1 00:00:05,440 --> 00:00:08,680 Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you Maxwell is hard to read 2 00:00:09,320 --> 00:00:14,880 Speaker 1: for weird, weird reasons. Maxwell, it's not all mathematical, it's 3 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:18,000 Speaker 1: mostly words and with a little bit of math, but 4 00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:24,360 Speaker 1: the math is confusingly written. And Maxwell makes ridiculous amounts 5 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:28,319 Speaker 1: of mathematical mistakes. The first one I thought, I'm like, 6 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:32,000 Speaker 1: I must be wrong. This is Maxwell, And then I realized, no, 7 00:00:32,520 --> 00:00:36,720 Speaker 1: every paper is eighty pages long and has eighty mistakes 8 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:37,120 Speaker 1: in it. 9 00:00:37,159 --> 00:00:40,400 Speaker 2: Like, oh no, it's good to know you could be 10 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:42,680 Speaker 2: famous and make tons of mistakes. 11 00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:47,920 Speaker 1: And it's actually inspiring. But yeah, Maxwell had this amazing 12 00:00:48,080 --> 00:00:52,800 Speaker 1: mind to take these crazy ideas from Faraday, which no 13 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,320 Speaker 1: one had thought of things this way, and put it 14 00:00:55,360 --> 00:01:01,160 Speaker 1: in math terms. And I have nothing but the utmost 15 00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:06,039 Speaker 1: respect and love for Maxwell, and also reading him can 16 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:07,200 Speaker 1: give you a stomach. 17 00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:10,880 Speaker 3: In That's a little snippet from our conversation today about 18 00:01:10,880 --> 00:01:14,920 Speaker 3: the history of science, specifically understanding who really came up 19 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,200 Speaker 3: with Maxwell's equations, how much did he rely on the 20 00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,560 Speaker 3: experiments done before him, and how much did the theorists 21 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:25,640 Speaker 3: after him clean up his work. Welcome to Daniel and 22 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:28,000 Speaker 3: Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 23 00:01:41,120 --> 00:01:44,560 Speaker 2: Hello, I'm Kelly Waiter Smith and I don't know anything 24 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 2: about Faraday or Maxwell or any of the people that 25 00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:49,120 Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about today, though I seem 26 00:01:49,160 --> 00:01:52,440 Speaker 2: to remember Faraday being associated with the cage of some sort. Daniel, 27 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,040 Speaker 2: did we let him out of the cage? Eventually he's 28 00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:56,640 Speaker 2: still in there? 29 00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:58,480 Speaker 3: Oh my god, somebody let him out. 30 00:01:59,720 --> 00:01:59,880 Speaker 2: Hi. 31 00:02:00,080 --> 00:02:02,720 Speaker 3: I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I've been taught 32 00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:05,040 Speaker 3: the standard lore of physics history. 33 00:02:05,200 --> 00:02:10,680 Speaker 2: WHOA Does every physics class teach standard physics history lore? 34 00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:12,360 Speaker 2: Or are there some classes where you just do the 35 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:14,360 Speaker 2: actual science with no history. 36 00:02:14,680 --> 00:02:14,720 Speaker 1: No. 37 00:02:14,840 --> 00:02:17,600 Speaker 3: I feel like there's a standard set of anecdotes that 38 00:02:17,639 --> 00:02:21,040 Speaker 3: get passed down from generation to generation. You get a 39 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:23,240 Speaker 3: little bit of the flavor of the people when you're 40 00:02:23,280 --> 00:02:27,000 Speaker 3: learning about the equations sometimes, but mostly it's just the equations, 41 00:02:27,480 --> 00:02:30,320 Speaker 3: and it's usually not the equations the way those folks 42 00:02:30,320 --> 00:02:33,720 Speaker 3: wrote them. It's usually always in the modern notation, which 43 00:02:33,760 --> 00:02:36,480 Speaker 3: I find a little confusing, because, like, you know, Newton 44 00:02:36,520 --> 00:02:40,600 Speaker 3: didn't write equations mathematically. He wrote sentences and he used 45 00:02:40,720 --> 00:02:43,400 Speaker 3: verbs and stuff like this, and so it's funny to say, 46 00:02:43,400 --> 00:02:45,639 Speaker 3: and then Newton wrote down this equation, It's like, well, 47 00:02:45,639 --> 00:02:48,880 Speaker 3: that didn't actually happen, did it? So? Yeah, it's confusing, 48 00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:49,680 Speaker 3: all right. 49 00:02:49,720 --> 00:02:52,200 Speaker 2: So we're about to talk to a historian of physics 50 00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:54,079 Speaker 2: who has a bunch of amazing stories we're going to 51 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,480 Speaker 2: hear today. But do you have a favorite history of 52 00:02:56,520 --> 00:02:57,320 Speaker 2: physics story? 53 00:02:57,680 --> 00:03:00,639 Speaker 3: I do have a favorite. Actually, I'm not sure it's 54 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:03,640 Speaker 3: family friendly. It's a story of one guy who actually 55 00:03:03,639 --> 00:03:06,960 Speaker 3: goes on to win the Nobel Prize, who every evening 56 00:03:07,200 --> 00:03:11,359 Speaker 3: would come in and urinate on the competitors experiment so 57 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:13,400 Speaker 3: that they weren't ready to run for the day. No, 58 00:03:14,080 --> 00:03:16,760 Speaker 3: the lore is that this was captured on video, though 59 00:03:16,800 --> 00:03:19,960 Speaker 3: I've never actually seen the video myself, but yeah, this 60 00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:22,960 Speaker 3: is a story bouncing around the halls of particle physics. 61 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, how long ago was this? 62 00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:27,120 Speaker 3: This apparently was in the seventies. 63 00:03:27,360 --> 00:03:27,640 Speaker 1: Huh. 64 00:03:27,680 --> 00:03:31,360 Speaker 2: So my favorite urine based physics story is it hennick Brand, 65 00:03:31,520 --> 00:03:35,080 Speaker 2: the guy who discovered phosphorus by boiling his own urine 66 00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:36,880 Speaker 2: and finding it accidentally. Is that right? 67 00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:40,480 Speaker 3: No, nothing that glamorous. And I won't repeat the names 68 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:42,200 Speaker 3: in the story because I've been told by other people 69 00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:44,960 Speaker 3: that the story is apocryphal. But whether it's true or not, 70 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:47,520 Speaker 3: it's a story which exists in the halls of physics 71 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:49,200 Speaker 3: and is told with much relish. 72 00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:53,160 Speaker 2: But my urine story is true, right, not apocryphal. 73 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:56,800 Speaker 3: I can't fact check that myself, but it sounds right. 74 00:03:56,840 --> 00:03:57,480 Speaker 1: Okay, all right? 75 00:03:57,680 --> 00:04:00,360 Speaker 2: We had a three D printed trophy for Bafest based 76 00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 2: on a famous painting of this man boiling his urine 77 00:04:03,200 --> 00:04:06,040 Speaker 2: to discover phosphorus. Anyway, So now that we've told some 78 00:04:06,120 --> 00:04:09,120 Speaker 2: good stories, some true, some maybe not so true, should 79 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,920 Speaker 2: we transition to the definitely true stories that Kathy has 80 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:13,520 Speaker 2: for us today? 81 00:04:13,880 --> 00:04:16,240 Speaker 3: That's right. Neither of us are historians of physics, so 82 00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:19,159 Speaker 3: we reached out to Kathy Joseph, who is an expert 83 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:22,960 Speaker 3: in the history of electromagnetism. How all these crazy personalities 84 00:04:23,040 --> 00:04:25,600 Speaker 3: wove their work together to give us the understanding that 85 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:28,400 Speaker 3: we have today and maybe the gaps that exist in 86 00:04:28,440 --> 00:04:31,120 Speaker 3: those modern stories and what we can learn from digging 87 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:33,960 Speaker 3: in detail into the past. Kathy is great because she 88 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:37,200 Speaker 3: actually goes back and reads the original papers written by 89 00:04:37,240 --> 00:04:40,279 Speaker 3: these folks rather than just trusting the modern summaries. 90 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:43,600 Speaker 2: I love that about Kathy, and I love her sense 91 00:04:43,600 --> 00:04:44,680 Speaker 2: of humor. So let's jump in. 92 00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:51,240 Speaker 3: So it's my pleasure to welcome to the show. Kathy Joseph. 93 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:53,839 Speaker 3: She's a very well known YouTuber who has a channel 94 00:04:53,880 --> 00:04:57,240 Speaker 3: about the history of physics. It's called Kathy Love's Physics. 95 00:04:57,400 --> 00:04:59,799 Speaker 3: Check it out. She also was a high school physics 96 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:02,560 Speaker 3: tea for many years and is the author of the 97 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:07,239 Speaker 3: very entertaining and illuminating book The Lightning Tamers. Kathy, Welcome 98 00:05:07,279 --> 00:05:07,720 Speaker 3: to the show. 99 00:05:08,040 --> 00:05:09,080 Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. 100 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,120 Speaker 3: Thanks very much for being on. Tell us how you 101 00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:16,640 Speaker 3: ended up being a physics history YouTuber when you were 102 00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:20,080 Speaker 3: originally a physics PhD student and a physics high school teacher. 103 00:05:20,320 --> 00:05:22,599 Speaker 3: Connect those dots for us. What is Kathy's history? 104 00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,880 Speaker 1: Ah? Well, I've always been sort of interested in history, 105 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:30,680 Speaker 1: but much more from the historical fiction point of view. 106 00:05:31,200 --> 00:05:35,239 Speaker 1: I like learning about how ordinary people lived in the past. 107 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:40,960 Speaker 1: So I always studied history by just looking into different 108 00:05:40,960 --> 00:05:44,800 Speaker 1: people and enjoying their stories, and with a caveat that 109 00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:50,400 Speaker 1: I know that everything I was getting was not necessarily true, 110 00:05:50,880 --> 00:05:53,080 Speaker 1: which I think helped me in the future because I'm 111 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:56,680 Speaker 1: always been suspicious of everything I read. It's like, is 112 00:05:56,720 --> 00:06:01,400 Speaker 1: that historically true or not? Because I did that, and 113 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:07,200 Speaker 1: then I ended up, through my various pass in my career, 114 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:13,760 Speaker 1: helping someone edit a book on non destructive testing, which 115 00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:17,160 Speaker 1: is just as exciting as it sounds. It's an engineering 116 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:23,719 Speaker 1: book like how to test if different devices are okay 117 00:06:24,120 --> 00:06:27,480 Speaker 1: or different items are okay, like is there a weakness 118 00:06:27,520 --> 00:06:33,480 Speaker 1: in the line of train and without breaking it up? 119 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:37,640 Speaker 1: And they had different sections on different ways to test things, 120 00:06:38,200 --> 00:06:41,640 Speaker 1: and I ended up editing this section on X rays 121 00:06:42,040 --> 00:06:44,800 Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, let's look into the history of 122 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,960 Speaker 1: X rays a little bit to spice this up a 123 00:06:47,960 --> 00:06:51,440 Speaker 1: little bit. And the history of X rays is amazing. 124 00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:57,680 Speaker 1: There's been poetry, there's crazy, crazy things. And I started 125 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:02,000 Speaker 1: to just look into the every once in a while 126 00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:05,440 Speaker 1: just for my own edification. And then I ended up 127 00:07:05,440 --> 00:07:07,839 Speaker 1: being a high school physics teacher, which I loved. 128 00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:12,040 Speaker 3: Wow, thank you for your service. That's really the front 129 00:07:12,040 --> 00:07:13,400 Speaker 3: lines of education right there. 130 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,240 Speaker 1: It is the front lines of education. But it is 131 00:07:16,720 --> 00:07:20,880 Speaker 1: also the place where you can make the most difference. 132 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:26,280 Speaker 1: Like if you talk to anyone who did any accomplishment 133 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:29,120 Speaker 1: in life, nine times out of ten they say they 134 00:07:29,120 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: were inspired by a high school teacher. 135 00:07:30,920 --> 00:07:31,440 Speaker 2: Yeah. 136 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:33,760 Speaker 3: Absolutely, And shout out to all the high school science 137 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:37,480 Speaker 3: teachers out there who are inspiring the next generation of 138 00:07:37,560 --> 00:07:40,160 Speaker 3: scientists who are going to create the next layer of history. 139 00:07:40,360 --> 00:07:44,680 Speaker 2: Amen, How does writing pop science differ when you're writing 140 00:07:44,880 --> 00:07:47,080 Speaker 2: pop historical science. 141 00:07:47,520 --> 00:07:47,920 Speaker 1: Is it a. 142 00:07:47,880 --> 00:07:50,200 Speaker 2: Different set of skills that you need to be writing 143 00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:53,280 Speaker 2: about the history, or a different set of research techniques? 144 00:07:53,760 --> 00:07:55,320 Speaker 2: Or did you learn everything you needed when you were 145 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:56,480 Speaker 2: working on your physics PhD? 146 00:07:56,920 --> 00:08:01,560 Speaker 1: Working on my physics PhD? I mean nothing except that 147 00:08:03,520 --> 00:08:06,640 Speaker 1: except that the way I was trying to work on 148 00:08:06,760 --> 00:08:11,400 Speaker 1: it was not working for me. And the way I 149 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:15,040 Speaker 1: approach looking at the history is as a way to 150 00:08:15,120 --> 00:08:20,280 Speaker 1: teach the physics. It's always a way to teach the physics. 151 00:08:20,320 --> 00:08:23,720 Speaker 1: And it's a mystery story. Every single one of them 152 00:08:23,800 --> 00:08:26,160 Speaker 1: is a mystery story. Who did it? And why? 153 00:08:28,360 --> 00:08:30,840 Speaker 3: I love the way that you approach history. You make 154 00:08:30,880 --> 00:08:34,400 Speaker 3: it so personal because science is just people, right. It's 155 00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:38,120 Speaker 3: weird people having accidents and rivalries and writing grumpy letters 156 00:08:38,120 --> 00:08:40,040 Speaker 3: back and forth. And I think a lot of people 157 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:42,120 Speaker 3: when they think of the history of physics, they only 158 00:08:42,480 --> 00:08:45,680 Speaker 3: take the sort of sanitized, summarized version in a textbook, 159 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:48,640 Speaker 3: like a straight line from not understanding to understanding, when 160 00:08:48,720 --> 00:08:52,320 Speaker 3: really it's like a crazy zigzag that later people patched 161 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:54,520 Speaker 3: up and they removed a lot of the fun bits. 162 00:08:54,679 --> 00:08:56,720 Speaker 3: So I was hoping that you would take us through 163 00:08:56,720 --> 00:09:00,360 Speaker 3: some of the history of our understanding of electromagnetism, some 164 00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:03,280 Speaker 3: of the messy discoveries and the fun stories. Where do 165 00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:05,520 Speaker 3: you think is a fun place to jump in? Take 166 00:09:05,600 --> 00:09:08,600 Speaker 3: us back to sort of like before we understood electricity 167 00:09:08,640 --> 00:09:11,480 Speaker 3: at all, What were people doing to try to understand it? 168 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:14,680 Speaker 3: What were the experiments that were helping us figure it out? Well. 169 00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:18,440 Speaker 1: One of the things that really surprised me was that 170 00:09:18,720 --> 00:09:23,920 Speaker 1: in the seventeen hundreds, electricity wasn't really a science. It 171 00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:28,000 Speaker 1: was an entertainment and it was also a way to 172 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:31,280 Speaker 1: get ahead in life. You could be a good musician, 173 00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:34,560 Speaker 1: or you could be a scientist, or you could be 174 00:09:34,880 --> 00:09:38,960 Speaker 1: a poet. Especially in France, the king who made Versailles, 175 00:09:39,600 --> 00:09:44,600 Speaker 1: the Son King, he was very into using science as 176 00:09:44,600 --> 00:09:48,360 Speaker 1: a way of entertainment and a way of showing that 177 00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:54,040 Speaker 1: you were noble, if you were elite. You spoke poetry 178 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:57,080 Speaker 1: and you knew about science, and you did crazy experiments. 179 00:09:57,400 --> 00:10:03,160 Speaker 1: And there's all these amazing, amazing drawings from that time period. 180 00:10:03,280 --> 00:10:06,360 Speaker 1: Like the cover of my book has this little dry 181 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:10,160 Speaker 1: out circle of this woman in this beautiful giant ball 182 00:10:10,240 --> 00:10:15,640 Speaker 1: gown rubbing this sphere, and then there's a child hung 183 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:20,040 Speaker 1: up by strings off the air and his feet is 184 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:24,440 Speaker 1: touching the ball, so the electricity flows through him to 185 00:10:24,559 --> 00:10:29,680 Speaker 1: this little girl in another little cute, elegant gown standing 186 00:10:29,720 --> 00:10:34,720 Speaker 1: on a wooden platform, having little electric pieces of paper 187 00:10:34,800 --> 00:10:38,719 Speaker 1: or flaff for gold foil rise to her hand as 188 00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:44,360 Speaker 1: she's electrified. And there's so many pictures. In fact, if 189 00:10:44,400 --> 00:10:47,360 Speaker 1: you look really closely at the book, you can see 190 00:10:47,400 --> 00:10:50,560 Speaker 1: the French letters from the words on the other side 191 00:10:50,600 --> 00:10:55,160 Speaker 1: of the page, because they were printed out in little books. 192 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,840 Speaker 1: And I went to this museum called the Spark Museum 193 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:03,040 Speaker 1: and I got to hold an original book from seventeen 194 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:07,400 Speaker 1: forty nine. It was tiny. It was like two inches 195 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:11,280 Speaker 1: long and one inch wide. It was tiny so that 196 00:11:11,320 --> 00:11:14,360 Speaker 1: they could put them in their little pockets of their 197 00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:20,040 Speaker 1: elegant gowns and what have you. There whereas they could 198 00:11:20,080 --> 00:11:24,199 Speaker 1: take it out and look at these incredibly intricate portraits 199 00:11:24,240 --> 00:11:25,680 Speaker 1: that they put inside them. 200 00:11:26,120 --> 00:11:28,960 Speaker 3: Wow, we should start making two inch versions of modern textbooks. 201 00:11:28,960 --> 00:11:30,000 Speaker 3: That would be prettyhilarious. 202 00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:32,319 Speaker 2: Well, it sounds like a little cheat sheet for like 203 00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:34,920 Speaker 2: how to be interesting at a party. I need more 204 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:37,800 Speaker 2: pockets to hold those so that people will invite me places. 205 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,120 Speaker 3: Physics is definitely not the way to be interesting at 206 00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:41,839 Speaker 3: a party. Yeah, it kind of it. 207 00:11:41,800 --> 00:11:44,600 Speaker 2: Could be, depending on the party. There are some pretty 208 00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:47,600 Speaker 2: boring parties if you're trying to entertain with electricity at 209 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:50,560 Speaker 2: a time when we don't understand electricity, well are There 210 00:11:50,640 --> 00:11:53,880 Speaker 2: also a lot of stories of people hurting themselves or 211 00:11:53,920 --> 00:11:55,600 Speaker 2: the children they're stringing up by their feet. 212 00:11:56,720 --> 00:12:01,920 Speaker 1: Yes, not as many as you would expecting how dangerous 213 00:12:01,960 --> 00:12:05,360 Speaker 1: it was, But I think that's because the time was 214 00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:09,679 Speaker 1: so dangerous. They don't have antibiotics. You could die million 215 00:12:09,720 --> 00:12:14,800 Speaker 1: ways from Sunday, and they sort of felt and many 216 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:19,199 Speaker 1: of them said, I want to die from electricity. There 217 00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:22,560 Speaker 1: was this German scientist named Mathaa Bosa, one of my 218 00:12:22,679 --> 00:12:26,080 Speaker 1: favorite scientists of all time, because he was a performer, 219 00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:31,000 Speaker 1: a grand performer, and he would, for example, electrify a 220 00:12:31,040 --> 00:12:34,440 Speaker 1: pretty woman by having her stand on something and while 221 00:12:34,559 --> 00:12:38,040 Speaker 1: someone rubbed that sphere and then give her a kiss, 222 00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:43,400 Speaker 1: and he called it venus electrificatas, and then he wrote 223 00:12:43,400 --> 00:12:46,920 Speaker 1: a bad poetry about it, like, you know, I kissed 224 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:51,319 Speaker 1: venus standing on the wax. My lips trembled, my teeth 225 00:12:51,360 --> 00:12:54,120 Speaker 1: almost broke. I can't remember the rest of them. 226 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:56,760 Speaker 2: It's a great kiss. And it was the idea that 227 00:12:56,800 --> 00:12:58,680 Speaker 2: like he wanted to create a spark so that they 228 00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:01,800 Speaker 2: would both be like wooin but it hurt. 229 00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,400 Speaker 1: Oh, it wouldn't hurt with their hands, but it would 230 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:07,800 Speaker 1: sure hurt with your lips. 231 00:13:07,880 --> 00:13:08,200 Speaker 2: Yeah. 232 00:13:08,240 --> 00:13:11,960 Speaker 3: Wow. The history of flirting with physics is fascinating. But 233 00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:14,679 Speaker 3: so physics is a way to like amaze and awe 234 00:13:14,720 --> 00:13:18,480 Speaker 3: and entertain or at less electricity is at what point 235 00:13:18,480 --> 00:13:20,960 Speaker 3: did people start to wonder like can we understand this, 236 00:13:21,280 --> 00:13:24,480 Speaker 3: to do experiments to try to force the universe to 237 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:27,520 Speaker 3: reveal how it works. When did we really begin to 238 00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:28,559 Speaker 3: understand it? 239 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:33,760 Speaker 1: Well, that kind of happened simultaneously. For example, there was 240 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:39,439 Speaker 1: this French scientist named du Fey, and he was the 241 00:13:39,480 --> 00:13:43,400 Speaker 1: first person who made the sort of rules of electricity. 242 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:48,840 Speaker 1: He had this theory that if something was electrified and 243 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,880 Speaker 1: a neutral object came to it and stuck on it, 244 00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:56,320 Speaker 1: the neutral object could absorb some of the electricity and 245 00:13:56,360 --> 00:13:59,400 Speaker 1: then be repelled by it, which is what we think 246 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:04,920 Speaker 1: happens to And he did an experiment like that, and 247 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:08,920 Speaker 1: he had two charged rods and he's like, okay, if 248 00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:11,160 Speaker 1: it repels from one. It's your repel from the other. 249 00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:15,040 Speaker 1: But it didn't. It was attracted to the other, and 250 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:17,240 Speaker 1: then it was repelled by that and attracted to the 251 00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:20,120 Speaker 1: first and went bouncing back and forth between these two 252 00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,480 Speaker 1: charged objects, one made out of glass and one made 253 00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:27,359 Speaker 1: of wax. So he said, there's two kinds of electricity, 254 00:14:28,840 --> 00:14:34,160 Speaker 1: vitreous electricity or electricity that comes from glass, and resinous 255 00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:40,760 Speaker 1: electricity or resin based, wax based. So Charles Sistine Devey 256 00:14:41,520 --> 00:14:45,880 Speaker 1: was a real inspiration for Boza doing his crazy experiments. 257 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:50,320 Speaker 1: So I found that happens all through the history of science. 258 00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:56,800 Speaker 1: Someone makes a real breakthrough on our understanding, but then 259 00:14:56,920 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 1: someone else makes it popular by making a useful device 260 00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:06,520 Speaker 1: or making a fun device or both. Like with X rays, 261 00:15:07,040 --> 00:15:11,960 Speaker 1: they mostly thought it was fun for a while. Oops, yeah, exactly. 262 00:15:12,040 --> 00:15:15,960 Speaker 1: They would go on traveling things and give X rays 263 00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:19,440 Speaker 1: for you know, like a quarter, just for fun. 264 00:15:19,640 --> 00:15:20,920 Speaker 3: With shockingly high doses. 265 00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,920 Speaker 1: Right at first, No, because they couldn't figure out how 266 00:15:23,920 --> 00:15:27,360 Speaker 1: to make shockingly high does. You had to stay there 267 00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:31,360 Speaker 1: for a really long time because it just wouldn't work. 268 00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:34,040 Speaker 1: It took a while to just figure out how to 269 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:37,320 Speaker 1: up the dose as well. But I'm Sorry, I got 270 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,960 Speaker 1: back onto X rays. But it's the true with all 271 00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,520 Speaker 1: of it. It's not one at a time. And I 272 00:15:42,520 --> 00:15:46,120 Speaker 1: think that is a problem with most history of science books, 273 00:15:46,640 --> 00:15:50,960 Speaker 1: is that they focus on this one part of technology 274 00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:55,320 Speaker 1: or one discovery or whatever, and they're not in isolation. 275 00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,920 Speaker 1: The theory happens at the same time as the development 276 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:04,080 Speaker 1: and technologies, same times as it affecting the culture, and 277 00:16:04,160 --> 00:16:07,600 Speaker 1: they're all intertwined with each other, and they're all influencing 278 00:16:07,680 --> 00:16:12,600 Speaker 1: each other. And it's not linear like you were saying before. 279 00:16:12,760 --> 00:16:17,280 Speaker 1: It's not like this person makes this person. Sometimes you 280 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,360 Speaker 1: go backwards. And one of our greatest discoveries was the 281 00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:26,400 Speaker 1: discovery of the idea of electric fields, and that happened 282 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:29,680 Speaker 1: because a guy named Michael Faraday went, you know what, 283 00:16:29,800 --> 00:16:32,560 Speaker 1: I've discovered so much, I should look in the history 284 00:16:33,520 --> 00:16:34,760 Speaker 1: and see what it tells me. 285 00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:37,160 Speaker 3: All right, So I want to hear all about the 286 00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 3: history of Michael Faraday and how that laid the groundwork 287 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,680 Speaker 3: for Maxwell to get maybe too much credit for Maxwell's equations. 288 00:16:43,720 --> 00:17:02,560 Speaker 3: But first we have to take a quick break. All right, 289 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:05,679 Speaker 3: we're back and we're talking to historian Kathy Joseph of 290 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:08,679 Speaker 3: the YouTube channel Kathy loves physics, about how the history 291 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:11,760 Speaker 3: of electromagnetism and the history of physics in general is 292 00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:14,520 Speaker 3: a little bit messier and a lot less linear than 293 00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:17,480 Speaker 3: you might have thought, at least than I thought. So 294 00:17:17,600 --> 00:17:20,400 Speaker 3: tell us about Michael Faraday and his experiments and what 295 00:17:20,480 --> 00:17:22,880 Speaker 3: he helped us understand and how he did it. 296 00:17:23,200 --> 00:17:26,600 Speaker 1: Oh, Michael Faraday is my favorite scientist of all time. 297 00:17:26,960 --> 00:17:29,200 Speaker 2: I think that's the second time you've said that, isn't it. 298 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,240 Speaker 2: I think that means that you just are full of 299 00:17:32,359 --> 00:17:35,359 Speaker 2: enthusiasm and love for your topic. I thought your favorite 300 00:17:35,400 --> 00:17:36,960 Speaker 2: was the one who did the electric smooches. 301 00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:41,119 Speaker 1: Oh shoot, no. 302 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:43,240 Speaker 3: It's okay. You kind of have a new favorite every 303 00:17:43,240 --> 00:17:45,040 Speaker 3: ten minutes. Thoro all wonderful. 304 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:49,760 Speaker 1: Boat is one of my favorites. Okay, Michael Faraday is 305 00:17:49,880 --> 00:17:51,240 Speaker 1: clear and away my favorite. 306 00:17:51,680 --> 00:17:53,720 Speaker 3: Right. Why is that because he was a fan of 307 00:17:53,760 --> 00:17:54,520 Speaker 3: the history as well. 308 00:17:55,119 --> 00:17:59,560 Speaker 1: Partially you asked me to talk about Michael Veraday. But 309 00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:03,200 Speaker 1: first start saying, I didn't start off by thinking the 310 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:07,560 Speaker 1: history of science was not important. I started off by 311 00:18:07,600 --> 00:18:11,800 Speaker 1: thinking the history of science was interesting to me, and 312 00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:14,879 Speaker 1: I thought it might be a little bit helpful for 313 00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:21,439 Speaker 1: helping other people understand science. But it's turned into a 314 00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:26,320 Speaker 1: deep belief that the science and technology doesn't come from 315 00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:29,280 Speaker 1: the equations, it comes from how we got the equations. 316 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:36,160 Speaker 1: And no one has been more influential and more poetic 317 00:18:37,200 --> 00:18:41,720 Speaker 1: than Michael Farday. Michael Faraday was born in the slums 318 00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:45,439 Speaker 1: of London to a mostly out of work and sick father, 319 00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,119 Speaker 1: and he went to school for a week before his 320 00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:54,359 Speaker 1: teacher told his big brother to get a switch to 321 00:18:54,440 --> 00:18:58,000 Speaker 1: hit him with because he called his brother Robert instead 322 00:18:58,000 --> 00:19:02,600 Speaker 1: of Robert. And the other went to the mom and said, 323 00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,320 Speaker 1: this is what I'm supposed to do. And the mom 324 00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:07,840 Speaker 1: marched in there and took both kids out of school 325 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:12,760 Speaker 1: and homeschooled four kids. She had two daughters as well, 326 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:16,679 Speaker 1: who weren't allowed to go to school. And she knew 327 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:20,080 Speaker 1: no math. And he never learned math. He had a 328 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:23,080 Speaker 1: terrible math phobia. They had no books. 329 00:19:24,119 --> 00:19:26,320 Speaker 3: One of the greatest physicists of all time, you're telling 330 00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:27,680 Speaker 3: me you had a math phobia. 331 00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:34,680 Speaker 1: Terrible math phobia. He called it hieroglyphics. He never wrote 332 00:19:34,680 --> 00:19:37,560 Speaker 1: an equation. He didn't really understand them. 333 00:19:38,080 --> 00:19:41,040 Speaker 3: He never wrote an equation. How does Faraday do all 334 00:19:41,040 --> 00:19:43,680 Speaker 3: of his physics and leave such an imprint on history 335 00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:45,040 Speaker 3: of physics without writing an equation. 336 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:50,920 Speaker 1: It's amazing. Well, Maxwell actually read Faraday and said this 337 00:19:51,119 --> 00:19:58,320 Speaker 1: is mathematical. It's just not in mathematical terms. So to Maxwell, 338 00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,560 Speaker 1: Faraday was mathematical. It just you know, you can do 339 00:20:02,760 --> 00:20:03,840 Speaker 1: math and language. 340 00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:06,960 Speaker 3: Does that mean that Faraday's papers are in like sentences 341 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:10,399 Speaker 3: rather than in symbols. He's like writing descriptions of what 342 00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:14,159 Speaker 3: he sees and describing relationships, but just not using like 343 00:20:14,280 --> 00:20:16,080 Speaker 3: equals and numbers. 344 00:20:15,680 --> 00:20:19,040 Speaker 1: Right, not using equals and numbers and stuff like that. 345 00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:26,080 Speaker 1: But also Faraday had this amazing knack of seeing sort 346 00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:33,240 Speaker 1: of what lies underneath our world and developing it. He 347 00:20:33,320 --> 00:20:36,960 Speaker 1: was a chemist and a physicist, so he had. 348 00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,200 Speaker 3: No education except for his mom. 349 00:20:39,560 --> 00:20:40,400 Speaker 1: Except for his mom. 350 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:42,080 Speaker 3: Big props to Faraday's mom. 351 00:20:42,320 --> 00:20:45,879 Speaker 1: Big props who he loved. His relationship with his mom 352 00:20:46,040 --> 00:20:49,199 Speaker 1: is so sweet. I'm getting out of myself. He was 353 00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:52,400 Speaker 1: this poor kid. He always hanging out at a bookseller's 354 00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:55,359 Speaker 1: just to look at the books in their window. And 355 00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:59,880 Speaker 1: the bookseller, this guy named Merbau, gave him a job 356 00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:03,200 Speaker 1: as a delivery boy and then gave him a job 357 00:21:03,280 --> 00:21:06,919 Speaker 1: as a bookbinder and let him read the books that 358 00:21:07,040 --> 00:21:09,960 Speaker 1: were in the bookshelf, and there was a book there 359 00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:14,960 Speaker 1: by a woman named Jane Marcette called Conversations in Chemistry. 360 00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:18,879 Speaker 1: There was this guy named Humphrey Davy who was a 361 00:21:19,200 --> 00:21:24,159 Speaker 1: famous chemist, like the world's famous chemist, who was doing 362 00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:29,520 Speaker 1: experiments with this giant battery to separate chemicals and discovered 363 00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:32,960 Speaker 1: a whole bunch of different chemicals. This was eighteen hundred 364 00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:38,760 Speaker 1: about his talks were the most popular thing in England, 365 00:21:38,800 --> 00:21:41,480 Speaker 1: Like they had to make the road one way to 366 00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:45,560 Speaker 1: deal with traffic when he gave a talk. Wow, he 367 00:21:45,720 --> 00:21:50,119 Speaker 1: has letters to his parents and brother about like, you know, 368 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,560 Speaker 1: I'm very excited about this talk. They're reselling my tickets 369 00:21:53,600 --> 00:21:56,480 Speaker 1: at fifty pounds and I'm like, oh my god, that's 370 00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:58,919 Speaker 1: what they pay people for a year of labor at 371 00:21:58,960 --> 00:21:59,359 Speaker 1: the time. 372 00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:01,320 Speaker 2: I mean, like, he's like Taylor Swift. 373 00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,880 Speaker 1: He was the Taylor Swift. Poets would go to him 374 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,560 Speaker 1: for new language and like famous poets cooler Ridge and 375 00:22:11,800 --> 00:22:14,840 Speaker 1: Southby and I don't know very much about poetry, but 376 00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,720 Speaker 1: they would go to him, and he was very, very popular. 377 00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:22,119 Speaker 1: And this woman went to his talk named James Marsette, 378 00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:24,359 Speaker 1: and she's like, I wish I knew some chemistry so 379 00:22:24,400 --> 00:22:27,560 Speaker 1: I could understand this better. So she asked her husband 380 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:30,760 Speaker 1: to help her, and then she wrote this book, Conversations 381 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:33,960 Speaker 1: and Chemistry, and that's how Faraday learned chemistry. 382 00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:37,439 Speaker 2: I didn't realize women were so important in Faraday's education. 383 00:22:37,920 --> 00:22:38,560 Speaker 2: You know what. 384 00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:44,679 Speaker 1: Women keep on coming up throughout everyone's story and what 385 00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,520 Speaker 1: I found so lovely about Faraday. Lots of times when 386 00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,720 Speaker 1: you go through the history of science partially this is 387 00:22:51,720 --> 00:22:58,520 Speaker 1: a different time period, so you find people who would 388 00:22:58,560 --> 00:23:03,160 Speaker 1: affect you know, sex and racism and classism and all 389 00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:09,639 Speaker 1: this stuff, and they disappoint you sometimes and sometimes people 390 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:13,320 Speaker 1: you don't expect turn out to be wonderful. But when 391 00:23:13,359 --> 00:23:15,880 Speaker 1: you read their private letters, you get to know who 392 00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,920 Speaker 1: they are as people at their bad points, at their 393 00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:23,880 Speaker 1: good points. And yes, I judge people. I'm a historian. 394 00:23:24,080 --> 00:23:28,760 Speaker 1: That's how it works. And Faraday, I haven't read everything. 395 00:23:29,359 --> 00:23:33,800 Speaker 1: He could disappoint me, but he was always everything I've read. 396 00:23:34,160 --> 00:23:37,720 Speaker 1: He was kind, and he was supportive, and he was lovely. 397 00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:43,560 Speaker 1: I call him the original slam poet, like slam poets 398 00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:48,200 Speaker 1: do poetry without rhyming. And if you read his talks, 399 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:52,240 Speaker 1: he says stuff like I'm no poet, but if you 400 00:23:52,520 --> 00:23:56,000 Speaker 1: listen carefully, a poem will form in your mind. 401 00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:00,359 Speaker 2: Oh nice, Yeah, that's great. 402 00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:07,440 Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I'm waving myself the vapors. So the vapors. 403 00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:13,360 Speaker 1: He loved physics as much as I love physics. 404 00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:15,480 Speaker 3: And he actually did a bunch of experiments, right, He 405 00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,360 Speaker 3: like played around in the laboratory and made these discoveries himself. Right. 406 00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:24,800 Speaker 1: Yes. His big claim to fame was when he was 407 00:24:24,960 --> 00:24:28,720 Speaker 1: working on trying to make glass for the English government 408 00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:32,480 Speaker 1: for lenses, which he said just gave him nervous headaches. 409 00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:37,000 Speaker 1: So in July fourth, eighteen thirty one, he quit Day 410 00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:41,600 Speaker 1: of Independence for him and I remember that date, of course. 411 00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:47,520 Speaker 1: And then he decided, He's like, okay, electricity can make magnetism. 412 00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,520 Speaker 1: He knew if you had a coil of wire and 413 00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:53,480 Speaker 1: you put electricity in it, it acted like a bar magnet. 414 00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,160 Speaker 1: And if you put it around the iron bar, it 415 00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:58,399 Speaker 1: really acted like a strong bar magnet. 416 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:00,880 Speaker 2: And had he figured that out or somebody else knew 417 00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:01,960 Speaker 2: that and he just knew it. 418 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,320 Speaker 1: Okay, So this guy named Orsted figured out that electricity 419 00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:10,040 Speaker 1: would move a magnet, and okay, Orsteed thought there were 420 00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:14,800 Speaker 1: spiraling currents. One spiraling current was moving the north, one 421 00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:19,120 Speaker 1: was moving the south, all sorts of stuff, and Faraday's like, no, no, no. 422 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,600 Speaker 1: He did an experiment and he found current could move 423 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,920 Speaker 1: magnet in a circle, and the magnet could move a 424 00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:30,439 Speaker 1: curtains in a circle. Okay, and they call that the 425 00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:33,520 Speaker 1: first motor. But like, unless you want a motor to 426 00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:39,399 Speaker 1: stir mercury, it's not very useful, Like, okay, great, But 427 00:25:40,200 --> 00:25:43,359 Speaker 1: what it did was it showed them that this was 428 00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:47,359 Speaker 1: a very strange force. Every other force is a push 429 00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:52,439 Speaker 1: or a pull. This force is like Gandalf's staff. You know, 430 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,560 Speaker 1: they put the staff down and then the force is 431 00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:59,520 Speaker 1: going in circles around it. And this was different than 432 00:25:59,720 --> 00:26:03,119 Speaker 1: how anyone thought of some physics laws at the time. 433 00:26:03,840 --> 00:26:08,520 Speaker 1: And then in eighteen thirty one he found out that 434 00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:13,280 Speaker 1: you could use bagnetism to make electricity because he actually 435 00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,880 Speaker 1: had two coils on an iron ring. He's like, maybe 436 00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:19,399 Speaker 1: the iron bulls moved the electricity from one coil to 437 00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:24,160 Speaker 1: the other. And what happened instead was when he put 438 00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,280 Speaker 1: electricity in one coil, he got a burst of electricity 439 00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,160 Speaker 1: in the other, and we took it away. It got 440 00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:32,800 Speaker 1: a burst of electricity in the other. 441 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:36,280 Speaker 3: Direction and So did he think about this in terms 442 00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,160 Speaker 3: of charges or fluids or fields? What do you think 443 00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,000 Speaker 3: was going on in Faraday's head? How did he understand this? 444 00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:46,440 Speaker 1: He understood it in terms of fields, because he was 445 00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,880 Speaker 1: the one to come up with the ideal fields. 446 00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:51,159 Speaker 3: Because when I always taught the history of physics, usually 447 00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:53,840 Speaker 3: Maxwell's given the credit for that. Maxwell's the one who 448 00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:56,600 Speaker 3: thinks about things in terms of fields for the first time. 449 00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:57,880 Speaker 3: But you're saying it's Faraday. 450 00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:02,359 Speaker 1: It's one hundred percent Faraday. And Maxwell even wrote his 451 00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:06,960 Speaker 1: first paper called on Faraday's Lines of Force. In Maxwell's 452 00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:10,440 Speaker 1: famous eighteen sixty four paper, where he describes how light 453 00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:14,720 Speaker 1: is an electromagnetic wave, he says, this is exactly like 454 00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:22,520 Speaker 1: Faraday said in eighteen forty six. This is insane in principle. 455 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:25,679 Speaker 1: In his book he says, the purpose of everything I 456 00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:30,960 Speaker 1: did was to get you to appreciate and understand Faraday's work. 457 00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,240 Speaker 3: Like you were saying before, he's like translating and popularizing, right, 458 00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:36,399 Speaker 3: But I want to ask you to tell us the 459 00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,360 Speaker 3: story about Faraday and Wheatstone at the Royal Society, which 460 00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:43,119 Speaker 3: seemed like a sort of turning point in the history 461 00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:43,920 Speaker 3: of physics. 462 00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,520 Speaker 1: Oh, this is great. This is great. So Faraday had 463 00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,000 Speaker 1: created the idea of magnetic field, he created the idea 464 00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:55,560 Speaker 1: of electric field. He found out that a magnetic field 465 00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,760 Speaker 1: could change the polarization of light, so he found a 466 00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:03,120 Speaker 1: connection between a Lie Tristy magnetism and light. He found 467 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,920 Speaker 1: that everything had a magnetic effect. He coined the term 468 00:28:07,080 --> 00:28:10,360 Speaker 1: magnetic field. Fara Day did all this, This is all 469 00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:13,600 Speaker 1: fair Day, Okay, all fair Day, and created the idea 470 00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,760 Speaker 1: of electric fields and dielectrics and every other term use 471 00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:21,719 Speaker 1: in chemistry like cathode, anode, electrode. All came from Fariday. 472 00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:26,240 Speaker 3: Wowdy did everything, basically, he did everything. I'm sure he 473 00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:27,159 Speaker 3: made his mom proud. 474 00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:30,639 Speaker 1: He wrote his wife a letter that said, please stop 475 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,440 Speaker 1: talking to my mom about what I'm doing, because I'm 476 00:28:33,560 --> 00:28:37,240 Speaker 1: getting sick of her growing too much, Like we don't 477 00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:37,920 Speaker 1: need anymore. 478 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:41,720 Speaker 2: That's nice though, It's nice that his mom gets to 479 00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:43,680 Speaker 2: be proud after doing all of that hard work to 480 00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:44,280 Speaker 2: train him. 481 00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:46,400 Speaker 1: They were so adorable with each other. 482 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,120 Speaker 3: It's crazy, all right. So fair Day figures this all out, 483 00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:50,680 Speaker 3: and then he's at the Royal Society. 484 00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:54,000 Speaker 1: He's at the Royal Society. This is eighteen forty six 485 00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:57,760 Speaker 1: May of eighteen forty six, and he's supposed to introduce 486 00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,720 Speaker 1: a talk by a guy named Charles Whetstone. 487 00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:00,440 Speaker 3: Mm hmm. 488 00:29:01,080 --> 00:29:05,600 Speaker 1: And Wheatstone had a well known fear of public speaking, 489 00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,880 Speaker 1: so he was supposed to go in and he just bailed. 490 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,400 Speaker 1: He walks out the back door right before this week stuff. 491 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,880 Speaker 1: I'd been told that they now lock the back door 492 00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:19,160 Speaker 1: at the Royal Society because they still have talks there, 493 00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,120 Speaker 1: and I no, you should make it extra easy to 494 00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,760 Speaker 1: run out the back door, because look at all the 495 00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:30,600 Speaker 1: great things that happened because of this. But anyway, he bails. Now. 496 00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:36,040 Speaker 1: Faraday was the most organized person you've ever encountered in history. 497 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:39,920 Speaker 1: I put my money down on that. Like he put 498 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,440 Speaker 1: a number next to every paragraph in his lab notebook, 499 00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:49,680 Speaker 1: and he worked for I think thirty or so years. Wow, 500 00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:52,920 Speaker 1: and from number one to number like, I don't know, 501 00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,520 Speaker 1: twenty thousand or something like, wow. 502 00:29:56,880 --> 00:29:58,680 Speaker 2: Why what would you do with that information? 503 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,840 Speaker 1: So he could refer to pass paragraphs. 504 00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,960 Speaker 3: As I said, in paragraphs forty two right right right. 505 00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,160 Speaker 1: Right right right exactly. And that's what he'd do with 506 00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,480 Speaker 1: his papers too. All his papers and electricity were numbered, 507 00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:14,880 Speaker 1: and then he would refer to like five different ones, 508 00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:18,440 Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is hard for me to follow. 509 00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:20,600 Speaker 3: I love that you've gone back and read all the 510 00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,960 Speaker 3: original papers. That's awesome anyway. So he's at the Royal Society. 511 00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:25,560 Speaker 3: Wheatstone walks out the back door. 512 00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:29,520 Speaker 1: He's supposed to give an introduction, but now he has 513 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,560 Speaker 1: talked for an hour. And he never was unprepared. He 514 00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:36,640 Speaker 1: studied how to talk. He was always very very well prepared. 515 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:37,480 Speaker 1: But he wasn't. 516 00:30:38,040 --> 00:30:38,840 Speaker 3: Yeah, so he. 517 00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,360 Speaker 1: Starts talking about the vague reflections of my mind. I 518 00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,000 Speaker 1: think he called it something like that, and he said, Okay, 519 00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:50,160 Speaker 1: imagine you have a magnet and another magnet combined with 520 00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,160 Speaker 1: their lines of magnetic force, or you have an electric 521 00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,200 Speaker 1: thing an electric thing, and they're combined by their lines 522 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:02,520 Speaker 1: of electric force. You vibrate one it's going to make 523 00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:07,840 Speaker 1: a vibration in those lines of force, and then vibrate 524 00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:08,440 Speaker 1: the other one. 525 00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:09,200 Speaker 3: Mm hmm. 526 00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:16,080 Speaker 1: He said, maybe, just maybe that's what light is. He said, 527 00:31:16,120 --> 00:31:19,480 Speaker 1: I'm trying to keep the vibrations and remove the ether. 528 00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,400 Speaker 3: Wow. So far Day magnetism. Fair Day has the idea 529 00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,960 Speaker 3: of fields. Faraday figured out dipoles and dielectrics. Fair Day 530 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:28,959 Speaker 3: even came up with the idea that light is a 531 00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,240 Speaker 3: vibration of electromagnetic fields. 532 00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:32,520 Speaker 1: Yes. Wow. 533 00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:35,719 Speaker 3: And he only revealed it because he gave an impromptu 534 00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,160 Speaker 3: talk at the Royal Society because wheat Stone ran out 535 00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:38,640 Speaker 3: the back. 536 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,880 Speaker 1: Door exactly, and then afterwards they asked him to write 537 00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:46,240 Speaker 1: it up. It's like a three page paper. Wow, it's 538 00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,840 Speaker 1: thoughts on ray vibrations. It's very short, and a good 539 00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,560 Speaker 1: half of it is I might be wrong. Don't take 540 00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:59,600 Speaker 1: it different. Don't be upset with me. I'm just speaking 541 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:03,400 Speaker 1: out of my behind. Basically, I have to fill up 542 00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,880 Speaker 1: the time. Don't be mad at me. Well. The weird 543 00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:11,560 Speaker 1: thing is in eighteen thirty seven when Faraday built the 544 00:32:11,560 --> 00:32:16,600 Speaker 1: Faraday Cage, which protected him from electric fields, and came 545 00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:21,080 Speaker 1: up with the idea that non metals affect the electric field, 546 00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:24,560 Speaker 1: and came up with the idea of an electric field. 547 00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:30,800 Speaker 1: This made everyone mad. Everyone hated it. Well two reasons. 548 00:32:31,280 --> 00:32:36,920 Speaker 1: One is because he thought of so imagine two magnets 549 00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:41,520 Speaker 1: and you're pushing the two norths together. You can imagine 550 00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:46,200 Speaker 1: the magnetic field lines around them getting more and more compressed, 551 00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:50,760 Speaker 1: and that's why they're repelling each other. And that's how 552 00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:54,640 Speaker 1: we think of it, right, I mean, as physicists, or 553 00:32:54,680 --> 00:32:58,080 Speaker 1: we can think of it that way as physicists. Well, 554 00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,760 Speaker 1: they didn't think of it that back then. They didn't 555 00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:05,400 Speaker 1: think of it as compressing curved lines of force. They 556 00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:10,920 Speaker 1: thought of it as repelling force and attraction force. And 557 00:33:11,040 --> 00:33:17,440 Speaker 1: so to think of electric repulsion and attraction as combining 558 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:22,240 Speaker 1: and compressing these lines of force seemed just ludicrous to 559 00:33:22,320 --> 00:33:27,959 Speaker 1: them and seemed oppositional to the mathematical science that they 560 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:32,040 Speaker 1: had at the time. So there was lots of letters 561 00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:36,320 Speaker 1: of like, I really respect you, mister Faraday, Professor Faraday, whatever, 562 00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,680 Speaker 1: and let me tell you the twelve reasons why you're wrong. 563 00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,480 Speaker 1: My favorite was someone wrote in about all the reasons 564 00:33:44,520 --> 00:33:47,680 Speaker 1: he thought he was wrong, and he numbered the paragraph. 565 00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:52,240 Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, he's speaking Faraday's lately. 566 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:55,360 Speaker 1: You're like, this is showing my love for you. I 567 00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:59,120 Speaker 1: follow you. I just don't believe this. And the other 568 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:04,680 Speaker 1: part is that Faraday thought that dielectrics non conductors propelled 569 00:34:04,720 --> 00:34:09,240 Speaker 1: the electric feel for it instead of reduce the electric field. 570 00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,680 Speaker 3: All right, So draw dotted line for us between Faraday 571 00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:14,960 Speaker 3: and Maxwell? Was Maxwell in the audience that day at 572 00:34:14,960 --> 00:34:18,640 Speaker 3: the Royal Society? Did he read Faraday's papers? How does 573 00:34:18,760 --> 00:34:22,399 Speaker 3: Maxwell then get credit for pulling together all of these 574 00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:25,120 Speaker 3: ideas into what we now call Maxwell's equations. 575 00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:27,760 Speaker 2: I think that's a great topic for us to tackle 576 00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:46,799 Speaker 2: after the break. All right, and we're back and. 577 00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:50,240 Speaker 3: We're talking to Kathy Joseph, famous YouTuber of Kathy Love's 578 00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:52,920 Speaker 3: Physics fame, who's telling us all about the history of 579 00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:56,640 Speaker 3: Maxwell's equations. So when we broke off, Faraday hit revealed 580 00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,480 Speaker 3: all the big insights about how electromagntism works. And you're 581 00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:02,000 Speaker 3: going to tell us about how Maxwell pulled this all 582 00:35:02,040 --> 00:35:05,000 Speaker 3: together and somehow won the pr battle for history. 583 00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:11,480 Speaker 1: He deserves it because Faraday had all these ideas and 584 00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:16,279 Speaker 1: their amazing ideas, but in order to use it to 585 00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:22,400 Speaker 1: predict other things, we need the math, and Maxwell added 586 00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:27,760 Speaker 1: that secret sauce the math. And also because of Maxwell, 587 00:35:27,800 --> 00:35:31,480 Speaker 1: we have vector mathematics. But anyway, let me start with 588 00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:35,040 Speaker 1: what Maxwell start. He didn't go to these meetings. He 589 00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:40,000 Speaker 1: had never done electricity experiments before. And what happened was, 590 00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:43,120 Speaker 1: as a young man, he was probably twenty one or 591 00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,840 Speaker 1: twenty two years old, he wrote a letter to a mentor, 592 00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,640 Speaker 1: and Maxwell had a funny way of putting things. He 593 00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,720 Speaker 1: was allowed to study his own things. So he said, 594 00:35:53,800 --> 00:36:00,439 Speaker 1: I'm entering the unholy state of bachelorhood, and I want 595 00:36:00,520 --> 00:36:04,399 Speaker 1: to attack electricity. What should I do? Should I read 596 00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,759 Speaker 1: Faraday or should I read and Pierre and Ploaissau and 597 00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:12,319 Speaker 1: all these other people who are much more mathematical. And 598 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:15,400 Speaker 1: Pierre and Faraday, by the way, were good pen pals. 599 00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:17,480 Speaker 1: They met each other once, but they were good friends 600 00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:21,320 Speaker 1: with each other even when they disagreed. And the person 601 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:24,400 Speaker 1: he wrote to, a guy named William Thompson, who eventually 602 00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:31,239 Speaker 1: became Lord Kelvin, like the temperature had actually inspired Faraday 603 00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:34,759 Speaker 1: to do some experiments and was, as he put it, 604 00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:39,520 Speaker 1: full of Faraday fire. And he told Maxwell to start 605 00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,759 Speaker 1: with Faraday. Faraday is the greatest. He was as big 606 00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:46,160 Speaker 1: a Faraday fan as I am, I think. And Maxwell 607 00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,439 Speaker 1: was like, well, aren't they in conflict with the other 608 00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:53,719 Speaker 1: physicists and this guy Thompson. And He's like, no, no, 609 00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,759 Speaker 1: they work well together. You just have to see it, right. 610 00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:03,400 Speaker 1: He writes it many times, like, Sir William Thompson inspired 611 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:08,160 Speaker 1: me to do this, to see how Fairaday's view of 612 00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:14,440 Speaker 1: reality worked with all these equations, with these other views 613 00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:16,560 Speaker 1: of reality and messed together. 614 00:37:16,960 --> 00:37:19,200 Speaker 2: It's amazing to me how often science is actually a 615 00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,719 Speaker 2: community effort and it's easy to teach as though it's 616 00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:24,279 Speaker 2: one name, because that's easier to remember, and you don't 617 00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:26,800 Speaker 2: want people have to remember feig names for every concept. 618 00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:29,320 Speaker 2: But it truly seems like it is a community effort. 619 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,560 Speaker 2: Somebody puts you on a certain path, they help you 620 00:37:31,640 --> 00:37:35,160 Speaker 2: understand it, they encourage you to keep doing it, and sorry, anyway, 621 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:35,520 Speaker 2: go ahead. 622 00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:38,600 Speaker 1: No, it's always such a tangled weave. That's what makes 623 00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,239 Speaker 1: it beautiful to me. It's not like this person did 624 00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,719 Speaker 1: this thing on this date and then that's boring too. 625 00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:49,600 Speaker 1: It's much more exciting all these people interacting with each other. 626 00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:54,440 Speaker 1: And what inspires people. I mean, we teach physics without 627 00:37:54,480 --> 00:38:00,200 Speaker 1: knowing how anyone is inspired. And in my mind it's like, now, oh, 628 00:38:00,200 --> 00:38:03,359 Speaker 1: I know a hundred stories about how different people were 629 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,200 Speaker 1: inspired in different ways. It's not to be repetitive inspiring. 630 00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:11,600 Speaker 3: So what's Maxwell's reaction to reading Faraday? Maxwell sort of 631 00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:14,080 Speaker 3: a mathematical person and fair Day's more of a poet 632 00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,920 Speaker 3: of physics. Does Maxwell like what he reads? Is it 633 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:18,759 Speaker 3: makes sense to him? Is he struggle with it? 634 00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:25,360 Speaker 1: He's immediately enthralled, He loves it. He writes this paper 635 00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,600 Speaker 1: called on Faraday's Lines of Force. I'm a mathematical person. 636 00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:33,839 Speaker 1: I don't have trouble with advanced math. It's just one 637 00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,360 Speaker 1: of my skills. And I gotta tell you Maxwell is 638 00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:42,880 Speaker 1: hard to read for weird, weird reasons. Maxwell, it's not 639 00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:46,640 Speaker 1: all mathematical. It's mostly words and with a little bit 640 00:38:46,680 --> 00:38:51,840 Speaker 1: of math, but the math is confusingly written. And Maxwell 641 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:57,360 Speaker 1: makes ridiculous amounts of mathematical mistakes. The first one I 642 00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,600 Speaker 1: saw it, I'm like, I must be wrong. This is 643 00:38:59,680 --> 00:39:03,239 Speaker 1: Max Well, and then I realized, no, every paper is 644 00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:06,840 Speaker 1: eighty pages long and has eighty mistakes in it. 645 00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,040 Speaker 2: Like, oh no, it's good to know you can be 646 00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,320 Speaker 2: famous and make tons of mistakes. 647 00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:17,560 Speaker 1: And it's actually inspiring. But yeah, Maxwell had this amazing 648 00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:22,440 Speaker 1: mind to take these crazy ideas from Faraday which no 649 00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,000 Speaker 1: one had thought of things this way, and put it 650 00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:30,840 Speaker 1: in math terms. And I have nothing but the utmost 651 00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:35,719 Speaker 1: respect and love for Maxwell at also reading him can 652 00:39:35,719 --> 00:39:37,799 Speaker 1: give you a stomach ache. 653 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:39,799 Speaker 2: So you said he made a lot of mistakes when 654 00:39:39,840 --> 00:39:42,120 Speaker 2: he's being pointed out at the time, or did somebody 655 00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,600 Speaker 2: eventually come through and smooth everything for him? 656 00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:47,600 Speaker 1: So first he published this on Faaraday's Lines of Force, 657 00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,719 Speaker 1: and I have to tell you this thing. He sent 658 00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:54,359 Speaker 1: it to Faraday and then he had a meeting with 659 00:39:54,400 --> 00:39:57,600 Speaker 1: Faraday where he explained it in simple terms, I mean, 660 00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:01,040 Speaker 1: like wish that he had someone recording that. And Faraday 661 00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,280 Speaker 1: said he did a really good job. He wrote Maxwell 662 00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:08,280 Speaker 1: and he said, I really think every mathematical scientist should 663 00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,279 Speaker 1: do what you did. But of course Maxwell didn't do 664 00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,440 Speaker 1: it on paper. He only did it perfectly with Faraday. 665 00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,440 Speaker 1: But you know, you come up with your ideas, you 666 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:23,480 Speaker 1: still have to explain it to others. And Veraday made 667 00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:29,919 Speaker 1: an impassioned plea that every mathematical scientist should put their 668 00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:34,680 Speaker 1: ideas out there so that other people can decipher the 669 00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,920 Speaker 1: hieroglyphics and do experiments on it, use it to develop it. 670 00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,799 Speaker 1: So he did that before Faraday died, and I'm still 671 00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,719 Speaker 1: sad about that, even though he died as an older man. 672 00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,200 Speaker 1: And then Maxwell, who was thirty years younger than Faraday, 673 00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:55,399 Speaker 1: I think he read this article that people had done 674 00:40:55,440 --> 00:41:01,040 Speaker 1: this experiment with an electric and magnetic component it that 675 00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:06,200 Speaker 1: was equal to the speed of light, and he was like, oh, 676 00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:09,560 Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to on Faraday's lines of force, 677 00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,200 Speaker 1: and this time he called it on physical lines of 678 00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:17,880 Speaker 1: force and write up the equations up to getting to 679 00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:23,040 Speaker 1: an electromagnetic wave going at the speed of light in 680 00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:28,839 Speaker 1: that material. And then he realized that that paper was 681 00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:34,520 Speaker 1: full of mistakes and confusions and weird negative signs and 682 00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,040 Speaker 1: and he didn't develop the electromagnetic wave very well. So 683 00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,719 Speaker 1: he wrote another paper in eighteen sixty four, and this 684 00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,239 Speaker 1: is his most famous paper, but that still had mistakes 685 00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:44,440 Speaker 1: in it. 686 00:41:44,960 --> 00:41:46,839 Speaker 2: Check your math, guys, check your math. 687 00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,760 Speaker 3: Where there are your number two here? Like seriously, somebody 688 00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:51,120 Speaker 3: fixing this stuff up? 689 00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,279 Speaker 1: Well, no one could have reviewed this thing. I say 690 00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,480 Speaker 1: it's a paper, but it was really three or four papers, 691 00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,959 Speaker 1: Part one, Part two, Part three, Part one, Pit two four, 692 00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:04,640 Speaker 1: and each one is like twenty pages thirty pages long, 693 00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:10,279 Speaker 1: a really complicated math where Maxwell did weird things like 694 00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:13,800 Speaker 1: if he had three directions for a field like electric field, 695 00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,440 Speaker 1: he wouldn't call it e X, E Y, e Z, 696 00:42:17,120 --> 00:42:19,240 Speaker 1: He'd call it alpha, beta, gamma. 697 00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,919 Speaker 3: So they're all just independent variables, wow, just. 698 00:42:21,880 --> 00:42:24,799 Speaker 1: All independent variables. And sometimes he'd only include one of 699 00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:29,000 Speaker 1: those variables with the idea that we would know he 700 00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:30,879 Speaker 1: met all three. 701 00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:35,040 Speaker 3: So when I'm teaching electromagnetism. I give them these beautiful 702 00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:39,239 Speaker 3: short equations that are symmetric th electricity and magnetism, and 703 00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:42,719 Speaker 3: we call them Maxwell's equations. But Maxwell doesn't sound like 704 00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,560 Speaker 3: he wrote them down in that way. So how do 705 00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,160 Speaker 3: we get from Maxwell's like individual components and four pies 706 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,160 Speaker 3: and sign mistakes to the equations that we all know 707 00:42:52,280 --> 00:42:53,000 Speaker 3: and love today. 708 00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:58,080 Speaker 1: Well, he sort of did. If you pick and choose 709 00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:04,279 Speaker 1: from his three and his book, you can get Maxwell's 710 00:43:04,280 --> 00:43:09,080 Speaker 1: equations aside from a straight four pie, Maxwell didn't like 711 00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,680 Speaker 1: four pie in the electric field for a charge, so 712 00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:16,120 Speaker 1: he added four pies everywhere else, and he changed where 713 00:43:16,160 --> 00:43:17,320 Speaker 1: he put these four pies. 714 00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,879 Speaker 3: Sounds like a theorist, you know, Yeah, No, I mean I. 715 00:43:21,920 --> 00:43:25,680 Speaker 1: Love Maxwell and also just like ah. But anyway, so 716 00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:29,719 Speaker 1: when he published these things, people tried to understand it. 717 00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:33,360 Speaker 1: There was various people because everyone knew Maxwell was brilliant, 718 00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:35,760 Speaker 1: and they knew Fariday was brilliant, and they were trying 719 00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:38,360 Speaker 1: to get it. So a lot of people wrote a 720 00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:42,360 Speaker 1: paper or two about this, But the person who really 721 00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:47,239 Speaker 1: dived into it was a guy named Oliver Heaviside who 722 00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:52,160 Speaker 1: was working for his uncle named Charles Wheatstone the same 723 00:43:52,200 --> 00:43:53,720 Speaker 1: guy chick it out on the talk. 724 00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:56,160 Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, small community. 725 00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:02,880 Speaker 1: I gotta say Victorian English Science Society small anyway, Oliver 726 00:44:03,000 --> 00:44:05,440 Speaker 1: Heaviside was working for his uncle. He had a high 727 00:44:05,480 --> 00:44:09,600 Speaker 1: school education. He sees Maxwell's book because Maxwell wrote a 728 00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:14,440 Speaker 1: five hundred page book and the library. He's like, Okay, 729 00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:16,640 Speaker 1: this is the most brilliant thing I've ever seen. I'm 730 00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:18,960 Speaker 1: going to quit my job. I'm going to teach myself math. 731 00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:22,040 Speaker 1: I'm going to teach myself physics. I'm going to teach myself. 732 00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,919 Speaker 1: I mean, he knew about basic physics for his engineering job, 733 00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:31,000 Speaker 1: but advanced physics. I'm going to teach myself, advanced mathematics 734 00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:34,000 Speaker 1: like quaternions. I'm going to teach myself all of this 735 00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,440 Speaker 1: so I can figure it out. But like nine years 736 00:44:38,440 --> 00:44:43,799 Speaker 1: in his parents' attic with the middle of the night, 737 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,239 Speaker 1: he only liked to work in the middle of night, 738 00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,960 Speaker 1: supposedly all night, every night. And then he starts publishing 739 00:44:50,200 --> 00:44:55,279 Speaker 1: an engineering magazine, and he publishes paper after paper after 740 00:44:55,280 --> 00:44:59,600 Speaker 1: paper after paper after paper. And what made Oliver Heaviside 741 00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:05,480 Speaker 1: easier was just simple things like Maxwell either used three 742 00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:09,840 Speaker 1: letters or he used these weird swirly German letters that 743 00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:13,560 Speaker 1: are really hard to distinguish an E from an F. 744 00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,200 Speaker 1: And it's like you look at these equations and you're like, wait, 745 00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:21,600 Speaker 1: what is this equation saying? It looks like it's saying 746 00:45:22,000 --> 00:45:27,480 Speaker 1: E E E over, Like what does this say? And 747 00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:31,920 Speaker 1: Oliver Heaviside did stuff like using capital letters in Roman 748 00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:36,480 Speaker 1: letters and making them bold so you can read his stuff. 749 00:45:36,600 --> 00:45:40,400 Speaker 1: It's a lot easier to read Oliver Heavicide, and he 750 00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:45,440 Speaker 1: did other things. Maxwell had this idea of potentials, and 751 00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:52,399 Speaker 1: Hevicide hated the potentials, he called them evil. But by 752 00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,760 Speaker 1: trying to get rid of it, he got very close 753 00:45:55,840 --> 00:46:00,040 Speaker 1: to getting Maxwell's equations. That's the simplest way to put it. 754 00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:02,600 Speaker 1: I gave a whole talk at uc R Vinen with 755 00:46:02,680 --> 00:46:06,480 Speaker 1: all the details about it, but like the short version 756 00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:10,320 Speaker 1: of it is, he got clothes, and then after spending 757 00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:13,240 Speaker 1: all that time studying it, all that time writing papers, 758 00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:19,200 Speaker 1: he gets the owner of the magazine, the electrician quit 759 00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:24,120 Speaker 1: and the new owner asked everyone. He said, I asked 760 00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:27,720 Speaker 1: everyone who could possibly have wanted to read your paper, 761 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,560 Speaker 1: and I couldn't find a single person who read any 762 00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:37,880 Speaker 1: of your papers, Wicked Burn. I'm just imagining how Heaviside 763 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:41,920 Speaker 1: must have felt he quit his job, spent ten years 764 00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,560 Speaker 1: on this without knowing if it's going to be any good. 765 00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:50,720 Speaker 1: He had publications and a couple of major publications, because 766 00:46:50,800 --> 00:46:52,680 Speaker 1: it was much easier at that time to do that 767 00:46:53,600 --> 00:46:57,560 Speaker 1: even if you weren't in academia. But he was told 768 00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:02,120 Speaker 1: that no one was interested. Right, and then like months 769 00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:06,680 Speaker 1: later it must have seemed like, oh, he hears the 770 00:47:06,719 --> 00:47:11,360 Speaker 1: greatest news ever. Out of Germany, a guy named Heinrich 771 00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:15,239 Speaker 1: Hertz had done an experiment. He used something called a 772 00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:19,320 Speaker 1: rum Korf coil with these long sticks on it antenna, 773 00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:25,239 Speaker 1: and he made a vibrating electric system. The vibrated slower 774 00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,440 Speaker 1: than visible light. He had it emerged from one place 775 00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:32,520 Speaker 1: and he received it in another place, and he found 776 00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:36,520 Speaker 1: it moved at the speed of light. He discovered radio waves. 777 00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,640 Speaker 1: And he said, the reason I did this was to 778 00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:48,439 Speaker 1: validate the Maxwell Faraday equations. And in fact, his old 779 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:53,239 Speaker 1: boss had challenged him there was a contest you could 780 00:47:53,239 --> 00:47:56,080 Speaker 1: get a hundred floor in or one hundred gold whatever 781 00:47:56,719 --> 00:48:04,400 Speaker 1: if you could experimentally validate Maxwell's equations, and Hurtz said, 782 00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:09,120 Speaker 1: this is too hard, I can't do it. And then 783 00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,839 Speaker 1: years later when he did it. He sent it to 784 00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:16,879 Speaker 1: his boss, Hemholtz, and he said, I'm sorry to bother you, 785 00:48:16,920 --> 00:48:22,280 Speaker 1: but this is something you asked about years before. And 786 00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:26,239 Speaker 1: he wrote back a postcard it just said Bravo, will 787 00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:33,920 Speaker 1: publish it Wednesday. And the whole world went, oh my god, 788 00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,319 Speaker 1: Maxwell's laws. We have to figure out Maxwell. So they 789 00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:40,080 Speaker 1: picked up Maxwell's book and they said, oh my god, 790 00:48:40,200 --> 00:48:45,320 Speaker 1: we have to find someone to figure out maxwells not us, 791 00:48:46,920 --> 00:48:51,080 Speaker 1: and so Oliver Heaviside got a lot more popular because 792 00:48:51,640 --> 00:48:55,480 Speaker 1: of that. Also, Hertz wrote one paper before his early 793 00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:59,520 Speaker 1: death on the theory of Maxwell's equations, and one of 794 00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:03,560 Speaker 1: the says of that was that he said in it, 795 00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:07,640 Speaker 1: I think that Oliver Heaviside is working on a similar thing. 796 00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,839 Speaker 1: So people started to read Heaviside as well. But if 797 00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,279 Speaker 1: you look at like early Einstein papers, he calls the 798 00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:20,880 Speaker 1: Maxwell Hurts equations. Like you said, these equations have so 799 00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,400 Speaker 1: many names on them, so many names that can go 800 00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:27,560 Speaker 1: to them. Honestly, if you're going to give two names, 801 00:49:27,760 --> 00:49:31,680 Speaker 1: I think it should be Faraday Maxwell or Maxwell Faraday. 802 00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:33,480 Speaker 3: Just cutting heavy side out, huh. 803 00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:37,600 Speaker 1: I think he was incredibly influential. There's some people who 804 00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:42,759 Speaker 1: have been very disappointed in and their influence, but not heavicide. 805 00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:47,800 Speaker 1: What he managed to accomplish is astonishing. But he made 806 00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,040 Speaker 1: the equations more readable, and if you can't make them 807 00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:56,839 Speaker 1: more readable, you can't use them. But he didn't come 808 00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:00,719 Speaker 1: up with the original idea or the original equations, or 809 00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:02,280 Speaker 1: make the final formation. 810 00:50:02,719 --> 00:50:05,000 Speaker 3: But physics takes a community, right, It's not just a 811 00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:08,120 Speaker 3: couple of people. Everybody plays their role. It's amazing how 812 00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:09,600 Speaker 3: many people had to be in the right place at 813 00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,359 Speaker 3: the right time and be supported by or ditched by 814 00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,239 Speaker 3: Charles Wheatstone in order for all this history to come 815 00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:16,439 Speaker 3: together the way that it did. 816 00:50:17,680 --> 00:50:20,840 Speaker 1: Or Faraday almost didn't get a job in science. It 817 00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:24,879 Speaker 1: was just that Humphrey Davey had an assistant who got 818 00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,400 Speaker 1: in a fight with a bottle washer who got in 819 00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:31,000 Speaker 1: a fight with a delivery boy, and after the bottles 820 00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:34,600 Speaker 1: got broken, Davy said, okay, Faraday, you can work for me. 821 00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:40,400 Speaker 1: And so if there hadn't been that one altercation, I 822 00:50:40,520 --> 00:50:44,680 Speaker 1: do not see how Faraday could have gotten a job 823 00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:47,879 Speaker 1: in science. By then, he was working as a bookbinder, 824 00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,600 Speaker 1: and he couldn't take days off, and he had no 825 00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:56,520 Speaker 1: connections at all except the one person who knew him 826 00:50:56,640 --> 00:51:00,759 Speaker 1: was Davy just a tiny bit, as he'd asked him 827 00:51:00,760 --> 00:51:02,960 Speaker 1: for a job, and he'd showed him a book he'd written, 828 00:51:03,400 --> 00:51:05,520 Speaker 1: and David's like, well, that's great, but I don't have 829 00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:10,080 Speaker 1: an opening. So if that one fight hadn't happened, I 830 00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:13,040 Speaker 1: don't see how Faraday would have gotten his job. I 831 00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,600 Speaker 1: don't see how anyone else would have come up with 832 00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,760 Speaker 1: the idea of electric fields. And if they hadn't come 833 00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,879 Speaker 1: up with it later, it would have been too late 834 00:51:21,920 --> 00:51:25,279 Speaker 1: for Maxwell. So would we have radio? Would we have 835 00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:30,440 Speaker 1: equals MC squared? Would we have relativity? I mean, Faraday 836 00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:35,600 Speaker 1: inspired the creation of the generator. Would we have generators? Probably, 837 00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:38,440 Speaker 1: but it would have been later. I mean, I don't 838 00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,279 Speaker 1: know where our life would have been if those two 839 00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:43,280 Speaker 1: young boys hadn't gotten a fight. 840 00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,200 Speaker 3: And you know, while the physics itself is mostly established, 841 00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:51,480 Speaker 3: like classical electromagnetism, it's fascinating to me that the history 842 00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:54,399 Speaker 3: of it is still being written and being rewritten and 843 00:51:54,440 --> 00:51:57,600 Speaker 3: being revised. That part is still very alive. Do you 844 00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,759 Speaker 3: think the story of Maxwell's equations is to change over 845 00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:02,919 Speaker 3: the next one hundred years, or we're going to start 846 00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:05,600 Speaker 3: telling more the story of Heavyside or more the story 847 00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:07,239 Speaker 3: of fair Day or do you think that's sort of 848 00:52:07,280 --> 00:52:09,920 Speaker 3: like become set in stone in our culture. 849 00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,720 Speaker 1: I think we have separated the history from the science. 850 00:52:14,880 --> 00:52:17,520 Speaker 1: I think that most of the people who talk about 851 00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,680 Speaker 1: the history do not know the science. I mean, maybe 852 00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:24,000 Speaker 1: they took a couple classes, and I'm just saying most. 853 00:52:25,080 --> 00:52:29,520 Speaker 1: But when you teach the history to make an interesting 854 00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:36,400 Speaker 1: story more than to teach the science, you miss out 855 00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,680 Speaker 1: on the purpose of these people's lives. And when you 856 00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:45,160 Speaker 1: teach the science without having any of the history, you 857 00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:49,480 Speaker 1: miss out on what this stuff means and where we 858 00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:52,040 Speaker 1: can go with it. And I did that. I mean 859 00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:55,680 Speaker 1: I taught for many many years without the history because 860 00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,239 Speaker 1: I didn't know it and I didn't know it was important. 861 00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:05,160 Speaker 1: My hope is that I can show by example that 862 00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:08,799 Speaker 1: this is not a little side project of like, oh, 863 00:53:08,880 --> 00:53:11,160 Speaker 1: if we have an extra five minutes, maybe I'll tell 864 00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:13,120 Speaker 1: you a little bit about the history. But don't worry. 865 00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:14,560 Speaker 1: It's not on the quiz, it's not on the test. 866 00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:18,960 Speaker 1: You don't have to pay any attention to be something 867 00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:23,319 Speaker 1: like this is where our ideas came from. Yeah, and 868 00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:28,600 Speaker 1: for me, that is a never ending source of inspiration 869 00:53:29,239 --> 00:53:33,600 Speaker 1: and development because the more you learn, the more other 870 00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:37,080 Speaker 1: people can learn from it, the more it can grow 871 00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:41,680 Speaker 1: and develop. So I'm hoping that it's not stationary at all, 872 00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:48,040 Speaker 1: that it is growing and developing and expanding. 873 00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:51,480 Speaker 3: And it's worth digging into the history because there's lots 874 00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:54,040 Speaker 3: of paths there that were dropped and not explored, and 875 00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,520 Speaker 3: some of which could still be fruitful. You know, I 876 00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,640 Speaker 3: read papers recently about the ether idea, which is coming 877 00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:02,319 Speaker 3: back into fashion. So you never know what ideas are 878 00:54:02,360 --> 00:54:04,600 Speaker 3: going to be tossed aside and then resuscitated. So yeah, 879 00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:06,440 Speaker 3: knowing the history is absolutely crucial. 880 00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:10,440 Speaker 1: There was also a scientist and now his name is 881 00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,200 Speaker 1: escaping me, and in the early nineteen hundreds he decided 882 00:54:14,239 --> 00:54:18,520 Speaker 1: to redo Faraday's last experiment, which did not work with 883 00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:21,400 Speaker 1: modern equipment, and I used modern equipment because you know 884 00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,320 Speaker 1: forty years later, right, and then he won the Nobel 885 00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:26,239 Speaker 1: Prize for that work. 886 00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:29,160 Speaker 2: WHOA. 887 00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:31,880 Speaker 1: And I'm not making this up, he said in his 888 00:54:32,000 --> 00:54:35,840 Speaker 1: Nobel Price speech. I went to Faraday's work and I 889 00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:39,279 Speaker 1: thought this is an interesting experiment, not because I had 890 00:54:39,320 --> 00:54:41,960 Speaker 1: anything negative to say about Faraday, just we had new 891 00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,400 Speaker 1: equipment and I thought I would redo it. So yeah, 892 00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:50,560 Speaker 1: there's gold in them Hills, and that feels like a 893 00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:51,759 Speaker 1: perfect note to end on. 894 00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:54,320 Speaker 2: That's a good reason to look back to the past. 895 00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:56,680 Speaker 3: Yes, thanks very much Kathy for coming on and telling 896 00:54:56,760 --> 00:54:58,880 Speaker 3: us the true history of electromagnetism. 897 00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:01,040 Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. This was lots of fun. 898 00:55:01,280 --> 00:55:12,320 Speaker 2: Thank you. 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