SGU Episode 899

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SGU Episode 899
October 1st 2022
Artist depiction of a nuclear rocket
SGU 898                      SGU 900
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
C: Cara Santa Maria
J: Jay Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
Guest
TD: Tim Dodd, American science communicator
Quote of the Week
This job is a great scientific adventure. But it's also a great human adventure. Mankind has made giant steps forward. However, what we know is really very little compared to what we still have to know.
Fabiola Gianotti, Italian experimental particle physicist
Links
Download Podcast
Show Notes
Forum Discussion

Introduction, Hurricane Ian, new SGU Book

Voice-over: You're listening to the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, your escape to reality.

[00:12.920 --> 00:18.680] Today is Saturday, September 24th, 2022, and this is your host, Stephen Novella.

[00:18.680 --> 00:20.240] Joining me this week are Bob Novella.

[00:20.240 --> 00:21.240] Hey, everybody.

[00:21.240 --> 00:22.240] Kara Santamaria.

[00:22.240 --> 00:23.240] Howdy.

[00:23.240 --> 00:24.240] Jay Novella.

[00:24.240 --> 00:25.240] Hey, guys.

[00:25.240 --> 00:26.240] And Evan Bernstein.

[00:26.240 --> 00:27.240] Good evening, everyone.

[00:27.240 --> 00:31.120] We are recording this episode live in SGU Studios.

[00:31.120 --> 00:37.600] Kara is joining us remotely from Florida, battening down the hatches while a hurricane

[00:37.600 --> 00:39.080] is bearing down on her.

[00:39.080 --> 00:40.240] How are you doing down there, Kara?

[00:40.240 --> 00:45.480] Well, it's not here yet, but I'm supposed to go home to LA next Thursday, and then I

[00:45.480 --> 00:49.400] just found out right after I booked the tickets that we're quite probably going to be hit

[00:49.400 --> 00:52.560] with a category three hurricane on Wednesday.

[00:52.560 --> 00:54.080] It'll be my first ever.

[00:54.080 --> 01:00.880] So I did tornadoes in Texas, earthquakes in California, hurricanes now in Florida.

[01:00.880 --> 01:02.680] Just need to move on to an active volcano.

[01:02.680 --> 01:03.680] Yeah, there you go.

[01:03.680 --> 01:07.960] Now, Kara, you know according to Florida rules, you need to be mowing your lawn when that

[01:07.960 --> 01:10.000] hurricane hits, right?

[01:10.000 --> 01:14.160] You need to be outside doing something as if there's no danger.

[01:14.160 --> 01:16.560] Right, and my cow needs to be untrimmed.

[01:16.560 --> 01:17.560] Right.

[01:17.560 --> 01:21.440] Because the low pressure of the system raises the grass a little straighter, makes it easier

[01:21.440 --> 01:22.440] to cut.

[01:22.440 --> 01:23.680] So I mean, it's kind of an obvious move.

[01:23.680 --> 01:28.520] Now, NASA is still planning on launching Artemis on Tuesday.

[01:28.520 --> 01:29.520] Did they finally scrub it?

[01:29.520 --> 01:30.520] That's so not going to happen.

[01:30.520 --> 01:31.520] Oh, yeah.

[01:31.520 --> 01:34.640] Well, they like to wait till the last minute because sometimes these things zig instead

[01:34.640 --> 01:38.560] of zag, and they don't want to miss their window, but I guess the latest update is they

[01:38.560 --> 01:39.560] just scrubbed it.

[01:39.560 --> 01:40.560] Not surprising.

[01:40.560 --> 01:42.280] I thought that was a little bit of wishful thinking.

[01:42.280 --> 01:46.360] So part of the reason why we are recording this episode, and there'll be another episode

[01:46.360 --> 01:51.680] that we're recording as part of a live stream, is because our second book, The Skeptic's

[01:51.680 --> 01:58.440] Guide to the Future, is coming out in just three days on September 27th.

[01:58.440 --> 02:03.060] So this book is The Skeptic's Guide to the Future, but Bob Jay and I wrote this one.

[02:03.060 --> 02:09.560] This was a ton of fun to research, to talk about, to design, figure out what goes into

[02:09.560 --> 02:11.200] it, to write.

[02:11.200 --> 02:13.560] We've already had a few interviews about it.

[02:13.560 --> 02:16.320] It's super fun to talk about.

[02:16.320 --> 02:22.680] Really what we do in this book is we go through first the history of futurism, right?

[02:22.680 --> 02:28.600] So previous attempts at predicting the future and how did they do, what did they get wrong,

[02:28.600 --> 02:31.160] what patterns of wrongness are there?

[02:31.160 --> 02:36.080] We talk about futurism fallacies, the common mistakes that futurists make over and over

[02:36.080 --> 02:37.080] again.

[02:37.080 --> 02:40.760] We looked a little bit into futurism as an academic discipline to see what they're saying

[02:40.760 --> 02:42.480] there, et cetera.

[02:42.480 --> 02:48.040] And then the meat of the book is we talk about the cutting edge technologies, where they're

[02:48.040 --> 02:53.200] coming from, where they are now, and then we try to extrapolate them into the future,

[02:53.200 --> 02:59.200] the near future, the medium future, and then the distant future when those technologies

[02:59.200 --> 03:00.680] are fully mature.

[03:00.680 --> 03:04.240] What is the ultimate potential of these technologies?

[03:04.240 --> 03:05.320] We had fun.

[03:05.320 --> 03:10.400] That was the fun part because when we discussed what is this technology going to look like

[03:10.400 --> 03:15.960] fifty, a hundred, a thousand years from now, then we took the opportunity to write some

[03:15.960 --> 03:21.360] science fiction to illustrate that technology in use, which I thought came out really well.

[03:21.360 --> 03:27.640] That was a ton of fun discussing what that could look like in use.

[03:27.640 --> 03:28.640] We call them vignettes.

[03:28.640 --> 03:30.720] They're not even really a full short story.

[03:30.720 --> 03:33.400] It's just a glimpse of the future.

[03:33.400 --> 03:38.400] And they bring into lots of different technologies that we had just discussed or that we're about

[03:38.400 --> 03:39.400] to discuss in the book.

[03:39.400 --> 03:42.440] So it's not just one tech, but a bunch of them all in one story.

[03:42.440 --> 03:45.800] And that, of course, is one of the main themes of the book.

[03:45.800 --> 03:50.720] One of the futurism fallacies is to think that how will this one technology look in

[03:50.720 --> 03:51.720] the future?

[03:51.720 --> 03:56.120] But you can't think about it that way because by the time you get to that point that you're

[03:56.120 --> 04:00.720] talking about, all other technologies will have been advancing in the background.

[04:00.720 --> 04:06.260] So I say, well, what will fusion power look like in fifty years?

[04:06.260 --> 04:10.360] You can't talk about that without also talking about what solar power is going to look like

[04:10.360 --> 04:15.160] in fifty years and all other sources of energy because it's always going to be compared to

[04:15.160 --> 04:17.480] all of the other options.

[04:17.480 --> 04:22.880] Or if we talk a lot about space travel and we think, oh, by the time we get, you know,

[04:22.880 --> 04:27.400] here are the problems that we'll be facing with spending a lot of time in space or interstellar

[04:27.400 --> 04:28.400] travel.

[04:28.400 --> 04:31.760] Yeah, but by the time we get that, we might be cyborgs.

[04:31.760 --> 04:32.760] We probably will be.

[04:32.760 --> 04:34.340] We'll be genetically engineered.

[04:34.340 --> 04:38.280] We may just, you know, transfer into a robot for the trip, you know, or whatever.

[04:38.280 --> 04:40.680] Like you have to think about all the other things that are happening.

[04:40.680 --> 04:41.680] It's not going to be us.

[04:41.680 --> 04:42.680] Right.

[04:42.680 --> 04:43.680] Right.

[04:43.680 --> 04:44.680] It's not going to be us in the future.

[04:44.680 --> 04:45.680] That's what we want.

[04:45.680 --> 04:46.680] We want to imagine us in the future.

[04:46.680 --> 04:47.680] But that's not what's going to be happening.

[04:47.680 --> 04:52.200] And if you look at previous predictions of the future and futurists, that's a classic

[04:52.200 --> 04:53.200] mistake.

[04:53.200 --> 04:57.440] They take themselves, their culture, and they just put it, plop it into place with this

[04:57.440 --> 04:58.880] new fancy technology.

[04:58.880 --> 05:01.800] And that's a classic mistake that you see over and over and over.

[05:01.800 --> 05:02.800] Right.

[05:02.800 --> 05:06.400] Because part of, quote unquote, predicting the future is thinking about how people are

[05:06.400 --> 05:08.240] going to interact with that technology.

[05:08.240 --> 05:11.660] And again, we imagine how we're going to interact with that technology.

[05:11.660 --> 05:14.600] But I think we're living at a very interesting time.

[05:14.600 --> 05:21.480] Probably our generation, maybe more than any other generation, has a firsthand example of,

[05:21.480 --> 05:27.040] like for those of us who have kids, like our kids have a different relationship with technology

[05:27.040 --> 05:28.040] than we do.

[05:28.040 --> 05:29.040] Oh my gosh.

[05:29.040 --> 05:30.040] Right.

[05:30.040 --> 05:31.040] They use social media.

[05:31.040 --> 05:32.040] They use their smartphone.

[05:32.040 --> 05:34.280] They think about these things differently than we do.

[05:34.280 --> 05:37.000] They think about it differently.

[05:37.000 --> 05:38.720] They prioritize different things.

[05:38.720 --> 05:43.760] My daughters rarely, if ever, use their phone as a phone.

[05:43.760 --> 05:46.360] It's not really a phone for them.

[05:46.360 --> 05:51.840] They use it way more to text or to communicate on certain social media apps or whatever.

[05:51.840 --> 05:52.840] Wait, Steve.

[05:52.840 --> 05:53.840] Do you use your phone?

[05:53.840 --> 05:54.840] You make phone calls?

[05:54.840 --> 05:55.840] Yes.

[05:55.840 --> 05:56.840] Yeah.

[05:56.840 --> 05:57.840] Yeah.

[05:57.840 --> 05:58.840] What?

[05:58.840 --> 06:02.480] Actually, I was telling Rachel, when I was her age, I had two means of communicating

[06:02.480 --> 06:03.480] with people.

[06:03.480 --> 06:06.520] I wrote them a letter or I picked up a phone and called them.

[06:06.520 --> 06:07.520] And that was it.

[06:07.520 --> 06:08.520] Or you met them in person.

[06:08.520 --> 06:09.520] Yeah.

[06:09.520 --> 06:10.520] That sucked.

[06:10.520 --> 06:11.520] Or you met them in person.

[06:11.520 --> 06:14.440] But short of that, because I moved around the country a lot, I had to want to communicate

[06:14.440 --> 06:15.440] with my friends.

[06:15.440 --> 06:16.680] So we talked about how that happened.

[06:16.680 --> 06:22.360] I said, I wrote letters and made phone calls that cost $15 for 30 minutes.

[06:22.360 --> 06:24.160] That's how you communicated with people across the country.

[06:24.160 --> 06:25.160] That was it.

[06:25.160 --> 06:28.040] And I remember worrying about the cost of making a phone call.

[06:28.040 --> 06:29.040] Absolutely.

[06:29.040 --> 06:32.160] You had to call it off-peak hours so that you wouldn't get charged the prime rate, because

[06:32.160 --> 06:38.080] my parents would kill me if they found out I ran up a $50 phone bill for a call to my

[06:38.080 --> 06:40.040] friend back at the other side of the country.

[06:40.040 --> 06:44.560] I think Steve's a little bit anomalous, though, because I definitely use my phone a lot.

[06:44.560 --> 06:47.560] And I definitely don't use it mostly for making phone calls.

[06:47.560 --> 06:50.800] There's just so much other stuff, the obvious stuff that I do.

[06:50.800 --> 06:51.800] Oh, yeah.

[06:51.800 --> 06:57.240] I mean, a smartphone is probably the phone app is one of the least used aspects of it.

[06:57.240 --> 06:58.240] Absolutely.

[06:58.240 --> 07:00.240] My smartphone is my handheld computer.

[07:00.240 --> 07:01.240] That's not my point.

[07:01.240 --> 07:02.960] If it disappeared, could we get by without it?

[07:02.960 --> 07:04.840] I do call and accept phone calls.

[07:04.840 --> 07:06.160] It is still my phone.

[07:06.160 --> 07:08.480] My daughters, they turned off their ringer.

[07:08.480 --> 07:11.600] They don't use it at all as a phone.

[07:11.600 --> 07:17.440] My phone is on silent with no notifications ever for my mental health, but I'm curious.

[07:17.440 --> 07:21.120] So the only time I ever talk on the phone, and I guess that's changed a little since

[07:21.120 --> 07:26.000] I've been in Florida without a car, but in California, the only time I would have conversations

[07:26.000 --> 07:28.920] was when I was driving long distances.

[07:28.920 --> 07:30.760] Does anybody else have that same vibe?

[07:30.760 --> 07:32.640] The only time I talk to people is in the car.

[07:32.640 --> 07:36.000] That's not the only time, but that's definitely a huge opportunity because you're just sitting

[07:36.000 --> 07:42.480] there doing nothing, and you could talk to people now that it's easy when you route the

[07:42.480 --> 07:44.640] phone through your car so you're not holding it.

[07:44.640 --> 07:47.320] Where are you talking to people, then, if you're not on the phone?

[07:47.320 --> 07:50.320] Are you not having conversations?

[07:50.320 --> 07:54.720] Just communicating virtual time, yeah, with texts and emails and whatever.

[07:54.720 --> 07:57.800] I'm definitely more of a phone talker than a texter.

[07:57.800 --> 08:05.840] And then if I'm missing somebody and we want to have quality time together, then we FaceTime.

[08:05.840 --> 08:11.320] Well I primarily use my phone to get angry at the internet, I think, if I summarize my

[08:11.320 --> 08:12.320] interaction.

[08:12.320 --> 08:14.240] She's an angry old Facebook man.

[08:14.240 --> 08:17.840] I am pissed off at basically everybody that uses social media.

[08:17.840 --> 08:21.600] I log in and I'm instantly furious with what I see.

[08:21.600 --> 08:28.860] But this is a classic sort of futurism fallacy, again, in that past futurists pretty much

[08:28.860 --> 08:36.400] unanimously imagined that in the future, the amorphous future, when the technology existed,

[08:36.400 --> 08:39.720] people will video call, right?

[08:39.720 --> 08:40.840] And now we have...

[08:40.840 --> 08:41.840] We assumed it.

[08:41.840 --> 08:47.560] Even we did years ago, 30 years ago, that was the obvious next step for phones.

[08:47.560 --> 08:56.040] So we have, now we have, you could video call, audio call, or text, and people prefer texting

[08:56.040 --> 08:57.920] to audio and audio to video.

[08:57.920 --> 09:01.360] It's the exact opposite of what everyone predicted prior to...

[09:01.360 --> 09:04.160] Or, I mean, I think they all have different uses.

[09:04.160 --> 09:05.160] But that's the thing.

[09:05.160 --> 09:09.780] Until you put a technology in the hands of billions of people and see how they use it,

[09:09.780 --> 09:12.080] it's hard to predict.

[09:12.080 --> 09:17.320] Most futurists think we're going to use future technology like we use current technology.

[09:17.320 --> 09:19.560] So here's another fun example.

[09:19.560 --> 09:26.480] When commercial airplane travel was first, first becoming a thing, futurists imagined

[09:26.480 --> 09:31.280] that it would evolve into these gigantic luxury airplanes.

[09:31.280 --> 09:32.280] Flying hotels almost.

[09:32.280 --> 09:34.320] They were flying cruise ships, right?

[09:34.320 --> 09:35.620] Right, like luxury liners.

[09:35.620 --> 09:38.360] They were like luxury liners in the air.

[09:38.360 --> 09:45.080] That is how they were imagined because they assumed that the use and priorities, it's

[09:45.080 --> 09:50.600] all about luxury, right, would hold true even to, would translate to this new technology.

[09:50.600 --> 09:54.720] And they didn't anticipate, like, no, people are going to want to get there fast and cheap.

[09:54.720 --> 10:03.320] And now we've gone so far the other direction where we're crammed into these tiny seats.

[10:03.320 --> 10:07.720] And you could pay through the nose for a first class seat where you get a slightly bigger

[10:07.720 --> 10:08.720] seat.

[10:08.720 --> 10:09.720] Makes a difference.

[10:09.720 --> 10:13.840] Or lots of other airlines, lots of other airlines I've seen where you can go super ultra mega

[10:13.840 --> 10:20.760] first class where you literally get a TV this big, a little room, and a foot rub.

[10:20.760 --> 10:24.960] Somebody comes in and gives you a foot rub, but you're spending $40,000.

[10:24.960 --> 10:26.920] How many people are going to really do that?

[10:26.920 --> 10:32.080] And Bob, even that's nothing compared to the luxury liners that they imagined where it

[10:32.080 --> 10:36.080] was like you're living in a hotel while you're on the plane.

[10:36.080 --> 10:37.080] Completely different.

[10:37.080 --> 10:38.080] Yeah.

[10:38.080 --> 10:41.080] Kara, have you ever called the remote control the clicker?

[10:41.080 --> 10:42.080] I have.

[10:42.080 --> 10:43.080] Okay.

[10:43.080 --> 10:44.080] Yeah.

[10:44.080 --> 10:45.080] I have.

[10:45.080 --> 10:46.080] Yeah.

[10:46.080 --> 10:47.080] To the original remote device.

[10:47.080 --> 10:48.080] That's what it was tethered.

[10:48.080 --> 10:49.080] Which made a click noise.

[10:49.080 --> 10:50.080] No, no, no.

[10:50.080 --> 10:51.080] Yeah.

[10:51.080 --> 10:52.080] You would make a literal clicking sound.

[10:52.080 --> 10:53.080] The frequency, right.

[10:53.080 --> 10:57.720] When you hit the button, it would hit a, like, tuning fork rod, which would vibrate at a

[10:57.720 --> 11:01.920] specific frequency, and the TV would respond to that frequency.

[11:01.920 --> 11:03.640] So you had, like, three or four controls.

[11:03.640 --> 11:04.640] Three buttons.

[11:04.640 --> 11:05.640] That's it.

[11:05.640 --> 11:09.240] Yeah, like three or four buttons, like volume, you know, up, down, channel, up, down, on,

[11:09.240 --> 11:10.240] off.

[11:10.240 --> 11:11.240] That's it.

[11:11.240 --> 11:12.240] That's it.

[11:12.240 --> 11:14.560] Yeah, so people still call it the clicker.

[11:14.560 --> 11:15.560] We also still say tape.

[11:15.560 --> 11:17.120] Like, we're going to tape something.

[11:17.120 --> 11:18.120] Right.

[11:18.120 --> 11:19.120] Yeah.

[11:19.120 --> 11:20.120] When tape is nowhere in the loop anymore.

[11:20.120 --> 11:23.480] But they make it, those things, people understand what they mean.

[11:23.480 --> 11:24.480] Yeah.

[11:24.480 --> 11:25.480] Yeah.

[11:25.480 --> 11:26.480] Yeah.

[11:26.480 --> 11:29.800] And, you know, I promise all of you that are young, you'll feel old one day, too.

[11:29.800 --> 11:33.720] Whatever you think is normal now, it won't be in 30 years, and you'll be doing the same

[11:33.720 --> 11:34.720] thing.

[11:34.720 --> 11:35.720] Goddammit.

[11:35.720 --> 11:39.400] And it will probably just speed up.

[11:39.400 --> 11:40.400] Yeah.

[11:40.400 --> 11:41.400] Oh, gosh.

[11:41.400 --> 11:47.680] A 25-year-old and a 20-year and a 20-year-old might find, see dramatic differences as the

[11:47.680 --> 11:53.040] pace of increase, you know, accelerates, as it probably will.

[11:53.040 --> 11:56.960] And we're just skimming the surface of this book.

[11:56.960 --> 12:01.300] The third section of the book goes into science fiction technology.

[12:01.300 --> 12:06.560] So we go beyond actual technology where, like, the roots of it, even if, like, the beginnings

[12:06.560 --> 12:12.340] of it already exist, even if it's just a proof of concept or a theory at this point.

[12:12.340 --> 12:18.560] And then we just talk about crazy sci-fi tech and discuss, like, is this even possible?

[12:18.560 --> 12:20.360] Like lightsabers, you know, things like that.

[12:20.360 --> 12:21.360] Anti-gravity.

[12:21.360 --> 12:25.240] Is it even possible that we could possibly make a lightsaber?

[12:25.240 --> 12:26.440] And what would that be like?

[12:26.440 --> 12:31.240] And can you think about it, like, by the time, if you could make a lightsaber, that technology

[12:31.240 --> 12:33.720] would be useful for so many other things.

[12:33.720 --> 12:35.320] It would be so powerful.

[12:35.320 --> 12:36.320] That power source.

[12:36.320 --> 12:37.320] It would be a game changer.

[12:37.320 --> 12:39.920] I could plug that into my building and run my building off of that.

[12:39.920 --> 12:40.920] Yeah, right.

[12:40.920 --> 12:41.920] Exactly.

[12:41.920 --> 12:47.080] That's like the transporter, you know, like in Star Trek, you know, like, that one invention

[12:47.080 --> 12:48.080] would change reality.

[12:48.080 --> 12:50.680] It would change everybody's life.

[12:50.680 --> 12:53.320] In ways that, you know, would be impossible to predict.

[12:53.320 --> 12:54.320] Yeah.

[12:54.320 --> 12:58.200] Or my favorite, and we go into this in the book, the holodeck.

[12:58.200 --> 13:03.640] If you could do that, why would you confine that to one little room, right?

[13:03.640 --> 13:08.120] Why wouldn't the whole ship be a holodeck, right?

[13:08.120 --> 13:13.480] It would configure itself as needed to whatever functionality you needed anywhere on the ship,

[13:13.480 --> 13:18.240] except, you know, with the only exception of intricate machines that it couldn't make.

[13:18.240 --> 13:20.080] Assuming you had limitless power at your disposal.

[13:20.080 --> 13:22.680] Every room would become a room of requirement.

[13:22.680 --> 13:23.680] Yeah.

[13:23.680 --> 13:24.680] Basically.

[13:24.680 --> 13:25.680] Yeah.

[13:25.680 --> 13:26.680] Pretty much.

[13:26.680 --> 13:30.120] And all you would need is, give me a holodeck and a replicator, and I'm good.

[13:30.120 --> 13:31.120] I'm done.

[13:31.120 --> 13:32.120] Yeah.

[13:32.120 --> 13:33.120] See you.

[13:33.120 --> 13:34.120] See you at that point.

[13:34.120 --> 13:35.120] See you at that point.

[13:35.120 --> 13:39.160] You go into Bob's holodeck, like, 50 years later, and it would be like a Halloween planet.

[13:39.160 --> 13:40.160] Yeah.

[13:40.160 --> 13:41.160] He would have constructed, right?

[13:41.160 --> 13:42.160] Also, don't go in there with a black light.

[13:42.160 --> 13:43.160] Oh, my God.

[13:43.160 --> 13:44.160] I saw the joke, and I took it.

[13:44.160 --> 13:45.160] Yeah.

[13:45.160 --> 13:46.160] Holy shit.

[13:46.160 --> 13:54.800] We encourage anyone who's interested in any of the things we're talking about, anything

[13:54.800 --> 13:59.400] about futurism and future technology and existing technology and the history of technology,

[13:59.400 --> 14:04.200] all of that, and sci-fi stuff, to pre-order the book, The Skeptic's Guide to the Future.

[14:04.200 --> 14:09.320] If you're listening to this after September 27th, you can order the book directly, and

[14:09.320 --> 14:11.800] they'll send it to you.

[14:11.800 --> 14:15.480] You can get to the links on the SGU page.

[14:15.480 --> 14:19.960] You go to the, you know, slash books, and then that takes you to the publisher who has

[14:19.960 --> 14:23.040] all the actual links to specific sellers.

[14:23.040 --> 14:27.880] I also will remind you that this is our second book.

[14:27.880 --> 14:29.840] Don't forget about The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe.

[14:29.840 --> 14:30.840] That's our first book.

[14:30.840 --> 14:32.640] It's still selling quite well, actually.

[14:32.640 --> 14:33.640] Yeah.

[14:33.640 --> 14:35.840] Let's get to some actual content.

[14:35.840 --> 14:36.840] Bob.

[14:36.840 --> 14:37.840] Oh, boy.

Forgotten Superheroes of Science (14:37)

• Raye Jean Montague, American naval engineer credited with creating the first computer-generated rough draft of a U.S. naval ship

[14:37.840 --> 14:38.840] You're going to do a Forgotten Superhero of Science.

[14:38.840 --> 14:39.840] Yeah.

[14:39.840 --> 14:40.840] I haven't done this in a while.

[14:40.840 --> 14:42.940] So, yes, Forgotten Superheroes of Science.

[14:42.940 --> 14:51.680] This is Ray Jean Montague, 1935 to 2018, naval engineer and the first female program manager

[14:51.680 --> 14:54.120] of ships in the United States Navy.

[14:54.120 --> 14:59.160] In her own words, she said, I'm known as the first person to design a ship using the computer.

[14:59.160 --> 15:00.160] Cool.

[15:00.160 --> 15:04.920] Montague was inspired early in life when, for her, you know, her scientific career.

[15:04.920 --> 15:09.480] When she was seven, I believe in 1940, her grandfather took her on a tour of a captured

[15:09.480 --> 15:10.480] German sub.

[15:10.480 --> 15:11.480] Wow.

[15:11.480 --> 15:15.560] And she said, she's quoted as saying about that experience, I looked through the periscope

[15:15.560 --> 15:17.840] and saw all these dials and mechanisms.

[15:17.840 --> 15:23.080] And I said to the guy who was giving the tour, what do you have to know to do this?

[15:23.080 --> 15:26.020] And he replied, oh, you'd have to be an engineer.

[15:26.020 --> 15:28.040] You don't have to worry about that.

[15:28.040 --> 15:32.840] And the implication, of course, a young black girl, you know, is never going to become an

[15:32.840 --> 15:33.840] engineer.

[15:33.840 --> 15:35.680] And don't forget, and also this was like in the 1940s.

[15:35.680 --> 15:40.400] So imagine, you know, the attitudes then for somebody like that becoming an engineer.

[15:40.400 --> 15:43.080] I mean, it's almost unimaginable how bad it was.

[15:43.080 --> 15:44.440] You know, today it's not great.

[15:44.440 --> 15:45.800] Back then, oof.

[15:45.800 --> 15:51.840] But Montague joined the United States Navy in 1955 in Washington, D.C.

[15:51.840 --> 15:53.560] And she was a clerk typist.

[15:53.560 --> 15:57.280] And she was sitting right next to the Univac One.

[15:57.280 --> 15:58.280] Univac One.

[15:58.280 --> 15:59.280] Univac.

[15:59.280 --> 16:00.280] Yeah.

[16:00.280 --> 16:04.520] So if you remember, the ENIAC was the first programmable, electronic, general purpose

[16:04.520 --> 16:06.080] digital computer.

[16:06.080 --> 16:09.440] There were other computers at that time that had some of those capabilities.

[16:09.440 --> 16:13.720] But that was the first one to have pretty much all of that at the same time.

[16:13.720 --> 16:16.220] And it was completed in 1945.

[16:16.220 --> 16:19.360] And it was used for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Lab.

[16:19.360 --> 16:22.480] Of course, it was an amazing tool.

[16:22.480 --> 16:24.600] Of course, it was, you know, it was a computer.

[16:24.600 --> 16:29.520] Univac One was essentially the business version of the ENIAC.

[16:29.520 --> 16:30.840] That's basically what that was.

[16:30.840 --> 16:35.240] It was the very first successful civilian computer.

[16:35.240 --> 16:39.720] And it was obviously, that was a critical piece of the dawn of the computer age.

[16:39.720 --> 16:43.720] I mean, it's a milestone of milestones right there.

[16:43.720 --> 16:45.520] And she was sitting right next to it.

[16:45.520 --> 16:46.840] She was working next to it.

[16:46.840 --> 16:50.920] And the story goes that one day, a lot, all of the engineers called in sick for whatever

[16:50.920 --> 16:51.920] reason.

[16:51.920 --> 16:53.300] I don't know if they were really partying the night before.

[16:53.300 --> 16:54.360] But none of them came in.

[16:54.360 --> 17:00.360] And she was able to dive right in and accomplish some work on the Univac One because she had

[17:00.360 --> 17:04.720] seen and she had observed the engineers using it for quite a while.

[17:04.720 --> 17:08.160] Soon after that, she was studying computer programming at night school.

[17:08.160 --> 17:11.920] And then the promotions seemed to come very, very quickly for her.

[17:11.920 --> 17:17.520] She was appointed as a computer systems analyst at the Navy Ship Engineering Center.

[17:17.520 --> 17:22.280] And then program director for the Naval Sea Systems Command Integrated Design Manufacturing

[17:22.280 --> 17:24.240] and Maintenance Program.

[17:24.240 --> 17:30.680] And then division head for the Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing, CAD,

[17:30.680 --> 17:37.120] CAD-CAM program, and deputy program manager of the Navy's Information Systems Improvement

[17:37.120 --> 17:38.120] Program.

[17:38.120 --> 17:40.600] So lots of titles, lots of responsibilities.

[17:40.600 --> 17:47.920] And then back in 1971, her department was challenged with a task to create a computer

[17:47.920 --> 17:52.240] generated ship design, had never really been done before.

[17:52.240 --> 17:56.640] She pulled together a lot of systems, some automated systems that had been created, pulled

[17:56.640 --> 17:57.640] them together.

[17:57.640 --> 18:06.000] And within 19 hours, she had an initial draft for an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate.

[18:06.000 --> 18:08.960] Perry class frigate, I like the sound of that.

[18:08.960 --> 18:15.200] Within 19 hours, that made her the first person to design a ship using a computer system.

[18:15.200 --> 18:21.280] And then after that, she worked on Sea Wolf class submarines, Nimitz class aircraft carriers,

[18:21.280 --> 18:22.560] and Dwight D. Azenhower.

[18:22.560 --> 18:28.560] And just amazing to think she started as a clerk typist, and she ultimately was doing

[18:28.560 --> 18:31.720] amazing things and breaking ground.

[18:31.720 --> 18:32.720] And being the first.

[18:32.720 --> 18:33.720] What a life.

[18:33.720 --> 18:34.720] Incredible.

[18:34.720 --> 18:36.120] Being involved in all those different things, that is fantastic.

[18:36.120 --> 18:37.120] Amazing.

[18:37.120 --> 18:43.880] And also, you can imagine the pushback she got being a black woman at that time.

[18:43.880 --> 18:46.040] So I'm sure that wasn't easy as well.

[18:46.040 --> 18:51.720] Well, it's a testament to just how unbelievably talented and intelligent she was.

[18:51.720 --> 18:54.400] She had to blow people's minds in order to get there.

[18:54.400 --> 18:55.400] Absolutely.

[18:55.400 --> 19:00.480] And that's a common thread in a lot of these superhero segments that I've done, where they

[19:00.480 --> 19:06.040] were so superior that it couldn't be denied in a lot of cases.

[19:06.040 --> 19:10.720] And that's unfortunate that you have to be so amazing just to get the same opportunities

[19:10.720 --> 19:13.520] that people who are average amazing have.

[19:13.520 --> 19:14.840] All right.

[19:14.840 --> 19:20.760] So remember, the United States Navy's hidden figure, Ray Jean Montague.

[19:20.760 --> 19:24.600] Mention her to your friends, or Jay, mention her to your friend, especially when you're

[19:24.600 --> 19:25.600] discussing-

[19:25.600 --> 19:26.600] You're just Bob.

[19:26.600 --> 19:27.600] It's just me.

[19:27.600 --> 19:29.440] It's just Bob.

[19:29.440 --> 19:35.120] Especially when discussing drawing interchange formats, cattle bar arrangements, or especially

[19:35.120 --> 19:36.640] geometric modeling kernels.

[19:36.640 --> 19:37.640] Ooh, I like those.

[19:37.640 --> 19:38.640] Yes.

[19:38.640 --> 19:39.640] Thank you.

News Items

S:

B:

C:

J:

E:

(laughs) (laughter) (applause) [inaudible]

Are Fake Meats Sustainable? (19:39)

• How sustainable are fake meats?

Why Go Back to the Moon? (38:08)

• Why go back to the Moon?

Interview with The Everyday Astronaut (53:10)

• Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut

Science or Fiction (1:24:55)

Theme: Past inventions that utterly failed Item #1: In 1983, in response to the Sony Walkman craze, Audio Technica released the Sound Burger, a portable record player, complete with earbuds. Item #2: In 1981 a Swedish company marketed an all-plastic bicycle, the Itera, which turned out to be expensive to produce but failed mostly because the weak frame made it too wobbly to ride. Item #3: In the 1930s architect Buckminster Fuller designed a pre-fab house designed to be inexpensive, quick to build, and ecofriendly, made mostly out of waste cow bones from the beef industry. Item #4: In 1964, Claus Scholz of Vienna invented a phone-answering robot; however, its ability was limited to picking up and hanging up the phone.

Answer	Item
Fiction	Cow bones pre fab house
Science	Portable record player
Science	All-plastic bicycle
Science	Phone-answering robot

Host	Result
Steve	win

Rogue	Guess
Evan	All-plastic bicycle
Bob	Portable record player
Jay	Cow bones pre fab house
Cara	Cow bones pre fab house

Voice-over: It's time for Science or Fiction.

Skeptical Quote of the Week (1:40:32)

This job is a great scientific adventure. But it's also a great human adventure. Mankind has made giant steps forward. However, what we know is really very, very little compared to what we still have to know.
– Fabiola Gianotti, Italian experimental particle physicist

Signoff/Announcements

S: —and until next week, this is your Skeptics' Guide to the Universe.

S: Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is produced by SGU Productions, dedicated to promoting science and critical thinking. For more information, visit us at theskepticsguide.org. Send your questions to info@theskepticsguide.org. And, if you would like to support the show and all the work that we do, go to patreon.com/SkepticsGuide and consider becoming a patron and becoming part of the SGU community. Our listeners and supporters are what make SGU possible.

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Today I Learned

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