Hi, I'm Melissa from Minneapolis. The Sound of Young America is an independent

production supported by listeners like you and me. If you'd like to donate to

support the show, visit MaximumFund.org and click on donate. Thanks!

Live on tape from my house in Los Angeles. I'm Jesse Thorn and this is the Sound of

Young America from MaximumFund.org.

It's the Sound of Young America. I'm Jesse Thorn. My guest on the program is

the author Stephen Johnson. His brand new book, The Latest in a series of

interdisciplinary science history and culture books is called The Invention of Air,

a story of science, faith, revolution and the birth of America. It's sort of a

history of ideas in the guise of biography. Welcome to the program. My pleasure. It's nice to be here.

Oh, it's a pleasure to have you. So let's talk. I'm living with this petrifying fear

that at some point I'm going to call the main subject of your book, Joseph

Prisly, Jason Prisly. If we want to go into 90210, we can talk about that too.

Can I read a book about pop culture too? You did. I'm right here with you. I'm just

scared it's going to happen at some point. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about

Joseph Prisly first sort of in broad biographical terms. He actually started his career

doing something sort of the 18th century equivalent to or at least his science career,

doing something like the 18th century equivalent to what you do, writing a popular

science book. Tell me about how he came into science. Well, you know, he was a classic

enlightenment error figure and that he was just interested in the main and different things.

And he was a dabbler in all these different fields. And he'd gotten interested in electricity

in some ways because electricity was the fashionable thing. If you had a kind of a side interest

...