The Inventor Who Almost Ended the World
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2022
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thomas Midgley's inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land.
Midgley and his employers didn't set out to poison the air with leaded gasoline or wreck the ozone layer with CFCs - but while these dire consequences were unintended... could they have been anticipated?
For a full list of sources used in this episode visit Tim Harford.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Here in the last archive, I've been trying to figure out what happened to Truth. |
| 0:03.6 | I've been telling stories about how we know what we know, |
| 0:06.4 | and why it seems sometimes lately is if we don't know anything at all. |
| 0:10.6 | But I am done with the problems of Truth. I want solutions. |
| 0:14.8 | The season of the last archive is all about common knowledge. |
| 0:18.8 | Is that kind of knowledge still possible? I tried to find out. |
| 0:22.4 | Coming soon. |
| 0:24.7 | Listen to the last archive on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, |
| 0:28.4 | or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:58.4 | Pushkin. |
| 1:29.2 | A unigee, fraud and inventor, a hero of industrial science, who changed the world, |
| 1:38.3 | and who died tragically young, aged just 55. |
| 1:43.4 | Thomas Midgley Jr. studied mechanical engineering, but he was just as fascinated by chemistry. |
| 1:50.0 | As a young researcher, employed by General Motors, |
| 1:53.2 | Midgley took to carrying a copy of the periodic table around in his pocket to inform his quest for new ideas. |
| 2:01.2 | By the end of his life, Midgley had accumulated over 100 patents. |
| 2:06.8 | We're going to hear about three of his inventions. |
| 2:11.3 | In 1916, Midgley became a member of our research staff, and began then his long association |
| 2:17.2 | with me and his remarkably productive career in research. |
| 2:21.3 | The eulogist is Charles Boss Kettering. |
| 2:24.8 | himself, an inventor of some renown. |
| 2:27.5 | Kettering was Thomas Midgley's boss in the General Motors Research Department. |
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