Science Friday - SciFri Reads ‘The Alchemy Of Us’

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

You may have an idea of how our inventions have changed human history and transformed our relationship with the world. But the reverse can also be true. Hear from materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez, author of The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another, on the way our values and stories are baked into the things we create—and the lesser-known people who have helped bring them into reality.This event was a part of the SciFri Book Club read for November 2023. Watch the live zoom event on Youtube.Find out more about our book club on our main page. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

How do you tell the story of people through materials? Let's look at how we have been at a dance with these materials. We shape them, but they in turn shape us. And so that's what put me on the path to look at these very stupid stories where materials have shaped us in unexpected ways. It's Thursday, January 4th, but it's also Science Friday. I'm sci-fi producer Charles Berkwist. In the book, The Alchemy of Us, materials scientist Alisa Ramirez,

writes about the stuff around us. But she also writes about how keeping... and social movements have affected the way inventions have been created, used, and proliferated around the world. She spoke with SciFry Experiences manager Diana Plasker earlier this year in an event recorded for the SciFri Book Club. Here's Diana. Welcome to the Science Friday Live, Dream, Anisa. I'm so delighted to be here, and I'm joining you from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Which is such a cool place, by the way, just like the big regal doors behind you kind of give off a little bit about the state of the space.

What is it like doing research there for the last few weeks? This place is a palace. If you're a book nerd like myself, it's heaven. The space is amazing. The hallways are gilded. The ceilings are domed. I mean, it's really a cathedral for books. I recommend that if anybody is interested in books to come and visit and to take a lap

because you're just going to be amazed by what we created in the 19th century, we really honored or were aspirational in honoring knowledge. I want to talk more about the alchemy of us, of course, but you just gave us a little tip about where you are and what you're doing. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're researching right now? Well, I've had the privilege to be honored as a Kluji chair, and that's giving me about four months to come here and research my next book. So the alchemy of us was about how humans and matter transform one another. It looks at material science and shows how they shaped culture, how they shaped civilization. But now I'm looking at a newer book where I want to look at how materials have actually shaped my own personal journey. Oh, amazing. That's so cool. Were there any

materials that as you were writing the alchemy of us you had to leave out that you now get to kind of go back to? I kind of left the things that were related to changing the society. I kind of left that aside. I really wanted to get personal. Like what were the materials that were important to me, like glasses. I wear glasses. Glass is very important to me. It's really down to like, what's in my own personal bubble. I love that. All right. So let's get into it a little bit. You just mentioned you're a material scientist. What exactly does that mean? And what are some of the materials that are really close to your heart? Well, when I tell people what a material scientist is, I say that we're atom whispers. And what we do is we learn about how atoms interact in their world.

And then we try and teach them and change them to behave in new ways so that we can change the properties that they ultimately make. So material science, is this little known field. I liken it to my home state of New Jersey because both New Jersey and material science have been overshadowed by their neighbors. New Jersey, it's overshadowed by Philadelphia and New York. And material science, it's overshadowed by physics and chemistry. So right at that interface is where material sciences it is. And it's interested in how Adams bond, which is the chemistry part, but it's also interested in how the resulting material behaves as a result of those bonds. And that's the physics part. Did you always know you were interested in

material science or were you one of those people who was like, maybe I'll be a chemist, maybe I'll be a physicist and you landed in the middle. Oh, no, that's a great question. So I always knew I wanted to be a scientist. I had no idea what kind. My father repaired computers, so I thought it was going to be electrical engineering. And so when I studied electrical, I was in the first class of electrical engineering and it really didn't speak to me. In fact, it was very brokenhearted because for years, I said it was going to be an electrical engineer and I take the first class and I'm like, I do not want to be an electrical engineer. So I was fairly brokenhearted and I had a bunch of other classes to take. And one class, which was a prerequisite, was called Introduction to Material Science. And everyone

who sat in the classroom was just like, oh, this class is going to stink. This class is so boring. And I kind of took the same posture. I'm like, yeah, this is going to be boring. But the first day, the professor knocked my socks off. He said, the reason why my sweater is brown and the reason why the lights work. And the reason why I don't fall through the floor all has to do with the interaction of atoms. And if you can understand that, you can get them to do new things. So when he said that, I was like, okay, I need to learn as much as I can about this field. So that's what put me on the path to becoming material scientists. I love how often it feels like people who end up being really passionate researchers, scientists, activists in their field, they mention a very

excited professor or someone who sort of sparked their imagination around a topic or or subject. I'm so glad that you had that person in your life as well who kind of was like, there's another way. You can do this instead. Well, I was very lucky because I think he just said it as a parenthetical thing. I don't think it was part of the lecture. Yeah. And I was like, that's it. That's me. Yeah. So the alchemy of us, it was like I mentioned, we follow eight inventions. There are one per chapter throughout this entire book. And you kind of, you do a lot of sort of like, you zoom out, you zoom in, you zoom out. We're talking about the people that are well known for these inventions.

You know, there's a little bit about Edison. Like, you might expect to find in a book about inventions. But we get some of these lesser known stories and people who sort of irrevocably changed humanity. And we just don't know their names or don't know their stories. How did you land on that as a premise for your book? Well, when I was taught material science, what resonated for me was that story about how everything around us is shaped by atoms. But I really wanted to figure out how to get other people to be interested in material science. And there have been many books about material science and

people try and just show their enthusiasm, hey, I'm really excited about this and you should be too. And I didn't think that that was going to work. I said, I think I needed a hook. So many years ago, I was taking glassblowing classes because every year I try and take a crazy class. And so that was that year's crazy class. Take some glass blowing classes. I love that. And when I was taking these classes, I was making very, very small pieces because glass is very dangerous. It will send you to the hospital if it burns you. It will burn a hole in your shoe. These are all the disclaimers. I was told what I took this class. So I just made very small pieces. But there was one day I had a very hard day at work and I didn't make a very small piece.

I made a huge piece that was way beyond my skill. And what ended up happening is that piece, felt on the floor and my instructor ran over to fix the situation because, again, this could lead to a hospital visit. This could lead to a fire. It was just bad news. So when all this was subsided and he put the glass to the side, I started to think about how I was feeling and I realized I wasn't in a bad mood anymore. And I said, what caused that?

Well, the glass piece did that. I shaped it, but it also shaped me. And so that became the premise of the book. let's look at how we have been at a dance with these materials. We shape them, but they in turn shape us. And so that's what put me on the path to look at these various different stories, to find various stories where materials have shaped us in unexpected ways. And also find people who we never heard about, like a mortician, an undertaker who actually put us on the path to the computer. People we never hear about because they get overshadowed by big names like

Edison. Yeah, I think I was really struck also by the chapter about Edison. And I feel like now we know this idea that like if you have a really great idea, try to patent it, try to like come up with something that's very particular, try to like protect your idea until you have it sort of protected by this patent system. But it seems like there, before we knew that, there was a lot of sharing of ideas about these new materials and inventions and sometimes that kind of bit some people in the butt. Well, if you have a great idea and Edison is around, the point of the story that I share is you never share it with Edison because he's going to take it and that's

essentially what happened. So Edison came to Connecticut. This is a little known story. People in Connecticut don't even know this. And he went to visit this gentleman who had created an early form of electric light. It was an arc light. It was based on two fingers of carbon separated from each other and when he turned

on the power, this huge electrical bolt went between them and that was the form of light. And Edison saw this and he's like, okay, I'm going to stop working on the phonograph and all this other stuff. I'm working on electric lights. See, people have been working on electric lights for a long time before Edison came along. And so he's like, thank you very much.

He goes back to New Jersey, to Menlo Park, and he starts working on his version of the electric light. So I talk about this. I'm not going to mention his name right now because my brain is freezing a little bit. But we hear about this little known inventor who catalyzed Edison in creating the electric light. I feel like a lot of people in our community space as well really resonated with the story of, the woman who sold time, which is part of the first story that you tell us how time, how we sort of like defined time, put it in a little watch and then how that time started to affect us as well. You mentioned that you actually saw the watch that she used as part of her time selling

company. What has it been like to see these objects or materials now that you've written the book? And what does it like to see them in real life? Well, you raise a good point. So the first person that you meet in the alchemy of us is this woman named Ruth Belville, and she has this extraordinary job. She sells time. So you can imagine in the 1800s, if you're a train station or newspaper or a lawyer, you're going to need to know the precise time. But your clock might be slow and you have no idea how slow it is. And television hasn't been invented yet. The internet hasn't been invented yet. How do you know the precise time? Well, you hire this woman who comes once a week. She goes to the Royal Observatory where the precise time is. It's also the home of Greenwich Mean Time. And she collects the

time with her very precise watch, which she nicknamed Arnold. Arnold is a very precise chronometer, so it's a little better made than a regular pocket watch. And so she walks to different places like banks and factories and newspapers to give them the precise time. And they pay her four pounds a year for this service. So it ends up that her watch, Arnold, is actually in the Science Museum in London. And if you go to the Science Museum of London, they have this whole exhibit on watches and there are thousands of them big ones small ones unusual ones and in the corner somewhere is this really small one that's as big as your your palm called Arnold so i got to see arnold and i'm staring at it for about 20 minutes because i'm like i found you i see you

and then people would walk by and i'm like can i tell you about this watch and i know i was looking like that crazy person like uh you know who let this person in but this watch was actually the time distribution for a part of London in the 1800s. And I just found that to be profound. And Ruth Belville, its owner, was the purveyor of time a long, long time ago. And so she's the first person that you meet in The Alchemy of Us because it's such a fascinating, fascinating story. It really is. Yeah. Victoria mentions Arnold the Watch. I'm naming mine. I think that's also a great idea. I will just say, I feel like maybe even naming some of the materials in our life. I wonder if that helps us, like, get closer to some of the important things in our lives. I know a lot of

people name their cars. So, yeah. It's all about forming, it's all about creating connections. Yes, for a while I called my vacuum cleaner spot, you know, and I live with my brother. I'm like, hey, we're spot. He knew exactly what I was talking about. And I call my first car, Roz, you know, so I'm one of those people that named stuff. Maybe that's how, well, I think it works better for my memory.

My memory is not 100% great. And it also just, I just, that's the connection that I have to it. I know this is probably a little bit like, tell me who your favorite child is, but did you have a chapter of your book that either feels like maybe is your favorite a little bit or one that you like love telling people about when you talk about your book? Well, clearly I love Ruth Belville and I can talk about her all day. It's great, yeah. But when I was writing the out, and I love all of the chapters.

So yes, you are asking a mother to choose her favorite child. but I think that mothers do have favorite children. You know, I don't know. I'm not a mother. There was a chapter that I knew was extremely important. And that was the fourth chapter, which is called capture, and it's about photography. Because I personally love photography. And when we think about photography, we just think of it as a fun, you know, selfie, you know, wonderful, you know, unicorn time.

That's how we think about photography. But I knew that photography actually had a dark side. And one of the things, one of the stories that I wanted to share was to show people. people, how photography not only captures our image, but it also captures our values. That's why that chapter is called capture. And so I talk about how early photography wasn't able to display people with more pigment in their skin because it was actually formulated for skin that didn't have pigment in it. So again, that's capturing our values. And also I talk about, well, the most important story I think in the book is the story about Polaroid, which is a technology that I love. This is a early instant

photography. Like you press a button 60 seconds later, you get an image. I know that doesn't mean anything now, but in the 70s and the 60s, that was like totally hot. So what was the premise? Well, it ends up that this African-American woman chemist working at Polaroid, she found out that Polaroid was selling this technology to the South African government, which had an apartheid system. And it was actually buttressing that system because it was being used as a quick way to take a picture. of each black South African to be stored in their past book, but also to be used by the government to control and monitor where they were. So really dark stuff, that's all made possible because of this photography. So I felt that that was one of the more important stories that I could tell. All of them

were exciting to me. I got to travel and go all over and meet and interview a whole bunch of people and read a whole bunch of things and learn a whole lot of things. But that one felt like the important story to share. Because in this age of AI, we're seeing how, you know, facial recognition has bias in it and how whatever the culture thinks actually goes into the technology. That's the story of that chapter. And so that was why I felt it was an important chapter. Yeah, I think a lot of people resonated with that chapter as well. We're like just getting to this section of the book. I think we just finished reading that chapter last week. And so a few people mentioned this, the inclusion of these like social movements and acts of resistance in the book

as like a really sort of special part about this book. You didn't shy away from them. Were there other moments that like you were surprised to find out about in history that you just like weren't expecting until you researched this book and you were excited to tell people about? Well, the Polaroid story was definitely that story for me because if you look at even more recent books about Polaroid, this episode is never even mentioned.

Yeah. So that was important to me. As for other chapters, I think that's the most symbolic in terms of things that I was surprised about, and I do think was hidden because we don't want to think about photography that way. We love it too much. But it is part of our culture and our culture has good things, has wonderful things, and it also has some things that are not so hot too.

Yeah. We've got some great questions in the chat. I'm going to elevate this one from Earl who asks, any thoughts on our evolving love of plastics technology, both the science and amazing applications and full-site? cost to us all. Earl, I think that's a great question. And I did not talk about plastics in the alchemy of us because I feel mixed about plastics.

I think it's a wonderful technology because if we want to mold something, we would have to get a piece of wood and we would have to grind it down to size or if we would have to do that with metal. But with plastic, you just form that negative shape. You put that thing in there. You have that piece. It's amazing that it's formable and it doesn't take a lot of energy to do that. but we didn't really think about where does this piece live when we're done with it.

And I think we're starting to think about that now, but the train has really left the station. And now we have all this plastic and we put it everywhere, but we haven't really thought about what's the life after our use. So I didn't include that in the alchemy of us because I think that requires an entire book to think about that. And I do think that there's some good things about plastic, as I mentioned. But I do think that there's some lessons. We can't just focus on the good part because that's putting it.

in the place that we are now where we have too much plastic. Not everyone recycles it. Like we should have instituted that recycling is part of the deal when you use plastic. Like we should have put in some of these things, but we did. So now we have to change culture to have a new, new way of thinking about plastic. Rachel's got a great question. I had a similar one. So I'm going to go to this one. Are there any materials you're keeping your eye on for future development and impact, either to deal with some of the darker parts of today's culture or to create more opportunities? What do you think? any sort of materials we should also be looking out for? Well, Rachel's got a great question.

And the first material that comes to mind is lithium, which is great because it makes our batteries, our computers, much more efficient. You know, our batteries will be able to hold power for a long time. And we're putting these batteries everywhere. And so we need a lot of lithium. But this is also kind of setting up a geopolitical problem where we have to go to various countries to get the lithium. They have to knock down mountains in order to get.

the lithium. So, so there's, like I said, there's always this tradeoff. There's some wonderful things about lithium. It's a fantastic technology. It's better than most other batteries that are out there. But we've got to figure out where we get it, how we get it to people. And also the life afterwards, what do we do with it when we're done with it? We haven't been great at thinking through some of like the end results of our inventions. No, not all. We're just like, hey, look what I found. And then we launch it into the world. And I think we should just say, okay, here, I found this. This is amazing. All right. How is it going to, how is it going to shape us? That's the, that's the question that I pose in this book. I have this thing. How is it going to shape us?

You know, one of the reviews of your books mentioned, or your book mentioned that the quote, that I really loved from it and that I agree with is that it's, quote, popular science done right with enthusiasm and without dumbing it down. I wonder if we can talk a little bit about that your writing process. So I think this is, it can be a hard balance to strike for some people who come from a scientific. that background who want to talk about the work that they do. But the book that they're writing is for people who maybe are just understanding what material science is, for instance, or are unfamiliar with concepts and you're the one introducing them for the first time. Is that balance hard to strike when you're writing a book about science for people who maybe are science enthusiasts, but don't know terms or aren't familiar with concepts like you are? No, it's definitely a challenge. And it's a challenge that I love, but it's a challenge nevertheless.

So the book that I would like to read, maybe a little bit more technical. And I have tons of these science books that are a little bit more technical. They seem to be written by people who are science writers or scientists for other scientists or other science writers. But I didn't want a book like that. I wanted a book for people who may not like science, even people who might have hated science. I wanted to give them an opportunity to have another shot at science. I wanted to give them an invitation. And so I knew a couple of things.

I knew stories really work. They resonate with people. You know, Hollywood's based on telling stories. So use stories. I also tried to strike the language so that a smart 12-year-old could understand it. And so that was a challenge to me because if I wrote something and I think I got it, well, I have this great writing group and they're not scientists. So I would give it to them and then they would read it.

And I'm like, what do you think? And they're like, didn't get it. I'm like, okay, go back and try and figure out. So I really wanted to make sure that it was understandable. And, you know, I do that using analogies and metaphors and comparing it to silly, like I compare cake to steal, you know, so that people can understand a little bit. And I think it's important because science is for everyone. And as a science communicator, it's my job to translate it. And it's hard.

And we'd like to be in our comfort zone of just explaining things with jargon that makes sense to us. But if we really want to do our job, we have to make sure that we give people an invitation. into signs and we have to make it meaningful. And the first thing, it has to be language that's that resonates with them. Stephen's got a question also about what it's like writing a book. Were there chapters that were not included in the final book? If so, what materials did you cover? Is this part of your writing process? Like, here are like maybe 15 materials or inventions that I want to talk about and get to narrow it down. Or did you kind of know, here are the eight, and I'm going to focus on those? Now, Stephen's giving me a good question, a good question. So what I turned in,

Well, what I initially had was about twice as long. And so I did keep to the eight. It's just that I wrote too much. And so what I omitted was, all right, so there was a gentleman. His name was Edward Mibridge, and he was a photographer. He took one of the earliest series of images of something in motion, of a horse in motion. And so this put us on the path to, you know, motion cameras. The thing that's interesting about Edward Midebridge that I don't really include is that he was a murderer.

he actually, he married a woman, didn't know that she was in love with somebody else. And so he kills her lover. And this is completely premeditated because he lives in San Francisco when he finds this out. And the gentleman is living across the bay. And so he runs to the ferry. He could have stopped himself. He gets on the ferry. He could have stopped himself.

He hires a horse and wagon to take him to the mining area where the gentleman is. He could have stopped himself. This is completely premeditated. And then he finally gets to the guy and he's like, are you so and so? And he's like, yes. And he goes, bam, shoots him. Now, I had that in The Alchemy of Us. It was like three pages long, great details.

I loved researching this. But it's so distracting that you never would have wanted to know about photography. So, Stephen, yes, I did have some things that I had to omit. And it was very heartbreaking to do. But I had to make sure that everything served the premise of the book, which is to show how technology shaped us. And that's heartbreaking. And you did include a moment, like you just mentioned, you include a moment about that. And I think last time we were talking, you mentioned that it has this, what you hope,

sort of the readers and are sort of getting from that. It's just like, people are flawed too. Our inventions are like change us in ways that we can't imagine, but also the people who are making them, including people like Thomas Edison, like we evangelize these people, but they're people. They're flawed. Right, right. Well, I wanted to show some warts for everyone. So Edison is not a nice guy.

J.J. Thompson, who created an early form of, who created, who found the electron, he was a bit of a clutz. I love that about him. You know, there's a story. That didn't make it into the book, but he, his pants were on the bed and his wife, and he was gone, and his wife is chasing him around Cambridge because she wants to make sure that he kept his pants on because he would forget things like that. He'd walk to school without any pants.

He was like, boy, it's really chilly today. And it's because he did, well, he had pants. He had another pair of pants. But just the fact that she's racing to find him just showed you a little bit about his personality. So I tried to find each kind of foible about each one of these different people and kept it in the back of my mind just to make them more human. Because I don't want to revere people. That's another thing that distances us from science is that we see these people as geniuses. They're unattainable.

And we think that whatever they've done is unattainable as well. But if you find that this guy forgot to wear pants, okay, what he did was brilliant, but he might be like a crazy uncle that you had. Yeah, exactly. Chris actually has got a great question that leads us perfectly into a different chapter we haven't talked about yet. They ask, thoughts about the materialization of music from just sound to sheet music to CDs to streams. How does that change something deeply rooted in our biology? You talk a little bit about this in your chapter about the phonograph. Yeah, Chris, you talk about one snapshot of time, and I look a little further because first it was, if you wanted to hear music, you would have to go to an outside concert or if maybe someone in your family knew how to play the piano.

That's how you would get music. So it was sheet music, and then it was a general event where there was a huge group of people around you. And then music moved to the photograph where it can be personalized. You can hear anything that you want, but that sense of being in a crowd went away. So it became materialized when it went from sheet music or just being ethereal in the air to what I call just little pricks in tin to make the sound. And then it went from the phonograph to vinyl and then to the CD. And each one of these technologies gave us an advantage that we didn't have before. Again, we could personalize, we can own music, we can play it anytime we'd like with the CD.

We could select music anytime we wanted. What you might not know is that when they were first recording music, they didn't record things like guitars and other instruments that were very soft because they couldn't pick it up on the phonograph. So early music was shaped by the recording device because it could not pick up softer instruments. I thought that was so interesting in particular. I was, this is one of those facts that I was just walking on the street with my husband. I was like, did you know, like they focused on piano and loud instruments? Right, loud instrument could pick those up. That's right. So cool. So technology shaped.

say music in so many different ways. That idea that music is data now, I was like, ah, it is, that's so interesting. It was so many parts of your book really changed the way I thought about these, like, cultural connections in my life. I'm not a big music person. I'm not the kind of person you can work with music on, you know, and I'm not always searching for, like, the newest music in my life.

But the idea that, like, well, our music now is just, unless you're seeing it in person, it really is like being compressed down to data streams. And I thought that was, it was a really weird way to think about music. Well, Chris hits on another point as well because, you know, I've seen the evolution. So my dad had A tracks and, you know, I wanted to have similar music. So I had to move to cassettes and then that moved to CD. So I think I've owned albums like four or five different version of them just to get them in different shape of data, you know. And now I can get it, you know, on my iPhone.

just by using streaming sources. So, yeah, so music has changed, and we can physically see how the data has changed. It's changed from a magnetic form that we see in eight tracks and cassettes to plastic form with CDs. And now it's just in the cloud, which is actually a huge hard drive somewhere out in the middle of the country. Tom asks, part of the problem is that culture loves stuff, which blinds us to unreported costs. Can we change our relationship to stuff? so American society can be tent with less. I wonder, do you agree with this idea?

We have an obsession with stuff. It's affecting us. And if so, do you think we might be able to shift to sort of like less is more when it comes to our stuff kind of mentality? Well, Tom, that's the reason why I spent so much time writing this thing so that we could have a new relationship with stuff. Because I don't think we've always had that relationship with stuff. In fact, I talk in the second chapter about how our relationship with stuff. stuff changed. And that happened in the industrial revolution. See, before, you know, Christmas used to be a minor holiday. It was about hanging out with family, eating some food. And then it became a gift

giving occasion. What happened? Well, the industrial revolution happened where we could make so much stuff. And then there was an excess of stuff. And they're like, well, how do we convince people to buy all this stuff? Oh, look at this holiday. It's at the end of the year. It's called Christmas. Let's change that into a gift giving occasion so that people will buy all this stuff. And they're like, stuff. So Christmas is not, it didn't start off the way it exists now. It started off as a time to hang out with family and to be around family. And somewhere it was morphed through, and I talk about how steel had a hand in that because steel made it possible for us to ship through railroads, to ship all this material from one end to the other. And it also made us possible to build all

these tall buildings, these department stores, so we can buy all this stuff. So Tom, you're hitting on something that happened almost a century and a half of the, go that we need to start changing that culture, that we didn't always feel this way about stuff, but we're in this commercial time where stuff is being pushed on us so that they can, so that companies can increase and increase and increase. But it's up to us to have a new relationship with stuff. It's definitely hard, especially around this time of year. It can be hard.

It's coming. We've got another question here. Alexandrina asks, beginning of the 19th century, one third of cars were electric. And another person, Katrina Marcal, thinks because women use them, we didn't, they didn't make it to, you know, past this initial surge. What do you think? Do you agree with that? Have you heard of this? I have not heard about that, but I know that earlier cars were made out of steam. And I think that that would have been embedded for the environment too. So it's just that people had figured out that you can get much faster cars with petroleum. Also, petroleum,

became plentiful. We were talking about plastics earlier. Plastics are made possible by petroleum. It's sort of like, okay, we have all this petroleum. What can we do with it? Okay, we can put it in cars and we can make plastic with it. So it was not always like as scientifically, you could have made a car that was fast with electric, not very fast, but pretty fast. But it requires manpower and women power to make that possible. But people stop because they saw that petroleum could get there, get them there faster. Similarly with steam, steam might have been a process. So, so, so it's, it's not just the science. Sometimes it's the lobbying arms that are like, look, we should really do this. And I'm not specific. I don't know much about what she's talking about, that it was made, that was, that it was women-focused. That makes sense. The bicycle used to be a very powerful tool that women used to get from one part of the city to the other. And so that may have given early electric cars a negative stigma. I just don't know enough to comment.

Yeah. I wonder too about some of the jobs that were either created or fell out of fashion once technology advanced. Again, we're going to go back to this idea of selling time, right? The woman that you talk about in your book, she was one of the only women to do it. And she kind of graduated into the profession because her father did the work before she did. Did you find as you were researching some of these materials that some of the materials were influenced similarly, like because. or people were influenced because of their either stigma around certain kinds of people or they're sort of professionalized in one way and not in another? Well, it's a good question. So Ruth Belville, she did sell time, her mother sold time, and her father started this business. When her father passed away, he had this watch and he also had some scientific tools. He worked at the Royal Observatory.

But they were not passed on to Ruth because she was a woman, because she was a girl. they didn't believe it was possible for her to be an astronomer. So that's the reason why she took on this family business. She could have, her mother or she could have worked at the observatory in some fashion, but women weren't really up there. There were a few that were analyzing some of the images, and then later on they were human computers, but there weren't really that many women at the Royal Observatory.

So I don't talk about it in detail, but she was definitely pushed in this direction of selling time because the other job that her father have of being an astronomer wasn't available to her. Stacey's got a great question. We talked a little bit about this when you were talking about plastics, but what are your thoughts on planned obsolescence versus sustainability? So planned obsolescence, this idea that like companies are building in the idea that technology will break down over time. You talk a little bit in your chapter about scientific glass about how the opposite idea kind of made it so that corning glass kind of like almost went out of business because it was so, their technology was so sustainable.

That's right. That's right. So, so yeah, so companies learn by mistakes. And so corn and glass had a, they had a superior glass that did not break. And so once people bought it, they were like, well, I don't need another one. So they learned the opposite of plant obsolescence, as you discussed. So what they did when they created Pyrex is that they started making different shapes, like, well, you need this. And then you need this. And then you need this. And so, and they were marketing it to women. And look at these different. designs in these different colors. And so every Christmas, someone got a Pyrex dish. And so that's how they kept their bottom line healthy. So, so I, I looked at the point of view of how companies first look at how they were going to market what they were going to do. Today, we know that we need to look at things much more sustainably. But I was looking at things in the 19th century. That was not, as I understand it, that was not language that people were thinking about. They were just like, how do I improve my bottom line? Do you think that we'll find, I mean, we're already seeing a, shift towards more sustainable products now.

Do you find that, like, do you think that that will continue? Or do you think that people are people and will sort of build in this planned obsolescence in order to feed the bottom line? It's a good question. You know, I don't think that in science, we think about sustainability as much as we should. When we're trying to get on the cover of science or nature or scientific American or any of these famous magazines, it's, you want to be the first. You want to be like, aha, eure, eure.

And so what you're making might be very esoteric material that took a lot of energy to make in order to get that data point that you want to show to demonstrate how wonderful your invention is. But what we should be looking for is like, okay, I have this material. It's not the best. But we can make a lot of it and it doesn't hurt the planet. That doesn't make the front cover, but it should. What are you looking to in the future? Do you think the next great invention will make us more empathetic, make us more patient, maybe we'll live longer or live better with the planet?

Well, that sounds nice. I don't hear any of these big guys talking about that kind of stuff, though. I think we're still in this mode of like, hey, look how cool this is. And then I send it out into the ether and then, oh, that wasn't quite right. Let's tweak it now. I think we're still in that mode. I think that in order to be more empathetic, we have to do that. We human beings will have to have to work on that.

And so that's the reason why I wrote the alchemy of us because I wanted to provide a gymnasium to show people how older technologies like the telegraph, the light bulb. If these things that we don't even think about can shape us, then you can imagine that AI and nanotechnology are going to have a hand in shaping us too. And so in order to make this world a better world, we have to ask questions. We have to say, okay, that's great. You have this wonderful technology. What's its effect? on us long term. What's the impact? And if people haven't figured that out, you should say, well, you should figure that out because I would like to know that. And if they have an answer and

you don't like it, well, you just don't buy it. You vote with your dollars. So I think that I was trying to empower people to give them agency so that they can make the decision for themselves, because the folks in tech are not going to be in this position at all, because this is going to prevent, they don't want to think about it. It's not fun. It's not part of their culture. It's not cool for their culture. We have to ship the culture. And that's it for today. Tomorrow, a roundup of the latest news and science. We'll see you soon.