The stories you put together is amazing...that connections you make between different great minds, their experiments and learnings simply awestruck me.
I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS!!! I'm so glad I found your videos, Kathy. So far the only thing I could find like this was a book called "Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein", but it didn't go in depth at the beginning like you do. Edit: You WROTE A BOOK?!?! This is a like miracle! Like an answered prayer! Yes!
Great video as always. Little imprecision: the building in Rome you show in the picture is the Pantheon, not the Parthenon. The latter is located in Greece. Regards,
Kathy, I love you and your videos! Having had the honor of visiting both, I confirm you showed the Pantheon 😜 ("both" meaning not you and the videos, Parthenon and Pantheon!)
All your content is very, very good. It should be used to teach physics because it is both precise and human (people are, after all, who discovered all these things). The length is also great, given the short attention span of many of today's students.
I've learned more in a few weeks of watching your channel then years of school. You do well showing how all these concepts fit together to make one understanding! Thank you
The Inquisition, what a show, The Inquisition, here we go, I bet you're wishing that we'd go away... but The Inquisition is here and it's here to stay!!
2:30 - reminds me of the words of James Burke’s Connections series when he said “ there was time when you could not talk about nothing. That’s not a double negative, you couldn’t talk about nothing, nothing as in the vacuum.”
The first xerox, was made by exposing sulphur plates to light. They realized it lost its static electric charge when exposed. Carlson pitched this idea and they improved the proof of concept. The idea was to charge the paper, expose it, cover it with powder with tiny flakes of plastics, and melt the ‘toner’ to the paper. They knew about sulphur and its interesting electric properties back then so it makes sense he would use a sulphur ball, even though it’s funny to make fun of and call stinky.
These are called electrostatic photocopiers. And were multiple separate machines set up in stages so making a copy was a a full process. But less than that of negatives and chemical like Prussian blueprints. I highly recommend watching Tim Hunkin’s Secret Life of Machines photocopier episode for more info
Great great info Kathy, Id like to point out: solid sulfur barely smells, 2 solid sulfur is easily electrified by rubbing it with cloth ( think wool), 3 at that time there were not other easy obtainable matereial to electrify, could have been glass but to make a ball off glass was more difficult than making a ball of sulfur... may be wax would work but it melts as it is rubbed... wood, even is an isolator cant be electrified... should try wood covered with wax.. and more solid resin ( wich petrified is ambar) was not esily found.. bottom line: what an advanced idea to model world gravity with electrified sphere!!!
@@jhoughjr1 that´s what i said but dry wood treated with enamel or wax is a great isolator electrosrtatic machines past centuries were made with wood mostly
Enjoy your videos,you have a charming personality that suits the subject,and it makes me think of all the experiments we did at school,great times,thanks again please keep teaching reminding us..
These are super. I feel like I'm learning something about the motivation behind scientific discovery. Well, at least one perspective from the 21st Century. You might enjoy David Barron's book on the American Eclipse (1878). He looks at Edison, and to a lesser extent Bell and the development of the National Academy of Science, and the first publication by the AAAS, all within the context of eclipse astronomy.
There used to be this show on public television when i was a kid called “connections”. Anybody remember that one? These videos remind me a lot of that show. The host would take a lot of seemingly random and unconnected historical events and concepts usually within a scientific framework and weave them together into a nice little package that was both entertaining and informative.
Kathy! Recently discovered your fideos....I'm retirted after 40 years of teaching Chemistry and Physics, high school level. SULFUR, the yellow element has almost no detectible smell. Most of it's compounds are just the opposite.....H2S,...hydrogen sulfide is the rotten egg smell (and incidentally an order of magnitude more toxic than cyanide) SO2, sulfur dioxide is the burned match smell...etc
The whole Gaileo (and copernicus and Keppler) story is ALOT more complicated than that. And fascinating. Galileo was really the first one who got in trouble with the church over that topic and even that was not nearly as simple. As ususal with popular stories from history. And there are several of those connected with the topic. Like Copernicus "releasing his book on his death bed to avoid punishment". Highly recommend Stargazers: Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope and the Church by Allan Chapman (a Oxford history professor). It goes in the history but also the science of the topic. The bottom line is that the main oppostion to them was the academic world at the time who sat very comfortably for a whopping 1500+years in the Ptolomy/Aristotle idea of the world, which they were NOT willing to give up very easily and without hard evidence. The church didn't really care until the second Galileo trial. Also purely scientifially fascinating how it took a VERY long time and was suprisingly difficult to unquestionably prove heliocentricism, long after it was widely accepted. And there is even a fun fact in the topic. After Galileo got convicted by the roman inquisition, they told their collegues from the ( usually FAR more radical) spanish inquisition to add that conviction to their files. But because the spanish inquisition didn't like to be told what to do, they didn't. With the funny effect that the far more radical and brutal spanish Inquisition actuall never convicted Galieo.
I searched; you didn't make a video on Gasparo Berti. The tube Torcelli used was of the design that Gasparo Berti used first. I hope you'd make a video on Berti's work as well, or at least you’d mention him in some other video. I find your list the most complete one and useful on youtube. Jim Al-khalili's doc is great but short and with a lot of missed points. Thanks for putting such effort untiringly for everybody.
I think I can shed some light on the sulphur ball. I have no idea why S was chosen but I know it doesn’t stink. I regularly use it as a fungicide and it hardly has any smell at all. What stinks are most sulphur COMPOUNDS, such as Hydrogen sulfide (formula H ₂S a colorless gas with the characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs) and Sulfur dioxide (formula SO ₂ a toxic gas responsible for the smell of burnt matches). Sulphur compounds are also responsible for the strong smell of a lot of food such as onions, garlic, cabbages, cauliflower, Bruxelles sprouts, kale and so on. Btw, Great series of videos. 👍 Somebody recommended the channel on the comment section of an astronomy video and here I am, working my way through the back catalogue. 😀
But if you let sulfur get a little damp, it will disproportionate with water into oxides and hydrogen sulfide, and it's primarily the hydrogen sulfide that you smell. Fresh sulfur is bright yellow, but it darkens to a tan color on exposure. So I wouldn't so easily dismiss the stinkiness of a ball of sulfur.
Given the technology of the era, with no plastics, how else would you make an insulating sphere? Sulphur is a good insulator that easily takes a static charge and melts at ordinary lab temperatures so can be readily moulded into shape. Strictly the sphere doesn't have to insulate, only the string does, but that would have been harder. A blown glass sphere or marble would probably have worked, but it's harder to charge.
Love your videos! I hope you will NUMBER the videos so we can watch them in order or find them quickly. Keep it up, looking forward to your new book on Electricity.
Starting from the inquisition reminded me of the late science historian James Burke who wrote of just such odd connections in his book and endearing BBC series, "Connections". Physics is filled with - and I hope you narrate other such stories.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics - Yes, to the best of my knowledge JB is still with us. However, we lost David Kennard last year to cancer. He was the producer (and occasional director) of "Connections" plus the original "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan, "Hal's Legacy" with AC Clarke, and other science documentaries. He also produced documentaries on the arts and history like "Keeping Score" with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. His last films were a trilogy on the European wine industry, "A Year in Burgundy," "A Year in Champagne" and "A Year in Port." I had the honor of working with him a little trying to do a three-part series on the importance of having a vigorous space program based on a couple of my books. I did some treatments that we shopped around, but, as usual, we couldn't find the funding.
Love your channel! But Galileo didn't "prostate" himself (though that might be interesting...) but he did 'prostrate' himself. I listened closely and... yeah, ya did... And that's not the Parthenon. That's a domed cathedral. 3:02 You said "water pumps cannot pump more than 33 feet" which is a misrepresentation. A perfect vacuum at the top of a tube cannot pull water up more than 33 feet at sea level. Water pumps can push water uphill readily depending on the power applied, but always fail at pulling it upwards. Still, I love this channel and sub'd.
Jack D. Ripper eek after all that I’m not sure *I* should follow myself! 🤣 I know my pronunciation is a little, ahem, off. It was worse in the early videos I think. Sorry about that. Speaking of mistakes I meant the Pantheon not the Parthenon. Eek. Thanks for subbing despite my many mistakes.
@@osmanfb1 I noticed the mistake immediately, then saw your comment from two hours ago... btw I spent New Years eve 1969 at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, hoping to go up to the Parthenon, but it was closed for the evening. A few weeks later I was standing under the oculus in the Pantheon... thank you US Navy.
First thank you very much for your videos. It has made learning about a topic that I was already very curious in that much more exciting. I know I may be late to the party so this information may have already been but that stinky ball comment was always a bit funny to me as it as it was for proabably may others well while doing some research here and there Otto von Guericke very basic sulfur static crank powered generator came up. Apparently after he spun the ball he could take it off the machine and show your hair stand on end once he brings his stinky magic wand close to it
Francisco José de Caldas measured the barometric effect a few years before Torricelli but he missed at publishing the finding and Torricelli got the historical upper hand
I have to go halfway through this video. Kathy I haven't heard you mention what atmospheric pressure is on the human is there standing there in your backyard. I believe it's 14 plus PSI? Please advise. Nice job as always
I wonder if Guericke was really capable of thinking that putting two teams of twelve horses each to pull in opposite directions would produce more force on the sphere than one team of twelve horses pulling on the sphere with the other end tied to a tree. When two teams pull against each other, the weaker team is pulled backwards along with the sphere as soon as the stronger team generates more force. Therefore, the force on the sphere cannot exceed the force developed by the weaker team.
Theories that are technically incorrect can actually teach us more than theories that tested correct the first time. I can tell you, I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes. The fact that the sulfur ball did not actually model gravity was very lucky indeed. Does anyone else experience religious levels of ecstasy when they learn from a mistake? Oh. Just me, huh?
We definitely learn more from our failures but I wouldn’t call Guericke’s ball a failure as much as an old fashioned method of using science as a philosophic model which isn’t science but can certainly lead to scientific discoveries despite that.
This is the most enlightening TH-cam I have ever seen, but before I give my reason for saying why, I say this, let me give you an insight into the Sulphur. Sulphur is a semiconductor and it was used sulphur as the surface coating in the first generations of photocopiers. The sulphur surface coating would be charged up, then light reflected from the paper of the document being copied would discharge the surface. On the surface where no light fell because dark ink on the copied paper, the sulphur surface coating would remain charged, and that charge would not migrate into the surrounding surface. We now have a charge image on the sulphur surface coating that matches the dark ink on the document being copied. This charge image attacks charged toner onto the copy paper, where it is baked on. What has this to do with this TH-cam clip? It slows down the process of charging of the attracted feather. So that we see that the feather becoming charged to the same voltage as the sulphur sphere takes some time. Back to my first point. Early in the clip we learned that it is not the vacuum pulling things together, it is the pressure of the surrounding air, which pushes them together. A vacuum is zero pressure, it displays the reality of the surrounding air pressure. Yet we fail to see this when we look at electrostatics. When the voltage difference between the feather and the sulphur sphere falls to zero the feather is attracted by the voltage gradient between it and the surroundings, away from the sulphur sphere. We have for hundreds of years accepted that a zero air pressure does not attract, yet we still hold on to the notion that a zero voltage between two charged objects pushes them apart. A zero value does nothing, except expose the effects of the surroundings. As Rutherford said “We didn’t have the money so we had to think.”
Hello Why did the objects on the sulphur ball (and ur balloon) fly off a d repel after some time? So initially the like charges are repelled on the object and it gets attracted to the ball/ balloon. What next?
So when you rub the sulphur ball (or a balloon) extra electrons are left on the ball and leave it with a net negative charge. Then some of the electrons in the feather are repelled by the ball and move away from the ball leaving a positive part of the feather near to the ball and attracting the positive side of the feather to the ball (at this point, the feather is neutral in total, with a positive side and a negative side). After a time, some electrons from the ball jump onto the positive side of the feather leaving the feather with a net negative charge. The ball still retains enough electrons to also stay negative so the negative ball repels the negative feather.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Thanks! I think you will like these animated videos on History of Electricity, although they are in Hindi...it is told from the point of view of Michael Faraday reading books on history of electricity...the series is under development. www.prathamopenschool.org/hn/Lesson/LES941
He wasn't the only one who drew a connection, real or not, between electricity and gravity. Faraday also thought as much as did many others. This theoretical force called gravity which cannot be measured in the same direct way electric or magnetic forces are. It is calculated based on density of an object and the gravitational constant for which Newton knew no mechanism for. And then Einstein made it a geometry of a 4D spacetime matrix. Still, not directly measurable. GC was the first God of Modernity as it is an anomaly without explanation and therefore just an effect. I also love the quote, "We live at the bottom of an ocean of air". Of course I don't know what I am talking about. ;)
The air pressure pushes into a partial vacuum. In other words, if you pull some of the air out of a container (by expanding the container so that the air is less dense) then the air in the atmosphere will push in to replace it. Did that make sense?
Gravity...which we call "buoyance" when it's arranged to make something float. Gravity is pulling the atmosphere down, which is why we even have an atmosphere. At the bottom of the atmosphere is all that pressure caused by the weight of the air above, which has no place to escape to down here. So that column of mercury is being pulled down by gravity, but balanced by the air which is also being pulled down by gravity. Imagine an equal-arm balance with a column of mercury on one pan and a column of air on the other.
What do you think of "Connections" and other works by James Burke? Your videos would be better if you had his film budget. But they are still very good.
His films are so much fun and I used to watch them as a kid and just adored them but now I know so many details that I am kind of objecting to what’s going on in the screen. I would love love love to have a budget of any kind let alone his kind of budget
In the year 1778 spanish admiral Luis de Cordova y Cordova, well into his 70's, as head of the spanish and french fleet, inflicted a great loss to the british, captured the 74 gun Ardent, and collapsed the stock and commerce in the British isles. When confronted by the french Count de Guichen as to why he would not finally invaded the country, one of the reasons he gave was that the weather was about to change for worse. Sure enough the weather did change and the french wondered how the spanish could make such forecasts. The secret was in the extremely sensitive onboard barometers they used, a top secret device in the day. They had begun to use them a few years before the XVIIIth century french-spanish alliance
Enjoy your videos. Correction is needed for this one. Sulfur does not smell like a rotten egg. It barely smells at all. What does smell like a rotten egg is a sulfur compound called hydrogen sulfide.
Damn you, Kathy! Your videos always end unexpectedly with "...and then...But that will be on the next episode of..." NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You are an evil diva, but I still love you!
Great question, all charged objects will attract neutral objects and eventually some of the charged particles will move from the charged object to the neutral object and cause the formerly neutral object to be repelled. However, you have to wait and amber is so insulating that it takes a while for the charged particles to move.
4+ years after the release of this video and…Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! I don't know if it's still there but at California State University East Bay in Hayward, CA there was an actual water barometer attached to the side of a building walkway. (I don't if it's still there as I found this during a fire alarm inspection I did on this campus years ago.)
The reason why he used sulfur and mercury and you see all the famous scientists or philosophers following the same path, because they were mostly reading alchemy and hermetics and what they used to call 'old knowledge'
The stinky ball may simply be a metaphor for an incomplete theory for the natural forces that gravity and electromagnetism represent, but which were essential unknown or incompletely described.
True, they didn't know much about gravity and even less about electromagnetism in 1660. Still, I feel like it was more of a pseudoscience "analogy" where he really thought that the Earth was alive - like it spun because the animals didn't want to get to cold or hot! I think that the cranky doctor William Gilbert (who named electricity) would have really disliked it. I can almost feel him seeing Guericke and saying (as he did in his book) that Guericke was one of the, "light-headed metaphysicians” who “employ the magnet or amber… as an illustration of all sorts of things…. they treat the subject esoterically, miracle-mongeringly, abstrusely, reconditely, [and] mystically" You can tell that I am a bit of a curmudgeon too! :)
I'm certain that's true, and (as is the fad of our times)likely genetically derived to some extent as an inherent personality disposition coupled with environment conditioning. The process of discovery and science itself is a stumbling path. The quote you provided from Newton referencing Hauksbee, reminded me so much of Frank Oppenheimer stating that he was going to pay every one for every hour they worked while carefully avoiding paying everyone 1.5 time or double time for every hour they worked overtime. He also fostered having obsequious and talented staff. Being a biologist outside of his realm of expertise provided me with a different perspective on the entire operation and its development. Are you to be incorporating these videos into your classroom?
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Well, wait until you get to my critical comment about your omission of Mahlon Loomis, who had a theory which could be called cranky but which accidentally produced radio long before other claimants.
If you look at a table of conductivities of the elements which are solid at room temperature, sulfur has the lowest electrical conductivity by far. I can’t look it up right now, but I remember it as more than an order of magnitude lower than its nearest competitor. Maybe this would help it hold onto charge when mounted on a metal shaft because it couldnt leak away easily, and when the surface of the ball was rough, since charge couldn’t migrate to points and discharge into the air. I bet the balls were stinky even though elemental sulfur is not, because being used in electricity experiments would generate sparks, and even tiny sparks would be enough to combust a tiny bit of sulfur to sulfur dioxide.
The numbers you are looking for, the resistivity for pure elements: sulfur is: 2x10²² µΩ cm followed by white phosphorous 1x10¹⁷ µΩ cm, with sulfur having a 200000x higher resistivity (source CRC Handbook) and 3/4 of the periodic table are metals. White phosphorus would not even have been an alternative here, being toxic, soft and self-igniting. Also there were not many other alternatives around at the time - amber would have been too rare and expensive, most other organic materials where to soft (tar, wax), glass is not a good insulator when exposed to humidity, glass and ceramics are more difficult to form into a perfect sphere. And as others have already pointed out, sulfur was readily available and a staple item for any researcher/alchemist at the time.
you know what you are one of the few gems on youtube .
Very true
This is so good. Your passion is contagious and your information so well presented. What a delight!
The stories you put together is amazing...that connections you make between different great minds, their experiments and learnings simply awestruck me.
Thanks
The Pantheon (pictured in your video) is in Rome, the Parthenon is in Greece.
I WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING JUST LIKE THIS!!! I'm so glad I found your videos, Kathy. So far the only thing I could find like this was a book called "Electrodynamics from Ampere to Einstein", but it didn't go in depth at the beginning like you do.
Edit: You WROTE A BOOK?!?! This is a like miracle! Like an answered prayer! Yes!
Thank you for your kind words it makes me feel so wonderful to read them. You made my day.
Great video as always.
Little imprecision: the building in Rome you show in the picture is the Pantheon, not the Parthenon. The latter is located in Greece.
Regards,
Kathy, I love you and your videos! Having had the honor of visiting both, I confirm you showed the Pantheon 😜 ("both" meaning not you and the videos, Parthenon and Pantheon!)
All your content is very, very good. It should be used to teach physics because it is both precise and human (people are, after all, who discovered all these things). The length is also great, given the short attention span of many of today's students.
I've learned more in a few weeks of watching your channel then years of school. You do well showing how all these concepts fit together to make one understanding! Thank you
I learned a lot of this in High School, but High School was 55 years ago. Thanks for the refresher.
The Inquisition, what a show, The Inquisition, here we go, I bet you're wishing that we'd go away... but The Inquisition is here and it's here to stay!!
Manifest today as cancel culture.
Kathy, you are such a wealth of information. Torr is from Galelio's assistant, Torreccili. You learn something new everyday :-)
I LOVE your videos so much! You make them so interesting, way better then Crash course!
2:30 - reminds me of the words of James Burke’s Connections series when he said “ there was time when you could not talk about nothing. That’s not a double negative, you couldn’t talk about nothing, nothing as in the vacuum.”
Actually her whole approach in this channel reminds me of "Connections", which is a compliment.
New here as of 01/06/2022 and decided to start at the beginning.
Your enthusiasm is contagious... Well done.
Thanks- you have a lot of videos to get through 🤪
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Thank you. At three a day it will only take a month.
@@johnpeter4184 good hint. I started from square one also. Can’t skip the comments.🧐
The first xerox, was made by exposing sulphur plates to light. They realized it lost its static electric charge when exposed. Carlson pitched this idea and they improved the proof of concept. The idea was to charge the paper, expose it, cover it with powder with tiny flakes of plastics, and melt the ‘toner’ to the paper. They knew about sulphur and its interesting electric properties back then so it makes sense he would use a sulphur ball, even though it’s funny to make fun of and call stinky.
These are called electrostatic photocopiers. And were multiple separate machines set up in stages so making a copy was a a full process. But less than that of negatives and chemical like Prussian blueprints. I highly recommend watching Tim Hunkin’s Secret Life of Machines photocopier episode for more info
Great great info Kathy, Id like to point out: solid sulfur barely smells, 2 solid sulfur is easily electrified by rubbing it with cloth ( think wool), 3 at that time there were not other easy obtainable matereial to electrify, could have been glass but to make a ball off glass was more difficult than making a ball of sulfur... may be wax would work but it melts as it is rubbed... wood, even is an isolator cant be electrified... should try wood covered with wax.. and more solid resin ( wich petrified is ambar) was not esily found.. bottom line: what an advanced idea to model world gravity with electrified sphere!!!
keep in mind wood will conduct at high voltages.
@@jhoughjr1 that´s what i said but dry wood treated with enamel or wax is a great isolator electrosrtatic machines past centuries were made with wood mostly
The history of science and how the modern world was created is one of the
most interesting stories of all.
Hi Kathy, great video and great series. Many thanks!
Robert McGeorge so glad you liked it.
Excellent presentation, lot's of interesting stuff. Thanks a lot for the video. Colin UK 🇬🇧
Kathy , your enthusiasm is catching. Have subscribed and thumbs up!
Nice video! A small correction: Galileo didn't "prostate" himself, he "prostrated" himself. Keep up the good work!
Oops 😳
Nice x=catch! Also, it's the "Pantheon", not the "Parthenon"....
Thanks for that, Paul. I was wondering what sort of customs existed back then.
Yeah, lot of people make this mistake. These words aren't used very often.
Another great lesson. You are a good teacher.
Enjoy your videos,you have a charming personality that suits the subject,and it makes me think of all the experiments we did at school,great times,thanks again please keep teaching reminding us..
These are super. I feel like I'm learning something about the motivation behind scientific discovery. Well, at least one perspective from the 21st Century. You might enjoy David Barron's book on the American Eclipse (1878). He looks at Edison, and to a lesser extent Bell and the development of the National Academy of Science, and the first publication by the AAAS, all within the context of eclipse astronomy.
That sounds fascinating! I will definitely check them out. I am glad you liked these videos.
There used to be this show on public television when i was a kid called “connections”. Anybody remember that one? These videos remind me a lot of that show. The host would take a lot of seemingly random and unconnected historical events and concepts usually within a scientific framework and weave them together into a nice little package that was both entertaining and informative.
Yes that was really interesting serie.
James Burkes' Connections series is still enjoyable and educational to watch th-cam.com/video/XetplHcM7aQ/w-d-xo.html
Your critiques of these guys' physical appearance is cracking me up. Also, great channel, thank you and keep up the good work!
Except where she criticized Heaviside's hairdo on a video where it looked like she hadn't combed since waking up herself.
@@goodmaroSometimes we like to laugh when we see ourselves in a mirror :)
Excellent documentary. Informative, clear and entertaining. Thank you.
your videos are awesome.
This information is only for you invention is freedom.
Kathy! Recently discovered your fideos....I'm retirted after 40 years of teaching Chemistry and Physics, high school level. SULFUR, the yellow element has almost no detectible smell. Most of it's compounds are just the opposite.....H2S,...hydrogen sulfide is the rotten egg smell (and incidentally an order of magnitude more toxic than cyanide) SO2, sulfur dioxide is the burned match smell...etc
The whole Gaileo (and copernicus and Keppler) story is ALOT more complicated than that. And fascinating. Galileo was really the first one who got in trouble with the church over that topic and even that was not nearly as simple. As ususal with popular stories from history. And there are several of those connected with the topic. Like Copernicus "releasing his book on his death bed to avoid punishment". Highly recommend Stargazers: Copernicus, Galileo, the Telescope and the Church by Allan Chapman (a Oxford history professor). It goes in the history but also the science of the topic.
The bottom line is that the main oppostion to them was the academic world at the time who sat very comfortably for a whopping 1500+years in the Ptolomy/Aristotle idea of the world, which they were NOT willing to give up very easily and without hard evidence. The church didn't really care until the second Galileo trial. Also purely scientifially fascinating how it took a VERY long time and was suprisingly difficult to unquestionably prove heliocentricism, long after it was widely accepted.
And there is even a fun fact in the topic. After Galileo got convicted by the roman inquisition, they told their collegues from the ( usually FAR more radical) spanish inquisition to add that conviction to their files. But because the spanish inquisition didn't like to be told what to do, they didn't. With the funny effect that the far more radical and brutal spanish Inquisition actuall never convicted Galieo.
I searched; you didn't make a video on Gasparo Berti. The tube Torcelli used was of the design that Gasparo Berti used first. I hope you'd make a video on Berti's work as well, or at least you’d mention him in some other video.
I find your list the most complete one and useful on youtube. Jim Al-khalili's doc is great but short and with a lot of missed points. Thanks for putting such effort untiringly for everybody.
what a beautiful painting behind you!
I think I can shed some light on the sulphur ball. I have no idea why S was chosen but I know it doesn’t stink. I regularly use it as a fungicide and it hardly has any smell at all. What stinks are most sulphur COMPOUNDS, such as Hydrogen sulfide (formula H ₂S a colorless gas with the characteristic foul odor of rotten eggs) and Sulfur dioxide (formula SO ₂ a toxic gas responsible for the smell of burnt matches). Sulphur compounds are also responsible for the strong smell of a lot of food such as onions, garlic, cabbages, cauliflower, Bruxelles sprouts, kale and so on.
Btw, Great series of videos. 👍 Somebody recommended the channel on the comment section of an astronomy video and here I am, working my way through the back catalogue. 😀
That is fascinating but also a tiny bit disappointing as I really liked talking about stinky balls. (yes, my humor is juvenal) Thanks for the info.
But if you let sulfur get a little damp, it will disproportionate with water into oxides and hydrogen sulfide, and it's primarily the hydrogen sulfide that you smell. Fresh sulfur is bright yellow, but it darkens to a tan color on exposure. So I wouldn't so easily dismiss the stinkiness of a ball of sulfur.
Given the technology of the era, with no plastics, how else would you make an insulating sphere? Sulphur is a good insulator that easily takes a static charge and melts at ordinary lab temperatures so can be readily moulded into shape. Strictly the sphere doesn't have to insulate, only the string does, but that would have been harder. A blown glass sphere or marble would probably have worked, but it's harder to charge.
I don't see how any of this interferes with talking about smelly balls.
@@timjackson3954 agree.. in prior comment , I disagree with marble: I think it cant be electrified, same as wood
That was fun! Thanks for doing it, Kathy.
I love all your videos. So very interesting and well explained. You are the best.
Love your videos! I hope you will NUMBER the videos so we can watch them in order or find them quickly. Keep it up, looking forward to your new book on Electricity.
A stinky ball on a stick - and ridiculous theory. That’s gold and I had a good laugh from this!
But it's unfair to call the theory ridiculous. Given what was known at the time, it was worth a shot.
Good point
Great information
Thank you
Thanks for sharing
Starting from the inquisition reminded me of the late science historian James Burke who wrote of just such odd connections in his book and endearing BBC series, "Connections". Physics is filled with - and I hope you narrate other such stories.
I loved that show, I am honored by the comparison, and I’m pretty sure James Burke is still alive!
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics - Yes, to the best of my knowledge JB is still with us. However, we lost David Kennard last year to cancer. He was the producer (and occasional director) of "Connections" plus the original "Cosmos" with Carl Sagan, "Hal's Legacy" with AC Clarke, and other science documentaries. He also produced documentaries on the arts and history like "Keeping Score" with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony. His last films were a trilogy on the European wine industry, "A Year in Burgundy," "A Year in Champagne" and "A Year in Port."
I had the honor of working with him a little trying to do a three-part series on the importance of having a vigorous space program based on a couple of my books. I did some treatments that we shopped around, but, as usual, we couldn't find the funding.
1:33 Galileo was a genius
Thanks for the Sc. Ed.. GREAT!
Love your channel! But Galileo didn't "prostate" himself (though that might be interesting...) but he did 'prostrate' himself. I listened closely and... yeah, ya did... And that's not the Parthenon. That's a domed cathedral. 3:02 You said "water pumps cannot pump more than 33 feet" which is a misrepresentation. A perfect vacuum at the top of a tube cannot pull water up more than 33 feet at sea level. Water pumps can push water uphill readily depending on the power applied, but always fail at pulling it upwards.
Still, I love this channel and sub'd.
Jack D. Ripper eek after all that I’m not sure *I* should follow myself! 🤣 I know my pronunciation is a little, ahem, off. It was worse in the early videos I think. Sorry about that. Speaking of mistakes I meant the Pantheon not the Parthenon. Eek.
Thanks for subbing despite my many mistakes.
It is the Pantheon in Rome (round hole at the apex).
@@osmanfb1 I noticed the mistake immediately, then saw your comment from two hours ago... btw I spent New Years eve 1969 at the base of the Acropolis in Athens, hoping to go up to the Parthenon, but it was closed for the evening. A few weeks later I was standing under the oculus in the Pantheon... thank you US Navy.
Dr. Mengele did all the prostating.
First thank you very much for your videos. It has made learning about a topic that I was already very curious in that much more exciting. I know I may be late to the party so this information may have already been but that stinky ball comment was always a bit funny to me as it as it was for proabably may others well while doing some research here and there Otto von Guericke very basic sulfur static crank powered generator came up. Apparently after he spun the ball he could take it off the machine and show your hair stand on end once he brings his stinky magic wand close to it
well explained history of vaccuum, but a minor point w no offence implied,
isn't the parthenon in Athens?
0:47 "Galileo had to prostate himself". No wonder he was at odds with the church.
Ha. Like when my cousin got married and they wrote “let us prey”.
Love your videos xoxoxo
Francisco José de Caldas measured the barometric effect a few years before Torricelli but he missed at publishing the finding and Torricelli got the historical upper hand
As usual, underrated channel and plalist.
Minor nitpick: Pantheon not Parthenon.
I have to go halfway through this video. Kathy I haven't heard you mention what atmospheric pressure is on the human is there standing there in your backyard. I believe it's 14 plus PSI? Please advise. Nice job as always
That's about right, about 15 PSI (treating "pound" the old way, as a measure of force).
0:46 he had to "prostate" himself? oh my!
0:44 "prostate" and "prostrate" are very similar words with a very important difference, lol.
2:30 Great presentation, but the "Parthenon" is in Athens, Greece. That's the "Pantheon" you're showing.
Sorry about that.
I wonder if Guericke was really capable of thinking that putting two teams of twelve horses each to pull in opposite directions would produce more force on the sphere than one team of twelve horses pulling on the sphere with the other end tied to a tree. When two teams pull against each other, the weaker team is pulled backwards along with the sphere as soon as the stronger team generates more force. Therefore, the force on the sphere cannot exceed the force developed by the weaker team.
My guess is that he knew that, but used opposing teams to impress the public.
THIS is how science should be taught to all elementary students! And HS students! And everybody!
TU but wish you would leave a link for when you say on the next.
Theories that are technically incorrect can actually teach us more than theories that tested correct the first time. I can tell you, I have learned more from my mistakes than from my successes. The fact that the sulfur ball did not actually model gravity was very lucky indeed. Does anyone else experience religious levels of ecstasy when they learn from a mistake? Oh. Just me, huh?
We definitely learn more from our failures but I wouldn’t call Guericke’s ball a failure as much as an old fashioned method of using science as a philosophic model which isn’t science but can certainly lead to scientific discoveries despite that.
Well, I didn't expect the Inquisition was involved!
I have wondered about the invention of the electron microscope. Perhaps for a future subject?
Guy was really asking for it with that mustache. 3:12 Maybe it’s the portrait painter version of rabbit ears.
This is the most enlightening TH-cam I have ever seen, but before I give my reason for saying why, I say this, let me give you an insight into the Sulphur. Sulphur is a semiconductor and it was used sulphur as the surface coating in the first generations of photocopiers. The sulphur surface coating would be charged up, then light reflected from the paper of the document being copied would discharge the surface. On the surface where no light fell because dark ink on the copied paper, the sulphur surface coating would remain charged, and that charge would not migrate into the surrounding surface. We now have a charge image on the sulphur surface coating that matches the dark ink on the document being copied. This charge image attacks charged toner onto the copy paper, where it is baked on. What has this to do with this TH-cam clip? It slows down the process of charging of the attracted feather. So that we see that the feather becoming charged to the same voltage as the sulphur sphere takes some time. Back to my first point. Early in the clip we learned that it is not the vacuum pulling things together, it is the pressure of the surrounding air, which pushes them together. A vacuum is zero pressure, it displays the reality of the surrounding air pressure. Yet we fail to see this when we look at electrostatics. When the voltage difference between the feather and the sulphur sphere falls to zero the feather is attracted by the voltage gradient between it and the surroundings, away from the sulphur sphere. We have for hundreds of years accepted that a zero air pressure does not attract, yet we still hold on to the notion that a zero voltage between two charged objects pushes them apart. A zero value does nothing, except expose the effects of the surroundings. As Rutherford said “We didn’t have the money so we had to think.”
Hello
Why did the objects on the sulphur ball (and ur balloon) fly off a d repel after some time? So initially the like charges are repelled on the object and it gets attracted to the ball/ balloon. What next?
So when you rub the sulphur ball (or a balloon) extra electrons are left on the ball and leave it with a net negative charge. Then some of the electrons in the feather are repelled by the ball and move away from the ball leaving a positive part of the feather near to the ball and attracting the positive side of the feather to the ball (at this point, the feather is neutral in total, with a positive side and a negative side). After a time, some electrons from the ball jump onto the positive side of the feather leaving the feather with a net negative charge. The ball still retains enough electrons to also stay negative so the negative ball repels the negative feather.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Thanks! I think you will like these animated videos on History of Electricity, although they are in Hindi...it is told from the point of view of Michael Faraday reading books on history of electricity...the series is under development.
www.prathamopenschool.org/hn/Lesson/LES941
Looks good in read
Pantheon ☺️
Cool story, but I gotta admit, I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
No one expects....
From what you said he hypothesized, von Guericke should have been able to calculate the height of the atmosphere. Did he?
Ironic thumbs up - love it.
I was proud of that comment
Nice story ... nice dress !
Fascinating. I use a vacuum pump twice daily to milk my cows. Now I know who to thank...
He wasn't the only one who drew a connection, real or not, between electricity and gravity. Faraday also thought as much as did many others. This theoretical force called gravity which cannot be measured in the same direct way electric or magnetic forces are. It is calculated based on density of an object and the gravitational constant for which Newton knew no mechanism for. And then Einstein made it a geometry of a 4D spacetime matrix. Still, not directly measurable. GC was the first God of Modernity as it is an anomaly without explanation and therefore just an effect.
I also love the quote, "We live at the bottom of an ocean of air".
Of course I don't know what I am talking about. ;)
I give. Where have you been hiding. Wonderful. Thank you. raphael nyc
The “Parthenon” in Rome??? O my…
Loving me some Kathy
What causes the air push?
The air pressure pushes into a partial vacuum. In other words, if you pull some of the air out of a container (by expanding the container so that the air is less dense) then the air in the atmosphere will push in to replace it. Did that make sense?
Does the Earth pull the air or Sun light is hot and hot light pushes the air?
Gravity...which we call "buoyance" when it's arranged to make something float. Gravity is pulling the atmosphere down, which is why we even have an atmosphere. At the bottom of the atmosphere is all that pressure caused by the weight of the air above, which has no place to escape to down here. So that column of mercury is being pulled down by gravity, but balanced by the air which is also being pulled down by gravity. Imagine an equal-arm balance with a column of mercury on one pan and a column of air on the other.
Electromagnetic forces between the molecules.
At 4:26 is shows a perfect vacuum in the glass tube. If you were inside it there would be no sound, and your blood would boil.
Or whatever the vapor pressure of Hg is at room temperature.
He used sulfer because it's an insulator and has triboelectric properties.
What do you think of "Connections" and other works by James Burke? Your videos would be better if you had his film budget. But they are still very good.
His films are so much fun and I used to watch them as a kid and just adored them but now I know so many details that I am kind of objecting to what’s going on in the screen. I would love love love to have a budget of any kind let alone his kind of budget
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Even without a budget, your diction is clear and easy to understand, which is not the case for Burke.
Noooobody expects the vacuum pump!
Ha!
In the year 1778 spanish admiral Luis de Cordova y Cordova, well into his 70's, as head of the spanish and french fleet, inflicted a great loss to the british, captured the 74 gun Ardent, and collapsed the stock and commerce in the British isles. When confronted by the french Count de Guichen as to why he would not finally invaded the country, one of the reasons he gave was that the weather was about to change for worse. Sure enough the weather did change and the french wondered how the spanish could make such forecasts. The secret was in the extremely sensitive onboard barometers they used, a top secret device in the day. They had begun to use them a few years before the XVIIIth century french-spanish alliance
Nice #2...!!!
That is the PANTHEON, just to be clear....
Copernicus said that lady!!
Enjoy your videos. Correction is needed for this one. Sulfur does not smell like a rotten egg. It barely smells at all. What does smell like a rotten egg is a sulfur compound called hydrogen sulfide.
Damn you, Kathy! Your videos always end unexpectedly with "...and then...But that will be on the next episode of..." NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You are an evil diva, but I still love you!
Why does the sulphur ball attract and repel feathers but amber only attracts them ?
Great question, all charged objects will attract neutral objects and eventually some of the charged particles will move from the charged object to the neutral object and cause the formerly neutral object to be repelled. However, you have to wait and amber is so insulating that it takes a while for the charged particles to move.
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Could it be that gasses in the latex balloon speed up the flow of electrons to the point of contact with the feather?
4+ years after the release of this video and…Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
I don't know if it's still there but at California State University East Bay in Hayward, CA there was an actual water barometer attached to the side of a building walkway. (I don't if it's still there as I found this during a fire alarm inspection I did on this campus years ago.)
Nobody expects... the vacuum pump!!
@@RonJohn63 😅
Five stars our of five!!!
Thanks
What am i gonna do when I finish watching all of your videos?
enjoyed
The reason why he used sulfur and mercury and you see all the famous scientists or philosophers following the same path, because they were mostly reading alchemy and hermetics and what they used to call 'old knowledge'
Fantastic video, but please use Metric system for physics! Thank you!
I've always know her to use the Metric system. I assume she did this to help her English speaking viewers?
@@supermikeb Or because feet and pounds are period appropriate measures.
The stinky ball may simply be a metaphor for an incomplete theory for the natural forces that gravity and electromagnetism represent, but which were essential unknown or incompletely described.
True, they didn't know much about gravity and even less about electromagnetism in 1660. Still, I feel like it was more of a pseudoscience "analogy" where he really thought that the Earth was alive - like it spun because the animals didn't want to get to cold or hot! I think that the cranky doctor William Gilbert (who named electricity) would have really disliked it. I can almost feel him seeing Guericke and saying (as he did in his book) that Guericke was one of the, "light-headed metaphysicians” who “employ the magnet or amber… as an illustration of all sorts of things…. they treat the subject esoterically, miracle-mongeringly, abstrusely, reconditely, [and] mystically"
You can tell that I am a bit of a curmudgeon too! :)
I'm certain that's true, and (as is the fad of our times)likely genetically derived to some extent as an inherent personality disposition coupled with environment conditioning. The process of discovery and science itself is a stumbling path.
The quote you provided from Newton referencing Hauksbee, reminded me so much of Frank Oppenheimer stating that he was going to pay every one for every hour they worked while carefully avoiding paying everyone 1.5 time or double time for every hour they worked overtime. He also fostered having obsequious and talented staff. Being a biologist outside of his realm of expertise provided me with a different perspective on the entire operation and its development.
Are you to be incorporating these videos into your classroom?
I will a bit, but also much of it will be just told to them live instead of through video :)
@@Kathy_Loves_Physics Well, wait until you get to my critical comment about your omission of Mahlon Loomis, who had a theory which could be called cranky but which accidentally produced radio long before other claimants.
It's not the Parthenon in Rome. The Parthenon is in Athens, Greece. In Rome, the building you show is the Pantheon.
If Otto von Gureicke was the first to invent an air pump in 1650, how could Galileo pump air into his bottle ?
Somehow I missed it. How did the inquisition lead to the vacuum pump?
I have the electricity song stuck in my head.
So do I....
Nice
If you look at a table of conductivities of the elements which are solid at room temperature, sulfur has the lowest electrical conductivity by far. I can’t look it up right now, but I remember it as more than an order of magnitude lower than its nearest competitor. Maybe this would help it hold onto charge when mounted on a metal shaft because it couldnt leak away easily, and when the surface of the ball was rough, since charge couldn’t migrate to points and discharge into the air. I bet the balls were stinky even though elemental sulfur is not, because being used in electricity experiments would generate sparks, and even tiny sparks would be enough to combust a tiny bit of sulfur to sulfur dioxide.
The numbers you are looking for, the resistivity for pure elements: sulfur is: 2x10²² µΩ cm followed by white phosphorous 1x10¹⁷ µΩ cm, with sulfur having a 200000x higher resistivity (source CRC Handbook) and 3/4 of the periodic table are metals. White phosphorus would not even have been an alternative here, being toxic, soft and self-igniting. Also there were not many other alternatives around at the time - amber would have been too rare and expensive, most other organic materials where to soft (tar, wax), glass is not a good insulator when exposed to humidity, glass and ceramics are more difficult to form into a perfect sphere. And as others have already pointed out, sulfur was readily available and a staple item for any researcher/alchemist at the time.
I was not aware we knew how gravity worked.
I'm sure you meant to say 'Pantheon' in Rome - The Parthenon being in Athens! ;)
Yes I did. Sorry