1 00:00:33,126 --> 00:00:36,289 I suppose you could call this program a travelogue. 2 00:00:36,429 --> 00:00:38,863 It does travel through space and time. 3 00:00:38,998 --> 00:00:42,092 Or you could call it a kind of detective story. 4 00:00:42,235 --> 00:00:44,396 It's certainly full of mysteries. 5 00:00:44,537 --> 00:00:46,095 Or you could say it's about one 6 00:00:46,239 --> 00:00:49,675 of history's greatest cases of mistaken identity. 7 00:00:49,809 --> 00:00:52,369 Or you could call it any one of these things. 8 00:00:52,512 --> 00:00:55,504 After all, what's in a name? 9 00:01:01,921 --> 00:01:04,481 Here we are in the mysterious Orient, right? 10 00:01:04,624 --> 00:01:07,593 Colorful, exotic customs, ancient rituals. 11 00:01:07,727 --> 00:01:12,255 Above all, perhaps, different. 12 00:01:12,398 --> 00:01:14,730 Well, that's what it says in the brochure. 13 00:01:14,868 --> 00:01:18,133 The fact is, that might have been true 50 years ago, 14 00:01:18,271 --> 00:01:21,297 but today half the world's cities, 15 00:01:21,441 --> 00:01:25,036 including Singapore, look more like Dallas. 16 00:01:25,178 --> 00:01:28,978 And anyway, nowadays, most travelers and holidaymakers 17 00:01:29,115 --> 00:01:31,515 don't actually want all that foreign stuff, do they? 18 00:01:31,651 --> 00:01:34,245 I mean, ask anybody on a package tour. 19 00:01:34,387 --> 00:01:35,945 Ah, room service. 20 00:01:36,089 --> 00:01:37,613 Thank you. 21 00:01:37,757 --> 00:01:39,748 What most people care about when they're abroad 22 00:01:39,893 --> 00:01:42,384 is the state of their insides. 23 00:01:42,529 --> 00:01:45,396 So you ought to stick to international food. 24 00:01:45,532 --> 00:01:48,524 Well, that way, you don't get Montezuma's revenge 25 00:01:48,668 --> 00:01:51,603 or Delhi belly or whatever you want to call it. 26 00:01:51,738 --> 00:01:54,229 Well, not with this, you don't: 27 00:01:54,374 --> 00:01:58,003 The new global diet for the new global person... 28 00:01:58,144 --> 00:02:02,638 the calorie-aware, weight-conscious, healthy-living individual. 29 00:02:02,782 --> 00:02:05,512 This little flake is eaten 30 00:02:05,652 --> 00:02:08,621 by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. 31 00:02:08,755 --> 00:02:12,714 Pretty much anywhere you go, you can get corn flakes. 32 00:02:15,995 --> 00:02:17,986 Now, there are those gourmets 33 00:02:18,131 --> 00:02:20,190 and old-fashioned exploring adventurers 34 00:02:20,333 --> 00:02:24,030 who lament the passing of local customs in things like food 35 00:02:24,170 --> 00:02:26,604 and the disappearance of exotic breakfasts 36 00:02:26,739 --> 00:02:32,871 of fried ants, boiled tripe, black pudding, meat soup, 37 00:02:33,012 --> 00:02:36,971 cheese and olives, or whatever people used to eat 38 00:02:37,116 --> 00:02:42,053 before this new high-speed diet for a high-speed world. 39 00:02:42,188 --> 00:02:44,622 There are even those who would say that, 40 00:02:44,757 --> 00:02:47,555 gastronomically speaking, this is a load of garbage, 41 00:02:47,694 --> 00:02:49,821 which would be unfair. 42 00:02:49,963 --> 00:02:51,897 There is garbage associated with it, 43 00:02:52,031 --> 00:02:54,090 but I assure you it comes into the story 44 00:02:54,234 --> 00:02:56,794 well after you've finished your corn flakes. 45 00:02:56,936 --> 00:02:59,461 So let me bring it into the story now. 46 00:03:01,541 --> 00:03:02,906 This is what I'm talking about, 47 00:03:03,042 --> 00:03:05,875 what's left after you've taken the corn for the corn flakes. 48 00:03:06,012 --> 00:03:08,480 There are thousands of tons of it being produced every day. 49 00:03:08,615 --> 00:03:10,480 Ah. 50 00:03:10,617 --> 00:03:12,141 Used corncobs. 51 00:03:12,285 --> 00:03:14,776 And thanks to a totally forgotten German chemist 52 00:03:14,921 --> 00:03:17,822 who I think really didn't know what he was doing anyway, 53 00:03:17,957 --> 00:03:20,824 this garbage is far from garbage. 54 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:22,894 For much of modern industry, what you could do 55 00:03:23,029 --> 00:03:26,089 with this stuff really beats the band. 56 00:03:34,440 --> 00:03:37,341 This musical interlude is happening in the market square 57 00:03:37,477 --> 00:03:40,674 of the small eastern German town where the story starts. 58 00:03:40,813 --> 00:03:43,714 It's called Jena, and back in 1810, 59 00:03:43,850 --> 00:03:46,284 it got one of the best universities in the country 60 00:03:46,419 --> 00:03:49,786 and two professors, one of whom becomes world famous. 61 00:03:49,922 --> 00:03:51,947 The other one's totally forgotten 62 00:03:52,091 --> 00:03:54,821 until this program drags him out of obscurity 63 00:03:54,961 --> 00:03:57,623 thanks to those corncobs I mentioned. 64 00:03:57,764 --> 00:04:01,325 But let's have a little more oompah first, hmm? 65 00:04:20,620 --> 00:04:21,712 Okay, sorry. 66 00:04:21,854 --> 00:04:25,620 Back to corncobs again while I lead you up the garden path 67 00:04:25,758 --> 00:04:31,196 in what can only be described as the corniest story I've ever told. 68 00:04:31,331 --> 00:04:33,299 One of the things in the 19th century 69 00:04:33,433 --> 00:04:36,664 you're not going to find in fancy botanical gardens like this 70 00:04:36,803 --> 00:04:38,100 is that. 71 00:04:38,237 --> 00:04:40,569 I mean, from a horticultural point of view, 72 00:04:40,707 --> 00:04:43,267 this is pretty low-rent stuff. 73 00:04:43,409 --> 00:04:46,936 Back then, you feed corncobs to cows and chickens, 74 00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:50,379 you grow mushrooms on them, you use them to fill swampy ground, 75 00:04:50,516 --> 00:04:52,541 and sometimes you make pipes out of them. 76 00:04:52,685 --> 00:04:54,482 What are you going to do with corncobs? 77 00:04:54,620 --> 00:05:00,559 And then in 1810, the fellow who lives in this house 78 00:05:00,693 --> 00:05:05,130 and runs this botanical garden and administers Jena university 79 00:05:05,264 --> 00:05:07,232 and is one of those academics I mentioned, 80 00:05:07,367 --> 00:05:11,963 the one who becomes world famous, the great German poet Goethe, 81 00:05:12,105 --> 00:05:18,476 takes up the cause of a corncob and changes history. 82 00:05:18,611 --> 00:05:20,875 Thanks to encouragement from Goethe, 83 00:05:21,013 --> 00:05:23,106 an associate professor of chemistry here 84 00:05:23,249 --> 00:05:25,513 that I bet my life you've never heard of 85 00:05:25,651 --> 00:05:28,586 called Wolfgang Doebereiner takes a close look 86 00:05:28,721 --> 00:05:30,120 at various organic matters 87 00:05:30,256 --> 00:05:32,156 and comes up with a totally new chemical 88 00:05:32,291 --> 00:05:34,418 I also bet my life you've never heard of 89 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:36,824 called furfural. 90 00:05:36,963 --> 00:05:39,761 Now, don't ask me or him 91 00:05:39,899 --> 00:05:41,696 why Doebereiner should do such a thing. 92 00:05:41,834 --> 00:05:44,860 He just does and then does nothing about it, 93 00:05:45,004 --> 00:05:47,438 except to write the usual humongously boring 94 00:05:47,573 --> 00:05:50,838 scientific paper, about which for 100 years, 95 00:05:50,977 --> 00:05:53,138 nobody else does anything either. 96 00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:54,371 But wait. 97 00:05:56,916 --> 00:05:59,783 Here we are in the 1930s, and still nobody cares 98 00:05:59,919 --> 00:06:02,387 about poor, old Doebereiner's furfural. 99 00:06:02,522 --> 00:06:05,980 Until people start drilling oil wells all over the place. 100 00:06:06,125 --> 00:06:07,649 Bad news for farmers. 101 00:06:07,794 --> 00:06:11,286 Till this point, most useful chemicals came from plants, 102 00:06:11,431 --> 00:06:15,197 but now they're going to be petroleum by-products. 103 00:06:15,334 --> 00:06:20,863 Agribusiness better find some new way to use their leftovers, or they'll be... 104 00:06:23,309 --> 00:06:25,800 One day, the people at Quaker Oats 105 00:06:25,945 --> 00:06:28,175 dig up Doebereiner's stuff and discover 106 00:06:28,314 --> 00:06:31,511 that if you press, boil, steam, and shove acid into corncobs 107 00:06:31,651 --> 00:06:33,209 and other kinds of organic garbage 108 00:06:33,352 --> 00:06:35,183 left after people have had their breakfast, 109 00:06:35,321 --> 00:06:38,654 what do you get but furfural, which now turns out to be 110 00:06:38,791 --> 00:06:41,658 a chemical that goes into all kinds of good stuff. 111 00:06:45,898 --> 00:06:49,925 So from the dim recesses of academic life, 112 00:06:50,069 --> 00:06:51,900 Doebereiner's little discovery ends up 113 00:06:52,038 --> 00:06:54,302 in every chemical library in the world, 114 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:56,772 one of the great solvents of all time, 115 00:06:56,909 --> 00:07:00,777 used in the production of stuff like petroleum products, 116 00:07:00,913 --> 00:07:03,848 synthetic rubber, insecticides, herbicides, 117 00:07:03,983 --> 00:07:06,713 and all kinds of pharmaceuticals, lubricants, weed killers, 118 00:07:06,853 --> 00:07:09,947 and something in quantum physics I don't understand. 119 00:07:10,089 --> 00:07:13,058 Oh, and one thing Doebereiner would really have appreciated: 120 00:07:13,192 --> 00:07:18,152 Anticarbuncle cream, which, fortunately for you, 121 00:07:18,297 --> 00:07:20,857 is not the next connection in this program. 122 00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:23,798 Because the other place furfural gets used 123 00:07:23,936 --> 00:07:27,099 is in making a resin that is just what people want 124 00:07:27,240 --> 00:07:30,437 for bonding abrasives to grinding wheels, 125 00:07:30,576 --> 00:07:34,535 a subject you've waited all your life to know about, I know. 126 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:36,409 So I won't make light of it. 127 00:07:39,785 --> 00:07:42,583 The light in question is a quarter of a million bulbs 128 00:07:42,722 --> 00:07:47,853 lighting up the great Chicago Columbia Exposition of 1893. 129 00:07:47,994 --> 00:07:50,792 All thanks to George Westinghouse, 130 00:07:50,930 --> 00:07:54,388 who gets around Edison's patent for a one-piece lightbulb 131 00:07:54,534 --> 00:07:56,627 with a two-piece lightbulb. 132 00:07:56,769 --> 00:07:58,703 Bottom, an open-necked bulb 133 00:07:58,838 --> 00:08:02,899 into which, above, the filament base fits. 134 00:08:03,042 --> 00:08:05,135 You plug it into the open neck of the bulb, 135 00:08:05,278 --> 00:08:08,372 and you maintain the vacuum inside the lightbulb, 136 00:08:08,514 --> 00:08:10,448 because everything's airtight thanks to 137 00:08:10,583 --> 00:08:13,643 the ground-glass collar that fits perfectly. 138 00:08:16,689 --> 00:08:17,747 Ah. 139 00:08:17,890 --> 00:08:22,088 Meet abrasive American Edward Goodrich Acheson, 140 00:08:22,228 --> 00:08:25,391 who does all that ground-glass work for Westinghouse, 141 00:08:25,531 --> 00:08:29,900 because thanks to an accident, he owns a Carborundum company. 142 00:08:30,036 --> 00:08:33,938 The accident happens earlier, in 1861, 143 00:08:34,073 --> 00:08:36,701 when Acheson is bashing a lot of electricity 144 00:08:36,842 --> 00:08:38,901 into a mixture of coke and clay. 145 00:08:39,045 --> 00:08:42,708 At a humongously high temperature, the whole lot melts. 146 00:08:42,848 --> 00:08:45,476 Big deal and certainly not the abrasives 147 00:08:45,618 --> 00:08:47,813 Acheson's trying to make at the time. 148 00:08:47,954 --> 00:08:52,584 And then he notices some tiny crystals in the clay. 149 00:08:52,725 --> 00:08:55,319 He puts a bit on the end of a pencil lead, 150 00:08:55,461 --> 00:08:58,362 and it scratches glass like diamonds. 151 00:08:58,497 --> 00:08:59,691 Bingo. 152 00:08:59,832 --> 00:09:03,029 Well, where else would he go but here? 153 00:09:06,439 --> 00:09:10,136 Now, if there's one industry that needs good abrasives, 154 00:09:10,276 --> 00:09:12,301 it's the diamond business, 155 00:09:12,445 --> 00:09:15,243 harder and more polished than which there isn't. 156 00:09:15,381 --> 00:09:18,748 Back then, Tiffany's is where the bejeweled elite meet 157 00:09:18,884 --> 00:09:21,648 to choose their sparklers, so, not surprisingly, 158 00:09:21,787 --> 00:09:24,551 it's somebody at Tiffany's who encourages Acheson 159 00:09:24,690 --> 00:09:26,453 to do something about his accident, 160 00:09:26,592 --> 00:09:28,423 like do it again on purpose 161 00:09:28,561 --> 00:09:32,327 and market the world's hardest material after diamonds, 162 00:09:32,465 --> 00:09:36,162 Carborundum, chemical name silicon carbide. 163 00:09:36,302 --> 00:09:40,739 Carborundum is soon being described as an indispensable tool of industry 164 00:09:40,873 --> 00:09:44,570 by anybody with anything that needs an edge. 165 00:09:44,710 --> 00:09:46,940 Like plowshares. 166 00:09:47,079 --> 00:09:50,048 And speaking of plowshares, swords. 167 00:09:51,751 --> 00:09:55,585 One spectacular modern use of Acheson's silicon carbide 168 00:09:55,721 --> 00:09:57,780 happens in 1960s Vietnam 169 00:09:57,923 --> 00:10:01,586 with the invention of an outfit called the air cavalry, 170 00:10:01,727 --> 00:10:03,456 whose choppers are highly maneuverable, 171 00:10:03,596 --> 00:10:06,463 well-armed, and everywhere. 172 00:10:09,602 --> 00:10:13,504 Now, taking the wounded out or dropping Green Berets in 173 00:10:13,639 --> 00:10:16,164 and delivering supplies, doing reconnaissance, 174 00:10:16,308 --> 00:10:18,640 or conducting rocket attacks, chopper people 175 00:10:18,778 --> 00:10:22,441 are constantly and acutely aware of one minor problem. 176 00:10:22,581 --> 00:10:24,811 One of the reasons choppers are so clever 177 00:10:24,950 --> 00:10:27,180 is because they can sit still in midair, 178 00:10:27,319 --> 00:10:31,415 which kind of makes them a target it is difficult to miss. 179 00:10:31,557 --> 00:10:33,684 So it's the chopper people who think up a use 180 00:10:33,826 --> 00:10:36,920 for Acheson's silicon carbide as a protective lining 181 00:10:37,063 --> 00:10:39,258 for their vulnerable machines, 182 00:10:39,398 --> 00:10:43,858 thing being, silicon carbide's a lot tougher than most of the stuff 183 00:10:44,003 --> 00:10:46,972 shooting up at them from the jungle below. 184 00:10:55,715 --> 00:10:58,479 One of the nicest things you can say to somebody 185 00:10:58,617 --> 00:11:00,881 fighting a war on the ground, in the jungle is, 186 00:11:01,020 --> 00:11:03,989 "Put this on, and you won't get hurt." 187 00:11:04,123 --> 00:11:06,648 So what starts up there with the chopper pilots 188 00:11:06,792 --> 00:11:09,090 very soon comes down here with the grunts, 189 00:11:09,228 --> 00:11:10,456 where the fighting is very 190 00:11:10,596 --> 00:11:13,827 close-quarters, spoil-your-day type of stuff. 191 00:11:18,704 --> 00:11:20,331 So in no time at all, 192 00:11:20,473 --> 00:11:22,270 what the well-dressed dogface is wearing 193 00:11:22,408 --> 00:11:26,606 is some helicopter protection for humans called a flak jacket, 194 00:11:26,746 --> 00:11:30,147 which has some very interesting features to it. 195 00:11:30,282 --> 00:11:32,477 Like if you're wearing one, you can throw a grenade 196 00:11:32,618 --> 00:11:34,677 just a few yards, turn and hunch up, 197 00:11:34,820 --> 00:11:37,448 and survive your blast while others do not. 198 00:11:37,590 --> 00:11:40,616 And more than half of all wounds that were previously lethal 199 00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:42,591 become no longer lethal. 200 00:11:42,728 --> 00:11:45,253 You still get a real pain in the chest maybe, 201 00:11:45,397 --> 00:11:47,763 but that's a lot better than getting taken seriously dead 202 00:11:47,900 --> 00:11:49,959 by somebody's armor-piercing ordnance. 203 00:11:50,102 --> 00:11:53,560 Speaking of which, let me give you some hard facts. 204 00:11:53,706 --> 00:11:57,198 It all started with corn flakes made from corncobs 205 00:11:57,343 --> 00:11:59,208 that Doebereiner turned into furfural 206 00:11:59,345 --> 00:12:01,142 to bond silicon carbide abrasives 207 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:03,908 that Westinghouse used to grind lightbulbs 208 00:12:04,049 --> 00:12:07,416 and that also ended up as protection for choppers 209 00:12:07,553 --> 00:12:09,783 and in flak jackets 210 00:12:09,922 --> 00:12:12,254 to protect against armor-piercing ammunition, 211 00:12:12,391 --> 00:12:15,451 which originally got developed for use against something 212 00:12:15,594 --> 00:12:18,791 that first appeared in World War I. 213 00:12:26,105 --> 00:12:28,733 The main snag for World War I infantry 214 00:12:28,874 --> 00:12:33,573 is getting snagged and then shocked on rows of barbed wire. 215 00:12:33,712 --> 00:12:35,646 So here's the solution, 216 00:12:35,781 --> 00:12:40,047 named... because it looks just like a water tank... a tank. 217 00:12:40,186 --> 00:12:43,451 Main job: Roll over and flatten the barbed wire 218 00:12:43,589 --> 00:12:45,784 so the troops can get through okay 219 00:12:45,925 --> 00:12:48,359 and then act as protection for the troops 220 00:12:48,494 --> 00:12:50,826 as they go on into the advance. 221 00:12:50,963 --> 00:12:53,056 Small wonder the tank soon becomes 222 00:12:53,199 --> 00:12:55,394 everybody's favorite war machine. 223 00:12:55,534 --> 00:12:59,402 Except for the people inside, where it can get 224 00:12:59,538 --> 00:13:03,668 up to 125 degrees, cramped, and smelly. 225 00:13:03,809 --> 00:13:05,538 But what a ride. 226 00:13:05,678 --> 00:13:07,669 It can handle 6-foot vertical slopes 227 00:13:07,813 --> 00:13:09,940 and 15-foot vertical drops. 228 00:13:10,082 --> 00:13:13,279 Only question is, can the crew? 229 00:13:17,256 --> 00:13:20,714 Tanks are a smash success, and nothing can stop them, 230 00:13:20,860 --> 00:13:23,556 except, as I said, the armor-piercing ammunition, 231 00:13:23,696 --> 00:13:25,721 which is now invented. 232 00:13:25,865 --> 00:13:29,096 Meanwhile, tanks win the war for the Allies. 233 00:13:29,235 --> 00:13:33,797 In 1918, 59 British divisions beat 99 German divisions 234 00:13:33,939 --> 00:13:38,103 because the Brits have tanks and the Germans have no chance. 235 00:13:38,244 --> 00:13:39,939 Tanks also offer a bright future 236 00:13:40,079 --> 00:13:43,480 to one particular bunch of soldiers, who take them over: 237 00:13:43,616 --> 00:13:46,107 The old sabre-wielding cavalry. 238 00:13:46,252 --> 00:13:49,153 And speaking of swords, plowshares. 239 00:13:54,460 --> 00:13:57,827 Now, if you take a close look at this picture, 240 00:13:57,963 --> 00:14:02,423 you'll see two things that caused the tank to happen in the first place. 241 00:14:04,270 --> 00:14:09,298 The soft soil here in the beautiful San Joaquin Valley, California. 242 00:14:09,441 --> 00:14:14,538 That and the fact that all the horses are about to be taken off the farms 243 00:14:14,680 --> 00:14:18,343 to be sent to Europe for the war effort. 244 00:14:25,057 --> 00:14:30,017 This critical situation inspires an enterprising type called Ben Holt, 245 00:14:30,162 --> 00:14:32,255 who lives here in the San Joaquin Valley, 246 00:14:32,398 --> 00:14:35,390 to invent one of those amazing labor-saving devices 247 00:14:35,534 --> 00:14:37,968 for which America has always been famous, 248 00:14:38,103 --> 00:14:40,628 set the stage for the development of the tank, 249 00:14:40,773 --> 00:14:42,934 and change the whole nature of farming 250 00:14:43,075 --> 00:14:46,203 here on the local fields and then all over the world 251 00:14:46,345 --> 00:14:49,178 virtually at a stroke. 252 00:14:49,315 --> 00:14:51,249 Introducing... 253 00:14:51,383 --> 00:14:56,514 the machine that turns America into the world's breadbasket 254 00:14:56,655 --> 00:14:59,385 and solves the problem of horselessness, 255 00:15:00,025 --> 00:15:03,153 Take a look at this wonderful thing. 256 00:15:31,423 --> 00:15:34,221 It won't surprise you that one of Holt's pals, 257 00:15:34,360 --> 00:15:35,793 watching this thing at work, 258 00:15:35,928 --> 00:15:38,123 says it reminds him of a caterpillar. 259 00:15:38,263 --> 00:15:41,164 So guess what the company ends up being called? 260 00:15:41,300 --> 00:15:44,064 And the rest is farm equipment history. 261 00:15:44,203 --> 00:15:46,967 But let me give you a quick tour of the place. 262 00:15:47,106 --> 00:15:50,439 Number one, the secret of the Holt success, 263 00:15:50,576 --> 00:15:52,168 the crawler tracks. 264 00:15:52,311 --> 00:15:55,542 The trick here is, the track spreads the load 265 00:15:55,681 --> 00:15:58,013 all the way along the track so the weight of the machine 266 00:15:58,150 --> 00:16:00,380 isn't concentrated on the wheels. 267 00:16:00,586 --> 00:16:01,985 And what that means is, 268 00:16:02,121 --> 00:16:05,090 there's nowhere too soft for this baby to go. 269 00:16:05,224 --> 00:16:06,953 Which is great news for farmers here 270 00:16:07,092 --> 00:16:10,220 in the San Joaquin Valley and then everywhere else. 271 00:16:10,362 --> 00:16:13,160 Number two, a wheel at the front, 272 00:16:13,298 --> 00:16:18,065 so if it rolls down into a hole, it rolls up, out the other side. 273 00:16:18,203 --> 00:16:21,570 Number three, Holt drives each track separately. 274 00:16:21,707 --> 00:16:23,971 So what that means is, if you want to change direction, 275 00:16:24,109 --> 00:16:26,043 you just do this. 276 00:16:26,178 --> 00:16:27,440 Turn on a dime. 277 00:16:27,579 --> 00:16:29,069 Well, a quarter. 278 00:16:29,214 --> 00:16:31,114 But you can see why the generals back in Europe 279 00:16:31,250 --> 00:16:32,979 jump at the idea, though. 280 00:16:33,118 --> 00:16:35,450 You can use one of these things to haul army supplies 281 00:16:35,587 --> 00:16:39,614 night and day, thick and thin, and it doesn't need hay. 282 00:16:39,758 --> 00:16:43,250 And you can also turn it into a tank, which they do. 283 00:16:43,395 --> 00:16:45,363 Well, that's World War I in the bag. 284 00:16:45,497 --> 00:16:47,556 Drinks all 'round. 285 00:16:47,699 --> 00:16:50,759 One last thing about tractors: Their engines, 286 00:16:50,903 --> 00:16:53,633 which is why I mentioned the drink. 287 00:16:53,772 --> 00:16:56,070 Beer, as it happens, because that's what it takes 288 00:16:56,241 --> 00:16:59,677 for Holt and everybody else in the U.S. To get to hear about diesel engines. 289 00:16:59,778 --> 00:17:01,678 You know, history's funny in some ways, 290 00:17:01,814 --> 00:17:03,179 because the fellow who helps 291 00:17:03,315 --> 00:17:05,749 to make tractors synonymous with diesel engines 292 00:17:05,884 --> 00:17:10,014 is a brewer from St. Louis called Gustavus Adolphus Busch. 293 00:17:10,155 --> 00:17:12,419 You can still buy his stuff today, see? 294 00:17:12,558 --> 00:17:17,222 Anyway, Busch buys the U.S. rights to diesel engines in 1897, 295 00:17:17,362 --> 00:17:20,593 because the technical director at his brewery is a German 296 00:17:20,732 --> 00:17:24,168 who was at school with a fellow called Rudolf Diesel. 297 00:17:28,207 --> 00:17:31,904 And Diesel gets his first job 298 00:17:32,044 --> 00:17:34,444 with a fellow who kind of invents refrigeration, 299 00:17:34,580 --> 00:17:37,913 and he does that to keep beer cool. 300 00:17:38,050 --> 00:17:39,415 Anyway, Diesel. 301 00:17:39,551 --> 00:17:41,416 Lonely childhood. 302 00:17:41,553 --> 00:17:43,953 Grows up obsessed with mechanical efficiency. 303 00:17:44,089 --> 00:17:46,057 What can I say? It takes all sorts. 304 00:17:46,191 --> 00:17:49,888 Besides, it does end up making Rudolf rich and famous, 305 00:17:50,028 --> 00:17:53,054 so let's hear it for mechanical obsessions. 306 00:17:53,198 --> 00:17:56,531 Now, the really clever thing about a diesel engine is, 307 00:17:56,668 --> 00:17:58,295 it's not a gasoline engine. 308 00:17:58,437 --> 00:17:59,927 And the reason that's clever 309 00:18:00,072 --> 00:18:03,667 can only be described as a lot of hot air. 310 00:18:07,479 --> 00:18:08,969 First because a gasoline engine 311 00:18:09,114 --> 00:18:11,344 compresses the air and the fuel spray mix, 312 00:18:11,483 --> 00:18:13,917 and then a spark explodes the mixture, 313 00:18:14,052 --> 00:18:16,020 so you have to get the timing just right, 314 00:18:16,155 --> 00:18:18,680 or the spark'll happen when the mixture's not ready. 315 00:18:18,824 --> 00:18:21,224 And if you let the air compress too much, 316 00:18:21,360 --> 00:18:23,885 it'll ignite the fuel spontaneously. 317 00:18:24,029 --> 00:18:27,829 But that's just the point with a diesel engine. 318 00:18:27,966 --> 00:18:32,096 Here, there's no mixture, just air, which you compress. 319 00:18:32,237 --> 00:18:36,936 And when you do, its temperature rises to about 8,000 degrees Celsius. 320 00:18:37,075 --> 00:18:42,069 At the top of the cycle, at maximum temperature and pressure, 321 00:18:42,214 --> 00:18:44,182 you spray in some fuel. 322 00:18:44,316 --> 00:18:47,945 The hot air ignites it and pushes the piston down. 323 00:18:48,086 --> 00:18:51,317 What you're getting here is extremely efficient use of fuel, 324 00:18:51,456 --> 00:18:54,983 because the very high compression gives you more bang for your buck. 325 00:18:55,127 --> 00:18:58,324 And because it's so efficient, you save fuel, 326 00:18:58,463 --> 00:19:03,730 and what that does is save you money. 327 00:19:03,869 --> 00:19:06,599 But the really brilliant thing about Diesel's idea 328 00:19:06,738 --> 00:19:08,865 is that his engine will run on almost anything. 329 00:19:09,007 --> 00:19:10,599 And that's great news for Europeans, 330 00:19:10,742 --> 00:19:13,006 because since the engine doesn't explode the fuel 331 00:19:13,145 --> 00:19:14,635 the way a gasoline engine does, 332 00:19:14,780 --> 00:19:17,078 it doesn't need refined petroleum product, 333 00:19:17,216 --> 00:19:19,514 and that's good, because back then in Europe, 334 00:19:19,651 --> 00:19:21,949 with almost no oil industry to speak of, 335 00:19:22,087 --> 00:19:24,385 that kind of stuff costs an arm and a leg. 336 00:19:27,626 --> 00:19:31,289 Anyway, some time around 1893, Diesel gets a contract 337 00:19:31,430 --> 00:19:34,092 from a big engine factory here in Germany, 338 00:19:34,233 --> 00:19:37,202 and in no time at all, diesel engines are in everything 339 00:19:37,336 --> 00:19:43,070 from battleships to fancy cars. 340 00:19:43,208 --> 00:19:47,008 And what makes all this happen for a a man with a Ionely childhood 341 00:19:47,145 --> 00:19:48,737 is the fact that one of the fuels 342 00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:50,848 Diesel says the engine might be able to use, 343 00:19:50,983 --> 00:19:52,883 there's lots of in Germany. 344 00:19:53,018 --> 00:19:54,645 It's coal. 345 00:19:54,786 --> 00:19:59,018 So all you have to do is dig a big hole. 346 00:20:01,760 --> 00:20:04,729 Now, there's one man who owns more coal mines 347 00:20:04,863 --> 00:20:06,694 than anybody else in Germany... 348 00:20:06,832 --> 00:20:10,165 and shipyards, steelworks, armaments factories, 349 00:20:10,302 --> 00:20:12,862 and practically the whole German industrial machine. 350 00:20:13,005 --> 00:20:14,097 What am I saying? 351 00:20:14,239 --> 00:20:16,400 He is the whole German industrial machine. 352 00:20:16,541 --> 00:20:19,738 And his name is Krupp. 353 00:20:22,814 --> 00:20:26,841 Krupp comes in on that engine deal with Diesel I mentioned 354 00:20:26,985 --> 00:20:29,886 and helps Diesel make enough for a comfortable old age. 355 00:20:30,022 --> 00:20:31,421 Come to think of it, as you'll see, 356 00:20:31,556 --> 00:20:33,820 the Krupps are rather good at that kind of thing. 357 00:20:33,959 --> 00:20:37,451 So Krupp is the reason why the next stop on our journey 358 00:20:37,596 --> 00:20:40,190 is the coal fields of the German Ruhr. 359 00:20:40,332 --> 00:20:43,529 Thanks to the fact that corncobs make adhesives 360 00:20:43,669 --> 00:20:46,570 to bond Carborundum, otherwise known as silicon carbide, 361 00:20:46,705 --> 00:20:49,469 to grinding wheels used to grind lightbulbs. 362 00:20:49,608 --> 00:20:51,303 Silicon carbide is also then used 363 00:20:51,443 --> 00:20:53,411 as protection against armor-piercing shells 364 00:20:53,545 --> 00:20:57,709 developed to hit tanks that start life as American tractors, 365 00:20:57,849 --> 00:21:00,010 which use diesel engines 366 00:21:00,152 --> 00:21:03,280 developed thanks to funding from Krupp. 367 00:21:05,657 --> 00:21:09,218 Okay, enough of this hole. 368 00:21:10,729 --> 00:21:13,289 By the 1860s, the Krupps are well on their way 369 00:21:13,432 --> 00:21:16,299 to running everything in Germany. 370 00:21:19,171 --> 00:21:21,298 They own all the bits of the jigsaw: 371 00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:24,307 Steelworks to make the machinery they own 372 00:21:24,443 --> 00:21:28,072 to dig up the coal they own to be sent around the country 373 00:21:28,213 --> 00:21:30,875 on railroad rolling stock they own, 374 00:21:31,016 --> 00:21:33,314 carrying the fuel essential to the running 375 00:21:33,452 --> 00:21:35,249 of the steelworks they own. 376 00:21:35,387 --> 00:21:38,879 It's what's known as a win-win situation. 377 00:21:39,024 --> 00:21:41,925 But I didn't come here to get covered in coal dust 378 00:21:42,060 --> 00:21:45,029 just to tell you about boring industrial machinery 379 00:21:45,163 --> 00:21:49,293 but because there's another, more intriguing side to Krupp. 380 00:21:49,434 --> 00:21:51,800 The real reason Krupp is so successful 381 00:21:51,937 --> 00:21:58,968 is the way he treats his workers, because he hates socialism. 382 00:21:59,111 --> 00:22:00,738 To put it in a nutshell, Krupp reckons 383 00:22:00,946 --> 00:22:02,743 that if the workers are going to go on strike 384 00:22:02,881 --> 00:22:05,441 for better working conditions, then give them just that. 385 00:22:05,584 --> 00:22:08,109 So he gives them just this. 386 00:22:12,524 --> 00:22:14,389 Krupp invents company benefits 387 00:22:14,526 --> 00:22:17,859 with showers and changing rooms and work uniforms 388 00:22:17,996 --> 00:22:19,827 and everything to make a Krupp worker want 389 00:22:19,965 --> 00:22:22,934 to stay a Krupp worker. 390 00:22:27,005 --> 00:22:30,566 He also provides a canteen, hospitals, a pension fund, 391 00:22:30,709 --> 00:22:33,007 and all kinds of other goodies. 392 00:22:33,145 --> 00:22:36,137 And across the road from the mine or the factory, 393 00:22:36,281 --> 00:22:38,647 he also builds company housing. 394 00:22:38,784 --> 00:22:41,309 And in the pleasant company suburb, 395 00:22:41,453 --> 00:22:45,981 there's also a company school, a company church, 396 00:22:46,124 --> 00:22:48,251 a company kindergarten, 397 00:22:48,393 --> 00:22:52,659 and, of course, there's always a company store. 398 00:22:52,798 --> 00:22:57,201 Working for Krupp is womb to tomb. 399 00:22:57,335 --> 00:23:00,031 Now, what with all that armament stuff, 400 00:23:00,172 --> 00:23:01,799 Krupp is called the "cannon king" 401 00:23:01,940 --> 00:23:04,374 and gets to know all the Prussian military biggies, 402 00:23:04,509 --> 00:23:06,977 and they don't come any bigger than Bismarck, 403 00:23:07,112 --> 00:23:11,276 who loves a good war and is running the country at the time. 404 00:23:11,416 --> 00:23:15,443 And who is so impressed by Krupp... among other things, 405 00:23:15,587 --> 00:23:17,953 they both vastly prefer trees to people... 406 00:23:18,089 --> 00:23:21,183 that he, Bismarck, tries out the Krupp welfare thing 407 00:23:21,326 --> 00:23:23,351 on a national scale. 408 00:23:23,495 --> 00:23:28,626 In 1889, he starts the world's first ever state pension scheme 409 00:23:28,767 --> 00:23:31,463 by which the average person gets enough to live on... 410 00:23:31,603 --> 00:23:36,233 once, that is, Bismarck knows what constitutes the average person, 411 00:23:36,374 --> 00:23:41,676 a concept, naturally enough, thought up by a Belgian astronomer. 412 00:23:44,749 --> 00:23:47,775 Meet Alphonse Quetelet, who's about to turn 413 00:23:47,919 --> 00:23:50,114 the kind of bodies astronomers observe 414 00:23:50,255 --> 00:23:53,691 into the kind of bodies governments observe. 415 00:23:53,825 --> 00:23:57,522 See, the trouble with planets and such is that sometimes, 416 00:23:57,662 --> 00:23:59,653 if you don't see them frequently enough, 417 00:23:59,798 --> 00:24:01,823 you lose track of them. 418 00:24:01,967 --> 00:24:05,300 So 19th-century astronomers used probability math 419 00:24:05,437 --> 00:24:07,098 to predict where you should look, 420 00:24:07,239 --> 00:24:10,436 even if all you've had are a few sightings. 421 00:24:10,575 --> 00:24:14,272 Quetelet's bright idea is to use the same probability math 422 00:24:14,412 --> 00:24:16,676 to work out another kind of prediction, 423 00:24:16,815 --> 00:24:20,342 the kind governments want to make about people, 424 00:24:20,485 --> 00:24:24,581 even if they're only able to keep their eye on a few of them. 425 00:24:27,392 --> 00:24:31,123 We call Quetelet's math for people "statistics," 426 00:24:31,263 --> 00:24:33,163 and with it, he invents an amazing new concept 427 00:24:33,298 --> 00:24:35,163 you and I take for granted today, 428 00:24:35,300 --> 00:24:40,203 the average person and what average people do. 429 00:24:47,646 --> 00:24:50,046 No wonder Bismarck jumps at this new way 430 00:24:50,181 --> 00:24:52,979 of analyzing how people behave, because it lets you predict 431 00:24:53,118 --> 00:24:56,178 how they'll react to events, their voting patterns, 432 00:24:56,321 --> 00:24:58,915 how effective propaganda might be on them. 433 00:24:59,057 --> 00:25:03,016 The new math is great for manipulating people. 434 00:25:03,161 --> 00:25:04,685 And before you start feeling smug 435 00:25:04,829 --> 00:25:07,457 about repressive Prussians and what else would you expect 436 00:25:07,599 --> 00:25:09,863 from countries where things get violent, 437 00:25:10,001 --> 00:25:13,596 the place Quetelet's new numbers are about to make a real splash 438 00:25:13,738 --> 00:25:15,899 is the ever-so-genteel surroundings 439 00:25:16,041 --> 00:25:18,635 of the University of Cambridge in England, 440 00:25:18,777 --> 00:25:22,372 mainly because, as is so often the case in these programs, 441 00:25:22,514 --> 00:25:25,039 things are not quite what they seem... 442 00:25:25,183 --> 00:25:27,913 in this case, peaceful. 443 00:25:28,053 --> 00:25:32,319 Behind the elegant facade of early 19th-century British society, 444 00:25:32,457 --> 00:25:34,516 the living and working conditions 445 00:25:34,659 --> 00:25:38,288 of the average factory employee are so horrendous 446 00:25:38,430 --> 00:25:42,833 as to make the government of the day just a touch perturbed. 447 00:25:48,406 --> 00:25:50,431 Ah, come in. 448 00:25:50,575 --> 00:25:56,673 Now, it's in this room in Trinity College in 1833, 449 00:25:56,815 --> 00:26:00,512 while everybody's up here for a science conference in Cambridge 450 00:26:00,652 --> 00:26:04,588 that Quetelet gets together for tea... 451 00:26:04,723 --> 00:26:06,281 oh, muffin? 452 00:26:06,424 --> 00:26:09,757 With a bunch of academics whom he persuades to set up 453 00:26:09,894 --> 00:26:14,422 what eventually becomes known as the Royal Statistical Society. 454 00:26:14,566 --> 00:26:21,597 Of course, the real statistical aim of every middle-class Victorian... tea? 455 00:26:21,740 --> 00:26:25,904 Is to gather data on the population of the growing industrial cities... 456 00:26:26,044 --> 00:26:31,710 people living in stinking, overcrowded, diseased squalor... 457 00:26:31,850 --> 00:26:36,514 so as to turn them into decent, obedient, hard-working, 458 00:26:36,655 --> 00:26:39,647 thrifty, nonrevolutionary workers. 459 00:26:39,791 --> 00:26:41,554 Milk? 460 00:26:41,693 --> 00:26:44,992 Essential statistical facts are then discovered: 461 00:26:45,130 --> 00:26:48,224 How many ragged families can sing a jolly song, 462 00:26:48,366 --> 00:26:53,360 how many starving mothers can knit, 463 00:26:53,505 --> 00:26:59,034 the number of inspiring prints hanging on the walls of their filthy hovels, 464 00:26:59,177 --> 00:27:03,375 how often this kind of person gets their hair cut. 465 00:27:03,515 --> 00:27:09,147 Speaking of which, one of the guys at this uplifting Cambridge chitchat 466 00:27:09,287 --> 00:27:12,586 gets his life changed by French hairdressers. 467 00:27:19,664 --> 00:27:22,599 Now, before we get to French hairdressers, 468 00:27:22,734 --> 00:27:23,928 where are we? 469 00:27:24,069 --> 00:27:25,900 Apart from France, that is. 470 00:27:26,037 --> 00:27:29,200 Krupp's welfare benefits got Bismarck keen on statistics 471 00:27:29,340 --> 00:27:32,138 that Quetelet persuaded the Cambridge people to get into. 472 00:27:32,277 --> 00:27:33,437 Right. 473 00:27:33,578 --> 00:27:37,776 Now why we're here: French weights and measures. 474 00:27:37,916 --> 00:27:40,111 If you want metric, how do you know 475 00:27:40,251 --> 00:27:43,709 your shoe size in centimeters, for instance? 476 00:27:43,855 --> 00:27:46,050 Sit down for a drink. 477 00:27:46,191 --> 00:27:49,524 Do you know you can drink 75 centiliters of wine? 478 00:27:49,661 --> 00:27:51,629 Well, it's easy enough for the locals. 479 00:27:51,763 --> 00:27:56,200 But once upon a time, they were in exactly the same mess, 480 00:27:56,334 --> 00:28:00,862 which is why this is one of those very rare occasions 481 00:28:01,005 --> 00:28:03,997 when the course of history is changed by a haircut, 482 00:28:04,142 --> 00:28:06,235 because that fellow from Cambridge I mentioned, 483 00:28:06,377 --> 00:28:08,538 a mathematician called Charles Babbage, 484 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:11,046 takes a trip to France and turns up here 485 00:28:11,182 --> 00:28:14,982 not long after they've had a revolution and gone metric. 486 00:28:15,120 --> 00:28:18,385 Every single calculation they'd previously done 487 00:28:18,523 --> 00:28:21,492 in Paris feet or Marseilles gallons or whatever 488 00:28:21,626 --> 00:28:24,117 now has to be done in centimeters and liters 489 00:28:24,262 --> 00:28:25,752 and kilos and so on. 490 00:28:25,897 --> 00:28:27,296 Every table of calculation 491 00:28:27,432 --> 00:28:30,367 for every shop and factory and profession 492 00:28:30,502 --> 00:28:32,697 has to be recalculated. 493 00:28:32,837 --> 00:28:35,829 As it happens, at the time, 494 00:28:35,974 --> 00:28:39,535 French fashions in hairstyling have gone all revolutionary. 495 00:28:39,677 --> 00:28:42,544 And apart from the fact that half the aristocrats in France 496 00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,547 have lost their heads so there's not much work around 497 00:28:45,683 --> 00:28:48,379 for people like Pierre Gilles here to do anyway, 498 00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,581 the new revolutionary cut is kind of short back and sides. 499 00:28:52,724 --> 00:28:57,661 So most places like this in France have so little work to do, 500 00:28:57,796 --> 00:29:01,994 they are, to put it mildly, tearing their hair out. 501 00:29:02,133 --> 00:29:04,624 Well, wouldn't you know it? 502 00:29:04,769 --> 00:29:06,703 The French solve their metric problem 503 00:29:06,838 --> 00:29:08,669 and their out-of-work-hairdresser problem 504 00:29:08,807 --> 00:29:11,037 with typical panache. 505 00:29:11,176 --> 00:29:14,976 They let one problem solve the other. 506 00:29:15,113 --> 00:29:17,343 As Babbage discovers when he gets here, 507 00:29:17,482 --> 00:29:20,178 they've used 60 unemployed hairdressers 508 00:29:20,318 --> 00:29:23,048 sitting there for months, struggling with pencil and paper 509 00:29:23,188 --> 00:29:24,815 to work out every single sum needed 510 00:29:24,956 --> 00:29:27,516 to turn the country's old-fashioned measurement system 511 00:29:27,659 --> 00:29:29,422 on its head. 512 00:29:29,561 --> 00:29:32,257 Mind you, the thought of all that amateur arithmetic 513 00:29:32,397 --> 00:29:34,194 is enough to make your hair curl. 514 00:29:34,332 --> 00:29:36,323 And to make matters worse, on average, 515 00:29:36,467 --> 00:29:39,368 there's hundreds of mistakes in every table they churn out. 516 00:29:39,504 --> 00:29:40,493 Merci. 517 00:29:40,638 --> 00:29:44,165 Well, thinks Babbage, there's just got to be an easier way. 518 00:29:44,309 --> 00:29:46,903 So he comes up with an absolutely amazing invention 519 00:29:47,045 --> 00:29:48,706 that for anybody from then on 520 00:29:48,847 --> 00:29:51,338 who wants to do complicated mathematical tables 521 00:29:51,482 --> 00:29:54,315 will make all the difference. 522 00:29:57,055 --> 00:29:59,819 Babbage's difference engine does sums, 523 00:29:59,958 --> 00:30:01,858 and this is a really simple version 524 00:30:01,993 --> 00:30:05,224 of something so complicated, he never actually makes one. 525 00:30:05,363 --> 00:30:09,561 Say you want to add three on the right to seven on the left. 526 00:30:09,701 --> 00:30:12,693 Turn the little cog on the right three places, 527 00:30:12,837 --> 00:30:15,533 and that does the same to the cog on the left. 528 00:30:15,673 --> 00:30:18,073 And when it gets to ten, it moves a lever 529 00:30:18,209 --> 00:30:22,373 that moves the cog above, with tens on it, to one. 530 00:30:22,513 --> 00:30:28,679 So the sum of seven and three is ten. 531 00:30:28,820 --> 00:30:33,848 Then Babbage automates the process with the use of a punch card. 532 00:30:33,992 --> 00:30:36,859 Whichever rod gets through whichever hole in the card 533 00:30:36,995 --> 00:30:39,156 activates a selected set of levers 534 00:30:39,297 --> 00:30:42,824 that moves whichever cog you want to use for the sum. 535 00:30:42,967 --> 00:30:44,594 Now, Babbage never builds this thing, 536 00:30:44,736 --> 00:30:47,398 but since you know what a punch card is, 537 00:30:47,538 --> 00:30:50,735 you know something happened. 538 00:30:50,875 --> 00:30:54,003 Well, in 1845, this does: 539 00:30:54,145 --> 00:30:57,080 The Britannia bridge between England and Wales, 540 00:30:57,215 --> 00:31:01,276 two giant, 1,500-foot tubes each big enough to take a train 541 00:31:01,486 --> 00:31:03,613 and each needing 2 million rivets, 542 00:31:03,755 --> 00:31:07,623 all done by a riveting machine controlled... you've guessed it... 543 00:31:07,759 --> 00:31:10,455 with punch cards. 544 00:31:10,595 --> 00:31:13,962 Engineer in charge Robert Stephenson also thinks up the idea 545 00:31:14,098 --> 00:31:16,396 of floating the massive tubes into position, 546 00:31:16,534 --> 00:31:21,403 an idea that causes ripples in more ways than one. 547 00:31:21,539 --> 00:31:24,508 See, one of Stephenson's close pals 548 00:31:24,642 --> 00:31:27,577 is the fellow who masterminds the floating delivery 549 00:31:27,712 --> 00:31:29,680 of the tube girders for the bridge. 550 00:31:29,814 --> 00:31:32,112 He's also a hotshot engineer in his own right, 551 00:31:32,250 --> 00:31:34,411 and he's done everything from bridges in Australia 552 00:31:34,552 --> 00:31:36,577 to railways in Italy. 553 00:31:36,721 --> 00:31:41,021 Isambard Kingdom Brunel is his name, and he's got two problems. 554 00:31:41,159 --> 00:31:44,128 And, as it happens, both of them will be solved 555 00:31:44,262 --> 00:31:46,287 by the Britannia bridge. 556 00:31:46,431 --> 00:31:50,197 The first problem is rivets, because Brunel is planning 557 00:31:50,335 --> 00:31:53,793 to punch in no fewer than 31/2 million of them. 558 00:31:53,938 --> 00:31:54,996 And the second problem 559 00:31:55,139 --> 00:31:57,801 is what he's planning to punch them into. 560 00:31:57,942 --> 00:32:02,106 Yet another Victorian megaproject. 561 00:32:02,246 --> 00:32:04,737 It is Brunel's modest aim to build only 562 00:32:04,882 --> 00:32:07,214 the biggest ship ever in the history of the whole world 563 00:32:07,352 --> 00:32:10,150 and use it to take thousands of people out to Australia 564 00:32:10,288 --> 00:32:12,813 without having to stop off in several places like Singapore 565 00:32:12,957 --> 00:32:16,222 on the way to refuel, which, back then, 566 00:32:16,361 --> 00:32:18,261 is the main thing you see on the docksides 567 00:32:18,396 --> 00:32:20,557 on the way out from Europe. 568 00:32:20,698 --> 00:32:23,428 Coal, mountains of it. 569 00:32:23,568 --> 00:32:26,093 But Brunel's new monster ship is going to be so big, 570 00:32:26,237 --> 00:32:28,501 it'll carry all the coal it needs. 571 00:32:28,639 --> 00:32:32,370 Well, it never actually happens, but for sheer effort, 572 00:32:32,510 --> 00:32:35,308 you've got to take your hat off to Brunel. 573 00:32:35,446 --> 00:32:37,744 Here's Brunel wearing his famous hat 574 00:32:37,882 --> 00:32:40,077 and, behind him, his monster ship, 575 00:32:40,218 --> 00:32:43,187 the "Great Eastern," built of the same tube girders 576 00:32:43,321 --> 00:32:46,757 as the Britannia bridge and a zillion rivets. 577 00:32:46,891 --> 00:32:49,155 I'll sing you a song of the fish of the sea, 578 00:32:49,293 --> 00:32:50,351 for we're bound for... 579 00:32:50,495 --> 00:32:52,690 And, as I said, the wrong ship 580 00:32:52,830 --> 00:32:54,991 in the wrong place at the wrong time. 581 00:32:55,133 --> 00:32:56,498 Just too big too soon. 582 00:32:56,634 --> 00:33:01,037 Mind you, she does totally change transoceanic communication 583 00:33:01,172 --> 00:33:04,801 but not in any way Brunel could have ever foreseen. 584 00:33:04,942 --> 00:33:08,605 ...for we're bound for the Rio Grande. 585 00:33:08,746 --> 00:33:11,977 See, as I said, life in Victorian times 586 00:33:12,116 --> 00:33:13,879 is lived on the grand scale 587 00:33:14,018 --> 00:33:16,077 if you're ambitious and you like to think big. 588 00:33:16,220 --> 00:33:17,881 And they all did. 589 00:33:18,022 --> 00:33:20,354 Well, they don't come much bigger, 590 00:33:20,491 --> 00:33:23,324 if you think about it, than the Atlantic. 591 00:33:23,461 --> 00:33:25,793 Three miles deep in some places, 592 00:33:25,930 --> 00:33:28,558 and the shortest way across is 2,000 miles 593 00:33:28,699 --> 00:33:30,724 of some of the worst weather in the world. 594 00:33:30,868 --> 00:33:33,029 Not exactly the kind of place anybody sane 595 00:33:33,171 --> 00:33:36,163 would want to do delicate precision engineering. 596 00:33:36,307 --> 00:33:39,834 But, hey, these are Victorians, and they can do the impossible, 597 00:33:39,977 --> 00:33:42,571 which is what is now proposed by an American gent 598 00:33:42,713 --> 00:33:44,146 called Cyrus Field. 599 00:33:44,282 --> 00:33:47,774 He's a millionaire, which helps when you're thinking big. 600 00:33:47,919 --> 00:33:51,047 Now, Cyrus has an ocean crossing in mind 601 00:33:51,189 --> 00:33:55,785 but one with a bit of a difference. 602 00:33:55,927 --> 00:33:59,454 This is the Atlantic I was talking about. 603 00:33:59,597 --> 00:34:01,690 Us, America. 604 00:34:01,833 --> 00:34:06,827 And in between, a lot of nothing heaving up and down. 605 00:34:06,971 --> 00:34:10,065 Cyrus checks the place out with another American, 606 00:34:10,208 --> 00:34:12,267 Atlantic weather guru Matthew Maury, 607 00:34:12,410 --> 00:34:16,176 who says, "Go in August, and do it like this." 608 00:34:16,314 --> 00:34:24,085 From Valentia Island off Ireland to Heart's Content Bay, Newfoundland, 609 00:34:24,222 --> 00:34:26,417 because it's flat all the way. 610 00:34:26,557 --> 00:34:28,616 The bottom, Maury means. 611 00:34:28,759 --> 00:34:30,249 Because what we're into here 612 00:34:30,394 --> 00:34:34,763 is the first transatlantic submarine telegraph cable. 613 00:34:34,899 --> 00:34:38,596 Now, you know there's only one ship in the world capable 614 00:34:38,736 --> 00:34:41,261 of carrying what is needed for all this madness, 615 00:34:41,405 --> 00:34:45,171 which is 2,000 miles of cable weighing 6,000 tons, 616 00:34:45,309 --> 00:34:47,243 600 tons of equipment, 617 00:34:47,378 --> 00:34:50,745 and, above all, eleventeen million tons of coal. 618 00:34:50,882 --> 00:34:52,816 Yes, the out-of-work 619 00:34:52,950 --> 00:34:56,477 and by now up-for-auction "Great Eastern." 620 00:34:56,621 --> 00:34:58,953 I'll sing you a song... 621 00:34:59,090 --> 00:35:03,823 In July 1866, they're off at about eight miles an hour, 622 00:35:03,961 --> 00:35:06,657 paying out the cable from gigantic drums in the hold 623 00:35:06,797 --> 00:35:09,630 with a crafty bit of equipment to control the tension 624 00:35:09,767 --> 00:35:14,204 as the cable disappears over the stern and they go up and down. 625 00:35:14,338 --> 00:35:18,672 Somehow, they inched their way painfully across the Atlantic. 626 00:35:18,809 --> 00:35:20,208 13 days later, 627 00:35:20,344 --> 00:35:23,040 they're hauling the cable ashore in Newfoundland. 628 00:35:23,181 --> 00:35:26,639 So now you can send a cable along the cable. 629 00:35:26,784 --> 00:35:32,347 The first day, they transmit $10,000 worth of messages. 630 00:35:32,523 --> 00:35:35,686 So as with so many great acts of technology, 631 00:35:35,793 --> 00:35:37,988 at one stroke, the world is changed 632 00:35:38,129 --> 00:35:40,188 thanks also, above all, in this case, 633 00:35:40,331 --> 00:35:42,765 to something that changes your stroke, 634 00:35:42,900 --> 00:35:46,063 the one thing that allows a transatlantic cable to operate 635 00:35:46,204 --> 00:35:47,466 three miles down 636 00:35:47,605 --> 00:35:50,597 in the incredibly hostile environment of the ocean floor, 637 00:35:50,741 --> 00:35:54,404 the stuff wrapped 'round it, the cable insulation, 638 00:35:54,545 --> 00:35:59,414 which turns out also to change this kind of stroke. 639 00:36:04,455 --> 00:36:08,482 Well, I never said I had a good drive, did I? 640 00:36:11,062 --> 00:36:14,623 The underwater cable insulation is a new wondergunk 641 00:36:14,765 --> 00:36:16,960 that comes, as it happens, from these trees. 642 00:36:17,101 --> 00:36:20,901 And in 1840, it's being used by the locals here in Singapore 643 00:36:21,038 --> 00:36:23,404 when a young assistant surgeon called Montgomery 644 00:36:23,541 --> 00:36:24,872 happens to stumble across it. 645 00:36:25,009 --> 00:36:26,237 It's a sap. 646 00:36:26,377 --> 00:36:28,208 You slash the tree and milk it 647 00:36:28,346 --> 00:36:30,177 much the same way as you tap rubber. 648 00:36:30,314 --> 00:36:33,147 And it's called gutta-percha. 649 00:36:39,123 --> 00:36:43,492 Now, you know how useful and everywhere plastic is today. 650 00:36:43,628 --> 00:36:47,928 Well, gutta-percha is like that for people back in 1840. 651 00:36:48,065 --> 00:36:50,226 You dip it in boiling water so it softens 652 00:36:50,368 --> 00:36:53,303 and you can shape it, and then it hardens again. 653 00:36:53,437 --> 00:36:56,838 So gutta-percha turns up, just like plastic today, 654 00:36:56,974 --> 00:37:00,466 as a substitute for wood, leather, cardboard, 655 00:37:00,611 --> 00:37:03,671 paper, metal, and in the weirdest places: 656 00:37:03,814 --> 00:37:09,684 Stethoscopes, false teeth, inkstands, flower vases, 657 00:37:09,820 --> 00:37:15,918 and, of course, wrapped around Cyrus Field's transatlantic cable. 658 00:37:16,060 --> 00:37:19,325 But the real reason for all this palaver 659 00:37:19,463 --> 00:37:22,227 with me and the clubs is what gutta-percha does 660 00:37:22,366 --> 00:37:25,631 to the ancient and exclusive game of golf. 661 00:37:31,375 --> 00:37:33,172 And if you're a golf fanatic, 662 00:37:33,311 --> 00:37:39,181 get ready to take a picture of your TV screen now and frame it. 663 00:37:39,317 --> 00:37:42,252 Because gutta-percha goes into golf balls 664 00:37:42,386 --> 00:37:45,184 and makes them cheaper, fly straighter, 665 00:37:45,323 --> 00:37:47,791 and last longer than once around the course. 666 00:37:47,925 --> 00:37:53,090 And this is an original gutta-percha ball. 667 00:37:53,230 --> 00:37:55,255 Thank you. 668 00:37:55,399 --> 00:37:58,334 Of course, the new ball has to pass the old buffers 669 00:37:58,469 --> 00:38:00,699 at St. Andrew's royal and ancient golf club 670 00:38:00,838 --> 00:38:06,640 in Scotland, where, after all, the 18-hole golf course was invented. 671 00:38:06,777 --> 00:38:10,042 Well, after a lot of buffing, the old buffers finally agree. 672 00:38:10,181 --> 00:38:14,880 The new ball is introduced, and Scottish golf really takes off. 673 00:38:15,019 --> 00:38:19,183 I mean, all sorts of ordinary people turn up and want to play. 674 00:38:26,097 --> 00:38:28,327 So a quick catch-up. 675 00:38:28,466 --> 00:38:33,494 Krupp welfare uses statistics calculated by Babbage's engine 676 00:38:33,637 --> 00:38:38,870 using punch cards that rivet bridges and the "Great Eastern" 677 00:38:39,009 --> 00:38:42,740 that lays the cable insulated by gutta-percha 678 00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:45,815 that gets used to make cheap golf balls 679 00:38:45,950 --> 00:38:48,418 so now ordinary Scotsmen can get to play. 680 00:38:48,552 --> 00:38:50,747 Thank you. Thank you. 681 00:38:50,888 --> 00:38:52,719 And the reason they do that is because 682 00:38:52,857 --> 00:38:58,090 there's a wonderful new thing called leisure time. 683 00:38:58,229 --> 00:39:01,630 All that trade with America is boosting the Scottish economy, 684 00:39:01,766 --> 00:39:04,326 and the powerful and straightlaced Scottish church 685 00:39:04,468 --> 00:39:06,402 would rather the newly affluent workers 686 00:39:06,537 --> 00:39:10,439 spent their money on sports and family holidays by the sea 687 00:39:10,574 --> 00:39:14,135 instead of drinking it away in the pub outside the factory. 688 00:39:14,278 --> 00:39:18,942 So in pulpits all over Scotland, a lot of hot air is being talked 689 00:39:19,083 --> 00:39:22,314 about the "evils of industrialization." 690 00:39:22,453 --> 00:39:25,354 Ironic, since hot air's the cause of it. 691 00:39:28,159 --> 00:39:32,152 The hot air in question is the business of a guy called Neilson, 692 00:39:32,296 --> 00:39:36,130 the manager of the gasworks in Glasgow, Scotland. 693 00:39:36,267 --> 00:39:39,202 In 1832, he thinks up the idea 694 00:39:39,336 --> 00:39:42,772 of blasting hot air into iron-melting furnaces, 695 00:39:42,907 --> 00:39:46,673 making them hot enough to burn even low-grade Scottish coal, 696 00:39:46,811 --> 00:39:51,180 thus turning Scotland into an instant industrial country 697 00:39:51,315 --> 00:39:54,307 with factory managers who have enough money and spare time 698 00:39:54,452 --> 00:39:57,046 to go off to St. Andrew's and play golf. 699 00:39:57,188 --> 00:39:58,780 And in no time at all, 700 00:39:58,923 --> 00:40:02,120 the whole of Scottish manufacturing is really on a roll 701 00:40:02,259 --> 00:40:06,992 and, like rolling stones, gathering no moss. 702 00:40:07,131 --> 00:40:09,895 Well, except for one Scottish businessman, 703 00:40:10,034 --> 00:40:14,403 who was up here in the wild glens of Scotland gathering moss. 704 00:40:14,538 --> 00:40:15,937 Why moss? 705 00:40:16,073 --> 00:40:17,938 Well, there's a lot of it up here. 706 00:40:18,075 --> 00:40:20,509 There's not much else. 707 00:40:23,581 --> 00:40:25,344 Now, when you're talking about 708 00:40:25,483 --> 00:40:28,350 whether a country makes it to industrial status, 709 00:40:28,486 --> 00:40:31,944 which Scotland now does, as you saw, thanks to Neilson, 710 00:40:32,089 --> 00:40:36,583 having those iron foundries is the litmus test, 711 00:40:36,727 --> 00:40:40,163 which is what Neilson's new partner, Charles Macintosh, 712 00:40:40,297 --> 00:40:42,197 and his father, George here, have been doing 713 00:40:42,333 --> 00:40:45,131 in the Scottish glens. 714 00:40:54,812 --> 00:40:57,440 Because litmus paper does all that stuff, 715 00:40:57,581 --> 00:41:00,106 like changing color when you dip it in acid or alkali, 716 00:41:00,251 --> 00:41:03,152 if you recall your school chemistry lessons, 717 00:41:03,287 --> 00:41:05,278 because it's impregnated with this stuff, 718 00:41:05,422 --> 00:41:10,951 a particular lichen or moss that George Macintosh is looking for. 719 00:41:14,131 --> 00:41:17,191 The moss is one ingredient of a dye called cudbear, 720 00:41:17,334 --> 00:41:19,700 which will color cloth bright red. 721 00:41:19,837 --> 00:41:23,238 So since back in 1777, George Macintosh, 722 00:41:23,374 --> 00:41:26,309 who dyes cloth, has been spending weeks at a time 723 00:41:26,443 --> 00:41:28,809 out on romantic moss-collecting trips 724 00:41:28,946 --> 00:41:32,382 among the heather to get his raw material. 725 00:41:42,660 --> 00:41:46,152 Now, most unfortunately, cudbear dye needs 726 00:41:46,297 --> 00:41:49,824 one other vital ingredient besides Scottish moss, 727 00:41:49,967 --> 00:41:51,730 and it's something that will take us back 728 00:41:51,869 --> 00:41:53,666 from these Ionely highlands 729 00:41:53,804 --> 00:41:56,432 to that hot air gas company manager Neilson, 730 00:41:56,574 --> 00:41:59,304 because the other ingredient for cudbear dye 731 00:41:59,443 --> 00:42:02,742 requires the Macintosh company to go looking for raw materials 732 00:42:02,880 --> 00:42:06,680 in less salubrious places than the Scottish glens. 733 00:42:06,817 --> 00:42:09,877 It's urine, which contains ammonia, 734 00:42:10,020 --> 00:42:12,352 which is why Neilson and the Macintosh family 735 00:42:12,489 --> 00:42:16,619 got together in the first place, since ammonia is a by-product 736 00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:18,819 of what you get when you make coal gas, 737 00:42:18,963 --> 00:42:23,400 and you recall that's what Neilson made at his gasworks. 738 00:42:23,534 --> 00:42:27,664 Okay, let's leave George Macintosh up this mountain 739 00:42:27,805 --> 00:42:29,363 while I change the subject, 740 00:42:29,506 --> 00:42:33,966 because at this point in the story, the path of history splits into two. 741 00:42:34,111 --> 00:42:37,137 The first pathway takes us away from moss collecting 742 00:42:37,281 --> 00:42:41,240 to some pretty weird goings on a good deal farther south. 743 00:42:41,385 --> 00:42:44,411 In India, to be exact. 744 00:42:51,261 --> 00:42:54,788 This is one of those "isn't it a small world" stories. 745 00:42:54,932 --> 00:42:57,196 Back in Scotland, Neilson's father 746 00:42:57,334 --> 00:42:59,495 has been employed by a fellow called John Roebuck, 747 00:42:59,637 --> 00:43:02,197 who owns coal mines, and Roebuck has been taught 748 00:43:02,339 --> 00:43:05,467 in Edinburgh by a professor called Joe Black. 749 00:43:05,609 --> 00:43:09,204 Roebuck tells Black about the water flooding his mines, 750 00:43:09,346 --> 00:43:11,246 and Black tells Roebuck about James Watt 751 00:43:11,382 --> 00:43:12,815 of steam engine fame. 752 00:43:12,950 --> 00:43:16,283 And together, Watt and Roebuck make mine-draining music 753 00:43:16,420 --> 00:43:19,048 with Watt's new steam-driven pump. 754 00:43:23,794 --> 00:43:26,763 Roebuck's money sets Watt up in business, 755 00:43:26,897 --> 00:43:27,955 and he makes a fortune 756 00:43:28,098 --> 00:43:30,066 and eventually becomes an amateur scientist, 757 00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:31,792 like all gentlemen did at the time. 758 00:43:31,935 --> 00:43:33,800 Thank you. 759 00:43:36,473 --> 00:43:39,101 Now, one of Watt's experiments causes a bit of a stir 760 00:43:39,243 --> 00:43:41,677 in the hallowed halls of the British Royal Society 761 00:43:41,812 --> 00:43:42,938 when he crosses swords 762 00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:45,810 with an aristocrat called Lord Henry Cavendish. 763 00:43:45,949 --> 00:43:48,042 They're always all about which one of them has done 764 00:43:48,185 --> 00:43:51,018 some experiment or other to find out what water is. 765 00:43:53,323 --> 00:43:55,382 Well, Watt becomes a member of the Royal Society, 766 00:43:55,526 --> 00:43:57,153 the two of them meet and become friends, 767 00:43:57,294 --> 00:44:00,695 and that's that. 768 00:44:00,831 --> 00:44:02,890 However, at the time, 769 00:44:03,033 --> 00:44:07,129 Cavendish is also sponsoring to the Society a young man. 770 00:44:07,271 --> 00:44:09,136 That's why I'm telling you all this in India, 771 00:44:09,273 --> 00:44:12,401 because the young man is a fellow called James Macie, 772 00:44:12,543 --> 00:44:17,947 and his main contribution to science is to investigate... hang on a minute. 773 00:44:20,751 --> 00:44:25,779 To investigate a liquid that appears in the joints of bamboo. 774 00:44:25,923 --> 00:44:28,551 Because in 1791, some of this mystery liquid 775 00:44:28,692 --> 00:44:30,819 has been sent back to England from India, 776 00:44:30,961 --> 00:44:33,589 and out here, it's used as an eye ointment. 777 00:44:33,731 --> 00:44:35,961 And, well, you never know. 778 00:44:36,100 --> 00:44:39,331 So friend Macie takes this medicinal bamboo juice 779 00:44:39,470 --> 00:44:41,529 and does everything but drink it. 780 00:44:41,672 --> 00:44:45,130 Under differing circumstances, it effervesces, turns jellylike, 781 00:44:45,275 --> 00:44:49,234 goes into a glass shape, or becomes a powder. 782 00:44:49,379 --> 00:44:53,941 Now, there is no point in asking why anybody would do all that to this. 783 00:44:54,084 --> 00:44:55,483 He just does. 784 00:44:55,619 --> 00:44:58,417 The upshot is, Macie manages to get the liquid 785 00:44:58,555 --> 00:45:01,149 to turn into something resembling a flint pebble. 786 00:45:01,291 --> 00:45:02,451 The point? 787 00:45:02,593 --> 00:45:03,958 I don't know. 788 00:45:04,094 --> 00:45:09,031 And that is Macie's stupefying addition to the sum of human knowledge. 789 00:45:09,166 --> 00:45:11,134 Well, not quite. 790 00:45:11,268 --> 00:45:14,237 Macie also happens to be the illegitimate son 791 00:45:14,371 --> 00:45:16,771 of one of the oldest aristocratic families in England, 792 00:45:16,907 --> 00:45:20,365 the dukes of Northumberland, so the boy's socially well placed, 793 00:45:20,511 --> 00:45:23,105 as a result of which, he ends up quite rich. 794 00:45:23,247 --> 00:45:25,613 And since he never marries, he leaves it to a cousin 795 00:45:25,749 --> 00:45:29,048 unless the cousin dies without children, which he does, 796 00:45:29,186 --> 00:45:32,587 in which case, all the money is to go to America. 797 00:45:32,723 --> 00:45:35,692 And there, for a moment, we leave James Macie. 798 00:45:35,826 --> 00:45:38,795 Now we return to moss-collecting Macintosh. 799 00:45:38,929 --> 00:45:40,191 Remember him? 800 00:45:40,330 --> 00:45:42,798 One of his early partners in the cloth-dying business, 801 00:45:42,933 --> 00:45:45,902 David Dale, builds a textile mill 802 00:45:46,036 --> 00:45:49,301 at New Lanark in Scotland, where he philanthropically 803 00:45:49,439 --> 00:45:53,933 employs orphan children aged seven or so to run the machines. 804 00:45:56,747 --> 00:45:59,978 Back then, this is reckoned to be do-good stuff, 805 00:46:00,117 --> 00:46:03,644 because it saves the kids from starving to death in the streets. 806 00:46:03,787 --> 00:46:05,482 Dale even builds them a school, 807 00:46:05,622 --> 00:46:08,284 and they get clean clothes once a week. 808 00:46:08,425 --> 00:46:12,361 In return for such generosity, the deal with the orphanage is, 809 00:46:12,496 --> 00:46:15,727 Dale doesn't have to pay any wages to his little employees 810 00:46:15,866 --> 00:46:18,096 until they're age 15. 811 00:46:18,235 --> 00:46:20,294 What a sweetheart deal. 812 00:46:20,437 --> 00:46:22,997 Now, Dale's liberal attitude attracts 813 00:46:23,140 --> 00:46:26,337 a young socialist mill manager called Robert Owen, 814 00:46:26,476 --> 00:46:30,276 who marries Dale's daughter and takes over the mill. 815 00:46:30,414 --> 00:46:34,748 In 1824, he leaves here for America, where he sets up a commune 816 00:46:34,885 --> 00:46:38,343 at a place called New Harmony, Indiana. 817 00:46:40,824 --> 00:46:44,385 Well, the venture fails, and he comes back here to Britain. 818 00:46:44,528 --> 00:46:47,395 But his four sons take out American citizenship 819 00:46:47,531 --> 00:46:50,932 and stay on in the States, where their story 820 00:46:51,068 --> 00:46:57,405 and that of James Macie, the rich bamboo freak, join up. 821 00:46:57,541 --> 00:47:02,035 This is where it all comes together and when things get to hit the fan 822 00:47:02,179 --> 00:47:04,443 in a really spectacular manner. 823 00:47:04,581 --> 00:47:09,348 See, Owen's eldest son is a fellow called Robert Dale Owen, 824 00:47:09,486 --> 00:47:15,447 and in 1842, he gets elected to Congress as an Indiana Democrat. 825 00:47:15,592 --> 00:47:19,084 Well, in 1844, he gets mixed up in the affairs 826 00:47:19,229 --> 00:47:20,924 of an Englishman called James Macie. 827 00:47:21,064 --> 00:47:22,326 Remember him? 828 00:47:22,466 --> 00:47:25,230 He's the fellow who did all that weird work on bamboo juice. 829 00:47:25,369 --> 00:47:30,306 And you remember he left a fortune of 104,960 830 00:47:30,440 --> 00:47:33,204 of these things, English gold sovereigns, 831 00:47:33,343 --> 00:47:35,004 to America. 832 00:47:35,145 --> 00:47:38,546 Well, by 1844, they've arrived in the States, 833 00:47:38,682 --> 00:47:41,116 been melted down, and turned into U.S. money. 834 00:47:41,251 --> 00:47:43,185 And when I tell you how much money, 835 00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:46,619 you'll know why I said things are about to hit the fan. 836 00:47:46,757 --> 00:47:50,591 $2 billion and change. 837 00:47:50,727 --> 00:47:56,461 Suddenly, it's Washington behind closed doors time. 838 00:47:56,600 --> 00:48:01,162 Turns out as soon as the money is available in greenbacks, 839 00:48:01,305 --> 00:48:03,466 the treasury has invested no less 840 00:48:03,607 --> 00:48:08,010 than $2 billion worth of it in this interesting outfit 841 00:48:08,145 --> 00:48:12,172 known as the Real Estate Bank of the State of Arkansas. 842 00:48:12,316 --> 00:48:14,250 Let me put it this way. 843 00:48:14,384 --> 00:48:17,581 There are criminal charges against some of the bank's directors. 844 00:48:17,721 --> 00:48:19,951 Somebody involved has been knifed. 845 00:48:20,090 --> 00:48:22,820 Above all, everybody knows the bank's going to go bust, 846 00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:24,086 because its real estate 847 00:48:24,227 --> 00:48:28,027 has been grossly and deliberately overvalued. 848 00:48:28,165 --> 00:48:32,192 And the U.S. government is in bed with these people? 849 00:48:36,139 --> 00:48:40,872 Never mind which moron in the treasury okayed the deal. 850 00:48:41,011 --> 00:48:44,674 By this time, there are now $2.5 billion invested 851 00:48:44,815 --> 00:48:46,510 in these examples of junk. 852 00:48:46,650 --> 00:48:48,845 And how's the treasury going to get their hands on it? 853 00:48:48,986 --> 00:48:50,112 Never mind the interest 854 00:48:50,253 --> 00:48:53,154 the Real Estate Bank of Arkansas hasn't paid. 855 00:48:53,290 --> 00:48:56,350 Well, you can imagine the kind of field day 856 00:48:56,493 --> 00:49:02,329 the legislators up here on the hill have with this little peccadillo. 857 00:49:02,466 --> 00:49:06,698 Gentlemen from Massachusetts... John Quincy Adams, to be exact... 858 00:49:06,837 --> 00:49:09,670 make caustic comments about theft. 859 00:49:09,806 --> 00:49:12,570 Gentlemen from Arkansas make comments about honor 860 00:49:12,709 --> 00:49:16,406 and meeting their commitments in due course. 861 00:49:16,546 --> 00:49:20,710 Others wonder when that distant day might be. 862 00:49:20,851 --> 00:49:26,118 The Arkansas people say in 20 years, when the bonds mature, 863 00:49:26,256 --> 00:49:28,986 Arkansas will repay its debts. 864 00:49:29,126 --> 00:49:32,857 Finally, it's agreed the treasury will guarantee the interest, 865 00:49:32,996 --> 00:49:35,760 so the money can do what James Macie wanted it to do. 866 00:49:35,899 --> 00:49:38,868 And then there's a real row. 867 00:49:39,002 --> 00:49:44,338 Certain members regard the gift as an insult to the American people 868 00:49:44,474 --> 00:49:50,037 and say that the United States has humbled and degraded itself 869 00:49:50,180 --> 00:49:55,379 by accepting this money from degenerate aristocrats. 870 00:49:55,519 --> 00:50:00,957 Others argue that the United States should take the money and run. 871 00:50:01,091 --> 00:50:03,423 Eventually, common sense prevails, 872 00:50:03,560 --> 00:50:06,723 and in December 1846, Owen's bill is passed, 873 00:50:06,863 --> 00:50:09,832 and they get to spend the money the way Macie wanted. 874 00:50:09,966 --> 00:50:11,991 You know how, of course. 875 00:50:12,135 --> 00:50:14,467 And if you don't, I'll tell you in a minute. 876 00:50:14,604 --> 00:50:18,563 So winding up this debate, let me summarize. 877 00:50:18,708 --> 00:50:24,044 Corncobs become resins for diamond polishing with Carborundum 878 00:50:24,181 --> 00:50:26,274 that protects you from shells fired at tanks 879 00:50:26,416 --> 00:50:30,045 developed from American tractors that used Diesel engines built 880 00:50:30,187 --> 00:50:32,018 with funding from Krupp, who inspired 881 00:50:32,155 --> 00:50:35,181 Bismarck's welfare scheme based on Quetelet's statistics 882 00:50:35,325 --> 00:50:36,952 that inspired the Babbage engine, 883 00:50:37,094 --> 00:50:39,961 whose punch cards were used to rivet the "Great Eastern," 884 00:50:40,097 --> 00:50:42,565 the monster ship that laid the transatlantic cable 885 00:50:42,699 --> 00:50:45,691 insulated with gutta-percha used to manufacture golf balls 886 00:50:45,836 --> 00:50:48,600 for factory managers in industrial Scotland, 887 00:50:48,738 --> 00:50:50,933 where James Watt had a run-in with Cavendish, 888 00:50:51,074 --> 00:50:55,977 whose protegee was James Macie, 889 00:50:56,113 --> 00:50:59,014 who caused all the row here in the capitol building 890 00:50:59,149 --> 00:51:02,983 for reasons you know but maybe don't know you know. 891 00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:06,248 Get it? 892 00:51:06,389 --> 00:51:10,291 You remember I said James Macie was the illegitimate son 893 00:51:10,427 --> 00:51:11,758 of the Duke of Northumberland. 894 00:51:11,895 --> 00:51:16,229 Well, after his father's death, James took on the father's family name. 895 00:51:16,366 --> 00:51:17,731 Well, what's in a name? 896 00:51:17,868 --> 00:51:22,669 So the money got used to set up a world-renowned institution 897 00:51:22,806 --> 00:51:25,798 named after James Macie's new family name, 898 00:51:25,942 --> 00:51:27,842 which was Smithson: 899 00:51:27,978 --> 00:51:31,709 The institution known as the Smithsonian.