Hey Guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Cleanliness, a minor thing that has effected the course of human history. We've had plenty of diseases prevented by science and tradition, and we've got to the point where 'Clean Rooms' exist! Overall, this is how we've changed how we view the world around us, and our crusade to make it clean. From sewers to phones, this is how 'germ freaks' and janitors helped change the world, and invent some really cool stuff along the way!
The first real attempt at extreme waste removal was Chicago in 1855, back when horses still were the main transportation devices. The main problem that plagued Chicago? It was built perfectly flat on a area where a glacier slow crawled. The problem about that? There was nothing to drain the city of waste. So, something had to be done. But what? The answer was proved to be obvious to one person, Ellis Chesbrough. The solution was: Raise the entire city using jack screws to put the sewer system in place. And he did it, raising the entire city a average of 10 feet and moving it onto platforms, which had to be towed using 4 teams of horses to move a wheeled building away from where they were building, which proved to hold up traffic. However, it worked and waste was no longer building up.
But Chicago wasn't the only city with problems when a cholera outbreak effected Soho, London., and scientists needed to find out why. Fortunately, John Snow stepped up to bat for this scientific discovery, and marked one of the most famous maps in history, the Soho Map. This map marked every outbreak of cholera in the entire county of Soho, and he discovered two things: That the disease clustered around water pumps, and that the only building to not have a signal outbreak was the brewery, where the workers drank beer. Because of this, Snow hypothesized that a process in the beer made it drinkable, seeing how it started off as the same water from the pumps that were killing others.
But why in 1856 was this finally discovered? Because before then, we had been drinking beer for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. We'd only recently begun drinking water again, unknowing of the problems of the water we'd polluted. Fortunately, Snow and his comrades made so that everyone knew that boiling water would make it drinkable, but not everyone wanted to do that. In fact, (but not in Chicago), some were willing to risk over 200,000 humans on a single experiment. John Leal wasn't a mad scientist, but if his hypothesis of chlorine being helpful in purifying water wasn't true, he'd be labeled as one of the few mass murderers that killed 200 million. He added a machine to the reservoirs he was supposed to be taking care of that fed the water thru a chloride washer before being sent out to the public. He himself drank the water, and it was found out after a while and he went to court three months after the task. However, he had proven his experiment that chloride didn't kill in small doses for humans, but it did for things like cholera. This helped 'clean' the water, and brought on new waves of swimmers, and people who drank water instead of anything else.
This chloride idea also made a wave of cleaning products, one of which was Clorox. Inventions such as vacuums and brooms, while already existing, were bought up by now clean conscious consumers. And the soon to be spotless areas became full off people who used to be killed off by diseases from dirt and dust, and brought on a population increase. However, the most important thing is that this allowed us to create computers. How? Clean Rooms could now exist, meaning that people could enter areas without any thing as small as dust. This allowed us to design motherboards, and other extremely delicate parts of machines and electronics that would have been contaminated and have problems, or not work at all. Because of some madman who proved that chloride could help us stay alive, you can read this on your phone. Funny, eh?
Adventure Van, dusting and cleaning aawwwwaayy!
Monday, June 5, 2017
Sound!
Hey Guys, it's Adventure Van, with a blog about Sound. Sound is the thing that allows us to hear shouting, whispering, music, noises, and other things. However, sound has always been around. We have evidence of early cavemen using caves to amplify there voices. So why is sound important? Because humans have invented ways of recording music, sending voices over radio, and eventually designing the phone that we use everyday. From business to necessity, this how the Sounds we know today came to be.
Sound started being really experimented in by human standards in opera houses, where we designed them so people could hear speech everywhere. These innovations eventually spread to creating the first ever recorder, made by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. The 'phonautograph', as he named it, recorded the first ever voice, and therfore made him the first man to have his voice live forever, So why isn't he in the history books with Alexander Graham Bell? Because he forgot about one thing: playback. The machine was only very recently deciphered, and it's gravely and almost impossible to understand. But, it's the first time in history that man has made himself effectively immortal and timeless.
With other inventors adding on to this, we began recording music and being able to play it at a moments notice. We also began to replace letters with scrolls of scribbles on wax, so that they could be read out loud as they were said. However, this never caught on, unfortunately, as the devices needed to make these were expensive, uncommon, and broke down often. But this gave the idea of transporting sound to other people, and from this idea is where Alexander Graham Bell got his famous first simultaneous discussion over distance. This itself was a huge development in history, as now you didn't have to be near others, and buildings that were skyscraper proportions could host entire groups of people working simultaneously. However, the cabling was expensive and bulky, and it wasn't able to connect across cities, counties, countries, and others.
However, we eventually managed to discover a new way of communication, thanks to Lee De Forest, who discovered radio waves. He disovered these now common waves by chance: he played with electromagnetic pulses and discovered that something invisible was changing the intensity of his gas lamp. The 'wireless telegraph' had already been invented, but you'd have to be in the same 1 mile, which wasn't a long distance caller. But, after finding out that radio waves and gas were connected, De Forest went on to create a way to get the gas to expand the signal of the radio waves. He tested this amazing system by setting up a microphone system in a opera house, and playing it to him from the other side of town. Amazingly, the grainy noise was the music, and he could eventually get a two way radio system.
While at first this was used mainly for hobbyists, construction workers, and police officers to talk while working, some bright person saw that combining the powers of records and this radio meant that music could be played anywhere with a radio, not needing a record or music source. Because any song could be played, this meant that Jazz was introduced to people who never had picked up a record of it before, creating the 'Jazz Age'. This also helped the black political movement, as songs such as 'Strange Fruit' were played to the ears of many people.
Sound has been around for a while, but this sudden attempt at recording and sharing it is only recent. But we've done it.
Adventure Van, hearing this.
Sound started being really experimented in by human standards in opera houses, where we designed them so people could hear speech everywhere. These innovations eventually spread to creating the first ever recorder, made by Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville. The 'phonautograph', as he named it, recorded the first ever voice, and therfore made him the first man to have his voice live forever, So why isn't he in the history books with Alexander Graham Bell? Because he forgot about one thing: playback. The machine was only very recently deciphered, and it's gravely and almost impossible to understand. But, it's the first time in history that man has made himself effectively immortal and timeless.
With other inventors adding on to this, we began recording music and being able to play it at a moments notice. We also began to replace letters with scrolls of scribbles on wax, so that they could be read out loud as they were said. However, this never caught on, unfortunately, as the devices needed to make these were expensive, uncommon, and broke down often. But this gave the idea of transporting sound to other people, and from this idea is where Alexander Graham Bell got his famous first simultaneous discussion over distance. This itself was a huge development in history, as now you didn't have to be near others, and buildings that were skyscraper proportions could host entire groups of people working simultaneously. However, the cabling was expensive and bulky, and it wasn't able to connect across cities, counties, countries, and others.
However, we eventually managed to discover a new way of communication, thanks to Lee De Forest, who discovered radio waves. He disovered these now common waves by chance: he played with electromagnetic pulses and discovered that something invisible was changing the intensity of his gas lamp. The 'wireless telegraph' had already been invented, but you'd have to be in the same 1 mile, which wasn't a long distance caller. But, after finding out that radio waves and gas were connected, De Forest went on to create a way to get the gas to expand the signal of the radio waves. He tested this amazing system by setting up a microphone system in a opera house, and playing it to him from the other side of town. Amazingly, the grainy noise was the music, and he could eventually get a two way radio system.
While at first this was used mainly for hobbyists, construction workers, and police officers to talk while working, some bright person saw that combining the powers of records and this radio meant that music could be played anywhere with a radio, not needing a record or music source. Because any song could be played, this meant that Jazz was introduced to people who never had picked up a record of it before, creating the 'Jazz Age'. This also helped the black political movement, as songs such as 'Strange Fruit' were played to the ears of many people.
Sound has been around for a while, but this sudden attempt at recording and sharing it is only recent. But we've done it.
Adventure Van, hearing this.
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Cold!
Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Cold! Cold is something we take for granted, but do you know how much we had to fight to perfect it? Companies got in the way, greed, science, arguments, it all has added up to being able to take out ice of your refrigerator. From Ice Barons to Sickness, this is how history changed cold.
The first part is original Ice, Lake Ice. Lake Ice was ice cut from lakes in England, and was stored in houses full of straw for keeping in summer. However, Fredric Tudor, a Ice Baron, thought that if ice could be brought to the hotter areas, the equator, it could sell for much more. So, a race was brought on. As not only did they need to design a boat that could carry ice, they need stands there to hold it. So, Tudor and other Ice Barons, went on to spend millions of dollars to get rich. One problem, the natives there didn't know what to do with it, and over 3/4 of it melted before being sold. However, Tudor did succeed in America, where Ice was automatically used for martinis to sickbays.
The invention of the Industrial and Home freezers are very different. Home freezers were invented to stop death and disease, or stave it off. A doctor who went by name of John Gorrie was dealing with a breakout of malaria. He needed ice for saving his patients fevers, but the ships bringing his supplies were shipwrecked, so he had to do something radical: make a machine to make ice. With his ice supplies dwindling, he spent all the spare time he had perfecting the newly discovered air type called vacuum, which wasn't breathable but it could freeze stuff, including water. He invented a machine that could create blocks of ice, which allowed him to save his patients. He patented it, but Tudor and the Ice Barons started a campaign against it, saying it was littered with diseases.
However, they themselves began having to harvest lower quality ice, which had plenty of diseases of their own, and Gorrie's machines and others like his began to sell. However, Air Conditioning and Freezing Buildings themselves were designed for a different reason. A book company hired a newling scientist to deal with their humidity. The man's name was Willis Carrier, and he invented the first 'apparatus for treating air'. This not only lowered humidity to a null, but also made the entire building cooler. This was then minimized or enlarged by other engineers and scientists, as well as improved, until we got the air conditioners and building sized freezers that we we have today.
But what good are huge freezers if the food in them have already rotted by the time they get there? Fortunately, a invention had been made before hand that solved this problem. As most freezers slow froze, which created bigger ice crystals. These destroyed the texture of the food, and in some cases helped nullify the freezing and gave gaps for bacteria to fester. However, Clarence Birdseye, after spending some time in Labrador, Canada, he discovered that the natives there could fish, and then a month later eat it as it was then. He watched them fish, put it in a hole, and bury it. This process he dubbed 'flash freezing', which made the ice crystals smaller, keeping texture and leaving next to no room for bacteria. You can see Birds Eye peas, fish, and other frozen goods with his name on them. This also the reason that most frozen foods have 'do not refreeze' labels on them.
The results of this? One, air-conditioning let retirees in the north flood the south, which in turn turned the south republican while the north liberal. Theaters could now play in the summer, as air-conditioning made sure that films wouldn't warp and that people would actually come in, creating the summer blockbuster. Refrigerators would allow us to pass having to make insulated rooms and make entire buildings, that would let heat escape with the old design of straw, able to store food. It would also revolutionize the bar, as ice could be made on hand, allowing drinks like martinis, and 'on the rocks' were no longer expensive. And now we can freeze things anywhere, not just places which were already cold.
That's Adventure Van, chilling.
The first part is original Ice, Lake Ice. Lake Ice was ice cut from lakes in England, and was stored in houses full of straw for keeping in summer. However, Fredric Tudor, a Ice Baron, thought that if ice could be brought to the hotter areas, the equator, it could sell for much more. So, a race was brought on. As not only did they need to design a boat that could carry ice, they need stands there to hold it. So, Tudor and other Ice Barons, went on to spend millions of dollars to get rich. One problem, the natives there didn't know what to do with it, and over 3/4 of it melted before being sold. However, Tudor did succeed in America, where Ice was automatically used for martinis to sickbays.
The invention of the Industrial and Home freezers are very different. Home freezers were invented to stop death and disease, or stave it off. A doctor who went by name of John Gorrie was dealing with a breakout of malaria. He needed ice for saving his patients fevers, but the ships bringing his supplies were shipwrecked, so he had to do something radical: make a machine to make ice. With his ice supplies dwindling, he spent all the spare time he had perfecting the newly discovered air type called vacuum, which wasn't breathable but it could freeze stuff, including water. He invented a machine that could create blocks of ice, which allowed him to save his patients. He patented it, but Tudor and the Ice Barons started a campaign against it, saying it was littered with diseases.
However, they themselves began having to harvest lower quality ice, which had plenty of diseases of their own, and Gorrie's machines and others like his began to sell. However, Air Conditioning and Freezing Buildings themselves were designed for a different reason. A book company hired a newling scientist to deal with their humidity. The man's name was Willis Carrier, and he invented the first 'apparatus for treating air'. This not only lowered humidity to a null, but also made the entire building cooler. This was then minimized or enlarged by other engineers and scientists, as well as improved, until we got the air conditioners and building sized freezers that we we have today.
But what good are huge freezers if the food in them have already rotted by the time they get there? Fortunately, a invention had been made before hand that solved this problem. As most freezers slow froze, which created bigger ice crystals. These destroyed the texture of the food, and in some cases helped nullify the freezing and gave gaps for bacteria to fester. However, Clarence Birdseye, after spending some time in Labrador, Canada, he discovered that the natives there could fish, and then a month later eat it as it was then. He watched them fish, put it in a hole, and bury it. This process he dubbed 'flash freezing', which made the ice crystals smaller, keeping texture and leaving next to no room for bacteria. You can see Birds Eye peas, fish, and other frozen goods with his name on them. This also the reason that most frozen foods have 'do not refreeze' labels on them.
The results of this? One, air-conditioning let retirees in the north flood the south, which in turn turned the south republican while the north liberal. Theaters could now play in the summer, as air-conditioning made sure that films wouldn't warp and that people would actually come in, creating the summer blockbuster. Refrigerators would allow us to pass having to make insulated rooms and make entire buildings, that would let heat escape with the old design of straw, able to store food. It would also revolutionize the bar, as ice could be made on hand, allowing drinks like martinis, and 'on the rocks' were no longer expensive. And now we can freeze things anywhere, not just places which were already cold.
That's Adventure Van, chilling.
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