who do you think is the greatest ever
scott
today i'm going to tell you who i think
is the greatest diver scott
suggest a walking route through
edinburgh and
give you one truly astonishing fact
and if that sounds interesting then this
is the video for you
hiya i'm bruce fumi from scotland
history tours
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events and places
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let me tell you a story
way back in the midst of time i remember
a tv
program to decide the greatest ever
squad
now there have been other similar tv
programs since
but this was the original and it wasn't
that long after we got our first color
tailing
now remember when we got our first color
telly it was for the world cup in
argentina
in 1978 another key day in scotland's
history
did you do the same thing that i did
when you were a kid get a magnifying
glass and go right up to the screen to
see what it was actually made of lots of
tiny
red green and blue dots and the picture
was made by mixing different quantities
of these three
if you mix the red and the green you got
yellow
we haven't always known them sir isaac
newton
you've heard of him he tried to work it
out but he couldn't
maybe he was colorblind he wasn't
right but somebody must have worked out
colorblindness as well
isaac newton trying but failed to
explain how light
gets from the tv to your eye
sears right for buying a chinese talent
newton was an astounding mind he was an
incredible intellect
but he couldn't do it but somebody had
to
somebody would explain it how do these
colors
mix how do we get them how does the
light get
from the tele to my eye how does the
signal get
from a tv transmitter to the aerial of
course
now it's up to the satellite and then
back down the satellite dish
but that needs to be explained as well
years ago some friends came around to
visit and their kids put a magnet up
against their telly that we had at that
time right
and from that time until the time we
ditched it always had this blur
right now let me tell you i wanted that
explained
now what if all these things were
explained
and the first time they were explained
it was by the same guy
that would be mental and what if he was
scottish
that's not even the astounding fact
are you coming
now i'm in edinburgh and i'm going to go
on a three mile walk
and invite you to go in the same walk
when you get a chance
now if you look up behind us there's the
castle in the old town
behind these trees is the church that
the greatest ever scott attended as a
child
and up here up there behind me is
princess street and the new town and
we're obviously in princess street
gardens it's the lovely warm
peaceful space that links the old town
and the new town in edinburgh
and we're here to talk about the lovely
quiet warm
peaceful man that transformed old
science
to new signs and change the world
he was born in this house on the 13th of
june 1831
it's now run by a trust you can visit
you can even do a virtual online tour
i'll leave the links below
now the fact that he was born in a house
in the newly built georgia new town in
edinburgh tells you
that his family were not poor they were
early victorian miner gentry
they had an estate down in gallery where
our young lad
spent his early years
his rural gallery accent was why the
other boys here at
school edinburgh academy called um dafty
now when he was at edmond academy the
professor of natural philosophy at
edinburgh university
read a new paper to the royal society of
edinburgh
our hero would have loved to have been
up there
because it was his paper
the problem was he was only 14
and he'd written his first scientific
paper
without the aid of a playstation
he had the same problem twice more
before
he left edinburgh to go to cambridge
university because he produced three
scientific papers
before that time and now here
is old school of edinburgh academy
there's a building named after
it's not called dafty
now by the way that's not even the
astonishing fact
the building behind me here is the home
of the royal society of edinburgh
that is where dafty's papers were read
and 150 yards along the road you'll see
the spire is the church where our hero
was baptized and 150 yards further is a
statue which commemorates them
here in george street
i've heard it said that you can tell the
character of a population
by the statues they put up and here the
junction
of george street and andrews square in
edinburgh as a confusing place
when we look down the hill we see the
statue of walter scott the great writer
and former president of the royal
society of edinburgh
at the end of george street here behind
me
we see the statue of our hero and
instant andrew's square at the top of
that pinnacle
the evil tory pier henry dundas
who tried to maintain slavery and was
the last person in britain to be
impeached
for financial impropriety edinburgh is a
wonderful place
but it does have its dark side
that brings us back to the subject of
light and the spirit of our hero behind
us
the thing that made him famous in his
time was that he won a competition
now we're not talking about winning a 10
on a scratch card
this was a thing of mathematical genius
it was not luck
now by this time people knew that saturn
had rings
but they had no idea what they were made
of telescopes just weren't strong enough
at that time
and a competition was set with a prize
to anyone who could prove
whether saturn's rings were a solid a
liquid
or lots of little lumps or rock and the
competition had been set two years
before that
but nobody had been able to do it in
this time in all the world of science
and mathematics
there was only one entry
our guy he was the first to explain what
saturn's rings were made of
now he was on the world stage and
that's not even the astounding fact
now at the time he was professor of
natural philosophy at marshall college
in aberdeen
he went to live in aberdeen is that this
town in fact
no but it does show how dedicated he was
to experimental science
now people have had theories about what
it's like to live in aberdeen
but it's always been difficult to prove
it does it actually
suck all the light out of everything
just leaving a pinpoint of
darkness and infinite gravity or does it
just appear to
how close to the ring road bypass can
aberdeen come without sucking it in
fundamental questions now our hero
met his wife in aberdeen and even though
light can't escape from aberdeen
our hero and his wife did they moved to
london
when he became professor at king's
college
now if saturn's rings made him famous in
his time
then the first time i heard about him
was when i was studying electricity and
magnetism
now he worked on this over a number of
years doing hard graft
with eureka moments of inspiration along
the way
but i want to tell you one lovely wee
story
on that journey here's four facts
don't worry even if you think you know
nothing about science you already know
at least two of them
fact number one magnetic poles always
come in pairs
north and south opposite poles attract
similar poles repel told you
fact two electric charge also comes in
two types
opposites attract similar repel
fact three if you've got an electric
current passing through a wire
like the one from your phone to your
charger it creates a magnetic field
around about the wire
here's an easy science experiment you
could check this for yourself with
taking a wee plotting compass
any dc current why not buy plot
encompasses
for your grandkids i know my demographic
they can check this out while we
experiment for themselves i'll leave a
link in the description below
fact four if the electric current varies
then the magnetic field will vary
now if you understand this let me know
in the comment section below
yes or no is enough
now people knew these facts
michael faraday had done experimental
work to come up with an electric motor
our hero set out to come up with a
single concise set of rules
to explain them all at once this would
be more fundamental than saturn's rings
it would be it would be like newton's
breakthrough in gravity
maybe even bigger yeah now
while he was working in london he'd come
up with three
explanations for three of the four
phenomenon
he just couldn't come up with a fourth
to explain and bring together and unify
the whole theory
and it had to match i had to fit in with
existing ideas
now he went home to his estate in
galloway for the summer
now when he went he didn't take any
books tables documents or figures
he was there to deal with this state to
be alert
now in the peace and tranquility of
rural galloway something struck him
he certainly had an idea that would
explain the fourth phenomenon
and it matched with explanations for the
first three
now somebody must have had a packet
because he did
some quick math and it worked this was
unbelievable right now at this stage
it was just a model yeah but it
explained the magnetic attraction and
repulsion
it explained electrical attraction
repulsion and
the interaction of electricity and
magnetism in
one complete model
not only that but a key relationship
between electric and magnetic fields
came out with a number very close to one
that he knew
it was the number for the speed of light
if this was true then light itself that
isaac newton thought was tiny particles
must actually be the interaction of
electrical
and magnetic fields traveling through
space this was huge
the only problem was that he hadn't
brought the books and reference material
that would allow
him to find out the experimental work
that had already been done to check the
numbers and the data
how could he find out there was no
internet
there was no telegraph there was no
telephone he couldn't jump on an
airplane
because all these things would depend on
theories that he would develop
he had to sit in rural gallery through a
victorian horseback
summer the only person in the world that
understood
what light actually was can you imagine
how mental would that be you can't tell
the posty what's he going to do with
that information
you can't blather excitedly to one of
the state workers
they never understood why he needed 1.21
gigawatts through the fox capacitor in
the first place
even when you get back to london after
the summer
the other physicists don't understand it
i'm talking about the theory not time
travel
if only he had invented time travel
because he'll be dead
by the time a german called hertz first
demonstrates
and an italian called marconi first
commercializes these ideas that he's
come up with
now you've heard both these names of
course you have and rightly so
but they benefited from the unification
of the entirety
of electricity and magnetism into four
concise equations that describe
electromagnetic radiation that's right
maxwell's equations but most scots have
never heard of james clark maxwell
and that is the astounding fact
the man who possibly was the world's
greatest scientist ever and certainly
was the greatest scientist of the 19th
century was scottish
and nobody in here cares because he
never played james bond
did he write poetry yes did he play the
guitar yes
did he completely change the way that we
think about science
ah he did
princess street gardens here is where
edinburgh old town
ends and the new town begins
james clark maxwell is where one
scientific epoch
ended and another began
who said that albert einstein
albert einstein james clark maxwell was
where mata and physics come together in
a way
that they never had done before thank
you james clark maxwell
now we understand the telly the one that
we started with right we
understand color mixing how it works we
understand how the signal is transmitted
in electromagnetic waves
through space the way that light reaches
us from the tele in those same
electromagnetic waves thank you james
clark maxwell
the first color photograph thank you
james clark maxwell
x-ray machines and radio therapy thank
you
james clark maxwell control systems and
airplanes microwave ovens thank you
james clark maxwell our understanding of
how the speed that an aroma carrying
particle
diffuses through the air in the room
thank you
james clark maxwell i can finally fart
with confidence now after he done all
this
he went on to set up the cavendish
laboratories at cambridge
where they discovered the electron where
they discovered
the neutron where rutherford discovered
the structure of the atom and where
cricket watson
discovered dna thank you thank you
thank you thank you james clark
maxwell
now i haven't even started to tell you
about what a wonderful warm
generous human being was i didn't say it
was scottish didn't they
you could read all about them in this
book the man who changed everything and
he did
i'll leave a link in the description
below i'll also leave a link to an
interesting bbc program
make sure you've got a license i'll
leave a link to the james clark maxwell
foundation
who run you know the museum in the house
that he was born in okay in
industry the one that i showed you i'll
leave you a link to the map for the walk
that i took
round about edinburgh it's got more
maxwellian points of interest than i
actually stopped
and uh but the point is it's nice she
passed through edinburgh newtown
princess street gardens through the old
town up to the old college at university
of edinburgh
where he first studied as a child
yes a child now i hope you've enjoyed
this video please give it a thumbs up
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and share and listen
it's not for me it's to spread the word
about the man that i voted for
as the greatest ever scott
because every scop should know the name
of james clark maxwell
i mean doc is going to be a llama alive
cherry and drastic