This Day in Science & Discovery for Kids — Nov 10: First Wooden Motorcycle Rides and First Coast-to-Coast Call

Host 1: Welcome to This Day in Science and Discovery for Kids. on this day November 10th well we're exploring how inventors kind of shrunk distances you know first by moving our bodies and then by moving our voices.

Host 2: Right yeah so starting with bodies let's just jump right back to 1885 this 17 year old kid in Germany Paul Daimler he took his dad Gottlieb's invention for a spin

Host 1: wait this was the ride wagon right

Host 2: exactly yeah it was basically the very first motorcycle ride but um if you picture a modern motorcycle well just erase that from your mind entirely

Host 1: oh really

Host 2: yeah this thing had a wooden frame wooden wheels and get this zero springs to soften the bumps

Host 2: bumps

Host 1: oh wow so no suspension at all I mean I'm just imagining you like rolling down a rocky hill in a wooden toy wagon that sounds incredibly painful

Host 2: oh totally and it wasn't fast either the engine had like half of one horsepower so on this 1.9 mile trip he topped out at maybe seven and a half miles per hour

Host 1: which is what about as fast as a kid can jog

Host 2: yeah pretty much

Host 1: so besides getting a really sore bottom from all the bouncing what was the actual victory of this bumpy ride

Host 2: well it proved a really big point it proved that a small engine could successfully move a vehicle you know before this engines were these massive heavy things in factories

Host 1: right stationary beasts

Host 2: exactly so this ride directly led to the very first early cars just a year later

Host 1: okay so that completely changed how our bodies traveled but decades later an invention changed how fast our voices could travel right

Host 2: right so fast forward to 1951 the mayor of Englewood New Jersey he picked up a rotary phone and for those of you listening who haven't used one that's a phone with a round dial that you literally spin with your finger

Host 1: yeah you put your finger in the little hole and pull it all the way around

Host 2: exactly so he used that to call a mayor in California which is 3,000 miles away and the big deal here is that he dialed the 10 digits himself

Host 1: wait without an operator

Host 2: without an operator no one on the other end asking number please and physically plugging cables into a wall by hand

Host 1: which is just wild

Host 2: I want you to just imagine having to ask a total stranger to plug in a physical cable every time you wanted to call a friend

Host 1: it's crazy and I read that the cross country connection took just 18 seconds

Host 2: yep just 18 seconds to completely cross the country

Host 1: I mean 18 seconds feels really slow for a computer today but that must have felt like absolute magic back then

Host 2: oh it was revolutionary this direct dialing system using those new area codes it just spread everywhere it made calling far away super fast and easy for everyone

Host 1: that is so cool

Host 2: okay speaking of fast let's hit some quick facts for also on this day in 1619 a young thinker named Rene Descartes had these wild dreams that actually helped him join algebra and geometry together

Host 1: right and then in 1918 chemist Ernst Otto Fischer was born he later won a Nobel Prize for discovering what they call sandwich compounds

Host 2: wait sandwich compounds

Host 1: like in actual sandwich

Host 2: kind of yeah

Host 1: okay

Host 2: it's a single metal atom sandwiched right between two flat rings of carbon

Host 1: oh okay so it's a literal chemical sandwich that is awesome

Host 2: yeah it really is oh and did you know that November 10th is World Science Day for Peace and Development it was actually created by UNESCO back in 2001

oh

Host 1: oh I did not know that but it's super fitting for today you know it just makes you think about how all these invisible systems we rely on they all started somewhere like the physical clicks of that rotary phone dial paved the exact logical groundwork for the digital packets of data that route our internet today

Host 2: that's a great point

Host 1: yeah the tech changed but the fundamental logic of addressing and routing is basically exactly the same thanks for tuning in see you back here tomorrow