SciFri Extra: Science Diction On The Word 'Cobalt'

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Life Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Friday, Natural Sciences

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2020

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Cobalt has been hoodwinking people since the day it was pried from the earth. Named after a pesky spirit from German folklore, trickery is embedded in its name. In 1940s Netherlands, cobalt lived up to its name in a big way, playing a starring role in one of the most embarrassing art swindles of the 19th century. It’s a story of duped Nazis, a shocking court testimony, and one fateful mistake. Want more Science Diction? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for our newsletter. The infamous Han van Meegeren, hard at work. (Wikimedia Commons) Guest: Kassia St. Clair is a writer and cultural historian based in London. Footnotes And Further Reading: For fascinating histories on every color you can imagine, read Kassia St. Clair’s The Secret Lives of Color. Thanks to Jennifer Culver for background information on the kobold. Read more about Han van Meegeren in The Forger’s Spell by Edward Dolnick and in the 2009 series “Bamboozling Ourselves” in the New York Times. Credits: Science Diction is written and produced by Johanna Mayer, with production and editing help from Elah Feder. Our senior editor is Christopher Intagliata, with story editing help from Nathan Tobey. Our theme song and music are by Daniel Peterschmidt. We had fact-checking help from Michelle Harris, and mixing help from Kaitlyn Schwalje. Special thanks to the entire Science Friday staff.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Today is the last episode for now for Science Diction, our special series about the
0:06.4	scientific origin stories behind our words. If you haven't listened to the past three episodes,
0:12.2	go back and check them out. There's a lot of great geeky stuff in there that you really don't want to
0:16.9	miss. And we want to hear from you about this series, how you liked it, whether you
0:21.7	want more. It would really help us out if you could fill out a quick survey at sciencefriady.com
0:28.4	slash word survey. So now here's our host and resident word nerd Johanna Mayer with the story
0:34.2	of a word that's got mischief baked into its name.
0:37.8	Hmm, here's the story of Cobalt.
0:41.3	In a storage room in the Netherlands, tucked away inside a wire cage, there's this painting.
0:49.5	It's called Christ and the Adulterus.
0:53.2	Jesus is cloaked in a simple, deep blue robe, and he stands over a woman whose head is bent.
1:00.6	Jesus' eyes are hooded, and he's lifting a single finger.
1:05.3	There was a time when it seemed like everyone was talking about this painting.
1:11.8	If history had gone differently, it would probably be hanging in a museum right now
1:17.0	instead of collecting dust in the storage room.
1:20.8	But there was something about the way that the artist painted those deep blue robes that Jesus was wearing that caused that painting
1:29.7	to be sealed up in that wire cage. It was a particular pigment called cobalt blue. And the artist would
1:37.8	have cobalt to thank for his downfall and his saving grace. From Science Friday, this is science diction.
1:46.7	I'm Johanna Mayer.
1:48.0	Today, we're talking about the word cobalt. In the 1500s, German miners encountered a particularly pesky ore.
2:14.2	When it came out of the ground, it had this metallic sheen.
2:17.8	It was almost glittery.
	...

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