WEBVTT - The Bathysphere: William Beebe Descends 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:14.840 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.319 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.160 we're back with part two of our two part exploration 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:23.000 of the Depths of the Sea, the History of Knowledge 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:25.400 and Exploration of the Deep Sea. And this this time 0:00:25.400 --> 0:00:28.680 we're really going to be focusing in on William B. B. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:32.080 That's right. We we alluded to him at the beginning 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:38.800 of the last episode. So he was an American naturalist, explorer, author. Uh. 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.040 He lived from eighteen seventy seven to nineteen sixty two, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.200 and uh, he was He was a very interesting fellow, 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:50.240 just to put him mildly. Before there was Neil deGrasse 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:54.080 Tyson or Carl Sagan or even Jacques Cousteau, there was 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.640 William Beebe, who some writers have called the first celebrity scientist. 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.480 So he he traveled around and lectured, he wrote books, 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.720 he recruited, we received quite a bit of media coverage, 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:07.679 and he was actually in writing books. He was a 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.240 good writers. This thing that helps. Yeah, he was a 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.600 good popularizer of science. He was a great science communicator. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.120 Before this was really that much of a thing. Yeah. 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.000 I often think of Darwin as a great science communicator, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:23.480 but yeah, Beebe really took it to the next level, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.479 especially as we'll talk about in a minute, by employing 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.839 all kinds of people to help spread the message of 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.400 scientific discoveries in ways that are easily digestible to the public. Yeah. 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.679 So he he was an ornithologist at the New York 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.679 Zoological Society and uh he he actually left college before 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:45.960 completing his degree in order to to to work, uh 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.040 for for the society. But he just he's one of 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:52.520 these guys who just seemed to really just ascend once 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:54.280 he you know, once he hit the ground working he 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.520 was he was have ended up being becoming the founder 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:01.280 of the Society's Department of Tropical Research. And he conducted 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.320 he conducted research, it's worth noting across two world wars 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:07.840 and the Great Depression, Like that was the time period, 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.640 the trying time period, a time when most of the 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.640 energy in the world seemed to be aimed at either 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:21.720 conducting warfare, surviving warfare, surviving economic depression. Uh. But he 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.520 was able to successfully carry out a great deal of 0:02:24.600 --> 0:02:28.720 research and uh and then communicate the Department of the 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.560 Tropical researches work as well, and to do this he 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.919 enlisted not only scientists but also historians, writers, and artists. 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.280 And by this I mean he took artists with him 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.440 on his expeditions, generating some really captivating artwork, and b 0:02:42.560 --> 0:02:45.720 B himself sketched the creatures that he saw in the depths. 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.600 I mean it's really kind of surprising, however, though, that that, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.960 given that he was such a celebrity at the time, uh, 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.600 that that we don't see him celebrated as much in 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.799 pop culture today. Like he's certainly again he's remembered. It's 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:03.200 not like he's forgotten and lost to history. But you 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.720 would just think that he would have more of a 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:09.400 like a tesla status today. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.520 will say that again. Before we went to this recent 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.560 exhibit at the American Museum and Natural History of New 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.360 York about the Unseen Depths of the Ocean, had some 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.000 stuff about BB before that. I think maybe I was 0:03:23.320 --> 0:03:25.639 a little bit aware of him, but didn't really know anything. 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.880 And that's crazy because his life and his work was 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.440 so interesting. Yeah. I mean, for starters, he influenced the 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.240 number of notable people, um for instance, EO. Wilson who 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:40.520 we've discussed on the show before. Uh has has pointed 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:45.400 to William B. B as someone who inspired his scientific career. Yeah, 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:47.840 there are a lot of interesting things about Bebe's legacy. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.440 One cool one that does get mentioned sometimes is the 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.520 fact that he was criticized during his life for hiring 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.520 and mentoring female researchers, which a lot of irritable sexist 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.800 establishment scientists of the time thought was an indication that 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.560 his work was not serious or was unprofessional. Uh. But 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:07.680 of course they were wrong, right. Bbe helped give a 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.320 leg up to great scientists like Joscelyn Crane, who studied, 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.000 among other things, invertebrate ethology, so the behavior of invertebrates, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.919 with a special focus on fiddler crabs, and also the 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:22.560 explorer and research scientists Gloria Hollister, who pioneered lab techniques 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:26.960 for preparing marine specimens, and she herself actually performed dives 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:30.320 in the capsule that we're gonna be talking about more 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.320 in this episode of the Bathosphere, the steel ball that 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:36.160 finally took us down into the depths. Some of the 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.120 females he employed were also artists as well. There's actually 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.440 a wonderful New York Times article that came out, uh, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:47.600 just last year about an exhibition of various works from 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:50.720 this period that I recommend everyone check out it. If 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:54.040 you just look for William Bbe Department of Trapical Research illustrations, 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.960 you'll find it. And there's some just some fabulous illustrations 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:59.880 that say that the bathosphere descending into the depths with 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.960 strange creatures swirling around it. Yeah, if you get a chance, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.520 you should look up illustrations. Especially I would say of 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:10.200 the artist Elsa Bostelmann, who she was one of the 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.560 artists who accompanied his research, and she sketched and painted 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:16.760 what bb And and his companion, notice Bartan saw in 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.360 the deep from the bathosphere, which we're gonna be talking 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:22.200 about more later. But her work is just beautiful and 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:26.880 weird and superb. It's uh, it's excellent science art. Yeah. 0:05:26.960 --> 0:05:30.080 For reasons that will become obvious. Uh, as we proceed 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:33.719 of photography or certainly film was just not an option 0:05:34.360 --> 0:05:37.800 aboard the bathosphere, so they had to depend on sketches, uh. 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.719 And and also just you have to consider the time 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:43.040 during which all this have taken place. For instance, one 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:46.960 of his dives was actually broadcast on NBC Radio, which 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:50.800 is a testament to the popularity of his work, but 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.960 also just shows you the limitations of the visual technology 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.160 at the time. Now, of course, another great weird note 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.840 in pop culture is that BB's elaborator Otis Barton, who 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:04.600 was his his co pilot in the Bathosphere and one 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.240 of the people, I think the designer, the main designer 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:10.320 of the Bathosphere, made a movie, made a movie based 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:14.840 on what they did. Yeah, Titans of the Deep. And 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.599 if you look at the poster art for this film, 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:19.440 and I'll try to include it on the landing page 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.000 for this episode, is stuff to blow your mind. It 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.240 creates certain expectations of the content. Yeah, I will say 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:28.919 it's so it's supposed to be like a documentary film, 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.640 right that they made it as a documentary apparently, And 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.159 even though it's like BB is mentioned on the on 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.120 the poster, it's really apparently. BB wasn't himself super involved 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.640 in the production. Yeah, I've seen it actually described as 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.440 more of like an action movie or an exploitation horror movie. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.960 I couldn't. I couldn't find this movie, so I don't 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:52.600 I didn't get to watch it, Yeah I would. I 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.680 was not able to find, uh, even any footage from 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:58.080 it or a trailer or what would pass for a trailer. 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:00.720 But you can definitely get a say of the vibe 0:07:00.760 --> 0:07:02.520 they were going for if you just look at the poster, 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.200 which of course has like a vague whale shaped sea 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.840 monster with this big saw toothed face and then a 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.520 dude with a harpoon poise to hit it. It looks 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.920 in composition like the much later poster for the movie 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.320 Journey to the Seventh Planet, which is this nineteen sixty 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.880 two sci fi barbecue about a bunch of astronauts who 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:27.160 fly out to explore Uranus and then get this They 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.360 essentially end up with a d intellectualized version of the 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.040 plot from Solaris and the movie stars of course, John 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:38.840 agar Ah, yes a frequent a frequent name for anyone's 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.800 who's ever plunged the depths of of B movies from 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:43.800 that era. But if you look at this poster for 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.040 Journey to the Seventh Planet, it's I don't know if 0:07:46.080 --> 0:07:47.960 it was actually inspired by Titans of the Deep, but 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.680 they look very similar to me. I also found an 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:54.880 image this is an advertisement. But it turns out even 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:59.800 Otis Barton, who accompanied William BB in the Bathosphere, he 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:01.640 is famous enough at the time to appear in a 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:06.960 camel advertisement for Camel cigarettes where you see him featured 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:08.760 there and he's saying, I smoke as many camels as 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.840 I like. They don't give me jittery nerves. Camels have 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:15.000 a have a swell taste, mild and yet with rich, 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.240 mellow flavor. I smoked them all in the bathosphere. Yeah, 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:21.480 I don't. I do not think the bathosphere is a 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:25.720 good smoking environment. Two packs per dive. Well, we've been 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:27.520 teasing it enough. I think maybe we should take a 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.360 quick break and then when we come back, we should 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:35.640 discuss the bathosphere itself. All right, than alright, we're back, alright, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.840 So I will refer you to an image like a 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.200 photograph of the bathosphere on the landing page for this 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:43.960 episode is stuff to blow your mind dot com. But 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:45.920 we're also going to describe it for you here, so 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:48.679 no need to pull the car over. What happ you 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.839 depending on how you're listening to us. So as you're 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.120 trying to imagine the bathosphere, it's probably best to dismiss 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:58.200 some of your more modern and TV friendly notions of 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:03.520 exploratory submarine means, because the bathosphere was less of a 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.840 submarine and more of just a death trap. Right. It's like, 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:09.200 would you like to get inside a bowling ball and 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:11.680 go to the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, a steel 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.160 ball that men climb inside and then it is lowered 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.480 into the ocean depths. Let's let's ask some questions. Does 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.319 this have a propeller? No? Does it have fins? Does 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.680 it have robotic arms? Does it have really anything on 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:29.800 the outside other than just a steel sphere? I mean, basically, 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:33.400 it is a steel bowling ball that men climb inside 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:36.360 through what what Bby referred to just as the door, 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:41.120 and then it has even door is a little misleading, right, Yeah, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:43.000 I mean it's not really a door. They got in 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.920 through a hole that was then bolted shut, right, See, 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:50.240 its sealed shut like a like an iron casket. And 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.720 then it has these three, uh the three portals that 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.439 they look out off. It look kind of like stubby 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.800 eyes talks. So, Robert, how big was the bathosphere that 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.360 the two people got into? Well, here's a here's a 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.800 quick quote from Baby from his biography Half Mile Down, 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.000 which which we're gonna refer to a lot. If if 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:10.880 if we read a quote quote from Baby in this 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.680 and we don't fully attribute it. It's from half mile down. 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.839 Baby says. It was not as tall as a man, 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.480 measuring only four ft nine inches in diameter, but its 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.240 walls were everywhere an inch and a quarter thick, and 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:28.200 it weighed five thousand, four hundred pounds. A first casting 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.400 had weighed twice as much, but it would have been 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.199 too heavy for any of the winches available in Bermuda. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.360 And was jumped. Now about this steel ball. If you 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.480 don't have an intuitive sense of numbers to physical scale, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:41.160 I want to pause for a second and dwell on 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.080 how tiny this is. You can buy beach balls bigger 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.160 than this undersea exploration vessel. That's crazy. You included a 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.840 picture here on our notes showing what a sixty inch 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.239 beach ball looks like next to presumably an average sized individual. 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:58.760 I guess this is probably a tall guy, but but 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:03.400 still imagine two of him inside of it. That's unbelievable. 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.959 And that's bigger than the bathosphere was. This was this 0:11:07.440 --> 0:11:11.320 thing was tiny. People like they were crammed inside. But 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.480 there was a reason it had to be that small, right, Yeah, Because, 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:16.960 as William J. Broad points out in his book The 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.520 Universe Below, the smaller the sphere the greater strength of 0:11:20.520 --> 0:11:23.000 its walls. If you had more space in there, you 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.560 need thicker walls, which would of course mean increasing the 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.240 weight of the thing. So yeah, we run into the 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.040 problem with with with the winches that we've already discussed. 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.559 It's almost like a parallel of the problems of shielding 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.680 from radiation in space, right, Like, you want to send 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:43.040 up a spacecraft that will protect the astronauts with really 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:45.400 thick shielding in the walls, but you've got a problem 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.080 with getting so much mass up into space that you know, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.320 you could have all these really really thick walls. It's 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.280 like a parallel to that. You know, you you could 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.680 have really really thick walls to make sure you're super 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:58.800 protected from the pressure and you've got enough room to 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.400 move around, but it gets harder and harder to get 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.120 you down into the depths and back up safely if 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:06.960 you do that. Yeah. So this was designed by bb 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.480 an American engineer Otis Barton, who already mentioned, and it 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:13.959 featured three viewing portals, and these were This was not glass. 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:16.599 You couldn't just look out just normal glass because it 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.120 needed to withstand the pressure. This was fused quartz eight 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.880 inches in diameter and three inches thick, and the fittings again, 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.480 they looked like stubby eye stalks. It's like a three 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.640 eyed monster. Yeah, and quartz was used because it was 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:34.320 the quote strongest transparent substance known and it transmits all 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.160 wavelengths of light. Now, earlier we mentioned the door that 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:41.200 wasn't really a door. What does BB say about the door? 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:44.080 He describes it as a quote round four hundred pound 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.320 lid that quote had to be lifted on and off 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.520 by a block and tackle and fitted snugly over ten 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.840 large bolts around the manhole. The ladder just big enough 0:12:53.840 --> 0:12:56.840 to permit the passage of a slender human body. Bebe 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.000 was a very slender guy, we should point out. I've 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:03.000 seen pictures of him and he is spind lee. Now, 0:13:03.280 --> 0:13:05.600 on top of that, let's discuss some of the other 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.640 attributes of physical attributes of the bathisphere. It had a 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.000 single external light, just one thousand wats and one light, 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.280 and you flipped it on or off from inside. And 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:18.400 the sphere was lowered on a single steel, non twisting 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.840 cable nearly an inch in diameter with a breaking strain 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:26.480 of twenty nine tons, or a dozen bathispheres Okay, So 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.800 they wanted to be real safe because of course, if 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.640 that cable breaks, you're in a world a hurt. Yeah, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:34.640 you're you're done for, and you have to worry about 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.120 more than just the what happens if the cable breaks, 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:38.719 So you have to worry about, well, what if they're 0:13:38.760 --> 0:13:41.040 stormy weather, et cetera. Now you mentioned there's a light 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:42.559 on the thing, so that means they got to get 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:44.760 power down there somehow. Yeah, So they had an additional 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.800 cable that carried both the electrical power and the telephone wires. Oh, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:50.560 telephone wires. So they had to have some way to 0:13:50.559 --> 0:13:52.960 communicate with the service, right, I assume they couldn't just 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.120 tug on the cable. Yeah, I don't think that would work. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.680 But but yeah, this is this is kind of the 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.439 limits of their connection to the surface. They had electricity 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.080 coming down, and they had that telephone wire. They did 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:09.640 not have an air tube coming down. But of course 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.679 they had to breathe. So the bathmosphere included oxygen tanks 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.240 with automatic valves up that provided uh, the atmosphere, and 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.560 then they just had trays of chemical setting out. I 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:23.280 believe it was soda, lime, and calcium chloride. Yeah, and 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.640 this was to absorb moisture and carbon dioxide because you 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:28.400 don't just need fresh air to breathe in, you need 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.240 to scrub the carbon dioxide that you're breathing out. Yeah. 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.080 I would, I would just want to drive home. How 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:37.480 I mean, it's an amazing invention, but how dangerously crude 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:41.360 it can it can feel. It reminds me of there 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:47.120 was the Night film? Was it The Voyagers? Explorers? Yes, 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.480 where the kids build this kind of spaceship that sets 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.720 inside a like a magic force field sphere. But they 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.040 just build it, right, They just constructed from what they 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.760 have at hand, And there's a there's a similar vibe 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:02.600 with the bath Isphere like that. There's just it's just 0:15:02.680 --> 0:15:06.640 so ballsy to imagine climbing in this thing and to 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:09.760 the death. I mean, it is a large ball. It 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.400 is a it is a steel ball. Yes, and even 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.120 though it holds two divers and is essentially a two 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.360 man crew. Uh. BB says that the total crew required 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.600 to support this thing, uh, most of which you're going 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.800 to be members on the surface. Uh, it comes to 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.720 around twenty eight people total, so two under the water, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.120 above the water. All right, So let's say you're William Beebe, 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.200 and you're like, Okay, I've got a steel ball to Diane, Um, 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:41.160 where where are we going to put this down in 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:43.520 the water. Well, they set their side some the deep 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.640 seas off the coast of Bermuda, Uh, specifically a circular 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:49.880 area about eight miles in diameter near non Such Island, 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.880 and here the depth reached about a mile. The first 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.720 dive occurred in nineteen thirty. By June eleven, nineteen thirty, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.360 they've reached the depth of feet or four ds. In in 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:04.240 in n four they reached three thousand feet or nine 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.160 d and that was, of course, by far the world record. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:10.760 That they went much lower than anybody had ever been 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.600 able to explore before. Yeah, they were really breaking new 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:19.000 grounds with this. Now, the bathosphere greatly improved humanity's ability 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.040 to explore the depths UH. But again it was it 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.120 was ultimately a risky vessel to use, and it was 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:30.440 soon replaced by safer designs, including the bath Escape, which 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:36.040 positioned a traditional bathosphere beneath a large float, and even 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:39.040 the likes of the modern Deep Sea Challenger famously piloted 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:43.200 by James Cameron that boasts a pilot sphere position beneath 0:16:43.240 --> 0:16:45.360 the rest of the vessel. So you can think of 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.600 post bathosphere designs as just basically being the bathosphere attached 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:56.880 to a larger system of flotation submarine submarine. Basically like, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:59.400 let's attach this to a submarine that has power, that 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.440 has the ability to to to raise and lower itself 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.920 within the water. But the bathosphere was was just the sphere, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:12.399 just the this uh, this steel container for the humans 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:15.000 to descend in. Having your own power really does seem 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:17.240 to make a difference, right, I mean, there's a huge 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:20.320 difference between being in a submarine that can move and 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:22.879 just hanging in a ball on a thread. Yeah, I 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.960 mean just the psychological uh notion here, just the idea 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:28.920 that they have something if I if I get tired 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:32.600 of descending into the darkness of the deep sea, then 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:34.720 I can just I can I can raise myself out 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.200 of this. I have some level of control, and I'm 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.240 not just hoping that everything is going okay up there 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.600 on the surface. Now. Of course, by virtue of the 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:45.280 fact that bb and his team went deeper than anyone 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.280 ever had before, he got to observe far more than 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:50.800 anyone ever had before. So I think we should go 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.080 into his scientific observations, and we'll do that right after 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:59.119 this break. Thank thank alright, we're back. So William bebe 0:17:59.240 --> 0:18:01.280 the modern guilt a mesh. He and his co pilot 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.000 are in the ball in the steel death trap, sinking down, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.320 down down into the ocean, deeper than anybody's ever gone before, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:10.919 and looking out the portholes to see what they can see. 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.600 So let's talk about what they see. What did they 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.840 discover through this research method? Well, BB observed and sketched 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.960 again because cameras of the day were largely useless given 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:23.879 the conditions of the bathosphere in its environment. But he 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.600 described a world quote stranger than any imagination could have conceived, 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.879 and he writes about it very beautifully. Oh yeah, and 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.159 and he really brought the results between N and n 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.439 b B and his team caught more than a hundred 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.919 and fifteen thousand animals from two hundred and twenty species, 0:18:42.200 --> 0:18:44.919 many many of which were new to science, so they 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.560 were combining different research methods at the same time. Now, 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:51.199 before we get into some of the specific creatures that 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:54.840 he saw claim to have seen, uh, we should probably 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:58.080 just talk about his experience with darkness and light, because 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.080 ultimately that is the how that that's kind of the 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.600 defining experience that he describes. Oh exactly, so Bb Rights quote. 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.600 In the course of the half mile down, although my 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:12.400 eyes were perfectly dark adapted, I could detect not the 0:19:12.440 --> 0:19:16.439 faintest glimmer of light from seventeen hundred feet down. So, 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.040 as far as the human eye was concerned, conditions of 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:23.640 absolute darkness existed at these deeper levels. And then he says, 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.320 from seventeen hundred feet down, animal light is the only 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:30.520 external source of illumination. So of course they did have 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.440 a light they could flip on, but they didn't want 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:34.200 to do that all the time, right, because that would 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.120 be affecting and changing the environment, So they didn't do 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.800 that always. They would try to see, often just what 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:42.640 they could see in the dark that was self illuminated. 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:44.840 And when you go that far down, there actually are 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:49.199 very many bioluminescent creatures that will illuminate themselves for you 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:51.200 to see, but they'll also illuminate the water so that 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.320 you can see other animals around them. And bb Rights quote, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.440 occasionally the head of a fish would appear conspicuously against 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:03.480 the surround black, illumined by some indirect source of unknown lighting. 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:07.600 Eyes especially stood out with no definite source of light visible. 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:10.719 When teeth were thus silhouetted, I knew it was from 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:14.959 a luminous mucus which covered them. Cheek lights flashed and 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.040 dimmed or vanished, altogether showing some control other than the 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:23.520 usual disappearance into an opaque epidermal trench. And I should 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.919 mention those last quotes I provided came from a paper 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.720 he published in Proceedings to the National Academy of Sciences 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:32.359 in nineteen thirty two or thirty three. Yeah, he was 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:37.919 extremely impressed by the display of bioluminescence as as he descended. 0:20:38.160 --> 0:20:41.320 So he noted the lights of fish, jellies and various 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:44.560 animals that he couldn't really identify in passing, and it 0:20:44.680 --> 0:20:47.560 was something of a revelation to him. About a third 0:20:47.560 --> 0:20:50.160 of a mile down he saw something that he described 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:54.520 as a quote pyrotechnic network and was and it was 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.440 quote so delicate and evanescent that its abyssal form is 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:02.159 quite lost if we ever take get in our nets. So, 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:04.040 in other words, if we were just to pull this up, 0:21:04.920 --> 0:21:06.960 you know what, what would we have. We would have 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.840 maybe some shriveled mass, but we certainly would not have 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:14.600 this floating bioluminescent thing that I'm witnessing right now. Well, 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.320 in the last episode we talked about the c cucumber 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:19.960 that turns to red kool aid. Here you would guess 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:23.439 turn into Buyo luminescent kool aid. And then there's this, 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.680 there's this, this description of the Abyssle rainbow cars, which 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.919 will come back to later on. He says, at eleven 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:34.400 seventeen o'clock, I turned the light on suddenly and saw 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.159 a strange quartet of fish to which I have not 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:41.000 been able to fit genus or family, shape, size, color, 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.879 and one fin I saw clearly. But Ourbissle rainbow cars 0:21:44.960 --> 0:21:47.080 is as far as I dare go. You other words 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:48.639 these saying that's as far as I dare go, and 0:21:48.640 --> 0:21:53.159 classifying it and naming it quote. And they may be 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.920 anything but cars about four inches overall. They were slender 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.960 and stiff, with long, sharply pointed jaws. And it's worth 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.200 noting no one has ever captured a specimen quite like this, 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:07.760 nor seen it uh. And this this is one of 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:13.440 the mysteries that arises from William Beebe's observations. Specimens that 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:18.520 have have not been caught or even witnessed again, and 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.240