Welcome to AirNManky's Cabinet of Curiosity's, a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm

and Mild.

Our world is full of the unexplainable.

And if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

just waiting for us to explore.

Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosity's.

Scientists will tell you that it was George Lometra, who first coined the idea of an expanding

universe originating at a single point, a point he referred to as the primeval atom.

This theory came about in the year 1927, and just two years later, Edwin Hubble confirmed

that the universe and the galaxies within were indeed drifting apart.

But what if I were to tell you that Lometra was not the first to propose such a theory,

or that the first person to do so was actually better known?

Someone perhaps a little more grounded in science than we might think.

Known far and wide as one of the greatest writers to have ever lived, this poet and storyteller

also dabbled in the sciences, and it's within that world, rather than literature, that

we can find one of his lesser known works.

He himself categorized it as a prose poem, but it has more or less confounded people for

years.

He called it Yerika, after the legendary exclamation uttered by Greek inventor Archimedes after

he discovered a method for testing the purity of gold.

This work of nonfiction clocks in at a healthy 40,000 words, and it was actually the last

bit of writing this man composed, just before his untimely death.

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