Surprising Origins of Scientific Misconceptions and Innovations

Key Quotes

"The first person to travel into the stratosphere did so with a pillow on his head yeah so for people at home who can't see the image this is two gentlemen and they have like a basket a wicker basket and underneath is the pillow and this was a trip by Auguste Piccard and he wanted to work out some things about cosmic rays which you might go into later but the Germans where he was setting off from didn't want him to go up there they tried to ban his ascent but he was Swiss so he managed to get someone in Switzerland to say no you're allowed to do it but the Germans wouldn't have it and they said well okay you can go up but you must wear helmets and they didn't have any helmets to hand so they cobbled some together and he like it's important to wear a helmet oh yeah completely but also he was going eight or nine miles up and if it didn't work out a helmet is not going to be the thing that does or doesn't make the difference"

This quote highlights the unconventional and somewhat haphazard nature of early scientific exploration. James Harkin explains that Auguste Piccard's journey into the stratosphere, while scientifically motivated, was marked by a lack of proper equipment, such as a helmet, and a disregard for safety regulations imposed by German authorities. The interpretation emphasizes the contrast between the high-stakes scientific endeavor and the seemingly trivial safety measure of a pillow.

"people used to think that arteries carried air not blood and that the airways themselves were full of fluid so for a very very long time people thought that actually blood vessels were full of just air and in fact that's what artery means so artery means air carrier it comes from air terrain in in greek and i find this just astonishing as an anatomist because you don't have to do much digging around in the body to yeah work out that there's blood in the blood vessels and air in the airways"

Professor Alice Roberts points out a significant historical misconception in anatomy. She explains that for a long time, the word "artery," derived from the Greek for "air carrier," reflected the belief that these vessels carried air, not blood. Roberts expresses astonishment, as an anatomist, that this fundamental error persisted despite the apparent evidence of blood within these vessels.

"the makers of the film brought someone in to come up with what it would be made up of and that happened and was released only i think a few months before then the people who released what jadarite was made up of released it so it was it was right it was like it was like when deep impact and armageddon came out at the same time it was like no one had planned that"

Dan Schreiber draws a parallel between the fictional depiction of kryptonite's chemical composition in the movie Superman Returns and the real-world discovery of a mineral called jadarite. He notes the striking coincidence that the film's fictional element and the actual mineral, with a similar chemical formula, were revealed around the same time. Schreiber suggests this timing was unplanned, likening it to the simultaneous release of two similar disaster movies.

"pokémon was created by a man called satoshi tajiri and as a kid he was an insect collector he was known as doctor bug and all the students would look at his collections and they would trade bugs anyone else who was an entomologist an amateur entomologist they would trade bugs with each other and he then was also very much into video games he found a mentor who was the man who created mario and created the legends of zelda so like what a team this guy then goes do you know what i would love because all the areas that he grew up in as a kid in japan were being paved over all the bits where you could find insects were now no longer with any nature around them and he thought i want to teach that experience of what it's like to be a collector to understand the joy and so that was pokémon it was him trying to teach kids the joy of collecting pretty cool"

This quote reveals the origin of the popular franchise Pokémon. The speaker explains that Satoshi Tajiri, the creator, was inspired by his childhood passion for insect collecting. As natural habitats for insects diminished, Tajiri aimed to recreate the joy of collecting and trading through the medium of video games, thus leading to the creation of Pokémon.

"there's this absolutely amazing find which is an iron age find and it is a type of trumpet from the iron age where nobody's ever found a complete one and we have a complete one from britain and it is utterly astonishing honestly it's amazing amazing that's very cool and the archaeologists when they started excavating we're like oh we think we've got a bit of this thing called a carnyx and then they were excavating a bit more going we think maybe there's a bit more of it and they lifted it in a block because it's very fragile really fragile ancient bronze work and they took it to a hospital to x ray it and then mri scan it and of course you know that was an incredibly exciting day because they're putting it through this mri scanner and suddenly they realized they've got the whole thing in that block"

This quote describes a significant archaeological discovery. The speaker details the excavation of a complete Iron Age trumpet, known as a carnyx, in Britain, a find that is considered astonishing because complete examples are extremely rare. The process of carefully excavating and then using advanced medical imaging techniques like X-rays and MRI scans to reveal the entirety of the fragile artifact is highlighted.