047: The Northern Lights: History

We’re diving into the life of Kristian Birkeland as an ahead of his time and under appreciated Norwegian scientist and inventor who unlocked some of the final mysteries that explained the origins of the aurora borealis.  Along the way we talk about rail-guns, fertilizer furnaces and a business partner turned nemesis.  Before you can truly […]

The post Tumblehome: A Boundary Waters Podcast – The Northern Lights: History appeared first on Clearwater Outfitters.

Episode Transcript

[0:00:00 – 0:00:00] UNKNOWN: 🎵 🎵
[0:00:21 – 0:00:30] Erik: So on a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you miss the Loon intro?
[0:00:30 – 0:00:34] Adam: I don’t mind the Loon intro as much as I miss the Loon bleep.
[0:00:34 – 0:00:40] Adam: I think all the other attempts at bleeping curse words, so far they’ve not been as good as the Loon.
[0:00:40 – 0:00:41] Adam: I know.
[0:00:41 – 0:00:41] Adam: I miss the Loon.
[0:00:42 – 0:00:50] Erik: But I think it’s a good show of solidarity to the Loon brethren that neither of those things come back until they do.
[0:00:50 – 0:00:51] Adam: That’s true, yeah.
[0:00:51 – 0:00:55] Adam: We can’t be using loon bleeps when the loons are down in the Gulf of Mexico.
[0:00:55 – 0:00:56] Erik: No, definitely not.
[0:00:56 – 0:00:57] Adam: Yeah, I can get behind that.
[0:00:57 – 0:01:02] Adam: Plus, we’ve had some other nice music instead of the traditional intro music.
[0:01:03 – 0:01:06] Erik: Yeah, you’re not going to get any Loon intros.
[0:01:06 – 0:01:10] Adam: You’re going to get Vaporwave, and you’re going to like it.
[0:01:11 – 0:01:14] Adam: I don’t know what Vaporwave is, but that was my attempt.
[0:01:14 – 0:01:15] Erik: It’s more of a mindset.
[0:01:15 – 0:01:18] Adam: Yeah, there you go.
[0:01:19 – 0:01:22] Erik: Well, should we open the show proper?
[0:01:23 – 0:01:48] Erik: that i thought that was the proper opening let’s get right into it yeah welcome that’s yeah we’re starting the show right now to tumble home a boundary waters podcast brought to you by vaporwave and clearwater historic lodge and canoe outfitters and i think for the first time ever we are sponsored this week by uh a cocktail
[0:01:50 – 0:01:53] Erik: And it’s strictly due to the subject matter.
[0:01:54 – 0:01:59] Erik: These are fjord horses, basically.
[0:01:59 – 0:02:02] Erik: This is Aquavit, ginger beer.
[0:02:02 – 0:02:03] Adam: Second hit for Aquavit.
[0:02:04 – 0:02:04] Adam: Yes.
[0:02:05 – 0:02:05] Adam: So cheers.
[0:02:05 – 0:02:06] Adam: Cheersies.
[0:02:08 – 0:02:08] Adam: Stereo.
[0:02:11 – 0:02:11] Erik: Mmm.
[0:02:11 – 0:02:12] Erik: Mmm.
[0:02:15 – 0:02:17] Erik: So yeah, do you want to just get right into it?
[0:02:17 – 0:02:18] Erik: We refresh go.
[0:02:18 – 0:02:20] Erik: Okay, refresh go.
[0:02:20 – 0:02:21] Adam: Okay, refresh go.
[0:02:22 – 0:02:24] Erik: We’re trying something new this week.
[0:02:24 – 0:02:25] Erik: Did we do the sponsors already?
[0:02:26 – 0:02:27] Erik: Yeah, Clearwater Lodge.
[0:02:28 – 0:02:28] Adam: And the drink.
[0:02:28 – 0:02:29] Erik: Vaporwave.
[0:02:29 – 0:02:31] Erik: Okay, we got it all out of the way.
[0:02:31 – 0:02:32] Erik: What was the actual Aquavit?
[0:02:32 – 0:02:33] Erik: Was it Skalvanen?
[0:02:33 – 0:02:35] Erik: I think that’s from Brooklyn Center.
[0:02:37 – 0:02:38] Adam: I can’t see that far.
[0:02:39 – 0:02:39] Adam: It’s over there.
[0:02:39 – 0:02:43] Erik: It’s definitely not the Linny, the stuff we had the last time.
[0:02:43 – 0:02:48] Erik: That was actually from Norway, but I figured if we’re going to drink Aquavit twice, it’s got to be a different brand.
[0:02:48 – 0:02:51] Adam: My Aquavit knowledge is about a 2 out of 10.
[0:02:51 – 0:02:52] Erik: Which is better.
[0:02:52 – 0:02:55] Erik: I think the first time we had it, it was a zero.
[0:02:55 – 0:02:56] Adam: Yeah, so I’m working my way up.
[0:02:56 – 0:02:59] Adam: This is now two Aquavits.
[0:02:59 – 0:03:05] Erik: Yeah, I don’t know if this actually made the trip around the world, which is how it came to pass originally.
[0:03:05 – 0:03:07] Adam: I doubt many things have.
[0:03:07 – 0:03:08] Erik: I haven’t.
[0:03:08 – 0:03:11] Erik: The dainty sloshing is what gives it its quality.
[0:03:11 – 0:03:11] Adam: The dainty sloshing.
[0:03:12 – 0:03:14] Adam: I forgot about the dainty sloshing.
[0:03:14 – 0:03:14] Adam: Yep.
[0:03:15 – 0:03:16] Erik: So…
[0:03:17 – 0:03:27] Erik: Yeah, like I said, this is a new concept in the process of preparing for basically a show about the Northern Lights.
[0:03:28 – 0:03:37] Erik: I did some research, and I thought it would be fun to explore that research before getting into maybe some of the basics.
[0:03:38 – 0:03:41] Erik: about the Aurora Borealis as they relate to the Boundary Waters.
[0:03:42 – 0:03:49] Erik: So this is a very tangential episode, but I’m also… Is it a prequel or a preamble?
[0:03:50 – 0:03:52] Erik: I’d say it’s… What’s the difference?
[0:03:52 – 0:03:52] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:03:53 – 0:03:54] Erik: I’d say at the very least…
[0:03:54 – 0:03:55] Adam: I think prequel is more substantial.
[0:03:55 – 0:03:56] Erik: Yeah, it’s a prequel.
[0:03:57 – 0:04:00] Erik: It’s part one of a potential… Multi-part series.
[0:04:00 – 0:04:03] Erik: Multi-part series, which is crazy.
[0:04:03 – 0:04:03] Adam: I don’t…
[0:04:04 – 0:04:05] Erik: Never thought that I would have said that.
[0:04:06 – 0:04:15] Erik: Never thought we would have been here where I have a notepad full of notes and a book that I’m going to be drawing off of for references and quotes.
[0:04:16 – 0:04:29] Erik: And as it relates to the Aurora Borealis, it is essentially going to be the life and times of Christian Berkland, who was a Norwegian…
[0:04:30 – 0:04:48] Erik: Professor, scientist, inventor, who was basically obsessed with the science behind how the Northern Lights worked, works, and kind of the story of what he did to find out more and just how ahead of his time he was.
[0:04:49 – 0:04:59] Erik: And I do, for myself personally, have a very extreme affinity towards that kind of book and writings.
[0:04:59 – 0:05:07] Erik: Like The Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is one of my favorite books where it’s like them trying to figure out like –
[0:05:08 – 0:05:10] Erik: the natural ways of the universe.
[0:05:10 – 0:05:17] Erik: And more often than not, the people that actually figured it out were decades or centuries ahead of their time.
[0:05:18 – 0:05:20] Erik: And then sometimes they don’t even get credit.
[0:05:20 – 0:05:21] Adam: Often ridiculed.
[0:05:21 – 0:05:22] Erik: Yeah.
[0:05:22 – 0:05:23] Erik: Exactly.
[0:05:23 – 0:05:24] Adam: Don’t get any credit.
[0:05:24 – 0:05:24] Adam: And then…
[0:05:25 – 0:05:49] Erik: long after they’re gone then it’s finally like oh yeah they were right yeah and unfortunately i mean it’s it’s on one hand it’s nice that they are able to get that recognition but on the other hand they usually are long gone and they thought that all of their work was in vain for not for not so what’s the guy’s name christian with a k olaf berkland olaf berkland
[0:05:51 – 0:06:02] Erik: And the primary source that I am going to be referring to and taking some quotes from and where the majority of my notes comes from is…
[0:06:02 – 0:06:04] Adam: He’s got a lot of notes in this book.
[0:06:04 – 0:06:06] Erik: Yeah, who knows how long this is going to take.
[0:06:06 – 0:06:06] Erik: Hey, friends.
[0:06:06 – 0:06:09] Erik: You’re along for a long ride here, but it is winter.
[0:06:09 – 0:06:26] Erik: This is winter content, and the book that I mostly drew from was written by Lucy Jago, and it is just strictly called The Northern Lights, the true story of the man who unlocked the secrets of the Aurora Borealis.
[0:06:27 – 0:06:27] Adam: Wow.
[0:06:28 – 0:06:29] Adam: I’m at the edge of my seat.
[0:06:29 – 0:06:31] Adam: I have no idea what’s happening.
[0:06:31 – 0:06:32] Adam: I’m right with the listeners here.
[0:06:33 – 0:06:35] Erik: which is, I think, a fun aspect.
[0:06:36 – 0:06:49] Erik: Feel free to jump in if you have questions or if my notes are not making sense, which we’re crossing virgin ground here, so it might not make the greatest sense.
[0:06:49 – 0:06:50] Adam: I’ll try and keep you honest.
[0:06:51 – 0:06:53] Adam: Keep me honest, and I’ll do my best.
[0:06:53 – 0:06:56] Adam: We’ll see if the old journalism training pays off here tonight.
[0:06:56 – 0:06:57] Erik: There you go.
[0:06:57 – 0:06:58] Erik: I like that aspect of it too.
[0:07:01 – 0:07:03] Erik: So the story has to start somewhere.
[0:07:03 – 0:07:14] Erik: And so y’all know that the story is starting with Christian Olaf Birkeland and his exploration of fully understanding how the Northern Lights work.
[0:07:15 – 0:07:24] Erik: So this story begins in October of 1899 in the far north reaches of Norway.
[0:07:24 – 0:07:26] Erik: Finnmark is kind of the region.
[0:07:27 – 0:07:30] Adam: And it took place… Is that where the Finnmark Slopen is?
[0:07:31 – 0:07:32] Adam: It’s got to be.
[0:07:32 – 0:07:33] Erik: Yeah, I would assume.
[0:07:33 – 0:07:34] Adam: Obviously.
[0:07:34 – 0:07:37] Erik: That name doesn’t really come across in too many other places.
[0:07:38 – 0:07:39] Erik: All right.
[0:07:40 – 0:07:48] Erik: So basically this story starts on a mountain about halfway up, Haldi Mountain, just west of Kaffjord.
[0:07:50 – 0:07:57] Erik: And it starts with a group of men climbing a mountain to get to a small little stone tower on the top.
[0:07:58 – 0:08:04] Erik: And this party is being led by Clement Isaacson Hayata, who was a lap guide.
[0:08:05 – 0:08:06] Erik: And he had seven reindeer.
[0:08:07 – 0:08:10] Erik: And then Christian Olaf Berkland was next in line.
[0:08:10 – 0:08:19] Erik: He was 31 years old at the time and had just recently been pronounced the youngest professor at Christiana University.
[0:08:21 – 0:08:26] Erik: And just going forward, if I say Christiana, that was the name of Oslo at the time.
[0:08:27 – 0:08:28] Adam: Okay, good to know.
[0:08:29 – 0:08:30] Adam: We’ll file that one away.
[0:08:31 – 0:08:32] Erik: File that one away.
[0:08:32 – 0:08:36] Erik: Next up was Bjorn Helland Hansen, a 22-year-old medical student.
[0:08:37 – 0:08:39] Erik: Elisar Boy, a Latin scholar.
[0:08:40 – 0:08:43] Erik: Christopher Knutson, 23-year-old telegraphic engineer.
[0:08:44 – 0:08:51] Erik: And Sem Saland, 25-year-old graduate with studies specifically in math, physics, and chemistry.
[0:08:52 – 0:08:56] Adam: Did you practice the pronunciation on those names more than once?
[0:08:57 – 0:08:58] Erik: Not really.
[0:08:58 – 0:08:58] Adam: You did pretty good.
[0:08:59 – 0:08:59] Erik: I think I did.
[0:08:59 – 0:09:00] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:09:00 – 0:09:01] Erik: Maybe some of them could be somewhat off.
[0:09:03 – 0:09:07] Adam: It sounded like they were very technical pronunciations.
[0:09:07 – 0:09:08] Adam: Yes.
[0:09:08 – 0:09:10] Adam: I would not have been able to say it as smoothly.
[0:09:11 – 0:09:11] Adam: Okay.
[0:09:11 – 0:09:12] Adam: So that’s our team.
[0:09:12 – 0:09:25] Erik: That’s the team, and they’re heading up to this little outpost on the top of Haldi Mountain, and basically this is on the north end, as far north as you can get in Norway.
[0:09:26 – 0:09:30] Erik: Everybody, all the Lapp community, they all move down to the lowlands.
[0:09:30 – 0:09:37] Erik: They herd all their reindeer because this is a harsh, like nobody goes to this outpost in the winter.
[0:09:37 – 0:09:38] Erik: It’s just crazy.
[0:09:39 – 0:09:41] Erik: And so they’re heading up this mountain in a nasty storm.
[0:09:41 – 0:09:43] Erik: With reindeer.
[0:09:43 – 0:09:49] Erik: With reindeer to haul gear, but then also to eventually be meat to eat.
[0:09:50 – 0:09:55] Erik: So they’re heading up this mountain, which nobody really does that time of year.
[0:09:55 – 0:09:59] Erik: It’s not like they’re, you know, making a climb up Everest.
[0:09:59 – 0:10:02] Erik: It’s not a huge mountain, but it’s in the Arctic Circle.
[0:10:03 – 0:10:05] Adam: Did you say they’re going to eat the reindeer?
[0:10:05 – 0:10:05] Erik: Yes.
[0:10:05 – 0:10:06] Erik: What?
[0:10:06 – 0:10:08] Erik: Yeah, that’s what they’re for in the winter.
[0:10:08 – 0:10:08] Erik: Oh.
[0:10:08 – 0:10:09] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:10:09 – 0:10:10] Adam: There’s something about that.
[0:10:10 – 0:10:11] Adam: It rubs me the wrong way.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:12] Erik: All right.
[0:10:12 – 0:10:16] Erik: Well, the party is already off to a bad start in Adam’s mind.
[0:10:16 – 0:10:18] Adam: Well, it’s a little treacherous.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:19] Erik: It’s 1899.
[0:10:19 – 0:10:20] Adam: You got to eat something.
[0:10:22 – 0:10:25] Adam: I guess, but your own, your draft animals.
[0:10:27 – 0:10:27] Adam: All right.
[0:10:28 – 0:10:30] Erik: So they’re heading up and they get, basically they run out of daylight.
[0:10:30 – 0:10:36] Erik: They get waylaid and they got a pitch camp, basically just a tent on the side of a mountain.
[0:10:37 – 0:10:44] Erik: And over the course of that night, Bjorn, the medical student got frostbite and
[0:10:44 – 0:10:55] Erik: And the next morning, things cleared out, and they continued to take off for the top of the mountain and reached this little stone outpost basically the next day at about night.
[0:10:56 – 0:11:05] Erik: And as they were going about setting up and getting all of their equipment moved in, the Northern Lights showed up, which is why they were there.
[0:11:05 – 0:11:07] Adam: Okay, they were looking for Northern Lights.
[0:11:07 – 0:11:08] Erik: They’re there to spend three months
[0:11:09 – 0:11:10] Erik: studying the Northern Lights.
[0:11:11 – 0:11:17] Erik: And they revealed themselves as, quote, a gentle, tremulous luminescence.
[0:11:18 – 0:11:19] Erik: And it slowly intensified.
[0:11:20 – 0:11:27] Erik: And even after all they had been through, it took the men basically all, just all they could do is watch these lights.
[0:11:29 – 0:11:39] Erik: Except for Clement, the Lap, who went about his business because Laps actually saw the Northern Lights as fierce and powerful messengers of God.
[0:11:40 – 0:11:48] Erik: and believe that whistling, waving of handkerchiefs, or the sound of tinkling bells would provoke the lights into attacking.
[0:11:49 – 0:11:49] Adam: Ooh.
[0:11:49 – 0:11:55] Erik: Which I have a hard time with because didn’t they put little sleigh bells on their reindeers to find them?
[0:11:56 – 0:11:57] Adam: I don’t know.
[0:11:58 – 0:11:59] Adam: I think they did.
[0:11:59 – 0:12:02] Adam: So you’re not supposed to whistle at them.
[0:12:02 – 0:12:06] Erik: Definitely don’t whistle at them, at least if you’re a lap lander.
[0:12:07 – 0:12:07] Adam: Sure, sure.
[0:12:09 – 0:12:13] Erik: But if the lights did come out and appear ominous, the Laps were known to chant this.
[0:12:14 – 0:12:15] Erik: The northern light.
[0:12:16 – 0:12:17] Erik: The northern light.
[0:12:17 – 0:12:18] Erik: Flickering.
[0:12:18 – 0:12:19] Erik: Flickering.
[0:12:20 – 0:12:21] Erik: Hammering in its leg.
[0:12:22 – 0:12:23] Erik: Birch bark in its hand.
[0:12:24 – 0:12:26] Erik: And this was supposed to protect you.
[0:12:28 – 0:12:29] Adam: Keep them friendly.
[0:12:29 – 0:12:29] Erik: Yeah.
[0:12:30 – 0:12:37] Erik: So the Northern Lights and the ethereal phenomenon had inspired centuries of myth and terror.
[0:12:37 – 0:12:46] Erik: And in Norway specifically, they were sometimes called the Bloodlights to recall the belief that they were the souls of dead warriors fighting or portents of war and death.
[0:12:47 – 0:12:57] Erik: The Vikings thought that the magical apparitions were Valkyries, female messengers of the god Odin, riding from Valhalla to mark out those who would be killed in battle.
[0:12:58 – 0:13:12] Erik: The streaks of luminescence were their fiery spears, the flashing sparks the reflections from their shields, and the great arcs the mythical bridge, bifrost, across which the souls of the dead passed to the next world.
[0:13:14 – 0:13:18] Erik: Icelanders actually took it to another level.
[0:13:18 – 0:13:26] Erik: They wouldn’t even cut their hair when the lights were out or venture outside without a cap because they thought their hair would be singed off from the lights.
[0:13:28 – 0:13:29] Erik: So I thought that was pretty interesting.
[0:13:31 – 0:13:41] Erik: The earliest attempt to really write down an explanation for the aurora in Scandinavia was in the epic Norse poem The King’s Mirror.
[0:13:42 – 0:13:52] Erik: Quote, it seems to me not unlikely that the frost and the glaciers have become so powerful that they are able to radiate forth these flames.
[0:13:53 – 0:14:02] Erik: So with all that, the aurora really was one of the last unsolved mysteries of the natural world, puzzled over, feared, or worshipped.
[0:14:02 – 0:14:13] Erik: And in an audacious plan, Birkeland intended to spend a whole winter on the mountaintop to study the lights, which were known to appear in this region more frequently than anywhere else.
[0:14:13 – 0:14:18] Adam: So wait, somebody who had the theory that it had to do with the glaciers?
[0:14:19 – 0:14:23] Erik: It was from a Norse poem, an epic Norse poem, The King’s Mirror.
[0:14:23 – 0:14:24] Erik: The King’s Mirror.
[0:14:24 – 0:14:25] Erik: Yeah.
[0:14:26 – 0:14:31] Adam: So that one’s the first one to sort of think, okay, maybe there’s a natural explanation for this.
[0:14:31 – 0:14:33] Erik: Appear as anything more than like…
[0:14:33 – 0:14:34] Adam: It’s magic.
[0:14:34 – 0:14:38] Erik: It’s some crazy Valkyrie god charging through the sky.
[0:14:38 – 0:14:39] Adam: So somebody’s on to something here.
[0:14:40 – 0:14:40] Erik: A little bit.
[0:14:42 – 0:14:55] Erik: So they’re getting their gear all set up, and the next morning, the lap guide and Hansen, the guy that got frostbite the night before, they took off back down the mountain because he seriously got bad frostbite.
[0:14:56 – 0:15:02] Erik: And so the rest of the group went about setting up shop in the observatory, which was basically just like a stone tower.
[0:15:03 – 0:15:13] Erik: And they hauled in all their instruments, which amongst other things were specifically an anemometer, which was hurricane rated, basically measures wind.
[0:15:14 – 0:15:14] Erik: Oh, okay.
[0:15:14 – 0:15:15] Erik: An electrometer.
[0:15:16 – 0:15:22] Erik: An alcohol thermometer, which was rated to 117 below Celsius.
[0:15:23 – 0:15:25] Erik: I don’t know if that’s ever even been recorded.
[0:15:25 – 0:15:26] Adam: Barometer.
[0:15:32 – 0:15:55] Erik: photography equipment wind kites and sorry did you say barometer a barometer i was kind of still giggling over that yeah and make sure uh most importantly were the magnetometers yeah and um these were what was eventually going to go into really painting a picture of what uh these things you know the aurora looked like um
[0:15:56 – 0:16:03] Erik: Another quote from the book here that is taking another step forward in terms of like the scientific understanding.
[0:16:04 – 0:16:19] Erik: Aristotle grouped the lights under the general heading comets, and they were not clearly separated from other heavenly bodies until the early 1600s when Galileo Galilei described them as Boreal Aurora or the Northern Dawn.
[0:16:20 – 0:16:22] Erik: Still, that’s where the name comes from.
[0:16:23 – 0:16:29] Erik: In 1621, the designation was modified to Aurora Borealis by the eminent French astronomer Pierre Gassendi.
[0:16:30 – 0:16:30] Erik: Gassendi.
[0:16:31 – 0:16:35] Erik: Who, like Galileo and Aristotle, had witnessed a display tinged with pink.
[0:16:36 – 0:16:42] Erik: Aurora’s scene in lower latitudes often had a rosy hue reminiscent of dawn.
[0:16:42 – 0:16:47] Erik: Birkeland himself preferred the Latin term Lumine Boreali.
[0:16:48 – 0:17:17] Erik: or the northern light or aurora polaris polar light as in the far north the auroras were usually white or yellowish green and bore no resemblance to dawn so um back to the tower uh one of the reasons that they chose this tower was because of it was a thousand feet above sea level there was no trees no smoke or light pollution and how’d they find out about this tower
[0:17:18 – 0:17:19] Erik: I don’t know, honestly.
[0:17:19 – 0:17:23] Erik: They didn’t book it on Airbnb.
[0:17:23 – 0:17:26] Erik: There’s still an observatory there.
[0:17:26 – 0:17:28] Erik: You can hike up in the summer and visit it.
[0:17:28 – 0:17:29] Erik: Can you stay there?
[0:17:29 – 0:17:31] Erik: I don’t know if you can stay there.
[0:17:31 – 0:17:32] Erik: Only if you bring a reindeer.
[0:17:33 – 0:17:40] Erik: Yeah, only if you bring seven reindeer, five of which you kill, and then the other two you spend the winter chasing around the mountainside, which they did.
[0:17:41 – 0:17:42] Erik: Wow.
[0:17:42 – 0:17:52] Erik: Because they needed those two other reindeer because as a part of the triangulation, because one of the things they were trying to figure out was how high up the auroras went and how close to the ground they got.
[0:17:53 – 0:17:57] Erik: So he had to set up a second observatory on a mountaintop that was four kilometers away.
[0:17:59 – 0:18:00] Erik: So they sent Sem, Saland,
[0:18:02 – 0:18:03] Erik: To spend the winter there by himself.
[0:18:05 – 0:18:05] Adam: Fun.
[0:18:05 – 0:18:06] Erik: Yeah.
[0:18:06 – 0:18:08] Erik: And it was connected by a telephone line.
[0:18:09 – 0:18:09] Erik: Oh.
[0:18:10 – 0:18:10] Erik: Yeah.
[0:18:10 – 0:18:10] Erik: So they could chat.
[0:18:10 – 0:18:11] Erik: Not much else.
[0:18:11 – 0:18:12] Erik: They could chat.
[0:18:12 – 0:18:13] Erik: They could compare notes.
[0:18:13 – 0:18:14] Erik: What’s new.
[0:18:14 – 0:18:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:18:15 – 0:18:16] Adam: Shem?
[0:18:17 – 0:18:17] Erik: Sem.
[0:18:17 – 0:18:19] Erik: S-E-M. Hey, Sem.
[0:18:19 – 0:18:21] Erik: Sem Saland.
[0:18:22 – 0:18:34] Erik: So the lap guide, Hayata, arrived the last week of October with his weekly delivery and a letter from Helen Hansen.
[0:18:35 – 0:18:36] Erik: who was recovering in the hospital.
[0:18:36 – 0:18:38] Erik: He was the guy with the frostbite.
[0:18:38 – 0:18:42] Erik: And unfortunately, they had to remove the tips of all of his fingers down to the first knuckle.
[0:18:43 – 0:18:45] Erik: And he was a medical student.
[0:18:45 – 0:18:46] Erik: He was going to become a surgeon.
[0:18:46 – 0:18:47] Adam: What?
[0:18:47 – 0:18:47] Erik: Yeah.
[0:18:47 – 0:18:57] Erik: It was like one thing in a long line that really stuck with Berkland going forward in terms of like the people that he affected through these expeditions.
[0:18:57 – 0:18:58] Adam: And that was the first one.
[0:18:59 – 0:19:26] Erik: well why didn’t he get some mittens i don’t know they didn’t go into detail on term like why didn’t anybody else get why did they bring a surgeon anyways well he was their first aid kit this is 1899 he was there to take care of the health of the group he was learning how to be a surgeon just general doctory yeah general he was just doing general practice at the time future surgeon yeah potential future surgeon gifted training yeah lost all of his fingertips
[0:19:29 – 0:19:42] Erik: so did he go on to still become a surgeon with just like three quarter fingers he did not no so November 1st 1899 life in what they came to dub the castle
[0:19:43 – 0:20:08] Erik: observing measuring and recording all meteorological and aurora data truly got underway with salient four kilometers away on the telvic peak um the weather proved to be the biggest challenge one of the uh quotes from berkland’s journal quote the wind sometimes roars so against the house that you would have thought you were sitting at the foot of a
[0:20:12 – 0:20:16] Erik: we are able to gauge the storm outside by the noise within.
[0:20:16 – 0:20:22] Erik: Often we cannot get out of the house ourselves for several days, and it takes three strong men to shut our little door.
[0:20:25 – 0:20:34] Erik: Our strong anemometer was blown apart in the course of a few days, and we found pieces of it 50 to 100 meters from the place it had been put up.
[0:20:34 – 0:20:35] Adam: Yes, it wasn’t very strong then.
[0:20:36 – 0:20:41] Erik: Yeah, quote unquote hurricane proof, blown off the top of the tower in the first week.
[0:20:41 – 0:20:41] Erik: Of the castle.
[0:20:42 – 0:20:44] Erik: Yeah.
[0:20:44 – 0:20:54] Erik: But all in all, like you think that like, and this is also like, remember, this is in the Arctic Circle, like, and they’re getting into the darkest part of the year.
[0:20:54 – 0:20:54] Erik: Mm-hmm.
[0:20:55 – 0:20:55] Erik: There’s no light.
[0:20:56 – 0:21:01] Erik: They’re in a little castle tower-y thing made out of stone.
[0:21:01 – 0:21:02] Erik: There’s a fireplace.
[0:21:02 – 0:21:06] Erik: They’re able to keep things relatively warm.
[0:21:06 – 0:21:14] Erik: But by all accounts, it’s just dark and intense cold, monotonous diet, and just their science.
[0:21:15 – 0:21:21] Erik: But by all accounts, this is usually the part of the story where tensions start flaring up.
[0:21:21 – 0:21:21] Erik: They all got along.
[0:21:22 – 0:21:23] Erik: They just buried themselves in the study.
[0:21:24 – 0:21:25] Adam: Yeah, keep busy.
[0:21:26 – 0:21:36] Erik: And Birkeland actually felt happy being surrounded by young, intelligent graduates and enjoyed the challenges that came from both the location and the scientific puzzles presented.
[0:21:37 – 0:21:45] Erik: Free from distractions of typical life, he was free to focus on his ferociously hungry mind on science specifically related to the magnetometers.
[0:21:46 – 0:21:48] Erik: And they were constantly in use.
[0:21:48 – 0:21:52] Erik: Even if they weren’t actually being monitored, they would record.
[0:21:52 – 0:21:54] Adam: Like a little pen.
[0:21:54 – 0:21:54] Adam: Yeah.
[0:21:54 – 0:21:58] Adam: Picturing a little pen kind of recording a line on paper or something.
[0:21:58 – 0:21:59] Adam: Yeah, exactly.
[0:21:59 – 0:22:00] Adam: At all times, even if nobody’s watching.
[0:22:01 – 0:22:08] Erik: Yeah, there was one that measured the direction, another one that measured the horizontal strength, and then another one that measured the vertical strength.
[0:22:08 – 0:22:10] Erik: So it almost painted a three-dimensional picture.
[0:22:10 – 0:22:11] Adam: This was 1899.
[0:22:11 – 0:22:16] Adam: I still have no idea how a magnetometer works.
[0:22:17 – 0:22:19] Erik: It’s basically like the size of a shoebox.
[0:22:20 – 0:22:35] Erik: It had a thread hanging, and at the bottom of this was a little magnet, and it could sense magnetism in the field from as far away as 100,000 kilometers, which I thought might be a little too sensitive, honestly, but…
[0:22:36 – 0:22:43] Erik: And it continuously recorded and through a mirror that reflected onto a sheet of photographic paper.
[0:22:45 – 0:22:45] Erik: Oh, wow.
[0:22:45 – 0:22:47] Erik: You know, like printer paper, that heated paper.
[0:22:48 – 0:22:51] Erik: And obviously a flat line meant that there was no activity.
[0:22:51 – 0:22:52] Adam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:22:52 – 0:22:54] Erik: So the crazier it got, they could take those and…
[0:22:55 – 0:22:57] Adam: Alright, so two questions.
[0:22:58 – 0:23:01] Adam: When was this machine invented?
[0:23:01 – 0:23:06] Adam: Did they make this machine for this expedition specifically?
[0:23:06 – 0:23:10] Adam: Or are these things just around Norway in 1899?
[0:23:10 – 0:23:13] Adam: You can get your hands on one if you’re in the university scene.
[0:23:14 – 0:23:15] Erik: Yeah, probably through the university.
[0:23:16 – 0:23:17] Adam: So they were around.
[0:23:17 – 0:23:18] Erik: I think they were probably around.
[0:23:18 – 0:23:19] Erik: I don’t think it was.
[0:23:19 – 0:23:22] Erik: I think that would have been said if you like invented it specifically for it.
[0:23:23 – 0:23:26] Erik: But it was probably pretty crude and rudimentary.
[0:23:26 – 0:23:29] Erik: It wasn’t like you can go to the hardware store and buy a magnetometer.
[0:23:29 – 0:23:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:30 – 0:23:34] Adam: And I don’t want to go buy one either because you can just get this data online now.
[0:23:35 – 0:23:38] Adam: I guess like how are they recording this data nowadays?
[0:23:38 – 0:23:39] Adam: Is the machine pretty similar?
[0:23:40 – 0:23:41] Erik: That’s a good question.
[0:23:41 – 0:23:41] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:23:42 – 0:23:49] Erik: We might be able to get to that, uh, with more of the more modern science in terms of, I think it has a lot more to do with satellites.
[0:23:50 – 0:23:50] Erik: Yeah.
[0:23:51 – 0:23:55] Erik: At the time they could only record from the ground with simple magnets.
[0:23:56 – 0:23:57] Adam: That’s pretty crazy though.
[0:23:57 – 0:23:57] Adam: Yeah.
[0:23:59 – 0:23:59] Adam: Um,
[0:24:00 – 0:24:18] Erik: But from an early age, even before this expedition, Birkeland was fascinated by magnets and by the writings of Englishman William Gilbert, who in 1600 wrote De Magnet, or On a Magnet, in which he established that Earth was in fact itself a magnet.
[0:24:19 – 0:24:25] Erik: and its magnetic field was strongest at the poles because of lines that were more concentrated.
[0:24:26 – 0:24:46] Erik: And as is the case, which we’ve discussed already, with many scientists and thinkers, he was far ahead of his time and relatively forgotten, even though Newton and Galileo admitted their debts to him in terms of a lot of the science and theories and some proofs that they were actually able to come up with.
[0:24:48 – 0:24:50] Erik: They left for a brief respite in Christmas.
[0:24:51 – 0:25:02] Erik: They went down to Ka Fjord and talked with the locals about vindlis, wind lights, or weather lights, which is what the seafaring Norwegians along that coast called the auroras.
[0:25:02 – 0:25:03] Adam: Vindlis?
[0:25:03 – 0:25:04] Adam: Vindlis.
[0:25:04 – 0:25:05] Adam: Oh, that’s my favorite.
[0:25:06 – 0:25:06] Adam: I like that one.
[0:25:06 – 0:25:07] Adam: That’s my new favorite.
[0:25:07 – 0:25:09] Erik: I think it’s my personal favorite as well.
[0:25:09 – 0:25:12] Erik: V-I-N-D-L-Y.
[0:25:12 – 0:25:13] Erik: D-L-Y.
[0:25:13 – 0:25:14] Erik: Vindley.
[0:25:14 – 0:25:18] Adam: I was picturing I-E-S, but all right.
[0:25:18 – 0:25:18] Adam: Yeah, why?
[0:25:18 – 0:25:19] Adam: Vindleys.
[0:25:19 – 0:25:19] Adam: Vindleys.
[0:25:20 – 0:25:22] Adam: Ooh, the Vindleys are out.
[0:25:22 – 0:25:31] Erik: Yeah, so the pragmatic reasons, you know, you can’t just grab four guys in 1900 and climb up a mountain to study the Aurora.
[0:25:32 – 0:25:37] Erik: The main reason that he was able to do that is he was provided funding from the Norwegian state.
[0:25:38 – 0:25:48] Erik: To try to prove a link between the auroras and actual earth weather, because it would have been greatly beneficial to the fishing community, which was like one of the biggest industries at the time.
[0:25:48 – 0:25:50] Adam: So they’re trying to figure out long-term weather forecasting?
[0:25:50 – 0:25:51] Erik: They were trying to use it.
[0:25:52 – 0:25:58] Erik: Yeah, it was on one hand that, but then on the other, it was also just as a point of national pride.
[0:25:59 – 0:26:23] Erik: as norway could have been the eventual uh nation even though at the time they weren’t independent they were working towards it but they could have been the the country that unlocked the the mystery yeah but it was big mostly practical because if you can forecast the weather for there were some bad storms in the few years leading up to it that like hundreds of fishermen were dying off the coast because they had no way of forecasting storms really that well
[0:26:24 – 0:26:26] Erik: So he was granted 12,000 crowns.
[0:26:28 – 0:26:36] Erik: Pretty much immediately was over budget and any future payment was frozen until he started providing some like proof of his research.
[0:26:37 – 0:26:38] Adam: Well, that makes sense.
[0:26:38 – 0:26:39] Erik: Yeah.
[0:26:41 – 0:26:43] Erik: So with only three months left on the mountain.
[0:26:43 – 0:26:44] Adam: How do you get this job?
[0:26:46 – 0:26:47] Erik: How did he become a professor?
[0:26:47 – 0:26:49] Adam: No, like how did he get picked?
[0:26:49 – 0:26:53] Adam: I mean, I’m sure he wasn’t the only professor with the credentials to study this.
[0:26:54 – 0:26:55] Adam: Was he the only one willing to do it?
[0:26:55 – 0:27:06] Erik: I think that was probably part of it, but I also think like if you get – I don’t think the university system was as complicated as it is now.
[0:27:06 – 0:27:07] Erik: I think he’s like –
[0:27:08 – 0:27:09] Erik: All right.
[0:27:09 – 0:27:10] Erik: So I’m a professor now.
[0:27:10 – 0:27:15] Erik: I can more or less kind of choose my study and whatever it takes for me to figure that out.
[0:27:16 – 0:27:27] Erik: And I don’t know any more specifics on like the story really does start in this book and with as much as I know with them climbing up this mountain.
[0:27:27 – 0:27:28] Adam: It was probably him.
[0:27:28 – 0:27:30] Adam: He was like, yeah, we should study these.
[0:27:30 – 0:27:31] Adam: Maybe they affect the weather.
[0:27:32 – 0:27:32] Adam: Maybe.
[0:27:32 – 0:27:34] Adam: And I need to go to this castle out in the middle of nowhere.
[0:27:34 – 0:27:39] Adam: So you got to give me 12,000 crowns and we’ll figure this weather thing out.
[0:27:39 – 0:27:41] Adam: Also, it would be cool if we just figured out what they are.
[0:27:43 – 0:27:55] Erik: So there are definitely some shady characters that are going to come along here, but I definitely left this book pretty well on his side.
[0:27:55 – 0:28:01] Erik: I never felt like, you know, obviously this is just one woman’s research and representation of his life.
[0:28:02 – 0:28:07] Erik: But he seemed like he was like legitimately obsessed with figuring out what was the cause.
[0:28:07 – 0:28:21] Erik: Like he just had a very scientific mind and everything that came in that got in the way of him furthering that research, which we’ll get into, was pretty much an excuse just to continue doing the research.
[0:28:22 – 0:28:26] Erik: So he had to start providing some answers to these questions.
[0:28:26 – 0:28:29] Erik: And the winter was kind of getting on a little bit.
[0:28:31 – 0:28:37] Erik: And the last thing that he wanted to do was put a real dent into Norway’s pride in himself as a…
[0:28:38 – 0:29:00] Erik: bad scientist and you know norway was kind of on the edge of being like uh kind of up and coming but anything that could have come out as like hey this guy’s going up to study the aurora borealis and he didn’t figure anything out and a surgeon lost his fingers and yeah it would have almost confirmed them as like a scientific backwater bunch of bumpkins up there
[0:29:00 – 0:29:03] Erik: Yeah, so they were able to make some conclusions that winter on the mountain.
[0:29:05 – 0:29:13] Erik: They found out that the auroras did not touch the ground and did not, therefore, singe hair or burn flesh.
[0:29:14 – 0:29:20] Erik: And it was in his opinion that at their lowest, the auroras were about 100 kilometers above the ground.
[0:29:21 – 0:29:24] Erik: So it’s roughly in like the ionosphere range.
[0:29:24 – 0:29:29] Erik: Like well above any commercial flights or aviation, but not quite.
[0:29:30 – 0:29:31] Adam: So you thought they were pretty high up.
[0:29:32 – 0:29:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:32 – 0:29:34] Adam: Not even close to singeing hair.
[0:29:34 – 0:29:34] Erik: No.
[0:29:35 – 0:29:40] Erik: And none of them suffered headaches while the lights were around, which is like another common idea.
[0:29:40 – 0:29:41] Erik: Yeah.
[0:29:41 – 0:29:45] Erik: And they never observed them crackling, hissing or making any noise.
[0:29:46 – 0:29:47] Erik: Which is still actually kind of…
[0:29:48 – 0:29:53] Erik: There are many widespread reports that make noise.
[0:29:53 – 0:30:01] Adam: My sister Megan had studied these and I’ll interject just briefly that I was kind of messaging back and forth with her about the episode and…
[0:30:03 – 0:30:11] Adam: One of her comments was that I’d given Chester, my nephew, we gave him this Betsy Bowen book, Antler Bear Canoe.
[0:30:11 – 0:30:17] Adam: It’s just like an alphabet book, but with Northwood’s themes like L is for loon and that sort of thing.
[0:30:17 – 0:30:23] Adam: And so the Northern Lights one in Antler Bear Canoe apparently says they make noise sometimes.
[0:30:23 – 0:30:24] Adam: Really?
[0:30:24 – 0:30:27] Adam: And Megan was like, they absolutely do not make noise.
[0:30:27 – 0:30:28] Adam: There’s no proof of this.
[0:30:29 – 0:30:33] Adam: That’s a common misconception, and it’s the only reason I don’t like antler bear canoe.
[0:30:34 – 0:30:35] Adam: Yeah.
[0:30:35 – 0:30:39] Adam: So she emphatically pointed out that they do not make noise.
[0:30:40 – 0:30:40] Adam: Yeah.
[0:30:41 – 0:30:42] Adam: She’s studied them a lot.
[0:30:43 – 0:30:44] Adam: She’s studied in Norway.
[0:30:45 – 0:30:46] Erik: Yeah, and there’s some…
[0:30:46 – 0:30:48] Adam: I wonder how close she was to the castle tower.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:49] Erik: I don’t know.
[0:30:49 – 0:30:56] Erik: I mean, you’d think if she was in Norway, it seems like kind of a bit of a… Or at least she probably went to visit it, right?
[0:30:57 – 0:30:57] Adam: It’s a famous tower.
[0:30:57 – 0:30:58] Erik: Yeah, that’s what I mean.
[0:30:58 – 0:31:11] Erik: At the very least, she would have gone and visited this place because, I mean, it’s kind of in the lore of early scientific studies on them, and it seemed like it would kind of be like a pilgrimage almost to go to the top of Mount Haldi.
[0:31:11 – 0:31:13] Adam: Might as well, if you’re there, might as well go to Mount Haldi.
[0:31:13 – 0:31:14] Erik: Yep.
[0:31:14 – 0:31:35] Erik: um so uh they were kind of making some of these conclusions he was really getting a compiling these just massive daily logs of his magnetometers uh but unfortunately in january 11th the storm fell onto them that severed the phone line between talvik peak and sam salent oh sam poor sam
[0:31:37 – 0:31:53] Erik: the door was blowing in constantly snow was coming in through the cracks and it didn’t stop for 21 days and it cut them off from the world three weeks just in the tower black just straight the sun didn’t even break the horizon that’s when they invented the game settlers of katan
[0:31:53 – 0:31:55] Adam: Probably, but… That’s a fact.
[0:31:55 – 0:32:04] Erik: Again, it’s one of those things where you think, well, they probably just went crazy and started eating each other, but they just buried themselves even more in their magnetic readings.
[0:32:05 – 0:32:16] Erik: And this is when his, Birkeland’s, that is, his theories as to the relationship between the Northern Lights…
[0:32:18 – 0:32:27] Erik: has always like up to this point kind of been understood that it was of an electromagnetic disturbance, but the origins of it were the biggest question still.
[0:32:28 – 0:32:38] Erik: And the beginnings of his theory as to the origins could be dated back a few years prior, but it was these dark three weeks in the tower that really solidified him.
[0:32:40 – 0:32:54] Erik: So a couple of years prior, September 9th, 1898, caused him to really reconsider and think about how the sun plays a relationship in terms of…
[0:32:54 – 0:33:03] Erik: when and where the auroras occur because a huge red and orange auroral display was visible as far south as Paris, Vienna, and Rome.
[0:33:04 – 0:33:10] Erik: And this was still about the time when these red auroras, they were very rarely seen that far south.
[0:33:11 – 0:33:14] Erik: So they were interpreted as portents of war, famine, and strife.
[0:33:15 – 0:33:26] Erik: And of course, the next morning, an Italian anarchist named Luigi Lucini assassinated the Empress of Austria and Hungary, who was widely loved.
[0:33:27 – 0:33:30] Erik: And it was very quickly correlated to the Auroras as like… Oh, no.
[0:33:31 – 0:33:34] Erik: This bloody, like, portent of bad things to come.
[0:33:36 – 0:33:37] Erik: And it was during this…
[0:33:38 – 0:33:42] Erik: mass hysteria, essentially, that he kind of wanted to prove that wrong.
[0:33:42 – 0:33:44] Erik: And so he got in touch with…
[0:33:45 – 0:33:45] Erik: He didn’t buy it.
[0:33:45 – 0:33:46] Erik: He didn’t buy it.
[0:33:46 – 0:34:08] Erik: So he got in touch with a Parisian, an astronomer named Camille Flammarion, who was specifically studying sunspots and their activity and confirmed that several large sunspots had passed through the meridian of the sun three days prior to the massive storm slash assassination.
[0:34:09 – 0:34:13] Erik: And so there was a lot of these connections.
[0:34:13 – 0:34:14] Erik: Putting that together.
[0:34:15 – 0:34:25] Erik: The problem with the sunspots right away is there had always been talks, but often there were sunspots with no aurora activity and vice versa.
[0:34:25 – 0:34:26] Adam: Yeah.
[0:34:26 – 0:34:32] Erik: So it was really hard to make scientific connections because it went both ways.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:33] Erik: Yeah.
[0:34:33 – 0:34:35] Adam: Sometimes that doesn’t happen.
[0:34:35 – 0:34:37] Erik: But there was something there.
[0:34:38 – 0:34:41] Erik: It’s been systematically studied since 1610.
[0:34:43 – 0:34:50] Erik: In fact, 1843, a German physicist and amateur astronomer, Heinrich Schwab,
[0:34:51 – 0:35:14] Erik: showed actually it’s incredible to me that this was found out as early as it was uh showed that there was an 11 year cycle of increasing and decreasing activity in terms of in 16 something uh no the sun’s been studied since about then in terms of like regularly looking at it through telescopes yeah but 1843
[0:35:16 – 0:35:39] Erik: heinrich schwab was able to 43 to determine that there was an 11 year cycle which is still pretty regularly yeah in 1843 they knew that already yep and so that’s part of the reason why berkeley decided to choose 1899 slash 1900 as a year to go and study because it was on the solar minimum because he didn’t think that
[0:35:39 – 0:35:42] Adam: Wow, I would have thought he would have went during the peak.
[0:35:42 – 0:36:03] Erik: Right, that’s what I would have thought too, but the best time to study them is when they’re least complicated and you can focus in on individual storms as opposed to like them, you know, multiple different, you know, you get a storm coming in and then it’s being affected by some other solar wind and you can really, you know, take chunks of time where there’s very quiet activity and
[0:36:04 – 0:36:10] Erik: And compare it to relative high activity versus just like it’s generally always storming.
[0:36:10 – 0:36:11] Adam: It’s cleaner data.
[0:36:11 – 0:36:13] Erik: Yes, precisely.
[0:36:15 – 0:36:19] Erik: So with that in mind, he became convinced that his initial hunch was correct.
[0:36:20 – 0:36:29] Erik: The force disturbingly being the magnetic field came directly from the sun in narrow beams of electrically charged particles called cathode rays.
[0:36:29 – 0:36:31] Erik: Okay.
[0:36:31 – 0:36:43] Erik: Only in 1897 did the British scientist J.J. Thompson show that cathode rays consisted of high-velocity streams of negatively charged particles, electrons.
[0:36:44 – 0:36:55] Erik: Birkeland was sure that the sun emitted similar beams that were narrow and focused and often missed the Earth completely, which was why sunspots did not always result in auroras.
[0:36:56 – 0:37:13] Erik: Birkeland surmised that sometimes these active particles hit the magnetic field of the Earth and followed the field lines down toward the poles, where they struck atoms in the atmosphere and the energy created by the collision was emitted as light, the northern lights.
[0:37:14 – 0:37:25] Erik: That explanation, why they appeared only during magnetic storms, the cathode rays from the sun were moving beams of electrons that created electric currents.
[0:37:25 – 0:37:30] Erik: These, in turn, made their own magnetic fields, which were recorded by the magnetometers.
[0:37:31 – 0:37:37] Erik: These same beams of charged particles, on reaching the upper levels of the atmosphere, created the auroras.
[0:37:39 – 0:37:46] Erik: His theory also explained why on one or two occasions that winter, similar auroras appeared at 27-day intervals.
[0:37:47 – 0:37:54] Erik: The sunspots took 27 days to make a complete circuit of the sun and often made two or three circuits before disappearing.
[0:37:55 – 0:37:59] Erik: In effect, the sun was creating the magnetic storms and was the origin of the auroras.
[0:38:01 – 0:38:02] Adam: So he had it.
[0:38:03 – 0:38:03] Erik: Well, yeah, that’s…
[0:38:04 – 0:38:05] Erik: just right away.
[0:38:05 – 0:38:06] Erik: He just ended right there.
[0:38:07 – 0:38:08] Adam: The end.
[0:38:08 – 0:38:08] Adam: That’s how they are.
[0:38:09 – 0:38:10] Erik: And that’s how science works.
[0:38:10 – 0:38:14] Erik: You just tell people that’s how it is and then everybody believes you and you just move forward with your life.
[0:38:14 – 0:38:15] Erik: Makes sense.
[0:38:15 – 0:38:15] Erik: Yeah.
[0:38:16 – 0:38:27] Erik: So finally the storm lets up and the lap guide that had been coming up every week who obviously wasn’t able to come up for the storm arrived.
[0:38:27 – 0:38:29] Adam: He was just referred as the guide?
[0:38:30 – 0:38:32] Erik: Well, Clement Hayeta.
[0:38:32 – 0:38:33] Erik: Clement.
[0:38:33 – 0:38:34] Erik: Clement.
[0:38:35 – 0:38:35] Erik: The guide.
[0:38:36 – 0:38:42] Erik: The guide, who was very, very sketchy of this whole operation, and we’ll get to that in a second here.
[0:38:42 – 0:38:42] Erik: Oh, okay.
[0:38:43 – 0:38:49] Erik: So he comes back with supplies and a telegram from Berkland’s brother informing him that his father had died.
[0:38:49 – 0:38:51] Erik: Okay.
[0:38:53 – 0:39:00] Erik: LSR Boy struck out to the Talvik Peak and returned with Saland 21 days by himself.
[0:39:01 – 0:39:02] Erik: Just, hey, we’re back.
[0:39:02 – 0:39:04] Erik: Got cut off from the telephone line.
[0:39:04 – 0:39:05] Erik: He was fine.
[0:39:06 – 0:39:13] Erik: But the guide, the lap guide, the local, saw the death of Berkland’s father, the terrible winter storm.
[0:39:14 – 0:39:21] Erik: And the subsequent extreme northern lights that came after as a sign that the scientists were angering the lights and should leave.
[0:39:23 – 0:39:24] Erik: And on March 15th.
[0:39:24 – 0:39:25] Erik: They’re jingling the bells.
[0:39:25 – 0:39:26] Erik: Yeah, too many jingles.
[0:39:27 – 0:39:28] Erik: They started prepping to leave.
[0:39:29 – 0:39:42] Erik: And on the way down, unfortunately, a local who had come to help them, a guy who was a fisherman, Captain Lang and LSR Boy, both died in an avalanche.
[0:39:43 – 0:39:46] Adam: So maybe they were angering the gods.
[0:39:46 – 0:39:53] Erik: Frost tipped a surgeon and a member of the crew died on the way back down the mountain.
[0:39:53 – 0:40:01] Erik: So, you know, it’s tough to balance that scientific research with the loss of life and limb, but…
[0:40:01 – 0:40:19] Erik: Nevertheless, in early April, he returned to Christiana, moved back in with his parents before quickly moving back out into his parents’ house, that is, and spent most of the rest of that year studying the records that had been produced on the mountain.
[0:40:21 – 0:40:21] Erik: Now,
[0:40:23 – 0:40:24] Adam: Shut up.
[0:40:25 – 0:40:36] Erik: Passionate is Arrow and passionate was Birkeland about helping to achieve independence for Norway and promoting his country’s right to stand alone.
[0:40:36 – 0:40:51] Erik: He believed that his auroral research provided an avenue for advancing national honor as well as developing the role of science in the country, particularly that of physics, defined at the time as the study of heat, electricity, and magnetism.
[0:40:52 – 0:41:04] Erik: It was important that both the scientific establishment and a popular audience be exposed to his ideas as soon as possible to show that a Norwegian had formulated the most advanced explanation for the Aurora Borealis.
[0:41:04 – 0:41:06] Adam: It’s a real feather in the cap for Norway.
[0:41:07 – 0:41:28] Erik: Yeah, you will be disappointed if you think that’s the case, but he decided to publish the manuscript he had been preparing about the Haldi expedition and made an appointment to see his acquaintance, Jacob Dibwad, that’s a name, editor-in-chief of a small publishing house in Christiana, mentioning only what the book was about.
[0:41:28 – 0:41:30] Adam: Jacob Dibwad?
[0:41:30 – 0:41:31] Erik: Dibwad.
[0:41:32 – 0:41:33] Erik: Oh, dear boy.
[0:41:34 – 0:41:43] Erik: And so he went about publishing the Norwegian expedition of 1899 to 1900 for the study of the Aurora Borealis.
[0:41:44 – 0:41:51] Erik: And part one was published in French because it was at the time still the language of the diplomacy.
[0:41:52 – 0:41:55] Erik: Norwegian market would have been much too small.
[0:41:56 – 0:42:00] Erik: Berkland did not like the Germans and he couldn’t speak English.
[0:42:00 – 0:42:07] Erik: So it was published in French, was regularly… Also in Norwegian.
[0:42:08 – 0:42:12] Erik: I don’t even know if it was printed in Norwegian at all.
[0:42:12 – 0:42:14] Adam: He leaked his Norwegian copy, I’m sure.
[0:42:14 – 0:42:16] Erik: Yeah, maybe.
[0:42:16 – 0:42:17] Adam: For the Norwegians.
[0:42:19 – 0:42:26] Erik: But criticisms from fellow professors just in the city came, you know, like we’ve talked about, is fantastic.
[0:42:27 – 0:42:41] Erik: foolhardy schemes that led to the death of a yeah it didn’t look good talented young man and the fingertips of a potential surgeon um and so published too fast yeah he rushed it to he rushed a publication
[0:42:42 – 0:43:04] Erik: Yeah, so the publication did go out in very limited copies, and it was only until Dibwad was able to secure funding from the Fritsov Scientific Foundation, which that would be a cool topic to talk about in the future.
[0:43:04 – 0:43:06] Erik: Diablo Abedin, Fritsov.
[0:43:06 – 0:43:19] Erik: Fritsov Nansen, the badass who skied across Greenland and got the closest to the North Pole in the Fram, basically by letting the boat freeze into the ice.
[0:43:19 – 0:43:23] Erik: And he figured out the ice flows that would get him the closest.
[0:43:24 – 0:43:27] Erik: But it meant living on the boat for three years.
[0:43:28 – 0:43:29] Adam: So he was…
[0:43:29 – 0:43:30] Adam: It’s a long-term plan.
[0:43:31 – 0:43:32] Adam: Yeah, he had completed that.
[0:43:32 – 0:43:32] Adam: He’s committed.
[0:43:32 – 0:43:42] Erik: He had some money to throw around, and that foundation published essentially the first volume of this treatise that he wanted to put out.
[0:43:43 – 0:43:51] Erik: And in spring 1901, the local papers were heralding him as a brilliant scientist and a brave explorer.
[0:43:51 – 0:43:53] Erik: The headline was, Riddle of the Aurora.
[0:43:55 – 0:44:15] Erik: solved so that was in norway oh okay so they’re they’re down yeah yeah uh but since it was uh published in french there was very few other european readers um and anybody that did read it in england um pretty much
[0:44:17 – 0:44:18] Erik: pushed it to the side.
[0:44:19 – 0:44:25] Erik: And this is because of, again, probably a whole topic that you could get into.
[0:44:25 – 0:44:33] Erik: But at the time, the British scientists had a very strong belief that space was an empty vacuum.
[0:44:34 – 0:44:57] Erik: and this was backed up by the royal society which was the most influential scientific body at the time led by um lord kelvin which is total kelvin comes from and yeah really not open to uh not very open-minded no so lord kelvin yeah the and they had a monthly publication and in may of that year uh
[0:45:00 – 0:45:25] Erik: It was reported that Kelvin commented on the Birkeland publication that there is absolutely conclusive evidence against the supposition that terrestrial magnetic storms are due to magnetic actions of the sun or to any kind of dynamical action taking place within the sun or in connection with hurricanes in its atmosphere or anywhere near the sun.
[0:45:25 – 0:45:29] Adam: Hurricanes and its atmosphere are like the sun they’re talking about there.
[0:45:29 – 0:45:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:45:29 – 0:45:32] Adam: They’re calling sunspots hurricanes of the sun.
[0:45:32 – 0:45:33] Adam: Yeah.
[0:45:33 – 0:45:37] Erik: The supposed connections between magnetic storms and sunspots is unreal.
[0:45:38 – 0:45:43] Erik: And the seeming agreement between the periods has been made by mere coincidence.
[0:45:43 – 0:45:44] Adam: So that’s Lord Kelvin.
[0:45:44 – 0:45:45] Adam: That’s Lord Kelvin.
[0:45:45 – 0:45:48] Adam: The guy who came up with the Kelvin temperature scale that nobody uses anymore.
[0:45:49 – 0:45:50] Adam: Asshole.
[0:45:50 – 0:45:51] Erik: Uh huh.
[0:45:51 – 0:45:51] Erik: I know.
[0:45:52 – 0:45:52] Adam: Yeah.
[0:45:53 – 0:45:53] Adam: Whatever.
[0:45:54 – 0:46:00] Erik: So yeah, very few scientists were prepared to stand up against it because the prominence of the Royal society.
[0:46:00 – 0:46:13] Erik: So it bitterly disappointed Birkeland and the British and essentially scientists and scientific publications and understanding, uh, was essentially, it was thrown out.
[0:46:13 – 0:46:16] Erik: The thesis was discarded.
[0:46:17 – 0:46:17] Erik: Um,
[0:46:19 – 0:46:20] Adam: Kind of had to see this coming.
[0:46:21 – 0:46:22] Erik: I mean, a little bit.
[0:46:22 – 0:46:23] Erik: It’s hard to say.
[0:46:25 – 0:46:28] Adam: Can’t rock the boat that hard.
[0:46:29 – 0:46:34] Erik: Yeah, it really is an interesting… How science worked back then.
[0:46:34 – 0:46:38] Erik: It probably works the same way now, but looking back on it, you can see just how…
[0:46:39 – 0:46:40] Erik: Yeah, it was too bold of a leap.
[0:46:40 – 0:46:46] Erik: …politically influenced it was by these societies that they were the ones that just decided… Yeah.
[0:46:47 – 0:46:52] Erik: It kind of actually flies in the face of what actual, like, what science is.
[0:46:52 – 0:46:56] Erik: There’s just, well, if this one body says it’s no good, then it’s probably not good.
[0:46:56 – 0:46:57] Adam: Well, it’s going to make this…
[0:46:57 – 0:46:58] Adam: They’re going to make them look bad.
[0:46:58 – 0:46:59] Adam: Yeah.
[0:46:59 – 0:47:06] Erik: So, Birkeland basically became obsessed in convincing the Brits by returning to the mountains of northern Norway…
[0:47:07 – 0:47:13] Erik: He wanted to build more observatories so he could really cross-reference, get more data, build a bigger picture.
[0:47:14 – 0:47:18] Erik: Biggest hurdle at this point was him finding the money.
[0:47:19 – 0:47:20] Adam: There was no funding.
[0:47:20 – 0:47:20] Adam: Yeah, the crowns were all dried up.
[0:47:22 – 0:47:26] Erik: His first expedition, when it was all said and done, cost the country 38,292 crowns.
[0:47:26 – 0:47:29] Adam: They budgeted 12,000 for it.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:29] Adam: Yeah.
[0:47:29 – 0:47:30] Adam: He went way over.
[0:47:30 – 0:47:30] Erik: Over three times.
[0:47:31 – 0:47:31] Erik: Sheesh.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:32] Erik: Yeah.
[0:47:32 – 0:47:44] Erik: So he had to provide his own funding by patenting a switch that could be turned on and off to control huge currents at hydroelectric dams.
[0:47:46 – 0:48:00] Erik: This is one of the things I didn’t mention right away was while he was up in Kaafjord, he had the opportunity to kind of like go and explore some of this hydroelectricity, some of these new dams and these things that were opening up.
[0:48:02 – 0:48:12] Erik: And there was a part of him that kind of saw something that could be a potential in turning his interest in that into actual money.
[0:48:14 – 0:48:27] Erik: So by late autumn, Birkeland thought he had ironed out the problem with his new circuit breaker switches and was ready to experiment with an emergency stop procedure at the 10 kilovolt station at…
[0:48:28 – 0:48:30] Erik: Meridal Shamarin.
[0:48:30 – 0:48:41] Erik: Basically, the problem was these hydroelectric dams, once the water started producing energy, they didn’t have any way to turn stuff off to do repairs or control it.
[0:48:41 – 0:48:42] Erik: It was just too much power.
[0:48:43 – 0:48:48] Erik: And so his colleagues in the Hydroelectric Power Committee gathered to watch the demonstration and
[0:48:48 – 0:48:50] Erik: Events did not go quite as planned.
[0:48:51 – 0:49:06] Erik: When Birkeland pulled out the metal knife switch, as he called it, that should have broken the current, a huge arc of electricity jumped from the circuit to the metal switch in Birkeland’s hand and gave him a powerful shock enough to throw him across the engine room.
[0:49:08 – 0:49:16] Erik: All the fuses were destroyed, the circuit board broke, and the entire power station was plunged into darkness and began to burn.
[0:49:17 – 0:49:18] Adam: That’s really not good.
[0:49:18 – 0:49:20] Adam: It couldn’t have gone any worse.
[0:49:20 – 0:49:20] Erik: No.
[0:49:21 – 0:49:22] Adam: He didn’t die.
[0:49:22 – 0:49:22] Adam: No.
[0:49:23 – 0:49:26] Erik: Well, the members of the committee and the employees ran for their lives.
[0:49:26 – 0:49:32] Erik: Birkeland sat on the floor laughing until his sides hurt and the fire was extinguished.
[0:49:33 – 0:49:37] Erik: Later, he told Sem Salen that it was the most cheerful moment of my life.
[0:49:38 – 0:49:38] Erik: What?
[0:49:39 – 0:49:43] Erik: Well, yeah, because Birkeland believed that he had found the answer to his prayers.
[0:49:44 – 0:49:49] Erik: The switching device he had been working on turned out to have another use entirely.
[0:49:50 – 0:49:55] Erik: The experimental switch used a solenoid, a large coil of metal connected to an electric current.
[0:49:56 – 0:50:02] Erik: Birkland noticed that when he switched on the power, two metal screws were sucked into the solenoid with great force.
[0:50:03 – 0:50:11] Erik: When he reversed the current, they were ejected from the solenoid so violently that they had given him two little bruises on his hand.
[0:50:12 – 0:50:18] Erik: When he showed the effect to the engineers, they said that he had seen it before, but it was rare enough to not be a problem.
[0:50:19 – 0:50:23] Erik: But for Birkeland, it was not a problem, but rather the solution to his funding worries.
[0:50:24 – 0:50:29] Erik: In a moment of intuitive brilliance, he had glimpsed a use for the solenoid that everyone else had missed.
[0:50:30 – 0:50:39] Erik: Leaving Saland puzzled as to the meaning, Birkeland hurried upstairs to his office, sure that he would now find the means to finance his great expedition.
[0:50:41 – 0:50:44] Erik: Do you have any idea what he made or what he thought he could make?
[0:50:44 – 0:50:45] Adam: It’s got to be a weapon.
[0:50:45 – 0:50:45] Adam: Yeah.
[0:50:46 – 0:50:52] Erik: So he set about testing and working towards something that even his partner, Saland, had trouble understanding.
[0:50:52 – 0:50:54] Adam: Military-industrial complex.
[0:50:54 – 0:51:06] Erik: And during mid-September, he brought his friend, Alfred Brin, who was the underwriter at the patent office, and he showed him what he had been working on.
[0:51:06 – 0:51:12] Erik: And this is what Brin had to say about what he was shown by Birkeland.
[0:51:14 – 0:51:17] Erik: Bryn could see that what set Birkeland apart.
[0:51:18 – 0:51:20] Erik: Oh, sorry, this isn’t what he was showing him.
[0:51:20 – 0:51:32] Erik: This is what Bryn had to say about Birkeland just as a scientist, which I thought was the best summation in the whole book in terms of any future work that he did, but specifically to this invention.
[0:51:33 – 0:51:41] Erik: Bryn could see that what Birkeland above his peers was his ability to extract big ideas from tiny seeds of chance.
[0:51:42 – 0:51:58] Erik: He seemed to have an intuitive understanding of events that allowed him to push them instantly to their limits while other people were trying to categorize, regulate, repeat, systemize, and render scientific, that’s in quotes, their experience.
[0:51:59 – 0:52:17] Erik: berkeland was so instinctive a scientist that he had the confidence to use his imagination like an artist he could picture what space must be like because he understood so well the essential forces that kept the world turning in the same way he had used a radical new use for a solenoid
[0:52:18 – 0:52:30] Erik: and in the autumn of 1901, he went to the patent office and received patent number 11201, the name Berkland’s Electromagnetic Cannon.
[0:52:30 – 0:52:30] Erik: Yes.
[0:52:32 – 0:52:33] Adam: Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
[0:52:34 – 0:52:35] Adam: Actually, it was a party horn.
[0:52:36 – 0:52:37] Adam: It was the first party horn.
[0:52:37 – 0:52:44] Erik: Yeah, so he reversed the magnetic properties of that solenoid to create an electromagnetic cannon, a.k.a.
[0:52:44 – 0:52:45] Erik: a railgun.
[0:52:46 – 0:52:47] Erik: So that’s pretty cool.
[0:52:47 – 0:52:48] Adam: Yeah, that’ll make some money.
[0:52:48 – 0:52:49] Erik: Yeah.
[0:52:49 – 0:52:50] Erik: Well, we’ll see.
[0:52:50 – 0:52:51] Adam: Well, who knows.
[0:52:51 – 0:52:54] Adam: So he gathered two heads of the military.
[0:52:54 – 0:52:54] Adam: I bet it did.
[0:52:55 – 0:53:07] Erik: Two heads of industry, and he demonstrated his cannon’s potential through a display that saw the projectile being fired at a board set on a chair in an office.
[0:53:08 – 0:53:11] Erik: And the other crazy thing about this is it fired silently.
[0:53:12 – 0:53:16] Erik: No, like not big report or kaboom or cannon or anything.
[0:53:16 – 0:53:21] Erik: And it had a range several times that of a conventional weapon at the time.
[0:53:22 – 0:53:30] Erik: And the original prototype was capable of firing a half kilometer projectile at 80 miles per second.
[0:53:31 – 0:53:39] Erik: And so that evening, over whiskeys and cigars, the four pledged financial support for the construction of an official prototype.
[0:53:40 – 0:53:50] Erik: And he started a joint stock company in November, Berkland’s Firearms, and had 35,000 crowns as capital.
[0:53:51 – 0:53:54] Erik: And this was about the time that the Germans were getting interested.
[0:53:54 – 0:54:04] Erik: And so he brought a larger version that was four meters long and it could fire a 10 kilometer projectile up to 100 kilometers.
[0:54:05 – 0:54:07] Adam: What’s a 10 kilometer projectile mean?
[0:54:08 – 0:54:26] Erik: uh that’s just how uh uh 10 kilogram sorry oh okay okay yeah that yeah that was confusing a 10 kilogram piece of i they never really did say what exactly he was firing frozen fish probably yeah frozen yeah absolutely kippered snacks
[0:54:28 – 0:54:50] Erik: So, yeah, his newfound notoriety as a prominent scientist was used to ask the Norwegian government for a 38,000 crown grant to continue researching, quote, magnetic disturbances, auroras, and the relationship to a huge system of electrical currents parallel to Earth’s surface at high altitude.
[0:54:51 – 0:54:55] Erik: Parliament had not easily forgotten the last time they put money towards this guy.
[0:54:56 – 0:54:59] Erik: And though they did grant him some money, it was about half.
[0:55:00 – 0:55:06] Erik: So it took him a few private donations and actually a personal loan bank to make up the difference.
[0:55:07 – 0:55:20] Erik: And with that money in hand, he decided on setting up four sites that he would conduct an entirely new expedition over the course of that next winter.
[0:55:21 – 0:55:43] Erik: um one of the things he determined is that you don’t have to be on top of a mountain to do the research so that helped in terms of sure logistics uh so that’s nice you got that going yeah you don’t have to have the lapland guide freaking out on you you don’t have to have the four kilometer telephone line laying in the snow um
[0:55:43 – 0:55:51] Erik: But they did go back up and set one up in Ka Fjord, which basically they were just down on the banks of the fjord itself.
[0:55:52 – 0:55:59] Erik: They also set up a fourth observatory in Daira Fjord in western Iceland.
[0:56:01 – 0:56:12] Erik: They set up a third station in Axel Loewen in the southern part of Spitsbergen Islands, which is 900 kilometers north of Norway, and obviously in some islands in the Arctic Circle.
[0:56:13 – 0:56:22] Erik: And the last observation station was going to be set up on Matachkenschar, which is an island of Novaya Zemla off the north coast of Russia.
[0:56:23 – 0:56:34] Erik: And so in July 1902, in preparation, Birkeland traveled to Archangelsk, Russia, in preparations to set up the observatory in Novaya Zemlya.
[0:56:36 – 0:56:46] Erik: But before he could take off on a train north, he was bitten by a dog and had to return to Moscow for 10 days of treatment for rabies at the Pasteur Institute.
[0:56:47 – 0:57:07] Erik: what basically like his dog bitten he was like just a year or two away from the treatment for rabies being invented like being produced bypassed you like he would have pretty much died so uh after that he um kind of figured he should just head back home
[0:57:09 – 0:57:18] Erik: And although the Kaafjord team observed 27 auroral phenomena that winter, clouds obscured many nights, particularly in February.
[0:57:19 – 0:57:29] Erik: Large variations in the magnetic needle indicated that auroras were extremely likely, but overcast weather kept for a week or weeks at a time and kept them hidden.
[0:57:31 – 0:57:40] Erik: Birkeland became even more convinced that his plan to bring the Northern Lights into the laboratory, where he would not need to worry about clouds or storms, was necessary to continue his research.
[0:57:41 – 0:57:47] Erik: As he could not go into space, he would bring space to him and recreate the universe in miniature.
[0:57:48 – 0:57:55] Erik: He had been a mathematician, a theoretician, and an observer in the field, and now he needed to become an experimenter.
[0:57:57 – 0:58:07] Erik: So it was pretty well figured out after that winter that a lot of observations were made from those four observatories.
[0:58:07 – 0:58:14] Erik: But the conditions that were presented to the people that were out there kind of all too familiar.
[0:58:14 – 0:58:14] Erik: Yeah.
[0:58:15 – 0:58:19] Erik: kind of led to them throwing up their hands and it was more or less a failure.
[0:58:22 – 0:58:33] Erik: But there was, there was stacks and stacks of magnetic readings and it still wasn’t enough for him to convince the Brits.
[0:58:34 – 0:58:43] Erik: So this is, he, he basically had come to the conclusion that he was going to have to bring this science into a lab and try to produce Aurora’s
[0:58:44 – 0:58:45] Erik: On a small scale.
[0:58:45 – 0:58:45] Adam: What?
[0:58:45 – 0:58:46] Adam: He’s going to make Aurora?
[0:58:47 – 0:58:47] Erik: Yeah.
[0:58:47 – 0:58:54] Erik: But again, this was going to require… Basically, he needed to build a laboratory from scratch.
[0:58:54 – 0:58:54] Erik: Yeah.
[0:58:55 – 0:58:58] Erik: And he had to raise a significant amount of money.
[0:58:59 – 0:59:06] Erik: And he looked back to his gun, his electromagnetic cannon.
[0:59:07 – 0:59:10] Erik: And in March 1903, he held a gala
[0:59:12 – 0:59:24] Erik: at the university in the festival hall to try to drum up more interest about his canon, invited dignitaries, members of parliament, and the place was packed, filled.
[0:59:24 – 0:59:36] Erik: The anticipation to see something fire silently, to be able to move something at the speed that had been reported was of great interest.
[0:59:37 – 0:59:40] Erik: And she assured everybody the whole process was going to be silent.
[0:59:40 – 0:59:42] Erik: You’re all going to be amazed.
[0:59:42 – 0:59:44] Erik: And then you can all start throwing money at me.
[0:59:44 – 0:59:47] Erik: So he goes ahead and he flips the switch on his cannon.
[0:59:48 – 0:59:56] Erik: And a 300 amp short circuit occurred and large flames issued from the mouth filling the hall with a loud roar.
[0:59:57 – 0:59:57] Erik: Just like…
[1:00:00 – 1:00:02] Erik: The audience just panicked and fled.
[1:00:03 – 1:00:06] Erik: And again, as opposed to being disappointed like the first time.
[1:00:06 – 1:00:07] Erik: Yeah, he figured something else out.
[1:00:07 – 1:00:08] Erik: He figured something else out.
[1:00:09 – 1:00:10] Adam: You got to learn from your mistakes.
[1:00:11 – 1:00:11] Erik: Exactly.
[1:00:11 – 1:00:16] Erik: He saw the flames that were being thrown from the cannon as a new business opportunity.
[1:00:17 – 1:00:30] Erik: And he transitioned from the invention being one that was based in a military or weapon to one that was agricultural and fertilizer based.
[1:00:30 – 1:00:33] Erik: This was the biggest thing for me that was just like, what?
[1:00:33 – 1:00:35] Erik: This is taking a turn.
[1:00:35 – 1:00:40] Erik: So at the time, there was a crisis in Europe for fertilizer.
[1:00:40 – 1:00:42] Erik: There was great shortages.
[1:00:43 – 1:00:47] Erik: And Birkeland believed that this faulty element in his gun…
[1:00:48 – 1:01:12] Erik: could ionize air and produce nitric acid because that’s what he smelled he smelled like this nasty like something was happening that immediately afterwards he’s like okay i just did something to the air but the problem was he needed a ton of power to try to produce this on a large scale to ionize enough air to make fertilizer basically out of thin air and so
[1:01:13 – 1:01:22] Erik: And he met with a guy by the name of Sam Eide, who had established a company that I thought was funny.
[1:01:22 – 1:01:28] Erik: He was going around buying up waterfalls for eventual use for hydroelectricity and dams and stuff.
[1:01:28 – 1:01:34] Erik: But basically all he had gotten himself to was just buying the waterfalls.
[1:01:34 – 1:01:36] Erik: Step one, acquire waterfalls.
[1:01:36 – 1:01:37] Adam: Yeah.
[1:01:37 – 1:01:39] Adam: Step two, question mark.
[1:01:39 – 1:01:40] Adam: Yeah.
[1:01:40 – 1:01:42] Adam: Step three, profit.
[1:01:42 – 1:01:45] Erik: Step four, produce fertilizer from thin air.
[1:01:46 – 1:01:47] Erik: So this is…
[1:01:47 – 1:01:49] Erik: So you got the waterfall guy.
[1:01:49 – 1:01:50] Erik: Got the waterfall guy.
[1:01:51 – 1:02:01] Erik: Got the potential for hooking up this furnace that’s going to make fertilizer out of thin air to a hydroelectric facility that has the power to do it.
[1:02:02 – 1:02:02] Erik: And…
[1:02:04 – 1:02:08] Erik: So a tenuous relationship was formed.
[1:02:09 – 1:02:15] Erik: This is like where the movie introduces the bad guy, the bad guy Sam Eide.
[1:02:17 – 1:02:33] Erik: And so they both agreed to throw down on this invention with Eide being the kind of the money and the power and Birkeland being the brains and the actual invention.
[1:02:34 – 1:02:57] Erik: And so right off the bat, though, the quote that came from the owners of the invention, as per Eide, in a formal agreement, according to our agreement today, today I confirm with this the agreement between us that we together shall apply for the patent for the process invented by you.
[1:02:58 – 1:03:06] Erik: by means of electric arts, produce nitrogen compounds or other chemical compounds of air or other gas combinations.
[1:03:07 – 1:03:15] Erik: And so Birkeland was deeply unhappy by having to share credit with Eide, who had no part in the technical development of the idea.
[1:03:16 – 1:03:25] Erik: But he was forced to collaborate because only Eide had access to the waterfalls, the huge amounts of electricity, electric power that was necessary to run the furnaces.
[1:03:26 – 1:03:26] Adam: Ah, yes.
[1:03:27 – 1:03:35] Erik: And on the back of his copy of the agreement, Birkeland wrote, this contract states that Eide is joint owner of the invention, but I am the sole inventor.
[1:03:36 – 1:03:41] Erik: This document is for historical interest in case Eide tries to take credit for the whole thing.
[1:03:41 – 1:03:53] Erik: So from the start, collaboration between Birkeland and Eide was riddled with suspicion and doubt, and it provided to be more damaging than Birkeland ever imagined.
[1:03:54 – 1:03:54] Erik: Oh, dear.
[1:03:56 – 1:03:57] Erik: Do you want to keep going?
[1:03:59 – 1:04:00] Adam: Yeah, let’s take a break, though.
[1:04:00 – 1:04:01] Erik: Okay.
[1:04:01 – 1:04:02] Adam: We’ll be back.
[1:04:03 – 1:04:05] Adam: We’ll be back in a jiffy.
[1:04:05 – 1:04:05] Erik: In a jiff.
[1:04:06 – 1:04:07] Erik: Here comes some jiffy noises.
[1:04:08 – 1:04:09] Erik: Some crackling and hissing.
[1:04:16 – 1:04:16] Adam: Vapor.
[1:04:16 – 1:04:18] Adam: We’re back.
[1:04:18 – 1:04:19] Erik: That’s some hot vapor.
[1:04:19 – 1:04:20] Erik: That’s human vapor wave.
[1:04:21 – 1:04:25] Erik: The most organic form.
[1:04:25 – 1:04:31] Erik: I think we’re going to be able to get this in into one reasonable episode.
[1:04:33 – 1:05:01] Adam: if you’re ready they’re all reasonable yeah if you’re ready to continue we just got an update we’ve moved into yes secure studio k yeah there’s um we’re in the outfitting room we’re all yeah we moved into outfitting by the big map under the map 28 oh sweet sweet map man it’s looking good yeah i’m gonna get distracted looking off onto that map wall
[1:05:02 – 1:05:08] Erik: So, when we last left off, we were talking about fertilizer.
[1:05:08 – 1:05:10] Adam: Fertilizer, yeah.
[1:05:10 – 1:05:12] Adam: I always thought we’d be on to fertilizer by episode 47.
[1:05:13 – 1:05:14] Erik: Yeah, you know it.
[1:05:14 – 1:05:16] Erik: Talking about fertilizer furnaces.
[1:05:16 – 1:05:18] Adam: Air furnaces.
[1:05:18 – 1:05:19] Erik: Cathode rays.
[1:05:21 – 1:05:21] Erik: So.
[1:05:23 – 1:05:33] Erik: Christian Berkland spent the rest of 1903 testing and perfecting the prototype furnace in an old warehouse on Frogner Bay.
[1:05:34 – 1:05:37] Adam: By a waterfall that he bought from the Waterfall Man.
[1:05:37 – 1:05:45] Erik: Actually, I didn’t really get how he was able to test and work on the prototype not at the waterfall.
[1:05:45 – 1:05:46] Erik: This was in Christiania.
[1:05:46 – 1:05:49] Adam: Well, they could run a telephone four miles through the damn mountains.
[1:05:49 – 1:05:54] Adam: They probably could run the electricity from the guy’s waterfalls over to wherever he wanted to work.
[1:05:54 – 1:05:56] Adam: He didn’t have to work right at the waterfall.
[1:05:56 – 1:05:58] Erik: Yeah, maybe not, but I don’t know.
[1:05:58 – 1:06:03] Adam: They had the ability to transfer stuff on wires at that point, it seemed like.
[1:06:03 – 1:06:04] Erik: Yeah, there was that.
[1:06:05 – 1:06:10] Adam: So why couldn’t he just rent the waterfall guy’s electricity then instead of going in partners?
[1:06:13 – 1:06:14] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:06:14 – 1:06:16] Adam: You want to sell a bunch of electricity, waterfall guy?
[1:06:16 – 1:06:18] Adam: Well, he probably had to build the waterfall.
[1:06:19 – 1:06:25] Erik: Well, he didn’t have any money to work with, so he couldn’t just be like, hey, let me just rent some of your electricity.
[1:06:25 – 1:06:26] Erik: He had to give away half the idea.
[1:06:26 – 1:06:30] Erik: You can kind of be in on this idea if you give me some of your power.
[1:06:30 – 1:06:31] Adam: The idea was the currency.
[1:06:31 – 1:06:31] Erik: Yeah.
[1:06:31 – 1:06:32] Erik: Okay.
[1:06:32 – 1:06:33] Erik: Yeah.
[1:06:33 – 1:06:35] Erik: So he’s slaving over this.
[1:06:37 – 1:07:03] Erik: fertilizer furnace meanwhile ide’s out there you know trying to sell the product pressuring berkland to provide something’s like a coen brothers movie right here yeah so the the the end product is saltpeter aka potassium nitrate that’s like that’s the key component okay fertilizer slash if you want to make a bomb but um or algae or algae yeah
[1:07:04 – 1:07:12] Erik: Finally, in August, Birkeland did produce a sustainable and efficient amount of potassium nitrate.
[1:07:13 – 1:07:17] Erik: And I’d went about trying to sell the furnace.
[1:07:18 – 1:07:29] Erik: This was around the time that Birkeland showed his colleagues who had recently returned from Iceland with their magnetograms his diagrams for the Torella.
[1:07:31 – 1:07:34] Erik: which in Latin means little earth.
[1:07:34 – 1:07:39] Erik: And so this is the beginnings of his little miniature solar system.
[1:07:39 – 1:07:40] Erik: The Torella?
[1:07:40 – 1:07:41] Erik: Called the Torella.
[1:07:41 – 1:07:44] Erik: Yeah, and it consists of a magnetized metal ball.
[1:07:44 – 1:07:46] Adam: This guy’s got a gift for words.
[1:07:46 – 1:07:46] Erik: Yeah.
[1:07:47 – 1:07:49] Erik: Well, actually, he didn’t come up with the Torella.
[1:07:49 – 1:07:50] Erik: He stole that from somebody.
[1:07:50 – 1:07:55] Erik: He stole that from the guy that, I’m past my notes now.
[1:07:55 – 1:07:57] Adam: He also didn’t come up with the Vizlis.
[1:07:58 – 1:07:58] Adam: Vindlis.
[1:07:59 – 1:07:59] Adam: Vindlis.
[1:07:59 – 1:08:00] Adam: Vindlis.
[1:08:01 – 1:08:08] Erik: The Torella, that came from the guy that, the Englishman that published the paper on how Earth is a magnet.
[1:08:10 – 1:08:10] Adam: Okay.
[1:08:11 – 1:08:21] Erik: So basically his mini little Torella, which little earth consists of a magnetized metal ball inside of a vacuum tube, which represents space.
[1:08:22 – 1:08:25] Erik: And at one end of that tube, there’s a cathode ray representing the sun.
[1:08:27 – 1:08:37] Erik: And so he kind of trying to play around with that idea while balancing out the unrelenting like businessman of I’d trying to like get this
[1:08:37 – 1:08:39] Adam: We got to motinize.
[1:08:39 – 1:08:42] Erik: We got to monetize this fertilizer machine.
[1:08:42 – 1:08:42] Adam: Monetize?
[1:08:42 – 1:08:43] Adam: What did I say?
[1:08:43 – 1:08:44] Adam: Motinize.
[1:08:45 – 1:08:47] Adam: This isn’t mozzarella cheese, you idiot.
[1:08:47 – 1:08:49] Adam: We got to mozzalize it.
[1:08:50 – 1:08:53] Erik: It’s a cheese gun that cooks as it shoots.
[1:08:53 – 1:08:57] Erik: So it just flies on and hits the pizza already cooked and soft.
[1:08:57 – 1:09:04] Adam: When the cheese gun started on fire and everybody thought it was a disaster, he just smiled knowing it was a good idea.
[1:09:04 – 1:09:07] Adam: Future prophet.
[1:09:07 – 1:09:08] Erik: Every scientist ever.
[1:09:09 – 1:09:17] Erik: Yeah, and I mean, this was unrelenting and exhausting scientific research and testing and research and development.
[1:09:17 – 1:09:19] Adam: You don’t understand the life of the scientist.
[1:09:20 – 1:09:23] Erik: He took two days off for like six months around Christmas.
[1:09:25 – 1:09:28] Erik: And he eventually, in early 1904, actually collapsed.
[1:09:29 – 1:09:33] Erik: And I tried to replace him with another engineer on the project.
[1:09:33 – 1:09:41] Erik: But the combination of sleeping pills, whiskey, and visits from friends, Birkeland was able to recuperate his health.
[1:09:41 – 1:09:42] Adam: That always works.
[1:09:42 – 1:09:44] Erik: That’s the combo there.
[1:09:44 – 1:09:45] Adam: Tried and true.
[1:09:46 – 1:10:03] Erik: So he returned to work, but the collaboration between him and Eide was strained even more as one of the guys that was working on the patent drawings for Birkeland told Eide that Birkeland was only putting his names on the paper, not Eide’s.
[1:10:04 – 1:10:10] Erik: So still, again, trying to take that scientific integrity claim away from his business partner.
[1:10:12 – 1:10:32] Erik: And finally, in autumn of 1904, the furnaces were actually installed at a waterfall and a testing facility in Notoden, which was kind of out in the sticks, not nearly as far north as like the Mount Haldi testing, but in a little bit more of the temperate mid regions of Norway.
[1:10:32 – 1:10:33] Erik: Yeah.
[1:10:33 – 1:10:34] Adam: The doors weren’t blown in.
[1:10:34 – 1:10:37] Adam: Their tiny doors were firmly shut.
[1:10:37 – 1:10:39] Erik: Yeah, no doors were being blown off.
[1:10:39 – 1:10:44] Erik: And I’d set a June date for the experts to inspect the furnace just a few months ahead.
[1:10:44 – 1:10:45] Adam: Let me just guess.
[1:10:45 – 1:10:46] Adam: It explodes?
[1:10:48 – 1:10:51] Erik: Well, the rule of threes is any game.
[1:10:52 – 1:11:00] Erik: Although I did not admit it, Birkeland knew that there was a further problem, potentially more serious than the others.
[1:11:01 – 1:11:04] Erik: Relations between Norway and Sweden were worsening.
[1:11:04 – 1:11:13] Erik: The union was at a breaking point, and both nations were preparing for armed conflict in the face of Sweden’s refusal to acknowledge Norway’s grievances.
[1:11:14 – 1:11:33] Erik: The investors in the new company were Swedish, but it would become impossible to transfer money from one company to the other if war broke out and there would be backlash against allowing Swedes so much interest in a Norwegian company using national assets and the Swedish engineers would be forced to return home.
[1:11:34 – 1:11:39] Erik: In short, the entire enterprise would founder within hours if war was declared.”
[1:11:40 – 1:11:56] Erik: It was a very real point in time when Sweden and Norway and Finland, that whole Scandinavian top of Europe, was kind of embroiled in a potential early pre-World War I outbreak of war.
[1:11:58 – 1:12:02] Adam: Well, you know, if the Northern Lights are out, you’ve got to go to war.
[1:12:03 – 1:12:04] Erik: It’s a portent.
[1:12:04 – 1:12:05] Adam: It is a portent.
[1:12:06 – 1:12:23] Erik: yeah so i dropped my notes adam oh um so this is touched on a lot more in the actual book but i’m not gonna go into it too much um
[1:12:27 – 1:12:33] Erik: He married his wife, Ida Charlotte Hammer, on May 15th, 1905.
[1:12:34 – 1:12:37] Adam: The one thing that I thought about… 1905?
[1:12:37 – 1:12:39] Erik: 1905, yeah.
[1:12:39 – 1:12:44] Erik: So like a year, a little under a year after the furnaces were finally installed.
[1:12:46 – 1:12:49] Erik: And the same day that… Who, the scientist or the businessman?
[1:12:49 – 1:12:50] Adam: The businessman.
[1:12:50 – 1:12:51] Erik: Sorry.
[1:12:51 – 1:12:54] Erik: Christian Brooklyn married Ida Charlotte Hammer.
[1:12:54 – 1:12:56] Adam: Does she know how he treats reindeer though?
[1:12:57 – 1:12:59] Erik: He didn’t make the decision to kill the reindeer.
[1:12:59 – 1:13:02] Erik: That was the guide and just the general survival.
[1:13:02 – 1:13:03] Adam: You’re blaming it on the guide?
[1:13:03 – 1:13:05] Erik: I’ll blame it on the Lapland guide.
[1:13:07 – 1:13:08] Erik: So they got married.
[1:13:09 – 1:13:18] Erik: And on the same day that they were to be married, he absentmindedly had set up a lecture at the university.
[1:13:18 – 1:13:19] Adam: What?
[1:13:19 – 1:13:19] Erik: Yeah.
[1:13:19 – 1:13:23] Erik: So he had to rush from a lecture to his wedding.
[1:13:24 – 1:13:32] Erik: and immediately afterwards shuffled her up to Natodin, where he slaved away over his furnaces for two weeks before she returned home.
[1:13:34 – 1:13:37] Adam: I don’t know how you’re on this guy’s team at this point.
[1:13:37 – 1:13:40] Adam: Oh, come on.
[1:13:40 – 1:13:44] Adam: He’s just very absent-minded in general.
[1:13:44 – 1:13:46] Erik: It depends on where you want to place that absent-mindedness.
[1:13:46 – 1:13:52] Adam: Yeah, I mean, he’s obviously a genius, but in a real haphazard way.
[1:13:53 – 1:14:20] Erik: yeah that’s usually how it comes like yeah i guess so you can’t be like like you know stable genius well you know like you like just picture like you remember agitated electron any video game where you get to like create your own character you never get to max out all the bars no he’s got certain levels maxed out and in turn the social aspect gets turned way down the sacrifice yeah to get the extra points to max out the yeah science bar
[1:14:20 – 1:14:25] Erik: Yeah, you’re not allowed to cheat at that in like 99ing out all your stat bars.
[1:14:26 – 1:14:27] Erik: So that’s what you can take.
[1:14:27 – 1:14:29] Adam: Who schedules a lecture on their wedding day?
[1:14:31 – 1:14:32] Adam: That would never fly in this day and age.
[1:14:32 – 1:14:33] Adam: I’ll tell you what.
[1:14:33 – 1:14:36] Adam: So she heads back to… Be called out on Instagram pretty hard.
[1:14:36 – 1:14:40] Erik: She heads back to Oslo slash Christiania and…
[1:14:40 – 1:14:41] Erik: Some honeymoon.
[1:14:42 – 1:14:42] Adam: Yeah, right.
[1:14:42 – 1:14:44] Adam: Take her up to work on a fertilizer furnace.
[1:14:44 – 1:14:47] Erik: Come up into the sticks and smell my furnace.
[1:14:47 – 1:14:49] Adam: Well, at least it’s at a waterfall, right?
[1:14:49 – 1:14:51] Adam: Yeah, that’s being like… Well, it’s near a waterfall.
[1:14:52 – 1:14:54] Erik: Essentially being raped by a hydroelectric dam.
[1:14:55 – 1:15:00] Adam: It’s sort of, the waterfall’s just up the way, but it’s got a dam in the way.
[1:15:00 – 1:15:02] Erik: You can imagine, hun, Ida.
[1:15:03 – 1:15:05] Adam: I don’t even know your middle name.
[1:15:05 – 1:15:07] Adam: Wasn’t his business partner’s name Ida?
[1:15:08 – 1:15:09] Erik: No, Sam Eide.
[1:15:09 – 1:15:09] Erik: Eide.
[1:15:10 – 1:15:11] Erik: E-Y-D-E. Eide.
[1:15:12 – 1:15:13] Adam: I stand corrected.
[1:15:14 – 1:15:14] Erik: Yeah.
[1:15:14 – 1:15:22] Erik: So after nearly three years of intense work, mostly carried out in secret, Berkland and Eide could finally reveal to the world what they had achieved.
[1:15:23 – 1:15:27] Erik: And they decided to open it to the public on December 5th, 1905.
[1:15:28 – 1:15:30] Erik: And they came out with the first…
[1:15:31 – 1:15:52] Erik: multinational company in norway’s history norsk hydro with worth 7.5 million crowns poof yeah he’s come a long way since 12 000 crowns back in 1899 yeah i think that’s a uh norsk hydro is still the main sponsor of the finn mark sloping
[1:15:53 – 1:15:55] Erik: Yeah, it’s the main sponsor of this podcast, by the way.
[1:15:55 – 1:15:56] Adam: Absolutely.
[1:15:56 – 1:15:57] Adam: They make a fine ale.
[1:15:58 – 1:16:00] Erik: They make a fine… Waterfall ale.
[1:16:00 – 1:16:01] Erik: Kilowatt.
[1:16:03 – 1:16:12] Erik: So this, again, going back to the relationship, these are the parts of the book that you could see being like hyper-represented in a movie.
[1:16:12 – 1:16:12] Erik: Yeah.
[1:16:15 – 1:16:28] Erik: Birkeland was about to be nominated for a Nobel Prize for his work on this fertilizer furnace, but I’d squashed the whole deal with his contacts that he had through his aristocratic Swedish wife, and Birkeland never found out.
[1:16:29 – 1:16:33] Erik: Never knew he was even close to being nominated for a Nobel Prize.
[1:16:33 – 1:16:41] Erik: Which was at the time only like a two or three year old like award, but it was pretty well like regarded as like an achievement.
[1:16:41 – 1:16:44] Adam: So if the Packers won the first Super Bowl, you don’t, who cares if it just came around?
[1:16:44 – 1:16:45] Adam: It’s important.
[1:16:45 – 1:16:45] Erik: Yeah.
[1:16:46 – 1:16:46] Erik: No, I agree.
[1:16:47 – 1:16:51] Erik: But he wasn’t into this for like Nobel Prizes or whatever.
[1:16:51 – 1:16:53] Erik: He was looking for money to study the Northern Lights.
[1:16:54 – 1:16:55] Erik: He had one true passion.
[1:16:55 – 1:17:00] Erik: And so, yeah, he finally, after all this, he sold his shares and patents for 75,000 crowns.
[1:17:01 – 1:17:02] Adam: To get back at it.
[1:17:02 – 1:17:03] Erik: Got back to work.
[1:17:04 – 1:17:06] Adam: Wait, how much did this businessman end up making off of those shares?
[1:17:07 – 1:17:14] Erik: Oh, he stayed in Norse Kydro until the end of the story, where I’ll tell you about what ended up happening to him.
[1:17:14 – 1:17:27] Erik: He comes and goes a little bit here still, but for the most part, he kind of just was ahead of this business and kind of kept trying to sell this furnace to broader and broader appeal to make more and more money.
[1:17:27 – 1:17:27] Erik: But…
[1:17:28 – 1:17:30] Erik: At the end of the day, he was not intellectual.
[1:17:30 – 1:17:40] Erik: He basically just had money to start and took advantage of people and his influences, especially through his wife, this Swedish well-to-do.
[1:17:42 – 1:17:45] Erik: So he got back to work, and what he wanted to do was…
[1:17:46 – 1:17:53] Erik: build that lab where he could build his little Torella to prove that he could recreate Auroras.
[1:17:54 – 1:17:58] Erik: And also finally compile all the results from that expedition a few years back.
[1:17:58 – 1:18:09] Erik: So he hired Oli, or Ol, Andreas Krognis, Lars Vigard, and faithful assistant Sem Saland back again.
[1:18:09 – 1:18:10] Erik: He’s the man.
[1:18:10 – 1:18:11] Adam: He is.
[1:18:11 – 1:18:12] Adam: He’s, you know, undervalued.
[1:18:12 – 1:18:14] Erik: He’s the Scotty Pippin in this story.
[1:18:16 – 1:18:19] Adam: Super valuable in Northern White fantasy leagues.
[1:18:19 – 1:18:20] Adam: Yes.
[1:18:20 – 1:18:21] Adam: You’re going to want to get him.
[1:18:21 – 1:18:23] Adam: He’s going to be available in the third or fourth round.
[1:18:24 – 1:18:25] Adam: Great value pick.
[1:18:25 – 1:18:25] Adam: Sem.
[1:18:27 – 1:18:50] Erik: So he’s still got that first part of his three-part treatise, and he really wants to solidify those last two based on the research and the theories about magnetic storms and currents and the results that were obtained in the previous expedition.
[1:18:50 – 1:18:51] Erik: That was…
[1:18:52 – 1:18:53] Erik: Not as successful as he wanted it to be.
[1:18:57 – 1:19:13] Erik: So in 1906, June 22nd, just kind of a side note, Norway crowned their first king and queen as an independent nation in over 600 years.
[1:19:14 – 1:19:16] Erik: And so this was right around the time.
[1:19:16 – 1:19:16] Erik: Cheers.
[1:19:17 – 1:19:17] Erik: Cheers.
[1:19:17 – 1:19:18] Erik: Yeah.
[1:19:18 – 1:19:18] Erik: Cheers.
[1:19:19 – 1:19:21] Erik: 1906, June 22nd.
[1:19:23 – 1:19:25] Erik: This is around the time that with the money.
[1:19:27 – 1:19:29] Erik: Berkland got to build in his lab.
[1:19:30 – 1:19:35] Erik: And this is a fun quote from the book about his lab.
[1:19:36 – 1:19:44] Erik: So, to the casual visitor, the laboratory appeared to be the work of medieval visionaries with futuristic dreams.
[1:19:45 – 1:19:54] Erik: The noises, flashes, smells, and heat were overwhelming and lurking within were a number of very real dangers.
[1:19:55 – 1:19:58] Erik: The vacuum pumps released poisonous mercury fumes.
[1:19:59 – 1:20:08] Erik: The small amount of radium salt that had been given to Birkeland by Marie Curie was just left on a shelf beside a box of new light bulbs.
[1:20:08 – 1:20:09] Adam: That’s where I keep my radium salt.
[1:20:10 – 1:20:10] Erik: Yeah.
[1:20:11 – 1:20:12] Adam: There it is.
[1:20:12 – 1:20:15] Adam: It’s over there by the Christmas ornaments and the old light bulbs.
[1:20:15 – 1:20:17] Erik: Leaking lethal radiation.
[1:20:18 – 1:20:19] Erik: No big deal.
[1:20:19 – 1:20:19] Erik: No big deal.
[1:20:43 – 1:20:53] Erik: Berkland and his assistants adopted the practice of working with one hand in their practice so that if they sustained a large electrical shock, it would travel down their bodies rather than across their hearts.
[1:20:56 – 1:20:57] Adam: I’ll keep that in mind.
[1:20:58 – 1:21:00] Erik: Always work with one hand if you don’t know what you’re doing.
[1:21:00 – 1:21:00] Adam: Keep one hand in a pocket.
[1:21:01 – 1:21:03] Adam: You’re messing with an old fuse.
[1:21:03 – 1:21:08] Erik: Own safety precautions caused some comment among his assistants and colleagues.
[1:21:09 – 1:21:18] Erik: On arriving in the morning, he would replace his hat with an Egyptian fez and put on a pair of red leather Egyptian slippers with long pointed tips.
[1:21:19 – 1:21:33] Erik: To those who asked the reason for his fanciful attire, he explained that he suffered from frequent headaches due to the harmful rays emitted by his experiments and that the fez protected his head.
[1:21:34 – 1:21:40] Erik: Although it was true that he suffered from headaches, he was perfectly aware that a small felt hat would not stop radiation.
[1:21:40 – 1:21:48] Adam: Yeah, just like the original people wore hats to keep the Northern Lights from burning their hair off.
[1:21:48 – 1:21:48] Erik: Yeah.
[1:21:48 – 1:21:50] Adam: Even though that was irrational.
[1:21:50 – 1:21:50] Erik: Right.
[1:21:51 – 1:21:52] Erik: I mean, he knew.
[1:21:52 – 1:21:53] Erik: As for the slippers, it was simply…
[1:21:53 – 1:21:54] Erik: He was just being silly?
[1:21:55 – 1:21:57] Erik: No, it was the style at the time, actually.
[1:21:57 – 1:21:59] Erik: There was this fad of Egyptian wear.
[1:21:59 – 1:22:00] Adam: Yeah.
[1:22:01 – 1:22:02] Adam: So he just wanted to look cool?
[1:22:03 – 1:22:03] Erik: Kind of.
[1:22:04 – 1:22:07] Erik: But the slippers, it was simply to avoid wearing wet boots in the laboratory.
[1:22:08 – 1:22:09] Adam: Oh, yeah.
[1:22:09 – 1:22:10] Adam: I wear slippers at work.
[1:22:10 – 1:22:10] Adam: Who doesn’t?
[1:22:11 – 1:22:12] Erik: Egyptology.
[1:22:12 – 1:22:17] Erik: It was fashionable at the time throughout the West and in Europe for whatever reason.
[1:22:17 – 1:22:18] Adam: Egyptology.
[1:22:18 – 1:22:19] Erik: Egyptology.
[1:22:19 – 1:22:26] Erik: There was a weird obsession with Egypt, the cryptology of the writings.
[1:22:26 – 1:22:27] Erik: Yeah, the hieroglyphs.
[1:22:27 – 1:22:29] Erik: The hieroglyphs, the garb.
[1:22:30 – 1:22:30] Erik: Yeah, the fez.
[1:22:30 – 1:22:31] Erik: The garb.
[1:22:33 – 1:22:35] Erik: People just were wearing fezzes as a point of the style of the times.
[1:22:36 – 1:22:36] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:41 – 1:22:43] Erik: He’s got this crazy lab going.
[1:22:43 – 1:22:44] Adam: He seems eccentric.
[1:22:44 – 1:22:44] Erik: Yes.
[1:22:45 – 1:22:47] Erik: And he’s trying to reproduce the Northern Lights on a small scale.
[1:22:47 – 1:22:48] Erik: That’s insane.
[1:22:48 – 1:22:50] Erik: A tiny Earth.
[1:22:50 – 1:22:50] Erik: Yeah.
[1:22:50 – 1:22:54] Erik: And he blew through tons of vacuum tubes, just glass shattering everywhere.
[1:22:55 – 1:22:57] Erik: And yeah, you can imagine.
[1:22:57 – 1:23:03] Erik: It’s like the episode of The Simpsons where Homer’s got the still in the basement and there’s just constant explosions and…
[1:23:04 – 1:23:05] Adam: Cost of doing business.
[1:23:05 – 1:23:05] Erik: Yep.
[1:23:06 – 1:23:19] Erik: Finally, he received one that was strong enough to sustain this mini reproduction of space that he wanted to make and performed his experiment in front of a small crowd of professors and students.
[1:23:21 – 1:23:32] Erik: Basically, it was a curved glass cylinder about the size of a man’s torso with a cathode ray on one end and his little magnetized Torella in the middle.
[1:23:33 – 1:23:40] Erik: And only one page back.
[1:23:40 – 1:23:43] Adam: How do you magnetize the Torella?
[1:23:45 – 1:23:48] Adam: It’s like on a rod or something with the current running into it?
[1:23:48 – 1:23:53] Erik: I think it was just made out of iron that you can magnetize.
[1:23:53 – 1:23:59] Erik: You just rub it up against the magnet long enough, or you just plug it into, I don’t know.
[1:23:59 – 1:24:00] Adam: You rubbed a balloon on it.
[1:24:01 – 1:24:02] Adam: Yeah, it got staticky.
[1:24:02 – 1:24:03] Adam: Got it.
[1:24:03 – 1:24:11] Erik: Yeah, so he invites all these people to his room where for the past few months there’s just been like booms and pops and gases and a glass.
[1:24:12 – 1:24:14] Adam: Hold on, I’m going to say it goes right this time.
[1:24:15 – 1:24:17] Adam: I’m guessing that it finally goes right.
[1:24:17 – 1:24:20] Erik: Yeah, all right.
[1:24:20 – 1:24:23] Erik: So his room, his audience was crackling with anticipation.
[1:24:23 – 1:24:24] Erik: Oh, I like that.
[1:24:24 – 1:24:30] Erik: As Berkland shuttered the three large windows, orchestrating his own sundown.
[1:24:31 – 1:24:36] Erik: The noise of the generator increased, and the audience had to shout their questions and observations.
[1:24:37 – 1:24:41] Erik: After a little while, the tip of the cathode, the sun, began to glow hot.
[1:24:42 – 1:24:45] Erik: Still, the earth lay in darkness.
[1:24:46 – 1:24:56] Erik: Once Birkeland was satisfied that electrons were streaming from the cathode, he flicked the switch beside the chamber and powered the electromagnet in the Torella.
[1:24:57 – 1:25:02] Erik: So I’m sure it must have been connected to like a rod that he could actually power magnetism through it.
[1:25:02 – 1:25:03] Adam: Okay.
[1:25:03 – 1:25:09] Erik: Within seconds, a purple glow could be seen encircling the Earth at the equator.
[1:25:10 – 1:25:18] Erik: As Birkeland increased the strength of the magnetic field around the Earth, the circle divided and two circles began to move toward the poles.
[1:25:19 – 1:25:27] Erik: The audience fell silent as the two spiral rings of glowing phosphorescent light hovered around the poles of the earth, eerie and magical.
[1:25:28 – 1:25:42] Erik: The miniature auroras were the most supernatural phenomenon the men in the room had ever seen, and yet it was a scientific experiment aiming to provide explanations and boundaries to an occurrence that had always defined definition.
[1:25:43 – 1:25:53] Erik: Even the least fanciful of those gathered around Birkeland’s Torella had a fleeting moment of awe as if they were looking back at Earth from space.
[1:25:54 – 1:25:57] Erik: So he basically produced them on miniature.
[1:25:58 – 1:26:01] Erik: And in 1908…
[1:26:01 – 1:26:04] Erik: I think there’s a vine of this.
[1:26:04 – 1:26:05] Adam: Is there?
[1:26:05 – 1:26:07] Adam: We can find that link to that vine.
[1:26:07 – 1:26:08] Erik: Somebody… No.
[1:26:09 – 1:26:10] Erik: Somebody wasn’t living in the moment…
[1:26:13 – 1:26:13] Adam: That’s incredible.
[1:26:15 – 1:26:18] Erik: Yeah, I mean, there’s a picture of it in the book.
[1:26:18 – 1:26:23] Erik: It’s in black and white, but I really want to see what that really looked like.
[1:26:24 – 1:26:26] Adam: This would be in Act 3 of the movie, for sure.
[1:26:26 – 1:26:29] Erik: Yeah, he continued to build it bigger and bigger.
[1:26:29 – 1:26:29] Adam: Ooh.
[1:26:30 – 1:26:34] Adam: And so… That’ll convince those limey Brits.
[1:26:35 – 1:26:42] Erik: Those limey Brits that believe that vacuum, the space is a vacuum, which it is, but it’s going to travel through it.
[1:26:42 – 1:26:43] Erik: But it isn’t.
[1:26:45 – 1:26:59] Erik: In 1908, Birkeland’s first volume of his reformed treaties was republished and did cement Norway’s position in the international science arena.
[1:26:59 – 1:26:59] Erik: Yes.
[1:26:59 – 1:27:08] Erik: Again, he put forth that it was energy provided by the sun that powered the northern lights, which was again greatly ignored by…
[1:27:09 – 1:27:23] Erik: British scientists and the Royal Society, mainly because they confused his publication as claiming that the sun only emitted negatively charged electrons.
[1:27:24 – 1:27:41] Erik: Though he was actually claiming that the sun equally emitted both, but only the positive rays, only the positive rays, while they do penetrate into Earth’s atmosphere, they have hardly any perceptible magnetic effect.
[1:27:41 – 1:27:45] Erik: So basically the British read his theory wrong.
[1:27:46 – 1:27:52] Erik: And what they assumed he was saying was that only electrons are emitted from the sun and
[1:27:53 – 1:27:58] Erik: And they were like, well, if it’s only emitting electrons, then the sun will be dead in a year.
[1:27:59 – 1:28:03] Erik: And what he was saying is, though, it’s emitting both equally, but electrons are the only thing that fire up the auroras.
[1:28:04 – 1:28:04] Erik: Yes.
[1:28:05 – 1:28:07] Erik: So, again…
[1:28:10 – 1:28:20] Erik: Fellow of the Royal Society, Arthur Schuster, dismissed Birkeland’s huge volume with a terse comment in, again, the society’s proceedings.
[1:28:22 – 1:28:29] Erik: Quote, “…even originally well-defined pencils of cathode rays from the sun cannot reach the earth.”
[1:28:30 – 1:28:38] Erik: For Birkeland’s theories to be correct, the existence of such cathode rays is clearly presupposed to be necessary.
[1:28:39 – 1:28:41] Erik: And this assumption is untenable.
[1:28:42 – 1:28:42] Adam: Boo.
[1:28:43 – 1:28:43] Adam: Boo again.
[1:28:43 – 1:28:47] Adam: That’s such an Alistair Hennessey thing to say.
[1:28:48 – 1:28:49] Adam: Unbelievable.
[1:28:49 – 1:28:50] Erik: Alistair Schuster.
[1:28:51 – 1:28:53] Erik: Arthur Schuster, not Alistair Hennessy.
[1:28:54 – 1:28:55] Adam: I was thinking of the Steve Zizzo.
[1:28:56 – 1:28:56] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[1:28:57 – 1:28:58] Adam: Captain Hennessy.
[1:28:59 – 1:29:00] Adam: I don’t want to be on Team Hennessy ever.
[1:29:01 – 1:29:01] Adam: No.
[1:29:01 – 1:29:04] Adam: And the Brits are always on Team Hennessy.
[1:29:04 – 1:29:04] Adam: Come on.
[1:29:05 – 1:29:05] Erik: So…
[1:29:07 – 1:29:28] Erik: still unsatisfied he continues his work two years go by relatively unbeknownst uh you know just nothing really happens until his old nemesis sam eyed showed up in his lab one day mr waterfalls is back mr waterfalls don’t go chasing waterfalls berkland
[1:29:28 – 1:29:29] Adam: Tiffany old bum.
[1:29:30 – 1:29:42] Erik: He asked him to return to the furnaces in Natoden because another company was going to be competing to see who can procure the most salt, Peter, over 24 hours.
[1:29:44 – 1:29:48] Erik: Basically, they were going to have a fertilizer competition between the two furnaces.
[1:29:49 – 1:29:52] Adam: They’re going to John Henry the air.
[1:29:52 – 1:29:57] Erik: So there’s these two competing companies, BSNF, which…
[1:29:57 – 1:29:58] Erik: Isn’t that a railway?
[1:29:59 – 1:30:00] Erik: No, it’s…
[1:30:00 – 1:30:02] Adam: They’re always like a sponsor of Jeopardy, no?
[1:30:02 – 1:30:02] Adam: Maybe.
[1:30:03 – 1:30:04] Erik: It’s some German company.
[1:30:04 – 1:30:06] Erik: They had a competing stove.
[1:30:06 – 1:30:10] Erik: And this Norwegian stove, they were going to both get together.
[1:30:10 – 1:30:13] Adam: I had no idea air fertilizer was such a big thing.
[1:30:13 – 1:30:32] Erik: Yeah, and so they got together, and it was essentially to decide which of these two furnaces was going to be used going forward because there was great interest in Europe and across the world, and it was like, okay, well, I’ve got these Germans.
[1:30:32 – 1:30:34] Erik: I don’t know which one’s exactly the best.
[1:30:34 – 1:30:38] Adam: I should have had one guy out there with a hammer, just like, I’m going to make the most fertilizer.
[1:30:39 – 1:30:42] Adam: I’ll beat these two here machine furnaces.
[1:30:42 – 1:30:43] Erik: Yeah.
[1:30:43 – 1:30:46] Erik: So Berkland’s like, I don’t want to go back to this dumb furnace.
[1:30:46 – 1:31:02] Erik: But after he left the company, the stipulation of him leaving was that he would get 5,000 crowns a year going forward if he could be called upon for scientific expertise and input.
[1:31:02 – 1:31:03] Adam: Yeah, keep him on tender.
[1:31:03 – 1:31:03] Adam: Yeah.
[1:31:03 – 1:31:07] Erik: And so if his furnace lost, that means… That’s not good.
[1:31:07 – 1:31:10] Erik: Basically, he wasn’t going to be able to keep helping in the lab.
[1:31:10 – 1:31:11] Adam: So they got to call him up and let’s juice this furnace.
[1:31:12 – 1:31:13] Adam: So he’s like, all right, fine.
[1:31:13 – 1:31:14] Adam: All right.
[1:31:14 – 1:31:17] Erik: We’ll come up and I’ll take part in this furnace competition.
[1:31:18 – 1:31:19] Adam: Make some fertilizer.
[1:31:19 – 1:31:20] Adam: We’ll come up to the waterfall.
[1:31:20 – 1:31:21] Adam: I’ll be there in a week.
[1:31:22 – 1:31:22] Adam: Yeah.
[1:31:22 – 1:31:24] Erik: And so… Book my tickets.
[1:31:24 – 1:31:30] Erik: He got up there and it was like a few months of working until the day of the competition.
[1:31:30 – 1:31:31] Erik: Yeah.
[1:31:31 – 1:31:33] Erik: This is, again, this would be a great… You could see a movie here.
[1:31:33 – 1:31:37] Erik: Yes, I…
[1:31:37 – 1:31:41] Erik: Working montage, like electrical cat, like rays and stuff flying.
[1:31:42 – 1:31:44] Erik: Frustrated throw of the goggles.
[1:31:45 – 1:31:47] Adam: Smashing some vacuum tubes.
[1:31:47 – 1:31:49] Erik: Yeah, piles of fertilizer piling up.
[1:31:51 – 1:31:51] Erik: So the…
[1:31:52 – 1:31:55] Adam: So it really becomes like physical fertilizer from the gas?
[1:31:55 – 1:31:57] Erik: It’s going to come down to, yeah.
[1:31:58 – 1:32:01] Erik: Yeah, it’s going to come down to a weight, the amount of saltpeter.
[1:32:03 – 1:32:23] Erik: that they can produce out of air yeah out of air they’re using waterfalls it’s not like a direct like and it just shoots there’s a there’s a long process but it’s still like basically turning in your ionizing air to be able to introduce nitric acid into into like basically can you do this with solar power nowadays
[1:32:24 – 1:32:26] Erik: I think the amount of power that’s still involved is pretty high.
[1:32:26 – 1:32:30] Adam: I don’t think they’ve come around on that at all.
[1:32:32 – 1:32:40] Erik: So Berkland is thinking that his furnace isn’t working efficiently enough, and his solution is to expand the size of it.
[1:32:41 – 1:32:45] Erik: So he builds this bigger furnace in the process and the buildup of this competition.
[1:32:46 – 1:32:47] Erik: So the competition comes.
[1:32:48 – 1:32:49] Adam: The great fertilizer off.
[1:32:49 – 1:32:53] Erik: The great fertilizer competition of 1906.
[1:32:53 – 1:32:56] Adam: Germans v. Norwegians.
[1:32:56 – 1:32:57] Adam: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
[1:32:57 – 1:32:58] Adam: Do I have to place a bet?
[1:32:59 – 1:33:00] Erik: Place a bet.
[1:33:00 – 1:33:01] Adam: I’m placing my bet on the Germans.
[1:33:02 – 1:33:03] Adam: I bet his thing’s going to blow up.
[1:33:04 – 1:33:04] Adam: He went too big.
[1:33:05 – 1:33:07] Adam: It’s not about going with more size.
[1:33:07 – 1:33:07] Adam: It’s more intensity.
[1:33:08 – 1:33:09] Adam: Berglin, Jesus.
[1:33:09 – 1:33:12] Erik: Am I wrong or am I right?
[1:33:13 – 1:33:13] Erik: I don’t know.
[1:33:13 – 1:33:14] Erik: I think you’d be refunded your bet.
[1:33:16 – 1:33:19] Adam: Because it ended in a tie.
[1:33:20 – 1:33:22] Adam: Nobody made any fertilizer.
[1:33:22 – 1:33:25] Erik: No, they made roughly the same amount of saltpeter.
[1:33:26 – 1:33:31] Erik: But the last second alteration is to increase the size of the furnace.
[1:33:32 – 1:33:37] Erik: were viewed by the Germans as a foul and essentially unethical.
[1:33:38 – 1:33:39] Adam: Oh, das ist nicht so gut.
[1:33:40 – 1:33:42] Erik: No, das ist nicht so gut.
[1:33:43 – 1:33:52] Erik: And so the committee determined that because of the unethical nature of the Norwegians’ stove, they awarded the Germans…
[1:33:53 – 1:34:14] Erik: as the winners so on a technicality technicality and the german model was the go-to for decades in producing that’s how we got the volkswagen jetta yep they just yeah they uh one other an accident in 1920 and instead of a fertilizer a passat came out
[1:34:16 – 1:34:16] Adam: Jeez.
[1:34:16 – 1:34:17] Adam: So…
[1:34:18 – 1:34:19] Adam: There goes that nest egg.
[1:34:19 – 1:34:20] Erik: There goes that nest egg.
[1:34:21 – 1:34:25] Erik: Again, these are the way things go.
[1:34:26 – 1:34:27] Erik: I’m trying to figure something out.
[1:34:27 – 1:34:29] Erik: It doesn’t work out the way I do.
[1:34:29 – 1:34:31] Erik: Silver lining, I can do this with it.
[1:34:32 – 1:34:35] Erik: On the other hand, usually when he is…
[1:34:37 – 1:34:42] Erik: befell by failure and downfall, it’s like right in a row.
[1:34:43 – 1:34:59] Erik: So this was realized by him that Sam Eyde tasked him with spearheading this project because Sam Eyde had expected the Norwegian furnace to lose all along.
[1:34:59 – 1:35:03] Erik: And he wanted Berkland’s face to be associated with the failure.
[1:35:03 – 1:35:04] Erik: And it was.
[1:35:05 – 1:35:06] Erik: Worse yet…
[1:35:07 – 1:35:11] Erik: Upon arriving home after his three months in Natoden, found a note from his wife.
[1:35:12 – 1:35:12] Erik: She left him.
[1:35:13 – 1:35:15] Adam: I saw that coming from a mile away.
[1:35:15 – 1:35:15] Adam: Yeah.
[1:35:16 – 1:35:17] Adam: Let’s go back to the honeymoon.
[1:35:18 – 1:35:18] UNKNOWN: Yeah.
[1:35:18 – 1:35:20] Adam: Come on up to the furnace falls.
[1:35:21 – 1:35:21] Adam: Hey, bae.
[1:35:22 – 1:35:24] Adam: I got this new furnace thing at the waterfall.
[1:35:24 – 1:35:25] Adam: Like, that’s not going to go well.
[1:35:26 – 1:35:26] Erik: Yeah.
[1:35:27 – 1:35:29] Erik: So he doubled down on the Torella.
[1:35:29 – 1:35:31] Erik: He kept making them bigger and bigger.
[1:35:32 – 1:35:35] Erik: He got to the point where he could reproduce Saturn’s rings.
[1:35:35 – 1:35:37] Erik: He could reproduce comet tails.
[1:35:38 – 1:35:44] Erik: And he could reproduce his newfound obsession, zodiacal lights.
[1:35:44 – 1:35:45] Erik: Have you heard of these?
[1:35:45 – 1:35:46] Adam: No.
[1:35:46 – 1:35:47] Erik: I had never heard of these either.
[1:35:48 – 1:35:55] Erik: They, again, were probably a lot caused by the Egyptian obsession around this time.
[1:35:55 – 1:35:58] Erik: Because they occur a lot in Egypt.
[1:35:58 – 1:36:02] Erik: But mostly they’re a light that appears right after sundown along the equator.
[1:36:03 – 1:36:07] Erik: And it shows itself as an elongated cone of light up into the sky.
[1:36:08 – 1:36:09] Erik: And he thought that he could build…
[1:36:11 – 1:36:26] Erik: along with these bigger Torellas, in combination with studying these in the future, tie them into… Because he could never… Because he thought they might be occurring closer to ground and he could actually measure electrons from them.
[1:36:26 – 1:36:27] Erik: But…
[1:36:28 – 1:36:29] Erik: That’s a little bit down the line.
[1:36:31 – 1:36:51] Erik: And then another, along with the independence of Norway, a somewhat side note, on the 14th of December, 1911, Roald Amundsen planted the Norwegian flag at the South Pole, first in the race to reach it, which was another big feather.
[1:36:51 – 1:36:53] Adam: Big old feather in the Norwegian cap.
[1:36:53 – 1:36:54] Adam: In that Norwegian cap.
[1:36:54 – 1:36:55] Adam: Egyptian caps.
[1:36:57 – 1:36:57] Adam: Felt.
[1:36:58 – 1:36:58] Adam: Yeah.
[1:37:00 – 1:37:01] Adam: Big ups.
[1:37:01 – 1:37:02] Adam: Big ups for Norway.
[1:37:03 – 1:37:04] Erik: Yeah, they’re coming along here.
[1:37:05 – 1:37:18] Erik: And in January 1913, Birkeland arranged a public lecture to demonstrate his largest Torella machine yet and to announce the theories emerging from his work on the Northern Lights.
[1:37:18 – 1:37:26] Erik: He was planning to publish the second volume of his treatise later in the year and wished to rekindle interest in his work.
[1:37:27 – 1:37:41] Erik: He would simulate sunspots, the solar corona, the zodiacal light, Saturn’s rings, comet tails, and other cosmic phenomena that no one in the audience would ever have seen before.
[1:37:42 – 1:37:57] Erik: He would draw the solar system into his glass box and explain how all these cosmic events could be understood as aspects of the same phenomenon that created the northern lights, the electromagnetic power of the sun, the very source of the solar system.
[1:37:59 – 1:38:01] Erik: And the King of Norway attended this lecture.
[1:38:03 – 1:38:21] Erik: As the hall lights dimmed and the box began to spin with miniature suns, planets, and comets, Birkeland began, quote, “…to understand the distances that I have captured in this vessel, imagine that our sun is a grain of sand a millimeter in diameter.”
[1:38:22 – 1:38:28] Erik: In that case, the Earth would be an invisible speck of dust 10 centimeters away.
[1:38:29 – 1:38:35] Erik: And the next nearest star, Alpha Centauri, would be 20 kilometers away.
[1:38:36 – 1:38:42] Erik: It is in this vast infinite space that the genesis of all celestial bodies is to be found.
[1:38:43 – 1:38:55] Erik: All matter that we see, be it our own bodies, our planet, our earth, the sun, the solar system, or other solar systems,
[1:38:56 – 1:39:05] Erik: All matter is composed of flying atoms that are continuously ejected from our sun and other suns by electrical forces and that condense to form particles.
[1:39:05 – 1:39:12] Erik: And these in turn condense to form large spheres, ultimately planets, and all thereupon.
[1:39:13 – 1:39:21] Erik: It follows from this that everything that is matter, all living beings in the universe, is linked one to the other.
[1:39:22 – 1:39:23] Erik: Could you imagine…
[1:39:25 – 1:39:33] Erik: Before television, before, like, I mean, maybe some black and white prints going to this display.
[1:39:34 – 1:39:39] Erik: Somebody with a glass box showing you the solar system.
[1:39:40 – 1:39:41] Erik: Like, it’s beyond comprehension.
[1:39:41 – 1:39:46] Erik: Like, I guarantee most people didn’t even really realize what they were seeing.
[1:39:46 – 1:39:47] Adam: Yeah, no way.
[1:39:47 – 1:39:49] Adam: There’s no way they actually could.
[1:39:49 – 1:39:52] Adam: But I’m sure it was an astonishing thing to behold.
[1:39:52 – 1:39:52] Adam: Yeah.
[1:39:53 – 1:39:57] Erik: Yeah, and any of the pictures of it, like, it’s…
[1:39:59 – 1:40:08] Erik: I don’t want to, like, downplay it, but I imagine it’s probably, like, what you would see if you went to, like, a Spencer Gifts circa, like, 1999.
[1:40:09 – 1:40:13] Adam: All those things in the back where you, like, touch the… Yeah, I can see that.
[1:40:13 – 1:40:16] Erik: But, like, 100 years prior, that would blow minds.
[1:40:16 – 1:40:19] Adam: Yeah, that’d be like walking into, you know, some sort of…
[1:40:23 – 1:40:44] Erik: holographic display yeah today like an hd or something yeah like something like like what technology a hundred years from now you’d be like yeah whatever 100 years from now but to us like yeah it would be like living and like breathing in like a holographic display or something just incredible like a total ir you know virtual reality vr um
[1:40:47 – 1:40:53] Erik: So yeah, the audience was obviously spellbound, even though most of them did not fully understand the advanced physics of what they were seeing.
[1:40:55 – 1:41:01] Erik: So it was a great success for him to be able to display that and show people later in the month.
[1:41:01 – 1:41:03] Adam: Also very poetically said.
[1:41:04 – 1:41:05] Adam: Very well spoken.
[1:41:05 – 1:41:06] Erik: Yeah, he’s talking like…
[1:41:06 – 1:41:09] Erik: He’s like an OG Carl Sagan.
[1:41:09 – 1:41:11] Erik: Neil deGrasse Tyson.
[1:41:11 – 1:41:13] Erik: If only he had had Twitter.
[1:41:13 – 1:41:15] Erik: Yeah, like Stardust.
[1:41:15 – 1:41:16] Erik: We’re made of the stars.
[1:41:16 – 1:41:16] Adam: We are.
[1:41:17 – 1:41:18] Adam: Everything goes back to the sun.
[1:41:19 – 1:41:20] Erik: He’s ahead of his time on that, too.
[1:41:21 – 1:41:28] Erik: I mean, he didn’t come up with that idea, but he’s really putting it into words that you can still quote today.
[1:41:28 – 1:41:31] Adam: As a sun worshiper, I really appreciated those words.
[1:41:32 – 1:41:34] Erik: A sun worshiper.
[1:41:35 – 1:41:36] Adam: It’s a legit thing.
[1:41:38 – 1:41:39] Erik: I’m not denying that.
[1:41:39 – 1:41:41] Adam: No, I know you aren’t.
[1:41:41 – 1:41:46] Erik: Later in that month, after his display, his brother called with the news of his mother’s death.
[1:41:48 – 1:42:00] Erik: And after his second volume was published, it was at the time greatly overshadowed by other scientific developments elsewhere at the time.
[1:42:01 – 1:42:06] Erik: Einstein’s theory of relativity and Niels Bohr and his model of the atom.
[1:42:07 – 1:42:24] Erik: So, again, he’s kind of running into just unforeseen and misfortunate circumstances that isn’t getting his well-ahead-of-its-time theories out there.
[1:42:25 – 1:42:28] Erik: So, again, combination of his…
[1:42:30 – 1:42:32] Erik: Mother dying, his wife leaving him.
[1:42:32 – 1:42:32] Erik: He’s overworked.
[1:42:32 – 1:42:33] Erik: He’s underappreciated.
[1:42:33 – 1:42:34] Erik: He’s alone.
[1:42:35 – 1:42:36] Erik: He takes back up to the whiskey.
[1:42:36 – 1:42:38] Adam: Our pet’s heads are falling off.
[1:42:41 – 1:42:43] Erik: Yeah.
[1:42:43 – 1:42:45] Erik: Takes the whiskey and the sleeping pills.
[1:42:46 – 1:42:51] Erik: And his brother’s like, listen, man, you got to stop drinking.
[1:42:51 – 1:42:52] Erik: Maybe get out of Norway for a while.
[1:42:53 – 1:42:54] Erik: Get to some warmer climates.
[1:42:55 – 1:42:56] Adam: Have you heard of the canaries?
[1:42:56 – 1:42:57] Adam: They’re beautiful this time of the year.
[1:42:58 – 1:42:58] Erik: No.
[1:42:58 – 1:42:58] Erik: Guess where he goes?
[1:42:58 – 1:42:59] Erik: Somewhere warmer.
[1:42:59 – 1:43:00] Adam: Somewhere warmer.
[1:43:01 – 1:43:02] Adam: Morocco?
[1:43:03 – 1:43:04] Erik: What’s he obsessed with at this point?
[1:43:04 – 1:43:06] Erik: It’s not Norway or the Northern Lights.
[1:43:06 – 1:43:08] Adam: The Equator Lights.
[1:43:08 – 1:43:09] Erik: Yeah.
[1:43:09 – 1:43:10] Erik: Egypt.
[1:43:10 – 1:43:11] Adam: He’s got to go see the Nile.
[1:43:11 – 1:43:14] Erik: He goes to Egypt.
[1:43:16 – 1:43:19] Erik: So his Torella experiments led him to believe that the Zodiacal Lights…
[1:43:21 – 1:43:32] Erik: The zodiacal light was the only phenomenon visible from Earth in which one could directly measure the amount of electrically charged particles thrown out from the sun.
[1:43:33 – 1:43:43] Erik: It lay beyond the Earth’s magnetic field, allowing electron beams or cathode rays to be studied before they were affected by the magnetic field of the Earth.
[1:43:43 – 1:43:50] Erik: The auroras, by contrast, were the light trails of the tiny fraction of electrons not deflected by the magnetic field.
[1:43:51 – 1:44:02] Erik: He believed that the zodiacal light was perhaps the faint but visible evidence needed to provide that the sun did emit cathode rays that did extend through the solar system.
[1:44:03 – 1:44:07] Erik: the last brick he needed to complete his theoretical house.
[1:44:08 – 1:44:15] Erik: If he could find a way to measure the cathode rays, even the critics at the Royal society would be forced to accept his theories.
[1:44:16 – 1:44:18] Adam: So Hennessy got to bow the knee.
[1:44:18 – 1:44:19] Erik: Yeah.
[1:44:19 – 1:44:20] Erik: Lord Kelvin.
[1:44:20 – 1:44:22] Erik: I don’t know if Lord Kelvin is still alive.
[1:44:22 – 1:44:24] Adam: Kelvin was definitely on team Hennessy.
[1:44:24 – 1:44:24] Erik: Yeah.
[1:44:25 – 1:44:32] Erik: So in late summer, he made preparations to leave and purchase first class tickets to Alexandria and left one week later.
[1:44:33 – 1:44:40] Erik: In early October, he arrived in Alexandria with two colleagues before traveling to Amdurman in the Sudan area.
[1:44:40 – 1:44:43] Adam: Did one of his colleagues end up getting eaten by alligators?
[1:44:43 – 1:44:44] Erik: No.
[1:44:44 – 1:44:45] Erik: Crocodiles.
[1:44:45 – 1:44:49] Erik: He’s past anybody that’s associated with him unnecessarily dying.
[1:44:49 – 1:44:55] Erik: He thought that this place would be the best spot to watch the zodiacal light.
[1:44:56 – 1:45:02] Erik: And he assumed that the city would be basically unelectrified since it was Africa.
[1:45:03 – 1:45:06] Erik: But he found that the streetlights were obstructing his view.
[1:45:07 – 1:45:09] Adam: Light pollution in Alexandria?
[1:45:09 – 1:45:13] Erik: Yeah, so he wrote a letter to the governor asking him if he could turn off the lights at night, and he did.
[1:45:13 – 1:45:14] Erik: He’s like, okay.
[1:45:15 – 1:45:15] Erik: What?
[1:45:15 – 1:45:18] Erik: Just turn off your street lights for me.
[1:45:18 – 1:45:20] Erik: I’m some Norwegian doing some science.
[1:45:20 – 1:45:21] Erik: Yeah.
[1:45:21 – 1:45:21] Erik: Okay.
[1:45:21 – 1:45:23] Adam: That’s very deferential.
[1:45:23 – 1:45:24] Adam: Thank you.
[1:45:24 – 1:45:26] Erik: Yeah, so things get a little…
[1:45:29 – 1:45:32] Erik: unfocused here in his life.
[1:45:32 – 1:45:40] Erik: I think if he would have stayed in Norway and continued working on the Northern Lights, he would have been much more immediately successful.
[1:45:41 – 1:45:42] Erik: He continued drinking.
[1:45:44 – 1:45:52] Erik: While continuing to study the zodiacal lights and did make some really good efforts to improve photographic paper.
[1:45:52 – 1:45:58] Erik: That was the biggest challenge with taking pictures of the northern lights at the time was the actual paper that it was printed on.
[1:45:59 – 1:46:06] Erik: And he was still trying to make that theory connect through the electrons being emitted from the sun.
[1:46:06 – 1:46:06] Erik: Yeah.
[1:46:07 – 1:46:25] Erik: Biggest issue that I think probably caused him trouble in this regard and just about anybody in Europe in 1914 was that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip.
[1:46:26 – 1:46:28] Erik: And within weeks, it sparked World War I.
[1:46:30 – 1:46:35] Erik: And obviously, we kind of know the troubles that that caused.
[1:46:37 – 1:46:42] Erik: And this greatly cut him off to his friends and family in Norway.
[1:46:42 – 1:46:58] Erik: Eide, Sam Eide, was at home trying to get nominated for a Nobel Prize, essentially writing Birkeland out of the Norsk Hydro history books, claiming success, not mentioning Birkeland at all.
[1:46:59 – 1:47:03] Erik: And as the war spread, his connection with home and his friends grew sporadic.
[1:47:05 – 1:47:06] Erik: And he really wanted to get home.
[1:47:08 – 1:47:09] Erik: but he didn’t know how.
[1:47:11 – 1:47:17] Erik: So in 1917, he traveled to Tokyo, of all places.
[1:47:17 – 1:47:23] Erik: He was trying to get back to Norway, and it was the safest way that he could think.
[1:47:23 – 1:47:24] Adam: Via Tokyo, yeah.
[1:47:25 – 1:47:33] Erik: Because he knew some people at universities over there that were interested in his work, and he was extremely paranoid at this time.
[1:47:33 – 1:47:44] Erik: And suspicious because the war had broken out and his electromagnetic cannon plans were kind of just out there, but not enough for anybody to do anything with it.
[1:47:44 – 1:47:58] Erik: So we thought that there was either an attempt on kidnapping for him to build weapons for one side or the other, or by one of the sides who was convinced that his plans were being put into action to assassinate him.
[1:47:58 – 1:48:02] Erik: So, he… Sure, yeah, that makes sense.
[1:48:02 – 1:48:02] Erik: He fled.
[1:48:03 – 1:48:04] Erik: I think he was a little over-paranoid.
[1:48:04 – 1:48:07] Erik: We’ll get to that in a second.
[1:48:07 – 1:48:11] Adam: Is it from all his work with mercury and heavy metals over the years?
[1:48:11 – 1:48:12] Erik: It kind of…
[1:48:12 – 1:48:15] Erik: There is a little bit of an S-Town finish here.
[1:48:16 – 1:48:21] Erik: So, I’d retired from Norse Kydro, and his party lasted a week.
[1:48:22 – 1:48:25] Erik: How do you have a week-long retirement party when World War I is happening?
[1:48:25 – 1:48:26] Adam: Yeah.
[1:48:27 – 1:48:34] Erik: And he received so many gifts that he couldn’t store all of them at home, and he had to take up a portion of a warehouse at Norris Hydro.
[1:48:35 – 1:48:36] Erik: He was treated like a hero.
[1:48:38 – 1:48:45] Erik: His rewriting of history had proved successful, and throughout the week-long celebration, Brooklyn’s name was barely mentioned.
[1:48:47 – 1:48:55] Erik: So he’s in Norway or he’s in Tokyo and trying to convince himself that he’s not being followed by spies.
[1:48:56 – 1:49:06] Erik: Basically holes up in a hotel room, kind of working with a couple of Japanese professors and has this little bell hop boy kind of coming and going.
[1:49:06 – 1:49:08] Erik: But he’s basically recluse at this point.
[1:49:09 – 1:49:13] Erik: And on June 15th, 1917, he’s found dead in his hotel room.
[1:49:15 – 1:49:17] Erik: And the whiskey…
[1:49:17 – 1:49:17] Erik: In Tokyo?
[1:49:18 – 1:49:18] Erik: In Tokyo, yeah.
[1:49:19 – 1:49:20] Erik: He died in Tokyo?
[1:49:20 – 1:49:22] Erik: He died in Tokyo at the age of 50.
[1:49:23 – 1:49:41] Erik: And so these sleeping pills that I’d kind of been talking about a couple of times that he would double down on with the whiskey, it was actually called Veronal, which is like a really early form of sleeping pills that he got prescribed but then had since been…
[1:49:43 – 1:50:04] Erik: kind of found out by doctors that the side effects were terrible but he just kept taking them and his post-mortem report uh said that there was 10 grams in his system uh a recommended dosage was a half of a gram and it was like i said it was discontinued by most legit doctors but
[1:50:05 – 1:50:16] Erik: Because of long-term side effects in its effects on the nervous system as a slow poison in the signs and symptoms of that.
[1:50:17 – 1:50:20] Erik: Ataxia, which is basically you losing control of your muscles.
[1:50:21 – 1:50:31] Erik: Hallucinations, tremors, deterioration of a moral sense leading to reckless overuse, which is similar to like cocaine and morphine.
[1:50:33 – 1:50:42] Erik: So there’s some thought that it’s a suspicious death, but I think it’s just a combination of overuse of sleeping pills and whiskey.
[1:50:44 – 1:50:52] Erik: His brother received a letter and he instructed the Japanese consulate to…
[1:50:55 – 1:51:18] Erik: cremate his body and the norwegian general consul mr anchor arranged for a christian service to be held in a church in ichibancho the rainy season had ended and a strong dry wind shook the leaves on the trees revealing their delicate white undersides as they moved slowly along the path to the church doors
[1:51:21 – 1:51:25] Erik: As there was no one present who knew Birkeland well, the consul gave an address.
[1:51:26 – 1:51:32] Erik: A Norwegian music teacher sung an aria, which shocked the Japanese mourners.
[1:51:32 – 1:51:36] Erik: Such a noise would never be allowed to disturb the silence of a Japanese funeral.
[1:51:37 – 1:51:42] Erik: Professor Nagaoka made a short speech and closed with this statement.
[1:51:43 – 1:51:53] Erik: What Birkeland has achieved in the 50 years of his life is as brilliant as the dazzling waves of the aurora, which have exerted such a mighty attraction to him.
[1:51:55 – 1:52:15] Erik: so that’s nice yeah for somebody who’d only known him for like a month yeah um he’s uh in the process kind of moving back and forth to his norwegian home his uh remains make it back
[1:52:17 – 1:52:31] Erik: Unfortunately, the third part of his treatise was being transported back to Norway on a 360-foot steamship peaking, and it sank along the way.
[1:52:32 – 1:52:33] Adam: Arrow, shut up.
[1:52:34 – 1:52:36] Erik: We’re getting to the climax here, Arrow.
[1:52:36 – 1:52:36] Erik: It’s almost over.
[1:52:38 – 1:52:38] Erik: So…
[1:52:39 – 1:52:41] Adam: It sank with the treatise?
[1:52:41 – 1:52:41] Erik: Yes.
[1:52:41 – 1:52:42] Erik: Yes.
[1:52:45 – 1:52:48] Erik: So his ashes made it back to Norway.
[1:52:50 – 1:52:57] Erik: And at his memorial service, this is what is Scotty Pippin, good friend.
[1:52:58 – 1:52:59] Adam: Good friend, Scotty.
[1:52:59 – 1:53:00] Erik: Sem Saland had to say.
[1:53:01 – 1:53:01] Adam: Sem made it.
[1:53:02 – 1:53:02] Erik: Yep.
[1:53:03 – 1:53:10] Erik: I have dwelt a long time on his publications because they make clear that the first correct theory for the Aurora is Birkeland’s.
[1:53:11 – 1:53:17] Erik: For such a problem, the idea is not only the first thing, it is also the greatest thing.
[1:53:18 – 1:53:20] Erik: The basic solution was Birkeland’s and no one else’s.
[1:53:22 – 1:53:26] Erik: What he achieved in his 50 years will be remembered in our science for a long time.
[1:53:27 – 1:53:29] Erik: His work, The Creation of the Worlds…
[1:53:30 – 1:53:32] Erik: So this was in 1919 at his memorial in Christiania.
[1:53:32 – 1:53:35] Erik: And along with that third part of his treatise,
[1:53:57 – 1:53:59] Erik: That sank.
[1:54:00 – 1:54:04] Erik: His reputation did actually, for the longest time, sink with it.
[1:54:06 – 1:54:13] Erik: And one man in particular, Sidney Chapman, was opposed to many of his beliefs.
[1:54:14 – 1:54:28] Erik: claimed that they were unnecessary and anachronistic, and that his theories were too curious for consideration, and basically spent his life claiming that all of his work was for naught.
[1:54:30 – 1:54:31] Adam: Well, haters gonna hate.
[1:54:31 – 1:54:37] Erik: Yeah, he appeared to have a general disregard for Scandinavian science, not just Birkeland.
[1:54:38 – 1:54:46] Erik: But he made many condescending comments about Birkeland’s colleague, another Norwegian by the name of Stormer.
[1:54:47 – 1:54:56] Erik: And he claimed, you know, over the five decades, he effectively eradicated the memory of Birkeland’s work and entirely dismissed his contribution to science.
[1:54:57 – 1:55:04] Erik: as can be seen from his opening address to the Birkeland Symposium in Sandefjord, Norway, 1967.
[1:55:05 – 1:55:15] Erik: This is a symposium named after him, that this Brit Chapman is essentially dismissing his science.
[1:55:15 – 1:55:16] Erik: It’s just crazy.
[1:55:17 – 1:55:26] Erik: Though Birkeland was certainly intensely interested in the Aurora, it must be confessed that his direct observational contributions to Aurora knowledge were slight, but
[1:55:26 – 1:55:42] Erik: The apparently unshakable hold on Birkeland’s mind of his basic but invalid conception of intense electron beams mingled error inextricably with truth in the presentation of his ideas and experiments on auroras and on magnetic storms.
[1:55:42 – 1:55:47] Erik: His breadth of mind and wide interests led him astray.
[1:55:48 – 1:55:54] Erik: One young American scientist at the symposium, Alex Dessler, questioned Chapman about Birkeland.
[1:55:55 – 1:56:00] Erik: I asked him whether Birkeland’s work had any influence on him at all.
[1:56:00 – 1:56:03] Erik: He glared at me and said, how could he?
[1:56:03 – 1:56:04] Erik: It was all wrong.
[1:56:07 – 1:56:14] Erik: In the last three years of Chapman’s life, however, space satellites found incontrovertible evidence supporting Birkeland’s ideas.
[1:56:15 – 1:56:18] Erik: of the flow of electric particles from the sun.
[1:56:18 – 1:56:30] Erik: In 1962, instruments aboard NASA’s Mariner 2 spacecraft on its way to Venus recorded the presence of an electrified gas traveling through space at speeds ranging from 300 to 700 kilometers a second.
[1:56:31 – 1:56:43] Erik: A similar phenomenon had been observed the previous year by the Soviet Lunik 2 spacecraft on its way to the moon, but Western scientists had dismissed the Soviet data as unreliable.
[1:56:44 – 1:57:04] Erik: After Mariner, other craft were launched into space, and soon it was acknowledged that empty space was not empty at all, but filled with a million-degree electrified gas, hotter, thinner, and faster than any wind on Earth, blowing at hundreds of kilometers per second through the solar system, now called…
[1:57:09 – 1:57:10] Adam: Our solar system?
[1:57:10 – 1:57:11] Adam: The solar wind.
[1:57:11 – 1:57:12] Adam: The solar wind.
[1:57:12 – 1:57:13] Adam: Okay.
[1:57:13 – 1:57:13] Adam: Yes.
[1:57:13 – 1:57:14] Adam: That makes sense.
[1:57:14 – 1:57:16] Adam: It really accurately describes it.
[1:57:17 – 1:57:27] Erik: Composed of an equal number of negative particles and positive particles, the winds form a neutrally charged plasma.
[1:57:29 – 1:57:33] Erik: Berkland had predicted a similar wind more than 60 years earlier.
[1:57:34 – 1:57:44] Erik: Although the term plasma did not exist then, he called it solar rays, beams, or pencils when he wrote, quote, small storms are almost continuously present.
[1:57:46 – 1:57:50] Erik: Almost any time pencils of electric rays from the sun are striking the earth.
[1:57:51 – 1:58:06] Erik: Though, it was not until 1966 when a U.S. Navy navigation satellite observed magnetic disturbances on nearly every Passover of the polar regions that Birkeland’s own star began to rise.
[1:58:07 – 1:58:21] Erik: Since 1967, scientists have been looking at the satellite data in relation to phenomena such as the Northern Lights, rediscovering Birkeland’s extraordinary prophetic theories and completely reassessing his work.
[1:58:21 – 1:58:29] Erik: Today, he is credited as the first scientist to propose an essentially correct explanation of the Aurora Borealis, supported by theories
[1:58:30 – 1:58:33] Erik: observational and experimental evidence.
[1:58:34 – 1:58:46] Erik: He was also the first to give a three-dimensional and global picture of the currents giving rise to polar elementary storms, now called polar substorms.
[1:58:46 – 1:59:05] Erik: Birkeland suggested that these magnetic perturbations were caused by horizontal currents running along the auroral zone, maintained by a constant supply of electricity from without, that flowed almost vertically down to auroral heights along the Earth’s magnetic lines.
[1:59:06 – 1:59:11] Erik: The vertical currents first christened Birkeland currents in 1967 by Alex Dessler,
[1:59:14 – 1:59:27] Erik: are now understood to cause substorms and auroras and to drive most of the current systems in the ionosphere, the region about 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, where ionized particles can reflect radio waves.
[1:59:29 – 1:59:31] Erik: So Alex Dessler came through.
[1:59:32 – 1:59:33] Adam: Got it for him.
[1:59:33 – 1:59:34] Adam: He got it all together.
[1:59:35 – 1:59:42] Erik: So yeah, his understanding that the same charged particles that cause geomagnetic storms also cause the auroras is fully accepted.
[1:59:42 – 1:59:46] Adam: Did Chapman ever, you know, like, okay, change his mind?
[1:59:47 – 1:59:47] Adam: I don’t know.
[1:59:47 – 1:59:48] Adam: Admit to it?
[1:59:48 – 1:59:54] Erik: I don’t think that there is any quotes in this book that really provides any of that, like, comeuppance.
[1:59:55 – 1:59:57] Adam: The satellite data became available in his lifetime.
[1:59:57 – 2:00:18] Adam: yeah oh yeah for sure like i’m sure he found he knew he knew about it yeah he was on the wrong he learned full well that he was on the wrong side of science and history i bet it felt like getting your cappuccino machine stolen from your c-lab so to finish up here or worse probably felt worse than that even
[2:00:18 – 2:00:20] Erik: I would think a little bit much worse than that.
[2:00:20 – 2:00:23] Erik: I mean, could you imagine being that?
[2:00:23 – 2:00:32] Erik: Like so convinced on one hand that you actively attack somebody else only to find out that you’re absolutely wrong and he was absolutely right?
[2:00:32 – 2:00:33] Erik: Yeah.
[2:00:34 – 2:00:38] Erik: I mean, that’s the chances that you take, though, on trying to make scientific.
[2:00:40 – 2:01:01] Erik: theories calling somebody out though i don’t know if that’s necessarily like that seemed a little bit on the edge of like a grudge for some reason i don’t know he just hated norwegians yeah it’s that british royal society thing again yeah snobs we’re getting down there we’re gonna finish up with a few more quotes so
[2:01:02 – 2:01:20] Erik: To sum it all up, the magnetic field is constantly reacting to the solar wind, which, like an ordinary wind, has gusts and gales created by strong eruptions from the sun called flares, explosive events related to complex groups of sunspots, and… A.K.A.
[2:01:20 – 2:01:21] Adam: sun hurricanes.
[2:01:21 – 2:01:22] Erik: Sun hurricanes.
[2:01:22 – 2:01:24] Erik: The Brits probably still call it that.
[2:01:24 – 2:01:25] Erik: They do.
[2:01:25 – 2:01:27] Erik: And coronal mass ejections.
[2:01:28 – 2:01:30] Erik: usually referred to as CMEs.
[2:01:31 – 2:01:37] Erik: During these eruptions, large amounts of plasma escape the sun’s magnetic field and are accelerated outward.
[2:01:37 – 2:01:49] Erik: If the plasma travels towards Earth, it can cause substantial disruptions to telecommunications, electric grids and pipelines, magnetic disturbances, and bright auroras.
[2:01:49 – 2:01:51] Erik: The sun also has coronal holes.
[2:01:52 – 2:01:56] Erik: areas where hot plasma streams out unhindered by the sun’s magnetic field.
[2:01:56 – 2:01:57] Erik: AKA sun pencils.
[2:01:58 – 2:02:00] Erik: Sun pencils, cathode rays.
[2:02:01 – 2:02:08] Erik: And these can survive several solar rotations, giving rise to patterns of magnetic activity on Earth.
[2:02:08 – 2:02:09] Adam: Is it still 27 days?
[2:02:09 – 2:02:10] Adam: Yeah.
[2:02:10 – 2:02:11] Adam: Full rotation of the sun?
[2:02:11 – 2:02:11] Adam: It is.
[2:02:11 – 2:02:12] Adam: It’s interesting.
[2:02:13 – 2:02:28] Erik: Birkeland noticed this periodicity during his first expedition to Haldi and correctly linked it to particular active regions of the sun, emitting corpuscular radiation associated with, but not issuing from, sunspots.
[2:02:29 – 2:02:30] Erik: Mahoney.
[2:02:30 – 2:02:36] Erik: Large solar eruptions occur more frequently during the most active periods of the sun’s 11-year cycle.
[2:02:37 – 2:02:55] Erik: Although Birkeland’s polar elementary storms are much more frequent, with two or three occurring most days, even during the sun’s quiet phase, as Birkeland surmised, all these explosive events on the sun, which have a dramatic effect upon the rest of the solar system, are electromagnetic in nature.
[2:02:59 – 2:03:06] Erik: So that kind of boils down what he essentially had figured out.
[2:03:06 – 2:03:07] Erik: The pioneer.
[2:03:07 – 2:03:09] Erik: 60 years ahead of time.
[2:03:09 – 2:03:13] Erik: Now, we’re going to finish up with just tying up a few loose ends.
[2:03:14 – 2:03:15] Erik: No country ever did…
[2:03:17 – 2:03:44] Erik: uh take advantage of his electromagnetic cannon but the technology has since been developed into uh rail guns uh for the american strategic defense initiative popularly called star wars back in the day the 1970s that whole thing that was all rail guns and stuff okay there have been several proposals to try to use that technology to launch you know stuff into space but the amount of energy required isn’t there
[2:03:45 – 2:03:45] Adam: Yeah, yeah.
[2:03:45 – 2:03:47] Adam: You need a lot of waterfalls.
[2:03:47 – 2:03:47] Adam: Yeah.
[2:03:47 – 2:03:48] Adam: We don’t have that many.
[2:03:48 – 2:03:49] Erik: Yeah.
[2:03:50 – 2:03:53] Erik: Birkeland now has a crater on the moon named after him.
[2:03:53 – 2:03:53] Erik: All right.
[2:03:53 – 2:04:02] Erik: Together with Birkeland currents and the wider acceptance of his work should prevent his memory from fading.
[2:04:02 – 2:04:08] Erik: But rejection of his theories probably slowed the advance of geomagnetic and auroral physics for nearly half a century.
[2:04:08 – 2:04:09] Erik: Thanks, Chapman.
[2:04:10 – 2:04:10] Adam: Yeah.
[2:04:11 – 2:04:11] Adam: You dummy.
[2:04:12 – 2:04:14] Adam: You’re a big old idiot, Chapman.
[2:04:14 – 2:04:16] Adam: You’re on blast.
[2:04:16 – 2:04:16] Erik: Yep.
[2:04:18 – 2:04:20] Adam: Tumble Home’s in a fight with Chapman.
[2:04:20 – 2:04:21] Adam: We’re calling him out.
[2:04:21 – 2:04:24] Erik: We’re going to finish with a quote.
[2:04:25 – 2:04:44] Erik: from berkland himself and uh put the the life and legacy of him to rest in terms of this episode so berkland devoted his life to an extraordinary journey to unravel the complex and powerful relationship between the sun and the earth
[2:04:45 – 2:04:58] Erik: In doing so, he introduced modern physics to Norway and almost single-handedly raised the funds necessary to build up an up-to-date physics department at Christiania University.
[2:04:59 – 2:05:06] Erik: It is a sad irony that he died while a working committee was considering his nomination for the Nobel Prize.
[2:05:08 – 2:05:15] Erik: The prize could not be awarded posthumously, and thus Birkeland never received the recognition he deserved, and actually did wish for.
[2:05:16 – 2:05:22] Erik: Although his life ended tragically, his resurrection has been steady and continues to this day.
[2:05:23 – 2:05:37] Erik: And, as Birkeland said himself, sitting around the fireplace in the administration building in Natoden in 1910, quote, “…a very few lonely pioneers make their way to high places never before visited.”
[2:05:39 – 2:05:47] Erik: Others follow these new paths, and sometimes the pioneers build roads so wide that the masses may follow.
[2:05:48 – 2:05:53] Erik: These pioneers create the living conditions of mankind, and the majority are living on their work.
[2:05:56 – 2:05:57] Adam: Yeah!
[2:05:57 – 2:05:57] Adam: Yeah.
[2:05:59 – 2:06:02] Adam: Well, that’s a very nice way of thinking of it.
[2:06:03 – 2:06:04] Erik: Arrow.
[2:06:07 – 2:06:13] Erik: So that’s the life and times of somebody I had never heard of before.
[2:06:13 – 2:06:15] Erik: Two months ago, Christian Berkland.
[2:06:16 – 2:06:17] Erik: I love stories like that.
[2:06:18 – 2:06:25] Erik: And I think throughout the process, it really helped me understand the workings of the Aurora a little bit better.
[2:06:25 – 2:06:26] Adam: Yeah.
[2:06:27 – 2:06:30] Erik: And yeah, just a crazy story.
[2:06:30 – 2:06:33] Erik: Invented a fertilizer furnace, a ray gun.
[2:06:34 – 2:06:37] Adam: All to be able to pursue his passion.
[2:06:37 – 2:06:38] Adam: Yeah.
[2:06:38 – 2:06:41] Adam: And to try and illuminate this dark world that we live on.
[2:06:41 – 2:06:42] Erik: Yes.
[2:06:42 – 2:06:46] Erik: So if you’re still listening, awesome.
[2:06:46 – 2:06:46] Erik: Thanks.
[2:06:47 – 2:06:55] Erik: We’re, I think, going to finish this episode kind of where we are here and have another standalone episode.
[2:06:55 – 2:07:02] Erik: That’ll just be a little bit more for if you’re looking for the quick black and white things to consider.
[2:07:03 – 2:07:04] Erik: as it relates to the boundary waters.
[2:07:05 – 2:07:16] Erik: We do find ourselves in a place where occasionally that auroral oval will come down, and we do get to experience the lights not nearly as frequently as Mount Haldi.
[2:07:17 – 2:07:18] Adam: Yeah, we’re no Haldi.
[2:07:18 – 2:07:19] Adam: No.
[2:07:20 – 2:07:29] Erik: So we’ll be back next week, a couple weeks, but I think it’ll be a little bit shorter, a little bit more cut and dry.
[2:07:29 – 2:07:30] Adam: A little more localized.
[2:07:30 – 2:07:32] Erik: And definitely more localized.
[2:07:32 – 2:07:36] Erik: And we’ll bring some of our own personal stories into the mix.
[2:07:37 – 2:07:39] Erik: But I don’t know.
[2:07:39 – 2:07:40] Erik: Let us know.
[2:07:40 – 2:07:42] Erik: What did this episode do for you?
[2:07:42 – 2:07:43] Erik: Anything?
[2:07:43 – 2:07:43] Erik: Was it boring?
[2:07:45 – 2:07:47] Erik: Do you want us to maybe do more things like this?
[2:07:47 – 2:07:52] Erik: I think it would be fun if, like, you could do this and then teach me something.
[2:07:52 – 2:07:53] Adam: Yeah, I need to do some.
[2:07:53 – 2:07:54] Adam: I need to get a read up.
[2:07:54 – 2:07:56] Adam: Do a little more research.
[2:07:56 – 2:07:58] Adam: A lot of fun little topics and stories.
[2:07:58 – 2:08:01] Adam: I feel like I’m not really pulling my weight on the podcast right now.
[2:08:01 – 2:08:09] Erik: Well, that’s the one thing I thought that might be kind of a downside is one person doesn’t get involved as much.
[2:08:09 – 2:08:17] Adam: It was fun to learn about it on the fly, though, to come in not knowing what you were going to bring to the table and kind of learn with our listeners.
[2:08:17 – 2:08:20] Adam: So I think that was a fun aspect of it.
[2:08:20 – 2:08:24] Adam: And, yeah, I’ll have to do some reading and bring something to you.
[2:08:24 – 2:08:24] Erik: Sure.
[2:08:25 – 2:08:29] Erik: But yeah, if we get a bunch of emails saying like, geez, that was boring.
[2:08:29 – 2:08:30] Erik: Don’t ever do anything like that again.
[2:08:30 – 2:08:31] Erik: They’re not going to say that.
[2:08:31 – 2:08:32] Erik: All right, fine.
[2:08:32 – 2:08:32] Erik: We won’t.
[2:08:32 – 2:08:33] Erik: But let us know.
[2:08:34 – 2:08:34] Erik: Tumble home.
[2:08:34 – 2:08:35] Adam: This is the off season.
[2:08:35 – 2:08:36] Adam: We can do whatever we want.
[2:08:37 – 2:08:37] Adam: Tumble, yeah.
[2:08:37 – 2:08:38] Adam: I thought it was interesting.
[2:08:38 – 2:08:39] Erik: All right.
[2:08:39 – 2:08:39] Erik: I did too.
[2:08:39 – 2:08:42] Erik: I’m glad that’s down on like another form.
[2:08:43 – 2:08:45] Erik: For his legacy to maintain.
[2:08:46 – 2:08:50] Erik: Basically, that book, again, The Northern Lights by Lucy Jago.
[2:08:50 – 2:08:51] Adam: It was a great read.
[2:08:52 – 2:08:52] Adam: Shout out to Jago.
[2:08:53 – 2:08:54] Erik: Straightforward.
[2:08:55 – 2:09:00] Erik: She puts a little bit of her own spin on things, but I don’t necessarily need that editorialized…
[2:09:01 – 2:09:02] Erik: Like, she doesn’t take sides, really.
[2:09:02 – 2:09:05] Erik: I think she gave it a pretty level story, even playing field.
[2:09:06 – 2:09:12] Erik: And it’s one of those things that I like, just that early science and kind of the ahead-of-their-time people.
[2:09:13 – 2:09:14] Erik: But…
[2:09:14 – 2:09:15] Erik: Yeah, let us know.
[2:09:15 – 2:09:16] Erik: DumbleHome at gmail.com.
[2:09:17 – 2:09:24] Erik: If you haven’t left us a review on iTunes, we haven’t shouted that out in like a year, a month, two months.
[2:09:24 – 2:09:24] Erik: iTunes.
[2:09:24 – 2:09:24] Erik: It’s been a while.
[2:09:25 – 2:09:26] Erik: iTunes.
[2:09:27 – 2:09:29] Adam: Catch us wherever you catch your pods.
[2:09:30 – 2:09:30] Adam: Yeah.
[2:09:30 – 2:09:32] Adam: Hit us up on the Stitch.
[2:09:33 – 2:09:34] Erik: Man, you sound super hip right now.
[2:09:35 – 2:09:35] Adam: Thank you.
[2:09:35 – 2:09:36] Adam: I’ve been practicing.
[2:09:37 – 2:09:38] Adam: In the mirror.
[2:09:38 – 2:09:42] Adam: Remember to go ahead and sign up for Fantasy Iditarod.
[2:09:42 – 2:09:43] Erik: Oh, yeah.
[2:09:43 – 2:09:44] Erik: Quick shout out to that.
[2:09:44 – 2:09:45] Erik: We got a couple of people in there.
[2:09:45 – 2:09:48] Adam: Pack name on Fantasy Mushing is Tumblehome.
[2:09:48 – 2:09:49] Erik: Tumblehome is the pack name.
[2:09:49 – 2:09:52] Adam: There’s at least two mushers signed up.
[2:09:52 – 2:09:55] Erik: I don’t think we put a… Did I put a link in the last show?
[2:09:55 – 2:09:56] Adam: I don’t know if you did.
[2:09:56 – 2:09:59] Adam: I still haven’t thrown it on Instagram, so I’ll do that.
[2:10:00 – 2:10:04] Adam: Yeah, lots of nice winter stuff going on up here, so…
[2:10:05 – 2:10:21] Erik: Yeah, we’ll come back with probably a little bit more of a low-key, back-and-forth Aurora episode to give you some practical and pragmatic things that you can expect if you’re coming up to the Boundary Waters and you’re looking up towards the north sky.
[2:10:24 – 2:10:26] Erik: Some of the things that you don’t think about, a lot of the questions that I get
[2:10:27 – 2:10:30] Erik: that I could maybe help in answering.
[2:10:30 – 2:10:30] Adam: Absolutely.
[2:10:30 – 2:10:33] Adam: Well, I think this is a nice foundation episode of knowledge.
[2:10:33 – 2:10:34] Adam: Yeah.
[2:10:34 – 2:10:35] Adam: Hell, I learned a lot.
[2:10:35 – 2:10:36] Erik: Yeah, I did too.
[2:10:36 – 2:10:42] Adam: And I was doing research for the next episode that we’re about to record, the next episode coming up.
[2:10:42 – 2:10:48] Adam: So I think it’s going to be a wealth of knowledge for anybody who took the time to listen.
[2:10:49 – 2:10:50] Adam: And we sure do appreciate it.
[2:10:50 – 2:10:52] Adam: So thank you for being here with us.
[2:10:53 – 2:10:58] Adam: From Studio K in the snowy northern reaches of Minnesota.
[2:11:00 – 2:11:07] Adam: This has been Tumble Home existentially reviewing a book about Berglund.
[2:11:08 – 2:11:09] Erik: And the Northern Lights.
[2:11:09 – 2:11:09] Adam: The Berglund.
[2:11:10 – 2:11:11] Erik: The Berglund.
[2:11:11 – 2:11:12] Adam: They should have called them the Berglund Lights.
[2:11:13 – 2:11:16] Erik: Yeah, kind of tough to go back on that one.
[2:11:17 – 2:11:17] Erik: The whistlies?
[2:11:17 – 2:11:18] Erik: He’s got some current.
[2:11:19 – 2:11:19] Erik: The whistlies.
[2:11:20 – 2:11:20] Erik: Whistlies.
[2:11:21 – 2:11:23] Erik: Well, we’re slowly fading out now.
[2:11:24 – 2:11:25] Erik: Over the music?
[2:11:25 – 2:11:25] Adam: Yeah.
[2:11:26 – 2:11:26] Adam: All right.
[2:11:26 – 2:11:27] Adam: Well, thanks for listening.
[2:11:27 – 2:11:31] Adam: Oh, and shout out to Paul.
[2:11:32 – 2:11:34] Erik: He’s up there running the Iditarod on foot.
[2:11:35 – 2:11:37] Erik: If you’re listening, good luck, Paul.
[2:11:37 – 2:11:38] Adam: Yeah, Paul.
[2:11:38 – 2:11:38] Adam: Go get it.
[2:11:39 – 2:11:39] Adam: Go get it.
[2:11:39 – 2:11:42] Adam: The Iditarod Invitational Trail Race.
[2:11:42 – 2:11:43] Adam: The Trail Race.
[2:11:43 – 2:11:47] Erik: He’s got a trail tracker, so we can track him on the same website that we track the dogs.
[2:11:47 – 2:11:48] Adam: Really?
[2:11:48 – 2:11:48] Adam: Yeah.
[2:11:48 – 2:11:49] Adam: Wow.
[2:11:49 – 2:11:51] Adam: I can’t wait to check that out on RaceFlow.
[2:11:52 – 2:12:04] Erik: Yeah, he called last week and told me that our Top 10 Vistas episode was hugely influential in terms of his planning for a trail run to prep for that trail.
[2:12:05 – 2:12:20] Erik: He, over the course of four days, ran 90 miles on the Borderot Trail and essentially got almost all of the vistas that we mentioned, besides Warrior Hill and a couple of the other ones up in Coatico.
[2:12:21 – 2:12:21] Adam: Yeah.
[2:12:22 – 2:12:22] Adam: Yeah.
[2:12:22 – 2:12:23] Adam: Holy moly.
[2:12:23 – 2:12:23] Adam: Yeah.
[2:12:24 – 2:12:24] Adam: All right.
[2:12:24 – 2:12:26] Erik: Holy moly hot dog.
[2:12:26 – 2:12:27] Adam: Arrivederci.
[2:12:27 – 2:12:29] Adam: Pizzola diere.
[2:12:30 – 2:12:31] Adam: Watch out for them bingos.
[2:13:25 – 2:13:33] SPEAKER_01: How much I enjoyed the time we spent together.
[2:13:33 – 2:13:37] SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was just us on the beach.
[2:13:37 – 2:13:40] SPEAKER_01: There was stars.
[2:13:40 – 2:13:41] SPEAKER_01: Some of them were falling down.
[2:13:42 – 2:13:45] SPEAKER_01: Everything about it was so perfect.