Ologies with Alie Ward - Syndesiology (CONNECTIONS) with James Burke

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

He’s the guy pointing to a NASA launch behind him, in the most legendary shot in television history. He’s a science historian and Apollo Program correspondent. He’s the creator, host, and writer of the long-running program “Connections.” He is a science communication hero to millions and a global treasure. He is James Burke, and he chats about how connected historical events are, and how connection between humans is vital. We also talk about Napoleon’s toothpick, dog pee, shipworms, writer's block, TV shoots, and his new Connections season on Curiosity Stream. Also: (surprise!) they gave me a spinoff called “Quick Connections.” Watch Connections with James Burke on Curiosity Stream and Alie’s spinoff, Quick Connections with Alie WardBrowse books by James Burke including Connections and American Connections: The Founding Fathers. Networked.A donation went to National Energy ActionMore episode sources and linksSmologies (short, classroom-safe) episodesOther episodes you may enjoy: Pedagogy (SCIENCE COMMUNICATION) with Bill Nye, TikTokology (SCICOMM) with Hank Green, Molecular Biology (PROTEINS & SCICOMM) with Dr. Raven Baxter, Futurology (THE FUTURE), Eudemonology (HAPPINESS), Cosmology (THE UNIVERSE) Encore, Astrobiology (ALIENS), Maritime Archeology (SHIPWRECKS), Classical Archaeology (ANCIENT ROME), Egyptology (ANCIENT EGYPT), Delphinology (DOLPHINS), Mythology (STORYTELLING), Geology (ROCKS), Curiology (EMOJI)Sponsors of OlogiesTranscripts and bleeped episodesBecome a patron of Ologies for as little as a buck a monthOlogiesMerch.com has hats, shirts, hoodies, totes!Follow @Ologies on Twitter and InstagramFollow @AlieWard on Twitter and InstagramEditing by Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio ProductionsManaging Director: Susan HaleScheduling Producer: Noel DilworthTranscripts by Emily White of The WordaryWebsite by Kelly R. DwyerTheme song by Nick Thorburn

Oh, hey, it's that friend that tells you about your new favorite show, Allie Ward. And this week is a really exciting episode for me interviewing one of my literal science communication, writing, and broadcast heroes who you likely know from his years of hosting the science history program connections, which looks at how events and history and science shaped our lives today. And it's always like an absolutely boggling journey through bonkers events that you'd never be able to dream up because they're just weirder than any fiction.

And you may also remember this guest from his series, The Day the Universe Changed, or his coverage of the space program in the 1960s and 70s. But if you have ever seen footage, especially recently, of a man in the 1970s, walking into frame, delivering an impeccable sound bite about rocket engine combustion, and then casually pointing off to his right as a spacecraft shudders flames into this guy, you know, the his work. He's a science historian, he's a humble and very raw man, and he's an icon. He's 86,

he's funny, and brilliant as ever, and he just came out with this new season of connections on the platform CuriosityStream. And I want you to know they did not pay me at all to do this episode. It was my idea, and I'm excited about it. And also a little secret that I have been keeping from you that I can finally tell you after about a year of behind the scenes. His producers out of the UK gave me a spin-off of his series and it's called Quick Connections with Alley Ward.

And that was a giant honor and because we shot on different continents and I never got to meet him. So I gently begged the team who made our shows if I could interview him for allergies and they said, of course. And again, they did not pay me. Now we will get to that in a moment, but first a quick thanks to all the patrons at patreon.com such allergies,

for always keeping the show going, you can join for as little as a dollar a month. And thank you to each of you, who's ever left me a review, I read them all, and I thank you with a somewhat dramatic reading of a new one each week, such as this one from Murraybury 123, who wrote, thank you for creating this lovely weekly brain escape from the stress and the sadness of the world. Hooray for science. Oh, Murraybury123, hooray for you. Okay, sendisiology, it's real word, all right. It comes from the Greek for connections. And it has been used officially to describe the study of connected events. And the person who coined the term used this guest as an example, citing his research and writing on the study of connected events. And the person who coined the term used this guest as an example,

citing his research and writing on the topics of science history and how events cascade into new circumstances and how history is just a series of random and accidental happenstance. So he is the reason syndesiology as a term was coined. So after much recording, finagling, scheduling, time zone calculating, and honestly, on my parts of nerves and some deep breathing, I hopped on a virtual hangout and got a chance to

ask a hero about his journey into science communication, his writing process, rabbit holes, rough drafts, daily rituals, how to keep an audience interested, the importance of your own voice, the future of nanofabricators, the history of shipworms, animal pee, bridge collapses, Apollo missions, battlefield mysteries, and of course, the backstory to the famous shot of him and the rocket. So please give a little bow to the one and only broadcast archetype and syndesialogist James Burke. Hi nice to meet you. What I've seen you lots of times, so we sort of met. Likewise, obviously.

It's really exciting to get to talk to you. Sure. Anything. Wonderful. First off, many, many people are quite envious that I'm getting to talk to you today. Most of my friends, family and colleagues are thrilled that I'm getting to chat with you. As a my, for me, I study a lot of different allergies and I was wondering if you'd ever heard of the term

sendezeology? Sendezeology. No, I can't think what it could mean. It comes from the Greek for connections. And so it's been only used in the literature once or twice, but it is a study of how things are interconnected. My goodness. Thank you.

So you are indeed a sendeziologist, I believe. Good time, dad. I'm arologist sometimes. You're probably anologist of multiple kinds, but if there's one leader in that field, I'd have to say it's going to be you. I wanted to talk a little bit about what inspired you to do the work you do. If you had always seen the connections and things, if you'd always wanted to go back in time and history and figure out the origin of events or objects, when did you start to see these connections? Well, I suppose early on my mother field, if you like, was old English.

So I spent my early university years in the 9th and 10th centuries, and as well as the language, of course you learnt about what the language is talking about, which is the world at the time. So I wasn't a historian, a little less extent to the word, but I was stuffed with history because of what I was reading, and the great thing about history is it would be no it's not now it's different so if you spend a lot of time doing what I essentially historical studies you can't help but notice the difference between them and now very different and this interest in difference I suppose this comes from that source on in my life, I was born in Northern Ireland and my parents cross married as it's called

in the disapproval of both sides. And after my father came back from the war, they thought it was a good idea to get out of there. So we came to England. So very early on in my life when I was about seven, I switched cultures and backgrounds and places and everything else. So this was the second world war in the mid 1940s. And James was born in Dairy,

also called London Dairy, in Northern Ireland, which is the westernmost port city. And it was a crucial location for naval and military presence during the war. And at the end of the war, several dozen surrendered German U-boats or submarines wound up in Derry's harbor. But yes, James's family picked up and left Northern Ireland to England where James adjusted to new people and customs and accents and of course was the new kid at school. Then very quickly after that, by the age of 10 and a bit or 11 I was lots of people did in those days I went to a grammar school one of those great schools found it in the Elizabethan period with marvelous opportunities for anything you could

possibly want to learn so this was a spur if you like to look around and that's what school did I mean anything you wanted to do is that school you could do. And it made me what I am. So just a side note, in the UK, a grammar school doesn't just mean K through five, but it's a publicly funded, but selective school for smart little dumplings who meet certain admission criteria. And James went to Made Stone Grammar School, which is about 90 minutes outside of London. And it's one of those just gorgeous red brick castle-like schools that have different houses and uniforms involving blazers embroidered with a golden crest on the breast pocket. I think it was founded about 1549. Oh well. Yeah. I ended up obviously I had to do military service

because in those days you had to do two years in the military. And that was an exceptionally unusual experience. I go to tell you. And after having this there, I went to the, as you were, the opposite end of the experiential scale because I went to Oxford. And I've been revered as an Oxford. It's time to decide what to do about life,

which is really a boring thing to do. So I decided to opt out. Or really? So instead of doing what all my colleagues did, which was get jobs with major corporations as one did in those days in the 60s, I ran away to Belonia in Italy, where I spent three of the happiest years of my life, mainly because Belonia is known as the food and sex capital. Quite different than a corporate life after Oxford. Some parts, some parts.

So I had three wonderful years in Belonia, followed by another two wonderful years in Rome during the same kind of thing, running language school and teaching medieval English. And I think I met somebody, not quite in the street, but maybe at a party or over a ninth drink or something, who said, some pals are probably coming out from England, they want to find someone to direct a movie.

And I said, I'm the finest idea I've ever do that. He said, they don't know you haven't. I said, I've got some chutzpah, but not that much. So thanks, but no thanks. And he came back and said, they said, they don't care if you can't be right. Would you come and help? Because you speak Italian, and that's it, yes.

So I joined this film crew for England. And they said, we're going to do a show about the mafia. And I said, no, you're not. And they said, why? And I said, well, it doesn't exist. And they said, come on. And I said, you find anybody who says it exists, I, you're not. And he said, why? And I said, well, it doesn't exist. And they said, come on. And I said, you find anybody who says it exists, I'll be very surprised.

So we went to Sicily and we did this from on the mafia. And every single person we talked to said, mafia, what's that? What are you talking about? And we finally came back with this hilariously funny movie, made up of many, many people saying, don't know what, hey? And it won't apply. It's, you know, people said, we've got a job. And I said, well, what did I it won't surprise you. People said, well, you've got a job.

And I said, well, what did I do? And they said, do whatever you did, you can do it. So we did a few more films. I remember one memorable one, five minutes long, called Why Doesn't the Leaning Tower of Pisa Fallover? It's a great question. Is this film about why the Leaning Tower is answered after five minutes?

Nobody knows. So I just went on in the same vein I think Foxing my way through and after a while I'd been in television long enough to be in television So the BBC said well would you like a job and I said yes because there was nowhere else to work at the time And I found myself in television and the job they had was a job in a science program and I said I don't know about science and they said great. The whole point is you know the audience doesn't either so if you understand what you're talking about they will. Great clever and from then on it was downhill all the way. I mean I suppose the biggest thing that happened to me after that was Apollo. My boss at this program said what do you know about Apollo?

And I said, fire one end, pointed to the other. And then he said, no, don't be stupid. And he said, well, I was approached by the bosses who said, you're in the science division, you'll have somebody who knows about Apollo. So there was this additional consultant who had written V-Book on NASA's Apollo program, which ran from 1961 through 1972.

And the later named Apollo 1 mission in 1967 resulted in the deaths of three astronauts during a fire in a test launch. And then the Apollo 7 mission, about a year and a half later, successfully orbited Earth for 11 days, and it was the first flight with a crew on it of the Apollo program and this was in 1968 and people who they could dig it because it was groovy. It was culturally a blast and far out Technically also so about six months later I was ready and Apollo seven happened and I stayed in the Apollo missions till the end I mean you'd have to do much just do the program because the audience is inviting themselves.

I mean, they got colossal audiences around the world. And so, quite unfair because Apollo made my career not anything else. And me to say, you know, I did well after that, but I did because of Apollo. So the Apollo 8 launch was on Christmas Eve 1968. It was about two months after that Apollo 7 first crude flight. And they saw astronauts go even further. They left Earth's low orbit and they cruised around the moon for about a week. And it was the most watched television event in history at the time. But when the Apollo 11 rolled around in July 1969, 600 million people back then watched it live to see humans landing on the moon and bouncing

around like happy bunnies. 16 million UK viewers tuned in for this all night, 11 hour broadcast. And it really launched James Burke into the lives and the eyes of millions of people and into science communication history, which is why I was barely keeping my shit together during this interview. And then after Apollo, you couldn't fail, really, could you, I mean, my last audience was except six million. Yeah. And they'd say, what would you like to do? And you'd say, well, I don't know. I just said, the first thing that came into my mind, and they said, OK, how much?

And I said, do not have to think about that. And they said, well, there's plenty of money, which doesn't get said anymore. No, no, that's not something to hear. So that's when I started connections, because I thought, I'll do this, because it's more fun than not. It's about the things that surround you in the modern world and just because they're there, shape the way you think and behave

and why they exist in the form they do and who or what was responsible for them existing at all. The search for those clues will take us all over the world and 12,000 years into the past because it's in those strange places and in those long-gone centuries that the secret of the modern world lies. And it looked like a kind of detective story style which might work and the great thing about that I had already learned in a few brief years in television was the most important thing to do is keep the audience wondering what's coming next.

Yes. Because if they think they know, they'll switch off. And so it was really a matter of doing a number of programs that would be surprising in their content and in their direction and in their result. So I did connections and they worked because of those reasons, you know, surprise, who done it kind of thing. And the interesting thing about the connection was it struck me fairly quickly that the way to do it was backwards. Oh, I mean, if you're looking for unexpected links to keep the audience interested because they don't know what you're going to do next and they want to think they're better than you do and cleverer and you are and they'll get ahead of you, you keep on guessing. The trouble of coming forward through

history is that I mean, you start, you. The trouble of coming forward through history is that, I mean, you start, you know, can 66 a battle of hastings, blah, blah, where do you go? Well, there are probably 50 ways to go from the battle of hastings. So choose one, choose the strangest one. Just a quick aside, so the battle of hastings took place in 1066 between the Norman Army,

what is now France, and the English, near the South England port town of Hastings, which is about 65 miles or just over 100 kilometers across the English channel from the coast of France. This took place over about a day, and the bodies of possibly 10,000 fallen soldiers are buried in a mass grave that somehow no one has found yet. But boy, howdy, some Gibroni with a metal detector is going to come along and just hit a jackpot

archeologically one day. But this battle mattered so much because England lost and William, the conqueror was like, I'm your king now, deal with it. And some people call this guy William the bastard. Anyway,, he rained until he died about 20 years later. So yes, in a syndesial logical way, you could follow the battle of Hastings. It's so many directions it would break your brain. And whatever that is, again, how many ways to go forward from there, and each time you choose the most surprising route. Well, this is all very well and good, but it may not end you up anywhere of any point of any value of opinion just in the future.

Or the present. As I did many times, what kind of encouragement you need to turn it around the other way. So if you decide as I did in all the connections, but especially in this recent one, to go backwards from the future, then you start with something like the Nano Fabricator,

which is a machine that is already operating at a very simple level, and what it does is put atoms together to make new things. Okay, so imagine giving a machine raw materials like dirt and water, and then telling it to just scramble up those things on an atomic level to make you a sandwich, or a sun bonnet, or whatever. How does that relate to the time the French aristocracy had an outbreak of syphilis? And how is that related to the guy who took LSD with dolphins? For more on that, you can see the Delphinology episode about dolphins, and yes, we dive deep on all kinds of cetacean gossip. But in the new series of connections with James Burke and me on CuriosityStream, he traces all that in an episode called The End of Scarcity. Oh, history. It's just so

beautiful and inspiring. It's full of dark, juicy scandals and discoveries. It's gossip that actually matters. It's more interesting than strangers making out on an island, if you can believe it. So yes, James, who has not only hosted, but also written and researched connections for decades, travels backward in his detective work. There's a limited number of ways you can go, because five days ago, so to speak, there wasn't a man I've fabricated, so where do you go? Well, the link is that there's something in another fabricator that was there, so go and Each time you go back you're really looking to solve a riddle So and what you do is you go back far enough to the point where you think you've got

50 minutes of program each piece of which is about Between four and five minutes Because four or five minutes is enough, you know, the audience says okay. We've had enough of this So you've got to be ready to move on the audience says, okay, we've had enough of this. So you've got to be ready to move on. So if you go back that much, you end up with some weird choices, but which work, because when you turn around and go back to the future, you've done the trip already.

Yeah. And so I was able to sort of, this last one, was able to do jolly things like starting with the Inca, use of the potato, and ending with Perafskite or free, virtually free energy, you spray it on the walls and the wall becomes an energy source. And genetic engineering had what to do with coffee? Or, fairly the great coffee police, because he didn't have any coffee and he had to import

it and of course all kinds of people started making coffee on their own. And it was genetics. The 17th century shipworm was a little thing that board holes in ships and helped them to sink. And that story was avatars in the 21st century. So these are stories from his new connection series in episodes with titles like Designer Jeans and Limitless Energy. One is titled None of This is real, and I enjoy that. My favorite one, the podium's toothpick, which ends with predictive analytics in the next century.

And the last one would be Louis the 14th Wing, which is what ends up with an unaffabricated so they're going to hang on and see why an earth they should bother. You know, four or five next lectures, you've trapped them and they can't get out and it ends with whatever it ends with and then you say that's it, that's the end of the bar and disappear quickly. Okay, bye. The great thing about history is there is so many ways forward or backwards at any time or a television program maker, all you have to do is look for the thing, it's going to give everybody the most fun. And you come across extraordinary things. I could tell you, can I tell you one? No.

Yeah. Of course, of course. The one that got me most of all was a bridge disaster in which carriages fell off and people were killed. And the Royal Society set up a commission to discover why this has happened. About what year was that? Oh, I can't remember exactly, but it's something like 1802, but 1830. Anyway, because I did all the research in these programs three years ago, my dear,

so I don't remember if I was like, arrow wise. But yeah, okay, 1800. Right, so the guy running the commission's investigation was a secretary of the Royal Society, very, very big wheel, and one of his jobs was to run the Royal Society of Sciences, Eminent Haramft, and one of the Haramfts he invited into the society was a chemist, nobody knew, called Herapath, I bet you've never heard of him. Nah, really good.

Herapath invented stuff called, wait for this, Heropathite. Yeah. Well, indeed. He was a modest tumble man. That's right. Now, the thing about this is, and this is why I thought, this is something worth following, what Heropath was interested in was dog urine, okay? You have my attention.

With which you did various things. I won't go into too much detail, but the one that mattered to me was he put a couple of chemicals in, two chemicals, and it made dogs urine produce crystals. Okay, right? But when you turn these crystals sideways to each other, they blocked light out. And that's the beginning of what we call polarization. And the straight thing out of there is sunglasses and polarizing and all kinds of stuff like that. And it's picked up by a young man called Land at Halford. And the result of his work in polarization ends up on a camera, which sees the first sign of the Russian space effort. So from dog's urine to that was just too good.

I can't believe it. And it led me straight to the future because you go from you to to a space race and and there you are. Bingo somewhere in the future. How do you narrow these down? You must have so many different notebook or files somewhere. How do you choose? You go anywhere. Well, you do. You do many scribbles. Yes, there's lots of sheets of paper with scribbles all over them. And arrows pointing up, down, and then side-based. And after a while, these scribbles sheets of paper are down there next to me now.

You throw them on the floor because it's the safest way to split them. I can't tell you. It does get, now and again, you get a bit worried, because too many scribbles, too many arrows going in too many ways, and they all look really good. That's the worst thing. Some of them look really good. Now and again, a program will totally fail and it will do so easily because all the scribbles and arrows are pointing in extreme dull ways. So you just chuck it away. But as to remembering it, no, I don't.

remembering it, no, I don't. When you've done this so long, I imagine it just really must change your frame of mind, the way you look at things. Do you feel like the more you've done this, the more connected you feel to other people, or do you feel like the looking at history, the more aware you are of other people? No, no, no, not that. No, the former. I mean, if I've learned, if anything has happened to me over the years of doing this kind of stuff, it's that I have become more and more interested in other people, not to the point of bothering them, but, you know, nobody's boring, nobody's boring. Everybody has something that is exciting. They may not know it, or other people may not have found it out about them yet, but if you look hard enough, you'll find it. I often wish there was something one could do like an evangelist,

that you could say to people, think about this and think about yourself and realize that you are enormously more than society has let you believe about yourself. And it doesn't have any good education or an innocent brain when I take that back because everybody's got one. So James elaborated, noting that every person's brain has roughly 86 billion neurons. So be nice to it, get rest, don't huff paint when you're sad or bored. So it's all there to be used. And you just have to find that trick. I'm fortunate in the sense that I found a trick for myself,

but the vast majority of people live lives in quiet solitude, because they don't know how to trigger this extraordinary ability we all have. And how would you say it gets triggered? How do you find other people could trigger that? Well, if I knew that. I think if somebody said how could trigger that? Well, if I knew that. I think if somebody said how to trigger it in me, I can't tell you, you just have to look at the world and see if there's anything more than it looks.

I mean, I'm just looking across my room here and there's a clock on the mental shelf. And looking at the clock and thinking, why would anybody want something like that? I mean, why would you want a clock? Why would you want to know what time is? What does it mean? Now, all I would say to people is look around

and think like that about things, and you find that there will be some things that will be easier to think like that about, and that's something to do with what you've got. But that's as far as I could go, because that's, I mean, you know who am I? No, that's a beautiful thing. At dinner parties, do you ask more questions or do people ask more questions of you? The dinner parties I like to be at is where

everybody else does all the talking. I like holding forth to make a program or write a book because that's, that's a practice to me. It's exciting to do it to structure the thought and then put it on screen or you know you do it. I've put it on screen or whatever. In a sense, I guess what I said just now, but putting myself inside an audience, in a sense you kind of have to forget the audience and make the program you'd like to make. And then you have to hope they like it. For me, if I'm writing or researching and I get stuck, I always have to think, what's the truest that I feel about this or what's the truest impulse? Because typically the audience is feeling something along the same lines. The danger in that is you suddenly realize it's awful. It's boring. Shit.

Well, I'm curious about your writing process because it was so much of connections you've done so much of the research, so much of the writing. Do you have tips or hacks on how to get over writer's block or how, do you have a process where you set down at 7 a.m. with that same piece of toast and you write until noon or what's your process like? It's a little bit like that. Yes, there's only so much time you've got, and you have to use it properly. And that time obviously is eaten up by the rest of society, doing things that requires your time.

So it's a little bit like, yes, toast and on and finish it. Noon. Because it's noon, I gotta go do something or whatever. So I think you need that sort of discipline, even if all the days you're sitting down in an empty room looking around and feeling, feeling desperate because nothing has come to your mind. It is often the case. Well, now that we are so much more connected via social media and via the internet, how do you feel? Like people relate to each other now that they have this digital connection, but less, maybe in-person connection, especially the last couple of years? Well, I think, first, I would disagree with you in a sense that although people spend maybe less hours together in company, they'd probably spend more time with more people

in company on the net. And I think that's the key difference. It seems to me that when two people come together, one on one makes three. And what you're looking for is what the three is. And sometimes the three will be something one of them produces and that turns into something they do or a book or whatever, or one on one makes three,

but becomes something you do or whatever. I think public media, digital media, have made it immensely easier to be creative in the sense that I believe that creativity, the strongest figure for creativity, is one on one makes three. You know, you can be very clever by yourself, but you can never be as clever as you can with somebody else. That's a beautiful thing to remember, because it's sometimes, especially if you're really trying to hunker down, you think, oh, I have to isolate and really work on this, but sometimes the best information and the best inspiration comes from going outside, looking around, having a conversation.

Yes, yes, I'm sitting and saying sometimes to people, I'm stuck with this and I don't know what the hell to do. And they say, what's your problem when you tell them and they tell the answer. Or they say something that makes you realize what the answer is. And the worst thing is not tell anybody. Keep it to yourself. Agreed. I will say that in all the people that I've interviewed over the years, like hundreds and hundreds

for this show and for innovation, nation on CBS and some other shows, one piece of advice I hear a lot is to ask for help and to collaborate with people and don't sit on ideas thinking that you can Perfect them in solitude just thinking about them. You have to do things and get help if you need it And as James Burke says one plus one equals three, which is wonderful even in the last few years when we've been in quarantines and tough times we get more work done and good stuff and creativity and we go further when we've been in quarantines and tough times, we get more work done and good stuff and creativity, and we go further when we work together.

So take it from us and de-seologist, and expert in connections. Togetherness, even online, could save us. And another thing, saving people is the generosity of charities and foundations, and each week we donate to a charity of choice. And when we recorded this just by chance, James, who now lives in France, happened to be experiencing a heating outage in his home to just some mechanical issue. And it just so happened that it was taking

days for the repair people to come out. But living in the south of France, it's warmer there. He said he was fine with just a sweater and waiting it out. But this winter, many people in the UK, where it's much colder, are struggling through an energy crisis the last few years that have left them having to choose between heating or food. So this week we're donating to the NEA.org. The National Energy Action is a fuel poverty charity, and they're working to ensure that everyone in England wails and Northern Ireland is warm and safe at home by distributing energy bill help. So we will donate to them for some winter warmth, and that was made possible by sponsors of

allergies. Okay, now let's resume our biggest questions. Biggest questions for James, including the backstory of the most legendary shot in television history from the late 1970s, from a connections episode titled Eat, Drink, and Be Merry. I have to ask about Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, the legendary shot of the 1978 episode at Cape Canaveral. That shot is known as one of the best shots in television history. And I was talking to my brother-in-law about it yesterday, and he started crying. He said that that shot is so beautiful. It brings him to tears when he thinks about it.

Three men had understood that certain gases ignite, and that the thermosflask permits you to store vast quantities of those gases safely in the frozen liquid form until you want to ignite them. At which point you take the top of the flask, the gases evaporate, you apply light and boom. Can you share any backstory? Did you rehearse for that? What was that moment like? Well, of course we rehearse like crazy. I don't want to be rude, but mainly for the camera. I mean, if the camera didn't get it at no

point in doing it, so we had to be absolutely certain that the camera was as happy as possible. So we had to be in a place where he could shoot that shot without any fear or worry that anything would stop him doing a wonderful shot. And the same for the sound man. The sound was coming as you know, usually from a distant NASA source, loved speaker of some kind, and the sunman had to be happy about that. So we spent a lot of time on the technicalities of how you recorded this stuff. Okay, so picture and overcast cloudy day at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

James is wearing beige slacks and a deep brown button up shirt. Buttoned a few buttons down. It's got kind of late 1970s wide lapels. And he's wearing thick rimmed glasses and has wild salt and pepper hair kind of past the name of his neck. And he's walking along this grassy expanse past huge monolithic research buildings and a retired Saturn rocket to a spot that's across from some water. And in the background is the launch pad with the towering Titan 3E rocket launch system.

I mean, it was pretty clear how the shop was going to be. I mean, there was me in the foreground and it in the background, that's it. And I know what I had to remember was when I pointed it, I have to point it off to one side because of parallax. So we just lost a processing of me pointing in the camera and saying, no, you idiot, not there, turn slightly right. So he had to point not toward the rocket, but in a direction a bit off, so the shots foreshortening would line his hand up with the rocket.

And then with his back turned to the launch pad, he had to remember exactly where at that point in space to position his arm and do it on time. And they said, yeah, that's good. And that was it, really. And the rest of it was, how much can you remember to say, with absolute accuracy, before the moment when the thing lights up? And we figured I could probably do about 12 seconds without any doubt whatsoever. And I just didn't have to trip or make a mistake or anything because there's no chance to say, wait a minute.

We're hydrogen and oxygen. And so, I stepped into the shot. If you release those two gases into a confined space with a higher energy of it, I'd be 12 words. And then, set light to them, you get and point it. That. And it lit. And we stood there, scared to death because then anything could go wrong I couldn't be in charge of anymore words the camera and the good only go on shooting film at that thing

The soundman could do nothing about the noise it was making and we just hope that some dog wouldn't run through the shot And knock the camera over so we had people looking out for dogs who might run in. Or whatever. And the thing went up, and then finally the camera and said, okay, and everybody sort of fainted. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done. I'm sure. So they knew before the film came back, like we got it, everything was good. Oh yeah, yeah, of course, of course

They didn't have to check for a hair in the gate or anything like that. Well, there's no shoot You don't have any choice really. There's a good that's too damn bad Just a PS so a hair in the gate refers to this shard of broken film that can get caught between the film itself and the lens of a camera Which then ruins the shot. So when you're shooting on film after a scene or a setup, the camera department has to pause filming and has to check the gate and open up the camera and look for those little slivers of broken film

or hairs in the gate to ensure that what they shot is not just garbage, with a chunk of film in the foreground, which makes everyone so sad. We want you to to come back and say let's do it again. The National Odd Speaker was a few yards away and pointing the other way because it was pretty noisy. And they were doing 10, 9, 8 as I was talking. So half of my brain was going 10, 9, 8 and the other half was going to blah, blah, blah, blah. But we were all together at the time. Were you aware that that has gone really, really viral on TikTok and social media, that that clip and you what you've had

an explosion in popularity? No, I see. I live in France and I don't know or care who I am. Which is very good for you. And I've had some emails saying, we saw this thing and it was, we liked it. And I even got somebody who told me there was some large number of people having seen it. So a Twitter posting in May from the account, Historic Fids garnered 15 million views with millions more on TikTok accounts, 5 million on the BBC's YouTube archive, another 16 million on some random YouTube account.

And most captions work like a variation on the sentiment that it's the single greatest shot in the history of television and that James Burke is everyone's hero. So what are these like 50 million plays and a new found appreciation from younger fans? What do they mean to him? So he explains, but just make a difference in my life. Okay. Well, when it comes to the new season of connections on CuriosityStream, you now have a huge base of a new generation, new

generations of people who are very familiar with you as this like absolute legend. When you were coming up with the episodes for this season, did you find that it was almost not more frustrating but more inspiring because there's so much that's going on technologically and with futurism to kind of structure these episodes where you thinking about what this generation might be excited about? to kind of structure these episodes, were you thinking about what this generation might be excited about? Well, no, because first of all, they're gonna get what they get.

They don't watch it, they don't watch it. Good point. Second of all, it was cheap. So I'm not even worried about spending money that the producers don't want to be spent. Because, you know, television has changed so much for the very first connection. You don't cross the world with a massive film crew to check on the spots on a new Guinea

sand flea, on a beach. We just don't do that because nobody will tell you you can do it. We had interesting and exciting things to do ourselves with the virtual reality technology, the green screen technology, and a few other things that would allow us to do fancy pictures without going anywhere. You know, I have had one or two notes saying, you do realize it's going to look as if you've only got one shirt and one undershirt. And yeah, true, sorry.

But that's, I think, at my ancient age, I just wanted to make, I had the chance to make an half a dozen programs, starting in the future and going backwards, two things like an abundance, truth, they can just do good at trans to throw away. Can you tell me the most frustrating shot of your career, the most frustrating shoot that you've ever been on, something that was just, one of those shoots that you remember, like, ah, that one most half.

I remember once I was on a shoot where I had to change in a public restroom that was coin operated and I had to come up with my own quarter for it. It's like, come on, y'all. Do you have a quarter? I have to borrow a quarter from someone so I could change in a very dirty bathroom. There are only those moments when you have the privilege of getting to go around the world or interview people you wouldn't have access to and let your curiosity kind of lead the way that there are so many wonderful moments, there are those sometimes those moments where you're

you know you're battling an ice storm in the middle of the night to get to a location so you could shoot something by sunrise and you're eating Cheetos for dinner or you know people don't see those moments but are there any moments that stick in your memory? No. No, that's good. Well, I think because it's all like that. I think I remember things being constantly going wrong. So I don't really remember one in particular, now. I love this, man. We've talked about, obviously, that August 77 shoot.

Any others that you really thought, like, how did I get so lucky to have this be my job? Or any that we're just thrilling? Yeah, right. OK, when Armstrong was walking down the stairs. Stay there, we can see you coming down the water now. And voices in my ear were saying, what are you going to say? Say something.

And I thought my keep my damn mouth shut because the worst thing you can do in the world is talk over the man who says the first words on the moon. And I was being shouting. I mean, like shouting. You're paid to talk. I'm going to step off the land now. And I was being shouted, I mean like shouting, you're paid to talk. And I just kept quiet because what could you do? And then he said, that's one small step. I nearly cried. So it does have its conversations. Doesn't it?

Yeah. It does. The power of shutting up. Who knew? I was shutting up, exactly. On the topic of not shutting up. Last week, I recorded a solid 90 minutes of me reading you an audiobook of samples from books written by your favorite guests, but on the topic of literature.

I've been curious about this. What are you reading? examples from books written by your favorite guests, but on the topic of literature. I've been curious about this. What are you reading? Any books? I feel like if there's ever a person to ask, like, you got a good book recommendation, what do you read right now? Anything in particular? I spend most of my time online reading, you know, and it's interesting, there's so much

now in the world that you can access easily, that the idea of sitting down with a book and leaving through it slowly, slowly, is not as sexy as it used to be. So most of the time I do reading, which is very oriented towards whatever project I'm working on. Do you fall victim to Wikipedia rabbit holes like the rest of us where you click on one thing you click on the source and you click on another before you notice? Yes, one of the morning. My life, my life.

I am a Wikipedia rabbit hole. As expected, which is one reason why the world is so adavered with you, but I am very, very honored to get to talk to you and ask you all these questions that I've wanted to forever. You know, are you doing anything to celebrate the premiere? Did you have a glass of sparkling cider? Did you just go all out and stay out all night and get arrested? And no, I didn't. I'm not even sure if it's been seen by anybody yet. So connections with James Burke, the new 2023 episodes are up now on CuriosityStream. And my spin-off, Quick Connections with Ali Ward,

is also up on CuriosityStream. And we've been waiting months and months for this to come out, so I'm pretty stoked. And self-promotion is absolute agony for me. I hate it so much, but I'm so proud of the shows and the team at Bigger Bang, who made this show happen, and it's really been a career highlight for me and just such an honor to work alongside

the absolute legend, Mr. James Burke, who really should be Sir James Burke. Can we get on that? Anyone can anyone send an email? Anyway, upon the release of these episodes a few weeks ago. But you didn't go out on a bender. No, man. Well, I'll stay in on genders. The night's still young. I'm so glad I got a chance to talk to you and it really is an honor. Your work is amazing and you're the curiosity and the wonder that you bring to it and the

humility and the energy that you bring to it is really, I think what's carried the series and what carries every episode so much. So good work. Much to kind of you. Thank you. Well, I thank you so much for talking to me and I hope that we didn't take up too much. I hope you're warm enough. Are you warm enough? Yes, just about. Okay. Another layer on. How long has it been out? Is it only a couple hours or five days? Oh, yeah, no, this is the south of France, you know, they don't fix features quickly in the south France. And they say things like, we'll be right round, which means we'll give you a call

in a couple of weeks. Oh, no. Yeah, we're wearing bl I hope you have some goose down. Something about that anyway. Yes. I'm very much for being such a nice interview. I love it. I like your work too. So I guess do meet your heroes and ask them about dog pee and such. And again, that was James Burke of the series Connections with James Burke,

which is streaming now a new season on CuriosityStream. And yes, I have a spin-off on there called Quick Connections with Alleyward. We'll link those in the show notes. So I hope you enjoy it. Everyone works so hard to teach you weird things, and it was really a joy to make. OK, so we are at Alleygees on Twitter and Instagram,

and I'm at Alleyward with one L on both. Smaller, shorter, kid-friendly episodes of classic Alleygees, but cut down to smaller size, and cleaned of my filthy language so that their classroom safe. Theology's podcast Facebook group is admoned by Erin Talbert. Noel Dilworth is our scheduling producer, Susan Hale,

is our managing director, and did fact checking and additional research on this episode. Emily White of the Word Remakes are professional transcripts. Kelly Arduire does the website, and can make yours. And the one who makes all the editing connections is Mercedes-Mateland of Madeland Audio, whose family name she told me dates back to the Battle of Hastings. I don't know if they killed anyone. Hopefully they didn't get killed.

Anyway, Nick Thorburn made the theme song and if you stick around to the end of the episode, I tell you a secret. And this week it's, no one paid me or put me up to making this episode. It was entirely my idea and suggestion, and it was my pleasure. But I hope y'all enjoy the show if you tune in. Also, here's another secret. If you're going to any holiday parties and you're not sure what to bring,

I highly suggest being the person who comes with like two 12 packs of lacroy or sparkling water and a bag of ice. It's cheaper than a bottle of wine and you don't have to decide which one to pick based on when has a cool label. And everyone always needs water, especially folks who don't want to drink. I've been to parties where I'm like, why did no one do this? And then I'm like, I'm just going to do this next time. Also, another little secret at the end here is some audio from one of my quick connections episodes

just so you can get a little feel for it, and because I thought it was fun. Russia is at war with several countries at this time. And if you're involved in lots of wars, you need lots of metal, lots of weapons, and lots of money. So Russia, hungry for metal and gold, speedily digs a bunch of mines in the Ural Mountains. gold, speedily digs a bunch of mines in the Euro mountains.

In 1761, one geologist named Johann Gottlub Lehmann is studying the rocks in a Euro gold mine when he spots a funny, looking, spiky, red crystal. It's unlike anything he's seen before, and it looks like this, and it's called Crocoate. Lehmann analyzes the crystal and finds that it contains lead, but there's also some other elements in there that he doesn't recognize. Over the next few decades, Crocoite serves very little purpose, besides being kind of an odd curiosity, just for people who really like rocks. Then, in 1797, one of those people, a French chemist named Nicholas Louis Vachelin, becomes determined to figure out what Crocoide is made of. He finds that when he mixes it with various different chemicals, it consistently produces

brightly colored liquids and solids. And finally, during one experiment, mixing Crocoide and hydrochloric acid, Vachelin produces a network of gray metallic needles. He's found a new element. And he calls it chromium. From chroma, the Greek for color, because of all those brightly colored chromium compounds that he produced during his experiments. And color these compounds did.

experiments. And color these compounds did. Chromium oxide paint or veridion goes on to be used in just a few paintings that you might recognize. It's used to paint the blinds and railings and moneys, the balcony, the green shadows in the roof of moneys paintings of the garo Salazar, and in all the vibrant greens of Van Gogh's O'Weight fields with ciprisis. And that's just a few of the famous paintings that owe their color to chromium, but it's a different use of the colorful chromium compounds that's going to take us another step toward our Bionic future. In the 1870s, Italian biologist Camille Golgi is trying to figure out what the cells in

the nervous system look like and how they work. Golgi believes that the nervous system is one long connected system of nerve cells, and he wants to prove that. But at this time, the nervous system is difficult to study because no one has managed to isolate the cells in tightly packed neural tissue. So, Golgi comes up with a clever solution to make these tricky little cells visible. He combines a bright red chromium compound, potassium dichromate, with silver nitrate, and he soaks the neurons in in it and this hardens the neurons and it turns them black so they can be seen and he calls the process the black reaction. The problem is it only dies like a random one to five percent

of cells per sample and this enables Golgi to see individual cell structures but it doesn't help them to understand how those cells interact with each other, or even to prove that his theory about nerve cells being connected is correct. Enter a brilliant young artist, Santiago Ramón Icajal, whose father is the local surgeon in their village and is desperate to get his son interested in medicine. to get his son interested in medicine. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in And there, under the light of gas lamps, the elder Cahal demonstrates father-son bonding and the art of dissection, explaining the intricacies of the body in detail.

Cahal is entranced. From this point on, anatomy becomes his favorite subject. He becomes obsessed with reproducing it in his art. And as his brother will later articulate in the eulogy at Cahal's funeral, he enters the castle of science through the door of art. He enrolls in medical school, inspiring his father's pride, and it's there that he becomes interested in the field

of histology, the study of tissues and cells on a microscopic level. It's well-researching histology that he stumbles across Golgi's black reaction, and here comes one of those moments that will change the world in hundreds of really surprising ways. Okay, thanks for listening. It's Jay Save Out there. that will change the world in hundreds of really surprising ways. Okay, thanks for listening. It's J.SaveHot there. Bye.

Hackadermy College, Ammiology, CryptoZoology, Litology, Danosing Technology, Meteorology, No-Linecology, Nephology, Serialogy, Non-Selology, G.D. If you're trying to look at what is going to happen in the future, the only place to look for what's happening in the future is the past, because there is nothing else, nowhere else to look.