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Starman · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Since the dawn of time, civilizations have looked
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  Speaker 1: to the stars for guidance. The Egyptians used two stars
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  Speaker 1: that circled the celestial poll in order to build the pyramids.
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  Speaker 1: Sailors used the position of the stars in the sky
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  Speaker 1: in relation to the horizon to keep their ships on course.
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  Speaker 1: And even though we have some of the most advanced
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  Speaker 1: technology in the world to perform these calculations for us today,
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  Speaker 1: scientists and engineers still consult the night sky or unbelievable results.
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  Speaker 1: Many people don't know that the Earth wobbles. I'm not
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  Speaker 1: talking about earthquakes, though. This is something different. As the
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  Speaker 1: planet turns on one axis, it moves more slowly along another,
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  Speaker 1: completing one rotation along this secondary axis every twenty six
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  Speaker 1: thousand years. It's called the axial procession. A long time ago,
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  Speaker 1: architects built a monument to honor the men who had
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  Speaker 1: died building a massive structure, Two bronze statues sat elevated
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  Speaker 1: with thirty foot wings pointed straight at the sky. Some
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  Speaker 1: considered them to be angels, while others saw them as
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  Speaker 1: the best versions of ourselves watching over us. And below
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  Speaker 1: their massive feet was a celestial map which had been
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  Speaker 1: etched into the surface using the position of the stars
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  Speaker 1: in relation to the Earth's axial procession. It was as
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  Speaker 1: much a work of arts as it was a feat
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  Speaker 1: of engineering, and only an expert astronomer would have been
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  Speaker 1: able to create such a piece. Along the bottom of
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  Speaker 1: the map, two stars were highlighted, Fuban, the north star
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  Speaker 1: used by the ancient Egyptians, and Polaris, what we consider
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  Speaker 1: to be the north star today. These stars were encapsulated
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  Speaker 1: within a circle, the kind that might be drawn by
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  Speaker 1: the Earth as it turned on its axis over twenty
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  Speaker 1: six thousand years, and just outside that circle was another star, Vega,
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  Speaker 1: which will be our north star in roughly twelve thousand years.
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  Speaker 1: But what made this map truly special was not its
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  Speaker 1: level of detail or artistry. It was that the architect
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  Speaker 1: who designed it was able to line up the selexial
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  Speaker 1: axis with polaris on the exact day of the monument's commemoration.
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  Speaker 1: And look, I know that's a lot of visualization for
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  Speaker 1: you to attempt. I'm asking you to imagine something incredibly complex,
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  Speaker 1: and I get that. But if you ever have the chance,
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  Speaker 1: you can visit it, because the map is still in place,
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  Speaker 1: and it probably will be for another thousand years or more.
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  Speaker 1: After all, it's only eighty five years old. The sea,
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  Speaker 1: it's you just need to visit the Nevada side of
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  Speaker 1: the Hoover Dam. The monument was erected to honor the
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  Speaker 1: one twelve lives lost during the dam's construction. The celestial
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  Speaker 1: map was the creation of Norwegian sculptor Oscar J. W. Hanson,
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  Speaker 1: who designed it as a way for astronomers to deduce
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  Speaker 1: the exact date of the dam's dedication by President Franklin
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  Speaker 1: Delano Roosevelt. That way, if all records were destroyed, there
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  Speaker 1: would still be this map to use as a means
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  Speaker 1: of calculation. The map also provides a way to calculate
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  Speaker 1: the procession of the Pole Star for the next fourteen
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  Speaker 1: thousand years. And as if that weren't enough, the techniques
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  Speaker 1: used by Hansen to create his map, are currently being
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  Speaker 1: used in another modern marvel, the Clock of the Long
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  Speaker 1: now also known as the ten thousand year Clock. This
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  Speaker 1: five hundred foot tall clock was the brainchild of inventor
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  Speaker 1: Danny Hills in nine six. The full size version will
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  Speaker 1: be built within a mountain in Texas and run for
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand years. It will be powered by manual winding,
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  Speaker 1: like a simple watch, but will store energy from temperature
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  Speaker 1: changes in order to keep running between windings. Aside from
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  Speaker 1: the standard time and date, the ten year clock will
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  Speaker 1: also track the phases of the moon, the position of
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  Speaker 1: the stars and planets, and calculate the procession of the
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  Speaker 1: Earth's axis, just like hansen celestial map. And if you
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  Speaker 1: want to see it, there's a working prototype of the
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  Speaker 1: clock on display at the Science Museum in London. It's
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  Speaker 1: a lot smaller than the real clock will be, but
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  Speaker 1: even at such a tiny scale it works exactly as advertised.
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  Speaker 1: It came to life on New Year's Eve in just
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  Speaker 1: in time to ring in the new millennium. And I
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  Speaker 1: know what you're thinking, will the full size clock live
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  Speaker 1: up to its name and actually run for another ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand years? And the answer, as you might imagine is
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  Speaker 1: fairly simple. Only time will tell. When we think of
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  Speaker 1: cursed objects, we think of items that have been stolen
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  Speaker 1: from sacred places, such as King Tut's golden sarcophagus or
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  Speaker 1: the Hope diamond. These objects have been long rumored to
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  Speaker 1: bring deadly misfortune to all who came in contact with them.
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  Speaker 1: For example, Egyptologist Howard Carter, the man responsible for opening
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  Speaker 1: tuts to him, died of blood poisoning five months later
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  Speaker 1: after an unfortunate mosquito bites. But twenty years after Carter's demise,
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  Speaker 1: another curse arose thousands of miles away from the Egyptian Pyramids.
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  Speaker 1: It was caused by a sphere about three and a
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  Speaker 1: half inches in diameter. It was comprised of two halves
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  Speaker 1: of plutonium gallium held together in the middle by a ring.
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  Speaker 1: It was the fourteen pound core of a devastating nuclear device.
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  Speaker 1: The plan was to drop this new bomb on Japan
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  Speaker 1: on August nineteen, but the country surrendered four days earlier
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  Speaker 1: and brought World War Two to an end. The core, however,
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  Speaker 1: it was still ready to go. On August. The physicist
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  Speaker 1: named Harry Dalyan was performing tests on the core at
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  Speaker 1: a facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Harry had worked
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  Speaker 1: on the Manhattan Project and with stacking reflective bricks made
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  Speaker 1: of tungsten carbide around the spear. With each brick he placed,
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  Speaker 1: neutrons would bounce off of them and then back at
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  Speaker 1: the core. Henry would then use the neutron reflections to
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  Speaker 1: gauge how close the core was to going super critical.
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  Speaker 1: Harry was by himself while he was performing these tests,
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  Speaker 1: save for the loan security guards sitting several feet away.
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  Speaker 1: As he stacked the bricks, one slipped and fell onto
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  Speaker 1: the core, releasing a lethal dose of radiation into the air.
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  Speaker 1: He pulled out the brick, but it was too late.
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  Speaker 1: He'd taken the brunt of the blast and died of
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  Speaker 1: radiation poisoning less than a month later. One year after
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  Speaker 1: that accident, physicist Louis Laughton was showing a few other
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  Speaker 1: Los Alamos scientists how to properly handle the core. He'd
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  Speaker 1: done it several times before and had become known as
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  Speaker 1: an expert around the facility. Instead of using bricks, like Harry, though,
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  Speaker 1: Louis placed two halves of a beryllium shell around the
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  Speaker 1: core to act as a neutron reflector. The only catch
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  Speaker 1: was that the shell could not be allowed to seal completely.
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  Speaker 1: If it did, the core would go super critical and
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  Speaker 1: unleash a wave of radiation. Louis was supposed to use
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  Speaker 1: shims to keep the house separate, but he liked to
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  Speaker 1: live on the edge. His preferred method was a screwdriver
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  Speaker 1: wedged in between the hemispheres. One day, while shadowed by
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  Speaker 1: a pupil named Alvin C. Graves, Louis placed his screwdriver
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  Speaker 1: on the bottom half and then lowered the top half
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  Speaker 1: down over the core. But the screwdriver slipped and the
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  Speaker 1: shell closed around the core, completely sealing it in, and
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  Speaker 1: within a heartbeat it went super critical. A blast of
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  Speaker 1: blue light washed over Louis as he wedged the screwdriver
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  Speaker 1: back in to separate them, but by then it was
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  Speaker 1: too late. Louis had absorbed almost all of radiation given
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  Speaker 1: off by the core. He died a week and a
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  Speaker 1: half later. After this second incident, no one else ever
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  Speaker 1: handled the sphere directly again. Any tests that had been
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  Speaker 1: planned for it were postponed until it was less radioactive.
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  Speaker 1: In the end, they had to invent new equipment to
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  Speaker 1: handle it, including machines that could be operated from a
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  Speaker 1: quarter mile away. TV cameras would broadcast everything to the
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  Speaker 1: scientists operating those machines so that they could see what
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  Speaker 1: they were doing. It was a lot of work to
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  Speaker 1: keep up the studies, though, and soon enough the project
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  Speaker 1: was cut. The Demon Core, as it had come to
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  Speaker 1: be known, was eventually melted down and incorporated into other
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  Speaker 1: nuclear devices. Most people see these tragic deaths as the
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  Speaker 1: unfortunate consequences of breaking the rules, the rules of the
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  Speaker 1: lab and the rules of physics, but some see the
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  Speaker 1: Demon Core as a warning. After all, they claim that
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  Speaker 1: much power was simply never meant to be possessed. Stripped
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  Speaker 1: of its modern decorations, it's easy to think that Howard
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  Speaker 1: Carter would have had a different word for it, a curse.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of lore dot com, and until next time, stay curious,
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  Speaker 1: ye