Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / The Little Things

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The Little Things · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Our children are often
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  Speaker 1: seen as extensions of ourselves. They embody the best and
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  Speaker 1: the worst of us, learning by watching how we navigate
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  Speaker 1: the world. In a way, we program them like we
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  Speaker 1: would a computer, hoping they do what we tell them
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  Speaker 1: to do with as little friction as possible. We do
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  Speaker 1: our best to instill in them proper values, a solid
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  Speaker 1: work ethic, and the drive to pursue their dreams. Children
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  Speaker 1: really are the future, and for Pierre Jacquet Drows, truer
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  Speaker 1: words have never been spoken. Pierre made watches and elaborate
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  Speaker 1: mechanical objects. His skills were unmatched, and the pieces he
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  Speaker 1: created were the most precise and beautiful things a person
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  Speaker 1: could own. He built music boxes featuring ornate songbirds tweeting
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  Speaker 1: and chirping just like the real thing, their wings fluttering
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  Speaker 1: along in tones of gold and emerald. He invented new
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  Speaker 1: ways for people to wind their watches by simply using
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  Speaker 1: the motion of their bodies. Along with his son Enri
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  Speaker 1: Louis and his partner Frederic. Pierre's talents were known throughout Paris. However,
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  Speaker 1: Pierre's watches were expensive both to make and to own,
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  Speaker 1: and at some point the people with enough money to
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  Speaker 1: purchase them lost interest. Business all but dried up for
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  Speaker 1: poor Pierre, so he got an idea. The watch company
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  Speaker 1: had always been a family business, and if he was
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  Speaker 1: going to turn things around to boost sales, he'd have
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  Speaker 1: to keep it that way. So he employed his three
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  Speaker 1: other children to demonstrate their father's handiwork in neighboring cities
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  Speaker 1: and towns. One son worked as a draftsman and drew
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  Speaker 1: portraits and other pictures to illustrate the precision of his
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  Speaker 1: father's creations. Another son wrote for a living and showed
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  Speaker 1: off his impeccable penmanship to wealthy elites, comparing his artistic
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  Speaker 1: talents to those of his father. And Pierre's daughter played
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  Speaker 1: a piano like instrument called the harmonium. She serenaded crowds
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  Speaker 1: across Europe with skills she'd learned from Pierre herself, and
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  Speaker 1: the children's efforts proved successful. People came from all over
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  Speaker 1: the world to see them perform, and soon understood why
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  Speaker 1: Pierre's watches had been so popular and so expensive. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: you can still see his children perform today if you
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  Speaker 1: travel to Switzerland. They're kept behind glass at the Museum
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  Speaker 1: of Art and History in New Chatel. No, they're not
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  Speaker 1: held captive or anything. They're just too old to tour
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  Speaker 1: the way they used to. After all, they were born
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  Speaker 1: in the late seventeen hundreds. As you've probably figured out,
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  Speaker 1: Pierre's children weren't actually his children, although I'm sure he
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  Speaker 1: thought of them that way. They were called automata, androids
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  Speaker 1: developed using the horological technologies that had powered his music
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  Speaker 1: boxes and watches. Designed to look like small children, mechanisms
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  Speaker 1: within their frames allowed them to move their arms and
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  Speaker 1: hands with incredible precision. When wound up, they dazzled audiences.
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  Speaker 1: Nothing so advanced had ever been created. Charles Babbage's analytical
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  Speaker 1: engine wouldn't be developed for another seventy years, and it
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  Speaker 1: would clearly be designed to look and function as a computer,
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  Speaker 1: but not Pierre's automata. They were made to look human,
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  Speaker 1: to function like we do, and to propose the question,
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  Speaker 1: what if the technology we had available could be used
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  Speaker 1: to make our lives easier. It's a question we still
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  Speaker 1: ask ourselves now, as artificial intelligence starts to behave less
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  Speaker 1: like a computer and more like us. But Pierre Jacque
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  Speaker 1: a Drows had been pondering it long before, and his
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  Speaker 1: work speaks volumes about where he saw it all. Leading
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  Speaker 1: the Draftsman in particular, was quite the conversation piece. During
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  Speaker 1: a visit to Marie Antoinette, the boyish automaton was supposed
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  Speaker 1: to sketch a portrait of the Queen with a lead
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  Speaker 1: holder poised between its metallic fingers over a sheet of paper.
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  Speaker 1: Pierre set it to work. However, the cams that regulated
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  Speaker 1: the movement of the robots arms hadn't been ingusted properly,
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  Speaker 1: and instead of sketching the likeness of the Queen's face,
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  Speaker 1: it drew something less flattering, the picture of a dog.
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  Speaker 1: It was okay, though Marie didn't lose her head over
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  Speaker 1: it or anything. Instead, the incident reinforced Pierre's popularity with
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  Speaker 1: the French nobility and solidified his reputation all over the world.
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  Speaker 1: He lives on today in the company bearing his name,
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  Speaker 1: which still produces time pieces for those who can afford them,
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  Speaker 1: and Pierre's small wonders live on as well, and chanting
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  Speaker 1: museumgoers who want a glimpse into the future as predicted
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  Speaker 1: by the past. Inventors are often known to be a
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  Speaker 1: bit eccentric. They spend years searching for a solution to
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  Speaker 1: a problem that could change their lives or the world.
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  Speaker 1: It's a profession of obsession and it can yield miraculous
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  Speaker 1: contributions to society. However, some inventions aren't quite ready for
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  Speaker 1: the world, as was the case for John Andrews from Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: John had been sitting on a magic pill of sorts.
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  Speaker 1: He hadn't really shared it with the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: world yet, but in nineteen seventeen, as the United States
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  Speaker 1: was preparing to enter the First World War, he thought
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  Speaker 1: it was time. He drove to the Brooklyn Navy Yard
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  Speaker 1: toting a small bag with powder inside and asked us
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  Speaker 1: beek with Commander Earl Jessup and I know anyone trying
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  Speaker 1: something like that today wouldn't make it past the front gate,
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  Speaker 1: but times were different back then. Upon entry to the yard,
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  Speaker 1: John asked the commander for a bucket of salt water
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  Speaker 1: and an empty can. His demonstration was about to begin.
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  Speaker 1: He carried the two items to his trunk and a
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  Speaker 1: few minutes later, returned with a can full of water
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  Speaker 1: and the bucket now empty. The powder in his bag
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  Speaker 1: was gone. John then walked over to a boat bobbing
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  Speaker 1: in the water nearby. Its fuel tank was empty, and
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  Speaker 1: he filled it with the contents of the can, as
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  Speaker 1: well as an additional half gallon of water. He started
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  Speaker 1: the engine. Instead of sputtering and choking like any other
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  Speaker 1: engine would when flooded with something other than gasoline, the
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  Speaker 1: boat's motor rev to life. It ran until it had
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  Speaker 1: used up all the fuel John had poured into it.
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  Speaker 1: The commander was more than impressed. He was baffled since
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  Speaker 1: he hadn't seen what John had done behind the car.
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  Speaker 1: He thought perhaps the ventor had dumped the bucket of
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  Speaker 1: water out and replaced it with real gas instead. Worried
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  Speaker 1: he might be in the presence of a skilled con artist,
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  Speaker 1: he invited John back the next day for another demonstration.
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  Speaker 1: This time he stuck him in a room with only
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  Speaker 1: one door and no way of disposing of any liquid,
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  Speaker 1: no sinks on the wall or drains in the floor.
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  Speaker 1: They brought him another bucket of salt water and an
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  Speaker 1: empty can. When John came back out, he handed the
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  Speaker 1: commander the can now full of liquid just like the
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  Speaker 1: day before, and just like the day before, they poured
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  Speaker 1: it into an empty fuel tank and started the engine
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  Speaker 1: without fail. The commander was convinced John Andrews had created
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  Speaker 1: something that could turn the tide of war for the
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  Speaker 1: Allies and make millions, maybe billions, of dollars for himself
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  Speaker 1: and the United States government. However, the commander's higher ups
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  Speaker 1: needed some time to think what this stranger had presented
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  Speaker 1: to them was indeed a miracle of modern science, it
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  Speaker 1: was also highly suspect. They dismissed John from the yard
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  Speaker 1: and told him to wait at home until they called
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  Speaker 1: on him again. A few days later, they asked him
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  Speaker 1: to come back. He never showed up. The Navy sent
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  Speaker 1: officers out to his house to check on him, and
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  Speaker 1: found the home's interior to be a wreck. Papers were
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  Speaker 1: strewn everywhere, furniture had been knocked over, and it looked
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  Speaker 1: as if there had been a struggle. It was thought
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  Speaker 1: that John might have been abducted, perhaps for the formula
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  Speaker 1: to his wonder powder, but he hadn't been kidnapped. He
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  Speaker 1: had left in a hurry for England, where it was
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  Speaker 1: discovered he was talking to the British government about his invention,
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  Speaker 1: and thanks to John's hard work, the world has now
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  Speaker 1: weaned itself off of fossil fuels in favor of a
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  Speaker 1: more sustainable power source in our motor vehicles. No, just kidding,
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  Speaker 1: Nothing ever came from John Andrews water fuel. He traveled
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  Speaker 1: back across the ocean and made a home for himself
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  Speaker 1: in Canada, but his incredible invention never made it past
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  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Other claim aims of a gasoline
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  Speaker 1: pill have circulated over the years, and the stories often
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  Speaker 1: in the same way. The inventor would have made millions
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  Speaker 1: and change the world if the government and the oil
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  Speaker 1: industry hadn't made them disappear. We may never know the
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  Speaker 1: truth about what happened to John Andrews. Powder. Scientists have
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  Speaker 1: claimed the existence of such a substance is chemically impossible,
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  Speaker 1: but new iterations keep popping up. In the nineteen eighties,
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  Speaker 1: a man in China claim to have a liquid he
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  Speaker 1: could add to water that would convert it into fuel.
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  Speaker 1: A South Indian man in the mid nineties also claimed
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  Speaker 1: to possess such a formula. All of them dried up
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  Speaker 1: as quickly as they were announced. It seems such a
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  Speaker 1: lofty promise to turn water into fuel just can't help
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  Speaker 1: but run out of gas. I hope you've enjoyed today's
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: visit it in Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.