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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday,

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Speaker 1: so of course that means it's time to venture into

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Speaker 1: the vault. But whereas the vault is usually quite dark

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Speaker 1: and mysterious, today it is brightly lit by some kind

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Speaker 1: of green flame. Ah. Yes, the Greek Fire. This episode

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Speaker 1: originally aired August two, and it is about a historical

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Speaker 1: would it would it be safe to call it a

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Speaker 1: super weapon? It's at least some kind of nightmarish terror

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Speaker 1: of war. Yeah, it's a super weapon, terror weapon, shock weapon. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's a fascinating episode because it's it gets into

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Speaker 1: the power of secrets and the danger of secrets. And

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Speaker 1: this one also has a fun dramatic reading at the

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Speaker 1: top by Anie Reese of Savor and Stuff. Mom, I

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Speaker 1: never told you, that's right. If you haven't checked out

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Speaker 1: Savor yet, that's any and Lawrence Podcast, a relaunch of

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Speaker 1: the food Stuff brand. You should check that out. It's great. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they definitely. I don't think they're gonna cover Greek Fire.

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Speaker 1: They'll probably cover Greek cuisine if they haven't already, But

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Speaker 1: Greek Fire that's is probably gonna remain just on this

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Speaker 1: show if Greek feta is more your thing. But oh yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so this will be Greek fire. We hope you enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Emperor Alexios ordered ships to be furnished by all the

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Speaker 1: countries under the Roman sway. He had a number built

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Speaker 1: in the capital itself, and would at intervals go around

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Speaker 1: and instruct the shipwrights how to make them, as he

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Speaker 1: knew that the pieces were skilled in sea warfare and

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Speaker 1: dreaded a battle with them. On the power of each ship,

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Speaker 1: he had a head fixed of a lion or other

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Speaker 1: land animal, made in brass or iron, with the mouth

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Speaker 1: open and then gilded over, so that their mere aspect

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Speaker 1: was terrified, and the fire which was to be directed

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Speaker 1: against the enemy through tubes he made to pass through

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Speaker 1: the mouths of the beast, so that it seemed as

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Speaker 1: if the lions and the other similar monsters were vomiting

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Speaker 1: the fire. Then the man called Count aim On very

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Speaker 1: boldly attacked the largest vessel at the stern, but got

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Speaker 1: entangled in its rudders, and as he could not free

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Speaker 1: himself easily, he would have been taken had he not

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Speaker 1: with great presence of mind had recourse to his machine

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Speaker 1: and put fire upon the enemy very successfully. Then he

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Speaker 1: quickly turned his ship round and set fire on the

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Speaker 1: spot to three more of the largest barbarian ships. At

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Speaker 1: the same moment, a squall of wind suddenly struck the

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Speaker 1: sea and churned it up and dashed ships together, and

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Speaker 1: almost threatened to sink them. For the ways roared at

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Speaker 1: the yard, arms creaked, and the sails were split. The

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Speaker 1: barbarians now became thoroughly alarmed, firstly because of the fire

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Speaker 1: directed upon them, for they were not accustomed to that

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Speaker 1: kind of machine, nor to a fire which naturally flames upwards.

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Speaker 1: But then this case was directed in whatever direction the

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Speaker 1: sender desired, often downwards are laterally. And secondly, they were

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Speaker 1: very much upset by the storm, and consequently they fled.

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Speaker 1: That's's what the barbarians did. Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind from How Stuff Works dot com. Hey you

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Speaker 1: welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. And those were the

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Speaker 1: words of eleventh and twelfth century Byzantine Princess Anna Comnena

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Speaker 1: from her book The Alexiad. And we we only tweaked

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Speaker 1: it slightly for performance purposes here and it was brought

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Speaker 1: to life by Annie Reese, one of the hosts of

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Speaker 1: food Stuff. Food Stuff is another podcast here in the house,

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works Family. It is about all things edible and potable.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I don't I don't know that they've done

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Speaker 1: anything on Greek food or Byzantine food. But just if

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Speaker 1: if you can can't tell from that that lovely introduction,

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Speaker 1: we are going to be talking about the Byzantine Empire.

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Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about a secret weapon of

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Speaker 1: the Byzantine's, a weapon so secret that we're not even

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Speaker 1: really sure what it consisted of in detail. Today we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Greek fire, the nuclear bomb of the Middle Ages. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean really, it was ahead of its time. It

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Speaker 1: was like napalm in the Middle Ages. It was like

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Speaker 1: a flamethrower in the Middle Ages. Right, So we want

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Speaker 1: to explore all the ins and outs of this ancient

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Speaker 1: secret super weapon. I don't know, does it qualify a

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Speaker 1: super weapon. It's kind of small scale, but it's in

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Speaker 1: terms of power and awe at the time, you could

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Speaker 1: maybe consider it a super I would think, so, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it was a it was a super weapon that definitely

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Speaker 1: inspired terror and was extremely effective in particular situations. As

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Speaker 1: is the case with a lot of a shock and

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Speaker 1: awe weaponry, you know, it can't win. It's not gonna

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Speaker 1: win a battle on its own. In the same way

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Speaker 1: that you know, a tank is pretty great, but a

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Speaker 1: tank needs infantry support if it's going to be effective.

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Speaker 1: That's sort of thing, right. So to explore the world

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Speaker 1: of Greek fire, all the science, all of the speculation

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Speaker 1: about what it was, how it worked, how it came

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Speaker 1: to be, we've got to first give you the setting.

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Speaker 1: So what was the Byzantine Empire and where was Byzantium?

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Speaker 1: All right, so we're basically talking about the region of

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Speaker 1: the southern Balkans and Asia minor modern day Turkey. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: rought modern day Turkey and part of Greece. But in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the sixth century, this was an empire

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Speaker 1: that that stretched out all the way across the North

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Speaker 1: African coastal region from the Atlantic to Egypt, along with

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Speaker 1: southern parts of Spain and Italy. U Now, to give

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Speaker 1: you a sort of a timeline of this of this empire,

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Speaker 1: in three twenty four, Constantine, the Emperor Constantine moved the

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Speaker 1: capital of the Roman Empire itself to Byzantium. And of

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Speaker 1: course we know Constantine was the first Roman emperor to

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Speaker 1: claim to have converted to Christianity. Yes, so that's key.

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Speaker 1: So it's you know, Roman Christian Christianity here, the Holy

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Speaker 1: Roman Empire. Now this went for this is a successful

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Speaker 1: empire for quite a spell. Here. It wasn't until fourteen

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Speaker 1: fifty three that Constantinople, the capital, fell to the Ottoman

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Speaker 1: Empire and afterwards, of course became Istanbul. Yeah, as the

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Speaker 1: of the Animaediac song, we're illustrate for us. So all

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Speaker 1: in all, this is an empire with one thousand, one

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Speaker 1: nine year history. Yeah, though its borders changed a lot

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Speaker 1: over the centuries, and during its final years the Byzantine

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Speaker 1: Empire was reduced to a relatively minor state around the

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Speaker 1: Constantinople area. But it's strange to realize that in some form,

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Speaker 1: the Roman Empire didn't actually end before the Middle Ages.

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Speaker 1: And I usually think of when did the Roman Empire end?

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Speaker 1: I think of the western Roman Empire around the city

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Speaker 1: of Roman, which of course you know fell and that

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Speaker 1: that's ushers in what historians generally have thought of as

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Speaker 1: the Middle ages in Europe, you know, around the middle

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Speaker 1: of the first millennium. But if you consider or the

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Speaker 1: eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire, which

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Speaker 1: it certainly did consider itself the Roman Empire, the Roman

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Speaker 1: Empire in some form lasted until the Renaissance in Europe,

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Speaker 1: which is a just a bizarre thing to consider. It

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Speaker 1: just doesn't mesh with my normal view of history. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's important to note. Uh. Likewise, I often

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Speaker 1: fall into the trap of sort of thinking of the

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Speaker 1: Byzantine Empire and thinking of it like sort of vaguely

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Speaker 1: as a much smaller and briefer affair than it actually was.

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Speaker 1: Now it's worth It's also important to note here that

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Speaker 1: nobody actually called it the Byzantine Empire during its time.

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Speaker 1: You only called inhabitants of Constantinople or a couple of

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Speaker 1: other areas Byzantines. Now the subjects of the emperor themselves

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Speaker 1: that they called themselves Romans, uh Constantine. The first, as

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Speaker 1: we mentioned, was the Fruit was the first Christian ruler

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Speaker 1: of the Roman Empire at least took on that mantle,

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Speaker 1: uh He and he moved the capital to Constantinople, and

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Speaker 1: as such they were the Christian Roman Empire and the

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Speaker 1: western remnants of the Roman Empire proper they fell into

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Speaker 1: barbarians successor kingdoms. So we mentioned that the Byzantine Empire had,

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Speaker 1: you know, over a thousand year history, and during this

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Speaker 1: time it was pretty much constantly at war in some

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Speaker 1: form or another. It was constantly challenged by its neighbors.

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Speaker 1: In the east, you had first the Persian Empire and

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Speaker 1: then various Islamic powers later on. And to the north

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Speaker 1: there were the Slavs and the Turkish Avars. There were

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Speaker 1: the Bulgars, the Hungarians, the Serbs, and finally the Ottoman Turks. Um.

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Speaker 1: I know, it seems kind of weird that you would

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Speaker 1: put them with the north, but like that was sort

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Speaker 1: of the shape of of of geographically of the territory

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Speaker 1: at the time. So and and then likewise, in the

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Speaker 1: west they were constantly engaging in these tent struggles with

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Speaker 1: Greek city straight states and other Roman remnants, often with

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Speaker 1: complications from papal politics. Yeah, and some of those complications

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Speaker 1: get very complicated. Like one of the things a lot

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Speaker 1: of people don't real lies about some of the Crusades

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Speaker 1: is that, yes, the Crusades were waged by European Christians

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Speaker 1: often against Muslims and Jews, but they also sometimes fought

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Speaker 1: the Byzantine Christians. Yeah, I mean, there's the whole tail

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Speaker 1: during the Crusades of the essentially the sacking of Constantinople

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Speaker 1: by the Christian crusaders. Yeah. For usually for complicated, petty

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Speaker 1: political reasons. But you know, they survived all this time,

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Speaker 1: and one of and one of the reasons was that

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Speaker 1: they were essentially still the Roman empire and spirit. They

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Speaker 1: were well organized, they boasted strong fiscal and military systems,

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Speaker 1: again testaments to their Roman history. And of course they

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Speaker 1: had a secret weapon. There's nothing better than a secret

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Speaker 1: weapon there. Really, we were talking about this earlier there.

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Speaker 1: How many secret weapons can you really think of, even

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Speaker 1: in the modern age? Well, I mean you can definitely.

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Speaker 1: The modern parallel that comes to mind is the race

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Speaker 1: for the atom bomb during the World War two era.

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Speaker 1: It's it's a thing where if you go back and

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Speaker 1: read it at the time, even if you you know,

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Speaker 1: don't think that the atom bomb was a good thing

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Speaker 1: for humanity to have discovered, I mean we probably might.

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Speaker 1: A lot of us agree that the world would be

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Speaker 1: better if nuclear weapons didn't exist, though some people might

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Speaker 1: argue otherwise, some people might say that it's a really

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Speaker 1: useful deterrent against more large scale conventional war, but it's

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Speaker 1: a scary time. It's like trying to imagine what would

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Speaker 1: the world have been like if the Nazis had gotten

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Speaker 1: the atomic bomb first, or other scenarios along those lines. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that the atomic bomb, along with the various

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Speaker 1: biological and chemical weapons are are probably the best analogy

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Speaker 1: we have. But then to think of this in the

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Speaker 1: Middle Ages too, to extrapolate similar circumstances regarding state secrets

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Speaker 1: and weapons systems, uh, it's it's kind of mind bockling

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Speaker 1: right now. Greek fire is certainly much smaller in applied

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Speaker 1: scale than a large scale bomb like in comic weapon

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Speaker 1: in the twentieth century, but it may be no less

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Speaker 1: terrifying in the way that it's represented in legend. Oh yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about essentially when we'll get into the

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Speaker 1: details here, and you already had an example from the intro.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about ships spewing liquid fire like essentially spewing

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Speaker 1: napalm onto enemy vessels, onto the water itself, causing the

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Speaker 1: water to burn and then of course to burn ships

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Speaker 1: which are generally highly flammable, as well as the individuals aboard.

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Speaker 1: You would I would think, certainly think twice about approaching

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Speaker 1: one of these Byzantine vessels, especially if it had a visible,

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Speaker 1: uh you know, animal head on the front. But you

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Speaker 1: can also think about it from the from the individual

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Speaker 1: sailor's perspective, like the terror that would be inflicted on them,

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Speaker 1: because if you so you imagine a naval battle and

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Speaker 1: you are approaching a ship that is spewing fire, it

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Speaker 1: is probably the case that because you're a medieval sailor,

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Speaker 1: you don't know how to swim, and you might be

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Speaker 1: far from shore, and so you were facing two possible

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Speaker 1: fates either burning alive or jumping overboard and drowning. And

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Speaker 1: even if you could swim, the water is now on fire. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's it's not like you have a great option

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Speaker 1: there either. Now we know there have been all kinds

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Speaker 1: of thermal and incendiary weapons used throughout history. Fire plays

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Speaker 1: a big role in more fair going back to prehistoric times, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, just like burning and raising villages, Like a

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Speaker 1: common way of siege tactics before siege engines were invented

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Speaker 1: would be to just set fire to crops and villages

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Speaker 1: surrounding a besieged castle or fortification to essentially draw them out,

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Speaker 1: to say like, we're gonna torch everything you have if

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Speaker 1: you don't come out to fight us. What kind of

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Speaker 1: goes back to our episode on fire. Fire is is

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Speaker 1: the basic, you know, the basic aspect of human technology.

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Speaker 1: So as long as we've had it, we've used it

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Speaker 1: for to kill each other and to keep each other alive, right,

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Speaker 1: and so it's it's quite clear and quite easy to

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Speaker 1: see why it's a useful tool in war. Also, it

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Speaker 1: has that kind of scary element because it's not just

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Speaker 1: a directed weapon like an arrow or a sword. It

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Speaker 1: has a life of its own. You release fire into

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Speaker 1: the wild and it can sort of carry on with

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Speaker 1: its own business without completely unaided by your continued efforts.

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Speaker 1: But I want to know when's the first time we

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Speaker 1: saw this specific version of incendiary weapon reuse? What when

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Speaker 1: does Greek fire itself first come on the scene. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked, Joe. It was the year six eight,

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Speaker 1: and uh in Constantinople was in a kind of a

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Speaker 1: tight spot, right, And so going forward from this point,

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Speaker 1: I just want to acknowledge one of our main sources.

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Speaker 1: It is a really interesting paper back from in the

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Speaker 1: journal Technology and Culture by Alex Rowland called Secrecy, Technology

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Speaker 1: and War, Greek Fire and the Defensive Byzantium six to

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Speaker 1: twelve o four. So a lot of our information going

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Speaker 1: forward is going to be coming from here, but we'll

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Speaker 1: mention a few other sources also. So at Constantinople, we're

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Speaker 1: under siege. What'spenning? Okay? So the caliph Mawejia has dispatched

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Speaker 1: his fleet for the fifth consecutive time, and he's taken

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Speaker 1: the peninsula of sizy Couse and here just south of

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Speaker 1: the Byzantine capital. Uh, the entire Arab naval forces here,

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Speaker 1: they've converged with the army and they're going to march

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Speaker 1: on Constantinople and besiege it. Okay, So we have the

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Speaker 1: Arab forces moving in and Constantinople, how's it going to

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Speaker 1: defend itself? Well, I mean, luckily, it is a it

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Speaker 1: is a very defensible city at the time they have,

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Speaker 1: so they have a lot of a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: going for them. But that this is thing about being

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Speaker 1: besieged is that it is a a long term affair.

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Speaker 1: Usually it's about a steady strangling of the city of

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Speaker 1: the nation even but being a coastal city, Constantinople has

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of its power and resources

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Speaker 1: in its ability to travel the seas. Right, So if

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Speaker 1: you've got a fleet coming in to attack your ability

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Speaker 1: to travel the seas, that's no good, that's right. So

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Speaker 1: they luckily Constantinople had a strong navy and pretty much

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Speaker 1: had a strong imperial navy at least isolated to Constantinople

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Speaker 1: for the you know, the duration of the empire. But

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Speaker 1: what they needed, though, was it was a particular weapon.

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Speaker 1: They needed something that would really give them a strong advantage,

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Speaker 1: an advantage the likes of which we we we we

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Speaker 1: heard in the intro to this episode, and that's where

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Speaker 1: a particular individual comes into play. Kalinkas. Yes, the stories

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Speaker 1: tell us that Kalinkas was a Syrian architect and engineer

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Speaker 1: from the town known at the time as Heliopolis of Syria,

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Speaker 1: and he arrived in Constantinople as a refugee after he

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Speaker 1: had been driven out of his homeland, so he'd recently

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Speaker 1: escaped the Arab conquest of Syria. He brought his military

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Speaker 1: ideas and inventions with him to the Byzantines, and essentially

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Speaker 1: he showed up on their doorsteps and offered them the

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Speaker 1: science of napalm. Really with what it breaks down to,

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Speaker 1: how do you imagine that scene breaking down? Like he

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Speaker 1: knocks on the city walls and says, I have a flamethrower. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you had. He had to make

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Speaker 1: a case for it, like, hey, I've got some ideas.

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Speaker 1: They're they're really explosive. You're gonna love them for Maybe

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Speaker 1: there was a posting, hey, we have an opening for

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Speaker 1: a you know, a weapons engineer, a chemical engineer to

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Speaker 1: help us with our weapons systems for this upcoming siege.

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Speaker 1: What does a medieval weapons pitch meeting look like. I

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Speaker 1: don't know, but I'm I guess it's you know, it's

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Speaker 1: like an audience with the king or or dignitaries, and

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Speaker 1: then you know he's probably showing them some plans or something. However,

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Speaker 1: he ended up pitching it. It was accepted. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it was even referred to as clinicals fire, as well

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Speaker 1: as Roman fire, marine fire, liquid fire, artificial fire, and

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Speaker 1: of course Greek fire. Now it probably wasn't referred to

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Speaker 1: as Greek fire at the time by the Byzantines because

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Speaker 1: they didn't even think of themselves as Greeks. I think

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Speaker 1: that name, that appellation came late or from Western Europeans, right,

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Speaker 1: like Crusaders would encounter this or something like it, and

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Speaker 1: because they were going east when they saw it, they

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Speaker 1: referred to it as Greek fire, right, And then the

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Speaker 1: name that name, in particular Greek fire ends up being

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Speaker 1: applied to various things that might not have been the

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Speaker 1: same Greek fire weapons system, or might have been just

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Speaker 1: something just you know, remotely similar, like maybe it just

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Speaker 1: involved flaming oils of some sort. Yeah, I've got to

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Speaker 1: comment on that actually. So, according to Kelly Dvrees and

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Speaker 1: Robert Douglas Smith in their book Medieval Military Technology from

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Speaker 1: University of Toronto Press, in basically there were many different

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Speaker 1: types of weapons referred to as Greek fire and the

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Speaker 1: extant literature throughout the Middle Ages, so there were they

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Speaker 1: separated into three main categories. You've got liquid fire pumped

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Speaker 1: out through a nozzle, and then a liquid incendiary weapon

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Speaker 1: that's hurled in small ceramic grenades. And then you've got

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Speaker 1: later solid incendiaries that used explosive so that'd be something

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Speaker 1: more like gunpowder for the purposes of today's discussion, we're

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Speaker 1: focusing primarily on that original Byzantine marine fire, which is

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Speaker 1: what Anna Cumnina was describing. It's a liquid jet of

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Speaker 1: flame that vomited out of a nozzle on the ends

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Speaker 1: of ships. And for for the purposes of simplicity, we

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Speaker 1: could also call it Kalina costs fire, because that specifies

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Speaker 1: that it's what was used in the eighth century by

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Speaker 1: the Byzantines in their ships. These flamethrowers coming out the

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Speaker 1: prow of the of the Byzantine warships. Now, in the

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Speaker 1: case of this initial rollout of Greek fire, uh it

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Speaker 1: turned was able to help turn the tide. According to

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Speaker 1: the accounts, they're able to drive back the invaders, and

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Speaker 1: the remnants of the air of fleet were then subsequently

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Speaker 1: lost in a mighty storm. And when the forces again

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Speaker 1: attempted the investiture of Constantinople and seven seventeen, the Byzantines

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Speaker 1: again used the Greek fire, and this time they apparently

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Speaker 1: had a an improved formula, and the invaders were driven

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Speaker 1: off once again. And and this is a kind of

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Speaker 1: a key historic moment. By the way, some historians rank

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Speaker 1: it only under Charles Martel's victories over Islamic invaders in

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Speaker 1: southern France during the seven thirties is a key stop

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Speaker 1: point for Muslim expansion into Europe. So it's simply one

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Speaker 1: of those moments in time where it's hard to imagine

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Speaker 1: a timeline forking off in an alternate direction. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: always love those things in history, like those key moments

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Speaker 1: where I've never heard of like an alternate history that

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Speaker 1: explores what would have happened if things have gone the

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Speaker 1: other way. But I want to read that book. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's out there, yeah, yeah, and maybe maybe HBO will

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Speaker 1: adapt it. It sounds equally problematic to to have like

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Speaker 1: a modern series showing what a you know, what a

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Speaker 1: predominantly Islamic at least, you know, at least Eastern Europe

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Speaker 1: would have looked like, you know, it's just a it's

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Speaker 1: fascinating to try and try and picture how that would

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Speaker 1: have come together in an alternate timeline. But we should

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Speaker 1: focus on the technology itself, because that's the core of today.

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Speaker 1: What was Greek fire? Yeah, I mean, as you might

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Speaker 1: imagine with a wonder weapons such as this, it was

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Speaker 1: a matter of state secret, and it's a secret that

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Speaker 1: seemingly died with the death of the Byzantine Empire in

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Speaker 1: the four hundreds, or maybe much earlier, or much earlier

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Speaker 1: later we'll get to uh. And to this day, chemists

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Speaker 1: and historians they continue to devise possible recipes for it,

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Speaker 1: and thoughts not only on the the just the the

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Speaker 1: liquid itself, but also the weapons system and involved here

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Speaker 1: what what what were they cooking up? How are they

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Speaker 1: dishing it out? And to what degree was anyone ever

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Speaker 1: able to replicate it? Fascinating questions we will explore in

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Speaker 1: depth when we come back from this break. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back now, Robert. We're onto the Greek fire itself,

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Speaker 1: the chemistry of the liquid substance, the liquid flame, and

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Speaker 1: the delivery system for it. So what do modern scholars

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Speaker 1: think about Greek fire and and what do we know

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Speaker 1: about Greek fire from these medieval descriptions that we can

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Speaker 1: use to try to figure out how it worked. Yes,

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Speaker 1: let's get into the main properties of Greek fire. Though

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Speaker 1: before we do that, I do want to point out

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Speaker 1: one point that Rowland makes in his his paper, and

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Speaker 1: that's that historian Theophanes wrote that the Bysantine, the Byzantine

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Speaker 1: Emperor already had a fire ship program in the works

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Speaker 1: two years before the arrival of kalin Cos. So it

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Speaker 1: remains a mystery exactly what the nature of the prior

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Speaker 1: system weapons system was and how he improved upon it

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Speaker 1: with presumably with his formula. Yeah, that is one interpretation

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Speaker 1: I've read that some modern historians look at this and say, okay,

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Speaker 1: Kalina Cos if you assume he was a real person

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Speaker 1: and he did show up to help with the Greek

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Speaker 1: fire system, that what he actually did was not invent

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Speaker 1: Greek fire or bring them Greek fire, but that he

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Speaker 1: improved upon their recipe. That they already had some kind

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Speaker 1: of chemical incendiary weapon that could be lit and and

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Speaker 1: tossed out over enemies, but that he made it much

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Speaker 1: more powerful. And what are the key characteristics that are

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Speaker 1: often reported about this powerful version of Greek fire or

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Speaker 1: Colina costs fire? Okay, so they're they're basically four of

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Speaker 1: these properties. First of all, we've already alluded to this.

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Speaker 1: It burns in water. Some say it some say it

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Speaker 1: was ignited by water, but this is almost certainly a myth.

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Speaker 1: It's also said that only vinegar, sand or urine could

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Speaker 1: extinguish it. Now, in the next key characteristic. It was

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Speaker 1: a liquid. It was something that was vomited forth from

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Speaker 1: one of these animal heads or a siphon number three.

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Speaker 1: At sea, it was shot from tubes or siphons and

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Speaker 1: very rarely used on land. Okay, so it mainly came

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Speaker 1: out of the prow of a ship, right, yeah, And

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Speaker 1: it's something that would be you know, squirted or blasted

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Speaker 1: out of um an aperture. And then finally, and this

403
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Speaker 1: is this one is really interesting and will come into

404
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Speaker 1: some of the theories that we're going to discuss us.

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Speaker 1: There was smoke and a booming sound as it vomited

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Speaker 1: forth from the two and this is about as detailed

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Speaker 1: as our understanding of the properties get. Like, most of

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Speaker 1: the theories that we're looking at are going to be

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Speaker 1: speculating based on these characteristics. Now, all but the use

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Speaker 1: of tubes, you can find in prior incendiary weapons used

411
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Speaker 1: by other people, such as various historical accounts of just

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Speaker 1: flaming oils being used. Fireworks existed in the region as

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Speaker 1: early as the fourth century, and those could have created

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Speaker 1: smoke and noise. But still there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: questions regarding, you know, what, what exactly is going on here? Well,

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Speaker 1: let's chase those questions. Man, all right, let's do it. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So what are some potential ingredients that have been hypothesized

418
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Speaker 1: by modern scholars that would have been constituents of the

419
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Speaker 1: Greek fire recipe? We know that it was probably more

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Speaker 1: than just one thing, right now, One thing that has

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Speaker 1: been suggested by modern scholars is the idea of quicklime.

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Speaker 1: Quick Lime is the common name for calcium oxide or

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Speaker 1: C A O, and this is something that can be

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Speaker 1: produced from lime bearing things found in nature, such as

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Speaker 1: seashells or in limestone. You can do like a heat

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Speaker 1: reduction of these things to produce quicklime. So it is

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Speaker 1: something that was known to the ancient world. Now, the

428
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:23,080
Speaker 1: supporting evidence for the idea that quicklime was involved in

429
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:27,360
Speaker 1: the Greek fire recipe was that, of course, the production

430
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 1: of calcium oxide was technologically feasible at the time it

431
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: could have been done. In fact, people have been making

432
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:35,920
Speaker 1: quicklime for a long time, and it had even been

433
00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: used as a chemical weapon by the Romans hundreds of

434
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:42,639
Speaker 1: years before. But if you believe the part of the

435
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:46,439
Speaker 1: story that says Greek fire ignited on contact with water,

436
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:51,200
Speaker 1: quicklime could help you get there because calcium oxide produces

437
00:24:51,280 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: a strong exothermic reaction on contact with water, meaning when

438
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: you get it wet, it releases heat. And you can

439
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 1: see videos of the they're they're like demonstration videos on

440
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: YouTube where someone will get a container of quicklime and

441
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: they'll just pour some water on it and immediately starts

442
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: smoking and getting hot. Sometimes they'll even melt the container

443
00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:14,879
Speaker 1: that it's sitting in. Now it's not flames, mind you,

444
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: So that's part of the counter evidence. Of course, quicklime

445
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: itself doesn't produce fire, but a heat producing chemical reaction,

446
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:25,439
Speaker 1: so the quicklime couldn't be the only ingredient. Also some

447
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: counter evidence is that Roland points out the Greek fire

448
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: was reported to have burned on the decks of ships,

449
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:34,879
Speaker 1: not just in the water, and if quicklime was the

450
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: ignition catalyst, it would need to be heated by coming

451
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 1: into contact with water, so that might weigh against the

452
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,880
Speaker 1: quick quicklime idea. But perhaps you could imagine a recipe

453
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:50,280
Speaker 1: in which quicklime is combined with another fuel or mixture

454
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,640
Speaker 1: of fuels, and when the Greek fire preparation comes into

455
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:57,640
Speaker 1: contact with water, the water reacts with the quicklime triggers

456
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: the exothermic reaction. So it suddenly heat sit up, which

457
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,680
Speaker 1: increases the temperature of the mixture past the ignition point

458
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:08,360
Speaker 1: of the fuel, causing it to catch fire. See this

459
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: this makes a certain amount of sense because it you're

460
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:15,920
Speaker 1: you're envisioning something that's not a primitive flamethrower so much

461
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 1: as a chemical concoction that's going to spray safely or

462
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: semi safely away from the warship and then it's going

463
00:26:23,880 --> 00:26:27,880
Speaker 1: to hit the water near the enemy ship and they're ignite. Right.

464
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:31,119
Speaker 1: But as we've said, there's some complications there. One of

465
00:26:31,160 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 1: the things is just that a lot of modern scholars

466
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: think that the burns on contact with water part is

467
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: a myth. I think there's more credence given to the

468
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: idea that it could land on top of the water

469
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: and continue burning while it's wet like, while it's in

470
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: the water, But the idea that it would only ignite

471
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 1: when it was touched by water, I think fewer people

472
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:56,639
Speaker 1: except that part of the story. Also, as Roland points out,

473
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 1: and as I said a minute ago, it lands on

474
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,920
Speaker 1: the deck of the ship and the ship's burning. So

475
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: in order for that to work, if it's triggered by quicklime,

476
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:06,639
Speaker 1: if that's what's raising the temperature of the mixture to

477
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: the ignition point of the fuel. That probably wouldn't happen

478
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: on the deck of a ship, unless the deck of

479
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: the ship is always wet, which maybe it is, I

480
00:27:13,240 --> 00:27:15,679
Speaker 1: don't know. And not to get too far ahead of us.

481
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: But then that also makes me remember that there there's

482
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,480
Speaker 1: some allusions to the idea that one could defend against

483
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,719
Speaker 1: Greek fire by having like soaked items like soaked tarps

484
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: and whatnot on your ship. So that would that would

485
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: not seem to work if this was indeed the quicklime, right,

486
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: and that would make the quicklime based version a really

487
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:37,960
Speaker 1: devilish weapon. Like you thought you could put it out

488
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: with water, or you thought you could put up some

489
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: damp rags to help protect yourself, but in fact, that

490
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: would just make it even hotter, I mean, And really

491
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: one of the key aspects of the weapon, uh, that's

492
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: actually mentioned in the opening narration here today, is that

493
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: it made fire behave in a way that that people

494
00:27:58,200 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: were not expecting. Right, be it you know fire that's

495
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:05,439
Speaker 1: coming at you laterally, or if this is actually a

496
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:08,639
Speaker 1: you know, a true interpretation, then uh, you know, fire

497
00:28:08,760 --> 00:28:12,520
Speaker 1: that is springing up from the water without a visible spark. Yeah,

498
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 1: it's scary to imagine. All right, Well, okay, that's quicklime.

499
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: What's what's our next potential candidate here? Okay. Roland also

500
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:24,119
Speaker 1: mentions that some scholars have debated the inclusion of calcium

501
00:28:24,119 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 1: phosphied in the in the Greek fire mixture. So, calcium

502
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:32,120
Speaker 1: phosphied is a chemical compound is c A three P two,

503
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 1: and it's a salt stable in the form of a

504
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:38,800
Speaker 1: crystal powder, commonly used as an ingredient in rat poison.

505
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:43,160
Speaker 1: So how does it kill rats? Well, when calcium phosphied

506
00:28:43,280 --> 00:28:46,960
Speaker 1: comes into contact with water or acids, it reacts to

507
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: release phosphine gas p H three. Now we've talked about

508
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: phosphine gas before we mentioned it. I think phosphine gas

509
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: was one of the proposed solutions to the question of

510
00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: what's caused saying will of the whist phenomenon? Yeah, So

511
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: one of the reasons is that phosphine gas is highly toxic,

512
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 1: highly flammable, and that it can spontaneously form explosive and

513
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: igniting mixtures with the air. So when exposed to the air,

514
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 1: it can just sometimes start up a flame on its own.

515
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: You don't even need to ignite it. Now back to

516
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: the rat poison. What happens when the rat eats it, Well,

517
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: the rat eats the calcium phosphide or any other metal phosphides.

518
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: Other metal phosphides are sometimes used as rat poison, and

519
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: then the act of digesting the chemical releases the killer

520
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: phosphine gas inside the rodent's body. Calcium phosphide has also

521
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: been used for ignition properties in things like maritime flares.

522
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:48,040
Speaker 1: Uh So, what are the what's the supporting evidence that

523
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: this could have been an ingredient. Well, it reacts with

524
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:54,000
Speaker 1: water to produce heat, kind of like quicklime. Right. So

525
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:57,560
Speaker 1: a byproduct of the reaction is phosphine gas, which is

526
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: highly flammable potential fuel, and this could explain stories of

527
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: Greek fire being ignited by water or burning on water,

528
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: and phosphine gas can spontaneously form explosive mixtures like I

529
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: just mentioned. So this could be really nasty, horrible stuff

530
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,479
Speaker 1: to be shooting out at a ship in a naval battle.

531
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:18,680
Speaker 1: You'd be not only shooting out stuff that can spontaneously

532
00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: ignite and react with water in a way that ignites,

533
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 1: but also it would be producing poison gas. All right, Well,

534
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: that that sounds like a terrifying weapon. What's the counter evidence. Well, basically,

535
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: it's that people have tried this in experiments and it

536
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to match the way it's described. Roland points

537
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: out in his paper that twentieth century experiments with preparations

538
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,200
Speaker 1: containing calcium phosphied didn't exactly match what was being described

539
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,320
Speaker 1: in the ancient sources. So a lot of modern scholars

540
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 1: think it's kind of unlikely that this was one of

541
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: the ingredients. All right, so we've talked about quicklime, we've

542
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:58,720
Speaker 1: talked about calcium phosphied. What's our next candidate, how about saltpeter.

543
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: This is one of the big debates in the history

544
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,240
Speaker 1: of kim is this is this? Is this the area

545
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,479
Speaker 1: of ultimate controversy in the twentieth century what was in

546
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 1: Greek fire? But there have been debates, actually, and one

547
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 1: of the big debates, and this is apparently was their

548
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: salt Peter in it or not? And their pro Saltpeter

549
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: scholars and anti saltpeter scholars. And it looks to me

550
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: like in recent decades the anti Saltpeter camp has sort

551
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 1: of one out. Well. One of the key reasons here,

552
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: of course, is that is saltpeter was used in Greek fire.

553
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: This would make Greek fire arguably the first gunpowder weapon,

554
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:39,040
Speaker 1: beating the ninth century Chinese discovery of its property. So

555
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: there's a really a lot of you know, cultural pride

556
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: uh swept up in this. So who was the first?

557
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: Who are the first people to figure out how to

558
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: kill people with saltpeter? First? Well, let's explore the saltpeter

559
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: and see if we can puncture that pride. Now, saltpeter

560
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: is the name for actually a group of nitrogen based compounds,

561
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: primarily potassium nitrate or k n O through E. Now,

562
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: potassium nitrate is again assault that has many different uses

563
00:32:04,960 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 1: in all kinds of technological fields. It's in food preparation.

564
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:10,440
Speaker 1: It used to be used all the time as a

565
00:32:10,480 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: preservative and cured meats. You can still sometimes see it

566
00:32:13,480 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: used in food, but it's a little less common these days.

567
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: It's also been used for various medical purposes, including both

568
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: to suppress and enhance the libido. I'm not convinced that

569
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:26,520
Speaker 1: it would actually do either one of those. I haven't

570
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: seen any evidence, but you know, people thought a lot

571
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: of things, did a lot of things. I can imagine

572
00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,720
Speaker 1: is somebody like leaving a trail of gunpowder to their

573
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: libido and then like setting it off. But it also

574
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,959
Speaker 1: salt peter was also the primary ingredient in black powder,

575
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: which was the original gunpowder. Now we have to dispecify

576
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: black powder original gunpowder because modern bullet cartridges tend to

577
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: use a different ignition material. But the original gunpowder it

578
00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: manages to shoot bullets out of guns because when you

579
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:01,760
Speaker 1: set it on fire, it burns very rapidly and creates

580
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:06,320
Speaker 1: lots of rapidly expanding gases, which, as they expand, push

581
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: the projectile out the barrel of the gun very fast.

582
00:33:09,760 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: So the traditional mixture for black powder was saltpeter, charcoal,

583
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: and even sulfur. Here's something you might have wondered before.

584
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 1: If the gunpowder is packed down under a musket ball,

585
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: or it's inside an enclosed rifle cartridge, how does it burn?

586
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: I mean, don't fires need to be exposed to oxygen

587
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:34,000
Speaker 1: in order to burn. And that's where the saltpeter comes in.

588
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: That's that's the roll of the K and O three.

589
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: The charcoal and the sulfur in the gunpowder are the

590
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: fuel that burns, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer providing

591
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: the oxygen atoms that allow the ignition reaction to happen

592
00:33:46,960 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: without the gunpowder being exposed to open air. Now, this

593
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 1: argument for Saltpeter's inclusion in the Greek fire formula. This

594
00:33:56,240 --> 00:34:01,640
Speaker 1: was argued by French chemist Pierre Eugene Marceline or P. E. M. Bertolo,

595
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:07,280
Speaker 1: who lived Now. Bertolo was a really interesting guy, and

596
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to take us on a tangent, but I'd

597
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: hate it if I didn't point out this interesting idea

598
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: on the technological terror and war from Bernelow's perspective. We

599
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 1: covered him in an episode of tech Stuff that I

600
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: guest hosted with Jonathan Strickland. Tech Stuff if you don't

601
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:22,879
Speaker 1: listen as another podcast here in the House to Works

602
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:25,800
Speaker 1: Family hosted by Jonathan Strickland, and it was an episode

603
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:27,600
Speaker 1: I went on there to do with him that I've

604
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: been wanting to do for a while about five ways

605
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:33,480
Speaker 1: people predicted that technology could end all wars spoiler alert.

606
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: None of them worked, but Bertolow was one of these guys,

607
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: and the short story on how he predicted it was

608
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,440
Speaker 1: that Bertolow predicted that by the year two thousand, engineers

609
00:34:44,480 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: would create synthetic materials indistinguishable from organic matter, and this

610
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:54,279
Speaker 1: would be things like meats, vegetables, alcohol, tobacco. And he

611
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: basically saw the whole world as this big solvable chemistry problem.

612
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,359
Speaker 1: This is wonderful because it actually ties in with, of course,

613
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:06,759
Speaker 1: the Star Trek utopian vision, where go up to a

614
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: machine and you, you know, type in steak and you

615
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: get your steak. Yeah, exactly. So he saw this sort

616
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 1: of world of chemical abundance, a post scarcity world. And

617
00:35:16,280 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: he also imagined that we could make food so nutritious

618
00:35:19,680 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: and pure that it would alter our moral nature. In

619
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 1: other words, like, through the power of chemical engineering, we

620
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:28,759
Speaker 1: would make ourselves better people. And I just want to

621
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: do a quick quote from an interview of his from

622
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: McClure's magazine published in eighteen four uh and Bertolo says,

623
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: in this interview, man should grow in sweetness and nobility

624
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: because he will have done with war, with existence based

625
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: upon the slaughter of beasts. Perhaps, and this is only

626
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: a dream. Remember, synthetic chemistry, or something we might call

627
00:35:51,800 --> 00:35:56,160
Speaker 1: spiritual chemistry, will develop means to as profoundly alter men's

628
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:59,920
Speaker 1: moral nature as material chemistry will change the conditions of

629
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 1: his environment. I love that. Now, that's kind of funny

630
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:07,040
Speaker 1: in the context of exploring the ancient chemical problem of

631
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: how to make a mixture that best burns people in

632
00:36:10,320 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: their ships. Love. But I mean we come back down

633
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 1: to the nature of technology again, right, fire, As soon

634
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: as we learned how to master it, we used to

635
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:20,240
Speaker 1: keep ourselves warm and to cook food, but also to

636
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: to terrorize each other. And in chemistry, I mean you

637
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:28,439
Speaker 1: look at especially in the advances made by German chemists. Uh,

638
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: you know, at the you know, the dawn of the

639
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:35,000
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Um, you see, um, you see the sort

640
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 1: of the butting heads of the chemistry of life and

641
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: the chemistry of death. You know, we're learning how to

642
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: manipulate chemical properties to better crow crops, where we're figuring

643
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: out how to treat illnesses, but we're you know, accidentally

644
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: inventing M D M A uh. And at the same

645
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: time we're creating horrific chemical weapons to utilize against each other. Totally,

646
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 1: and so it's clear that Bertolo had his mind on

647
00:37:01,160 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 1: not just chemistry at the molecule level, but chemistry at

648
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 1: the societal level. What chemistry meant for humankind, And so

649
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: one of the things he was thinking about was chemistry

650
00:37:11,520 --> 00:37:13,920
Speaker 1: in war, and so he turned his mind to this

651
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: problem of what was in Greek fire, and he argued, yes,

652
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 1: saltpeter was an ingredient. Supporting evidence for saltpeter would be

653
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: one thing is that in the descriptions, the Greek fire

654
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 1: shoots out of the nozzles on the front of the

655
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 1: ships as if explosively, right, Yes, and there was also

656
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:36,600
Speaker 1: reportedly a boom and a smoke, great smoking effect, so

657
00:37:36,760 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, so others would argue whether some sort of

658
00:37:38,560 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: a hydraulic system it's responsible for this, But you could

659
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: also imagine, I mean, we're told there was a booming, noise,

660
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: we're told there was smoke, So it it leads you

661
00:37:47,719 --> 00:37:50,400
Speaker 1: to believe that there's some sort of explosive reaction taking

662
00:37:50,440 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: place here. Yes, But on the other hand, what's the

663
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: counter evidence that says no, no, no, saltpeter in the

664
00:37:57,320 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: Greek fire. Well, one of the things would be, as

665
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,640
Speaker 1: you alluded to, you know, you might have been able

666
00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: to produce that that lateral trajectory if you just had

667
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: highly pressurized liquids. So if maybe the ships were constructed

668
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 1: in such a way that they were able to build

669
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: up the pressure in the storage tanks and have valves

670
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: that would suddenly allow it to shoot out. You could

671
00:38:17,239 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 1: get a lot of pressure coming out of even medieval tubes.

672
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:24,840
Speaker 1: Another piece of counter evidence, where would the saltpeter come from?

673
00:38:24,880 --> 00:38:27,680
Speaker 1: I think the thinking on this now is that it's

674
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,399
Speaker 1: not impossible that these people could have used salt peter,

675
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 1: but there's no direct evidence that they had it. Also,

676
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 1: the British chemist and historian J. R. Partington, who lived

677
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:42,719
Speaker 1: from eighteen eighty six to nineteen sixty five, argued against

678
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,279
Speaker 1: the theory that saltpeter was part of Greek fire. And

679
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,400
Speaker 1: Partington argued in a book called A History of Greek

680
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,040
Speaker 1: Fire and Gunpowder in nineteen sixty the Greek fire was

681
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: made from distilled and natural petroleum. Will get there in

682
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: just a second, uh, For that would would have been

683
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: found on the beds of the northern shores of the

684
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 1: Black Sea. And that what it was done was what

685
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: we were just describing. It's pumped at high pressure over

686
00:39:05,800 --> 00:39:10,280
Speaker 1: a flame like a modern flamethrower. Alright. Now, he suggests

687
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:14,799
Speaker 1: that a primary ingredient is this distilled natural petroleum. And

688
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: this is a common consensus, I would say, of scholars

689
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: who look at Greek fire today, So what's this stuff? All? Right,

690
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,880
Speaker 1: So there's there's a word that is used for this stuff,

691
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:27,960
Speaker 1: but I understand it's also one of these problematic terms

692
00:39:27,960 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: that is kind of broadly applied, right, and that is naptha. Right.

693
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 1: So it appears that various flammable liquids throughout the ages

694
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: have been called naptha at different times and places. But

695
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:41,359
Speaker 1: in this case, we're probably talking about crude oil in

696
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: some forms, some filtered form, right, that's right. One of

697
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,319
Speaker 1: the books that I was looking at for this is

698
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:52,040
Speaker 1: The Fall of Constantinople by Nicole Haldon and Turnbull uh

699
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: and the authors. They write that Greek fire was likely

700
00:39:55,960 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 1: distilled petroleum, perhaps with a resin added, like some sort

701
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:02,440
Speaker 1: of tree sap, like a pine resin. Yeah, pine resin,

702
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: and this would have been adding to thicketed, thicken it

703
00:40:04,840 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: up and prolong it's burning on the surface of the water.

704
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,279
Speaker 1: Now the author Halden, the middle one there is John

705
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: Howden of Princeton University, and he's written, uh, some solo

706
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 1: papers as well on Greek fire. You know. He he

707
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: suspects that, yeah, that it was petroleum based liquid modified

708
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 1: to increase its potency. He thinks that the create key

709
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: ingredients were highly flammable light crude oil. Uh, this would

710
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: be the naptha and that pine resin, which not only

711
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: would have made it to burn more on the surface

712
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:34,840
Speaker 1: of the water, but it would have been sticky. It

713
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:37,760
Speaker 1: would have made the mixture burned hotter and longer. In general.

714
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,360
Speaker 1: I've actually read that one of the names, one of

715
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: the contemporaneous names for Greek fire was sticky fire God.

716
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:46,719
Speaker 1: You know that gets That reminds me a lot of

717
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 1: the accounts of the use of actual flamethrowers. I think

718
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,200
Speaker 1: I've gone on this this tirade before on the podcast,

719
00:40:52,239 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 1: but I feel like we we watch aliens, we watch

720
00:40:55,960 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: the thing. We watch shows with flamethrowers in them, and yeah,

721
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:03,840
Speaker 1: those pretty terrifying on their own, but we don't really

722
00:41:03,880 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: have of a true picture of the horrifying nature. I'll say,

723
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: a World War two air of flamethrower, We're shooting this

724
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: jelly to flaming death on people, right. I mean, we

725
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: see it used most often these days, I think in

726
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: science fiction, where it's used against like aliens and monsters.

727
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:22,360
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got to realize that a flamethrower is

728
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,000
Speaker 1: a horrifying terror weapon. Yeah that it is definitely a

729
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:28,879
Speaker 1: terror weapon. It is. Uh yeah, So if you want,

730
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: if you want more than that, just look into any accounts,

731
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: any testimony of its usage, say in the Pacific theater

732
00:41:34,280 --> 00:41:36,719
Speaker 1: in World War two, and you will you will be

733
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,480
Speaker 1: totally sickened. It's a it's a devastating weapon. Alright. So

734
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 1: we've discussed quicklime, We've discussed calcium phosphied, We've discussed saltpeter,

735
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: We've discussed naptha, we've discussed pine resin. All of these

736
00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:54,600
Speaker 1: have been hypothesized at various times in places as ingredients

737
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 1: in Greek fire. Is that it? Or is there any

738
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: other hypothesized ingredients? Well, I also ran across bit human. Well,

739
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,760
Speaker 1: so this was the world's first petroleum product. It's a sticky, black,

740
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 1: viscous substance and you we probably know it better as asphalt,

741
00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: but it was highly prized in the ancient world, and

742
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: it was for the longest it was primarily a Mesopotamian monopoly.

743
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: The stuff substance saw use in various endeavors, boat cocking, art, cosmetics.

744
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: Physicians in the region eventually used to treat a number

745
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,160
Speaker 1: of ailments U and these would have eventually these forms

746
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 1: of treatment would eventually spread to Europe and Uh. I

747
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: was reading about this, this one in particular as a

748
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,840
Speaker 1: candidate for Greek fire in the Journal of Mass Suspectrometry.

749
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: And this was a study of a particular ancient vass

750
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: from fifth century BC containing a sample of bitumen. Uh.

751
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:52,160
Speaker 1: By the way, ancient Egyptians used this as a preservative

752
00:42:52,200 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: for their mummies. And the word mummy even comes from

753
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:59,439
Speaker 1: the Persian word for for wax, mumia, which was used

754
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: to describe human. Okay, so we've got all these hypothesized ingredients,

755
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 1: So in what way is it most likely they came together? Well,

756
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,200
Speaker 1: we already mentioned that Roland has something to say about that.

757
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: He concludes, in agreement with the scholar he names, hr

758
00:43:15,160 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 1: Ellis Davidson, that naptha was almost definitely the primary fuel,

759
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: that pine resin was possibly used as a thickener, that

760
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: quicklime may have been added to help it burn in

761
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,879
Speaker 1: or on water, but this is not viewed as necessary,

762
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 1: And that saltpeter may have been added to give it

763
00:43:32,440 --> 00:43:35,800
Speaker 1: explosive properties, but this is also not viewed as necessary.

764
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: I found another paper on this It was in the

765
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: Biotechnology Journal from the year two thousand six by procop

766
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: at All called Enzymes Fight Chemical Weapons, and the authors

767
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 1: here say that they think the Greek fire was probably

768
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: a combination of resin sulfur, naptha, quicklime, and saltpeter. And

769
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: of course we have to remember that even in even

770
00:43:58,200 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: in these earlier accounts uh supposedly the Greek fire itself,

771
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:06,640
Speaker 1: the formula for it improved between the first and the

772
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: second major usage. So it's possible that Kalina costs improved

773
00:44:11,239 --> 00:44:14,799
Speaker 1: upon the formula, that it was tweaked by others. And

774
00:44:15,120 --> 00:44:18,439
Speaker 1: as will explore in the After a Break here, there's

775
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: also the nature of the secret here. What happens when

776
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 1: you keep a secret so well that that it never

777
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: leaks outside of your kingdom, it doesn't survive your empire.

778
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 1: What does it say about the nature of the secret,

779
00:44:32,440 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: how you kept it, and how that might backfire on

780
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: you when you you need to retrieve that secret later.

781
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:45,359
Speaker 1: Thank and we're back, all right, Robert. Let's say that

782
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:50,799
Speaker 1: I have captured the recipe for Greek fire. I'm I'm

783
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 1: an opposing general of some other army, and I know

784
00:44:54,520 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: exactly what chemicals to mix and what proportions to make

785
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:03,960
Speaker 1: Greek fire am now is powerful as the Byzantine fire fleet. No,

786
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: you're not. And because this is interesting, you can you

787
00:45:07,640 --> 00:45:10,280
Speaker 1: can if you have a perfect mixture, the identical mixture.

788
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:12,319
Speaker 1: Let's say I have a bucket of it. Yeah, you

789
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,399
Speaker 1: have a bucket of it. Great, What are you gonna

790
00:45:14,440 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: do with that bucket? Uh? Do you have a ship?

791
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: I'm gonna maybe like throw it really hard? No, obviously

792
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 1: system do you have any of the end you have

793
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 1: the skill to use it? Right? So, from from the

794
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 1: descriptions we know of ancient history, it's not just the

795
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: recipe of the of the Greek fire that really matters

796
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,120
Speaker 1: in how it's deployed as a weapon in battle. That's right.

797
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,359
Speaker 1: I mean, one can cannot help but be reminded of

798
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 1: all the various news reports going on now about North

799
00:45:43,480 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: Korea and its nuclear weapons program. We see the various

800
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: steps in the thresholds that are being discussed, right, Like,

801
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 1: It's it's one thing to be able to produce a

802
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 1: an atomic bomb, but then can you can you miniaturize

803
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,839
Speaker 1: it right and then fitted into a warhead? Are you

804
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: capable of aiding uh? An inconcontinental ballistic missile that can

805
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: that can exit the atmosphere, re enter and hit the target.

806
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: There they are additional um systems that have to be

807
00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: in place to fully utilize that weapon and their skills

808
00:46:14,680 --> 00:46:16,320
Speaker 1: that have to be in place to be able to

809
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 1: use it effectively against your enemy. Yeah, when you think

810
00:46:19,200 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: about developments and weapons technology, and I do want to

811
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,360
Speaker 1: be clear, we're not trying to glorify weapons technology today

812
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 1: or say like, look how beautiful it is all the

813
00:46:27,200 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: destruction we can do. But as one important aspect of

814
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: the development of science and technology, I think it's worth exploring.

815
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: As you look at how weapons have developed in the

816
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: last century or so, a lot of what has happened,

817
00:46:39,880 --> 00:46:42,480
Speaker 1: with the exception of of course nuclear weapons and things

818
00:46:42,520 --> 00:46:45,399
Speaker 1: like that, has not been so much changes in what

819
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 1: you can blow up on like the incendiary or the

820
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: chemical compounds there, but it's been in the delivery systems,

821
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:55,799
Speaker 1: right and Uh. For instance, the historians Howlden and Burn

822
00:46:55,920 --> 00:46:59,120
Speaker 1: have argued that that, yeah, this was going with what

823
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 1: we've said, we definitely had a liquid uh substance here.

824
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: Uh and uh it was more of a scientific victory

825
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: of preheating and pressurizing the liquid below deck. They argued,

826
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: So this would mean that the delivery system is as important,

827
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: or if not more important, then the true Greek fire.

828
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:20,080
Speaker 1: And you know the formula for the stuff, so you know,

829
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 1: it's not just the Kalina cost fire. It's the Kalina

830
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,120
Speaker 1: cost weapon, right, the whole I mean the weapon system.

831
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:26,560
Speaker 1: And also like the tree, it's kind of like a

832
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: fighter jet. Right, you can have the fighter jet, you

833
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: can have like an F fourteen Tomcat, but you gotta

834
00:47:33,000 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: have somebody to that's also capable of piloting that thing

835
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: as well. So you have you have essentially you have

836
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 1: the ammunition, you have the system, and then you have

837
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: the skills required to use it in battle. Now, of course, uh,

838
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: this this weapon system as a technology. Uh, it was

839
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 1: again a state secret. And this is this is actually

840
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: Roland's key area of focus in his article the Keeping

841
00:47:56,120 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: of this Secret and and what does it? What does

842
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:02,799
Speaker 1: it do for your technology when the technology itself is secret? Yeah.

843
00:48:03,000 --> 00:48:06,399
Speaker 1: Roland explains this via framework originally articulated by a guy

844
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: named Derek De Solo Price in the nineteen seventies, where

845
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 1: he he sets up science and technology as opposed in

846
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 1: one very key UH aspect, which is that he calls

847
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: science quote paperophiliic, meaning enjoying publishing or enjoying paper, whereas

848
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 1: UH technology is largely paperophobic, meaning it wants to stay secret,

849
00:48:30,600 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 1: it doesn't want to be widely published and disseminated. Science

850
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: is about sharing knowledge with all of humanity. Technology is

851
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,959
Speaker 1: about using science to your advantage. And for examples of that,

852
00:48:43,080 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: we can think too patents. You know, you have a

853
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 1: patent on your technology because no one you don't want

854
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:50,000
Speaker 1: anyone else even if they figure out how to do it,

855
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 1: You don't want them to make money off of it,

856
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 1: or the or you want to go more historical, you

857
00:48:55,600 --> 00:49:00,279
Speaker 1: can look to various guilds, trade guilds, trade secrets, and

858
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: then state secrets as well, and we continue to see

859
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: this play out today with everything from computing technology to

860
00:49:06,120 --> 00:49:10,319
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons. Now, Roland points out that you know, even

861
00:49:10,440 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: mythical weapons of great might were typically secretive in nature

862
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: and then and that in the real world, everyone from

863
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 1: da Vinci to Samuel Colt took steps to safeguard the

864
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:24,680
Speaker 1: details of their inventions, in which you know, in Colts case,

865
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,600
Speaker 1: were certainly weapons and in in da Vinci's case were

866
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:31,719
Speaker 1: sometimes weapons depending on what he was concocting. But he

867
00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 1: also does acknowledge that there's a countervailing viewpoint, for example,

868
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:40,399
Speaker 1: from the researcher Pamela Long right that says that, Okay, so, yes,

869
00:49:40,520 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 1: Greek Fire was a great state secret, but actually it's

870
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:45,439
Speaker 1: kind of an anomaly in that right, because a lot

871
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: of other weapons technology did become widely disseminated public knowledge.

872
00:49:50,880 --> 00:49:52,799
Speaker 1: That Greek Fire is kind of an outlier for the

873
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: Middle Ages. Yeah, this this one, And that's one of

874
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 1: the reasons it's so intriguing. This one example of a

875
00:49:58,360 --> 00:50:02,319
Speaker 1: weapon system that was who's wrapped up in secrecy? But

876
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 1: in what way does keeping a technology secret also undercut

877
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:10,279
Speaker 1: your ability to use it? Yes? This is This is

878
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: where it's even more interesting. So for the for the

879
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: for the formula, according to Rowland, they simply made and

880
00:50:17,920 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: bottled the stuff and sealed up jars. Okay, yeah, I

881
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:23,880
Speaker 1: think he calls this the Coca Cola method. You just

882
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 1: make it at the central factory. You've got your your

883
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:28,520
Speaker 1: central arsenal, and that's where you mix up all the

884
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: stuff and you jar it up and you send it

885
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: out and you don't let anybody else see what you're doing, right,

886
00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:36,080
Speaker 1: and you're only darring it up at a centralized location,

887
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 1: for instance, in or around Constantinople. It's not coming in

888
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: from a you know, another province or anything. What are

889
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,360
Speaker 1: the eleven herbs and spices? I mean they arrive pre bagged.

890
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,879
Speaker 1: There's no way to know. But but of course there's

891
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,400
Speaker 1: more at play here than just that mere liquid. As

892
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 1: we've we've related, so the technology entails matter, power, a

893
00:50:55,320 --> 00:51:00,440
Speaker 1: tool or machine, and technique. So power plus matter via

894
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:04,960
Speaker 1: machine and a human operative utilizing the technique that will

895
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 1: give you the fire itself, the basic equation of technology. Right,

896
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,040
Speaker 1: So the formula here, the formula itself was the matter,

897
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:15,360
Speaker 1: the power was the fire, the spark, the machine and

898
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:18,359
Speaker 1: technique or largely a mystery, but you know, a lot

899
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: of the theories boiled down to, you know, a system

900
00:51:22,600 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: of tubes and a like a heating under underneath the

901
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,960
Speaker 1: deck of the ship, right, like a pressurized cauldron that

902
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: would be heating the oil or the nap the head

903
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:34,440
Speaker 1: of time and keeping it under high pressure. And then

904
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,640
Speaker 1: a valve that you could turn to suddenly release a

905
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: jet of it which would spray over a flame. And

906
00:51:40,640 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 1: the author points out that all the information needed to

907
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 1: design such a pressurized weapon system. This would not have

908
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: been a godsend. You don't have to imagine uh clinicos

909
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,080
Speaker 1: as as an alien visiting the human civilization and giving

910
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 1: them flame covers. No, in fact, this is highly uh

911
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,359
Speaker 1: It's something you definitely imagine that people would have come

912
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: up with just based on Roman learning. And this is

913
00:52:05,560 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: something that we we should emphasize about the state of

914
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: technology and what we often refer to as the Middle Ages,

915
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: what sometimes called the Dark Ages. Now, there's been a

916
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of historical thought in the twentieth

917
00:52:19,160 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: century that, you know, like Enlightenment historians who looked back

918
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,560
Speaker 1: on the medieval period and called it all the Dark Ages,

919
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:30,440
Speaker 1: they really were sort of underestimating the intellectual flourishing that

920
00:52:30,480 --> 00:52:33,120
Speaker 1: went on in some places in the Middle Ages in Europe.

921
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 1: But at the same time, after the collapse of the

922
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:39,479
Speaker 1: Western Roman Empire throughout much of Europe, there was kind

923
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: of a period in which much knowledge was lost and

924
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: forgotten and fewer historical records were produced. So for for

925
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: some time, for some centuries in the later millennia, the

926
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,879
Speaker 1: later half of the first millennium CE, you could sort

927
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 1: of say that there was a technological Dark Age there

928
00:52:57,239 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 1: was less progress for a while than there had been

929
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:02,160
Speaker 1: in the Roman period, and a lot of what we

930
00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:04,160
Speaker 1: used to know how to do was forgotten. So it

931
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting that you see this advance taking place.

932
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:09,560
Speaker 1: Then yeah, now you know, so who knows if you

933
00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:12,320
Speaker 1: would be able to acquire them, But if you could,

934
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: if you could get a copy of Heroes Newmatica and

935
00:53:17,400 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: Vittruvius is d Architectura, you would have, according to Roland,

936
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:25,160
Speaker 1: the basic elements you'd need to figure out how to

937
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: construct your own pressurized weapon system for Greek fire and

938
00:53:30,400 --> 00:53:32,480
Speaker 1: he he writes the following I read a quick quote.

939
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: He says, the technique itself would have been a secret

940
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:39,000
Speaker 1: of almost as much sophistication as the formula for without

941
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:42,719
Speaker 1: pressure gauges and safety valves, it was surely a delicate

942
00:53:42,760 --> 00:53:46,440
Speaker 1: task to heat and pressurize of volatile liquid in dark

943
00:53:46,480 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 1: and cramp quarters below deck in combat without accident. God,

944
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 1: can you imagine that? So you're you're the nap the

945
00:53:54,080 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 1: pumper in the belly of the of the fire ship. Yes, yeah,

946
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:02,439
Speaker 1: just this just bottled death down there and it's gonna

947
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:06,000
Speaker 1: be h hopefully you know, spit away from your ship

948
00:54:06,080 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: and on to the others. So you've just got to

949
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:11,080
Speaker 1: imagine that if they were operating ships like this, they

950
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 1: frequently would just become engulfed in flames and kill all

951
00:54:14,480 --> 00:54:16,680
Speaker 1: of the people operating them. Well, you might think so,

952
00:54:16,760 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: but there are actually no reports of such accidents. Now,

953
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:22,040
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean they didn't occur. It could be a

954
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:25,480
Speaker 1: situation where, you know, especially if if you know, if

955
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,800
Speaker 1: if you're if Byzantines are writing about their fabulous weapon system,

956
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: maybe you're not going to write about the failures. You're

957
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:33,359
Speaker 1: only going to write about the victories. But for whatever reason,

958
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: we we don't have any accounts of of Greek fire

959
00:54:35,719 --> 00:54:40,320
Speaker 1: vessels blowing up of the system backfiring. Now, I will

960
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 1: say that that there are accounts of other similar weapons

961
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 1: systems backfiring, which gives us, uh, gives us an idea that, well,

962
00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 1: this kind of thing might have easily occurred and it

963
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: just wasn't written about, or though the writings have not survived.

964
00:54:55,840 --> 00:54:59,480
Speaker 1: But if we look to China, of all places, uh,

965
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 1: there's there's actually a detailed description of a similar weapons

966
00:55:03,360 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 1: system that was employed around nine hundred CE in China.

967
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:11,680
Speaker 1: So there's a a ten forty four military work titled

968
00:55:12,120 --> 00:55:16,839
Speaker 1: woo Jing zong Yao, and it details a brass container

969
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: fitted with a horizontal pump gunpowder ignition chamber and a

970
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: small diameter nozzle. And this was designed for use on

971
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: the you know, the ramparts of a fortress or what

972
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:31,359
Speaker 1: it would be used against siege weapons. But they were

973
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:35,600
Speaker 1: also apparently used in naval battles, uh, particularly one naval

974
00:55:35,600 --> 00:55:42,000
Speaker 1: battle on the young Z River near Nanjing in between

975
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:45,680
Speaker 1: Tang and Song forces. And here's the where it ties

976
00:55:45,719 --> 00:55:48,640
Speaker 1: into what we're discussing here. The Tige used it, but

977
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 1: the wind changed and the fires blew back on their

978
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:56,239
Speaker 1: own ships. So who knows if this was exactly the

979
00:55:56,280 --> 00:55:58,759
Speaker 1: same weapon system, if it was inspired by it, or

980
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:02,279
Speaker 1: if it was just independently produced. But I feel like

981
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:05,320
Speaker 1: what they're describing here taking place on the young Z

982
00:56:05,560 --> 00:56:09,120
Speaker 1: River could easily have occurred with one of these vessels, right,

983
00:56:09,160 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 1: and we might not know about it. Now here's a question,

984
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:16,480
Speaker 1: did anybody ever find themselves in the scenario I described

985
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: earlier where you're you're a general facing off against the

986
00:56:19,560 --> 00:56:23,080
Speaker 1: Byzantines or the Romans as they would have called themselves,

987
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: and you've captured some of this fire in a bottle. Uh.

988
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:29,640
Speaker 1: Did did it ever get turned against them? Um? It

989
00:56:29,719 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 1: does not seem that it did. But we do have

990
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:35,759
Speaker 1: a case in eight fourteen, the Bullguards captured thirty six

991
00:56:35,840 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: siphons and jars of Greek fire to go with them.

992
00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:41,399
Speaker 1: So they had you know, the at least I guess

993
00:56:41,480 --> 00:56:43,799
Speaker 1: the hand because there were two types. So they had

994
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,440
Speaker 1: like the ship based siphons and then like a handheld

995
00:56:46,520 --> 00:56:52,280
Speaker 1: model apparently according to some accounts, so they had the fire.

996
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: They had the technology, but apparently they didn't know how

997
00:56:56,040 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 1: to use it, because there's no evidence that they were

998
00:56:57,960 --> 00:57:01,880
Speaker 1: able to capitalize on it. Uh. Likewise, Marcus the Greek

999
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: published a Greek fire recipe in the twelfth century, but

1000
00:57:06,880 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: you didn't see that technology spread. And also after nine

1001
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 1: hundred CE, Arab forces had similar incendiary weapons, but they

1002
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: weren't able to utilize it as the Byzantines had. So

1003
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:20,439
Speaker 1: you can easily interpret this as being a situation where Okay,

1004
00:57:20,480 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: you have the h the AMMO, you have the weapon,

1005
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 1: but you just don't have the training or the you know,

1006
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:29,360
Speaker 1: the systematic approach to its use. So in other words,

1007
00:57:29,480 --> 00:57:31,200
Speaker 1: to steal the secret, you'd have to steal all the

1008
00:57:31,240 --> 00:57:34,960
Speaker 1: components and that would be difficult, or it would because

1009
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:37,360
Speaker 1: one of the keys here was the people with knowledge

1010
00:57:37,400 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 1: of all the components, according to Roland, were never in

1011
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:42,920
Speaker 1: the same place at the same time, right, So you

1012
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 1: had people building it was a compartmentalization of military technology

1013
00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:49,840
Speaker 1: where you'd have the people who are the pyromancers in there,

1014
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:52,840
Speaker 1: you know, in their secret dungeon making your Greek fire,

1015
00:57:53,000 --> 00:57:55,360
Speaker 1: whoever they are. But then you've also got the people

1016
00:57:55,360 --> 00:57:57,960
Speaker 1: who are building the pump system and the siphons into

1017
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: the belly of these warships, and the who are being

1018
00:58:00,600 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: trained in how to operate it. And you've got to

1019
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:05,160
Speaker 1: have all these pieces come together for the weapon to

1020
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 1: be viable. Right. So you're gonna have I guess a

1021
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,320
Speaker 1: key number of overseers that are going to be able

1022
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 1: to put all of this together. But this is where

1023
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: we have the power of secrecy and the risk of secrecy,

1024
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:20,600
Speaker 1: because it seems that there were very few people who

1025
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: had that information that knew how all these components came together. Uh,

1026
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 1: And we're able to put it all together now. According

1027
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:32,320
Speaker 1: to legend, you had only two families that knew the

1028
00:58:32,360 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 1: full formula, the full weapon system here and and the

1029
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 1: technique for using it, and that would have been the

1030
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 1: emperor's family, the royal family itself, and also a family

1031
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:48,960
Speaker 1: referred to as the Lampros family. I've seen people speculate

1032
00:58:49,000 --> 00:58:52,960
Speaker 1: that the lamp Pros family is not a real historical right, Yeah.

1033
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:55,880
Speaker 1: Roland spends a good amount of time discussing the ins

1034
00:58:55,880 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: and outs of both of these. Basically, I guess one

1035
00:58:59,280 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 1: of the key things to keep in mind here is

1036
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 1: just how the golden throne worked in in Byzantine culture.

1037
00:59:07,080 --> 00:59:10,520
Speaker 1: It worked by you getting murdered, basically, Well, it worked

1038
00:59:10,520 --> 00:59:13,080
Speaker 1: by you murdering somebody else and then you getting murdered.

1039
00:59:13,200 --> 00:59:16,760
Speaker 1: Well he he compares it actually to the Chinese imperial model,

1040
00:59:16,800 --> 00:59:19,960
Speaker 1: where whoever the emperor is is the is divine, it's

1041
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,760
Speaker 1: the chosen of heaven, and so there's almost no such

1042
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:26,280
Speaker 1: thing as a usurper, right because once you've usurped it,

1043
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 1: you've got it and you're okay with God. That's kind

1044
00:59:28,600 --> 00:59:31,400
Speaker 1: of the you know, a quick version of it. But

1045
00:59:32,000 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 1: there was an hereditary nature to the throne in Byzantine culture,

1046
00:59:37,520 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 1: but once you took the throne, it was yours. So

1047
00:59:40,440 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: there was a lot of backstabbing, a lot of a

1048
00:59:43,920 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: lot of plots and intrigue, and uh that's so. Here's

1049
00:59:48,560 --> 00:59:52,760
Speaker 1: here's a scenario. If you're planning to stage a series

1050
00:59:52,800 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: of murders and take the throne um where on your

1051
00:59:56,640 --> 01:00:00,680
Speaker 1: priorities list is Greek Fire, you know, is getting us.

1052
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:02,560
Speaker 1: You're worried about the people in the room with you

1053
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:05,720
Speaker 1: right now? Yeah, yeah, I mean you're you're plotting to

1054
01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: to take the throne and kill who needs to be killed,

1055
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 1: backstab or front staff, whoever needs to get it. Uh,

1056
01:00:12,760 --> 01:00:15,920
Speaker 1: the passing down of that of the details of that

1057
01:00:15,960 --> 01:00:18,480
Speaker 1: weapon system, it either might not be a priority, it

1058
01:00:18,560 --> 01:00:22,800
Speaker 1: might not be possible. It's very susceptible to loss because again,

1059
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:26,760
Speaker 1: very few individuals, you know, in the royal family, for instance,

1060
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: you're going to have access to it. And if there

1061
01:00:29,120 --> 01:00:33,200
Speaker 1: is a periphery family that's close to the throne that

1062
01:00:33,360 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: also carries the secret, well they're just going to be

1063
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: just as susceptible to back in front stabs. As you proceed,

1064
01:00:39,560 --> 01:00:42,520
Speaker 1: Roland points out one situation where it's hard to imagine

1065
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:47,160
Speaker 1: how a Greek Fire protecting family, you know, a family

1066
01:00:47,280 --> 01:00:49,600
Speaker 1: who is known to the emperor and keeps the state secret,

1067
01:00:49,640 --> 01:00:52,120
Speaker 1: could have survived a series of events and that series

1068
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 1: of events was one emperor was deposed, a new emperor

1069
01:00:56,120 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: deposed him and came in, then the original emperor came

1070
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:03,000
Speaker 1: back and re took the throne. So you're imagining, basically,

1071
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,919
Speaker 1: each time something like this happens, key, allies are all

1072
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:09,120
Speaker 1: eliminated because you don't want anybody, you know, trying to

1073
01:01:09,120 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: get one over on you. So when the new emperor

1074
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:16,040
Speaker 1: deposed the original one, you imagine they probably would have

1075
01:01:16,680 --> 01:01:21,680
Speaker 1: killed all of the original emperor's uh supporting families if

1076
01:01:21,840 --> 01:01:25,800
Speaker 1: the lamp Pross families somehow survived this, when the original

1077
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 1: emperor who was deposed returned to power, probably would have

1078
01:01:29,440 --> 01:01:32,560
Speaker 1: killed that family for supporting the usurper. Now, of course,

1079
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:35,000
Speaker 1: all of this is still theoretical, you know, as to

1080
01:01:35,040 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 1: the exact nature of the secret, but and h and

1081
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:40,080
Speaker 1: how it was kept. But but Roland backs it all

1082
01:01:40,160 --> 01:01:42,640
Speaker 1: up with the fact that Constantinople was able to keep

1083
01:01:42,640 --> 01:01:47,439
Speaker 1: a governmental monopoly on silk production. Um silk production, of course,

1084
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 1: relies on the the use of the silkworm, and it's

1085
01:01:50,120 --> 01:01:52,000
Speaker 1: really kind of comparable in many ways because you've got

1086
01:01:52,120 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 1: to you have to actually have the worms, uh. And

1087
01:01:54,840 --> 01:01:57,320
Speaker 1: but then you also have to know how to tend

1088
01:01:57,320 --> 01:01:59,439
Speaker 1: to them and uh and rear them and use them.

1089
01:02:00,200 --> 01:02:03,280
Speaker 1: So just stealing the worms alone is not the same

1090
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:06,360
Speaker 1: as stealing the technology. Now, the best kind of secrets

1091
01:02:06,400 --> 01:02:10,640
Speaker 1: come with magical curses, don't they don't they? Because like

1092
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:13,440
Speaker 1: a great tomb that you shouldn't be robbed, it'll have

1093
01:02:13,480 --> 01:02:15,600
Speaker 1: a curse that will lay on you if you disturbed

1094
01:02:15,640 --> 01:02:18,640
Speaker 1: the tomb. And a great state secret, for a secret

1095
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: weapon should have a curse if you send this secret

1096
01:02:21,640 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 1: to the enemy. Yeah, I mean, treason should not only

1097
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: be um, you know, betrayal of of the state, It

1098
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:30,000
Speaker 1: should be a betrayal of God. Right. We actually have

1099
01:02:30,160 --> 01:02:33,440
Speaker 1: a wonderful quote here, and this is from this from

1100
01:02:33,480 --> 01:02:36,960
Speaker 1: the writings of Emperor Constantine the seven he would have

1101
01:02:37,000 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: lived nine nine fifty nine, who, addressing his son, warned

1102
01:02:42,040 --> 01:02:44,600
Speaker 1: that the Greek fire was a not just a state secret,

1103
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:48,120
Speaker 1: but a holy state secret. This too was revealed and

1104
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,120
Speaker 1: taught by God through an angel to the Great and

1105
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:56,439
Speaker 1: Holy Constantine, the first Christian emperor, And concerning this he

1106
01:02:56,480 --> 01:03:00,120
Speaker 1: received great charges from the same Angel. As we are

1107
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:03,880
Speaker 1: assured by the faithful witness of our fathers and grandfathers,

1108
01:03:04,040 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 1: that it should be manufactured among the Christians only, and

1109
01:03:08,080 --> 01:03:11,439
Speaker 1: in the city ruled by them, and nowhere else at all,

1110
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: nor should it be sent nor taught to any other

1111
01:03:15,160 --> 01:03:18,560
Speaker 1: nation whatsoever. And then he goes on to insist quote

1112
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: a death most hateful and cruel awaits anyone who breaks

1113
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: this secret. Yeah, there's a wonderful, illustrated example of this

1114
01:03:26,640 --> 01:03:28,920
Speaker 1: given in the quote where he talks about there was

1115
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 1: a general or some some kind of major figure in

1116
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,600
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire who sold the secret of how to

1117
01:03:35,640 --> 01:03:38,440
Speaker 1: make Greek Greek fire to some enemies of the state,

1118
01:03:38,880 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: and when he tried to walk into a church next,

1119
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:43,720
Speaker 1: he was struck dead at the doors of the church.

1120
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:46,560
Speaker 1: There you go. I mean, it's it seems perfectly in

1121
01:03:46,640 --> 01:03:49,760
Speaker 1: keeping with what we've talked about concerning Byzantine culture and

1122
01:03:49,800 --> 01:03:53,800
Speaker 1: the rulership that, yeah, you would also just utilize myth

1123
01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:57,080
Speaker 1: and religion to help safeguard your secrets as well. Now,

1124
01:03:57,120 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 1: the author of our opening monologue, Anna Komnena, wrote a

1125
01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:02,080
Speaker 1: out this too, right, Yes she did, and she would

1126
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 1: have been in on the secret given her position within

1127
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:08,200
Speaker 1: the royal family. And she also apparently provided an incomplete

1128
01:04:08,200 --> 01:04:11,200
Speaker 1: formula of the fire at some point as well. Again,

1129
01:04:11,400 --> 01:04:14,480
Speaker 1: the nature of a well kept secret is it's susceptible

1130
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:18,280
Speaker 1: to loss and uh and it was eventually lost, perhaps

1131
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: for centuries before it was confirmed lost in twelve oh four.

1132
01:04:22,760 --> 01:04:25,360
Speaker 1: And indeed subsequent accounts of Greek fire are a few

1133
01:04:25,520 --> 01:04:29,400
Speaker 1: far between and often doubtful. Yeah, after that story of

1134
01:04:29,440 --> 01:04:32,840
Speaker 1: it being used to repel the second invasion in the

1135
01:04:32,840 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: early seven hundreds, do we even really see it used

1136
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 1: again much? I mean, the original preparation by the Byzantines Um.

1137
01:04:42,040 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 1: I don't think there are any strong cases for it now.

1138
01:04:44,640 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 1: According to that book The Fall of Constantinople by Nicole

1139
01:04:47,200 --> 01:04:50,840
Speaker 1: Haldon in Turnbell, there are there's some form of quote

1140
01:04:50,880 --> 01:04:54,120
Speaker 1: unquote Greek fire they used was used twice during the

1141
01:04:54,200 --> 01:04:57,880
Speaker 1: final siege of Constantinople in fourteen fifty three. This is

1142
01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:01,080
Speaker 1: again when they were conquered by the Ottoman Empire. Uh.

1143
01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:03,680
Speaker 1: And this is where an incoming grain ship to use

1144
01:05:03,760 --> 01:05:06,600
Speaker 1: it against attackers, and then another account the fire was

1145
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:10,960
Speaker 1: directed onto the siege engine. But then again, as we've established,

1146
01:05:11,040 --> 01:05:14,240
Speaker 1: lots of things started to be called Greek fire after

1147
01:05:14,280 --> 01:05:17,280
Speaker 1: the concept came into vogue. So as for how the

1148
01:05:17,280 --> 01:05:19,840
Speaker 1: secret was kept for that long, well we we already

1149
01:05:19,840 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 1: talked about like the hereditary nature of the secret of

1150
01:05:23,440 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 1: Greek fire. We talked about um the the often murderous

1151
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:32,120
Speaker 1: ends to to various individuals and positions of power in

1152
01:05:32,200 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 1: the Byzantine Empire. We mentioned the Lampros family and how

1153
01:05:36,200 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: their doubts there now. Rowland also discusses the possibility that

1154
01:05:40,160 --> 01:05:44,000
Speaker 1: the Lampros might have merely served for some time in

1155
01:05:44,000 --> 01:05:47,880
Speaker 1: an official capacity, something comparable, say to the military official

1156
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:51,360
Speaker 1: who carries the nuclear football for the US president. You know,

1157
01:05:51,400 --> 01:05:54,000
Speaker 1: they might just to be like a designated secret keeper,

1158
01:05:54,080 --> 01:05:56,760
Speaker 1: guardian of the Greek fire, or something to that effect, right,

1159
01:05:57,560 --> 01:06:00,000
Speaker 1: And he says that this is possible, but it's difficult

1160
01:06:00,000 --> 01:06:02,600
Speaker 1: all to evaluate further, we just don't know enough about

1161
01:06:02,680 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: Byzantine bureaucracy. We we have no idea who this theoretical

1162
01:06:06,720 --> 01:06:10,160
Speaker 1: firemaster would have been, you know, like we we don't

1163
01:06:10,160 --> 01:06:12,760
Speaker 1: have any any records of such a title, and if

1164
01:06:12,760 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 1: they existed, they must have been called something else. There

1165
01:06:15,600 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 1: are various official positions that have been brought up that

1166
01:06:19,560 --> 01:06:22,520
Speaker 1: that could have, you know, arguably been secret keepers of

1167
01:06:22,520 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: the fire, but either the position didn't have close access

1168
01:06:25,720 --> 01:06:28,400
Speaker 1: to the emperor, which would be key or the powers

1169
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:30,680
Speaker 1: of the office were deluded over time in a way

1170
01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 1: that wouldn't seem to fit an office that was in

1171
01:06:33,520 --> 01:06:37,439
Speaker 1: charge of the secret weapon. And we already mentioned how

1172
01:06:37,560 --> 01:06:40,520
Speaker 1: allies of the emperor very often got eliminated when the

1173
01:06:40,560 --> 01:06:44,120
Speaker 1: next emperor deposed him and came in. Yes, again, we

1174
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:46,520
Speaker 1: do know that the weapon was lost, and it just

1175
01:06:46,560 --> 01:06:49,280
Speaker 1: becomes more of a question of when it was lost

1176
01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:52,080
Speaker 1: and how it was lost. So we know that the

1177
01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:55,800
Speaker 1: Byzantine Navy suffered numerous key defeats in the centuries to

1178
01:06:55,840 --> 01:07:00,320
Speaker 1: follow defeats which they failed to use their legendary wonder

1179
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:03,560
Speaker 1: weapon to, you know, to defend themselves. Yeah, and this

1180
01:07:03,600 --> 01:07:06,120
Speaker 1: is another point Roland sort of gets on, is that

1181
01:07:06,720 --> 01:07:09,280
Speaker 1: it may have been a problem with the secrecy that

1182
01:07:10,040 --> 01:07:12,320
Speaker 1: if you're so concerned about keeping the secret of how

1183
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 1: your weapon works that you are reluctant to deploy it,

1184
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:20,200
Speaker 1: like if you're reluctant to hand it over to satellite allies.

1185
01:07:20,280 --> 01:07:22,160
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing that if you're running an empire,

1186
01:07:22,680 --> 01:07:26,520
Speaker 1: you've got your locals who work directly under you. You're

1187
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:29,320
Speaker 1: the emperor, your your local people work directly under you.

1188
01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 1: But then you've got all kinds of people working for

1189
01:07:31,760 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 1: you who are farther away, and by virtue of being

1190
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:36,840
Speaker 1: farther away, you don't know if you can trust them

1191
01:07:36,920 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 1: quite as much. And so say you hand over some

1192
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:45,720
Speaker 1: fire breathing you know, Greek fire ships to them, how

1193
01:07:45,720 --> 01:07:48,040
Speaker 1: do you know that they're not going to eventually turn

1194
01:07:48,120 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: that technology against you? So maybe you shouldn't arm them

1195
01:07:51,480 --> 01:07:53,720
Speaker 1: with your strongest weapons. Maybe you should only keep those

1196
01:07:53,760 --> 01:07:56,040
Speaker 1: close to home where you've got a uh, you know,

1197
01:07:56,080 --> 01:07:58,160
Speaker 1: a firm hand on the control of them, and you

1198
01:07:58,160 --> 01:08:00,840
Speaker 1: can keep the secret to yourself. But that just limits

1199
01:08:00,880 --> 01:08:03,560
Speaker 1: the way in which you can actually deploy this powerful weapon.

1200
01:08:03,960 --> 01:08:07,480
Speaker 1: And another argument here is, okay, you have your your

1201
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:11,360
Speaker 1: special secret weapon. You're it's a but it's a shock weapon,

1202
01:08:11,360 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 1: it's a surprise weapon. And the thing about that that

1203
01:08:14,040 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 1: sort of weapon is that it's it's most effective when

1204
01:08:17,360 --> 01:08:21,680
Speaker 1: it's first deployed. So you know what happens when you

1205
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:24,960
Speaker 1: try and pull that trick again and again. Your enemies

1206
01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:26,639
Speaker 1: begin to learn, they begin to be able to they

1207
01:08:26,680 --> 01:08:30,160
Speaker 1: begin to take precautions. Maybe they you know, there are

1208
01:08:30,160 --> 01:08:33,080
Speaker 1: some accounts of being able to drape the ship in

1209
01:08:33,080 --> 01:08:36,200
Speaker 1: in like wet cloth to help protect it. Now, whether

1210
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: that worked or not, who knows. The other idea being

1211
01:08:39,080 --> 01:08:44,320
Speaker 1: that this was more or less a close combat scenario weapon.

1212
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:46,200
Speaker 1: You know, you're not gonna be able to launch it

1213
01:08:46,240 --> 01:08:49,880
Speaker 1: at great distances, so then your enemies may be realized. Okay,

1214
01:08:49,880 --> 01:08:51,880
Speaker 1: well they have Greek fire. We need to figure out

1215
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:55,840
Speaker 1: how to combat them from afar and annihilate them from afar.

1216
01:08:56,000 --> 01:08:58,120
Speaker 1: Keep there, keep our distance in a way that they're

1217
01:08:58,200 --> 01:09:01,040
Speaker 1: unable to deploy their wonder weapon. Yeah. I mean, it

1218
01:09:01,120 --> 01:09:03,479
Speaker 1: might be a horrifying weapon up close, but what if

1219
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:06,360
Speaker 1: it can only shoot about twenty feet? Yeah, because really

1220
01:09:06,400 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: it was made for galley warfare, this close combat among

1221
01:09:09,560 --> 01:09:13,479
Speaker 1: these these vessels. Now, it's also possible that as the

1222
01:09:13,520 --> 01:09:16,800
Speaker 1: Arab threat declined in the eighth century and no other

1223
01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:21,040
Speaker 1: naval power threatened Byzantium until really until the Italian City

1224
01:09:21,080 --> 01:09:24,600
Speaker 1: States in the twelfth century, that they simply stopped producing

1225
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:27,840
Speaker 1: specialized fire vessels if they didn't need them. Yeah, I mean,

1226
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:30,599
Speaker 1: because it's another key thing is that these are these

1227
01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:33,519
Speaker 1: are very specialized weapons. It's if you think to any

1228
01:09:33,600 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 1: like strategy video game where you're building units for your army,

1229
01:09:37,439 --> 01:09:39,439
Speaker 1: like this is not a unit you would just spam

1230
01:09:39,479 --> 01:09:42,680
Speaker 1: the heck out off because it's it's ultimately very specialized.

1231
01:09:42,880 --> 01:09:44,960
Speaker 1: You could build a thousand of them and you'll lose

1232
01:09:45,000 --> 01:09:47,439
Speaker 1: the WARLD like that, because the war is not being

1233
01:09:47,479 --> 01:09:51,080
Speaker 1: exclusively fought for this theater of battle. Yeah, and that

1234
01:09:51,080 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 1: that's also I mean talking about the difference between naval

1235
01:09:53,920 --> 01:09:56,040
Speaker 1: and land powers. I mean, a lot of the threats

1236
01:09:56,080 --> 01:09:58,920
Speaker 1: you might be facing would be from the land, and

1237
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:03,080
Speaker 1: this is now. People did talk about land based uses

1238
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:05,280
Speaker 1: for Greek fire, but it's a lot less common. It's

1239
01:10:05,320 --> 01:10:08,759
Speaker 1: primarily in this ship based method. And that's one reason

1240
01:10:08,840 --> 01:10:13,599
Speaker 1: that I sort of favor the pressurized cauldron and pump

1241
01:10:13,720 --> 01:10:16,559
Speaker 1: method as opposed to saying that they're well, there might

1242
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:18,720
Speaker 1: have been saltpeter in it or some other kind of

1243
01:10:18,760 --> 01:10:22,720
Speaker 1: explosive incendiary oxidizer to get that power pushing it out.

1244
01:10:22,760 --> 01:10:26,080
Speaker 1: I think that the fact that we primarily see it

1245
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:29,360
Speaker 1: being used in ships is a good indication that they

1246
01:10:29,400 --> 01:10:32,840
Speaker 1: had to have a large apparatus of pumps and hydraulics

1247
01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:35,599
Speaker 1: in place in order to pressurize it to get it

1248
01:10:35,640 --> 01:10:37,960
Speaker 1: to shoot the way they wanted. Yeah, I think that

1249
01:10:38,040 --> 01:10:40,760
Speaker 1: there's there's definitely a strong case or that and uh

1250
01:10:40,840 --> 01:10:43,960
Speaker 1: and and of course The cost is another huge factor

1251
01:10:44,000 --> 01:10:48,679
Speaker 1: here too. So if this is a specialized shock weapon

1252
01:10:48,960 --> 01:10:52,120
Speaker 1: that is also expensive to produce, because even it's been

1253
01:10:52,200 --> 01:10:56,160
Speaker 1: argued that the fuel itself was fairly inexpensive. Still, the

1254
01:10:56,560 --> 01:10:59,800
Speaker 1: pressurized system we're talking about in the training for those individuals,

1255
01:11:00,000 --> 01:11:03,160
Speaker 1: it becomes a very costly weapon. And so does it

1256
01:11:03,240 --> 01:11:06,080
Speaker 1: make sense to have a bunch of fireships just on

1257
01:11:06,200 --> 01:11:09,560
Speaker 1: hand if you don't need them, you know, and and

1258
01:11:09,720 --> 01:11:11,400
Speaker 1: and end up you know, you end up not needing

1259
01:11:11,400 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: them for say a century or more. So, looking at

1260
01:11:14,120 --> 01:11:17,120
Speaker 1: this whole discussion, I'm trying to figure out what the

1261
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:24,000
Speaker 1: main takeaway about the interplay between secrecy and technology is. Well,

1262
01:11:24,080 --> 01:11:25,799
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are a couple of key points.

1263
01:11:25,800 --> 01:11:28,960
Speaker 1: I mean, one is just that a secretive technology is

1264
01:11:28,960 --> 01:11:31,600
Speaker 1: more than just uh some you know, a patent on

1265
01:11:31,640 --> 01:11:35,080
Speaker 1: a sheet of paper, necessarily more than just a formula. Uh.

1266
01:11:35,200 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 1: It's it's it's a lot more complicated than that. And

1267
01:11:37,920 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 1: to steal technology is is a is a grander endeavor,

1268
01:11:42,600 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 1: uh than simply you know, taking a few photographs of

1269
01:11:45,160 --> 01:11:48,280
Speaker 1: a top secret document. It's funny how in this uh,

1270
01:11:48,320 --> 01:11:53,880
Speaker 1: this peperophobic versus peperophilic conception of technology versus science. You

1271
01:11:53,880 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: can almost look at the same thing and call it

1272
01:11:57,520 --> 01:12:02,280
Speaker 1: a paperophobic technology or a paperophilic piece of science. I

1273
01:12:02,320 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 1: think about fire itself in the Greek myth, you know,

1274
01:12:04,920 --> 01:12:08,920
Speaker 1: so you have Prometheus stealing fire from the gods. Is

1275
01:12:08,960 --> 01:12:12,679
Speaker 1: the fire their science or is it technology? I mean

1276
01:12:12,760 --> 01:12:15,520
Speaker 1: as a tool. Usually we think to think of technology

1277
01:12:15,520 --> 01:12:17,320
Speaker 1: as a thing in a tool in science is an

1278
01:12:17,320 --> 01:12:20,880
Speaker 1: abstract process. But isn't it? Is it an example of

1279
01:12:20,920 --> 01:12:25,639
Speaker 1: sharing scientific knowledge or technological knowledge? Um? I mean maybe

1280
01:12:25,680 --> 01:12:28,720
Speaker 1: it's that the gods think about fire as a technology,

1281
01:12:28,760 --> 01:12:31,200
Speaker 1: a state secret to be protected to keep out of

1282
01:12:31,240 --> 01:12:34,800
Speaker 1: the hands of these humans, and Prometheus re envisioned it,

1283
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:37,880
Speaker 1: uh to to take it out of the technological realm

1284
01:12:37,920 --> 01:12:40,479
Speaker 1: and say this is science. This is basic knowledge that

1285
01:12:40,520 --> 01:12:42,880
Speaker 1: can be applied to all things, and it should be

1286
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:45,320
Speaker 1: shared to all people. Yeah. And I think the other

1287
01:12:45,720 --> 01:12:48,320
Speaker 1: aspect here is, even if we strip away the military

1288
01:12:48,400 --> 01:12:51,920
Speaker 1: aspects in the in the state security aspects of Greek fire,

1289
01:12:52,320 --> 01:12:55,599
Speaker 1: it's such a specialized technology that doesn't have a lot

1290
01:12:55,640 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 1: of uses outside of this particular uh you know, field

1291
01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:03,120
Speaker 1: of battle. Like, it's not it's hard to I cannot

1292
01:13:03,160 --> 01:13:06,719
Speaker 1: instantly think of an example of another application for Greek

1293
01:13:06,760 --> 01:13:11,000
Speaker 1: fire as an advanced technology is a specialized technology. What's

1294
01:13:11,040 --> 01:13:14,360
Speaker 1: a peaceful use for a flamethrower? There's there's not one.

1295
01:13:14,400 --> 01:13:16,800
Speaker 1: And even if you go to Burning Man, you're not

1296
01:13:16,840 --> 01:13:20,479
Speaker 1: seeing a true flamethrower. You know, you're seeing a pyro

1297
01:13:20,960 --> 01:13:24,839
Speaker 1: techniqu you know exchange. You're seeing uh, you know, fire

1298
01:13:24,960 --> 01:13:28,639
Speaker 1: a shot into the sky, but it's not like jellied gasoline, um,

1299
01:13:28,680 --> 01:13:32,080
Speaker 1: you know, squirted onto people. I mean, maybe it does

1300
01:13:32,160 --> 01:13:34,280
Speaker 1: make me think there are some things that are not

1301
01:13:34,400 --> 01:13:40,280
Speaker 1: worth sharing because there is no conceivable positive use for them.

1302
01:13:40,320 --> 01:13:42,680
Speaker 1: But then again, maybe that's just my lack of imagination.

1303
01:13:42,720 --> 01:13:45,240
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody out there, if you're listening right now and

1304
01:13:45,320 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: you can think of a way that a flamethrower could

1305
01:13:48,000 --> 01:13:50,400
Speaker 1: be used in a totally peaceful way that harms no

1306
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:54,120
Speaker 1: one and helps people live better lives or uh you know,

1307
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:57,639
Speaker 1: builds a better not a better mousetrap that's a killing machine. Also,

1308
01:13:57,800 --> 01:14:00,200
Speaker 1: well builds a better something very sweet and wonder full.

1309
01:14:00,640 --> 01:14:02,040
Speaker 1: Let us know. I want to know what that is.

1310
01:14:02,080 --> 01:14:04,519
Speaker 1: What do you do with a flamethrower? That's all happy times.

1311
01:14:04,600 --> 01:14:07,679
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a some e card from years

1312
01:14:07,680 --> 01:14:09,600
Speaker 1: back where it was I think it was from a

1313
01:14:09,640 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 1: medieval woodcut of or it was made to look like

1314
01:14:11,920 --> 01:14:14,960
Speaker 1: one of an individual standing next to some ridiculous looking

1315
01:14:15,000 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: wheeled contraption and he had kind of a sad look

1316
01:14:17,160 --> 01:14:20,080
Speaker 1: on his face, and the text just read I invent

1317
01:14:20,160 --> 01:14:23,639
Speaker 1: awful things. And that's kind of what we're talking about

1318
01:14:23,640 --> 01:14:27,040
Speaker 1: with Greek fire. Yes, it's it's very advanced, it's very sophisticated,

1319
01:14:27,080 --> 01:14:31,720
Speaker 1: it's super secret, but it's really an awful invention. Well,

1320
01:14:31,720 --> 01:14:34,160
Speaker 1: this has been interesting, Robert, Yeah, Yeah, there's been a

1321
01:14:34,200 --> 01:14:37,200
Speaker 1: lot of fun. Uh so, and and hopefully it's it's

1322
01:14:37,200 --> 01:14:40,160
Speaker 1: stirs some interesting thoughts out there, you know, whether you're

1323
01:14:40,160 --> 01:14:43,960
Speaker 1: into the history of military technology or not. Um, you know,

1324
01:14:44,040 --> 01:14:46,760
Speaker 1: just about the kind of going off on our our

1325
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:49,600
Speaker 1: previous episode about secrets and the keeping of secrets. You know,

1326
01:14:49,640 --> 01:14:52,160
Speaker 1: it ties into that and and also just the nature

1327
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:55,479
Speaker 1: of technology. I'm glad I learned that saltpeter can be

1328
01:14:55,560 --> 01:15:00,519
Speaker 1: used for ammunition, for sausage, or for sexual impotence. Yes, yes,

1329
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:03,360
Speaker 1: fire up that libido, or don't actually attempt to fire

1330
01:15:03,400 --> 01:15:06,559
Speaker 1: up your libido with saltpeter, or at least don't blame

1331
01:15:06,600 --> 01:15:11,400
Speaker 1: it on us when things go awry. All right, Hey,

1332
01:15:11,640 --> 01:15:14,160
Speaker 1: we thank you for listening in. And uh, while you're

1333
01:15:14,200 --> 01:15:16,040
Speaker 1: waiting on the next episode of Stuff to Blow Your

1334
01:15:16,040 --> 01:15:17,800
Speaker 1: Mind to come out, why don't you head on over

1335
01:15:17,840 --> 01:15:19,720
Speaker 1: to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That is

1336
01:15:19,720 --> 01:15:22,800
Speaker 1: the mothership. That's we will find all of the podcast episodes.

1337
01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:25,719
Speaker 1: You'll find some videos, you'll find blog posts and links

1338
01:15:25,720 --> 01:15:31,800
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts such as Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, Facebook, Facebook,

1339
01:15:31,880 --> 01:15:36,280
Speaker 1: where we now have a Facebook group for your more

1340
01:15:36,320 --> 01:15:39,040
Speaker 1: detailed discussions. We call it the Stuff to Blow your

1341
01:15:39,040 --> 01:15:42,160
Speaker 1: Mind Discussion Module. If you haven't done so already, go

1342
01:15:42,280 --> 01:15:45,280
Speaker 1: there asked to join. You will be admitted and then

1343
01:15:45,320 --> 01:15:47,639
Speaker 1: you can engage in some longer form discussions with other

1344
01:15:47,720 --> 01:15:50,280
Speaker 1: fans of Stuff to Blow Your Mind and occasionally to

1345
01:15:50,320 --> 01:15:52,720
Speaker 1: host themselves. And if you want to get in touch

1346
01:15:52,760 --> 01:15:55,400
Speaker 1: with us directly as always, you can do that the

1347
01:15:55,520 --> 01:15:58,759
Speaker 1: old fashioned way by emailing us at blow the Mind

1348
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:11,040
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com for more on this

1349
01:16:11,160 --> 01:16:13,679
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

1350
01:16:13,720 --> 01:16:36,920
Speaker 1: dot com