Science Stories: Series 1 - Cornelis Drebbel

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2016

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Philip Ball dives into the magical world of Cornelis Drebbel , inventor of the world's first submarine in 1621.

How did the crew of this remarkable vessel manage to breathe underwater, completely cut off from the surface, 150 years before oxygen was officially discovered?

King James I of England and thousands of his subjects lined the banks of the River Thames in London to watch the first demonstration. The strangest boat they had ever seen sank beneath the waves and stayed there for three hours.

Did Drebbel know how to make oxygen? Historian Andrew Szydlow reveals that Drebbel did have secret knowledge of how to keep the air fresh.

In his day, Drebbel was a pioneer of exploring uninhabitable places. Today's equivalent is to make oxygen on the Moon and as scientists grapple with this ultimate challenge, Monica Grady explains their work is being used under the waves where Drebbel began.

Image: Early Submarine, A design for a wooden submarine from around 1650. It would surface and submerge with the inflation and deflation of rows of goatskin airbags attached to the floor of the vessel. (Photo by Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:03.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,
0:07.0	go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts.
0:18.0	I'm Philip Ball and this is Discovery on the BBC World Service. Time now for a science story.
0:20.0	It was a rowing boat like no one had seen before. King James the first of
0:28.6	England and thousands of his subjects lined the banks of the River Thames in London in 1621 to watch what seemed like a miracle.
0:38.0	The boat had oars poking out from leather sealed holes in the side and the roof was completely enclosed
0:45.3	to hide the rowers. As the crowd looked on the boat sank beneath the river's surface and stayed there for three hours.
0:58.9	The crowd figured that the oarsman must have long since drowned.
1:04.8	But to their amazement, the boat eventually reappeared its crew alive and well.
1:10.4	They assured everyone that they had been sitting on the bottom of the river and it even rode back and forth underwater at their leisure.
1:18.0	Reports afterwards recognized how valuable this invention might be.
1:25.0	It is not hard to imagine what would be the usefulness of this bold invention in time of war,
1:32.0	if in this manner enemy ships lying safely at anchor could
1:36.8	be secretly attacked and sunk unexpectedly by means of a battering ram. The inventor of this vessel, the world's first true submarine, was on board for the royal demonstration.
1:49.0	He was a Dutchman, but had worked for several years in the court of James I.
1:55.0	During his lifetime, his inventions were used and admired by the likes of Galileo,
2:00.7	Johannes Kepler, and Robert Boyle.
2:03.0	Yet somehow he never became as famous as any of these intellectual giants of the New Age of Science.
2:11.0	He was called Cornelis Drebel. I first heard about Drebel submarine
2:18.8	many years ago and for me it's summed up the almost magical ingenuity that flourished in the Elizabethan age.
2:27.0	But I wondered how much of the story can we really believe.
	...

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