127 Stimulating Trivia

Bob Smith 0:00
What connection does the Catholic Church have with the Big Bang Theory?

Marcia Smith 0:04
Hmm, okay, and who is Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald Smyth model that’s quite an A it’s quite a name

Bob Smith 0:12
better than Bob Smith.

Marcia Smith 0:13
He’s quite a guy.

Bob Smith 0:14
Okay, well answer those another questions in this half hour of the off ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 0:19
and Marsha Smith

Bob Smith 0:36
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, Marsha, did you know that the Catholic Church has a connection with the Big Bang Theory?

Marcia Smith 0:50
Let’s see. What is it? What is it? Well, no.

Bob Smith 0:58
The Big Bang Theory came out of a Catholic University. In fact, it was a Catholic priest who came up with the Big Bang Theory. He was George Lemaitre, a professor of physics in astronomy at Leuven, Belgium’s Catholic University and he published his hypothesis of the primeval atom is what it was called in the science journal Nature in 1931. Now, a Catholic priest may have come up with the theory but guess what, it was an atheist who named it? Oh, yeah. You know, you might think of the Big Bang Theory is something that sounds almost atheistic. Some

Marcia Smith 1:31
Christians don’t believe that, that it happened that way. But that was a

Bob Smith 1:35
Catholic priest who came up with it who had to be a scientist. Yeah. Well, Fred Hoyle was an astronomer who was an atheist. He coined the phrase Big Bang as a way to mock law matress theory of the origin of the universe. Oh, really? Yeah. So it was a great term negative connotation. I didn’t know that. Yeah. During an 1849. Radio interview, oil rejected the implication that the start of the universe required a causal agent God, I didn’t know the big bang theory was a Catholic priests idea, not the TV show. We’re not talking to the TV show. Now we’re talking.

Marcia Smith 2:07
Sheldon who is an atheist Sheldon Cooper. No. Okay, Bob, who is Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald Smyth.

Bob Smith 2:13
He is my great uncle on my I don’t know You know, this guy. I do.

Marcia Smith 2:18
Yeah. Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald Smite. It’s Mr. Peanut.

Bob Smith 2:25
Mr. Peanut actually has a name. Yes. That’s

Marcia Smith 2:29
That’s the peanuts given name. And it explains why he’s so pretentious with a top hat monocle and spat it sure does. Yes. Mr. Peanut got his personal start in 1916 when a Virginia School boy – I love this – Antonio Gentile won a design contest with an anthropomorphic peanut drawing.

Bob Smith 2:50
So it made something that was inanimate look like a human being right.

Marcia Smith 2:53
Yeah, right that planners nuts put out there I contest and this dapper lagoon didn’t get a voice until 2010. He was I guess it was his voice. Robert Downey Jr. Oh, no kidding. But in a shocking surprise, and I did not know this. Planters killed him off for the Super Bowl in 2020. And he’s been replaced with Peanut Jr. A hip kid nut in a baseball cap. Oh, for God’s sake. I guess Top Hats and monocles have been he was too old school culture cancel. Wow. Wow.

Bob Smith 3:26
canceled the peanut man. That’s pretty pretty bad.

Marcia Smith 3:30
Notice Did you notice no. Well,

Bob Smith 3:31
I don’t know. Okay, Marsha. What famous beer festival was created by brewers to get rid of spring Beer? Beer made in the spring?

Marcia Smith 3:41
Well, it wasn’t October fast. It was October. Well, yes. How did that because they had spring beer leftover and sold it.

Bob Smith 3:49
It was originally held to finish up what was left of Marzen or March beer. That was the original idea to help the beer last through the summer. They added extra alcohol to the brew and the brew was stored in caves. So it has a different flavor. Speaking of beer, I got one more question of what word did those caves that store the beer in Germany? Yeah, give birth to what word that’s used in brewing. Means caves.

Marcia Smith 4:18
Yeah, let me think. Let me think that

Bob Smith 4:20
it’s the German word for storage. Oh, really?

Marcia Smith 4:24
I didn’t Bakken. No.

Bob Smith 4:26
Lager? Oh, logger. Logger means storage.

Marcia Smith 4:30
I got a lot of my questions today from a website called interesting facts. Okay, that I found fascinating. Like, this famous icon Bob has a wife named Poppy. And two kids named popper and Bun

Bob Smith 4:44
Bun. Is this a brand some some kind of a who is he? Yeah, so it’s some kind of icon is it? Popper and bonbon. I’m thinking of popping fresh pies or something like that. Who is Is it? Well, the pop in fresh boy,

Marcia Smith 5:02
it’s the Pillsbury Doughboy.

Bob Smith 5:04
Oh no, he’s got relatives.

Marcia Smith 5:07
Yes. Who knew? He was born from the imagination of a Chicago copywriter in 1965. And this original character was claymation. Oh, but within three years, Doughboy had an 87% recognition factor among shoppers, so obviously the Doughboy had some gravitas. They didn’t

Bob Smith 5:28
kill him. He did the peanut people killed off Mr. Peanut. He grew

Marcia Smith 5:32
in popularity over the years and had a family when a popular vinyl doll series was released. What’s his family’s name again, his wife is popper and, and two kids named Bun Bun. And you could buy the whole family in vinyl popper

Bob Smith 5:47
on Bun Bun. Okay, well, we’re handling serious things. Today. nice

Marcia Smith 5:51
change of pace.

Bob Smith 5:53
Okay, since you were talking about food, I’ve got a couple of food questions for what food is blamed for helping cause the Salem Witch Trials say again? What food is blamed for helping cause the Salem witch trials.

Marcia Smith 6:07
Oh, it was something did the ladies the ladies

Bob Smith 6:11
had symptoms? He had hallucinations? Yeah,

Marcia Smith 6:13
I was gonna say did they eat poppies or something ate something and it gave made him act a little weird. And so they Oh, they acted weird. They had

Bob Smith 6:21
hallucinations. Yeah, incomprehensible speech. Unusual skin sensations and they were all likely caused by ergot poisoning from infected rye bread, rye bread, rye bread, your favorite, which explains so many things that happened around this house. ergot is a fungus that infects cereal grasses like wheat and rye. I am itching and it also contains some pretty potent chemicals including Lysergic acid, a substance that years later was used to produce LSD Jays. So that’s why those ladies got so crazy.

Marcia Smith 6:54
Any guys get crazy, didn’t they? They were not just women. All right, back to the arcane. What event precipitated the creation of the Geico Gecko,

Bob Smith 7:05
the Geico Gecko, what event? Was it a world event?

Marcia Smith 7:09
No, it was more like the United States. 1998 1998 I

Bob Smith 7:14
don’t know what would it be and

Marcia Smith 7:15
you’re part of this group. Oh, dear. Yes. The gecko was born during the Screen Actors Guild strike Oh 1999, which prevented the hiring of live actors. And the first campaign all centered around educating the public on the mispronouncing or misspelling of the company. Everybody said GEICO Insurance. Gecko insurance. Yeah. Because he is a gecko, right? Yeah. So they they cleared that up with a GEICO Gecko,

Bob Smith 7:42
they should not get care which Geico. And

Marcia Smith 7:44
here’s an interesting fact. Initially, he had a posh British voice of Frazier’s Kelsey Grammar. He did the voice No kidding. Yeah. But eventually, they wanted to make the gecko more friendly with a more casual cockney accent like you know, the friendly lizard next door. So now and that’s what he’s got today.

Bob Smith 8:02
Oh, lizards I’ve ever seen were Cockneys the ones that spoke to me anyway.

Marcia Smith 8:07
The friendly.

Bob Smith 8:08
Oh dear. So Kelsey Grammer was the original voice of the Geico Gecko. I did.

Marcia Smith 8:13
I’d like to hear that. Yeah. Very different

Bob Smith 8:15
approach. Sure. Maybe more dramatic. Yeah. Remember the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and that deadly tsunami? Yeah, huge waves overpowered all those islands and so forth. How powerful was it compared to the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima?

Marcia Smith 8:33
Oh, really? Yeah. Was it twice as strong?

Bob Smith 8:37
There was more than that, really? How much? 550 million times more energy than the Hiroshima atomic hitting 550 million times more energy then the first atomic bomb. They said that’s enough energy to power the United States for 370 years. And the explosion from the earthquake was so powerful. It altered the Earth’s rotation shortening the length of the day by 2.6 microseconds. I

Marcia Smith 9:06
noticed it. That’s

Bob Smith 9:08
from the book. Are you kidding?

Marcia Smith 9:09
I know. I was getting less sleep every night and

Bob Smith 9:11
Jacob answer CI. Okay.

Marcia Smith 9:14
Okay. Let’s get back to serious time. Sorry, in 1954, a young boy who likes to draw smiley faces on frosty windows. What famous character did his dad create from that

Bob Smith 9:26
had to be the Kool Aid? Alright, one for the bubble. Okay, so that was a kid did that. Oh,

Marcia Smith 9:32
yeah. He would do it in frosty windows. And his dad thought it was kind of cute. And he created the happy go lucky. Kool Aid pitcher, man.

Bob Smith 9:41
What was his dad a graphic designer for an ad agency? Yeah,

Marcia Smith 9:44
yeah. And 20 years later, he was given arms and legs and he made his first TV commercial. And he’s still popular still around. He’s on all the packages of Kool Aid and they even had pictures with his cute little face on it. So kid came

Bob Smith 9:59
up with that. Yeah. That’s pretty cool. Yes

Marcia Smith 10:00
it is.

Bob Smith 10:01
Well a kid didn’t come up with this okay what mood stabilizing drug was once in the recipe for the soft drink seven up how

Marcia Smith 10:09
well I know it was coke had cocaine in it. I don’t know, lithium

Bob Smith 10:15
lithium. The original recipe for the soft drink seven up contains lithium citrate a mood stabilizing drugs today it’s used for bipolar disorder something that used to be called manic depression. Speaking of depression seven-up was launched two weeks before the stock market crashed in 1929. It’s

Marcia Smith 10:34
good because let’s face it, you got a couple of World Wars. You got the depression they needed some lithium back then. Now just everybody just goes to therapist now but back then let’s have some soda pop.

Bob Smith 10:47
Some seven. Oh, the stock market crash. Let’s have a seven of mine. Well, it helps, apparently. Really

Marcia Smith 10:55
calms you down. Who knew? All right, Bobby, which of these things were invented by ancient Egyptian? All right. Was it toothpaste, scissors, prosthetics, solar calendar or marshmallows?

Bob Smith 11:09
I will say solar calendar is not the one they did. They came up with everything else including marshmallow. Marshmallow, the Egyptians color roasting weenies and marshmallows at the pyramids

Marcia Smith 11:22
and kill time when you’re not carrying 10 ton bricks on your back. Oh, actually, it was all of those things. So they invented all those things. Yes, they did well, but out of all of them. I guess the thing that amazed me the most was the prosthetics. Scientists found the prosthetic toe of a woman who lived from about 950 to 710 BC. The toe was made of part leather and part wood. And it was thought to be tied onto her foot or her sandal with a string which would have improved her ability to walk properly. Her big toe that’s

Bob Smith 11:56
what a toe would do. Yes. Yeah, but they found an actual big toe prosthetic. Yeah, yeah. In Egypt, ancient Egypt.

Marcia Smith 12:02
Ancient ancient Wow. 950 To 710 BC.

Bob Smith 12:06
I thought you’re gonna put the iPhone in that list. I was gonna say the iPhone. They did not pass marshmallow toothpaste to Hmm. So they invented something it was a paste with to brush your teeth instead of using urine like the Romans did. Oh.

Marcia Smith 12:22
Yeah, that was swell. Okay.

Bob Smith 12:24
Okay, Marcia, we’ve recently did word origins and questions and phrases. So I got a couple more here for you push the envelope. Where does that come from? Well,

Marcia Smith 12:33
I push push the envelope? Well, early mailmen used to take the mail out of the mailbox. And if they didn’t want to carry the heavy load, they just pushed to the back of the fascia. You have such great it was put in putting your job on the line because you weren’t delivering that day. No,

Bob Smith 12:52
that comes from the aeronautics industry. A flight envelope is a child that’s right. flight envelope is the term meaning the boundary or limit of performance for a flight vehicle. And the envelope can be described in terms of mathematical curves based on things like speed and thrust in atmosphere. You push the envelope as far as you can to discover what the limits are. And Tom Wolfe, and the right stuff brought that expression into wider

Marcia Smith 13:17
Yes, that’s where I learned about what it meant in the right stuff.

Bob Smith 13:21
Time for a break. Now you’re listening to the off ramp with Bob Smith. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith and we come back with Marcia’s question on movies.

Marcia Smith 13:33
Okay, what famous movie evolved from a short story called The greatest gift that was sent out with Christmas cards?

Bob Smith 13:42
I know the answer to this one. You do? Yeah. Okay, great. Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Yes.

Marcia Smith 13:46
A fella named Philip Van Doren Stern had an idea while shaving, about a man on the verge of suicide on Christmas. And he saved by a guardian angel. In 1943. He’d written up the idea into a little short story and sent it out to 200 of his friends in his cards. And a draft of the story eventually fell into the hands of an agent at RKO studio. Okay, who gave the guy $10,000 for it

Bob Smith 14:15
for as the idea Yeah. Wow, that was a lot more money back in the day, but still right. And that found money. Yeah.

Marcia Smith 14:22
And nothing happened with it for three years until 1946 When Frank Capra got ahold of it and turned it into the wonderful film. It’s a Wonderful Life. And

Bob Smith 14:32
what was the name of the story? A

Marcia Smith 14:33
short story was called the

Bob Smith 14:34
greatest gift of greatest gift. How did one president’s refusal lead to an unelected man becoming president? Arcane facts from American history? Moshe, I bring them to you. Oh, yes.

Marcia Smith 14:48
It’s our pillow talk, isn’t it? But

Bob Smith 14:50
I’ll repeat it again.

Marcia Smith 14:51
Thank you, and

Bob Smith 14:52
this goes back to the 19th century. Okay, so it goes back to about 1849. How did one president’s refusal lead to an unelected man becoming president for a day for

Marcia Smith 15:04
a day.

Bob Smith 15:05
That’s the clue.

Marcia Smith 15:06
I don’t know anybody who was just today. Well,

Bob Smith 15:10
the President who refused was Zachary Taylor. He was the hero of the Mexican American War in the 1840s. And he was actually the president elect in the spring of 1849. The election of 1848 had come and gone, he was getting ready to take office. And he was set to be sworn in on Inauguration Day, which back then was March 4, but March 4, landed on a Sunday in 1849. And Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday. Oh, Guap religious purposes. Okay, that meant that David Reiss Atchison, president pro tem of the Senate, legally became president for a 24 hour period until Taylor was sworn in the next day.

Marcia Smith 15:51
Oh my gosh. So it was legally binding. They had to do it on that day.

Bob Smith 15:55
They had to do it on that day, and he refused. So then the person who was next in line at the time was the president pro tem of the Senate, and he was never really sworn in. They just okay, well push it off to the next day.

Marcia Smith 16:06
That’s a little stupid, don’t you think? But

Bob Smith 16:07
that’s how a president’s refusal led to an unelected man being named president. Now, what is the president pro tem of the Senate? What does that title mean?

Marcia Smith 16:16
A majority leader?

Bob Smith 16:18
No, I don’t know. It’s the person who temporarily presides over the Senate, when the Vice President can’t lead pro tempore is a Latin term meaning for the time being so the Senate always elects one of its members to serve in that position, just in case just in case temporary temporary officer, just in case? Yeah,

Marcia Smith 16:36
that shows you a big stubborn streak with that precedent, don’t you think? Probably. I mean, that just didn’t bode well. I’m

Bob Smith 16:43
not going to not Sunday.

Marcia Smith 16:46
Well get over yourself. We elected you dammit.

Bob Smith 16:49
What if we have an emergency on a Sunday? That’s yeah, I think I’ll tell him Oh, he’s dead. Going

Marcia Smith 16:56
back to It’s A Wonderful Life. The movie also changed the way cinematic snowflakes were made forever. Oh, did it really it did in the 40s. Most film sets use cornflakes for snow scenes

Bob Smith 17:09
cornflakes,

Marcia Smith 17:10
but Capra got cranky because of all the noise and crunching sounds that cornflakes were making, because he had a hell of a lot of snow. See? That’s true. Yeah. So the question is, what did he replace it with?

Bob Smith 17:22
What did he replace the snow with? Well, I know in the silent days they actually used as best dose that white stuff that was used in insulation and just horrible for your lungs. I’ve seen pictures in old movie books of huge mountains of his bestest they would blow into the Cowboys faces. Oh,

Marcia Smith 17:41
yeah. Oh my god.

Bob Smith 17:42
Yeah. Not knowing this is poisonous stuff that would ruin your lungs. Yeah. So I don’t think they did that in the 40s. Now, what was it?

Marcia Smith 17:50
It was soap flakes. Oh, Lux- like flakes. And today, they still use that along with fire extinguisher foam. Oh, no kidding. And shredded paper two is another thing. Okay, shredded. So all all three of those things are used.

Bob Smith 18:05
Okay, Marcia, here’s another term. Where did it come from? Acid Test acid didn’t pass the acid test.

Marcia Smith 18:14
Well, if it doesn’t dissolve, it passed the acid test. Okay, so what would that be? Almost anything that doesn’t dissolve?

Bob Smith 18:21
Where did this come from? Marsh? Where did this term come from? Well, past the acid test. I don’t know. It was during the gold rush.

Marcia Smith 18:30
Oh, that’s proved if it was gold, or now most acids

Bob Smith 18:33
dissolve other metals more quickly, then gold. So using acid on a metallic substance became a way for gold prospectors to see if what they had contained gold. If it passed the acid test. It didn’t dissolve. It was gold. The real thing

Marcia Smith 18:48
I’ll be darned. I always thought they bit into it. If it was soft, it was gold.

Bob Smith 18:53
If gold is soft, but it could have been other things. You can bite my ring though.

Marcia Smith 18:59
It’s okay. As you know, Bob, there are a whole bunch of traditions that go down with most weddings. Like something new something blue, or something

Bob Smith 19:08
old. Something new. Something Borrowed something blue. Isn’t that it?

Marcia Smith 19:11
Oh, you got it down.

Bob Smith 19:12
I’ve been to weddings. Many weddings.

Marcia Smith 19:14
We didn’t have one but okay. All right. That’s always

Bob Smith 19:17
been a sore spot.

Marcia Smith 19:18
No, We eloped.

Bob Smith 19:20
And you thought it was romantic at the time? That

Marcia Smith 19:22
was great.

Bob Smith 19:23
Do you just didn’t get the towels in the wine glasses.

Marcia Smith 19:26
I did get the wine glasses eventually. More than we could ever. But one tradition I find interesting is the fading tradition of asking those in attendance during the wedding ceremony. If anyone present objects to the marriage. Oh, yes. Speak now or forever hold your peace. Where does that custom come from? Speak

Bob Smith 19:47
now or forever? Hold your peace Well, Oh, was it when brides were stolen and taken somewhere and somebody had to speak up if they spoke up is like that bright is not yours? I

Marcia Smith 19:57
think that’s a side issue. Absolutely. Oh, I think that’s part of it, but it was started during the Middle Ages to prevent bigamy Oh, during those great old days, a Christian churches required upcoming weddings to be announced three Sundays in a row. And it allowed time for the news to spread. And if the bride or groom were already married to someone else, word would eventually get back to the priests or somebody would show up at the wedding. And the priest would ask one more time if anyone objected to make sure during the ceremony that they could proceed with the marriage. Hey, Harry

Bob Smith 20:35
Connor is getting married. He

Marcia Smith 20:37
hates me married to me. Jeez. Oh, that’s funny. Yeah, yeah. And there were brides whisked off, but they didn’t usually get married in churches. The ones that were stolen.

Bob Smith 20:48
The best man originally I think protected the bride was nothing idea.

Marcia Smith 20:52
Yeah. Okay,

Bob Smith 20:53
you had that thing about a what logo was designed by a child and that was the

Marcia Smith 20:59
Kool Aid. Man picture man.

Bob Smith 21:01
What state’s flag was designed by a teenager more than 90 years ago. What state’s flag was designed by a teenager.

Marcia Smith 21:11
So I will say I’ll say

Bob Smith 21:16
let me give you a hint. Oh,

Marcia Smith 21:17
thank you. There are 50 choices. This

Bob Smith 21:19
state was a territory at the time. Okay. And it was thought that it would be a great idea to give a contest to get this. This rolling towards statehood. And it was in your lifetime Marsha? Really? Yes.

Marcia Smith 21:33
So it’s just 40 years

Bob Smith 21:35
old. Two states were added during your lifetime. Yes, dear. Hawaii. Okay. Which state was it? Marcia that got we got all

Marcia Smith 21:43
right, Alaska. That’s right. We finally

Bob Smith 21:47
1926 Alaska was still a territory, not a state but the Governor George Parkes wanted to change that and he thought that having a state flag was a good first step. So in 1927, he introduced a flag making contest to Alaska and children in grades seven through 12. And the winner of the contest, Benny Benson. Benny Benson was a 13 year old orphan with Swedish Russian and Aleut roots. His design featured the Big Dipper symbolizing strength and the North Star symbolizing Alaska’s future. That’s nice.

Marcia Smith 22:20
Yeah,

Bob Smith 22:21
I still use it today.

Marcia Smith 22:23
I have to look that one up to see what it looks like.

Bob Smith 22:25
That’s the only state I think where the state flag was designed by a teenager at a good state flag.

Marcia Smith 22:30
Teenagers a lot of good artists in teen world. Okay, Bob, how many bones does the adult human body have?

Bob Smith 22:36
How many bones? Okay, okay, hold on. Let’s see, G is think of the hand the hand alone has so many in the feet. So I guess it’s got to be 100 150 Bones 206 206 and

Marcia Smith 22:51
an adult human. And how many in a baby? 206 270 wahat. Yeah, they were they have more because as they grow some of their bones fuse, so they have fewer bones. Okay, compare that to say dogs. They have 320 bones, and more if they have long tails. So here’s the question for you, Bob. Okay, how many bones does the shark half and its skeleton? I’ll tell you it’s a nice round number. Something between zero and 1000? Whoa.

Bob Smith 23:22
So a shark has that many bones. So it’s more bones than a human being more bones than I say that I said. Yeah, but it is, isn’t it? Why would you ask? We’ll find out there are 659 bones in a shark.

Marcia Smith 23:36
That sounds like a Marcia answer. Wrong. Oh,

Bob Smith 23:39
wow. Oh,

Marcia Smith 23:41
it’s zero. Why are there no bones? Unlike most fish, you know, when you eat fish sometimes you get those little Yeah. Yeah, but the shark skeleton is made up of all cartilage. Oh, and they have absolutely no bones. I

Bob Smith 23:56
didn’t know that. Yeah, so So I guess next time I’m eating shark I won’t worry about the bones. Sticking.

Marcia Smith 24:03
That’s right. Pick your teeth if

Bob Smith 24:05
I don’t eat shirt. Okay. All right, Marsha. What state makes it illegal to push a moose out of a moving plain? Oh,

Marcia Smith 24:13
that’s a shame. Some states are so cool. They make it illegal well, it should be it should nobody should push No no, no that should be on the books on every state especially in there in what state especially if you’re in Montana know

Bob Smith 24:28
Alaska, Alaska. They have some weird laws dealing

Marcia Smith 24:31
with Moose you got attached to Alaska website did it

Bob Smith 24:36
has many regulations centering around moose apparently I didn’t know that. And three weird laws dealing with Moose it’s considered an offence to feed alcohol to a moose not supposed to get those moose drunk. It’s illegal to whisper in somebody’s ear while they’re moose hunting. Really? Yes. Oh, man. You get if you’re moose hunting you better not whisper in somebody’s ear. You could be arrested. Okay, and Alaska has a law stating it’s illegal to push a moose out of a moving plane

Marcia Smith 25:04
well, and is a good one to know. You know, it’s like driving drunk. It’s just something you don’t do.

Bob Smith 25:09
But most laws come from a need and there is no need for that law in our state apparently. Okay, and then this is a invention question. Okay. Okay. What was the most successful product of Thomas Edison’s later career? Later career?

Marcia Smith 25:24
Was it the phonograph? No, no,

Bob Smith 25:26
that was a very successful product and it was successful years after he died. Was it worse? Was that a hearing aid? No. And it wasn’t the light bulb. See the phonograph and the electric light bulb? A lot of those inventions came early in his career. Yeah. 1870s This is 1910 Okay, tell me Edison invented the alkaline battery. Do you know what it was originally designed for? No. Electric cars, the batteries and electric cars the earlier ones were made out of lead. They were very heavy and they often leaked and corroded the automobile body. So Edison saw that as a need and he worked for like 10 years to come up with a different kind of battery. But by the time it was invented, by the time it was ready, the modelled he had taken off and inexpensive internal combustion engines replaced electric cars. So he found he marketed it to industry so is used you know we use it for flashlights today for you know, electric fan, they

Marcia Smith 26:23
definitely last longer.

Bob Smith 26:24
So Duracell Energizer, those are all alkaline batteries. And Thomas Edison invented that we don’t think of him inventing that technology, because it’s always hidden in other things. But that’s where he in many ways that he may have touched our lives more with those than with the electric light and some other things.

Marcia Smith 26:40
I would argue that what I can’t see

Bob Smith 26:44
the lights off. All right, thank you.

Marcia Smith 26:46
And speaking of another great mind, I’m going to finish up with a quote from Albert Einstein, Albert Einstein and his quote on war, okay, which is something a lot of people are thinking about right now and this scary time. He said, I know not with what weapons World War Three will be fought. But World War four will be fought with sticks and stones. Oh, wow, that’s pretty dark. Yeah, pretty dramatic and accurate. I think well, okay.

Bob Smith 27:14
We want to remind you if you’d like to submit a question to us for me to you know, kind of torture Marcia with or her to torture me with that. You could do that by going to our website, the off ramp dot show and scrolling all the way down to contact us and leave your information there. Well, that’s it for today. We hope you’ve enjoyed the program. I’m Bob Smith,

Marcia Smith 27:34
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again

Bob Smith 27:35
next time for the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai