The 19th Century Heiress Who Saw The Future 

For reasons, I spent 42 nights in a row sleeping under the stars this summer. No devices, just the stars, two full moons, two starlink trains, satellites and airplanes. Based on that, I am convinced that NOBODY thought the earth was flat until people started sleeping indoors.

There's an actual textbook about thermodynamics and statistical mechanics that begins with the introduction "Ludwig Boltzmann, who spent much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is your turn to study statistical mechanics."

I had a university science class in 2008 or so with a professor who was maybe in his late 50s. I was blown away when he said that when he was in university they weren't teaching about plate tectonics yet.

Speaking of the 99/1 ratio of science it reminds me of the quote "they laughed a Columbus, they laughed at Einstein, but they also laughed at bozo the clown."

One more random note about Ada Lovelace: In 1983 the Honeywell Corporation released the first standard for the programming language Ada under contract with the U. S. Department of Defense, which was looking for a language to replace the 450 programming languages it was using at that time. Ada was, of course, named after Ada Lovelace, who has been credited as "the first computer programmer".

I'm convinced this still goes on today with several things: - The importance of Vitamin D (we need a lot more than most doctors say) - Sugar (it's a lot worse than we even realize) - Evolution (it works way faster than we think)

Ada Lovelace was highly respected by the mathematic and scientific community in her lifetime, even as a teenager, likely because her mother was well known as talented mathematician. There was no head patting involved. And yes, while on the subject of revisionist history to suit modern pop-history, she most definitely had pockets in her gowns.

I would put Ramanujan at the top of that list. Dude was effortlessly writing out black hole physics before anyone even knew up from down

In one of my undergrad books, it was discussed how Boltzmann's studies of thermodynamics drove him mad to the point of committing suicide, and now it is our turn to understand thermo. Lives rent free in my head.

As far back as 1974, my 8th grade science teacher introduced us to, what was then termed The Theory of Continental Drift. At the time, it still wasn’t fully accepted by the science community. About ten years later, while watching a science show on TV, it had been renamed Plate Techtonics.

At 5:38 "Ichorous exhalations" easily explained is ichor=blood and body fluid from a wound, and exhalations=exhale as in breathe out, cough, or leave the body. Not confusing, but 💯 correct

A few points... Regarding the doctors who gave Ignez so much trouble. They would go, not just, from patient to patient, but from learning anatomy on corpses to live patients without washing their hands. That's just to add to the creep factor. He noticed the death rate was high when doctors treated patients but lower when nurses or nuns treated patients. He instituted a chorinated lye solution that his students were required to rinse their hands with before each case. But the doctors complained it chapped their skin. So they stopped using it when he wasn't around. Also, Ignez died in an insane asylum of septisemia. He got a cut on his finger and it got infected. About Mendel, he was a very humble man who did his work as a monk and really thought very little about it. It was interesting but not life changing to him. The story I learned as a student portrayed him as not even publishing his work at all. He eventually became abbot of the monastary but when he was succeeded, the new abbot tried to have his work destroyed for hubris. A student of his, saved it, and eventually published it years later. Here's the real kicker. The one aspect of heredity that wasn't accounted for by Darwin's original theory was 'the throwback'. How could a less evolved or less advantageous form recur if selective pressure was always for the more advantageous outcome? Mendel's explanation of the 'recessive' trait would have easily explained it. During the cleaning of Darwin's lab after his death, a package was found in the back office. It was 30+ years old and had never even been opened. It was Mendel's work that had been sent to him for his evaluation but he had been either too busy or too arrogant to look at the work of a mathematical monk who supposedly had figured out heredity before he or the scientific community had. Someone you missed, that's much more recent, is Barry Marshall. He postulated in the early 1980's that many gastric ulcers and peptic ulcers were caused by an infection and that they should be treatable with antibiotics. The concensus was that no known bacteria would be able to survive in the acidic environment of the stomach. Until that point, it was generally thought that once you got an ulcer, you were stuck with it for life. This actually was the case for my uncle. Marshall's research was based in Australia and no one really paid attention to it for 30 years. When I informed my uncle, who had been dealing with his ulcer for 5+ years at the time, of this theory, he took immediate interest and his doctor reluctantly tried the treatment, expecting very little. My uncle became ulcer-free and much happier. It still took another 10+ years for the world, in general, to begin to believe this theory.

Joe consistently delivers top-notch content, shedding light on overlooked scientific figures and introducing a new generation to important but often unsung heroes in the field. I'm confident they'll appreciate this.

Thank you so much for the intro on explaining how real science works. It is getting scary how the internet has become so full of the anti-scientific process rhetoric, in particularly, from big name “influencers”. It is refreshing to see someone with a prominent channel like yours sounding the woo woo alarm.

The antikythera mechanism is just the only one that survived...

I love me my Joe and one of the many reasons is your humbleness & realness. The snippet where you correct yourself on the year and say “numbers are hard”; so relatable.

The reason for the Nobel Prize delay is also to rediscover their discovery. Like you said, there are plenty of false discoveries, so their discovery is fairly believed to be false, until it is repeated.

Semmelweis was so hard-headed, and that's unfortunately where he failed as a scientist. However, I wouldn't say he did no experiments. He was deeply troubled by the death rate in that clinic and when he began enforcing handwashing it resulted in a drastic decline of dead mothers. We know because he kept records of these things, he was obsessed with figuring out how to stop these unnecessary, everyday tragedies. And when he put this hard evidence to his peers they said it was too concerned with numbers, as if that, the hard data and the reduction of human suffering weren't _the entire point._ The fact he would not publish is maddening, however. He was right tho

Great video! Speaking of scientists who were way ahead of their time one can also think about Aryabhata, Bhaskara 1 and Bhaskara 2 whose contributions to Mathematics and Astronomy were indeed ahead of their times!!

Imagine the frustration and sadness, knowing so many lives could be saved if doctors would wash their hands and them refusing to. I would blow a gasket.

At the 3:40 mark I believe you meant to say that "progress is with rare exceptions NOT the work of some mad genius." Left out the 'Not.'

Hi Joe, Ada Lovelace is also the anmesake of the Ada computer programming language. When I was a young child in grade school I pointed out to my teacher the apparently fitting coastlines of south America and Africa, and I was told that was nonsense (it was the 1960's so the teacher was less learned than she might have been as it turns out).

Crazy that Cugnot (or anybody else) didn't realize the smoke would blow into their faces with the engine mounted in front like that

9:25 Ada probably would have gotten more recognition if Babbage managed to get any of his machines to work.

It really bothers me that "self unalive" is a topic that needs to be danced around on RU-vid. Its entirely unhelpful to the people the subject actually affects. Forcing its censorship only perpetuates the idea that its something to be ashamed of and to be kept to yourself, not discussed. This mindset kills people. A lot of different kinds of censorship on this platform completely and shamefully disregards context and just blanket bans topics and words. Cant talk about "angry funny mustache german man" in any context without fear of recieving disciplinary actions against your channel, yet avoiding conversation about that specific topic removes the possibility of us learning from the past and avoiding similar tragedies as a society. We'll look back on this in time and regret letting corporations decide what we're allowed to hear. The internet is too influential on how an average person thinks and acts for this to not have a long lasting and likely negative impact on our society as a whole.

Your videos have never failed me. Despite working for almost 10 hours a day, I couldn't even miss a single topic you uploaded.

A classic 'Joe' video. Why I never miss one! 🤘🏼

I love that the ancient Chinese, and the Italians always made all of their scientific creations also beautiful. I think we could learn something from that. Thank you for another great video!

_“It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.”_ -Richard P. Feynman

I would like to mention something that was left out with Aristarchus of Samos, he did the math. No, he didn’t have any fancy equipment, the man just watched the movement of the celestial bodies and did the mathematics himself. While none of his direct writings survive to this day, when later writers wrote about him from quoting his own works, he is distinctly credited with saying “While I could explain to you all of the mathematic behind it, it is very complicated and might be too hard to understand” (paraphrasing, I don’t remember the exact quote). Point being, the man was a brilliant mathematician who was lost because most people couldn’t understand the math he did.

I'm so glad someone else remembers that "that's not how any of this works" commercial 😂 it lives in my head rent free

Louis and Marie Pasteur are honestly some of my favorite people of all time.

I think stories like these prove the fact that individuals can be important to the progress of science.

Hey Joe, I also read somewhere that part of why Mendel's work went unnoticed or underappreciated was due to his explanation of biology through mathematics. It was not popular back then to use mathematics to explain biological phenomenon which led to many scientists not taking his work seriously or unable to understand it. Edit: False: (I am not sure of the exact details, but also some people disregarded his theories as he was a "man of the church." )

Ada was the Countess of Lovelace. My wife, who had more than a passing interest in computers, learned about her in the mid 90's in HS. As a sort of homage, she started using the online handle Countess of Lovelace. Sadly, many online forums, and chatrooms of that era did not allow that many characters for a username/handle, or at least would not display them all. As a result, people often assumed her online name was Countess of Love, which kind of had the opposite effect of what she was going for in naming herself after such a badass woman.

I just love how much knowledge you share with us. This channel is definitely one of the most substantial channels out there. Although, channels like Scishow, Anton Petrov, and Sabine Hofstadter are also phenomenal 🙏🏼

The pea plant experiment work because he managed to pick seven traits determined by seven different chromosomes (he had no idea that was so)

I read both some Galen and all of William Harvey's book in college. Fun little detail: Harvey goes after Galen VERY specifically because Galen essentially did him wrong. Galen describes a series of experiments with live pigs (you don't want the details) that supposedly proved his theories about circulation. And for centuries, nobody checked his work. Harvey set out to replicate Galen's experiments and discovered that a large number of them were functionally impossible. He was forced to conclude that either pigs had wildly different circulatory systems back in the day or Galen had straight-up fabricated his results. Harvey goes through a kind of grieving process as he's trying to understand why he's not getting the same results Galen did before finally giving up and reasoning from the data he gathered himself. The end of the book, where he describes his view of the heart, is beautifully poetic. The dude went on a journey.

I love your show Joe, cool content, and I feel like I'm hanging out with a smart talkative friend. It's comforting and helps me cope with the stresses of daily life, and those traumas that burst in on you, up ending your life, so yea, thanks Joe.

It's been a long time Joe! Thanks for all the fresh content!

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge was actually confirmed and noted and mapped by a woman. Marie Tharpe. Please do a video on her! And other lesser-known women of history

7:55 Yeah it is genuinely absurd how YT will absolutely not allow certain words at the risk of nuking your channel. Yet they turn a blind eye to grifters doing terrible things just because they bring in the cash. 🙄

Another rockin' video Joe. You have been on a roll lately. Congrats and Good show ol' chap.

Love this video! One of the most interesting I’ve seen. Thank you very much for sharing.

Joe, would you ever do a piece on scientists, and studies being paid for to write and publish papers in favor of the agendas of the parties asking the studies to be done? You have a voice that reaches a lot of people, for instance my daughter (a teenager who wants to go to college for physics and myself, in construction management) both watch your content.

Absolutely love the disclaimer in the beginning! Taking everything with a grain of salt and a level head, many things take time in order to be done right.

Was very happy to wake up to a Joe video notification... Yet another great, informative video.. now i have to binge some old videos

“Some are just bad scientists” thank you for saying that Joe. I really wish that the general public understood more often how science is a human endeavour like any over and that it’s only the aggregate of human knowledge in a field that we tend to trust, not individual people necessarily. Just like in general the fields of medicine, law etc are highly trusted but almost no one would say there aren’t a LOT of quack drs and lawyers out there. Not enough people, especially journalists recognize the same about science.

A Science breakthrough seems too hard to promote back then but I'm glad these scientists got the recognition they deserve in the science community

Geez! I just realized that at 61 years of age, I'm old enough to remember when Plate Techtonics was taught to me & was labelled as the newest theory. I think I was in 4th grade & it mentioned the theory had been around a while, but that some evidence found in the '60s helped to prove it.

Awesome video Joe!

Great video! Thanks! A couple other even earlier scientists proposed continental motion: Abraham Ortelius and Antonio Snider-Pellegrini. Makes you wonder who today has things figured out but won't be recognized for another generation or two.

About the Lone Genius: It reminds me of the urban legend about a kid that found errors in some NASA rocket design (or something?) and it saved lives (or something?). Of course, I have never been able to prove/disprove the story. I’m pretty sure it’s crap because I heard the story after the Challenger disaster. What a time to be alive! 😂

Ooo a morning Joe! Enjoying this coffee and this video, thanks Joe!

2:30 I really appreciate that clarification. Some people really need to hear that,

My Grandmother's cousin Alexander Fleming ,discovered penicillin and recognized its worth but he couldn't be bothered to figure out how to synthesize it so he shared the Nobel Prize with 2 other people who could be bothered several years later.

If reality doesn't care about your feelings, people would rather believe a lie that does.

Entertaining as usual and highly appreciated! I just ordered your t-shirt print as a hoodie in black (harshly expensive, but well...). Consider this my "Thank you!" for all the light-hearted and mostly accurate videos! 🥳

Thanks, Joe! Great info, I always love hearing about amazing human minds that were ahead of their time. Sending love 😊❤

Wegener was indeed pilloried and ostracized. He kept working on his theory, methodically overcoming the critiques he received, but he was studiously ignored by his entire field. His generation of peers basically all had to die before anyone could seriously re-examine his work, thanks to the ridicule and stigma attached to it. Once his work had been declared pseudoscience, nobody would even look at it again because of that label, despite him refining it and responding to his critics. The regular character assassination of people with unorthodox ideas that goes on in the scientific community does a lot to undermine people's trust in it. That's what people don't like, the lack of personal integrity, not the fact that unusual ideas get pushback. Because if a scientist, or group of scientists, don't have integrity in their personal dealings with their peers, why would anyone assume they have intellectual integrity?

In the tapestry of science, a tale unfolds, Joe Scott explores where the mystery molds. A mind ahead of its time, so keen, The guy who predicted Germ Theory, yet went insane. In the corridors of history, a mind ablaze, A prophet of science, in a curious maze. Germ Theory, a revelation profound, Yet the weight of foresight, a heavy mound. Joe Scott delves into this untold lore, A visionary mind, gone to the core. Predicting the unseen, the microscopic dance, Yet the world at large, in a skeptical trance. Insanity's grip, a tragic fate, A visionary mind, trapped in a state. Joe Scott unfolds this poignant theme, The guy who foresaw, yet entered a dream. Germ Theory echoes in the scientific stream, A prophecy uttered, yet a personal extreme. In Joe Scott's narration, the story unfolds, A mind's journey, where mystery holds. In the cosmic ballet of science and strife, A tribute to the visionary, who glimpsed life. Joe Scott guides us through this poignant refrain, The guy who predicted, yet succumbed to the strain.

Thank you Joe for mocking RU-vid and the others that are guilty of the overbearing and senseless censorship with that suicide joke.

I LOVE stuff like this! Amazing video!

AwJ, I'm so glad you've got sponsors, it makes me a wee bit less guilty for so enjoying your content, being too poor to pay what your hard work is worth! I loved the info about Byrons' daughter! Having recently learned of a paper Shelly wrote, (anonymous at first) at Oxford when 17 or so, a brilliant critique of religion, I realize how brilliant so many are. And how did someone from Samos, so long ago, see so much? Just wow! Though, I thought that though Pasteur disproved 'spontaneous generation', it was Lister who finally got surgeons to clean, and did antiseptic?👍💙💙💙🥰✌

Sad how time is a friend to the species but an enemy to the individual. So frustrating that some went unrecognized for so long. On a personal level but also that their ideas could be even more refined by now if they were accepted earlier

Great content. l always looking forward to Joe's newest video. So informative and entertaining.

Great video

Great video Joe (as usual). I would add Nikola Tesla, because even though is famous, he had other inventions / concepts that basically predicted Internet, video calling all this modern communication.

Shame no Anaximander on the list, but I guess he was more of a philosopher anyways.

"It is, with very few exceptions, the work of some mad genius." 3:28 I'm not sure that sentence meant what you intended.

No one ‘ patted Ada Lovelace on the head,’ in a patronizing manner. She was a highly respected mathematician. Furthermore she was able to think conceptually in four dimensions, a fact that became extant when she was working in the field of geometry with a famous dude whose name I forget. Finally, she corresponded with most the great scientists of her day. So no; no patronizing.

How did so many doctors not think hand washing was a good idea? Washing hands especially after handling a corpse was known over 4000 years ago.

The entire beginning of this episode puts exactly how I feel when my far far right coworkers say something like this, but I’ve never been able to really put it into words

I know this is kinda dumb but I'm quite impressed with myself for it. When I was like 12 or so, I independently came up with the theory of natural selection years before I was taught about it. I was literally in the shower and I just randomly realised that animals evolved over time because those who weren't good enough died off and the ones who were good enough, lived

Yeah, even I got screwed on the plate tectonics deal. As late as '78-'79 I observed the puzzle scenario to my teacher, and got shot down.

Watching this, I can't help but think these inventors were the OG disruptors. They didn't just break molds; they probably invented the molds too! 🤯🔧 #InnovationMasters

Trust the science they said...like how covid came from bats. Those scientists need to find a new career.

You are so good at explaining things. Would you pleeeeeese explain why you think it benefits your videos to have that bass sound track coming and going softly in the background? WF?

That is really fascinnating how there is so smart scientists who came up with these idea so far ahead of their time it just shows the amount of time and creative work they put into it cheers too them and we could thank them for their inventions that improves our daily life very much.

No one is more closed-minded than a Christian or a scientist.

Calling Zhang Heng the "Leonardo da Vinci of China" is a bit of a misnomer, since Zhang Heng came first. If anything, it would be more accurate to call Leonardo da Vinci the Zhang Heng of Italy.

it's mindblowing how *recent* some of these discoveries are relative to how long humans have existed, like, 3 generations ago, bloodletting was an accepted medical practice and we didn't know how the heart worked! Humanity is so young, and we're on the cusp of destroying ourselves already.

Thanks for the disclaimer at the start! Spot on Joe!

sir, this is the third title for this video. is confusing stop it lol

Blows my mind that genius @14:55 didn’t take the exhaust being any kind of issue…

I have always loved science history. Thanks for those tidbits.

Thanks for the awesome content!

Great video, Joe...👍

Interesting, thank you for creating, producing, uploading! Greetings from NL (EU).

I appreciate the valiant effort to try to not use the childish word "unalive" in an educational context.

Another scientist that was ignored, was John Michell, who emitted the idea of a "dark star" (a black hole) but was ignored probably because he was mainly a geologist.

Shout out to Georg Cantor. His set theory, was so controversial at the time that many of his esteemed contemporaries called him crazy. Today, only 150 or so years later, it is a foundation of mathmatics.

The acceptence of Wegener’s theory is really recent. I studied geology and had this old teacher who studied in the same university in the 1970s. He said that at that time, some of his teachers did not believe in Wegener’s plate tectonics theory! I was shocked 😂

Woo hoo, I love anytime Ada the Countess of Lovelace is brought up. I wrote a paper about her in High School, like 30 years ago, and I’m still surprised how unknown she is to this day.

Thank you for this

Thanks for brightening up my Mondays with your dry wit and extraordinary presentations!

I think this list could include a few more Greeks. For example, Democritus who theorized the atomic nature of matter about 2500 years before Einstein, Rutherford and Bohr and Archimedes whos mathematics was on the cusp of modern calculus with the development of his exhaustion method

Fun fact about Ada lovelace. She was schooled by 3 of the best minds of the day in the hope that she would not become like her father. Apparently it didnt really work that way but she was indeed a pioneer of computer science.

If anything, the rate of discovery of major breakthroughs in physics has slowed to a crawl. Even things like detecting gravitational waves was testing a prediction made near the beginning of the 20th century. The Higgs particle and field were proposed back in the 1960s. Much of what is awarded under physics is not for new theoretical breakthroughs, but for older ones that have taken many decades of development to be able to test. Even Bell's theorem was to do with how the "hidden variable" explanation of quantum entanglement favoured by Albert Einstein might be tested. Nb. On the points about progress in science being held up by influential senior figures holding on to oumoded ideas, such as with plate tectonics and atomic theory, Max Planck famously made a declaration often now summarised as "science advances one funeral at a time".

This is the Joey boy I love!! Great video