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09:08WHILE HE WAS ASLEEP
09:10KEEP YOUR EYE
09:11ON THE BALL
09:13HERE HE IS
09:15DREAMING OF A BRIGHT IDEA
09:16AND HERE HE IS
09:22WAKING HIMSELF UP
09:23TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
09:35AH WELL
09:36IT TAKES ALL SORTS
09:37THE PARTICULAR BRIGHT IDEA
09:39HAPPENING UP THERE
09:40IS THE ONE HE HAD IN 1774
09:43TO UPGRADE THE SMEET AND BORER
09:46BY ROTATING SOLID IRON ROLES
09:49AGAINST A STEEL-CUTTING HEAD
09:50AND SCOOPING OUT THE CENTER OF THE ROLL
09:53ALL THE WAY THROUGH
09:53TO MAKE INCREDIBLY PRECISE CYLINDERS
09:57WITHOUT WHICH
09:58JAMES WATT'S STEAM ENGINE
10:00WOULD NOT HAVE WORKED
10:01AND THE ENTIRE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
10:04WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED
10:08WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED
10:28WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED
10:34THREE TIMES
10:36WELL BEFORE WHICH
10:40HIS GREATEST SCAM
10:42IN SPITE OF THE FACT THAT
10:44WE BRITS ARE AT WAR WITH FRANCE
10:47WILKINSON MANAGES TO SMUGLE
10:48TO NAPOLION THE OTHER THING
10:50YOU CAN MAKE WITH A CYLINDER BORER
10:52CANNON BARRELS
10:54TO FIGHT WARS ALL OVER EUROPE WITH
11:06THE OTHER THING
11:07NOW ONE OF THE THINGS WAR CREATES
11:09IS ORPHANS
11:10WHICH NAPOLION'S WAR DID
11:12HERE IN STANS, SWITZERLAND
11:14WHERE IN 1799
11:16A MIDDLE-AGED EX-FARMER
11:18SET UP AN ORPHANAGE FOR THEM
11:23AND CHANGED THE COURSE OF EDUCATION
11:26FOR LITTLE KIDS ALL OVER THE WORLD
11:27HIS NAME WAS PESTER LOTSI
11:29AND HIS BRIGHT IDEA WAS
11:31TO SAY THE LEAST
11:31UNCOMPLICATED
11:33LOTS OF MUSIC AND GAMES AND EXERCISE
11:35CHILDREN TEACHING CHILDREN
11:37NO MEMORIZING
11:39NO CLASSES
11:40NO CORPORAL PUNISHMENT
11:41NO TEXTBOOKS
11:43BUT ABOVE ALL, NO SCHOOL
11:55THIS WAS EDUCATION FOR PESTER LOTSI
11:57TAKING KIDS OUT OF SCHOOL
11:59AND GETTING THEM TO LEARN
12:00FROM DIRECT EXPERIENCE
12:01GEOGRAPHY FROM MAPS OF YOUR NATURE WALK
12:04SHOW KIDS A MOUNTAIN
12:06AND THEN TEACH THEM TO SPELL IT
12:07TEACH SCIENCE FROM THE WAY NATURE WORKED
12:11ABOVE ALL, DEVELOP THE KIDS' NATURAL ABILITIES
12:14TO OBSERVE THE WORLD
12:15AND MAKE SENSE OF IT IN THEIR OWN WAY
12:17HAVE THEIR OWN BRIGHT IDEAS
12:32THE GUY WHO TURNED
12:34VESTER LOTSI'S LITTLE BRIGHT IDEA
12:38INTO THE KIND OF PH.D. DISSERTATION
12:40MATERIAL THAT TURNS YOUR BRAIN TO PORRIDGE
12:43WAS A GERMAN CALLED HERBERT
12:45WHO GOT ALL EXCITED
12:47BY THE IDEA OF PESTER LOTSI'S LITTLE KIDS
12:49GETTING DIRECT EXPERIENCE FROM LIFE
12:51HERBERT RECKONED
12:53THAT EACH NEW EXPERIENCE
12:55WAS ADDED TO THE ONES YOU'D ALREADY HAD
12:58AND THAT AS EACH NEW EXPERIENCE
13:00CHANGED YOUR TOTAL EXPERIENCE
13:02IT CHANGED YOU
13:04BUT THAT YOU WERE ONLY AWARE OF THE CHANGE
13:08IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO MAKE YOU AWARE
13:11SOMETHING THAT CAUSED THE EVENT
13:14TO CROSS YOUR THRESHOLD OF CONSCIOUSNESS
13:16A CONCEPT HERBERT INVENTED
13:19AND PROCEEDED TO MEASURE
13:20THUS TURNING PSYCHOLOGY
13:22INTO THE EXACT SCIENCE IT IS TODAY
13:24WHICH IS WHY I'M TELLING YOU THIS
13:28IN THE MYSTERIOUS EAST
13:33BECAUSE A GUY WHO WAS AT COLLEGE
13:35WITH A FRIEND OF HERBERT'S BROTHER
13:37WAS DEEPLY INTO EASTERN MYSTICISM
13:39AND WENT TO SEANCES
13:41AND WROTE ABOUT THE SOULS OF FLOWERS
13:43AND SUCH LIKE AND WAS CALLED FEHNER
13:45TOOK HERBERT'S IDEAS
13:47AND TURNED THEM INTO WHAT HE CALLED PSYCHO-PHYSICS
13:50WHICH WAS ALL ABOUT MEASURING AWARENESS
14:02IF EXPERIENCES LIKE THIS DANCE FOR INSTANCE
14:05CHANGED YOU LIKE HERBERT SAID
14:07THEN AT WHAT STAGE IN AN EXPERIENCE
14:09DID YOU NOTICE IT HAPPENING TO YOU?
14:14AT WHAT STAGE DID YOU BECOME CONSCIOUS
14:17OF THE EFFECT ON YOU?
14:20IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
14:25IF YOU'RE STILL THERE
14:26SO IT WAS FEHNER AND HIS COLLEGE PAL
14:29WHO CAME UP WITH THE NEXT BRIGHT IDEA
14:31AN AMAZING NEW SCIENTIFIC LAW
14:34THAT I BET YOU'VE WAITED ALL YOUR LIFE TO HEAR ABOUT
14:37THE LAW OF THE JUST NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE
14:41AND I KID YOU NOT
14:43THIS LAW WOULD TURN OUT TO BE OF COSMIC SIGNIFICANCE
14:46ONCE THAT IS, AROUND 1860
14:50THEY'VE GOT DOWN TO SOME REALLY HEAVY RESEARCH
15:03THIS KIND OF HEAVY
15:05THE WEIGHTLIFTER IS GIVEN MORE AND MORE HEAVY WEIGHTS TO LIFT
15:08AND ASK IF HE NOTICES
15:11AND I'M BEING PERFECTLY SERIOUS
15:19TURNS OUT WHETHER YOU NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE WITH THE EXTRA WEIGHT
15:22DEPENDS ON THE WEIGHT YOU STARTED WITH
15:38AND THE SCALE OF THE DIFFERENCE IS ALWAYS THE SAME
15:41IF YOU DOUBLE THE BASIC YOU HAVE TO DOUBLE THE EXTRA
15:45SO IF FOR 100 KILOGRAMS IT WAS TWO
15:52THEN FOR 200 KILOGRAMS IT'S GOING TO HAVE TO BE FOUR
16:25COOL
16:27Here's one for you, no muscles needed.
16:30Fifty candles.
16:31Add one.
16:34Notice the difference?
16:35You should.
16:37That's the just noticeable difference in light levels the human eye can detect.
16:41Between fifty and fifty-one candles.
16:49Which, as I said, was to become of cosmic significance.
16:53Here we are on the equator.
16:56North here, south here.
16:58All marked obligingly here in Indonesia by this equatorial monument.
17:04Now I said that just noticeable difference would turn out to be of cosmic significance.
17:09Astronomical cosmic.
17:11Because here, in the southern hemisphere, is where astronomers have always come to look up at a sky much more
17:17full of stars than here in the northern hemisphere.
17:22One of these guys, called John Herschel, comes south of the equator in 1834 to look at double stars.
17:29At night, of course.
17:36And gets into the just noticeable difference business, measuring the brightness of stars.
17:42Now, back then, the official brightness of the brightest star in the sky, that is to say, a star of
17:47first magnitude, is said to be equal to the light from a plumber's candle at one mile distance.
17:53Call it that.
17:54Call it that.
17:55Now for Herschel's bright idea.
17:57What you do is find another star much dimmer than the first.
18:02Call it that.
18:05Now, you use a lens to bring the dim star close enough to the bright star so that their brightness
18:12is exactly equal, like this.
18:16The distance you have to move the lens in order to do that is a measure of how dim the
18:23dimmer star was.
18:24The distance you have to move the lens in order to do that is a measure of how dimmer star
18:30is.
18:41Okay, here is where we get cosmic.
18:48Turned out, the different levels of stellar magnitude, each magnitude marking the just noticeable difference between one star brightness and
18:59another,
19:00meant that a star of fifth magnitude was actually 100 times dimmer than a star of first magnitude.
19:07And Fechner also worked out a formula to relate brightness to how far away a star was.
19:13Yes. Okay. Now for the sky.
19:17This is a star cloud in the southern sky in the Magellanic Clouds, and this is a double star.
19:23Remember Herschel?
19:24A dim star orbiting a bright one and going bright dim, bright dim.
19:30Now, from a distance, that could look like a single star varying.
19:35Turns out there are single stars that vary called kephids.
19:38And by 1920, they know the faster the kephid varies, the brighter it is.
19:44An astronomer called Hubble knows brightness relates to distance.
19:48So when he finds kephids in the star cloud, dim but varying fast, he knows they're a long way away.
19:55Now, he knows how far the star cloud is.
19:58So he works out the kephid distance and knocks everybody's cosmic socks off.
20:04Because his kephids are sitting out there, 100 million light-years away.
20:11The first sure indication of the incredible size of the universe.
20:24So, thanks to gin and tonic and bottle caps, steel knives and clock springs, lighthouses and cannon, teaching kids and
20:34weightlifters,
20:36we know that, as far as the cosmos is concerned, we haven't remotely reached the end of it yet, unlike
20:42this programme.
20:45Oh, why was I here in Java?
20:48Well, this observatory was built to look for double stars.
20:51And it was built using money from Quinny, here in Bandung.
20:57Good health.
20:58Good health.
20:59Good health.
21:10Good health.
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