Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And it's the end of the year. We're
Speaker 1: sort of wrapping up in the winter season here. This
Speaker 1: is going to be the end of the first year
Speaker 1: of Invention as a podcast, and we're coming at you
Speaker 1: with some year end wrap up listener mail. I think
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna do two episodes worth of listener mail,
Speaker 1: because we actually have we we haven't heard from you
Speaker 1: since August or so, it's been a while one. So
Speaker 1: we figured this would be a great way to close
Speaker 1: out the year to share some messages from fans of
Speaker 1: the show, like you. All right, so we're gonna summon um.
Speaker 1: What's our mail bot in the show name? We've forgotten
Speaker 1: the name. It's Malos. So it's Melos. Yeah, modeled after Taalos,
Speaker 1: the Bronze automaton, and this is the mail bot Melos.
Speaker 1: Say hello Melos. Okay, now I remember it, now, I
Speaker 1: remember it? My bad all right, So we have some
Speaker 1: listener mail. Let's dive right into it. These are again
Speaker 1: going to refer to various episodes of the show, some
Speaker 1: recent some not so recent, but it's all good stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going aways back. And this one comes from the
Speaker 1: series we did in October about coffins and caskets, all
Speaker 1: all the different kinds of inventions in that world, like
Speaker 1: to prevent your body from being removed from a coffin
Speaker 1: or casket when you wanted to stay in there, to
Speaker 1: help get your body out of a coffin or casket
Speaker 1: when you wanted to get out. Uh So, this one
Speaker 1: comes from our listener, Katherine. Catherine says, Hey, guys, First,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you how much I'm enjoying your podcast.
Speaker 1: I am a former librarian turns stay at home mom
Speaker 1: with two kiddos, a two year old and a six
Speaker 1: month old. I really enjoy listening while doing stuff around
Speaker 1: the house. And I have a story for you that's
Speaker 1: too funny not to share. I was listening to your
Speaker 1: first episode on caskets earlier this week. Since y'all are
Speaker 1: family friendly, I was letting it play where my two
Speaker 1: year old e J could hear. I didn't really think
Speaker 1: she was paying attention, but boy was I wrong. In
Speaker 1: the episode, you talked about Victor Orion safety caskets and
Speaker 1: Edgar Allan Poe. Well, I happened to have an Edgar
Speaker 1: Allan Poe finger puppet on my desk in our office
Speaker 1: the day after listening to Caskets Part one. I found
Speaker 1: pose jacket lying in the middle of the office floor.
Speaker 1: So I called e j into the room and asked
Speaker 1: her where Edgar Allan Poe was. She knows who he
Speaker 1: is because I've let her play with the puppet a
Speaker 1: few times. She immediately said, oh, and runs over to
Speaker 1: my husband's desk and retrieves his glasses case. He's dead.
Speaker 1: She then proceeds to open the glasses case, revealing interred
Speaker 1: and jacketless Edgar Allan Poe. Then she says, but not really, Yes,
Speaker 1: my two year old had buried Edgar Allan Poe in
Speaker 1: my husband's glasses case alive. Needless to say, my mind
Speaker 1: was blown. I didn't know whether to laugh or not.
Speaker 1: I had no idea she was paying such close attention
Speaker 1: to the episode. Anyway, I thought y'all would enjoy knowing
Speaker 1: that you have a very young and attentive listener. Keep
Speaker 1: up the good work, Catherine. Oh, that's wonderful. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know bidden horrors in the child's head that earlier it's
Speaker 1: a real privilege. Well no, well yes and no, but
Speaker 1: I do find it amuzing because yeah, young kids, Uh,
Speaker 1: they are very interested in in concepts of death and
Speaker 1: uh and uh and so forth, even if they they
Speaker 1: certainly don't have the ability to fully understand these lofty concepts,
Speaker 1: I mean, the understanding of which eludes adults a lot
Speaker 1: of the time. But um, but but yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know how many times i've you know, my my my
Speaker 1: son has been playing with stuffed animals and there's one
Speaker 1: that his dead or has died you know, or must
Speaker 1: or you know, and so forth. So uh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this is a wonderful story and and and also
Speaker 1: it's neat that they applied the you know, the concepts
Speaker 1: of live burial to the scenario. Yeah, I'm just glad
Speaker 1: that they weren't listening in to the Guillotine episodes. It's
Speaker 1: probably gone sideways on you. Are we family friendly? I
Speaker 1: guess we are. We're not overtly or intentionally not family friendly,
Speaker 1: but we cover some mature stuff and we don't cuss
Speaker 1: per se, you know. All Right, here's another one. This
Speaker 1: comes to us from Josh, and it concerns caskets as well,
Speaker 1: hey guys, I'm writing this after listening to the second
Speaker 1: part of the Casket and thought you might find this
Speaker 1: interesting or at least entertaining. My wife and I are
Speaker 1: members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints,
Speaker 1: and we believe in a literal and physical resurrection. I
Speaker 1: found your discussion of the idea that your body needs
Speaker 1: to stay intact for resurrection very interesting, mostly because I
Speaker 1: am an organ downer. I figured that organs taken from
Speaker 1: my body will somehow be returned when the time comes.
Speaker 1: I also figure if people who choose cremation can get resurrected,
Speaker 1: how hard could it be to just get a harder
Speaker 1: liver back. I figure someone else should use them while
Speaker 1: I can't. Anyway, my wife, on the other hand, is
Speaker 1: of a different opinion. She doesn't like the idea of
Speaker 1: her organs flying through the air on their way back
Speaker 1: to her body. I thought you may like that personal
Speaker 1: take on one of the aspects discussed on the episode.
Speaker 1: I listened to a lot of podcasts, but yours are
Speaker 1: easily my favorites. Best wishes, Josh, Thanks Josh. I wonder
Speaker 1: how how does this belief square with like fears about
Speaker 1: how your body is interred. Like, do you have a
Speaker 1: fear of grave robbing? I guess grave robbing doesn't happen
Speaker 1: a lot these days as far as I know, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Joe. Check out the headlines. Um, there's some
Speaker 1: stories out there. There are new versions of grave robbing
Speaker 1: that are that are allegedly going on as well. But
Speaker 1: what in like New Orleans with above ground burials and
Speaker 1: crips and no, there was a there was a new story. Gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't remember which city this was out of, but
Speaker 1: the idea, no, it was out of out of Arizona. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: perhaps out of Phoenix, I don't recall. But basically the
Speaker 1: idea that some organ donation places were not operating like
Speaker 1: on the level and um, you know had like you know,
Speaker 1: bags of organs sitting around that sort of thing. Don't
Speaker 1: let that discourage you know, is great? Yeah, absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying that there if you want to,
Speaker 1: you may not be concerned about your body being stolen
Speaker 1: these days, but you can find, you know, to Like
Speaker 1: my main my main reaction to seeing that story on
Speaker 1: the news was that, Okay, someone's going to use this
Speaker 1: as an excuse not to uh, you know, don'tate their
Speaker 1: body to science or become an organ donor, which I
Speaker 1: think is absolutely the wrong move. Certainly, you know, look
Speaker 1: into where your body is going, you know, be be
Speaker 1: an informed donor, uh, to the extent to which that
Speaker 1: is possible. But uh, you know, on the other hand, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the the argument that you're not going to
Speaker 1: use your organs once you're dead is totally solid. Let
Speaker 1: somebody else use them and uh. And then I do
Speaker 1: love the way Josh factors this into his belief system.
Speaker 1: You know that he doesn't he doesn't let belief in
Speaker 1: a physical resurrection keep him from doing something, uh that
Speaker 1: that you know, can help people out and can improve
Speaker 1: the quality of life and save lives for other individuals. Sure,
Speaker 1: all right? Should we move on to emails about our
Speaker 1: episode on Ketchup. We got a ton of feedback about
Speaker 1: ketch Up. I don't know how covered in Ketchup we
Speaker 1: want to get here, but it's the logical place to
Speaker 1: go after organ donation, I guess. So should we look
Speaker 1: at this first one from Christian. This is responding to
Speaker 1: our comments about curry Worst and the role of Ketchup
Speaker 1: in German food. I think I uh, said that I
Speaker 1: believed curry Worst was like a type of like cut
Speaker 1: up sausage that was popular German fast food that was
Speaker 1: in some kind of curry ketchup mixture. Christian responds, Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm quite late, but my podcascher is backed up a
Speaker 1: little bit. So I write to you now about your
Speaker 1: episode on Ketchup. First, great episode. A second. You weren't
Speaker 1: slandering German cuisine at all. Now, that makes me wonder
Speaker 1: exactly what it was. I said, Um, curry Worst is
Speaker 1: a German brought first drowned in a secret sauce which
Speaker 1: is mostly ketchup and curry powder and is widely available
Speaker 1: as a quote traditional German fast food, invented in the
Speaker 1: fifties and sixties. Historically it served as a whole worst
Speaker 1: in Berlin and cut with scissors in my home region
Speaker 1: in the Ruhr That that is a a squak. I
Speaker 1: did not know that I had. That is like cutting
Speaker 1: sausage with a knife, that's normal, but like the scissors
Speaker 1: that got into my brain and and did horrible things.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You gotta cut a sausage with something.
Speaker 1: I don't know why the scissors feel so much worse.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, well, I guess it comes
Speaker 1: back to the idea that a sausage is phallic in
Speaker 1: form I'm sure he does. Actually, because I found I
Speaker 1: was also getting grossed out by the idea of just
Speaker 1: generally cutting meat with scissors. It gave me the creeps.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have kitchen sheers, right, Those are sometimes
Speaker 1: used to take apart, say a chicken carcass, right, I
Speaker 1: guess they they sometimes are. I used it to take
Speaker 1: apart vegetables sometimes. Huh, that's not you know, you wigged
Speaker 1: out with the possibility of using kitchen shears and say,
Speaker 1: I don't know, celery, I don't know, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more so on the meat. I don't know something.
Speaker 1: Something's are going wrong there anyway, Christian continues. It was
Speaker 1: a long time in the top three most served fast
Speaker 1: food in Germany until Donor Kebab pushed it out down
Speaker 1: to the fourth spot. The second most sold catch up
Speaker 1: in Germany after regular Ketchup is Career ketch Up, with HeLa,
Speaker 1: the leading brand with a more marked shared than the
Speaker 1: American Juggernaut. Hines, so eating Ketchup in Germany often comes
Speaker 1: with curry powder, and while I keep a bottle of
Speaker 1: ketchup around my kitchen. I really can't stand curry in
Speaker 1: my ketchup since I started cooking meals and exploring flavor
Speaker 1: for myself. Keep up the great podcasting. I hope I
Speaker 1: can catch up with your podcast soon. With spiced greetings, Christian,
Speaker 1: Well this is great. I now I really want to
Speaker 1: try some German ketchup. I feel like a lot of
Speaker 1: German cuisine since it is kind of unavailable to me
Speaker 1: now because it is traditional German cuisine. German. Please correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, but yeah, I try to go
Speaker 1: to a German restaurant in New Orleans very recently, and
Speaker 1: I just looked at the menu and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there's like nothing I can eat here. Um, Like you
Speaker 1: can get some good potato salad, or it is bacon
Speaker 1: in it? Oh really didn't or it usually does. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe they're I guess they're probably variations of German
Speaker 1: potato salad that don't have meat in them, but my
Speaker 1: understanding is that it usually does. Um. And so like
Speaker 1: the only two things on the menu of an otherwise
Speaker 1: great looking German restaurant, the two things that were vegetarian,
Speaker 1: we're not particularly German. Uh, so what was the point
Speaker 1: of going right? I don't know. I'm sorry, man, but
Speaker 1: I would I am happy to be corrected by anyone else.
Speaker 1: Here has recommendations on German restaurants in the continental United
Speaker 1: States that can appease my my dietary constraints or likewise,
Speaker 1: just an information about what what what is it like
Speaker 1: to uh to eat traditional German fair and be a vegetarian? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, I look forward for the recipes
Speaker 1: coming in. Yeah. Uh, Robert, do you mind if I
Speaker 1: jump on with this next one about chop because I
Speaker 1: was already practicing some of these words. Please do this one.
Speaker 1: What's long? It's not too long, but it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: about where I'm still going to get some of them wrong,
Speaker 1: I know, all right, So this was also about the
Speaker 1: ketchup episode. Is from a listener who did not want
Speaker 1: us to share her name allowed, so I if I
Speaker 1: name her, I'm just gonna call her chop for ketchup. Uh.
Speaker 1: This message seems to be in response to us talking
Speaker 1: about how tomatoes used to be known as the apples
Speaker 1: of love or love apples like in French, and how
Speaker 1: other fruits and tubers and stuff were once named with
Speaker 1: some kind of apple plus modifier construction, for example potatoes
Speaker 1: in French or palm to tear apples of the earth
Speaker 1: and so forth. Uh. And so this was in response
Speaker 1: to that our listener chup rights. Hey guys, you were
Speaker 1: wondering in the catchup episode about other weird apples. So,
Speaker 1: being the multi lingual linguistics geek but not a proper
Speaker 1: linguist that I am, I felt inclined to share my knowledge.
Speaker 1: First of all, apple or medieval Latin palm um didn't
Speaker 1: only mean apple, but food or crop in general. That's interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is why various settlers called plants they found in
Speaker 1: other parts of the world some kind of apple. The
Speaker 1: origins aren't always linguistically clear, since the English, French, Spanish,
Speaker 1: and Dutch all ventured all over the world and often
Speaker 1: found similar their plants independently in very different places, since
Speaker 1: they weren't the first people to travel and conquer all
Speaker 1: over the place and spread crops all over the place.
Speaker 1: Here are some examples. Pomegranate means seeded apple. The name
Speaker 1: is of French and medieval Latin origin. Extra fact, the
Speaker 1: apple that Adam and Eve share in Biblical tradition was
Speaker 1: probably originally thought to be a pomegranate, since that was
Speaker 1: a fruit well known but still considered a delicacy in
Speaker 1: the lavant region. Of course, paradise isn't limited in any way,
Speaker 1: and all fruits can grow there. But this is essentially
Speaker 1: about stories and culture. I know it's in the original text.
Speaker 1: It is not specified to be an apple, like the
Speaker 1: fruit we call an apple. It's just like it's a fruit,
Speaker 1: and we don't necessarily know what fruit it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be, so there's a debate about what fruit it
Speaker 1: was in the garden of Eden. I was like thinking
Speaker 1: of it as a banana, just because it's it's more
Speaker 1: funny that way. I think I've heard somebody propose it
Speaker 1: was a lemon. I like that delicious. Uh. This listener
Speaker 1: continues in Greek, then Latin and German, English, French, et
Speaker 1: cetera translations, the pomegranate became an apple, and so it
Speaker 1: was depicted in Eurocentric art. Oranges are called apple sign
Speaker 1: or apple sign in German and Dutch, which means Chinese apple. Uh.
Speaker 1: Peaches were originally called Persian apples. They're called parask and
Speaker 1: Dutch and the country as Persia, making it even clearer
Speaker 1: where the fruit was first discovered by Europeans, even though
Speaker 1: it originated somewhere in central to East Asia. Like oranges,
Speaker 1: potatoes are called the earth apple and Dutch art apple,
Speaker 1: and in some German speaking regions aired app ful. Uh.
Speaker 1: Pineapples are a little more convoluted. They're called this because
Speaker 1: they reminded the Spanish explorers of pine cones with overall
Speaker 1: shape and scales. Wild pineapples are also about the same
Speaker 1: size as pine cones. Now in Dutch they say dnan
Speaker 1: apple for fur cone, but that's basically the same thing. However,
Speaker 1: pineapples are called ananas. I guess that's in Dutch. Uh.
Speaker 1: Quince's kintzes. I've never actually um. I guess I was
Speaker 1: saying quinces. I don't know if I was saying correctly. Okay,
Speaker 1: Quinces are called Sidonian apples or variants of that. They
Speaker 1: spread from West Asia through the Mesopotamian Empire to Greece,
Speaker 1: where they entered European culture, and Sidonia was a city
Speaker 1: on crete. Maybe it was also a quince that Adam
Speaker 1: and Eve supposedly eight uh. And she says that's all
Speaker 1: I can think of, but also a few other things.
Speaker 1: Peppers are some etymo logic variant of pepper in most languages,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, she says, and then she
Speaker 1: also has some comments about curry worst as curry works.
Speaker 1: Curry Worst is usually vealed or fine pork sausage, and
Speaker 1: it's common street food sold on markets, permanent sausage stands
Speaker 1: and carnivals, mainly in Berlin and the Rugabyte, both regions
Speaker 1: claimed to be the origin. In Germany, we only have
Speaker 1: McDonald's Burger King in some KFC in recent years as
Speaker 1: fast food chains. Instead, there are these hole in the
Speaker 1: wall kiosk style places that sell all kinds of sausages.
Speaker 1: Curry ketchup can be bought anywhere, and it's very good
Speaker 1: with fries. Oh yeah, but you probably know this. Fries
Speaker 1: originated in Belgium, and Belgiums are very proud of them.
Speaker 1: Always happy about the foodie episodes. Thanks for the hard work,
Speaker 1: detailed research and quality entertainment. Have a great week. I
Speaker 1: I do want to come in real quick since we're
Speaker 1: talking more about about German food. UM, I do not
Speaker 1: mean to imply that I think Germany is a monolith
Speaker 1: and that everyone in Germany just eat sausages, sausages and
Speaker 1: where's the later hosing or whatever. Obviously they're multiple different
Speaker 1: cultural cultures are represented in Germany, and not everyone is
Speaker 1: Certainly not everyone is eating traditional German cuisine, especially as
Speaker 1: it is recognized generally and by American audiences that are
Speaker 1: going to German restaurants. But so my question is more specifically,
Speaker 1: what would modern day meat uh seek out to eat
Speaker 1: in order to scratch the same itch that meat head
Speaker 1: the German American restaurants offered when I was a kid. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what I would say, Actually, perhaps my favorite
Speaker 1: thing in German cuisine is not a meat. It is
Speaker 1: completely vegetarian. It's their pickles. I love wonderful that this
Speaker 1: is true. I do still eat sauer kraut, and I
Speaker 1: do frequently have sauer kraud on um, like the veggie
Speaker 1: dogs and whatnot. So, I mean, maybe I'm already practicing
Speaker 1: the answer, but I but I want, I want more
Speaker 1: answers than that. All right, you've got your assignment, folks,
Speaker 1: right in with vegetarian German food for Robert. I should
Speaker 1: just say, by the way, that we heard from a
Speaker 1: lot of like European listeners about the Ketchup episode I
Speaker 1: don't know why that is. Maybe it's a coincidence. But
Speaker 1: like multiple listeners from like Austria and Germany about ketchup,
Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on there. That's great, im
Speaker 1: I want more of it. All right, here's another one.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from David and uh here
Speaker 1: he goes, Hello guys, another great episode. As an Australian listener,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to share some differences in the way
Speaker 1: we refer to the food items and sauces mentioned. First
Speaker 1: of all, Australians up until fairly recently did not have
Speaker 1: a product in the supermarket that was called ketchup. What
Speaker 1: you would call ketchup, we simply called tomato sauce. For
Speaker 1: an Australian ketchup is thought of as a thicker sauce.
Speaker 1: I believe this maybe because Hines sells both a thinner
Speaker 1: tomato sauce and a thicker ketchup. It is also quite
Speaker 1: interesting that Hines is so associated with the red sauce
Speaker 1: in the US. In Australia, Beans means hinds quote unquote
Speaker 1: is a big advertising campaign. Always makes me think of
Speaker 1: that album by The Who That's got the Hines Big
Speaker 1: Beans on it um. David continues, they are the baked
Speaker 1: beans company to most of us, and this ketchup thing
Speaker 1: is only probably a thing in the last five to
Speaker 1: ten years, maybe a little longer. I would imagine that
Speaker 1: the numbers you used for worldwide sales includes our tomato
Speaker 1: sauce as ketchup on our condiment and sauce profile. We
Speaker 1: are not big on the mustard. On any family table
Speaker 1: a restaurants, you are more likely to see tomato sauce
Speaker 1: and barbecue sauce as the two main sauces. Strange, we
Speaker 1: have hot dogs with the Frankfurt, but Australians are more
Speaker 1: likely to have a sausage sandwich that has a clear
Speaker 1: skin sausage that is cooked on the barbecue in a
Speaker 1: single piece of white bread with or without cooked onions,
Speaker 1: and the sauces are either tomato or barbecue barbecue sauce everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like no buns for its bread instead of bunk, right,
Speaker 1: like a white bread with the with the grilled items.
Speaker 1: I mean that that's sort of a thing in American
Speaker 1: southern barbecue tradition. To David continues, Australians call French fries chips.
Speaker 1: It is a strange thing that we have two products
Speaker 1: that are referred to as chips. They are the fried
Speaker 1: potato and the thinly cut cold product that you call chips,
Speaker 1: and the English called crisps. The way we differentiate is
Speaker 1: to say hot chips, but that is only when we
Speaker 1: think it will cause confusion. So that's interesting. They kind
Speaker 1: of took chips. It's like the chip, the aprickin chips
Speaker 1: and the British ships. Uh and and they just use both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very economical hot ships. David finishes up here and says, anyway,
Speaker 1: just thought that I would share this because throughout the
Speaker 1: episode I was continually having to translate in my own
Speaker 1: mind as you were using these terms. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I am always very interested to hear what other people
Speaker 1: call food items and how they talk about them in
Speaker 1: different cultures. Oh yeah, I mean it's it's a wonderful
Speaker 1: way to to share and share alike with another culture.
Speaker 1: It's like talking about what does a you know, what
Speaker 1: does a chicken say in your language? What do you
Speaker 1: call this food item that you inevitably have over there
Speaker 1: as well? And if you don't have it, well, then
Speaker 1: that's something we can relate about as well. What do
Speaker 1: you have instead? Uh? Yeah, the kitchen table is that
Speaker 1: the dining table in general, that's the place where where
Speaker 1: pieces made between otherwise differing people. Right, all right, it's
Speaker 1: time to take a quick break, but we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more. Okay, So we are back next for
Speaker 1: moving on to respond says we got to our series
Speaker 1: about the invention of air conditioning. I would say this
Speaker 1: one got probably the most feedback of any episode we've done.
Speaker 1: There was a huge amount of email about air conditioning. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is no way we'll have a chance to read
Speaker 1: it all. We can do our best to give a
Speaker 1: decent sampling here. So first I wanted to start off
Speaker 1: with a message from Adam. This one was a correction
Speaker 1: about something we said in the air conditioning episode. So
Speaker 1: we were pointing out that a regular fan does not
Speaker 1: actually cool the air in the room. In fact, a
Speaker 1: fan might slightly increase the temperature of the air in
Speaker 1: the room, and instead a fan, we were saying, cools
Speaker 1: the body by causing air to move rapidly over your skin,
Speaker 1: which cools you by speeding up the evaporation of water
Speaker 1: from your skin. Uh. And that, of course is true.
Speaker 1: But here's Adam giving a fuller and clearer picture on
Speaker 1: the issue. So Adam says, Hey, Robert and Joe, I've
Speaker 1: written into stuff to blow your mind a few times recently,
Speaker 1: but this is my first time writing into invention. I'm
Speaker 1: a mechanical engineering student who did very well in my
Speaker 1: heat transfer class, and I spotted an incorrect statement in
Speaker 1: your air conditioning episode. Knowing how much you love corrections,
Speaker 1: I thought I would provide this one. Hopefully it is
Speaker 1: not too dry. While evaporative cooling is certainly a factor
Speaker 1: in fan cooling, it's only part of the effect. The
Speaker 1: rest is the result of different modes of heat transfer.
Speaker 1: To start, heat is transferred from the skin to the
Speaker 1: air through conduction. In non moving air, the air that
Speaker 1: has just been heated forms a graduated layer around the body,
Speaker 1: which insulates you and makes you feel warmer. This air
Speaker 1: becomes buoyant and rises in accordance with the Chimney effect.
Speaker 1: The warm air is thus gradually replaced with cool air,
Speaker 1: and the cycle continues. This is known as natural convection.
Speaker 1: In moving air, the warm layer of air around your
Speaker 1: skin is wicked away by the flow of air around you,
Speaker 1: reducing the size and effectiveness of the insulating hot air boundary.
Speaker 1: This is known as forced convection the heat transfer coefficient,
Speaker 1: and therefore the heat transfer rate of force convection is
Speaker 1: greater than that of natural convection, which in this case
Speaker 1: means that moving air will draw more heat away and
Speaker 1: cool you better, regardless of whether or not you're sweating.
Speaker 1: The reason why the temperature reading of Joe's thermometer did
Speaker 1: not change when air was blown on it before being
Speaker 1: wrapped in a wet towel is because the thermometer was
Speaker 1: already the same temperature as the air, and therefore there
Speaker 1: was no heat transfer with the air regardless of flow speed. However,
Speaker 1: for warm blooded creatures like us, we are almost always
Speaker 1: experiencing heat transfer. Some interesting results of this concept are
Speaker 1: cold blooded animals are not effectively cooled by fans unless
Speaker 1: they have recently been basking. A side note, radiation is
Speaker 1: the third form of heat transfer, along with conduction and convection.
Speaker 1: There's a high theoretical temperature where moving air will actually
Speaker 1: heat you up faster than stagnant air. Uh And of
Speaker 1: course you can imagine that by just upping into a
Speaker 1: convection of it, right is blowing air on you, But
Speaker 1: it's certainly not cooling you off. Right. Also, don't step
Speaker 1: into a convection of it. Um, Adam continues. Although, due
Speaker 1: to the evaporative effects of sweat that Joe talked about,
Speaker 1: this temperature is well above your body temperature. So you
Speaker 1: can get a fan blowing on you even if the
Speaker 1: air is above nine degrees and it will still cool
Speaker 1: you off because of the sweat evaporation. But whatever, This
Speaker 1: theoretical temperature is where the blowing of a fan would
Speaker 1: actually heat you up instead of cool you down. Adam
Speaker 1: calls this the anti fan temperature. Also, Adam says, running
Speaker 1: in the same direction and speed as the wind is
Speaker 1: an incredibly strange and uncomfortable feeling. Uh I wonder if
Speaker 1: I've done that before. As I have, I've certainly experienced
Speaker 1: this um on a boat before, where you know you're
Speaker 1: going against the wind on say like a hot day,
Speaker 1: and if you're going against the wind, yes, it's just
Speaker 1: heightened uh wind, you know, and air moving past you,
Speaker 1: and it's very cooling and liberating. And then you have
Speaker 1: to go back the other way. Um, you you might
Speaker 1: find yourself in a more like heated environment. You're like,
Speaker 1: what am I doing now? I'm actually like really breaking
Speaker 1: a sweat here. Yeah, I hope that this mini heat
Speaker 1: transfer lesson was interesting. I wasn't able to continue listening
Speaker 1: until I cleared this small air up. Keep up the
Speaker 1: great almost entirely factual podcasting best regards, Adam, Well, thank you,
Speaker 1: that's our thing, almost entirely factual podcasting. But no, obviously
Speaker 1: we uh we we we want to be corrected if
Speaker 1: we get anything off on the show. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: main just there that there is something a fan does
Speaker 1: to help cool you apart from just helping evaporate sweat,
Speaker 1: and it's just moving more air over your skin, which
Speaker 1: helps you conduct heat into the air faster. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another air conditioning one and this is this one's
Speaker 1: really good. I I'm glad we put this one on
Speaker 1: the list. Here. This one comes to us from h Ay.
Speaker 1: I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Uh. They write
Speaker 1: in and say Hi, Robert and Joe. I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of Invention and st have to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: I started listening to both of them when Invention started,
Speaker 1: but I liked them so much that I've gone back
Speaker 1: and listened to a few years worth of stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your Mind episodes. I decided to write in after
Speaker 1: listening to the air Conditioning part one episode. I grew
Speaker 1: up in India, spending a lot of summers in Kerala,
Speaker 1: which is a hot in humid state, and have been
Speaker 1: living in Austin, Texas for the last four years. Most
Speaker 1: of my family in India do not have air conditioning,
Speaker 1: although they probably could now, so the episode made me
Speaker 1: reflect on living with versus without air conditioning. You mentioned
Speaker 1: sleeping on roofs, but I don't think you mentioned the
Speaker 1: more obvious solution, sleep on the floor or use thinner mattresses.
Speaker 1: Sleeping on the floor is a lot easier than in
Speaker 1: a bed in hot weather because the floor will be cooler.
Speaker 1: It gets better if you wet the floor and let
Speaker 1: it dry a couple of hours before sleeping, or shower
Speaker 1: just before bed. Also, a cotton mattress which you can't
Speaker 1: sink into as much, and cotton sheets, which are more breathable,
Speaker 1: are much better for the heat compared to the kind
Speaker 1: of betting which is more common here in the US.
Speaker 1: I've resorted to all of these strategies and if all
Speaker 1: else fails, sleeping in damp clothes when I had a
Speaker 1: tiny dorm room in undergrad in a hot human place
Speaker 1: with no A C. Although I have become somewhat spoiled
Speaker 1: after coming to the U S, I still find that
Speaker 1: I am more comfortable with a higher temperature and a
Speaker 1: table fan pointed at my face than a low A
Speaker 1: C temperature for sleeping. One thing I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to understand is the extent to which sweat bothers people here.
Speaker 1: For me, it's just a It's been a normal part
Speaker 1: of life, and I actually find it harder to handle
Speaker 1: dry heat than some level of humidity. I also find
Speaker 1: that my body just feels better due to cooling from evaporation,
Speaker 1: while an unnecessarily cold A C just makes me feel
Speaker 1: a little ill. One last thing. Initially, when you mentioned
Speaker 1: step ponds and wells, I was a little surprised because
Speaker 1: I hadn't heard of the term, and I was wondering
Speaker 1: how come I did not know about this. From the description,
Speaker 1: I realized that I did know about them, but just
Speaker 1: hadn't appreciated that there was anything special about them. Thank
Speaker 1: you for helping me see them in a new light.
Speaker 1: They're fairly common in temples in Kerala, but as these
Speaker 1: are usually not very welcoming of tourists. I can see
Speaker 1: why they haven't been seen as much. It's also easy
Speaker 1: to imagine how the need for space in cities may
Speaker 1: result in these being filled or taken over. It's definitely
Speaker 1: happened with lakes in Bangalore. Thanks again for awesome podcast, Ashwaria.
Speaker 1: What a great message. Yeah, yeah, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: sharing this. This reminds me real quick. We'll come back
Speaker 1: to this. But another listener sent in some pictures that
Speaker 1: he took. A listener named Alan just of some stepwells
Speaker 1: in India, and I just wanted to emphasize again how
Speaker 1: weirdly beautiful and counterintuitive they look. They look so much
Speaker 1: like optical allusions to me, the steps zigzagging down the
Speaker 1: walls really somehow seemed to defy the normal rules of perspective,
Speaker 1: and I want to understand what's going on with that. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: there's some there. These are these pictures who were sent
Speaker 1: in were pretty amazing, and there have been some wonderful
Speaker 1: of photographs that have been been made over the years
Speaker 1: of them. I think we discussed in the show how
Speaker 1: they are. You know, for for a while they were
Speaker 1: kind of forgotten to a certain extent. And there's been
Speaker 1: a you know, sort of a renaissance and and reevaluating them,
Speaker 1: reappreciating them and sharing images of them with the world,
Speaker 1: which is wonderful because, like you said, they there's nothing
Speaker 1: else quite like them, you know. They The best way
Speaker 1: I can think of them is it's like an inverted zigarade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but also a sawaria. I really appreciate you sharing all
Speaker 1: these sort of like hacks for temperature at night, uh,
Speaker 1: like like wetting the floor so that like the evaporative
Speaker 1: heat of the water evaporating off the floor actually cools
Speaker 1: the floor right before bed. Uh. And I wonder how
Speaker 1: hard you have to manage like the timing of that
Speaker 1: and stuff, because I assume you wouldn't want to like
Speaker 1: lie down while it's still wet, so I don't know. Uh,
Speaker 1: this was really interesting. Also the fact the fact that
Speaker 1: you've had perspective on it, on it both ways now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So thanks so much. All right. Also about air conditioning,
Speaker 1: our listener Tom says, Hey, guys, I was listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast and you mentioned movie theaters offering a c
Speaker 1: you know, you said if you were in this position,
Speaker 1: you would look for the longest movie. However, in the
Speaker 1: old days when I was a kid. Even after the thirties,
Speaker 1: movies didn't charge you to watch a movie. They charged
Speaker 1: an admission. Movies always had short reels and often were
Speaker 1: double features. Either way, you routinely walked into a movie
Speaker 1: at any time, sat through the end, and then watched
Speaker 1: the beginning until you got to the place you already saw.
Speaker 1: In fact, you would frequently see people leave saying this
Speaker 1: is where we came in. Many times we would sit
Speaker 1: and rewatch the movie. I guess, just take advantage of
Speaker 1: the air conditioning. Right, Is that the line from the
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd song that you and I were talking about? Wait,
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? This is where we came in.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what's the deal with that? With the wall
Speaker 1: supposedly like loops somehow? Yeah? So, what a weird coincidence
Speaker 1: were speaking about that um off Mike earlier, totally unrelated
Speaker 1: to listener mail. It must mean something. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from David.
Speaker 1: First of all, love the podcast, but I'm somewhat new
Speaker 1: to the stuff to blow your mind sphere. But I've
Speaker 1: been with invention from its inception. I love seeing the
Speaker 1: evolution of technologies and how they shaped the world we
Speaker 1: know today. I was looking forward to this episode and
Speaker 1: he's talking about the air conditioning episode, because in particular,
Speaker 1: because I knew you'd be mentioning my hometown of Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: I also strongly suspected that you'd be surprised to learn
Speaker 1: that we hosted the site of the first residential air
Speaker 1: conditioning installation, which indeed we did express surprise at that.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you, Minneapolis can get hot in the summer.
Speaker 1: We have roughly two to three months out of the
Speaker 1: year that i'd call legitimately hot. This doesn't happen too often,
Speaker 1: but it's not unheard of us for us to even
Speaker 1: see a couple of a hundred and ten plus fahrenheit
Speaker 1: days per year. What what many people forget is that
Speaker 1: we're positioned fairly centrally on the continent, with Lake Superior
Speaker 1: in Michigan the only large bodies of water to regulate
Speaker 1: temperature swings that are even close. So we experienced very
Speaker 1: cold days for sure, but pretty dang hot ones to
Speaker 1: keep out the great work. David, uh Yeah, I'll admit
Speaker 1: that my my visions of Minneapolis were largely based on,
Speaker 1: first of all, jokes from from people who have lived
Speaker 1: there about the cold and having only and having ventured
Speaker 1: there only once during the winter for like twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: and having to get out on you know, and walking
Speaker 1: around and travel at one point point to another, and
Speaker 1: so on some level, I just imagine that Minneapolis is
Speaker 1: just always really cold, except for maybe like a month
Speaker 1: or two in the summer where they experience something called summer,
Speaker 1: but surely not as hot as something that we would
Speaker 1: have down here. What's the TV show that's set there?
Speaker 1: Is Mary Tyler Moore something maybe, so yeah, it always
Speaker 1: looks cold. It's kind of the reverse of the the
Speaker 1: effect you see with television shows shot in Toronto. Specifically,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of Kim's Convenience, which is a wonderful Canadian show,
Speaker 1: and then I think Working Moms is also set there
Speaker 1: and filmed there, but I get the impression they only
Speaker 1: filmed the show during the summer or in the you know,
Speaker 1: warmer months, and so if you were just watching those
Speaker 1: two shows, you would think, wellow, Toronto looks amazing. It's
Speaker 1: just it's just summer all the time. They have no
Speaker 1: no winters there, nor at least nobody on the show
Speaker 1: talks about it. So I guess I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: book my my trip for for November and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Um But likewise, I think that the talking points for
Speaker 1: Minneapolis among you know people abroad tend to be about
Speaker 1: the cold. Yeah. I think you're right on the money there. Okay,
Speaker 1: quick message from our listener, Colin. Colin is referring again
Speaker 1: to the thing I talked about in the episode where
Speaker 1: you know I held up a thermometer in front of
Speaker 1: a desk fan. The temperature didn't change, but then when
Speaker 1: I wrapped it in a wet towel, the temperature went
Speaker 1: way down, and that was because of the evaporative cooling. Um. So,
Speaker 1: Colin says, Hello, I just finished part one of air
Speaker 1: Conditioning and wanted to draw your attention that Joe was
Speaker 1: obliquely describing a sling psychrometer when he spoke of using
Speaker 1: a wet cloth thermometer and desk fan to prove the
Speaker 1: cooling properties of evaporation. A sling psychometer is a rudimentary
Speaker 1: meteorological device composed of two bulb thermometers connected by a string.
Speaker 1: The bulb of one thermometer is wrapped in a wet
Speaker 1: cloth and the other is not. The thermometers are then
Speaker 1: swung around circularly for several seconds, and then the temperature
Speaker 1: of each is recorded. The difference in temperature reading can
Speaker 1: then be entered into a table which will provide you
Speaker 1: with the relative humidity. The more arid the ambient air is,
Speaker 1: the greater the temperature discrepancy will be. Anyway, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a term from fourth grade Earth sciences that is
Speaker 1: always stuck with me because it's fun to say. Love
Speaker 1: the show, cheers Colin. Alright, on that note, we're going
Speaker 1: to take one more break, but we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with more listener mail. Alright, we're back, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: read some more air conditioning listener mail. This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from an individual name Christian. I feel, I
Speaker 1: guess a different Christian. I'm not a different one. We
Speaker 1: don't want to imply that they're like just two listeners
Speaker 1: and they just just happens. We just get multiple listeners
Speaker 1: at the same Yeah. Yeah, there, and and certainly we
Speaker 1: love hearing from from repeat listener mail offenders as well.
Speaker 1: But Christian rights in and says, hey, guys, I enjoy
Speaker 1: the air Conditioning podcast. As an architect. There are any
Speaker 1: number of rants about poorly designed buildings I could break
Speaker 1: off into, but I thought it might be more beneficial
Speaker 1: to introduce something critical to heating, ventilation air conditioning design.
Speaker 1: This tool is the psychrometric chart with the comfort zone
Speaker 1: for humans highlighted. Oh yeah, so this would connect to
Speaker 1: what we were just talking about, the psychometer detecting like
Speaker 1: relative humidity levels. Yeah, the comfort zone illustrates that seventy
Speaker 1: degrees in Atlanta with humidity feel is hot, yet eighty
Speaker 1: degrees in southern California with fifty percent humidity does not.
Speaker 1: The big takeaway humidity control can be more important than
Speaker 1: temperature in our comfort. In the South, air our air
Speaker 1: conditioners remove moisture from the air while cooling it. When
Speaker 1: our buildings have the humidification systems, which operates separately from
Speaker 1: the air conditioning systems, we can be more comfortable over
Speaker 1: a wider range of temperatures, thus saving energy. Typically houses
Speaker 1: aren't constructed that way, but probably should be, especially in
Speaker 1: the hot, muggy South. That's really interesting. I've never thought
Speaker 1: of that before. That, like you could use less energy
Speaker 1: achieving a comfort zone if you take into account temperature
Speaker 1: and humidity separately instead of just running in a c
Speaker 1: to do both all the time, so you can have
Speaker 1: one device stuck in one window and then another one
Speaker 1: in the other window, and then you have two devices,
Speaker 1: which uh you know this is I do think this
Speaker 1: gets to the heart of why you you don't see
Speaker 1: this utilized in a home environment. All right, what else
Speaker 1: do we have? Joe? Alright? This next message came in
Speaker 1: response to our episode on the invention of the hypodermic needle.
Speaker 1: H this comes from Dan. Dan says, Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I was listening to your most recent listener mail episode
Speaker 1: and was surprised that the letters you received about the
Speaker 1: hypodermic needle lacked any input from type one diabetics. I
Speaker 1: myself have been managing type one diabetes since I was
Speaker 1: diagnosed at age three, almost thirty years ago. Before switching
Speaker 1: to insulin pump therapy in the mid two thousand's, I
Speaker 1: spent about fifteen years getting between five and seven injections
Speaker 1: of insulin each and every day, Additionally, every three months
Speaker 1: having blood drawn to check long term markers of possible
Speaker 1: hyperglycemia related damage. As you might suspect, this served as
Speaker 1: exposure therapy to the extreme for myself and any other
Speaker 1: diabetics in the pre insulin pump era. As a child,
Speaker 1: I had absolutely no trepidation with needles, injections or i
Speaker 1: V s. My story takes an unexpected turn, however, when
Speaker 1: I was in college and was diagnosed with cancer at
Speaker 1: age twenty. I'm happy to say that I've been cancer
Speaker 1: free and relatively healthy for ten years now, but the
Speaker 1: traumatic experience of the diagnosis and subsequent treatment manifested in
Speaker 1: a surprising manner. During my treatment, I had to regularly
Speaker 1: undergo CT scans to monitor my disease, which involved an
Speaker 1: intravenous injection of contrast DIE. This seemed like no big
Speaker 1: deal at the time, as I was well accustomed to
Speaker 1: needles and blood draws, but during one of my CT
Speaker 1: scan sessions, I became extremely dizzy and nearly fainted during
Speaker 1: the insertion of the i V line. Ever since that experience,
Speaker 1: I've been very uneasy around needles and often feel lightheaded
Speaker 1: during blood draws. Despite my exposure therapy consisting of tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of injections during my lifetime, I can only
Speaker 1: hypothesize the trauma of my cancer diagnosis and treatment created
Speaker 1: an anxious association with needles, but I thought this would
Speaker 1: be an interesting story of exposure therapy early in life
Speaker 1: that was surprisingly counteracted by later events. Thanks again for
Speaker 1: putting together such consistently intelligent and insightful episodes of invention
Speaker 1: and stuff to blow your mind. I am a cell
Speaker 1: biologist working in cancer research, and having well researched and
Speaker 1: stimulating podcast to listen to both helps me get through
Speaker 1: some of the mundane and repetitive tasks required to my
Speaker 1: scientific research and continually expands my perspective. Best Dan, very interesting.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sharing that with us. Stan, Yeah, totally and
Speaker 1: h best of luck in your research. Al Right, here's
Speaker 1: one message in response to the episode we did about
Speaker 1: the Turnspit Dog. This comes from someone who identified themselves
Speaker 1: as gamer checks. We don't choose their names. I think
Speaker 1: that's their their their God given name. Okay, gam er checks.
Speaker 1: Gam er check says, love the show. I was listening
Speaker 1: to your episode on the Turnspit Dog and you talked
Speaker 1: about the dog being domesticated twelve thousand years ago and
Speaker 1: brought up how we domesticated the cat later on. This
Speaker 1: is actually not the case. Cats are the only close
Speaker 1: companion who domesticated themselves. God will love the stubborn little chunks. Anyway,
Speaker 1: in the future, I'd love to see a themed episode
Speaker 1: on the invention of domestication itself. Thanks gam er checks. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is a good point and one that I think
Speaker 1: we have we have discussed on past episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind our other podcast. But yes, there
Speaker 1: is the argument that that the cat essentially brokered its
Speaker 1: own domestication. The cat wanders up and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: so you gotta you've got a problem with some rats there.
Speaker 1: It looks like you've got some some extra food around. Uh,
Speaker 1: creature like me could really earn its keep around here.
Speaker 1: And we said, oh, sure, let's let's do that. And
Speaker 1: what do you want to return the cats? Like, I
Speaker 1: just want enough to you know, to wet my beak,
Speaker 1: and then the cat wants to, uh, you know, live
Speaker 1: inside your house and on you, and uh and so
Speaker 1: forth and and yeah, so and certainly anyone who has
Speaker 1: who has lived with the cat knows that the cat
Speaker 1: is there on its seems to be there on its
Speaker 1: own terms for the most part, carrying out nightly missions
Speaker 1: for the neighborhood. Which, yes, but I I could see
Speaker 1: us doing an episode on domestication in the future. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is it is a human technology, though it also
Speaker 1: is it's not entirely a human technology. There are examples
Speaker 1: in the natural world of creatures that have domesticated something,
Speaker 1: and that would be fun to talk about as well. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: like insect agriculture. Uh yeah, absolutely, yeah. And then also
Speaker 1: some of the stories of domestication are just so impressive.
Speaker 1: Um really, I mean there are specific examples that would
Speaker 1: that really should be their own episode, like silk. So
Speaker 1: I've thought about doing this before. Yeah, well, heck, let's
Speaker 1: do Silk in the new year. Okay, Okay, So I
Speaker 1: think due to time constraints, we're gonna have to call
Speaker 1: it there for the first of our year end wrap
Speaker 1: up episodes of Invention Listener Mail, but we'll be back
Speaker 1: with more next time. That's right, We're gonna close out
Speaker 1: the year with another episode of Invention Listener Mail, and
Speaker 1: then we'll be back with new episodes of Invention in
Speaker 1: the new year. But really, the years almost overstop learning, Really,
Speaker 1: we don't need to keep going to see. There's a
Speaker 1: lot to learn from these messages. There is. There is
Speaker 1: a lot for us to learn specifically, and and we
Speaker 1: do love hearing from everyone. We don't have time to
Speaker 1: bond everyone, and we don't have time to read every
Speaker 1: listener mail that we receive on the show, but I
Speaker 1: do know that we are reading, and so we just
Speaker 1: invite you to continue to send in your questions, tidbits
Speaker 1: from from your life, from your environment. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear all of it. In the meantime, if you want
Speaker 1: more episodes of Invention, it's pretty easy to find us.
Speaker 1: Were on all those podcast websites. Wherever you get a
Speaker 1: podcast where you wherever you even hear a whisper of podcasts,
Speaker 1: we are there. Uh. You can go to invention pod
Speaker 1: dot com and that will redirect you to a page
Speaker 1: that has our podcast. Wherever you go, though, just make
Speaker 1: sure you subscribe, that you rate, that you review. These
Speaker 1: are the sacred rights that allow us to continue huge
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future to perhaps get featured on a
Speaker 1: future listener mail episode, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at invention pod dot com. Yeah. Invention is production of
Speaker 1: I Heart radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.