Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. So let's begin by stating the obvious earthquakes occur.
Speaker 1: Is that obvious if you've never experienced one, Well, that's
Speaker 1: the interesting thing, right, because you know, I obviously I
Speaker 1: know that earthquakes occur. I I know people who live
Speaker 1: in parts of the world where where earthquakes are fairly common.
Speaker 1: There was some news story, I think it was just
Speaker 1: within the past couple of weeks, that some regions of
Speaker 1: California just had like continuous shocks going on, and I
Speaker 1: was watching people on social media, you know, react to
Speaker 1: it and even mark themselves safe and so forth. But
Speaker 1: it violates my expectations because I usually when I imagine
Speaker 1: an earthquake, I imagine that something something that happens for
Speaker 1: a few seconds and then is over. Yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I think the other interesting thing about it for me
Speaker 1: personally is that I don't think I've ever experienced in
Speaker 1: our quake like. I've always either resided in parts of
Speaker 1: the world where there's little seismic activity. Uh, and in
Speaker 1: whatever seismic activity I was privy to I just didn't notice,
Speaker 1: you know, like, wasn't a significant enough quake. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: never noticed experiencing an earthquake. I'm sure there have been,
Speaker 1: you know, detectable shocks where I was at a time,
Speaker 1: and not detectable by my brain. Right. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where if if if I did not,
Speaker 1: you know, based on the science and based on other
Speaker 1: people's reports that they occur, you know, it would not
Speaker 1: even be real to me. But but but they do occur,
Speaker 1: and this would have been something that would have been
Speaker 1: obvious to humans in ancient history, at least those that
Speaker 1: that resided in areas where the rumblings of the earth
Speaker 1: could be felt, could be you know, observed in some
Speaker 1: fashion or another. And that's something that we certainly have
Speaker 1: learned over time, is that earthquakes are not just random.
Speaker 1: They don't occur just anywhere with the same frequency. They
Speaker 1: occur specifically along line of heightened geologic activity on on
Speaker 1: the Earth's surface. Right. I think everyone probably remembers some
Speaker 1: of this from from from their their science textbooks and
Speaker 1: the geology textbooks. The basics of plate tectonic theory, the
Speaker 1: idea that the Earth's tectonic plates are constantly rubbing up
Speaker 1: against each other, and these edges are are a place
Speaker 1: where a great deal of exciting geologic activity often occurs,
Speaker 1: and sometimes these plates slip, releasing energy in the form
Speaker 1: of seismic waves. This happens every day, and most of
Speaker 1: these quakes aren't even observed. But then, of course larger
Speaker 1: quakes can and do occur, and they can prove quite devastating,
Speaker 1: especially to human constructions, human habitats, human city cities, especially
Speaker 1: cities can fall, rivers can run backwards, catastrophic tsunamis can
Speaker 1: rise up from the ocean. Yeah, and this is why
Speaker 1: the idea of an earthquake detector is so interesting, or
Speaker 1: just one of the reasons anyway, because if you experience
Speaker 1: an earthquake, there's no doubting what happened, especially is it
Speaker 1: if it is of significant force, you know, significant magnitude,
Speaker 1: And if you're not close enough to feel one, then
Speaker 1: you'll only know about it if you hear about it,
Speaker 1: if someone travels along distance and says, hey, the earth shook,
Speaker 1: you know, across the province or across the empire. And
Speaker 1: so when we consider the possible invention of an earthquake, detector.
Speaker 1: I mean, really, this is the thing kind of thing
Speaker 1: that's only necessary if, first of all, you need to
Speaker 1: know if quakes are occurring somewhere far away, such as
Speaker 1: on the other side of an expansive country or empire. Also,
Speaker 1: it would be good to know if you need to
Speaker 1: know about the occurrence of smaller quakes that might otherwise
Speaker 1: escape notice, because again, not all earthquakes are going to
Speaker 1: be of a magnitude that you're just gonna notice what's
Speaker 1: happening as you're going about your daily business. They might
Speaker 1: also be useful, though, if you need to in some
Speaker 1: systematic fashion gather data about earthquakes, right, and yeah, that
Speaker 1: comes to my next point. If you're if you're determined
Speaker 1: that there's a pattern to seismic activity, and the detection
Speaker 1: of one helps reveal the pattern and possibly even predict
Speaker 1: future quakes, then this is certainly a case where it
Speaker 1: would pay off to be able to keep track of
Speaker 1: all sorts of seismic activity, from the smaller occurrences to
Speaker 1: the larger occurrences, and attempt to try and figure out
Speaker 1: the pattern of these occurrences. This is an important point
Speaker 1: because for some reason, I often seem to notice people
Speaker 1: getting the idea of earthquake detection and earthquake prediction mixed
Speaker 1: up as as if one and the other sort of
Speaker 1: the same thing, And they're obviously extremely different things, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're they're connected obviously because you need to know,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of have an idea for the frequency,
Speaker 1: and then of course if you know a large earthquake
Speaker 1: has occurred, then you know, well that aftershocks will occur,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But but yeah, there does seem
Speaker 1: to often be a confusion between detection and prediction. But
Speaker 1: it does seem that detection is going to be necessary
Speaker 1: if we need a good science of prediction. But of course,
Speaker 1: for the most of humanities time on Earth, it's safe
Speaker 1: to say that there was no need to bother with
Speaker 1: quake detection. If a quake worth knowing about occurred, you'd
Speaker 1: know it, and localized existence didn't really require, you know,
Speaker 1: seismic knowledge of far flung lands. But of course, brawling
Speaker 1: empires did emerge along with the veraryous sorts of cities
Speaker 1: and works that were vulnerable to seismic destruction, and his
Speaker 1: brilliant minds began to unravel the world through pattern recognition.
Speaker 1: They of course turned their minds to the tremors in
Speaker 1: the earth. Awareness of quakes certainly goes back to prehistoric times,
Speaker 1: but it's the sort of natural disaster that plays into
Speaker 1: various mythologies, you know, attributed to the power and anger
Speaker 1: of such gods and goddesses as Loki Poseidon the Giant,
Speaker 1: also various monsters such as the giant Japanese catfish Namazoo,
Speaker 1: and of course the movements of various world animals that
Speaker 1: carry our world on their back, you know, be at
Speaker 1: a you know, a turtle or what have you. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, that is sometimes in the in the mythology
Speaker 1: reason for the shaking of the earth. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: very often, uh, not to over generalize, but very often
Speaker 1: earthquakes are interpreted as some form of divine judgment or punishment. Right,
Speaker 1: But it does raise the question, what is the oldest
Speaker 1: historical record of an earthquake? You know, Like I said,
Speaker 1: clearly we've known about them for ages. They factor into
Speaker 1: our our our mythologies. Uh so as you know as well,
Speaker 1: discuss record keeping as vital to understanding seismic activity, especially
Speaker 1: as that record keep keeping stretches beyond the limits of
Speaker 1: an individual lifespan. But but one of the answers takes
Speaker 1: us to eastern China's um Tai Shan Mount Thai, which
Speaker 1: is uh about and it takes us back about either
Speaker 1: three thousand, seven hundred fifty or three thousand, eight hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty years ago. It was recorded in the Bamboo Annals.
Speaker 1: This was a text that was interred with with Kings
Speaker 1: Young of We who died to b C. And then
Speaker 1: this was rediscovered in two though I should point out
Speaker 1: that there there has in the past been some discussion
Speaker 1: among Eastern scholars regarding authenticity because basically, we have the
Speaker 1: lost remains of an ancient court document that was written
Speaker 1: on bamboo slips, and then the copies seem to contain
Speaker 1: some you know, spurious information. But if we're still talking
Speaker 1: about you know, we're still talking about very ancient writings
Speaker 1: here and some of the few surviving writings from this
Speaker 1: time period. I think one thing that's interesting about earthquakes
Speaker 1: as a problem we face is that it's clearly something
Speaker 1: that became more dangerous and more destructive to humanity the
Speaker 1: more our civilization develops. Basically, the worst thing about earthquakes
Speaker 1: for humans is that humans tend to build buildings and
Speaker 1: buildings tend to be rigid and not very good at
Speaker 1: resisting earthquakes, and so we go in the buildings, and
Speaker 1: then the earth shakes and the buildings fall on us
Speaker 1: and kill us. If you're in the middle of a
Speaker 1: meadow somewhere and there's an earthquake, it's probably not gonna
Speaker 1: hurt you. Now if you're standing by the you know,
Speaker 1: the side of a river or in a swamp land.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are various cases where where yes, you
Speaker 1: could have something more die or happened, or a tsunami. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that there are no natural dangers
Speaker 1: from earthquakes, but it seems that we very much multiply
Speaker 1: the fatality risk and injury risk of earthquakes by putting
Speaker 1: ourselves inside rigid human made structures out of stone and
Speaker 1: wood and stuff. Absolutely. And then again, when when you
Speaker 1: have you know, true kingdoms rising up in sprawling empires,
Speaker 1: you have this situation where like one area becomes it
Speaker 1: comes to depend on another. And so it's not just
Speaker 1: a situation of well, sometimes the earth shakes and sometimes
Speaker 1: cities fall, but why can you do no, You'll have
Speaker 1: an invested interest in what's going on in these other places. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that is often how earthquakes show up in the
Speaker 1: most ancient historical records, is like basically just they They
Speaker 1: show up as the records of the destruction of cities
Speaker 1: and human structures. It's like, well, those walls fell down.
Speaker 1: What can I tell you? Either our army was magnificent
Speaker 1: or maybe they were just extra sinful. But for some
Speaker 1: reason the earth shook, their walls fell down. It was
Speaker 1: probably got Yeah, and there are often religious interpretations to them.
Speaker 1: I want to cite one example of an ancient earthquake
Speaker 1: that was recorded in history specifically because of its damage
Speaker 1: to specific physical structures and so. And this would be
Speaker 1: an earthquake in two b c E that is cited
Speaker 1: by ancient historians as the cause of the destruction of
Speaker 1: the Colossus of Rhodes, also known as the Colossus of
Speaker 1: the Sun, one of the most interesting monuments of the
Speaker 1: ancient world. So the colossus was considered one of the
Speaker 1: seven Wonders of the world by several ancient authors. It
Speaker 1: was a giant statue of the sun god Helios, the
Speaker 1: patron god of the island of Rhodes, and it was
Speaker 1: made of bronze and reinforced with iron. Scaffolding and stone blocks,
Speaker 1: and it stood guard over the men Dracian harbor. It
Speaker 1: was built by a sculptor named Charis of Lindos, and
Speaker 1: it was it was around the beginning of the third
Speaker 1: century b c. Built to commemorate the victory of Roads
Speaker 1: with the with the help of Ptolemy against the invading
Speaker 1: Macedonian army. So Roads withstood a siege. They were victorious.
Speaker 1: The Macedonians left left their siege equipment behind, and the
Speaker 1: people of Roads celebrated by building this statue. Now we
Speaker 1: don't know exactly what it looked like or exactly where
Speaker 1: it was placed. There are some indications that it was
Speaker 1: posed with one hand shielding its eyes, as if, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to block the sun, which is funny because but
Speaker 1: then also in the other hand may have been holding
Speaker 1: some kind of garment or piece of cloth. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: slightly different estimates about its dimensions, but the historian Robert B.
Speaker 1: Kebrick endorses the idea that the statue was probably about
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten feet or about thirty three point
Speaker 1: five meters tall, combined with a pedestal of about fifty
Speaker 1: feet or about fifteen point two meters. For a total
Speaker 1: of a hundred and sixty feet or about forty nine
Speaker 1: meters in height, which is approximately the size of the
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty. Uh So, if you've seen depictions of
Speaker 1: the Colossus of Rhods straddling the entrance of the harbor,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've seen this in pictures, so that ships
Speaker 1: would have to enter and leave passing underneath and between
Speaker 1: its legs. Those are from later interpretations by like medieval
Speaker 1: and early modern writers. They're almost certainly incorrect given the
Speaker 1: structural and engineering limitations at the time. You can only
Speaker 1: do so many things with bronze in third century b C.
Speaker 1: And making a giant like bow legged sun god spread
Speaker 1: his legs over the water, that's not one of them.
Speaker 1: Uh So, the colossus was probably standing posed somewhere that
Speaker 1: looked out over this popular trading port, and despite its
Speaker 1: reputation and the fawning descriptions of ancient travel writers, the
Speaker 1: colossus only stood for about fifty to sixty years. Ancient
Speaker 1: sources indicate that it was destroyed by an earthquake that
Speaker 1: rocked the island of Roads in about to twenty five
Speaker 1: or two twenty six b C. And according to the
Speaker 1: Greek geographer and his story and Strabo. It was broken
Speaker 1: off at the knees at the time of the earthquake,
Speaker 1: and then it toppled over, and the remains of the
Speaker 1: statue were left on the ground where they fell, because
Speaker 1: an oracle gave a pronouncement forbidding it to be raised
Speaker 1: up again. And apparently it stayed that way for hundreds
Speaker 1: of years, just toppled over at the knees. Plenty of
Speaker 1: the elder later in the first century, Ce writes about
Speaker 1: the ruins of the colossus left by the earthquake, and
Speaker 1: he says, quote, where the limbs are broken asunder, vast
Speaker 1: caverns are seen yawning in the interior. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if people would go inside the fallen statue of the
Speaker 1: god kind of urban explorers of the ancient world, I
Speaker 1: guess exactly uh. And so the ruins of the god
Speaker 1: Helios lay where they fell, apparently until around the seventh
Speaker 1: century c E. When they were broken up and sold
Speaker 1: for scrap by an invading army. So we have no
Speaker 1: physical remains of the colossus of Rhodes's just gone. We
Speaker 1: have these ancient accounts of what would have looked like.
Speaker 1: I mean it based on the idea that it would
Speaker 1: have been about the size of the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: I mean, the Statue of Liberty is very impressive to see,
Speaker 1: you know, rising up out of the myths and all,
Speaker 1: so one can imagine it would have, you know, certainly
Speaker 1: struck a chord with travelers back in the day. Oh
Speaker 1: and just a reminder too, I mean, the Statue of
Speaker 1: Liberty is also it is a goddess. We often kind
Speaker 1: of forget what it actually depicts, but it's the goddess Libertus,
Speaker 1: the goddess of liberty. Huh. You know, I don't think
Speaker 1: I knew that. Actually, I don't think I could have
Speaker 1: told you that. Yeah, I I usually don't go check
Speaker 1: it out, but it was recently in New York and
Speaker 1: had some some family with me, and we went and
Speaker 1: checked it out. And it is it is neat to
Speaker 1: be reminded of just how you know, how impressive the
Speaker 1: statue is again, especially if you see it kind of
Speaker 1: emerging from the fog, kind of struggling to make itself. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, seen in this country. You know, I totally
Speaker 1: know it isn't true, but I realized I just think
Speaker 1: of it as a statue of him a Goldman, I
Speaker 1: guess because the poem. Um. Yeah, but any well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is fascinating that this famous wonder of
Speaker 1: the world, it was actually only standing for like fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty years, and then for hundreds of years, you know,
Speaker 1: ten times as long as it was standing, it was
Speaker 1: just sitting there on roads, toppled over at the knees,
Speaker 1: waiting for somebody to come busted up and sell it
Speaker 1: for scrap. Yeah, and we're still talking about it. We're
Speaker 1: still talking about it. Like you hear someone talk about
Speaker 1: the Colossus of Rhods. You think of this, uh, this
Speaker 1: fantastic creation, this this fabulous construction. And yeah, it was
Speaker 1: only up for a very very brief period of time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another huge earthquake in the ancient world was in seventeen CE.
Speaker 1: It damaged to destroyed at least a dozen cities in Lydia,
Speaker 1: which was a huge province in the western part of
Speaker 1: Asia Minor which is now Turkey. Um, but I think
Speaker 1: we should turn back to China after a break, because
Speaker 1: then we will get into discussing our sort of featured
Speaker 1: inventor for the episode today. Alright, we're back, so yes,
Speaker 1: our featured inventor. For today, it was a man by
Speaker 1: the name of Zhong Young who was a Chinese polymath
Speaker 1: and court astronomer in the Eastern Han dynasty. Uh. He
Speaker 1: would have lived seventy eight through on nine C. And
Speaker 1: he served the emperor's uh andy and Shundi, and this
Speaker 1: would have been combined reign to one, and his role
Speaker 1: was important. He tended to the calendars and celestial events,
Speaker 1: aiding the emperor, who of course ruled at the mandate
Speaker 1: of heaven in manain, maintaining the balance between cosmos and
Speaker 1: civil life, which is a very important connection uh in
Speaker 1: in in in Chinese culture and especially in the rule
Speaker 1: of this time. And Zong Hoang performed these duties during
Speaker 1: what some call the Golden Age of Chinese history, four
Speaker 1: centuries of economic prosperity that saw the traffic of goods
Speaker 1: and ideas across the Silk Road. He was an inventor
Speaker 1: and and really an early scientist yeah, and a poet
Speaker 1: uh So this was interesting. He had like a whole
Speaker 1: literary career like before he became interested in the sciences. Uh.
Speaker 1: It seems about around the age of thirty. He had
Speaker 1: a early career as a poet and literary scholar and
Speaker 1: a civil servant in his in his home area of Nanyang,
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, so I gotta find some
Speaker 1: of his poems. I looked up some of his poetry,
Speaker 1: and one poem I found by Jianghang was called the
Speaker 1: Bones of Zwangzi, translated by Arthur Whalley, and it's pretty great.
Speaker 1: This is from a section of the poem where the
Speaker 1: bones of a dead man are speaking to a traveler
Speaker 1: who comes upon them, and the bones say, of the
Speaker 1: primal spirit. In my substance, I am a wave in
Speaker 1: the river of darkness and light. The maker of all
Speaker 1: things is my father, and mother have in his my
Speaker 1: bed and earth, my cushion. The thunder and lightning are
Speaker 1: my drum and fan, the sun and moon, my candle
Speaker 1: and my torch, the milky way, my moat, the stars,
Speaker 1: my jewels. With nature. I am conjoined. I have no passion,
Speaker 1: no desire, wash me, and I shall be no wider
Speaker 1: foul me, and I shall yet be clean. I come
Speaker 1: not yet am here, hasten not yet m swift. That
Speaker 1: sounds like a description of like a mystical or psychedelic experience,
Speaker 1: a lot of oneness with the universe. Stars are my things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: conjoined interesting. But eventually, after his literary career, his interest
Speaker 1: turned to the sciences, which was chiefly astronomy and mathematics,
Speaker 1: and he gained renown for his expertise in these fields,
Speaker 1: and this led him to a position in the Imperial Court,
Speaker 1: which he entered around one twelve CE, where he was
Speaker 1: eventually promoted to the position of head astronomer a few
Speaker 1: years after that, and he went on to do all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff. Yeah. Just some of the advancements that
Speaker 1: he made included he estimated the value of pie as
Speaker 1: the square root of ten or three point one six
Speaker 1: to two. That's pretty close. Yeah. He allegedly invented an
Speaker 1: odometer in the form of a weegeled cart that would
Speaker 1: mark Chinese miles. Okay, so odometer is length measurement, yes,
Speaker 1: or distance measurement, it's the same thing. He also wrote
Speaker 1: a treatise called ling Sean Mystical Laws that explained the
Speaker 1: structure of the cosmos is that of a Henz egg.
Speaker 1: So the Earth is the yolk and the heavens are
Speaker 1: the egg white containing the movements of the moon and
Speaker 1: other celestial bodies. Yeah, I I found a quote directly
Speaker 1: from Mystical Laws where he explains this. He says, the
Speaker 1: sky is like a Henz egg and is as round
Speaker 1: as a crossbow pellet. The Earth is like the yolk
Speaker 1: of the egg, lying alone at the center. The sky
Speaker 1: is large and the earth is small. And I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have thought you would need to make that distinction, and
Speaker 1: that the sky is large and the earth is small.
Speaker 1: But maybe that is a meaningful distinction in ancient cosmology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's one of those things we we
Speaker 1: tend to take for granted, right. Uh. And also I
Speaker 1: think in addition to that, he believed that the sky
Speaker 1: was suspended on a vapor on the waters, so it
Speaker 1: was like resting on waters. Uh. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: great skywater and lots of ancient cosmological systems. But so
Speaker 1: while he was wrong about conceiving of the Earth the
Speaker 1: universe geocentrically with the Earth at the center, he was
Speaker 1: correct in understanding the Earth is a sphere surrounded by
Speaker 1: sky in an uh, and in an understanding that the
Speaker 1: moon and other planets were also spherical. And he had
Speaker 1: several insights about the moon. Yeah, he theorized that the
Speaker 1: moon did not emit light itself, but merely reflected the
Speaker 1: light of the Sun. So to quote from the mystical laws,
Speaker 1: the sun is like fire and the moon like water.
Speaker 1: The fire gives out light and the water reflects it.
Speaker 1: And Jong Hung used observations of a lunar eclipse to
Speaker 1: conclude that both the Moon and the Earth are spheres,
Speaker 1: and that the Moon merely reflects the light from the Sun, which,
Speaker 1: of course you can conclude if you you know, critically
Speaker 1: observing eclipse, because the Earth is blocking the light from
Speaker 1: reaching the Moon and thus reflecting back on us. To
Speaker 1: see the Earth's shadow pass in front of the Moon
Speaker 1: like that, you can draw the conclusion that the moon
Speaker 1: doesn't actually emit light. And he built an armillary sphere
Speaker 1: or celestial sphere to illustrate these ideas. It was made
Speaker 1: of bronze, and it mapped thousands of stars, and it
Speaker 1: was powered by a water clock, so it was mechanical.
Speaker 1: It moved um and you know he was he was
Speaker 1: not the first to build one of these, but the
Speaker 1: invention does seem to have and it seemed to have
Speaker 1: its earliest roots in Chinese astronomy. So while he was
Speaker 1: not the inventor, we can uh, you know, most commentators
Speaker 1: do point to Chinese history as being the place where
Speaker 1: the sort of technology was born. I'm interested in the
Speaker 1: idea of so the it was moving the objects in
Speaker 1: the heavens by having water emptying out of a vessel. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I would actually love to come back and discuss water
Speaker 1: clocks in greater detail or just clocks, and I mean goodness,
Speaker 1: we could do a whole series on timekeeping technology in
Speaker 1: the future. But but water clocks, particularly some of the
Speaker 1: various Asian varieties are are very fascinating. I just found
Speaker 1: out today for the first time. You know, the ancient
Speaker 1: word for water clock the clipsidra. You know what that
Speaker 1: comes from, clips that meaning theft and hydra meaning water
Speaker 1: stealing water. You're stealing the power of the water. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the water clock is the water thief. It takes
Speaker 1: away the water and this measures the time. But despite
Speaker 1: all of his achievements, not everybody liked Jong Hung. He
Speaker 1: apparently faced opposition from other scholars and courtiers. Apparently one
Speaker 1: major reason for this controversy had to do with reforms
Speaker 1: to the imperial calendar that Jonghan introduced or oversaw. The
Speaker 1: introduction of around the year one twenty three, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to understand this better. Some sources claim that
Speaker 1: he got into trouble basically by making reforms to the
Speaker 1: calendar to bring it in line with astronomical observations. Right,
Speaker 1: So he's doing astronomy, observing the heavens. He notices that
Speaker 1: the calendar does not match up correctly with his astronomical observations,
Speaker 1: and he brings the calendar in line to match them correctly.
Speaker 1: And and so I've read some in some places that
Speaker 1: that was the problem. I've also seen references to more
Speaker 1: arcane religious disputes is the source of the struggles at court.
Speaker 1: So I'm not positive how all that resolves. But one
Speaker 1: thing is clear. Astronomy was of extreme importance to the
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese rulers. It wasn't just for curiosity, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just for play, was serious business of life and death. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, we we do see this in
Speaker 1: in several other major civilizations as well. I mean the uh,
Speaker 1: you see this in meso American cultures that the Babylonians, Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean the also you know, ancient India there was
Speaker 1: this um, this this understanding that you know, the there
Speaker 1: are these things happening in in the cosmos, and there's
Speaker 1: a connection between what's happening there and what is happening here,
Speaker 1: this basic connection that uh, the zhong Hoang's profession revolved around,
Speaker 1: like helping the emperor maintain this connection between cosmos and
Speaker 1: civil life. Exactly right. Yeah. The ancient Chinese rulers were
Speaker 1: often interested in astronomy because they believe that movements in
Speaker 1: the heavens gave predictions and ruled over the fates of
Speaker 1: people on Earth, even kings or especially kings. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we we've talked about versions of this on our other
Speaker 1: podcast on Stuff to Blow your Mind. One that sticks
Speaker 1: out in my mind is the idea of some Babylonian
Speaker 1: or as Syrian rulers replacing themselves with a double if
Speaker 1: a lunar eclipse was predicted, this the eclipse kings. So
Speaker 1: the basic rationale here in ancient Mesopotamia was that a
Speaker 1: lunar eclipse was a death omen for the king, and
Speaker 1: if astrologers said lunar eclipses coming up, the king would
Speaker 1: temporarily abdicate and go into hiding by becoming a peasant.
Speaker 1: And then they would make an actual peasant either like
Speaker 1: a prisoner of war or just some random person, a
Speaker 1: gardener or somebody. They'd make them the king for a
Speaker 1: number of days to sort of absorb the curse of
Speaker 1: the lunar eclipse, after which the false king would be
Speaker 1: ritually put to death and the real king would return.
Speaker 1: And to some extent this hinged on the ancient Mesopotamian
Speaker 1: astrologer's ability to actually predict eclipses, Like, you don't want
Speaker 1: a curse taking you by surprise. So there were magical
Speaker 1: or religious reasons for wanting accurate astronomical information. It was
Speaker 1: a magical motivation for real science. That's interesting how they
Speaker 1: essentially the the magical thinking that it ends up entangling
Speaker 1: the whole just purely observational effort then becomes the mandate
Speaker 1: for improving your ability to observe, calculate, and predict the
Speaker 1: movements of the heavens. Yeah, and so it seems that
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese astronomers or astrologers played a somewhat similar role
Speaker 1: in the Imperial court, not exactly the same, but at
Speaker 1: least in part. Again, I was trying to understand more
Speaker 1: about exactly what this conflict over the calendar and astronomical
Speaker 1: observations might have been. And I ended up reading a
Speaker 1: really interesting old paper on Chinese astrology by the historian
Speaker 1: Shigaroo Naka Yama, and this was published in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's got a lot of interesting characterizations of
Speaker 1: of like the history of astrology in China. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I read uh this as well, and it's in parted.
Speaker 1: It just also has a nice breakdown of what astrology
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah. So just one interesting little tidbit. This
Speaker 1: might be sort of a tangent, but uh, he writes, quote,
Speaker 1: Chinese court astrology consists purely in the accumulation of portents
Speaker 1: in the form of celestial, meteorological and seismological phenomenal seismological
Speaker 1: also supernova, planetary conjunctions, comets, hail storms, earthquakes, and their
Speaker 1: empirical correlation with events in human society which are relevant
Speaker 1: to the success of imperial rule. Here is a typical
Speaker 1: interpretation from the she She which is records of the
Speaker 1: Grand Astrologer historian from about nine DBC. Quote, when Mercury
Speaker 1: appears in company with Venus to the east, and when
Speaker 1: they are both read and shoot forth rays, then foreign
Speaker 1: kingdoms will be vanquished and the soldiers of China will
Speaker 1: be victorious. And I think that suggests that that you know,
Speaker 1: these are calculations that could could be used in determining
Speaker 1: your the course of action with military engagements. The campaigns
Speaker 1: help you know what's going to happen and plan for it.
Speaker 1: I mean, they probably would not be very accurate, but uh,
Speaker 1: they would at least be perceived to have some kind
Speaker 1: of revelatory or accurate power. And I also think it's
Speaker 1: interesting in the way that it differs from what Nakayama says.
Speaker 1: Are later versions of both Western and Eastern astrology, which
Speaker 1: are more focused on individualized patterns of fate dictated by
Speaker 1: like people's birthdays. This is sometimes known as uh Jenneth
Speaker 1: liacal or or natal astrology, and if naki Yama's description
Speaker 1: is correct, the oldest, more traditional versions of Chinese imperial
Speaker 1: astrology would consist of making calendars of celestial events and
Speaker 1: then correlating them to events in the world, specifically events
Speaker 1: of interest to the emperor, so that future astronomical positions
Speaker 1: could be used to predict the fates of the empire
Speaker 1: and its leaders. And it was later that the fate
Speaker 1: calculations based on like birth calendars and stuff came in.
Speaker 1: But also something Nakiyama says that he writes is that
Speaker 1: eventually for periodically recurring portentous events, Okay, so things that
Speaker 1: you can predict or happening on a on a pretty
Speaker 1: regular cycle, like lunar eclipses and planetary alignments, he writes
Speaker 1: that for those things, the calendar or itself became more
Speaker 1: important than the actual stargazing and observing of the heavens. Quote,
Speaker 1: the goal of astronomy was the production of the official calendar.
Speaker 1: Chinese astrologers relied heavily on calendrical indications rather than directly
Speaker 1: upon astronomical computations or observations. Counting cycles based on planetary
Speaker 1: periodicities could be replaced with much simpler abstract cycles. So
Speaker 1: in a sense, there's this idea that they they had
Speaker 1: they were kind of getting to the point where they
Speaker 1: were they were stealing the calendar from the heavens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just and relying on the heavens less for their calendar
Speaker 1: because ultimately what they wanted, what they needed, was the
Speaker 1: calendar to govern their decision making, right, So you can
Speaker 1: see a weird kind of conflict there. So, like if
Speaker 1: you are a reformer as at least several sources, you know,
Speaker 1: report that Jong Hung was involved in reforming the calendar
Speaker 1: to make it more accurately fit astronomical observations. On one hand,
Speaker 1: like if you're the emperor, you would want that, you know,
Speaker 1: as you would want that, you would want to be
Speaker 1: able to predict things accurately. But also if maybe you're
Speaker 1: another astrologer in the court who's used to using the
Speaker 1: calendar how it is like you, you might be opposed
Speaker 1: to that because it would it would you know, screw
Speaker 1: up what you're doing, or it might just be a
Speaker 1: general challenge to tradition and kind of rocking the boat. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can also see it be a situation where potentially,
Speaker 1: you know, the the the perhaps unstated counter argument would be, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, look, let's not go you know, we don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about putting the calendar back in the
Speaker 1: line with the cosmos. If the calendar is working, like
Speaker 1: we're trying to build a you know, maintain a functional
Speaker 1: empire based around this calendar, and then here's this guy
Speaker 1: coming along and saying, no, no, the astronomical data, uh
Speaker 1: says that we should tweak how we're planning out our year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right. Uh. But then again, I mean I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention again, I have also read elsewhere that there
Speaker 1: were like other concerns that may have motivated his problems
Speaker 1: in the court, maybe more like disputes about like esoteric
Speaker 1: religio interpretations of the calendar. So it's it's hard, it's
Speaker 1: hard to sort out exactly what's what there. But but
Speaker 1: basically Jonghang was an astronomer. He was pretty apparently pretty
Speaker 1: good at what he did within this astrological context, and
Speaker 1: he made some enemies in the court, and this interfered
Speaker 1: with his ability to advance throughout the court and have
Speaker 1: a successful career. But again, it's it's interesting to drive home,
Speaker 1: you know, his role as a scientists, his role as
Speaker 1: an astronomer, uh, you know, and to think too about astrologies,
Speaker 1: you know, empirical aspects uh that you know we see
Speaker 1: in astrology the roots of pure scientific inquiry, the roots
Speaker 1: of medicine, et cetera. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean,
Speaker 1: while astrology, I think is rightly considered a pseudoscience, the
Speaker 1: history of astrology gives birth to a lot of practices
Speaker 1: that become an incorporate elements of real astronomy and are
Speaker 1: really science much in the same way that like the
Speaker 1: traditions of alchemy, you know, basically doing magic with materials
Speaker 1: did in some ways give rise to actual chemistry and
Speaker 1: understanding the properties of materials and chemicals. Okay, I think
Speaker 1: after we come back from a break, we should address
Speaker 1: Jonghong's primary invention for today's episode, which was an invention
Speaker 1: that he crafted later in the last decade of his life,
Speaker 1: the seismometer or seismoscope. And so we'll do a break
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back with the seismoscope. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So what is the seismoscope, Robert, Well, the idea here
Speaker 1: is that it is an earthquake detector. It's a way
Speaker 1: of detecting um seismic activity vibrations in the ground. Exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, this is the primary invention, uh, alleged
Speaker 1: invention that we want to discuss here today. But we
Speaker 1: do want to drive home that Yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of mysteries about it. Uh, we're not really sure
Speaker 1: how this thing was supposed to work, if truly it
Speaker 1: did work. But basically the idea here is that part
Speaker 1: of his job was of course observing natural phenomena and
Speaker 1: then uh, you know, using it to calculate calendars, etcetera,
Speaker 1: carrying out these these astrological duties. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that he was considering what were the movements in
Speaker 1: the earth, the seismic activity, which they did not understand
Speaker 1: as we understand it today, but but still it was
Speaker 1: it was a noted natural phenomena that that they figured
Speaker 1: should be understood and studied. And then of course there
Speaker 1: was a connection to with the destructive nature of seismic activity. Again,
Speaker 1: if something terrible happened, if there's a terrible earthquake, uh,
Speaker 1: you know on the far you know, extremes of the empire,
Speaker 1: it made sense for the emperor to know about it
Speaker 1: so that you could you could send aid, you know,
Speaker 1: or to that location. Well, yeah, in this context and
Speaker 1: the astrological context, as we talked about already, they didn't
Speaker 1: just think the portents were in the heavens. They also
Speaker 1: thought the portents were, you know, storms and earthquakes and
Speaker 1: things here on Earth. So the earthquake is not just
Speaker 1: as you're saying, is not just a consequence. It's not
Speaker 1: just that there is destruction and people get injured. It
Speaker 1: also is crucially relevant information to the emperor that might,
Speaker 1: you know, tell the emperor some something important about what's
Speaker 1: about to happen. And so Yong Hung created what was
Speaker 1: called the whole thing Doo doong ye, or the Instrument
Speaker 1: for measuring the seasonal winds and the movements of the Earth.
Speaker 1: And based on descriptions of this device, it was apparently
Speaker 1: an elaborate bronze sphere with some sort of a sensitive
Speaker 1: pendulum inside of it. We're not sure about that. Most
Speaker 1: of the descriptions apparently just described the exterior with little
Speaker 1: or no detail about how it's working on the inside.
Speaker 1: There was something inside it, right, But hopefully we'll have
Speaker 1: a picture of this or a recreation or an illustration
Speaker 1: of what this was supposed to look like on the
Speaker 1: landing page for this episode in invention pod dot com.
Speaker 1: But basically a big bronze sphere and it has all
Speaker 1: of these dragons around the edges of the sphere um
Speaker 1: eight of them, eight of them with their their heads
Speaker 1: facing down, their mouths open. And then underneath each dragon
Speaker 1: uh at the bay on the base of this thing
Speaker 1: is a frog. And in the in the event of
Speaker 1: seismic activity that this device would detect a bronze ball
Speaker 1: would drop out of the dragon's mouth into the frog's mouth,
Speaker 1: and you would be able to look at the machine
Speaker 1: see which dragon and which you know, which dragon and
Speaker 1: frog duo um were engaged, and this would tell you
Speaker 1: which direction the seismic activity was in, right, because the
Speaker 1: eight dragon and frog pairs were correlated with the cardinal
Speaker 1: directions of compass. So you could say, oh, the northern
Speaker 1: ball just fell into a frog's mouth. That means there
Speaker 1: was seismic activity to the north. So we could send
Speaker 1: aid to the north, or certainly we could. We can
Speaker 1: put this information into our record keeping. And another aspect
Speaker 1: of it is that it was supposed to make a
Speaker 1: sound when the ball fell into the frog's mouth. It
Speaker 1: was like a metal frog down there also, so you'd
Speaker 1: hear a clang, and that's like the alarm that an
Speaker 1: earthquake has happened. You go and check, and then you
Speaker 1: can see which direction the earthquake came from. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there have been attempts to recreate this this thing. You'll
Speaker 1: see modern sort of reproductions of it, but they are
Speaker 1: by necessity, UH sort of approximate, because we don't know
Speaker 1: a lot of specifics about what was going on. Certainly
Speaker 1: about what was going on inside. Even the exterior of it,
Speaker 1: which we have a better description of is it varies
Speaker 1: a good bit between the different depictions, but generally, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's some kind of vase or jar, large vessel of
Speaker 1: some kind with the eight dragon heads going in each direction,
Speaker 1: the frogs underneath them, and then inside is the great mystery,
Speaker 1: that's right. And uh, as far as these recreations go,
Speaker 1: there was one I believe in the nineteenth century, and
Speaker 1: one of the twentieth century, and then a more recent
Speaker 1: one will the will discuss as well. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: isn't a wonderfully uh, you know, intriguing looking device When
Speaker 1: you see these these recreations, like you just wonder, like
Speaker 1: what magic does this thing hold you? Well? I want
Speaker 1: to know is there I couldn't find anything about this,
Speaker 1: but is there spiritual significance within? Like the Chinese religion
Speaker 1: of the time of a dragon spitting into a frog's mouth.
Speaker 1: Does that mean something? Or is it just these forms
Speaker 1: are there by accident? Yeah, I'm not sure on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously you can think to you know the
Speaker 1: importance of dragons and Chinese mythology, and you know as
Speaker 1: well as you know certainly frogs show up as well,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that would be that would be interesting to
Speaker 1: hear an answer on. But again, as for you know
Speaker 1: how this thing worked, if it worked, we just don't
Speaker 1: know for sure. And and apparently a Jong Hong face
Speaker 1: skepticism at the time, which makes sense given as we
Speaker 1: mentioned that he had enemies of the court. The story
Speaker 1: goes that the device just sat there for years, and
Speaker 1: you know, people were like, oh, yeah, this thing works. Sure,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it would have been like a hilarious thing
Speaker 1: to talk about at parties. Yeah, here's all the dragon
Speaker 1: heads ready to spit in the toad mouths. And is
Speaker 1: then nothing's happening. Yeah, it's just sitting there. But then
Speaker 1: the story goes that eventually a ball did drop into
Speaker 1: a frog and this was years later. Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: years later, but bend, everyone was like, oh, well, something happened. Um.
Speaker 1: But then the word arrived to confirm that an earthquake
Speaker 1: had occurred in the designated direction, but nobody had felt it.
Speaker 1: That was the thing right where the where the detector was.
Speaker 1: It was reported that no one had any indication there
Speaker 1: had been an earthquake, but then later they got the
Speaker 1: messenger from the ravage region. Yeah, because the detector was
Speaker 1: in lou Young that was kept China's capital at the time,
Speaker 1: and the reported earthquake, according to the history of the
Speaker 1: later Han, occurred something like six kilometers away, and this
Speaker 1: would have been in the year on, Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: would have been to the east, I think is where
Speaker 1: they reported. Now, all we have to go on is
Speaker 1: literary descriptions from histories of this thing. We do not
Speaker 1: have any physical remains whatsoever, none at all. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's said that later versions of the advent Shin existed,
Speaker 1: but but there are no relics there either, and descriptions
Speaker 1: again focused on the ornate outside rather than the inner
Speaker 1: workings of this device. And then we had nineteenth and
Speaker 1: twentieth century, you know, various attempts to recreate the detector,
Speaker 1: but those efforts did not create anything that seemed to
Speaker 1: function in a reasonable way. Okay, So you could conclude
Speaker 1: from that that, well, then maybe this is just a legend,
Speaker 1: you know, or maybe he built something but it didn't
Speaker 1: actually work, or people got confused. Maybe a ball fell
Speaker 1: once and it just happened to buy coincidence. Indicate where
Speaker 1: there's been a well, yeah, one of the questions that
Speaker 1: often comes up is like, how would it work? How
Speaker 1: would you create something so sensitive? And and then like
Speaker 1: and then when there is seismic activity, why is it
Speaker 1: just going to set off? It's going to be so
Speaker 1: sensitive to seismic activity and yet so focused, so only
Speaker 1: one dragon is going to drop its ball right the
Speaker 1: direction that that's really weird. Yeah, so how you know,
Speaker 1: how would that happen? How? How would you just have
Speaker 1: one ball triggered by a seismic event, and yet how
Speaker 1: the device capable of detecting the seismic event. Um Again,
Speaker 1: there were at least a couple of different efforts to
Speaker 1: recreate it, one in eighteen seventy five by Japanese scholar
Speaker 1: and then uh by a Chinese museum a researcher in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one. But I was also reading about a
Speaker 1: two thousand five effort by a group of seismologists and
Speaker 1: archaeologists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and and they
Speaker 1: they claim to have to have pulled it off. Jamie
Speaker 1: Rigg wrote about this in an article for Engadget said,
Speaker 1: quote in their version, the pendulum itself doesn't interact with
Speaker 1: any levers. Instead, it's suspended above another ball purchased topic
Speaker 1: then pedestal. When the pendulum swings, it nudges the central
Speaker 1: ball down one of eight channels, where it hits a
Speaker 1: trigger system that animates the external dragon mouth. We don't
Speaker 1: know this is exactly how Jong's model worked, of course,
Speaker 1: but it shows that only a minor reinterpretation of how
Speaker 1: the seismoscope is described in his storical text can lead
Speaker 1: to the creation of a sensitive direction aware device. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got some changes there because that that's originally
Speaker 1: it's saying there's a ball in all of their mouths,
Speaker 1: and this is saying there's just one ball, but some
Speaker 1: pendulum inside. It's extremely sensitive, will will swing when there
Speaker 1: is vibration in the ground and will knock the ball
Speaker 1: into the mouth like down one slide in a particular
Speaker 1: direction where the waves are coming from, and then it
Speaker 1: will come out of that dragon's mouth, which is different
Speaker 1: than what's described, but that seems more believable in sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could be kind of close enough that you'd be like, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe yeah. Because I was reading in People's Daily
Speaker 1: Online from two thousan five, there's an article about the
Speaker 1: device that that pointed out that foreign seismologists would often
Speaker 1: argue that if the seismograph worked on the principles of inertia,
Speaker 1: then again you have to you have to not one
Speaker 1: ball that would drop from a dragon's mouth, you know,
Speaker 1: so it was you know, traveling north to south, it
Speaker 1: would trigger both north and south ball. But again, if
Speaker 1: there's just one ball in there, then it seems it's
Speaker 1: conceivable that you could have some sort of elaborate pendulum
Speaker 1: system that would that would just shoot that ball into
Speaker 1: the desired direction. This is an interesting mystery because like
Speaker 1: it's in that realm of where, so we don't know
Speaker 1: exactly how it worked, if it worked, Uh, we we
Speaker 1: don't know to what extent this historical story is true,
Speaker 1: but it's not outside the realm of possibility. So it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where, you know, I feel like
Speaker 1: we we can't skeptically rule it out, but also we
Speaker 1: don't really know yet. It's one of those intriguing open mysteries.
Speaker 1: It seems feasible that he set out to create a
Speaker 1: device to detect earthquakes, and maybe there was kind of
Speaker 1: a you know, an internal rationale for how it worked
Speaker 1: and how it would work, and then it just simply,
Speaker 1: you know, did not fulfill the purpose. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: that's possible, Yeah, that I tend to think that's and
Speaker 1: then not to discount his scientific you know, integrity at
Speaker 1: all and his his genius, because clearly he was a
Speaker 1: very accomplished individual who who's who, you know, thought a
Speaker 1: great deal about the you know, the movements of the
Speaker 1: natural world. But you know, ultimately this might have just
Speaker 1: been beyond his abilities to create. But then ultimately, and
Speaker 1: then how do you test it out? Right, you can't
Speaker 1: just compare the results of this earthquake detection device with
Speaker 1: like some other earthquake detection device, right, you had only
Speaker 1: the accounts of seismic activity coming in from across the
Speaker 1: uh you know, the the the Empire to go on,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like there was like one hit, or
Speaker 1: at least that's the only hit that we have to
Speaker 1: to really compare it to in in the histories, you know,
Speaker 1: anything else was you know, it was seemingly lost. So
Speaker 1: I started looking into this a little bit more and
Speaker 1: looking for you know, other articles about about his invention,
Speaker 1: and it got into this area where we really begin
Speaker 1: to touch on China's complex relationship with the past. So
Speaker 1: Chinese culture is deep and has been called, you know,
Speaker 1: the oldest living civilization on Earth. I believe sinologist Simon
Speaker 1: lays Uh put it like that. But the Cultural revolution
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties and in nineteen seventies set people
Speaker 1: against what were what they referred to as the Four
Speaker 1: Olds old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas.
Speaker 1: And this too is a complicated area of Chinese sistory
Speaker 1: because the exact nature of the Four Olds was ultimately
Speaker 1: left to interpretation. Some old things material or otherwise material
Speaker 1: or otherwise we're protected, but other things were destroyed, and
Speaker 1: it did result in death and destruction. By the nineteen nineties, however,
Speaker 1: their rebuilding and restoration efforts were taking hold, and President
Speaker 1: ji Jinping has also encouraged a return to traditional Chinese
Speaker 1: ideas and what has been described as a cultural Chinese
Speaker 1: cultural revival. But it's interesting, uh to put all this
Speaker 1: in context with this this alleged earthquake detector. I was
Speaker 1: reading a two thousand eighteen China Daily story titled reference
Speaker 1: to Zhong Hong's earthquake device removed from textbooks, and basically
Speaker 1: it mentions that the device was mentioned of The device
Speaker 1: was moved from secondary school history textbooks in China to
Speaker 1: primary school textbooks, but it led. But the initial change
Speaker 1: led some media outlets to report that it had been
Speaker 1: simply removed from the textbooks, which you know, we can
Speaker 1: understand that. I mean that these kind of controversies pop
Speaker 1: up anytime there's a change to a textbook, right, um.
Speaker 1: But the author of this piece then was speaking to
Speaker 1: a couple of individuals about it, and I found it
Speaker 1: was kind of revealing about how um, particularly Chinese engineers,
Speaker 1: Chinese scientists, how they and ultimately the you know, the
Speaker 1: scientific education officials view this invention or alleged invention in
Speaker 1: Chinese history. So the author, Zeng Jo Shing, they spoke
Speaker 1: to a senior engineer at the Sichuan Bureau of Geology
Speaker 1: and Normal Resources, and this individual's take was that while
Speaker 1: some of the inventions of the of ancient China were
Speaker 1: wonders in their own age, that they're quote useless now
Speaker 1: and therefore while they are to be remembered, they're not
Speaker 1: to be worshiped, which I mean, I I can see
Speaker 1: the logic in that. You know, there, you know, you're
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to focus on on modern innovations and
Speaker 1: modern inventions, like if you just can't dwell on ancient
Speaker 1: uh inventions that ultimately we know nothing about the inner workings. Off, well,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm against all cases of worshiping technology, especially
Speaker 1: though recent technology. I'd be more inclined to worship the
Speaker 1: ancient technology that's useless now, right. It also points out,
Speaker 1: of course, that the design itself was sketchy, and then
Speaker 1: reconnet recreations are also sketchy, you know, like, of course
Speaker 1: we just continue to not know how this thing worked
Speaker 1: or if it worked. And this was another thing that
Speaker 1: this individual throughout is that some people have he says,
Speaker 1: and misunderstood what it was supposed to have done, thinking
Speaker 1: that it was a predictive device rather than a detector,
Speaker 1: which comes back to what you said earlier about just
Speaker 1: sort of modern misunderstanding about what detecting an earthquake means.
Speaker 1: And as such, he said, you know, some people hype
Speaker 1: it up as being superior to modern technology, which you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's understandable to like, you're, if you're working
Speaker 1: in your given culture trying to you know, it advanced
Speaker 1: the sciences, you don't want people pointing back to this
Speaker 1: thing from you know, thousands of years ago and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I heard they had it figured out. Then how how
Speaker 1: come we've forgotten how to detect earthquakes? I mean that's
Speaker 1: like it's like ancient Aliens kind of stuff, where you know,
Speaker 1: they say, like, how could the ancient Egyptians have built
Speaker 1: the pyramids? We couldn't even build something like that today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is basically you know, conspiracy theory thinking
Speaker 1: and and certainly, oh sorry, therefore it must have been Aliens,
Speaker 1: which wasn't It was just really smart, hard working people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, conspiracy theory are ideas like this can be
Speaker 1: disruptive to like general scientific understanding of the world, and
Speaker 1: that stands certainly stands true in the United States and
Speaker 1: the Western world. It's also true in in China as well,
Speaker 1: so you know, that seems to be a valid argument.
Speaker 1: Um the The author of this um China Daily piece
Speaker 1: also spoke to an associate professor of chemical physics at
Speaker 1: the University of Science and Technology in China who and
Speaker 1: this individual is also a pop science writer, and they
Speaker 1: point this individual pointed out, first of all, we can't
Speaker 1: be sure if it worked, so it shouldn't be in
Speaker 1: the history books. What so, I mean I could see
Speaker 1: where you might some might be getting lost in it
Speaker 1: might be lost in translation there. But but I I
Speaker 1: do see an argument for like, Okay, maybe maybe it
Speaker 1: just needs to be a sidebar. You don't you don't
Speaker 1: say who invented the seis McGraph. Oh, it was Jong
Speaker 1: Chung uh and and and he's the inventor. Oh, I
Speaker 1: see like it shouldn't necessarily be be given confident credit. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: and yet this individual had the following to say quote.
Speaker 1: Yet that should not darken Jong's achievements. There is solid
Speaker 1: evidence of the existence of one of them, uh, the
Speaker 1: armillary sphere, which helped ancient Chinese astronomers gain knowledge about
Speaker 1: observing the sky at night. Besides, Jong's case also shows
Speaker 1: a sad fact about China's history, in which scientists were
Speaker 1: hardly given any attention. Jong is now well known for
Speaker 1: his scientific achievements, but in his era they only cared
Speaker 1: about his achievements as a writer as well as a politician.
Speaker 1: It is a pity for ancient China's technological progress. And
Speaker 1: that's a that's a quote from Yon Lanfung, Associate professor
Speaker 1: of chemical physics at the University of Science and Technology
Speaker 1: of China. I guess there is a good question there
Speaker 1: about the question of we can't be sure if it worked,
Speaker 1: so it shouldn't be in the history books. Again, something
Speaker 1: might be getting lost in translation there, but like maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there is a good question that's relevant to us.
Speaker 1: That's like how how important is it to discuss these
Speaker 1: kind of like unsolved mysteries of technological history where you know,
Speaker 1: someone is alleged to have created something we don't know
Speaker 1: for sure, can't say with real confidence whether it actually
Speaker 1: worked or how it would have worked if it did.
Speaker 1: But it's at least like tantalizing, you know, and you
Speaker 1: you want to think it worked, and you want to
Speaker 1: try to figure out if it did work how I
Speaker 1: don't know. That kind of thing seems important and worth
Speaker 1: talking about to me. What also seems important for countering
Speaker 1: any kind of conspiracy theories that the people you know
Speaker 1: roll out regarding a given piece of ancient technology. It
Speaker 1: had to be Aliens and be at the Pyramids or
Speaker 1: the you know, an earthquake detector, or is it some
Speaker 1: of the things that we've discussed when we did those
Speaker 1: episodes of stuff to blew your mind on ancient alien
Speaker 1: hypotheses and uh, and some of the the supposed evidence
Speaker 1: that that that those writers like to to drag out,
Speaker 1: and the sort of the counter argument that was made
Speaker 1: by people like Carl Sagan, Like, I think it's ultimate
Speaker 1: important to engage those conspiracy theories or you know, those uh,
Speaker 1: those hypotheses and say, actually, this is not what the
Speaker 1: evidence shows. This is what this thing was. This is
Speaker 1: our best understanding of of of what it could have
Speaker 1: done and and how it might have worked. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that there is a real just missed opportunity
Speaker 1: of fascination that goes on when people get into the
Speaker 1: ancient aliens thing, because I feel like people get into
Speaker 1: it because it seems cool and they want it to
Speaker 1: be true, right, you know, it's so interesting the idea
Speaker 1: that maybe aliens came to Earth in the ancient past. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I think if there were evidence of that it would
Speaker 1: be interesting. But isn't it also interesting that like, maybe
Speaker 1: ancient people figured out how to do something really difficult
Speaker 1: with really limited tools and knowledge and they figured it
Speaker 1: out anyway. That's really interesting to me, right, Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the other side too, is even if they failed,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. So, like you read about Jeong Hong's device here,
Speaker 1: and I mean I find my self rooting for him.
Speaker 1: I like, I really want this device to have worked
Speaker 1: because it makes a better story, right, certainly the whole
Speaker 1: thing where people thought he was wrong and then and
Speaker 1: then years later it successfully predicts an earthquake. But even
Speaker 1: if it didn't work, if it was just this you know,
Speaker 1: inspired intelligent attempt to create an earthquake detection device, like,
Speaker 1: I still think that's impressive. I mean, that's I mean,
Speaker 1: that's still science. Uh. Just you know, unfortunately, there may
Speaker 1: not have been like you know, the you know, perfect
Speaker 1: situation to really test it out, to rigorously test it out,
Speaker 1: and then to improve upon the design. The essence of
Speaker 1: science is the fact that failures are important, failures matter.
Speaker 1: It right, up your failures and report them. That's that's
Speaker 1: useful to other people exactly. And so ultimately, yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel good about doing an episode of invention that deals
Speaker 1: with an invention that that may very well not have worked.
Speaker 1: Uh and certainly we have no answer for how it worked.
Speaker 1: If it did work, but may also have worked, and
Speaker 1: if so, that's really cool. Now, of course, we've got
Speaker 1: seismoscopes of all different kinds today seismometers that some work
Speaker 1: on the basis of like a suspended spring or pendulum,
Speaker 1: kind of like it's hypothesized that this thing probably did
Speaker 1: if it worked others. I think the ones today tend
Speaker 1: more often to use suspended magnets so that like tiny
Speaker 1: movements of the pendulum can induce current and that can
Speaker 1: be recorded by electronic detectors. Uh. Some models use other
Speaker 1: methods like lasers or fiber optic cables or you know,
Speaker 1: all kinds of other things. And I think this is
Speaker 1: a subject that maybe we could return to in the future.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could do something on modern seismometers. Yeah, some
Speaker 1: of the plans involved smartphones. How we can sort of
Speaker 1: use the power of smartphone technology to two more accurately, uh,
Speaker 1: to detect and study seismic activity. It remains a fascinating
Speaker 1: mystery in the annals of invention. What happened Jung Hong?
Speaker 1: Did he detect an earthquake in the second century CE?
Speaker 1: What do you think right in? Yeah? Absolutely, uh, And
Speaker 1: certainly if you have suggestions for future episodes, let us
Speaker 1: know other examples of ancient technology and ancient inventions you
Speaker 1: would like to see profile other more modern inventions like, really,
Speaker 1: one of our our basic approaches to the show here
Speaker 1: is that that all inventions are on the table, you know,
Speaker 1: be it. You know, the big obvious things, but also
Speaker 1: the smaller, less obvious things, the failed things, and even
Speaker 1: the things that that didn't quite come to into existence
Speaker 1: at all, or the terrible inventions. Yeah, terrible inventions. Bring
Speaker 1: them on. We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime.
Speaker 1: If you want to check out more episodes of Invention
Speaker 1: the websites invention pod dot com. That's a great way
Speaker 1: to seek us out. And if you want to help
Speaker 1: support the show, really the best thing you can do
Speaker 1: is rate and review us wherever you have the power
Speaker 1: to do so. Make sure you have subscribed as well.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks to our producers today, Seth Nicholas Johnson and
Speaker 1: Maya Cole. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us to let us know feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at invention pod dot com. M Invention is production
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