How metal wires changed the world!

Friends, we are so super duper excited to tell you that we just added a bunch more cities to our 2026 live show tour. Get ready for singing, dancing, magic tricks, game shows, mystery sounds, and scientists falling from the sky. In a totally safe way, we promise. Plus, there's a chance for you to attend special meet and greet parties in every city. So come on! This spring we're coming to Milwaukee, St. Paul. Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Chattanooga, Durham. San Francisco, Portland, Buffalo, Toronto, and Ann Arbor. We're basically going to be everywhere. Look behind you. Are we there? No? Well, we probably will be soon. Head over to BrainsOn.org slash events for tickets. And make sure you grab passes to our meet and greet party. You get to ask us questions, take pictures with us, and I'll even do some close-up magic. That's BrainsOn.org slash events. Can't wait to see you. BrainsOn Universe. You're listening to BrainsOn where we're serious about being curious. Clark Kent is an ordinary person with a secret. Yeah, he seems normal enough until you find out he can fly. He lasers from his eyes, and he's basically indestructible. Right. He's Superman. He has superpowers. Metals like that, too. Metals seem normal enough. Metals are solid, strong materials that are generally great to make stuff with. But, like Clark, metals also have hidden superpowers. People had started to realize, back in the 1600s and 1700s, that metal had some very interesting properties besides what you could make out of it. We can kind of send a little shock, a little signal along a wire and move something from here to there. That's Dylan Thurris, co-founder of Atlas Obscura. He's here again to help with the final chapter in our deep dive on metal. Check out parts one and two if you haven't. Today, we're going to wrap up by looking at how metals' superpowers change the way we send messages around the world. Look up! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's BrainsOn coming at you right now. Hey friends! Sandin and I were unpacking, and we found an old photo album. Oh, Molly, look! Remember that time we attempted to make the world's largest pizza? We're having such a blast in this photo. Yes, so much cheese. Oh here, it's our high school graduation pick. Boy, we were friends even way back when, huh? Totally, and again, so much cheese. Yeah, I kept telling Mark that using shredded cheddar as confetti was a bad idea. The auditorium was overrun with mice for weeks after that. Photo albums are great because they remind you of what's important to you, which in our case is apparently friendship and cheese. And if BrainsOn would go in your family photo album, then why not support us by joining SmartiePass? You get ad-free episodes, bonus content, invites to special hangouts with us. You can even get a message from me where I'll tell you my favorite kind of cheese. It rhymes with smottage-smeez. Just go to BrainsOn.org to sign up, because we gotta support the things we want to see more of in the world. Hey, Sandin, hey Molly, speaking of more, I've got good news. What is it, Mark? We just got one more SmartiePass subscriber. Let's celebrate. I brought the cheddar confetti. Ah, so much cheese! You're listening to BrainsOn. I'm your host, Molly Bloom, and my co-host again is none other than Ava from West Melbourne, Florida. Hi, Ava! Hey, Molly, I'm excited for the party later. Oh yeah, we're finally ready to do the grand opening ceremony for our new headquarters. Sandin is in the lobby setting everything up. It looked great down there, but what's with that giant piece of hard candy hanging from the ceiling? Oh, that's Mark's reverse piñata. It's a large piece of candy, and when you crack it open, tiny, colorful, paper-mache animals fall out. Makes sense. So Ava, this whole series was inspired by your question. I wanted to know how is metal made? To get the answer, we went on quite a journey. We learned that metal comes from giant, dying stars. Some of it ended up on our planet. Ancient humans learned how to work with metal and make cool stuff out of it. First by hammering it to shape it, then later by melting it. They even mixed stuff together to make stronger metals and figured out how to make wires. Today we're going to find out how humans use that wire to send messages all over the world. But first, let's welcome back our guide for this series, Dylan Thurris, co-founder of Atlas Obscura. He co-read a book that looks at metal wires and other clue inventions. It's called The Atlas Obscura Explorer's Guide to Inventing the World. Welcome back, Dylan. Happy to be here. It's like I never left because I didn't actually leave. I will say there are an awful lot of hallways here and I got really lost. Eventually I found my way back to the studio. Sorry about that. We really need to put up the exit signs. But since you're here, let's learn about wires. Let's do it. So when we last left off, we were talking about how in the 1800s, humans got pretty good at making lots of metal wires. And you mentioned that this would lead to some really cool breakthroughs. Yes, but first let's set the scene. Around the late 1700s and early 1800s, something else major was happening in Europe and the US. The Industrial Revolution. This comes up a lot in history. It's a really busy time for humans. We're sailing around the world in big ships, but we don't have cars or electricity in homes yet. But we start having trains and we start making stuff in big factories. These new breakthroughs are powered by something called a steam engine. That's basically a machine that runs on burning things like coal to make steam that powers other things like factories or trains. Before the steam engine, we used renewable energy like water wheels that were powered by rivers. But the steam engine changed all that. For the first time in history, you were not just dependent on either muscle power or renewable power to get stuff done. You suddenly had access to a lot more energy in this using coal and steam engines. The Industrial Revolution comes around the same time we get really good at making metal wires. Which becomes really important because it turns out metal is hiding some cool powers. People had started to realize back in the 1600s and 1700s that metal had some very interesting properties besides what you could make out of it. And so early in the 1700s, they figured out if you actually stack different metals, if you stack zinc and copper, sheets of zinc and copper, and you separate them with basically a rag soaked in seawater, it starts to create an electrical current. These scientists were toying with electricity. It was pretty mysterious stuff back then. But lots of scientists were obsessed. So people are starting to play with this and they're starting to realize that certain metals move electricity better than other metals. And so they realize that, oh, that's interesting. We can kind of send a little shock, a little signal along a wire and move something from here to there. And so people are starting to realize that this might actually come in handy and there might be a way you could use this for practical purposes. This discovery would change how we communicate. That's coming up. But first, Eva, I think it's time to give our ears a jolt. Are you ready for the... Mystery Sound! Here it is. Mystery Sound! That is a bonker sound. Whoa. What do you think? It kind of sounds like someone's going like, maybe in like... I don't even know. Yeah, maybe they're beatboxing? There's like a dance party happening? I like it. It kind of sounded like a sound that I've heard metal make before. Ooh. That would be appropriate since this is a metal episode. Should we hear it again? Not sure I want to, but yes, let's do it. Mystery Sound! I still have no idea. What do you think? It kind of sounded like at the end something was being like pulled away, like at the end, you know? That's good listening. It did sound like metal. There was definitely a metal quality happening. Well, we're going to hear it again and hear the answer at the end of the show. So stick around. We're taking a big whiff of science soon because we're doing an episode all about skunks. Sure, they can stink, but that stink is a very important defense mechanism. It's how they stop other animals from eating them. So, we want to know, if you were an animal, what would your unique or surprising defense mechanism be? Bad breath? Unnerving eye contact? The ability to make any animal incapacitated with laughter due to your knock-knock jokes? Tell us your idea and send it to us at BrainsOn.org slash Contact. You can also send us your questions, mystery sounds, or drawings of our new headquarters. Thank you so much. Can't wait to hear from you. BrainsOn We're back and we're talking metal. But first, I just got a text from Sandin. He says he needs our help in the lobby. Be right back. Okay, Penelope Poodle, play me the song you and your band wrote for the grand opening. Um, can you make it like a little more festive? Perfect! Perfect! Hey, Sandin. Hey, Penelope and the Poodles. We're here. What do you need help with? Oh, hey, Molly and Eva. Thanks for asking. Everything is almost ready for the big opening ceremony of our new headquarters. Congrats. This place looks great. I especially love the comforting sounds vending machine you added. Me too. Let's put a quarter in. I got listening to classical music by a crackling fireplace. Yes! Oh, I got a purring cap making you hot too. Nice. Well, like I said, everything is just about ready, but I still need one more thing. Giant scissors. What about those scissors over there? Molly, those are normal scissors. But everyone knows when you do a grand opening ceremony, you need a big ribbon that you tie across the doorway and then you cut that ribbon with comically large scissors. And then everyone claps and says how cool you look with your big, big scissors. It's practically the law. Hmm. We don't have any really big scissors, but I bet Mark can make some in his lab. Let me text him. Tell him they should be big and gold and also like really, really, really, really, really big. He's on it. Now we got to get back to the studio. Later, Shandong. Good luck. Thanks, see ya. Oh man, I hope Mark gets it. I hope you understand just how important it is that these scissors are big. Okay, we're back with Dylan Thuris, co-founder of Atlas Obscura. Hi. We left off talking about how a couple of important things were happening in the world around the same time. One, we learned how to make lots of metal wire pretty quickly and cheaply. Two, we learned that you can zap little jolts of electricity through those wires. And finally, we learned people had a problem sending letters long distances. The problem was, it took forever. You could put it on a boat, you could put it on a horse. You know, it was whatever form of transportation you were carrying the letter in was the fastest way to get it there. But that could take weeks. If you were traveling from one country to the other, you know, across an ocean, holy moly, that could take months. This is where the wire and electricity come in handy because electricity can travel through wires way faster than boats or horses or trains move. People figured out they could run wires from one place to another. Then they could easily send little pulses of electricity between those places. By using this new found lovely creation of huge amounts of long cheaply made wire, you could send a little electric signal, just a boop, and you could send a message using that wire. You could have a way to just generate different lengths of electric signal, long or short, and use something called Morse code to basically send a message almost in real time. Because those electric signals are moving close to the speed of light. And just like that, a revolutionary new invention called the telegraph was born. It worked like this. Say you wanted to send a message to your mom. You would write your message down and give it to a telegraph operator. Hi mom, happy birthday. Then that operator would translate that into Morse code. The code for H is four short beeps and the one for I is two short beeps. And M-O-M is two long beeps for M, three long beeps for O, and two more long beeps for M again. The telegraph operator would use this code to send your message to another telegraph operator in another city. The operator would translate the beeps and bloops back into the original message, then deliver it to your mom. Telegraph Militer, it reads happy birthday. Mom, love John. Ah, that's sweet. But write back, O-M-G. My B-Day was last week. LOL. Are you for real? That's four like the number four. Did you get that? This dramatically changed how people communicated across parts of the U.S. But sending messages across the ocean was still a big problem. Coming up, how we solve that. But first, we got our own messages to check. It's the Mailbag. Hey friends, it's Mark with the Mailbag. We're just putting the final touches on some of the cool new rooms at HQ, but we've got a lot more space to fill. And that's why we asked you what we should put in them. Let's see what you've got for us. Hi, my name is Lauren and I'm from New Jersey. And my room idea is that you should make a room made out of pillows and blankets, like a pillow for acceptance permit. Oh, Lauren, brilliant. It's perfect for pillow fights and afternoon naps. My name is Ben and I'm from Chills Peak, Virginia. And I think the new Ben's and headquarters should have a mini tornado room. Ooh, Ben, definitely. We got to do that one. A mini tornado room is going to be perfect for when you want your hair to have that just tussled by tornado. Look. Hi, my name is Quincy. I'm from Eagle River, Alaska. And I think you should have a room and brains on headquarters where you can order whatever food you want and go good or makes it for you as your own personal chef. He could have a restaurant with special funny monster food that is actually regular food just named gross stuff like snail pie that is actually regular pie. Thank you. Oh, Quincy, these ideas are all great. In fact, we've already added some of them, but we need more. Send us your idea by going to brains on dot org. Or you can just send us a question, a joke, a riddle or whatever. We're looking forward to hearing from you. Uh, Mark, your snail pie is ready. Yes! Got a jet. Later. What brains on without the ads joined Smarty Pass and get ad free versions of every show in the brains on universe. Plus, you're supporting the work we do to teach kids about cool things like the science of metal. Sign up at brains on dot org. Thanks. Hey, all Molly here with Eva and Dylan and we're talking about how telegraphs completely changed the game when it came to communication. It's exciting stuff. Right. Before you had to write a letter and put that on a horse or a train or a boat, it could take days, weeks or even months to get it delivered. But then suddenly in the mid 1800s, you could just use little pulses of electricity sent over metal wires to deliver a message almost instantly. Which was huge, but it only worked if you could run wire between two locations. It's one thing to run a telegraph cable from Baltimore to Washington DC. It is a very different thing to run one from New York all the way to London. Because there's an ocean between New York and London. Yeah. How are you going to get a wire across an ocean? Well, people thought up a way. There's a big plan to say we are going to create a trans oceanic telegraph cable. We are going to lay a piece of wire on the bottom of the entire ocean stretching from one coast to the other. And then we're going to be able to chat with each other. So they make this incredibly enormous coil of wire. And in the year 1858, they put the huge wire on a boat. Then they began to travel across the Atlantic Ocean. And they are basically dropping this down. It's got lead weights on it that are pulling it down to the bottom of the ocean. It's wrapped in this kind of sticky, rubbery stuff called gutta percha. And we're going across the ocean with this wire trailing behind this steam ship. And once they're done, they give the new cross ocean line a go. And Queen Victoria sends a lovely flowery message to President Buchanan, the president at the time. And everyone is so excited. And for a few weeks, everyone is like, oh my God, we can send messages across the ocean and then it stops working. Oh no! I know! What happened? It's not obvious exactly what broke it, but probably it was not quite strong enough. And it probably just got sort of washed around on the bottom of the ocean. It is crossing, you know, a thousand plus miles. But that didn't stop them. They built stronger wires, better wires. And they laid it across the ocean again. It took about ten years, but success. It worked, and this time it kept working. In some ways, you could say this was the beginning of our modern age of communication. Yeah, because over time we learned to send more things over metal wires, like voices thanks to telephones. Hello? Hi mom, it's your son John. Happy birthday. Oh John, I was for real for real, not expecting you. We also found ways to send electricity through metal wires straight to homes. Yeah, to power things like lights. Today, even the internet is zapped around the world in large part thanks to wires, though a lot of them are made with fiberglass or plastic now. If you want to learn more, check out our episode about how the internet works. You'll hear how those underwater wires get damaged by curious sharks. Metal is a big part of our lives. From the silver where you eat with. To the phone you FaceTime your mom with on her birthday. And it took a lot of people and a lot of breakthroughs to get here. Yeah, as we've seen in the past three episodes, the journey from hunks of raw metal to metal wires wrapping the world took lots of people in lots of places. Trying lots of different things. Sometimes we have this idea in our head that one person has an idea and they just drive invented this thing and you know, and suddenly the whole world changes. But it's actually a much more organic, much weirder, much slower, much more collaborative process. Dylan, thanks for sharing all this cool history with us. Truly, it was my pleasure. FaceTime! Say, isn't it about time for Sandin's big grand opening ceremony? Let's go so we don't miss it. Oh man, oh man, it's almost time. Sandin, we're here. Are you ready? Just about. Whoa, that ribbon looks great. I just don't mark comes through with those big scissors. Did someone say big scissors? Mark, you're here. Will these do? What? Those are normal sized. I specifically asked for big ones. I know, I know, I was kidding. Here are the real scissors I made. Back it up, crew! Uh, those scissors are two stories tall. The blades are as long as basketball courts. They're absolutely ridiculously big. They're perfect. Thanks, Mark. Happy grand opening ceremony, buddy. Now, let's cut that ribbon and break open the reverse pinata. Come on! Everyone's gonna clap for me. This is gonna be great. Oh, I can't wait to cut that ribbon. Woo! Let's go. This is gonna be so great. Party, party, party! Yeah! Humans have been making things with metal for thousands of years. And when we got good at making metal wires, it opened up a lot of possibilities. Not only could we send little jolts of electricity through those wires, but we learned to send messages too. Eventually wires ran across states and whole countries. Even across the ocean. This led us to send messages all over the place. And we wired up homes and buildings so we could power them with electricity. That's it for this episode of Brains On. This episode was written by Sam Tautin, produced by me Molly Bloom and sound designed by Mark Sanchez. He also wrote our theme music. Thanks to Andy Doucette and Vicki Lynn Tour for their voice acting and special thanks to Cherise Pedrick and John Aguila. Super duper special thanks to Ken Toborsky and Code of the North for their website help. And shout out to Dylan Therese for taking us on this fascinating tour through history. Okay, Eva, let's go back to that mystery sound again. Okay, what do you think? I don't know, something that's like circling around like metal or something like that and then being like pulled away at the end. I like that idea. I like it a lot. I'm going to change my guess to a beatboxing robot. Let's hear the answer. Hi, my name is Ben and I live from West Virginia. That was the sign of an egg rolling in a mixing bowl. Excuse me. An egg rolling in a mixing bowl? That's like the metal sound was like. Yeah, so the metal mixing bowl was making that sound. I've never had an occasion to roll an egg in a mixing bowl. Me neither. But I guess now we should try. If we want a dance party and we want to pretend a robot is beatboxing all we need is an egg in a metal bowl. Yes. Now it's time for the brains honor roll. These are the incredible kids who keep the show going with their questions, ideas, mystery sounds, drawings, and high fives. Akira from Simpsonville, South Carolina. Callum from Berkeley, California. Seth from Atlanta. Mack from Succasuna, New Jersey. Waylon and Keller from Napa, California. Oakley from Denver. Anuk from Maine. Austin and Nora from Dudley, Massachusetts. Maya from New York City. Magnolia from Sunset. Utah Rebecca from Chicago. Dylan from London, England. Akiva from Los Angeles. Aden from Lexington, Massachusetts. Aubrey from Philadelphia. Maya from Melbourne, Australia. Landon and Sophia from Richmond Hill, Georgia. Russell and William from Durham, North Carolina. Walter and Leo from Chicago. Jonathan from Seattle. Daniela from Italy. Naya from Chandler, Arizona. Moira from California. Oscar from Hausatonic, Massachusetts. Alita and Kora from Seattle. Athena from Imus, Philippines. Sloan from Georgia. Ezekiel from Spring, Texas. Kate from Wallenford, Connecticut. William from Walnut, California. June and Adrian from Iowa City. Caleb and Landon from Lexington, Kentucky. Dylan from Rochester, New York. Julia from White Plains, New York. Vanley from Tucson, Arizona. Pete from Richmond, Virginia. Wesley from Lincolnshire, Illinois. Reese from Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Colette and Max from Cary, North Carolina. Lucien from Chicago. Cole from Edmonton, Elbride. Kale from New York City. Kale from New York City. William and Adrian from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. William and Adrian from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Kale from Fort Worth, California. Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, Miami, on in two weeks. Thanks for listening!