Claire Patterson was a geochemist who worked at Caltech from the 1940s through the 1990s.

His work involved studying the age of rocks and the age of the earth.

His greatest discovery, however, was one that was totally by accident and ended up directly impacting the lives of every person on the planet.

Learn more about the remarkable Claire Patterson and how he helped get the let out on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Curiosity Stream.

Television is a lot like food.

You can spend your time consuming junk

or you can spend your time consuming something healthy.

Curiosity Stream is like Health Food for Television.

They have over 2,500 educational programs available for streaming on almost any device,

on an incredibly wide variety of subjects

including shows like Hidden Killers, The Victorian Home. I've been a Curiosity

Stream subscriber since the service was first launched in 2015 and I watch it several times a week.

Prices start at a low to 99 per month or 1999 per year, one of the cheapest streaming services online.

If you're a curious person and let's face it you are

because you're listening to this show, then you can start your subscription by visiting

everything dash everywhere dot com slash curiosity stream or by clicking on the link in the show notes.

Claire Patterson might be the most important scientist that you've never heard of.

He is responsible for at least

four things that dramatically changed the course of science and modern civilization.

He was a geochemist which is not really a branch of science which lends itself to society altering discoveries.

While he was in grad school he focused his studies on lead, which again isn't necessarily something

which seems world chattering, but as we'll see, it actually was. Early in his career, he worked on the Manhattan Project.

...