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The first breadcrumbs show up during World War I when a chemist at Johnson Hopkins was inventing a way to synthesize

silica gel. Today you probably know it as those little paper packets you're not supposed to eat

from the pockets of your new clothes. But during the Great War, it was needed in quantity for gas masks.

In his experiments with the synthesized material, Walter Patrick noticed that

sometimes, when he used silica gel to soak up water, a small amount of it would resist being absorbed.

A few more crumbs over the next couple of decades. An American grad student in the 20s writes

a dissertation on water that is adverse

to evaporating when placed in tiny, thin, long crystal vials or capillary tubes. Then, a researcher

in the USSR finds a similar phenomenon in the late 40s. Blips. Curiosity's.

Nothing to take note of, and no one much did.

Even in 1961, when an obscure Soviet scientist on the edge of Siberia began pumping

distilled water vapor into capillaries, it wasn't important research, just a tiny few drops of water in some tiny little quartz

tubes. Nothing to start a war over. Except, it kind of did.

This is the constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler. Today's

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