WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:04.240 Welcome. This is Rebeccah Shore for RADIOI, and today I 2 00:00:04.240 --> 00:00:08.599 would be reading from a special edition of Smithsonian Magazine 3 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:14.119 America at two fifty. As a reminder, RADIOI is a 4 00:00:14.199 --> 00:00:17.079 reading service intended for people who are blind or have 5 00:00:17.160 --> 00:00:20.280 other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material. 6 00:00:20.920 --> 00:00:25.160 Please join me now for the first article titled Editor's 7 00:00:25.199 --> 00:00:34.200 Note The Revolutionary Spark by Gebra Rosenberg, Executive Editor. On 8 00:00:34.240 --> 00:00:37.920 the morning of January eighth, seventeen ninety, the first President 9 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:41.079 of the United States strode into Federal Hall in New 10 00:00:41.159 --> 00:00:44.000 York City to deliver a speech that would become known 11 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:47.359 as the State of the Union Address. Dressed in an 12 00:00:47.359 --> 00:00:51.719 elegant dark suit, George Washington outlined his priorities for the 13 00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:55.759 young nation, calling on Congress to establish a standing army, 14 00:00:56.159 --> 00:01:00.399 a national currency, a post office, and an educational system, 15 00:01:00.679 --> 00:01:04.519 and he urged lawmakers to reward Americans for their quote 16 00:01:04.560 --> 00:01:08.439 exertions of skill and genius by adopting a system to 17 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:12.519 protect new inventions, a power entrusted to Congress by the 18 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:17.439 newly ratified Constitution. After Washington signed the Patent Act of 19 00:01:17.519 --> 00:01:21.680 seventeen ninety, he personally affixed his signature to each of 20 00:01:21.719 --> 00:01:25.319 the one hundred fifty six patents granted during his presidency, 21 00:01:25.719 --> 00:01:29.840 sending a profound message innovation was so important to the 22 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:34.760 fledgling Republic that the President himself was invested in its success. 23 00:01:35.799 --> 00:01:39.439 This special issue of Smithsonian, published on the two hundred 24 00:01:39.439 --> 00:01:43.799 and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, celebrates that 25 00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:49.040 revolutionary spark, the visionary impulse driving the dreamers and discoveries 26 00:01:49.319 --> 00:01:52.560 that have shaped our nation from the start. Of course, 27 00:01:52.599 --> 00:01:56.079 it's impossible to contain them all in one magazine. More 28 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:59.439 than ten million patents have been issued since those that 29 00:01:59.599 --> 00:02:03.359 Washington signed, to say nothing of the inventive thinking that 30 00:02:03.480 --> 00:02:06.959 birthed the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the poetry 31 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:11.000 of Emily Dickinson, or the music of Chuck Berry. We 32 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:16.000 approached a wide range of writers, historians, photographers, and artists 33 00:02:16.039 --> 00:02:19.840 to share the breakthroughs they view as most significant. The 34 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:27.080 resulting collection is often celebratory, sometimes surprising, inevitably eclectic. Smithsonian 35 00:02:27.159 --> 00:02:30.919 Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch the third considers what has made 36 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:37.120 America such fertile ground for experimentation. Historian H. W. Brand's 37 00:02:37.400 --> 00:02:42.240 shines a light on Benjamin Franklin's greatest innovation. Novelist Geraldine 38 00:02:42.280 --> 00:02:46.680 Brooks evaluates the extraordinary impact of a radical work of fiction. 39 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:51.360 Chef and culinary historian Michael Twiddy uncovers the birth of 40 00:02:51.400 --> 00:02:57.039 American regional cuisine. Historian and Frederick Douglas biographer David Blight 41 00:02:57.280 --> 00:03:01.719 explores the most potent speech of America's premi orator. Peter 42 00:03:01.879 --> 00:03:05.960 Salk reflects on his father's determination to find a vaccine 43 00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:11.439 for a devastating disease. We also examined lesser known insights, epiphanies, 44 00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:15.719 and efforts that transformed life in America and beyond. How 45 00:03:15.759 --> 00:03:19.919 did we learn to fly safely through thunderstorms? Who enabled 46 00:03:19.919 --> 00:03:24.599 the first surgery under anesthesia? What inspired Georgia O'Keefe to 47 00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:28.680 perfect the Great American painting? Where did Muddy Waters hear 48 00:03:28.759 --> 00:03:32.199 his own voice recorded for the first time? Why are 49 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:36.199 so many cultural trends driven by teenagers? And who invented 50 00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:41.360 the teenager? Anyway? You'll also learn about groundbreaking inventions housed 51 00:03:41.400 --> 00:03:48.000 in the Smithsonian's collections. Additionally, the issue showcases strikingly original artwork. 52 00:03:48.560 --> 00:03:53.680 Victoria Maxfield captures Franklin's alter egos. Tim O'Brien conjures the 53 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:59.120 genius of folklorist Alan Lomax Addison Green celebrates the allure 54 00:03:59.159 --> 00:04:05.080 of the soap opera. Ibrahim Ryan Takoth evokes Thomas Paine's 55 00:04:05.080 --> 00:04:10.360 celestial inspiration. In sections broadly organized according to the founding 56 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:15.120 American principles of life, liberty, and happiness, we explore many 57 00:04:15.199 --> 00:04:22.920 other miraculous advances in science, medicine, conservation, space exploration, education, journalism, 58 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:29.000 civil rights, music, literature, technology, comics, film, sports, and so 59 00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:34.360 much more. We hope you enjoy the issue next. The 60 00:04:34.439 --> 00:04:40.199 American Revolutions overlooked influence physics, how common sense spelled out 61 00:04:40.279 --> 00:04:46.000 astronomical expectations for a new nation. The Manifesto leaned heavily 62 00:04:46.079 --> 00:04:49.759 on Isaac Newton's theories in making a case for independence, 63 00:04:50.120 --> 00:04:53.120 and fellow founders drew on the notion to build a 64 00:04:53.160 --> 00:04:59.319 new system of government by Joe Marchant. In politics, as 65 00:04:59.360 --> 00:05:02.720 in nature, tensions can take years to build, but it 66 00:05:02.759 --> 00:05:06.759 takes just one stone to unleash an avalanche, one spark 67 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:10.160 to ignite a wild fire. For many historians of the 68 00:05:10.160 --> 00:05:13.720 American Revolution, that spark was a pamphlet of fewer than 69 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:17.480 one hundred pages written by a newly arrived English immigrant 70 00:05:17.759 --> 00:05:23.240 named Thomas Paine. Throughout seventeen seventy five, violent clashes between 71 00:05:23.279 --> 00:05:28.759 British troops and colonist rebels protesting onerous taxes inspired little 72 00:05:28.800 --> 00:05:32.920 talk of outright revolution. Most rebels aimed to force better 73 00:05:33.000 --> 00:05:37.079 terms with Britain, not sever the link. Then, in January 74 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:41.720 seventeen seventy six, Pain changed everything with Common Sense, a 75 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:45.240 manifesto so radical that at first he didn't even dare 76 00:05:45.319 --> 00:05:48.839 to sign it. It was an immediate sensation, selling one 77 00:05:48.879 --> 00:05:52.639 hundred twenty thousand copies in three months in Pain's estimation, 78 00:05:53.160 --> 00:05:56.399 and a colonial population of just two and a half million, 79 00:05:56.879 --> 00:06:00.800 and that was not counting handwritten copies and knock editions 80 00:06:00.839 --> 00:06:05.639 that swept not only through America but all over Europe. 81 00:06:05.680 --> 00:06:09.519 In his plea for American independence from Britain, Paine made 82 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:15.360 vivid appeals to nature. Strikingly, he envisioned global politics as 83 00:06:15.399 --> 00:06:20.439 an astronomical system, arguing that America, rather than orbiting the 84 00:06:20.480 --> 00:06:23.839 central sun of England, was large and mature enough to 85 00:06:23.879 --> 00:06:28.079 provide its own center of gravity. In no instance hath 86 00:06:28.199 --> 00:06:32.240 nature made the satellite larger than its primary planet, he wrote, 87 00:06:32.759 --> 00:06:35.600 and as England and America with respect to each other, 88 00:06:36.079 --> 00:06:39.600 reversed the common order of nature. It is evident that 89 00:06:39.639 --> 00:06:44.319 they belonged to different systems. He described the gravitating force 90 00:06:44.439 --> 00:06:48.160 binding Americans, urging them to work together to determine their 91 00:06:48.199 --> 00:06:51.519 own fate. We have it in our power, he wrote, 92 00:06:51.800 --> 00:06:57.160 to begin the world over again. Payne's astronomical vision was 93 00:06:57.199 --> 00:07:01.120 taken further that April in a remarkable response published in 94 00:07:01.199 --> 00:07:05.959 the weekly newspaper The Pennsylvania Ledger, The writer, whose identity 95 00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:09.480 is lost to time, imagined taking a trip with pain 96 00:07:09.639 --> 00:07:13.240 into outer space, leaving the Solar system and the dull, 97 00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:18.040 beaten tracts of monarchy far behind. The space travelers discovered 98 00:07:18.079 --> 00:07:22.000 a vast cosmos, not ruled by one dominant sun, but 99 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:26.720 studded with innumerable suns. The universe thus revealed the blueprint 100 00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:30.319 for a different kind of nature. Quote a republic amidst 101 00:07:30.399 --> 00:07:34.439 the stars. This was the first known expression of a 102 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:38.879 symbol now instantly recognizable around the world, the United States 103 00:07:38.879 --> 00:07:43.399 of America as a constellation of equal stars. The imagery 104 00:07:43.480 --> 00:07:47.279 has since become so ubiquitous as to be almost drained 105 00:07:47.279 --> 00:07:50.199 of meaning, but it was borne from a radical and 106 00:07:50.360 --> 00:07:55.160 unprecedented shift in cosmology, a revolutionary system of the universe 107 00:07:55.480 --> 00:07:59.199 that Americans didn't just picture on their flag, but wove 108 00:07:59.319 --> 00:08:04.639 deep into the framework of their republic. Many historical threads 109 00:08:04.680 --> 00:08:07.519 contributed to the making of the United States, from the 110 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:10.879 democracies of ancient Greece to the religious rebels of the 111 00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:16.160 Protestant Reformation. But one idea often overlooked to day, despite 112 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:21.160 hiding in plain sight, was completely new. In building their government, 113 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:25.879 the Founders aimed to mirror the equality, balance and unifying 114 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:31.160 laws that they saw in the heavens. Cosmology has always 115 00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:35.519 shaped politics for millennia. From the dawn of written history, 116 00:08:35.559 --> 00:08:39.279 and probably before, people looked up to the shining orbs 117 00:08:39.279 --> 00:08:42.919 in the sky and saw an eternal realm populated by 118 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:48.720 spirits and powerful gods. Rulers consolidated their power by cloaking 119 00:08:48.759 --> 00:08:54.120 themselves in celestial imagery. In Imperial China, the emperor was 120 00:08:54.279 --> 00:08:58.320 the son of Heaven, responsible for keeping society and harmony 121 00:08:58.399 --> 00:09:04.320 with the sky. The Babylonian king Nebekenezzer the Second styled 122 00:09:04.399 --> 00:09:08.519 himself as the earthly representative of the planet Jupiter, known 123 00:09:08.559 --> 00:09:12.879 as Marduk, King of the Gods. The Maya chief Lord 124 00:09:12.919 --> 00:09:17.799 Schak identified himself with the planet Venus, whose appearance coincided 125 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:21.159 with the rainy season, thus crediting him with bringing the 126 00:09:21.200 --> 00:09:26.519 reins that kept every one alive. Many rulers associated themselves 127 00:09:26.519 --> 00:09:29.919 with our nearest star, in a practice dating at least 128 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:33.159 as far back as the Egyptian pharaohs, who were seen 129 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:37.639 as the Sun's embodiment on Earth. In ancient Rome, Nero 130 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:43.039 was portrayed wearing a crown that emanated sun rays. A 131 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:48.440 few centuries later, Constantine adopted a solar persona with a 132 00:09:48.480 --> 00:09:51.679 new religious spin, the Sun as a channel for the 133 00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:57.559 Christian God. The Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus began to write 134 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:01.440 The Principles that Ruled the Universe in fifteen forty three, 135 00:10:01.720 --> 00:10:04.399 when he argued that the Earth, rather than being the 136 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:08.639 fixed center of the cosmos, hurdles perpetually around the Sun. 137 00:10:09.480 --> 00:10:14.080 He used royal imagery to support this radical idea, as 138 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:17.120 though seated on a royal throne, he wrote, the Sun 139 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:22.000 governs the family of planets revolving around it. At first, 140 00:10:22.159 --> 00:10:26.799 Europe's kings used this heliocentric revolution to boost their standing. 141 00:10:27.799 --> 00:10:31.799 There is basically no European monarch during the sixteenth and 142 00:10:31.919 --> 00:10:35.440 seventeenth century who was not seen as a Sun or 143 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:40.600 depicted in solar metaphors. Iran Shalev, a historian of ideas 144 00:10:40.639 --> 00:10:43.799 at the University of Haifa in Israel and the author 145 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:47.759 of last year's The Star Spangled Republic, a cultural history 146 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:52.600 of Early America, told me recently that tradition continued into 147 00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:56.200 the eighteenth century, with Britain's kings George the Second and 148 00:10:56.320 --> 00:11:01.559 the Third described as shining sovereigns spread their superior rays. 149 00:11:02.360 --> 00:11:07.120 Even after Copernicus, the heavens still seemed to support divinely 150 00:11:07.159 --> 00:11:12.639 mandated rulers, but a revolution in understanding planetary motion would 151 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:17.279 blow this view apart. In sixteen eighty seven, Isaac Newton 152 00:11:17.399 --> 00:11:22.120 and Principia, still perhaps the most influential scientific work ever written, 153 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:26.399 had used mathematics to show that everything in the universe, 154 00:11:26.559 --> 00:11:29.759 from apples and planets to grains of sand and the 155 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:34.919 Sun itself, is governed by the attracting force of gravity. Yes, 156 00:11:35.080 --> 00:11:38.039 the Sun is in the center, but every other body 157 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:41.559 attracts back on the Sun and on each other body 158 00:11:41.600 --> 00:11:46.279 as well, explains Mordecai Feinegeld, a historian of science at 159 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:51.759 Caltech and the author of the Newtonian Moment. Newton revealed 160 00:11:51.759 --> 00:11:54.799 the workings of the universe as a finely balanced and 161 00:11:54.879 --> 00:11:59.919 interdependent system bound by rational, predictable laws. And he did 162 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:03.159 did it not by appealing to the authorities of the past, 163 00:12:03.639 --> 00:12:07.519 ancient scholars, or the Church, but through his own observations 164 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:13.480 and ingenuity. The physicist's ideas swept through enlightenment Europe. He 165 00:12:13.639 --> 00:12:17.360 was seen as an almost divine messenger, able to unlock 166 00:12:17.399 --> 00:12:21.720 the mysteries of the natural world. Nature and Nature's laws 167 00:12:21.879 --> 00:12:25.320 lay hid in the night. The poet Alexander Pope wrote 168 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:29.759 around seventeen thirty, God said, let Newton be, and all 169 00:12:29.879 --> 00:12:35.200 was light. Newton's ideas transformed not only his scientific field, 170 00:12:35.559 --> 00:12:39.679 but also society as a whole. His discovery of the 171 00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:44.159 law of gravity meant everything is equal, everything operates according 172 00:12:44.200 --> 00:12:48.320 to the same law. Nicholas Campion, a historian of cosmology 173 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.919 and culture at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 174 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:57.320 says philosophers and political theorists, considering what these natural laws 175 00:12:57.399 --> 00:13:01.360 might mean for human affairs, began to act. Shouldn't people, 176 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:06.159 even kings be bound by common laws? Io As this 177 00:13:06.320 --> 00:13:10.120 new unifying order in the universe was emerging, with it 178 00:13:10.200 --> 00:13:13.759 came a new idea that through laws and logic, people 179 00:13:13.919 --> 00:13:18.000 might glean the best way to govern themselves. In Europe, 180 00:13:18.039 --> 00:13:22.759 this still largely meant tinkering with existing structures by defining 181 00:13:22.840 --> 00:13:26.519 or limiting the monarch's power. It was thousands of miles 182 00:13:26.519 --> 00:13:30.559 away in America that a new cosmic system would take flight. 183 00:13:31.720 --> 00:13:35.399 Thomas Paine, the son of a corset maker in Norfolk, England, 184 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:40.759 had already failed at several careers tax collector, tobacconist, teacher 185 00:13:41.320 --> 00:13:45.600 before he set sail for Philadelphia in November seventeen seventy four. 186 00:13:46.440 --> 00:13:50.080 When he arrived in December, he was carrying little more 187 00:13:50.159 --> 00:13:53.559 than a letter of introduction from Benjamin Franklin, whom he'd 188 00:13:53.600 --> 00:13:56.600 met in London, and a bad case of typhoid fever. 189 00:13:57.559 --> 00:14:01.080 He found work as editor of the new Pennsylvania magazine 190 00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:05.279 With Common Sense. He soon became one of the best 191 00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:09.559 selling authors the world had ever seen. Payne's ideas were 192 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:14.360 not wholly original. Franklin, John Adams, and Samuel Adams were 193 00:14:14.399 --> 00:14:19.480 already discussing American independence in private, but pain brought revolution 194 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:23.120 to the masses, giving the idea a shape and precision 195 00:14:23.200 --> 00:14:26.279 it had lacked. It made clear to people that a 196 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:30.159 choice was available to them, says Mark Philp, a historian 197 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.159 at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and 198 00:14:33.200 --> 00:14:38.240 a Pain biographer. In clear persuasive language, Payne told his 199 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:42.279 fellow colonists that they could control their own future. We 200 00:14:42.399 --> 00:14:46.159 have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, he wrote, 201 00:14:46.480 --> 00:14:49.879 to form the noblest, purest constitution on the face of 202 00:14:49.919 --> 00:14:55.000 the earth. Most colonists had been reluctant to rebel. They 203 00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:58.320 still saw themselves as English, regardless of which side of 204 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:03.159 the Atlantic they lived on. Pain reframed the conflict, working 205 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:06.200 a powerful change in the minds of many men. As 206 00:15:06.240 --> 00:15:10.759 George Washington put it, the revolutionaries weren't traders or tax 207 00:15:10.799 --> 00:15:13.679 of waiters. They were building a better kind of nation. 208 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:18.240 As the Boston minister Andrew Elliot wrote to an acquaintance 209 00:15:18.279 --> 00:15:22.200 in London, independence a year ago could not have been 210 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:26.360 publicly mentioned with impunity. Now nothing else is talked of, 211 00:15:26.840 --> 00:15:28.919 and I know not what can be done by Great 212 00:15:28.960 --> 00:15:32.919 Britain to prevent it. Pain wasn't the type to cite 213 00:15:32.960 --> 00:15:38.279 his sources, but biographers have seen Newtonian influences. He became 214 00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:41.519 hooked on astronomy as a young man in London when 215 00:15:41.600 --> 00:15:46.120 Newton's science and its political implications were widely discussed in 216 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:50.480 coffee houses and debating clubs. Paine later wrote that when 217 00:15:50.480 --> 00:15:54.360 he returned from six months aboard a privateer in seventeen 218 00:15:54.399 --> 00:15:57.320 fifty seven, he spent his earnings on a pair of 219 00:15:57.399 --> 00:16:01.360 globes representing the Earth and the sky, and set about 220 00:16:01.519 --> 00:16:05.960 mastering their use. He attended lectures on astronomy, and he 221 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:10.039 met Franklin, a fellow Newtonian, who encouraged him to sail 222 00:16:10.080 --> 00:16:15.320 to America. In Philadelphia, Payne attended lectures at the American 223 00:16:15.360 --> 00:16:19.799 Philosophical Society and drank and debated at an intellectual club 224 00:16:19.879 --> 00:16:23.840 called the Indian Queen, and he began to write. He 225 00:16:23.919 --> 00:16:27.759 would have had many influences, from John Locke's discussion of 226 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:32.360 natural rights to Martin Luther's rejection of papal authority. But 227 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:35.440 Philip says there's no doubt that he's aware of the 228 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:38.600 Newtonian picture and that it shapes the way he thinks 229 00:16:38.639 --> 00:16:43.200 and writes. At the time, America was often described as 230 00:16:43.200 --> 00:16:47.519 a planet or satellite orbiting the central Sun of England. Now, 231 00:16:47.720 --> 00:16:52.159 Payne used that same Newtonian imagery to argue that America 232 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:58.200 was better understood as its own gravitational system. Americans announced 233 00:16:58.200 --> 00:17:02.519 their independence that July, invoking the separate and equal station 234 00:17:02.919 --> 00:17:05.400 to which the laws of Nature and of Nature's God 235 00:17:05.599 --> 00:17:09.720 entitled them in the declaration, originally drafted by Thomas Jefferson. 236 00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:15.440 Scholars endlessly debate the sources of the declaration's self evident truths, 237 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.720 equality and the universal right to life, liberty, and the 238 00:17:18.759 --> 00:17:22.799 pursuit of happiness. In addition to Locke in England, the 239 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:27.319 founders certainly drew on French Enlightenment thinkers such as Jean 240 00:17:27.400 --> 00:17:34.079 Jacques Rousseau, Baron de Matesquieu, and Voltaire, Classical authors including 241 00:17:34.279 --> 00:17:39.319 Aristotle and Cicero, the thirteenth century Magna Carta, and England's 242 00:17:39.359 --> 00:17:43.559 sixteen eighty nine Bill of Rights. Several historians have pointed 243 00:17:43.599 --> 00:17:47.599 out that principles of limited government and citizens' rights were 244 00:17:47.599 --> 00:17:52.559 compatible with Protestant Calvinism. Others that Franklin and the other 245 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:56.720 founders were keen observers of Native American self governance, as 246 00:17:56.759 --> 00:18:01.920 demonstrated by the Iroquois Confederacy. But scholars familiar with Newton's 247 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:05.960 work say that Declaration's debt to physics is often overlooked. 248 00:18:06.640 --> 00:18:11.200 The founders internalized the legacy of Newton into something much 249 00:18:11.279 --> 00:18:16.240 more pragmatic and political. Fine Gold of Caltech argues every 250 00:18:16.319 --> 00:18:20.440 Western philosopher of the time was working in Newton's shadow, 251 00:18:20.839 --> 00:18:25.319 and many Founders were immersed in Newtonian thought. John Adams 252 00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:29.559 had an education in celestial mechanics. Franklin and Jefferson were 253 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:33.400 prominent scientists in their own right. Franklin, who as a 254 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:37.400 young man frequented Newton's favorite London tavern in the hope 255 00:18:37.400 --> 00:18:42.480 of meeting him, was famous for his investigations of electricity. Jefferson, 256 00:18:42.519 --> 00:18:48.559 who pioneered everything from archaeological excavations to meteorurological studies, had 257 00:18:48.559 --> 00:18:51.960 an evident and deep knowledge of principia, and he declared 258 00:18:51.960 --> 00:18:54.440 Newton one of the greatest men that have ever lived. 259 00:18:55.559 --> 00:18:59.559 Joyce Chaplin, a historian of early America at Harvard University, 260 00:19:00.119 --> 00:19:02.920 says that while the founders may not have been divining 261 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:07.359 mathematical laws of motion, they saw themselves as continuing the 262 00:19:07.400 --> 00:19:11.680 search for universal principles of nature. If you were arguing 263 00:19:11.720 --> 00:19:16.319 from nature, she says, you were arguing truth after the 264 00:19:16.359 --> 00:19:20.640 revolution had been won. The same Newtonian ingenuity that helped 265 00:19:20.680 --> 00:19:24.519 the founders conceive of independence became woven into the new 266 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:29.599 American government. In the seventeen eighties, representatives to the Continental 267 00:19:29.640 --> 00:19:34.200 Congress debated how the newly independent states should be bound together. 268 00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:38.480 It was an unprecedented challenge for such a large, populous, 269 00:19:38.519 --> 00:19:43.759 and regionally heterodox territory. Democracy had thrived in ancient Greece, 270 00:19:44.079 --> 00:19:47.599 but only in small city states, and this is not 271 00:19:47.640 --> 00:19:52.440 a country of small city states, Philip says. Instead, America's 272 00:19:52.440 --> 00:19:57.079 founders imagined a new system combining a strong collective identity 273 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:02.119 with the autonomy of independent states. Seeking a balanced structure 274 00:20:02.200 --> 00:20:06.160 that would prevent weak bonds and thus disintegration on the 275 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:10.359 one hand, and collapsed toward a tyrannical center on the other, 276 00:20:10.839 --> 00:20:15.880 The delegates drew on the celestial mechanics seen in nature. Delawares. 277 00:20:15.960 --> 00:20:20.039 John Dickinson argued that the states, like the planets, ought 278 00:20:20.079 --> 00:20:22.720 to be left to move freely in their proper orbits, 279 00:20:23.000 --> 00:20:27.000 whereas James Madison worried they would continually fly out of 280 00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:32.000 those orbits without stronger ties. John Adams, commenting from London 281 00:20:32.279 --> 00:20:35.519 as the U. S Ambassador to Britain, feared that without 282 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:39.880 a properly balanced government, America would resemble a chaotic sky 283 00:20:40.279 --> 00:20:44.400 filled with fiery comets. Citing Newton's third law of motion, 284 00:20:44.880 --> 00:20:48.200 to every action there is always opposed an equal reaction, 285 00:20:48.880 --> 00:20:52.440 he argued that a firm constitution was needed to control 286 00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:56.559 quote those attractions and repulsions by which the balance of 287 00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:01.160 nature is preserved. For Adams, that meant dividing the government 288 00:21:01.200 --> 00:21:05.960 into independent branches with executive, legislative, and judicial arms that 289 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:10.400 would prevent any single entity from dominating the whole. The 290 00:21:10.480 --> 00:21:14.319 resulting separation of powers and legislature are still at the 291 00:21:14.359 --> 00:21:18.440 heart of American governance, a model of democracy inspired in 292 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:24.000 no small part by scientific principles of equality and interconnectedness, 293 00:21:24.680 --> 00:21:28.359 and the Founder's federal system, has since been implemented in 294 00:21:28.440 --> 00:21:34.359 countries from Canada and Australia to Switzerland, Malaysia, India, and Brazil. 295 00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:40.079 As the Australian constitutional historian Winston Mackinn once put it, 296 00:21:40.599 --> 00:21:44.160 all modern federal polities, whether their people like to be 297 00:21:44.240 --> 00:21:47.880 reminded of it or not, are the spiritual children of 298 00:21:47.960 --> 00:21:52.440 the founding fathers of the Philadelphia Convention. The new political 299 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:56.759 cosmology wasn't yet complete, however, As Shalev writes in The 300 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:01.200 Star Spangled Republic, the early Americans would alter transcend the 301 00:22:01.240 --> 00:22:06.000 old celestial imagery of planets orbiting a massive sun, at last, 302 00:22:06.079 --> 00:22:09.240 replacing it with the new symbolism. To do it, the 303 00:22:09.319 --> 00:22:16.359 founders combined Newtonian principles with another astronomical innovation, the telescope. 304 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:21.000 Throughout the eighteenth century, as astronomers focused increasingly powerful lenses 305 00:22:21.200 --> 00:22:25.079 on the sky, more stars and galaxies kept coming into view. 306 00:22:25.880 --> 00:22:29.480 Space stretched deeper and farther than they had ever imagined, 307 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:32.519 revealing that the Sun was not, in fact the center 308 00:22:32.559 --> 00:22:36.400 of the universe. It was one star among many. This 309 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:40.359 was the idea expressed by the anonymous correspondent who wrote 310 00:22:40.359 --> 00:22:44.519 to the Pennsylvania Ledger in seventeen seventy six. The writer 311 00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:47.839 mused that although the Sun might seem to mortals in 312 00:22:47.880 --> 00:22:51.000 its immediate orbit as quote the Grand Monarch of the 313 00:22:51.039 --> 00:22:55.279 heavenly Bodies, zooming out to a wider view revealed that 314 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:59.079 the sky was filled with such stars forming constellations quote, 315 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:04.240 united upon the principles of perfect equality, instead of conceiving 316 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:08.319 the universe, and in microcosm, the nation as arranged around 317 00:23:08.359 --> 00:23:12.640 a single gravitational center. This view showed a system governed 318 00:23:12.640 --> 00:23:17.480 by laws that spread authority among balanced equal actors. For 319 00:23:17.599 --> 00:23:25.279 shalev that symbolism represents a remarkable intellectual reconfiguration. This stellar 320 00:23:25.440 --> 00:23:30.039 architecture was most strikingly expressed, of course, in the new 321 00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:35.720 nation's flag. A resolution of the Continental Congress on June fourteenth, 322 00:23:35.839 --> 00:23:39.559 seventeen seventy seven had to creed that the states were 323 00:23:39.559 --> 00:23:43.559 to be known as quote thirteen stars white in a 324 00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:49.079 blue field end quote. Today, around half of the world's 325 00:23:49.160 --> 00:23:56.160 national flags include cosmic imagery, mostly five pointed stars. America 326 00:23:56.440 --> 00:24:02.000 was the first. The very word revolution, long before it 327 00:24:02.079 --> 00:24:07.119 was applied to human affairs, was an astronomical concept derived 328 00:24:07.160 --> 00:24:12.599 from the cycles of stars. Newton's ideas traced the same journey, 329 00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:18.519 first rewriting physics and astronomy and then helping reshape politics too. 330 00:24:20.160 --> 00:24:24.039 And it was in the American Revolution that these ideas 331 00:24:24.079 --> 00:24:28.039 came to fruition, cultivated on a new understanding of the 332 00:24:28.079 --> 00:24:32.440 principles that should govern heaven and Earth, and inspiring a 333 00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:37.839 model of democratic republicanism that has since been exported around 334 00:24:37.880 --> 00:24:43.599 the world. A quarter of millennium on, our gaze has narrowed. 335 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:48.279 We see the stars on the flag, but perhaps forget 336 00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:53.599 what they once meant for citizens of the eighteenth century living. 337 00:24:53.640 --> 00:24:58.000 Before the harnessing of electric power, the starry sky would 338 00:24:58.039 --> 00:25:01.920 have been a magnificent nightly remar of the grander order 339 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:07.960 and harmony of existence. To day, earthly lights have dimmed 340 00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:11.920 the sky, and science has moved on from the universal 341 00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:17.920 truths of the Newtonian cosmos too. Charles Darwin transformed our 342 00:25:18.000 --> 00:25:22.920 conception of living beings from fixed creatures to mutable species. 343 00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:28.759 Albert Einstein showed that even space and time depend upon 344 00:25:28.880 --> 00:25:34.160 our perspective. Quantum physics has cast doubt on whether there 345 00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:39.720 is any solid landscape beyond us at all. These are 346 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:44.680 the cosmological currents that now surround us. We live in 347 00:25:44.759 --> 00:25:50.119 a messier, more dynamic, and more unpredictable reality than Jefferson 348 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.519 and Franklin hoped for, and the consequences of these intellectual 349 00:25:54.599 --> 00:25:59.680 changes are still playing out. But the challenge for society 350 00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:05.359 in America as elsewhere remains the same to maintain a 351 00:26:05.400 --> 00:26:10.559 stable path without hurtling apart into anarchy or collapsing toward 352 00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:17.640 a draconian center. How do we balance our creativity, our chaos, 353 00:26:17.680 --> 00:26:22.599 our plurality of truths and realities, with our collective humanity 354 00:26:23.200 --> 00:26:26.319 and a shared vision that makes us more than the 355 00:26:26.359 --> 00:26:31.640 sum of our parts. The founders anticipated such a challenge, 356 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:35.680 and they crafted a government, with its checks and balances, 357 00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:41.640 its safeguards and separations, that has so far proved uniquely 358 00:26:41.720 --> 00:26:48.519 well prepared to face it. And accompanying this article, did 359 00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:56.720 you know? A brief timeline of astronomical discovery leading to Newton. First, 360 00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:01.680 in fifteen forty three, Nicholas Copernicus published six books on 361 00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:06.839 the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, which established a comprehensive 362 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:13.720 heliocentric model of the universe. Then, in sixteen o nine 363 00:27:13.880 --> 00:27:19.279 to sixteen nineteen, Johannes Kepler described major new laws of 364 00:27:19.359 --> 00:27:26.240 planetary motion, including elliptical and varied orbits. In sixteen ten, 365 00:27:26.920 --> 00:27:33.000 Galileo's Siderius Nuncius kicked off the era of telescopic discovery, 366 00:27:34.039 --> 00:27:39.599 describing new observations such as Jupiter's moons and many stars 367 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:44.839 not visible to the naked eye. And finally, in sixteen 368 00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:52.400 eighty seven, Isaac Newton published Principia, still perhaps the most 369 00:27:52.440 --> 00:28:01.759 influential scientific work ever written. This concludes readings from the 370 00:28:01.799 --> 00:28:05.880 Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. 371 00:28:06.400 --> 00:28:08.519 Thank you for listening and have a great day.