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De-Coda · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. What's in a name? Well, for Hans,
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  Speaker 1: his name meant everything. Hans was born in Vienna, Austria,
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine, and he studied under physicist Philip
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  Speaker 1: Gross at the University of Vienna. After earning his degree
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  Speaker 1: in chemistry, Hans went on to join a group of
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  Speaker 1: German scientists working on a special project during World War Two.
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  Speaker 1: They had been tasked with developing an atomic weapon to
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  Speaker 1: be used against the Allies. In nineteen forty three, Allied
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  Speaker 1: forces managed to sabotage the hydroelectric power plant where those
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  Speaker 1: German scientists were processing heavy water. A series of bombing
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  Speaker 1: raids over the following months finished the job and Hans
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  Speaker 1: was forced to find new work. After spending some time
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  Speaker 1: on other projects in Europe, Hans moved to the United
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  Speaker 1: States and began studying the composition of meteorites. In a
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  Speaker 1: relatively new field called chemical cosmology or cosmo chemistry at
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  Speaker 1: the University of Chicago. His work there brought into the
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  Speaker 1: u S Geological Survey in the nineteen fifties, where he
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  Speaker 1: did some of his most famous research on how carbon
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  Speaker 1: traveled throughout the atmosphere. Hans analyzed trees by measuring the
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  Speaker 1: presence of carbon isotopes in their rings, those same rings
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  Speaker 1: that are used to calculated trees. H now, to be fair,
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  Speaker 1: he hadn't gone into his research with any goal of
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  Speaker 1: a big groundbreaking discovery. Aside from satisfying his own curiosity.
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  Speaker 1: He had hoped to maybe make the science of carbon
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  Speaker 1: dating a bit more accurate. Instead, Hans found something strange.
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  Speaker 1: While studying the carbon fourteen levels of a normal piece
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  Speaker 1: of wood in nineteen fifty five, he detected the presence
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  Speaker 1: of a carbon isotope not found in atmospheric c O two.
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  Speaker 1: What he'd found was the kind of isotope created by
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  Speaker 1: burning fossil fuels. Hans spun his discovery into a new
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  Speaker 1: avenue of research, investigating whether the oceans of the Earth
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  Speaker 1: has stored carbon within their waters. Hans teamed up with
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  Speaker 1: oceanographer Roger Ravel to conduct carbon fourteen studies in the
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  Speaker 1: planet's oceans. Their scientific paper, published in nineteen fifty seven,
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  Speaker 1: concluded that carbon dioxide created by fossil fuel combustion had
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  Speaker 1: not lingered in the upper atmosphere as other scientists had theorized. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: much of it was being absorbed by the oceans. However,
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  Speaker 1: if emissions continued to grow at their current rate, he said,
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  Speaker 1: then carbon dioxide would collect in the atmosphere and trap
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  Speaker 1: the Sun's heat, increasing the Earth's surface temperature. We call
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  Speaker 1: this phenomenon the greenhouse effect. An article in an Indiana
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  Speaker 1: newspaper dubbed the phenomenon global warming, the first time anyone
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  Speaker 1: had ever used the term. Hans and Revel had brought
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  Speaker 1: the concept of man made climate change to everyone's attention,
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  Speaker 1: academic and layman alike. Hans eventually moved to Lahoya, California,
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  Speaker 1: where he spent the remainder of his life. He'd frequently
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  Speaker 1: received letters from admirers, mostly children, who had read his
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  Speaker 1: books and wanted to tell him how much his work
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  Speaker 1: had meant to them. There's just one problem. Hans hadn't
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  Speaker 1: written any books, especially ones for children. You see, the
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  Speaker 1: United States Postal Service had been accidentally delivering some other
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  Speaker 1: person's mail to the scientist. That's because there was another
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  Speaker 1: doctor living in Lahoya with a surprisingly similar name. Hans's
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  Speaker 1: last name was spelled s U E S S. The
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  Speaker 1: other doctor's name was spelled s E U S S
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  Speaker 1: with the E and U flipped. Both though were pronounced
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  Speaker 1: the same way SEUs, and it seems that Dr hunts
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  Speaker 1: SEUs had been getting letters and bills meant for the
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  Speaker 1: other Dr SEUs, the pen name of children's author Theodore Geisel.
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  Speaker 1: Hans SEUs passed away in his personal research papers were
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  Speaker 1: sent to the University of California, San Diego, where they
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  Speaker 1: have been cataloged and stored ever since. However, if you
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  Speaker 1: go to the library to look up his work, make
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  Speaker 1: sure you spell his name correctly, otherwise you might end
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  Speaker 1: up poring over the artwork and drafts of such best
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  Speaker 1: sellers as Green Eggs and Ham and the Cats and
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  Speaker 1: the Hat. Dr Seus's collection of items, including sketches, notebooks, videos,
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  Speaker 1: and photos, are housed within the main library building at
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  Speaker 1: you See San Diego. It probably doesn't help that the
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  Speaker 1: building bears the name of the man who wrote a
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  Speaker 1: scathing critique of industry and its effects on the environment
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  Speaker 1: if we don't change our ways. And no, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: talking about Dr hunts SEUs. The library was named for
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  Speaker 1: the man who brought us the Lorax, one of the
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  Speaker 1: few manuscripts not present at the library of You see
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  Speaker 1: San Diego, a building otherwise known as the Geisel Library.
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  Speaker 1: At first, it didn't look like much. In the nineteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: archaeologists digging among the ruins of the royal palace in
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  Speaker 1: the ancient city of Ugurt in Syria uncovered a collection
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  Speaker 1: of clay tablets, most of which had crumbled and deteriorated,
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  Speaker 1: leaving behind just a few fragments of text, but one
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  Speaker 1: remained intact. The tablet was cataloged while academics worked on
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  Speaker 1: deciphering the wedge shaped characters. Transcribing it proved difficult. The
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  Speaker 1: Hyrian language had long been extinct, so it wasn't until
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight that language experts Emmanuel Laroche made a
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  Speaker 1: shocking discovery. The tablet, dating back to the fourteenth century
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  Speaker 1: b c e. Contained a hymn, making it the oldest
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  Speaker 1: fully documented piece of music still in existence. While archaeologists
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  Speaker 1: had unearthed musical instruments made mostly of ivory, and bone
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  Speaker 1: that date back further than the tablet. They had never
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  Speaker 1: found a complete musical melody intact before, so the museum
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  Speaker 1: in Damascus was now home to the world's oldest recorded song,
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  Speaker 1: and no one knew what all the words were, much
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  Speaker 1: less how to play it. Interpretation was difficult, as the
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  Speaker 1: Herian language had long died out. What they could translate
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  Speaker 1: was that the hymn had been written to Nicoll, the
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  Speaker 1: ancient goddess of orchards and the daughter of the summer King.
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  Speaker 1: Once I have endeared the deity, the hymn starts out,
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  Speaker 1: she will love me in her heart. There are several
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  Speaker 1: lines to the verse and three interpretations, two of which
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  Speaker 1: came from Laroche. While a few lines mentioned fruit, the
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  Speaker 1: last line implies fertility. Even to the experts, it's unclear
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  Speaker 1: if the melody was meant to appeal to the goddess's
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  Speaker 1: blessing of a harvest or for children, or both. Now
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  Speaker 1: trans posing the hymn was difficult enough, but in the
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  Speaker 1: early nineteen seventies academics set out to put the lyrics
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  Speaker 1: to music. The back of the tablet contained instructions for
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  Speaker 1: tuning a musical instrument, most likely a nine string Babylonian liar,
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  Speaker 1: the most likely instrument of the time. Another section of
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  Speaker 1: the tablet contained what appeared to be musical interludes, and
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  Speaker 1: even more difficult, the text, written in a spiral pattern,
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  Speaker 1: alternated from the front of the tablet to the back,
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  Speaker 1: and changes were indicated by interval names and number signs.
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  Speaker 1: It was all a mystery, and although professors and academics
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  Speaker 1: of life eventually paired up the instructions, it wasn't a
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  Speaker 1: matter of just sitting down and playing the notes. You see,
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  Speaker 1: sheet music as we know it wouldn't be used for
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  Speaker 1: another two thousand years. Once more, specialists in the field
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  Speaker 1: of music and language found themselves stumped. The problem was
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  Speaker 1: that when the unknown composer wrote to him, instructions revolved
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  Speaker 1: around a heptatonic scale, keeping it as simple as possible.
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  Speaker 1: It looks nothing like modern music. The arrangement between the
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  Speaker 1: words and how the notes are played came down to
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  Speaker 1: not only the interpretation of those words, but matching pitches
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  Speaker 1: and tone per octive with nothing familiar to go on. Basically,
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  Speaker 1: on the scale of difficulty, matching hearing and lyrics and
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  Speaker 1: music to modern day sheet music was a feat akin
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  Speaker 1: to understanding Einstein's theory of relativity written in a different language.
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  Speaker 1: Not only was the culture long gone, the specific characters
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  Speaker 1: indicated a localized version of the dialect, a sort of
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  Speaker 1: local slang. The knowledge they had of the Hearing in
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  Speaker 1: people seem tenuous at best. It wouldn't be until nineteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy two when the tablet was finally decoded, and the
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  Speaker 1: best part. This breakthrough allowed the piece to be set
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  Speaker 1: to modern music, and it played to the public for
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  Speaker 1: the first time in nineteen seventy four. Orchestras, guitarists, and
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  Speaker 1: other musicians have played their own interpretations of Hearing and
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  Speaker 1: Him Number six over the years since then. Though there
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  Speaker 1: are different renditions of the Him, the melody is always
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  Speaker 1: hauntingly beautiful. If music is the universal language, then perhaps
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  Speaker 1: the Hearing in Him is proof that music bridges time
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  Speaker 1: and culture, and that should be music to our ears.
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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
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the world of Lore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.