thirty six

0:52:40.520 --> 0:52:43.080
<v Speaker 2>and Shall We Dance from thirty seven and I think

0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:46.239
<v Speaker 2>it's kind of potentially telling here because even in these

0:52:46.360 --> 0:52:49.719
<v Speaker 2>just just few cinematic examples here, we maybe get an

0:52:49.760 --> 0:52:53.560
<v Speaker 2>idea of some of the ups and downs of roller

0:52:53.560 --> 0:52:59.080
<v Speaker 2>skating popularity. You know, we see there's like a for

0:52:59.080 --> 0:53:02.000
<v Speaker 2>instas another example, nineteen thirty eight black and white popeye

0:53:02.000 --> 0:53:05.240
<v Speaker 2>short titled A Date to Skate. And at this point

0:53:05.239 --> 0:53:07.560
<v Speaker 2>we're very much into the period of the Second World War,

0:53:07.719 --> 0:53:11.960
<v Speaker 2>during which skating experienced i yet another boom period as

0:53:12.000 --> 0:53:14.760
<v Speaker 2>people in the US looked for distractions from global events.

0:53:15.640 --> 0:53:19.240
<v Speaker 2>And so we see and also I found it interesting

0:53:19.280 --> 0:53:21.120
<v Speaker 2>that we see some of the early roots of roller

0:53:21.160 --> 0:53:24.360
<v Speaker 2>derby during this time. Roller Derby of course would have

0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:28.320
<v Speaker 2>to be its own episode, but this kind of apparently

0:53:28.400 --> 0:53:30.759
<v Speaker 2>kicked off as sort of a dance a thon on

0:53:30.880 --> 0:53:35.279
<v Speaker 2>skates that had no real competitive contact sport aspects to it.

0:53:36.040 --> 0:53:38.319
<v Speaker 2>But the roots of roller derby are there.

0:53:39.120 --> 0:53:41.120
<v Speaker 4>How do we get from that to roller ball?

0:53:42.920 --> 0:53:45.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean there's probably a whole lot you could

0:53:45.760 --> 0:53:48.440
<v Speaker 2>you could dissect culturally about the different boom periods of

0:53:48.480 --> 0:53:51.960
<v Speaker 2>skating because yeah, even just very roughly looking at what

0:53:52.040 --> 0:53:54.399
<v Speaker 2>we've looked at here, and we're looking at the late

0:53:54.480 --> 0:53:58.759
<v Speaker 2>nineteenth century. We're looking at the nineteen thirties. We can

0:53:58.840 --> 0:54:01.720
<v Speaker 2>easily look at skating in the fifties, and then again

0:54:01.800 --> 0:54:04.960
<v Speaker 2>in the seventies, to some degree in the nineties, and

0:54:05.000 --> 0:54:08.120
<v Speaker 2>then once again, you know, really booming more recently during

0:54:08.120 --> 0:54:08.719
<v Speaker 2>the pandemic.

0:54:10.040 --> 0:54:12.359
<v Speaker 4>Well, it hasn't made its way back into my life yet,

0:54:12.400 --> 0:54:15.799
<v Speaker 4>but I say bully to it. Let the rinking live on.

0:54:16.440 --> 0:54:19.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I guess one of the key things is to

0:54:19.719 --> 0:54:21.200
<v Speaker 2>be a rinker, you have to go to a rink,

0:54:21.239 --> 0:54:23.680
<v Speaker 2>And a lot of skaters don't go to a skating

0:54:23.760 --> 0:54:26.239
<v Speaker 2>rink or don't exclusively go to a skating rink, so

0:54:26.480 --> 0:54:28.279
<v Speaker 2>they couldn't really own that terminology.

0:54:28.320 --> 0:54:31.520
<v Speaker 4>I guess they call that D ranking, D ranking, D

0:54:31.640 --> 0:54:34.520
<v Speaker 4>rank your mind so you can go outside the rank.

0:54:34.600 --> 0:54:37.000
<v Speaker 2>We don't need any division in the roller skating community.

0:54:37.200 --> 0:54:39.880
<v Speaker 2>We don't need like rinkers versus wilders or something. I

0:54:39.880 --> 0:54:43.719
<v Speaker 2>don't know what the terminology would be, because ultimately, I

0:54:43.760 --> 0:54:45.920
<v Speaker 2>think the message that we that I've gotten from all

0:54:45.960 --> 0:54:48.440
<v Speaker 2>this is that the roller skating is and should be

0:54:48.440 --> 0:54:52.600
<v Speaker 2>liberating here here as long as you can retard your

0:54:52.680 --> 0:54:56.800
<v Speaker 2>velocity and not crash through a mirror at a fancy.

0:54:56.400 --> 0:55:00.319
<v Speaker 4>Ball I mean, if anything, the Merlin Store, he has

0:55:00.320 --> 0:55:03.240
<v Speaker 4>got to be a warning against distracted driving of all sorts.

0:55:03.840 --> 0:55:06.720
<v Speaker 4>Trying to play the violin wild skating not a good idea,

0:55:06.760 --> 0:55:09.879
<v Speaker 4>regardless of the skate design having breaks or not. I mean,

0:55:10.320 --> 0:55:11.440
<v Speaker 4>that's just not a good idea.

0:55:11.840 --> 0:55:12.080
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.

0:55:12.120 --> 0:55:15.560
<v Speaker 2>Also, like the proper environment for testing out your prototype.

0:55:16.000 --> 0:55:20.000
<v Speaker 2>Is it a maskball or is it maybe like a

0:55:20.040 --> 0:55:21.360
<v Speaker 2>padded warehouse somewhere.

0:55:22.040 --> 0:55:23.120
<v Speaker 3>I think maybe the latter.

0:55:23.440 --> 0:55:27.160
<v Speaker 4>Sorry in my mind that the masquerade that he's skating

0:55:27.200 --> 0:55:32.160
<v Speaker 4>through now is eyes wide shut. I'm sure it wasn't

0:55:32.200 --> 0:55:33.960
<v Speaker 4>like that. I'm sure it was one of the regular.

0:55:34.520 --> 0:55:38.319
<v Speaker 2>That's one of the regular. All Right, we're gonna go

0:55:38.360 --> 0:55:40.480
<v Speaker 2>and close out this episode here, but again, we'd love

0:55:40.520 --> 0:55:42.200
<v Speaker 2>to hear from all the skaters out there if you

0:55:42.239 --> 0:55:45.279
<v Speaker 2>have some added inside to throw in here. Just a

0:55:45.320 --> 0:55:47.360
<v Speaker 2>reminder that Stuff to Blow your Mind is primarily a

0:55:47.360 --> 0:55:50.040
<v Speaker 2>science and culture podcast, with core episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays,

0:55:50.040 --> 0:55:52.319
<v Speaker 2>short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set

0:55:52.320 --> 0:55:54.799
<v Speaker 2>aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

0:55:54.800 --> 0:55:56.120
<v Speaker 2>film on Weird House Cinema.

0:55:56.360 --> 0:55:59.880
<v Speaker 4>Huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer jj Posway.

0:56:00.160 --> 0:56:01.680
<v Speaker 4>If you would like to get in touch with us

0:56:01.680 --> 0:56:04.160
<v Speaker 4>with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

0:56:04.160 --> 0:56:06.120
<v Speaker 4>a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

0:56:06.320 --> 0:56:09.000
<v Speaker 4>you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

0:56:09.000 --> 0:56:18.400
<v Speaker 4>your Mind dot com.

0:56:18.480 --> 0:56:21.440
<v Speaker 1>Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

0:56:21.520 --> 0:56:24.279
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0:56:24.440 --> 0:56:41.440
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