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00:00:20,238 --> 00:00:22,331
Ever heard of Murphy's Law?

2
00:00:22,473 --> 00:00:26,432
You know, the one that says
if anything can go wrong, it will.

3
00:00:26,578 --> 00:00:31,811
Well, if Murphy's Law ever strikes,
this is the safest place to be:

4
00:00:31,950 --> 00:00:33,918
Lloyd's of London.

5
00:00:40,158 --> 00:00:44,822
Because there is nothing
you can't insure against at Lloyd's.

6
00:00:44,963 --> 00:00:47,955
All you have to do
is pay the premium.

7
00:00:48,099 --> 00:00:50,624
And, boy, have they insured
against some really weird things

8
00:00:50,768 --> 00:00:53,032
around here over the years:

9
00:00:53,171 --> 00:00:56,607
piracy, lying, death by gin,

10
00:00:56,741 --> 00:00:58,641
spacecraft parachute failure,

11
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dead horses.

12
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You name it.

13
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And the reason they can do
all these crazy things

14
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and sometimes insure stuff for
hundreds of million dollars at a time

15
00:01:18,162 --> 00:01:19,993
is because, for 300 years,

16
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the underwriters here
have spread the risk.

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Look.

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Each underwriter
takes a part of the risk

19
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until the entire risk is covered,

20
00:01:29,240 --> 00:01:32,403
at which point,
Lloyd's can write the policy.

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And the whole
astronomically risky business

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relies totally on two things:

23
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international law
for determining responsibility

24
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if disaster strikes

25
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and a signature from Lloyd's

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to determine responsibility
if disaster strikes

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next to the two magic words
that bind everybody under law:

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"Sign Here."

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It is supremely ironic
that international law

30
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all started with an act
of skullduggery,

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here in the world's busiest
shipping lane,

32
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then, and now, the Straits of Malacca,

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the stretch of water running
between Indonesia and Singapore.

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In 1604, a Portuguese galleon
is trundling home

35
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with a cargo of fat profit
in the form of spices

36
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when suddenly out of nowhere
comes a Dutch warship

37
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and snaffles the lot,

38
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just like that on the open sea.

39
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Causes one almighty stink.

40
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Of course, the whole thing
is set up by the Dutch,

41
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who then hire
one of their hotshot lawyers,

42
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a fellow called De Groot,

43
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to prove that what looked like piracy,
stealing, smash-and-grab,

44
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or anything else you want
to call it, wasn't,

45
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which he does,

46
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and a lot more.

47
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De Groot basically
comes up with the concept

48
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of the open sea
that belongs to nobody

49
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so you can't monopolize trade on it,

50
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which is what the Spanish
and Portuguese have done

51
00:03:39,370 --> 00:03:40,803
with the spice trade,

52
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hence the Dutch piracy.

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In 1625, De Groot goes all the way

54
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and invents only the whole of
international law as we know it,

55
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basically because, without it,

56
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trade and exploration
and colonialism and all that

57
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are going to go
from disorganized to chaotic.

58
00:04:03,261 --> 00:04:07,630
I mean, the Western powers are
up every undiscovered backwater,

59
00:04:07,765 --> 00:04:10,825
planting the flag on anything
dry enough to land on.

60
00:04:10,968 --> 00:04:14,426
The Pope's carving up Brazil
before anybody's even been there.

61
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The Turks claim to own
only the entire planet.

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Protestant legislation doesn't work
in Catholic countries.

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And nobody is asking any local natives
their opinion about anything.

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So whose law is right?

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Especially when it comes down
to the essential matters in life:

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money and commerce.

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Well, De Groot says
anybody should be free

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to buy and sell anything they like,

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writes out some rules
for weighing the evidence,

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and basically invents
international law.

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Law is only any good as long
as everybody plays by the rules,

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which, back then,
you wouldn't have bet on.

73
00:05:05,990 --> 00:05:07,082
16.

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Too many.

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00:05:12,096 --> 00:05:13,961
Which is why, a little later,

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a Frenchman called Blaise Pascal
was to be found at the gaming tables

77
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trying to work out the odds
that would tell lawyers

78
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which way a jury would jump
one way or the other.

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Well, to be fair,

80
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he was also trying to come up
with a foolproof system

81
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for an aristocratic pal.

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And in case you're
that way inclined,

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Pascal worked out that an even chance
of getting a pair of sixes

84
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needed 24.555 rolls of the dice,

85
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if your nerve lasted that long.

86
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But Pascal's real trump card
was this little trick.

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It's called the mathematical triangle,

88
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and you can do all sorts
of amazing things with it.

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Here's just one.

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That's not a row,

91
00:05:56,741 --> 00:05:59,676
so this is row 1 ,
row 2, row 3.

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1 and 3 is 4

93
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and 3 is 7
and 1 is 8.

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The number of ways
three coins can fall is 8,

95
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and most probably this way:

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once, three heads;

97
00:06:12,890 --> 00:06:15,222
three times out of eight,
two heads and a tail;

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00:06:15,359 --> 00:06:18,453
three times out of eight,
two tails and a head;

99
00:06:18,596 --> 00:06:20,257
and once, three tails.

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And you can build this triangle
up as big as you like

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00:06:23,100 --> 00:06:25,625
and handle really
astronomically big numbers.

102
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What Pascal had invented here
was probability math.

103
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Just as well,

104
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because he was about
to get into deep doo-doo

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00:06:34,445 --> 00:06:36,811
with the church about just that:

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probability.

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00:06:42,386 --> 00:06:46,447
I suppose Pascal was
the 17th-century equivalent of a hippie,

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an unconventional freethinker,

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a very dangerous thing to be

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back at a time when the church
had power of a thumbscrew.

111
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So when he got friendly with some
Freedom of Conscience activists,

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very probably,
things were going to get nasty.

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Pascal's friends
were called Jansenists,

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and basically, they said,
"Look, if you've got a problem

115
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"with a matter of conscience
that's bothering you,

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"say, like this,

117
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"then you bother
the church with it,

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"and the church
will tell you what to do

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because it's probable
the church knows best."

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The Jansenists said, "Come on,

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it's much more probable
you know best."

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After all, it's your conscience.

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Well, all this went over
with kings and popes

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like a lead balloon.

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If you could hop on your bike
and escape to Holland,

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you might get away with it,

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but in France, for instance,

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the church went absolutely ape,

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because if individuals
didn't have to obey the church,

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who would they obey?

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So by 1700, most Jansenists
were either under house arrest,

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in hiding, or dead,

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because if
the powers-that-be said,

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"Keep your mouth shut" back then,

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you did.

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Mind you,
some monks did anyway.

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Here's a couple of 17-century monks
dishing the dirt on the abbot,

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cracking the latest jokes,
and generally networking.

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Want to listen in?

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Okay, here you go.

141
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No, there's nothing wrong
with your hearing.

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These guys belong
to a silent order,

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and back then, they're only allowed
to talk with their hands.

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So not surprisingly, it's a monk
who invents a sign language

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for deaf people to use
to communicate.

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And then an out-of-work Jansenist priest
opens a school to teach it.

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But by mid-19th century, there's a row

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about whether to teach deaf people
to make signs or sounds.

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And you've already heard
about that argument

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if you ever went to the movie
"My Fair Lady."

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Say your alphabet.

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I know my alphabet.

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Do you think I know nothing?

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I don't need to be taught like a child.

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Professor Higgins in the original play

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is based on a real Scottish
elocution teacher

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who'd invented something called
visible speech,

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symbols for sounds
that Higgins uses

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to write down Eliza Doolittle's
speech patterns.

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A, B, C, D--

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Stop.

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Listen to this, Pickering.

163
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This is what we pay for
as elementary education.

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This unfortunate animal
has been locked up

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for nine years in school at our expense

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to teach her to read and speak

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the language of Shakespeare
and Milton,

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but the result is "A, B, C, D."

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Say "A, B, C, D."

170
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But I'm saying it.

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A, B, C--

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Stop!

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Say "A cup of tea."

174
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A cup o' tea.

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Put your tongue forward

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until it squeezes against
the top of your lower teeth.

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Now say "cup."

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C--

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c--

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c--I can't.

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Cup.

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The Scotsman's visible speech book
pushed that idea

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about teaching deaf people
to make sounds.

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It was an idea that would lead

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to one of the most important
inventions in the modern world,

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because in 187 4,

187
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that Scots elocution teacher's son
was in Boston

188
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teaching deaf people to talk,

189
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and his problem was,

190
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how would deaf people know

191
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when they were making
the right noises?

192
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Tea, tea, tea, tea.

193
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But I can't hear no difference

194
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except it sounds more genteel-like
when you say it.

195
00:11:00,444 --> 00:11:02,969
Well, if you can hear that difference,
what the devil are you crying for?

196
00:11:03,113 --> 00:11:04,774
Pickering, give her a chocolate.

197
00:11:04,915 --> 00:11:06,075
By the time I'm finished,

198
00:11:06,217 --> 00:11:09,618
we shall hear music
in the weather patterns of Europe.

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00:11:09,753 --> 00:11:12,847
The rain in Spain
falls mainly on the plain.

200
00:11:14,391 --> 00:11:17,519
And then he came across
this French gizmo.

201
00:11:17,661 --> 00:11:20,892
You speak down a horn
at a thin membrane.

202
00:11:21,031 --> 00:11:22,362
It vibrates,

203
00:11:22,499 --> 00:11:25,627
and a bristle attached to it
moves up and down

204
00:11:25,769 --> 00:11:28,533
and traces a wiggly line
on smoked glass.

205
00:11:29,907 --> 00:11:34,276
The rain in Spain

206
00:11:34,411 --> 00:11:35,571
falls mainly--

207
00:11:35,713 --> 00:11:38,238
Like this.

208
00:11:38,382 --> 00:11:41,818
The rain in Spain.

209
00:11:41,952 --> 00:11:45,080
This gave our Scotsman's son
an idea.

210
00:11:47,024 --> 00:11:50,460
If you could get a metal membrane
to vibrate and wriggle a bit of iron

211
00:11:50,594 --> 00:11:53,495
in and out of a copper coil
attached to a battery,

212
00:11:53,631 --> 00:11:55,258
you'd get wavy electricity

213
00:11:55,399 --> 00:11:56,661
that would go down a line

214
00:11:56,800 --> 00:11:59,030
and cause the reverse to happen
at the other end,

215
00:11:59,169 --> 00:12:04,300
make another membrane wriggle,
and reproduce the original sound.

216
00:12:04,441 --> 00:12:08,741
By, Jehovah, what have I done?

217
00:12:10,547 --> 00:12:13,209
We call the Scotsman's son's idea--

218
00:12:13,350 --> 00:12:16,649
and by the way, his name
was Alexander Graham Bell--

219
00:12:16,787 --> 00:12:18,345
the telephone.

220
00:12:32,002 --> 00:12:33,663
Meanwhile, where the whole business

221
00:12:33,804 --> 00:12:36,568
of writing down speech
as wriggly lines goes next,

222
00:12:36,707 --> 00:12:38,197
the international community

223
00:12:38,342 --> 00:12:41,436
and all that United Nations
Geneva-speak talk,

224
00:12:41,578 --> 00:12:46,072
every mind-numbing word of which
has to be painstakingly recorded

225
00:12:46,216 --> 00:12:48,446
so it can be published
in a dozen languages

226
00:12:48,585 --> 00:12:50,644
for nobody to read.

227
00:12:50,788 --> 00:12:54,588
Record-keeping was the problem
facing international organizations

228
00:12:54,725 --> 00:12:57,819
when they started
back in the late 19th century,

229
00:12:57,962 --> 00:12:59,987
a problem solved by visible speech,

230
00:13:00,130 --> 00:13:02,360
well, this version
of visible speech:

231
00:13:02,499 --> 00:13:03,830
shorthand,

232
00:13:03,968 --> 00:13:06,061
the breaking up of speech sounds
into symbols

233
00:13:06,203 --> 00:13:10,333
that can be written down
as fast as anybody can talk.

234
00:13:10,474 --> 00:13:11,532
In other words,

235
00:13:11,675 --> 00:13:13,540
the use of the wiggly line

236
00:13:13,677 --> 00:13:17,204
and the invention of
"Take a letter, Miss Smith."

237
00:13:17,348 --> 00:13:21,216
Now, Isaac Pitman,
who invented shorthand,

238
00:13:21,352 --> 00:13:22,944
was also a closet pacifist

239
00:13:23,087 --> 00:13:26,147
and very keen on promoting
international understanding

240
00:13:26,290 --> 00:13:27,917
through the use of shorthand,

241
00:13:28,058 --> 00:13:31,755
because it fitted all languages
at all international meetings

242
00:13:31,895 --> 00:13:33,556
because it was phonetic,

243
00:13:33,697 --> 00:13:38,134
So it was common to all languages
spoken by all delegates.

244
00:13:39,770 --> 00:13:42,034
With respect to which any group
in the world,

245
00:13:42,172 --> 00:13:44,231
any significant group of states,

246
00:13:44,375 --> 00:13:47,708
is opposed to that being a crime
of general international law.

247
00:13:57,021 --> 00:14:00,582
The whole common language thing
got taken up in a very big way

248
00:14:00,724 --> 00:14:03,215
by a failed Russian eye doctor

249
00:14:03,360 --> 00:14:05,885
who invented a whole new
international language

250
00:14:06,030 --> 00:14:07,429
called Esperanto

251
00:14:07,564 --> 00:14:10,965
on the basis that it would bring
peace on Earth and end all wars

252
00:14:11,101 --> 00:14:14,764
and besides, save a ton of money
on interpreters and translators

253
00:14:14,905 --> 00:14:17,806
sitting in booths like these
doing things like this.

254
00:14:21,945 --> 00:14:25,142
Esperanto nearly got made official here,

255
00:14:25,282 --> 00:14:28,513
when this place was the
League of Nations, as a matter of fact.

256
00:14:28,652 --> 00:14:30,279
Nearly.

257
00:14:34,792 --> 00:14:38,990
Well, even if Esperanto didn't catch on,
at the end of 19th century,

258
00:14:39,129 --> 00:14:40,960
with a war somewhere
every ten minutes,

259
00:14:41,098 --> 00:14:43,396
they were rather keen
to find something

260
00:14:43,534 --> 00:14:49,131
that might help promote some measure
of international understanding.

261
00:14:49,273 --> 00:14:52,037
The problem was solved by Pitman

262
00:14:52,176 --> 00:14:55,634
with a development
on his phonetic spelling idea,

263
00:14:55,779 --> 00:14:59,772
because there is nothing
in any language around the globe

264
00:14:59,917 --> 00:15:00,941
that you cannot say

265
00:15:01,085 --> 00:15:03,918
using the international
phonetic alphabet.

266
00:15:04,054 --> 00:15:06,852
Well, within seconds
of the alphabet coming out,

267
00:15:06,990 --> 00:15:08,958
every research student in sight

268
00:15:09,093 --> 00:15:11,960
was grabbing
for the nearest grant proposal,

269
00:15:12,096 --> 00:15:14,564
one of which was for
a cozy little piece of research

270
00:15:14,698 --> 00:15:17,030
that some German guy fiddled called

271
00:15:17,167 --> 00:15:21,194
"A Phonetic Examination
of the French Accent,"

272
00:15:21,338 --> 00:15:23,363
made more properly scientific

273
00:15:23,507 --> 00:15:25,998
by some help
from one of his physicist pals,

274
00:15:26,143 --> 00:15:28,168
a guy called Pringsheim.

275
00:15:32,983 --> 00:15:34,678
Katie.

276
00:15:34,818 --> 00:15:36,479
Is that you, Katie?

277
00:15:36,620 --> 00:15:38,451
Pringsheim's claim to fame

278
00:15:38,589 --> 00:15:41,683
was that he used
this little toy, the radiometer,

279
00:15:41,825 --> 00:15:43,918
to study infrared radiation

280
00:15:44,061 --> 00:15:45,187
because back then,

281
00:15:45,329 --> 00:15:47,923
everybody thought
the little paddles spun around

282
00:15:48,065 --> 00:15:50,295
when any kind
of radiation particles--

283
00:15:50,434 --> 00:15:51,924
infrared, for instance--

284
00:15:52,069 --> 00:15:53,900
hit them.

285
00:15:54,037 --> 00:15:55,527
They were wrong, as it happens.

286
00:15:55,672 --> 00:15:59,836
Meanwhile, what's all this
funny business about Katie?

287
00:15:59,977 --> 00:16:01,569
Katie,

288
00:16:01,712 --> 00:16:04,374
have you come to speak with us?

289
00:16:06,383 --> 00:16:07,748
I want to speak to you, Katie.

290
00:16:07,885 --> 00:16:10,945
Well, the guy in the middle
is Sir William Crookes,

291
00:16:11,088 --> 00:16:12,646
who invented the radiometer

292
00:16:12,789 --> 00:16:15,257
and saw something
that wasn't really happening,

293
00:16:15,392 --> 00:16:17,860
radiometers being spun by light.

294
00:16:17,995 --> 00:16:22,295
He saw other things that
weren't really happening too,

295
00:16:22,432 --> 00:16:24,832
like Katie King, who was a ghost,

296
00:16:24,968 --> 00:16:30,429
and other such psychic stuff
the Victorians were all heavily into.

297
00:16:30,574 --> 00:16:33,509
Why have you come to see us?

298
00:16:33,644 --> 00:16:35,839
Is it to see Sir William Crookes?

299
00:16:35,979 --> 00:16:38,345
There were even photographs
of Sir William taken

300
00:16:38,482 --> 00:16:40,541
arm-in-arm with the ghostly Katie,

301
00:16:40,684 --> 00:16:41,810
so it was said.

302
00:16:41,952 --> 00:16:42,919
She's gone.

303
00:16:43,053 --> 00:16:46,113
Yes, she's gone.

304
00:16:46,256 --> 00:16:48,383
Just for tonight.

305
00:16:50,627 --> 00:16:54,256
Okay, back to the radiometer...

306
00:16:54,398 --> 00:16:57,390
and what wasn't
really happening with it,

307
00:16:57,534 --> 00:16:58,728
because it turned out,

308
00:16:58,869 --> 00:17:01,895
it wasn't light that made
the little vanes spin.

309
00:17:02,039 --> 00:17:05,270
It was common or garden heat flow.

310
00:17:12,649 --> 00:17:16,244
This humdrum fact was revealed
by an English engineer who--

311
00:17:16,386 --> 00:17:17,410
wait for it--

312
00:17:17,554 --> 00:17:20,455
knew more about any flow
than anybody.

313
00:17:20,591 --> 00:17:23,424
If it flowed,
he could turn it into an equation.

314
00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:24,822
Imagine.

315
00:17:24,962 --> 00:17:27,863
Well, anyway, he said that the vacuum
inside the radiometer

316
00:17:27,998 --> 00:17:29,431
wasn't a total vacuum,

317
00:17:29,566 --> 00:17:31,591
that there was a little bit
of air left in there.

318
00:17:31,735 --> 00:17:35,068
So when the light heated up
the radiometer's little vanes,

319
00:17:35,205 --> 00:17:37,503
it made the air molecules
near them flow,

320
00:17:37,641 --> 00:17:39,632
and the flow
pushed the vanes around.

321
00:17:42,346 --> 00:17:43,870
Name of Reynolds, this chap,

322
00:17:44,014 --> 00:17:46,244
thanks to which this is here.

323
00:17:48,652 --> 00:17:53,385
See, Reynolds put flat plates
of different shapes into flowing liquid

324
00:17:53,523 --> 00:17:57,789
and saw turbulence, wakes,
smooth flow, all that,

325
00:17:57,928 --> 00:17:59,156
and he came up with a way

326
00:17:59,296 --> 00:18:02,857
to work out what shape
would give what flow.

327
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,458
The speed of the flow
times the density of the flow

328
00:18:06,603 --> 00:18:08,093
times the length of the plate

329
00:18:08,238 --> 00:18:10,934
gives you the plate's
Reynolds number.

330
00:18:11,074 --> 00:18:13,474
That's two people used
at the beginning of this century

331
00:18:13,610 --> 00:18:15,441
to change the world,

332
00:18:15,579 --> 00:18:19,948
with Reynolds numbers
for the behavior of air flow,

333
00:18:20,083 --> 00:18:22,677
why I've been telling you
this story riding my bike.

334
00:18:31,662 --> 00:18:32,993
Because bikes are what

335
00:18:33,130 --> 00:18:34,961
the Wright brothers
sold and repaired...

336
00:18:37,000 --> 00:18:39,230
before they made the world's
first powered flight

337
00:18:39,369 --> 00:18:41,667
at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina.

338
00:18:45,742 --> 00:18:48,404
And because bikes used
the first practical version

339
00:18:48,545 --> 00:18:51,378
of something without which
the Wrights' plane engine--

340
00:18:51,515 --> 00:18:53,881
or any other engine--
wouldn't have worked,

341
00:18:54,017 --> 00:18:57,248
and they wouldn't have succeeded
in doing this.

342
00:19:19,409 --> 00:19:22,378
See, because
that English engineer Reynolds

343
00:19:22,512 --> 00:19:23,706
knew about flow--

344
00:19:23,847 --> 00:19:24,871
remember?

345
00:19:25,015 --> 00:19:27,142
He also knew about friction.

346
00:19:27,284 --> 00:19:29,809
And because he knew about friction,

347
00:19:29,953 --> 00:19:33,980
he wrote the engineer's bible
on lubrication.

348
00:19:34,124 --> 00:19:35,091
Don't yawn.

349
00:19:35,225 --> 00:19:38,820
Without lubrication, almost nothing
in the world would work.

350
00:19:38,962 --> 00:19:41,931
Lubrication, that is,
of some little things

351
00:19:42,065 --> 00:19:46,434
that helped the Wright brothers
run their bikes and fly their plane.

352
00:19:46,570 --> 00:19:47,537
Ah.

353
00:19:53,276 --> 00:19:54,334
Ball bearings.

354
00:19:56,146 --> 00:19:58,910
King of ball bearings
was a fellow called Stribeck,

355
00:19:59,049 --> 00:20:02,985
and in 1900, he did everything
you could do to steel spheres:

356
00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:05,850
ran them in grooves,
fast and slow,

357
00:20:05,989 --> 00:20:08,457
hot and cold, large and small,

358
00:20:08,592 --> 00:20:10,457
heavy steel and light steel,

359
00:20:10,594 --> 00:20:14,428
day and night, months on end.

360
00:20:14,564 --> 00:20:16,395
Came up with
the Stribeck equation

361
00:20:16,533 --> 00:20:18,501
which tells you
what a ball bearing will take

362
00:20:18,635 --> 00:20:20,102
before it goes phut,

363
00:20:20,237 --> 00:20:23,673
in your washing machine,
in an airplane engine,

364
00:20:23,807 --> 00:20:25,832
or in this escalator.

365
00:20:25,976 --> 00:20:29,776
After Stribeck, you knew
what you could do with steel balls,

366
00:20:29,913 --> 00:20:33,644
which brings me back to where I started
for more reasons than one.

367
00:20:38,522 --> 00:20:41,923
Because this is another one
of those lovely circles through history

368
00:20:42,058 --> 00:20:43,616
from insurance--
remember--

369
00:20:43,760 --> 00:20:46,354
to gambling, sign language,

370
00:20:46,496 --> 00:20:48,657
wriggly lines, shorthand,

371
00:20:48,799 --> 00:20:50,790
aerodynamics, Wright brothers,

372
00:20:50,934 --> 00:20:54,734
ball bearings,
and finally, back to Lloyd's.

373
00:20:57,774 --> 00:20:59,571
But not to the policy this time,

374
00:20:59,709 --> 00:21:02,143
to the pen you sign it with,

375
00:21:02,279 --> 00:21:04,304
or rather,

376
00:21:04,448 --> 00:21:08,350
to the ball bearing
on the end of the pen.

377
00:21:08,485 --> 00:21:09,782
Well, that's it.

378
00:21:09,920 --> 00:21:11,319
Time to sign off.