This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

You're listening to Part-Time Genius, the production of kaleidoscope and IHeart Radio.

Guess what, Will?

What's that, Mango?

So if it weren't for a 19th century Scottish scientist, my career right now would be completely different.

And what do you mean by that?

Well, this particular invention is something you hear mentioned at the beginning of all the podcasts I work on these days. Oh, like a kaleidoscope, right? That's right. It's the name of the podcast network I co-founded. And it turns out the kaleidoscope was invented by a guy named David Brewster. He was born in the Southern Uplands of Scotland and attended the University of Edinburgh. He actually became a minister at first, but his lifelong

passion for science, particularly the science of light, inspired him to study optics. And in 1814,

while doing an experiment that involved bouncing light between plates of glass, he noticed that

if the glass was placed at specific angles, it actually created the striking symmetrical patterns.

And he decided to see if he could recreate this effect in different ways. So he tried again,

this time beaming all this polarized light across gold and silver plates. And the result was this stunning, colorful array. So he set out to create, in his words, a new optical instrument for creating and exhibiting beautiful forms. So if I'm understanding this right, this is really my favorite kind of invention because it sounds like he's not trying to invent something practical. Like he just thought these light patterns were pretty. Is that right? Exactly. And after a few months of tinkering, he actually built a proto-collegoscope and the device had angled mirrors with colored glass fastened around them to cast all these reflections. And the first people to view it were members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. And they loved it. But Brewster wasn't done. His final stroke of genius was making

the colored glass pieces rotate in order to create all these different shapes and patterns, you know, like the kaleidoscopes we know today. But while the instrument itself might have been a novelty, the principles behind it were actually really advanced. So in 1858, Brewster wrote a book about the science of kaleidoscopes, summarizing what he'd learned in the process of making his invention, everything from like the geometry of kaleidoscopic forms to the physics of light, and in Chapter 16, he made a reference to a compound known as iodoquine sulfate, the crystals of which, he said, were remarkably good at polarizing light. Almost 70 years later, a Harvard student named Edwin H. Land would read this and get the idea for a new kind of polarizing filter that could be used for photography, and he called it Polaroid. That's amazing. And I think it all began with a minister who just kind of liked pretty colors. Yeah, I know. I mean, the idea of this toy turning into a camera is just like stunning. But more specifically, it all began in Scotland. And today we're discovering nine surprising facts about the northernmost country in the UK, from a once-in-a-lifetime fossil find to this shocking

truth behind bagpipes. So why don't we dive in? we're discovering nine surprising facts about the northernmost country in the UK, from a once-in-a-lifetime

fossil find to this shocking truth behind bagpipes. So why don't we dive in? Hey there, podcast listeners. Welcome to part-time genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as always, I'm joined by my good friend Mengas shot ticketer. And over there in the booth, all tuckered out from having walked 500 miles, and that's not it. And then 500 more. That's our pal and producer, Dylan Fing, and his dedication never ceases to amazing. It is incredible. He walked to Dayton, Ohio, and back again just so we could make a 10-second reference to the Proclaimers, which I love. Thank you, Dylan, for getting us into this Scotter spirit. All right. Well, speaking of impressive physical feats, Mango, my first fact is also a new item on my bucket list. So I want to bag some Monroe's. Is that legal? Not only is it legal, it's actually encouraged, Mango. So Monroe is any mountain in Scotland that's over 3,000 feet tall. And I was curious how many of these there were. There are 282 Monroe's in total. And if you make it to the top of one, you've bagged it. That's what they say.

Now, you may be thinking that a Monroe is a scientific term or a word derived from Gaelic, but actually their name for Sir Hugh Monroe, who surveyed and cataloged them. This was way back in 1891. Now, first of all, I love this terminology. Bagging a Monroe is ridiculous. It's a great term. It's ridiculous. But did this guy just wake up one day and decide to make like a huge list of mountains?

No, it was actually an assignment.

He was asked to do it by the editor of the Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal. And mountain climbing and hill walking were, and of course still are popular pastimes in Scotland. And that's, of course, thanks to the country's rugged terrain. So Monroe had co-founded the club a few years earlier. so he was clearly qualified for this,

but he had something else going for him.

According to a biography written by the Monroe Society,

he was known as a compulsive note-taker, and quote, he flung himself with enthusiasm into everything he undertook. So it seems like a super interesting guy, but although he worked tirelessly to catalog them all, Monroe didn't bag all the Monroe's himself. He actually sadly died of pneumonia in 1919, with only three mountains left on his climbing list. It's just such a bummer. That is really tragic.

...