Aarati Asundi (00:12) Hi everyone. And welcome back to the Smart Tea Podcast where we talk about the lives of scientists and innovators who shaped the world. I'm Aarati Jyoti Asundi (00:20) I'm Jyoti, Aarati's mom. Aarati Asundi (00:24) And we are so excited to be back with another episode. We just had such a great time episode talking about Frances Oldham Kelsey and the thalidomide And we were talking about the episode even after we got off and actually, mom, you told me something really interesting about the thalidomide that I did not know. You want to tell people what you told me? Jyoti Asundi (00:48) Yes, yeah I had been looking it up and ⁓ thalidomide for all its bad rep and everything is still in the market today as a chemotherapeutic against myelomas. It given to myeloma patients with dexamethasone so it's actually mind-boggling for something like morning sickness they were actually peddling a drug as toxic as a chemotherapeutic. But I just wanted to put it out there that, that drug that had won its notoriety or justifiably obtained its bad rep is still in the market today for other purposes. It's been repurposed as a cancer drug. Yes. Aarati Asundi (01:36) Yeah. had no idea about that. I had thought that once they had stopped the NDA from going forward and that the company had withdrawn the thalidomide from the US markets and from the European markets as well, I thought that was it. I thought it had been finished and it was off the market completely. I had no idea that they were still trying to, you know, find another use for it, you know, use it for cancer. Jyoti Asundi (02:02) They repurposed it. Yeah, still not off the market. It is a chemo... Aarati Asundi (02:07) That's crazy to me. Jyoti Asundi (02:08) Yeah, it is chemo... But you know, have to think about it. So it's a teratogen and it's angiogenesis inhibitor, which means no new blood vessels. And that is why probably they had all these problems with the nerves and things like that. So the person with myeloma is probably weighing their options and saying, will I take a little bit of pain, you know, because of my nerve endings being damaged, temporarily, hopefully, or do I die of cancer? And so this is the kind of choices people are making who are actually on the dock for getting thalidomidea. Aarati Asundi (02:47) And at least this time it's fully transparent and they know the risks and they know what they're getting. Jyoti Asundi (02:51) Yes, yes, and they will not give it. Hopefully, hopefully there is enough sense in the medical world in the world out there overall, there is enough common sense for people to know don't give it to a lady who might possibly become pregnant. Aarati Asundi (03:06) Yes, yes. Jyoti Asundi (03:10) Yes, don't don't give it to those kind of patients. Yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (03:06) Well, that's super cool to know. I had no idea about that. So that's awesome. Good to know. Thanks for sharing. Jyoti Asundi (03:16) No, no worries. And what do you have on for today? I'm just enjoying myself so much. I'm eager and I'm excited to go. Aarati Asundi (03:25) I'm glad you're enjoying it. This episode, we are going to be taking a hard left turn from what we did last time. And it's going to be, I hope, a lot of fun. It's just kind of a silly, fun episode. Jyoti Asundi (03:41) I can be silly. Aarati Asundi (03:42) Yeah, you can. Jyoti Asundi (03:42) I'm not too old to be silly. You know how... Aarati Asundi (03:45) Great. That's exactly the energy we need for this one. Jyoti Asundi (03:48) Yeah, you know, Erma Bombeck, my favorite author, she said, When you're 20, you worry about what everybody thinks about you. And then when you're 40, you don't care what anybody thinks about you. And then when you're 60, you realize nobody is thinking about you. But then when you're 80, you don't think. You just put on your purple hat and go out and dance in the streets. So I am already... I'm not 80. I'm younger than that, but I have that energy already. It's like I'm ready to wear my purple hat and dance out in the street. So let's take that hard left turn and be silly. Yeah, let's be silly now. Yeah, let's be silly now. Yes. Yes. Aarati Asundi (04:28) Yeah, why wait until you're 80 years old? Yeah, why wait until you're 80 years old to do it? Yeah, if you're going to do it by the time you're 80 anyway, why not do it now? Yeah. So this episode actually stemmed from my brother, Arun. He was telling me that I should do somebody from ancient Greek, ancient Roman times. Jyoti Asundi (04:51) Okay. All right. We'll take his advice. What does he want us to do? Aarati Asundi (04:56) Well, he didn't want me to do this guy for sure. He wanted me to do somebody like Archimedes or Ptolemy or something. And the problem is when I look into Pythagoras and those kind of people, the problem is a lot of them are known for kind of one thing, but then when you look at what they've done, they've just done so much. They've like, you know, found the volume of a sphere and they've also figured out Neptune is a planet and they've also gone and like figured out how to displace water in this particular type of tube. So they've done like so many different disparate things that it's very hard to kind of pin them down. So they might be known for like one specific law, but they really are just jacks of all trades. And so I was really trying to find somebody who is kind of known for one thing and one thing only to make a story manageable. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (05:50) so you're manageable. It's a manageable story. Otherwise, I'll be talking about them for the next three episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (05:57) Yeah, exactly. And I was like, maybe we'll get to those kinds of people later on. But... Jyoti Asundi (06:02) It'll be fun. Aarati Asundi (06:03) Yeah, for now, I just wanted to kind of do person who was known for one thing and that could fit into one episode. Jyoti Asundi (06:10) Yes. And it's nice to actually go into such disparate timeframes because all of these people are set in such different backgrounds of time and such different things are happening. And how these various external influences influence them and their science and their story. It'll be fun to kind of compare in our own heads as we go from more recently to the FDA all the way back to ancient Greek times or Roman times or whatever you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll be good to do that. Aarati Asundi (06:44) Yeah so if girl bosses at the FDA aren't your bag, then hopefully this guy will be. Jyoti Asundi (06:50) Yeah. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (06:51) His name is Pliny the Elder and... yes. Jyoti Asundi (06:55) No, oh my goodness, already you lost me already. I need my note.... I need what... Pliny? Aarati Asundi (07:01) Pliny, Pliny the Elder. Jyoti Asundi (07:01) P- L-... P- L- I- and the Pliny the Elder is his full name? Aarati Asundi (07:05) That's his name, yeah. Well.. Jyoti Asundi (07:07) So there... so what? The family had Pliny the Younger and Pliny the Middle and Pliny the Youngest? Aarati Asundi (07:01) So his full name is Gaius Plinius Secundus. Jyoti Asundi (07:19) No way. No, Don't even go there. What? Aarati Asundi (07:21) Exactly. Yeah, yes. Jyoti Asundi (07:23) Okay, but I'm interested in knowing the naming ceremonies going on at this time. Aarati Asundi (07:28) Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (07:29) So it's like we have eight boys and three girls. And so it's going to be Pliny the Eldest, Pliny the Elder, Pliny the Middle. Aarati Asundi (07:35) No, no, no. So... No. Jyoti Asundi (07:36) No. No, why not? Aarati Asundi (07:41) Okay, so the reason that he's called Pliny the Elder is because he had a sister named Plinia. And Plinia had a son, eventually, who was also named Gaius Plinius, and that became Pliny the Younger. So his nephew is Pliny the Younger, and he became Pliny the Elder. Jyoti Asundi (08:01) Uh-huh. This is so reminiscent My Big Fat Greek wedding where they say, here is Nick, Nick, Nick, Nicky. Nick, Nick, Nick and Nicky. Aarati Asundi (08:09) Yes. Nick, yeah. Nick, Nick, Nick. They're all named Nick. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (08:18) I was hoping for a fleeting moment there that it was actually the word elder was used in those days to kind of indicate the village wise man or somebody like that. And so Aarati Asundi (08:30) Mmm, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (08:30) I almost wondered, hey, did the thing come from there? Aarati Asundi (08:36) Well, that's a good question actually, because I don't know if people back then called him Pliny the Elder once his nephew was born, or we just call him that today to distinguish him between him and his nephew. Yeah, Jyoti Asundi (08:50) ...and the nephew. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (08:51) Yeah, and I have to say, I had never heard of him. really isn't a household name, but interestingly, when I was researching him, the people who do know about him, it's almost like there's a secret Pliny the Elder cult because whenever I saw, I was listening to podcasts about him, which there are a few out there or watching videos on YouTube about him, And like whenever people said, "Today we're going to be talking about Pliny the Elder", the crowd went wild. People are just like, if you know about him, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (09:26) It's almost like a secret. It's like the secret handshake Aarati Asundi (09:30) It's kind of crazy. I was listening to a podcast episode from BBC's Radio 4 called Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics and she mentioned Pliny the Elder in that. People went crazy. There was like a Reddit thread that people were saying, "Has anyone heard of Pliny the Elder?" And everyone was like, "Oh my God, I love Pliny the Elder. I'm obsessed with him. I love learning about him. I love seeing stuff" and they're all sharing resources about him. So I'm just like, "okay!" Jyoti Asundi (9:57) Wow, we are ignorant, aren't we? Aarati Asundi (9:59) We really are. And there's also a beer called Pliny the Elder from the Russian River Brewing Company, is apparently on a lot of beer enthusiasts' bucket lists. Like, if you're into beer, that's one of the beers you want to get your hands on. Jyoti Asundi (10:15) You should get it on there. You should drink that beer. Okay. ⁓ my goodness. Aarati Asundi (10:16) yeah, yeah. And so I found a beer blog called Beervana. And they write that quote, "Pliny revealed the full potential of hops and pointed to a juicy revolution that would define the style more than a decade later. Pliny the Elder.." and they're talking about the beer here, not the person, "Pliny the Elder was in many ways the first fully realized modern American IPA." So I don't know what half of those things are, because I don't drink beer, but yes. Jyoti Asundi (10:50) ⁓ yeah, I'm losing it. Yeah. Yeah, I'm lost. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (10:53) But I just thought it was so interesting that there's this whole subculture around this guy and I'd never heard of him. Jyoti Asundi (11:00) Hmm. Hmm. Yes, yes, we are going to enter into a secret world. Aarati Asundi (11:03) So like I said, his actual name is Gaius Plinius Secundus and he was born 23 or 24 AD in northern Italy in a town called Novam Comum, which is now known as Como. Obviously because this is so long ago, there's not a ton that we know about him as far as his childhood. We do know his mother's name was Grania Marcella and his father's name was Celler. And like I said, he had a sister named Plinia. Jyoti Asundi (11:37) And a nephew named Pliny. Yes. The younger. Yes. Aarati Asundi (11:41) So yeah, Pliny the Younger, yes. It's the middle of the Roman Empire and Pliny's family were equestrians, which is the second highest of society at that time. Jyoti Asundi (11:52) Oh wow, okay. Aarati Asundi (11:54) Yeah, so at the top you have the senatorial rank, which is the governing class, Jyoti Asundi (11:58) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (11:59) And they were the wealthiest and they're career politicians. They have supposedly high moral standards. And then the equestrian rank was one rank below that. So they still had a lot of political and economic influence. Jyoti Asundi (12:14) Yes because the equestrians, that means you're owning horses and that's, this is very similar to ancient India where the wealthy people were the ones who owned cattle. You did not have money as in coins or like... Aarati Asundi (12:32) Right. Jyoti Asundi (12:33) ...paper dollar bills or whatever. Your wealth was your cattle. Yeah, political power is in its own right. It's a different being entirely. That would be the kings or whatever, but the wealthiest people were the ones who owned cattle that is probably why it became like the holy cow of India, the holy cow of the Hindus. Aarati Asundi (12:55) Oh yeah, yeah, that whole stereotype. Jyoti Asundi (12:57) That's where it became holy because hey, you're not going to go around murdering your money. You're not going to go around killing your wealth. Aarati Asundi (13:05) Yeah, so I think that's kind of exactly what this was also the equestrian people had a lot of property, especially they went into business a lot. They are very good with like... Jyoti Asundi (13:18) Yeah, because if you have cattle or horses, you need land where they can graze. Aarati Asundi (13:23) Yes, exactly. Jyoti Asundi (13:24) So you have land, you have horses. A person who didn't have land wouldn't even bother to go get himself a horse. Aarati Asundi (13:29) Yeah, where are you going to keep it? Jyoti Asundi (13:30) Where are you going to keep the horse? Not in my living room. Aarati Asundi (13:33) That's exactly... they were known for this like equestrians. They were very good with financial and property management ⁓ and administrative work. So that's kind of what they do. So Pliny is born into this equestrian family. And so the equestrians also kind of came with this expectation that they were to serve in the military. Jyoti Asundi (13:58) They are the ones with the power, the strength, yeah. You sit on a horse, you can decapitate somebody from there. Yeah, yeah. Aarati Asundi (14:05) Yeah, yeah. And especially, you know of course, this is the Roman Empire. They're constantly going on like conquest after conquest. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (14:11) Oh constantly, yeah, yeah. Aarati Asundi (14:13) yeah. So this is a very important job also. And Pliny took this duty very seriously. So as a teenager from a wealthy family, he was educated in Rome in law. And then afterwards, at around the age of 23, Pliny joined the military. He served three tours in Germany over the next 10 years and it turns out he was a very talented military man and he quickly rose in the ranks. He started out as a junior officer in command of an infantry cohort and took part in conquering a Germanic River tribe called the Chauci. He was then promoted to the rank of military tribune, and then several years later, he was promoted again to a cavalry wing commander. While he's in the cavalry, he started writing a lot. Sometime during his time in Germany, he wrote his first book, the title of roughly to "On the Use of Javelins in the Cavalry." Jyoti Asundi (15:18) Okay, yes. Aarati Asundi (15:18) Yeah, and we don't really have that book. That book has not survived to modern times, so we don't know exactly what was in it, but he was a prolific writer so because of that, we've that probably this book included things like how a man on a horse could use the horse's movements to throw a javelin better. So things like that. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (15:40) Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's in a way a very specific art of warfare, actually. Aarati Asundi (15:47) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (15:48) He's focusing on his particular skill set in the war, that this is what he knows and he's trying to teach people. Interesting. Aarati Asundi (15:55) He's writing about that. Yeah. While he was in the army, he also apparently had a dream in which the spirit of Drusus Nero, who's the great grandfather of Emperor Nero, begged Pliny to make sure that Drusus was not forgotten to history. So Drusus Nero is the one who had started the Roman conquest of Germany in 12 BC. And, you know, now Pliny is continuing to fight in these Germanic wars. Jyoti Asundi (16:25) Yes, yes, yes. Aarati Asundi (16:25) And so Pliny started writing a 20 volume book called Wars in Germany, which was a full account of all the wars that had been going on between the Romans and the Germans in like a tribute to Drusus Nero. Jyoti Asundi (16:40) Wow, wow, wow, what a great man. He started these wars that went on and on forever and ever. We kept fighting them between the Romans kept fighting the Germans and we didn't give up and they didn't give up. And so we kept going... Aarati Asundi (16:57) Yeah, constant fighting and we're still doing it. Jyoti Asundi (16:57) ...and we are eternal enemies. wow. And we, this needs to be captured and hailed and okay, all right. Aarati Asundi (17:03) Yes. Yeah. So this was a very long ongoing project that he did not finish for many years, we were Jyoti Asundi (17:10) Well, if it's 20 books, I guess 20 volumes. Aarati Asundi (17:13) Yeah, it took him a while. Let's just say it took him a while. Jyoti Asundi (17:16) I would hope so. Aarati Asundi (17:18) Yeah. But speaking of Emperor Nero, Pliny hated him. Nero spent lavish amounts of the Senate's money on entertainment, building amphitheaters, and holding athletic contests. And actually, most Romans didn't like him. Most Romans thought he was self-indulgent and tyrannical and Pliny apparently said that Nero was quote "An enemy of the human race" end quote. Jyoti Asundi (17:47) That bad. Aarati Asundi (17:48) Really bad. Jyoti Asundi (17:50) Maybe this is where it came from, That, what is that? When Rome was burning, Nero was fiddling. Aarati Asundi (17:57) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (17:57) That quote that came, that's become almost like a proverb at this point. I bet you that's where it came from, that kind of hatred, that deep-seated hatred. Hmm, okay. Aarati Asundi (18:07) Yeah. Like he just had no concern for the people of Rome at all. And he only cares about himself. Jyoti Asundi (18:14) But you know, Nero apparently in the beginning he was okay. Aarati Asundi (18:19) Yes, yes, he was, I think in the beginning he was okay. Jyoti Asundi (18:19) Early on. His early days was he was a decent fellow. Aarati Asundi (18:22) He got worse and worse. Yeah, he got worse and worse. Jyoti Asundi (18:25) He got worse. He first killed his stepbrother a bit of himself. And then once he made sure to arrange for the death of his own mother, he lost all sense of what's right and what's wrong. Aarati Asundi (18:39) So like in researching this, was starting to research a little bit about the Roman Empire because there's a big gap in my knowledge. Like the Roman Empire is something I honestly don't know that much about. And so I was like looking at all these emperors and how they succeeded each other and just like assassinations and crazy like, you know, poisonings and all these things. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (19:00) Yes, this constant struggle for power and constant struggle to conquest other lands. Aarati Asundi (19:07) Yeah. Like Nero was crazy, but it was kind of because he was so paranoid all the time that someone's out to get him. And this is kind of a recurring thing, I think, with a lot of the emperors at the time. Like when you're a Roman Emperor, you're watching your like, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (19:20) Yeah, yeah, because you know, you live by the sword, you, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. That's what happens. Aarati Asundi (19:27) Yeah. And so he was just like, you know, everyone's out to get me. I have to keep everyone under my thumb. And if you dare raise a finger against me or you dare try to dissent or say any argument against me, then you're getting beheaded. You're getting killed, you know, Jyoti Asundi (19:43) Yeah, yeah. Aarati Asundi (19:44) Like, so no one can oppose him and he just becomes worse and worse and worse. And Pliny...back to Pliny. He semi-retired from the military and moved to Rome around 59 AD, at which point Nero has been emperor for about four to five years. So not that long, but I think he's already starting to show signs that, you know, he's starting to go crazy a little. So Pliny had, remember I said, an education in law. And so it seems like for the next few years, he practiced some law, but he deliberately kept a low profile because, you know, remember he's like in this equestrian class, he very easily could use his law background to kind of rise and become a very prominent figure, but he deliberately did not want to attract the attention of Emperor Nero in any way. So he declined lofty state titles. He did not want to become like a big, big name at all. Jyoti Asundi (20:51) Yes, smart man, smart man. Fly under the radar in order to kind of keep your head attached to its neck, to your neck. Aarati Asundi (21:00) Yes, exactly. He's not drawing attention to himself. He continued writing during this time. He published a second book called The Life of Pomponius Secundus, which was a biography about one of his commanders in the German War, ⁓ which again has been lost somewhere in time. We don't have that anymore. The other two books he wrote during this time were less interesting and deliberately so. Again, he's trying to lay low. So they were books that focused on grammar and rhetoric and focused on like how to write things more than any particular content. So he's just really trying to avoid ruffling any kind of political feathers here. Jyoti Asundi (21:48) Yes, yes, let me live a calm, extremely boring life. Aarati Asundi (21:52) Let's pretend like I am. Pretend. Like I don't think he wanted to, but he at least had the foresight that if... Jyoti Asundi (21:59) Very good sense to lay low because he didn't trust the people in power. Aarati Asundi (22:04) Yeah, and actually Pliny the Younger, his nephew, ⁓ wrote a series of letters about his uncle and in them he said, quote, "He wrote this under Nero in the last years of his reign when every kind of literary pursuit which was in the least independent or elevated had been rendered dangerous by servitude." So deliberately Pliny's like, I want to write, but I have to write about something really boring, really dull that absolutely cannot be construed as posing any sort of threat or any sort of danger to anyone. So I will write about writing. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (22:44) Yeah, kill all means of education so that we can hold on to power. Hey, doesn't that echo something that's happening more recently? Aarati Asundi (22:53) Yeah, maybe a little. Jyoti Asundi (22:54) I can hear something. I hear something going on out there these days. Aarati Asundi (22:56) It's so sad. Jyoti Asundi (22:58) Alright so Pliny was very smart. Aarati Asundi (23:00) Yes, so keeping a low profile. In 68 AD, Emperor Nero died and eventually Vespasian took over the throne. And this was great news for Pliny because he had known Vespasian from his time in the military. They had become good friends, actually. Jyoti Asundi (23:20) Buddies, yes. Aarati Asundi (23:21) Yes. So his friend is now the emperor of Rome. And so Pliny was now like "Great, I can finally shine and not feel any danger. So he actually became one of Vespasian's most trusted advisors, advising both Vespasian and his son Titus. Jyoti Asundi (23:44) Nice. Aarati Asundi (23:44) And Pliny also became a governor of some of Rome's imperial provinces. So now he's feeling I can do whatever I want to do now. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (23:52) Yes, yeah, can let myself shine out a bit. Let my true nature come out a bit. Aarati Asundi (23:59) So he spent most of his days working for Emperor Vespasian, but at night Pliny kept on writing and studying. He hardly spent any time at night sleeping. And Pliny the Younger wrote that his uncle, quote, "Was indeed a very ready sleeper, sometimes dropping off in the middle of his studies and then waking up again. So he's just working so hard and he can just fall asleep at the drop of a hat and then he'll wake up and be like, like two hours later, be like, okay, I have to work again. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (24:30) Yes, fresh and ready to go again. Yes. I heard some people who can do that. They would be like, they would be working really hard. And what they would do is they would sleep in a chair or something, holding a spoon. And as soon as you fall asleep, the spoon falls down on makes a noise and that wakes them up. Aarati Asundi (24:50) Oh my God. Jyoti Asundi (24:51) And that just that micro sleep was enough for them to recharge. Aarati Asundi (24:54) I bet he did something like that. I can totally imagine him doing something like that. Jyoti Asundi (24:58) Yeah, that little microsleep. You talked about microsleeps in one of your previous episodes actually, you that's exactly what they were doing. There were like little microsleeps to kind of get those little brain cells going again. Because the work is very important. Anyway, what's the work that's so important that he can give up sleep of all things? Aarati Asundi (25:17) Turns out that this is when Pliny wrote what he is most famous for, which is Naturalis Historia, which translates to natural history. And this is the largest literary work with over one million words to have survived intact from the Roman Empire. And it's actually Pliny's only surviving work to the modern day. And many historians call it the first encyclopedia ever written because unlike most books at the time, Naturalist Historia was basically a compilation of facts. And I use that word loosely here, which you'll see in a minute. ⁓ But it didn't try to tell you a story or it didn't try to teach you about a certain topic. So it wasn't like a textbook. It was meant to be a book where you could go and look up something whenever you wanted. You would just have it in your house. If you had something that you wanted to learn quickly more about, you could go look it up in the Naturalis Historia. It wasn't meant to be a book that you read from beginning to end, unlike most other books at the time. Jyoti Asundi (26:24) Right, right, right. Aarati Asundi (26:26) And so this was kind of like a very new concept for people. Like, you know, wait... Jyoti Asundi (26:31) Yes, yes, it's not a story. It's just like you go to the A section and look at ants and then you look go to the F section and look at what something about foxes things like that Aarati Asundi (26:42) Yes, yes. Jyoti Asundi (26:42) And just get little blurbs of information. Aarati Asundi (26:46) Yeah, and this was very different at the time. No one had done something like this before. Jyoti Asundi (26:51) Yes, a unique concept. Aarati Asundi (26:53) Yes, very unique. So Naturalis Historia was a compilation of 37 books arranged into 10 volumes, which covered topics including astronomy, anthropology, zoology, botany, geology, pharmacology, all the ologies. ⁓ Jyoti Asundi (26:14) Did he know this stuff or did he get others to come ⁓ work with him? Aarati Asundi (27:20) That is a great question. So it is very important to note that these books were not always scientifically accurate. Jyoti Asundi (27:28) Okay, so is it more like these are my observations about things like Aarati Asundi (27:33) Yeah, so what Pliny did basically is he observed some stuff. He also, a lot of his time was spent reading ⁓ what other people had written, like other great minds of the time, other scientists or other philosophers, what things that they had written he was studying and trying to understand and then putting what they had learned or their takes into his compilation. So if he was like, you know, I don't really know anything about foxes, but I know this guy who studies them. Let me read everything that he understands about foxes and then I'll put them into this book. Jyoti Asundi (28:15) ...he did and then incorporate that in. Aarati Asundi (28:11) So a lot of his time is spent studying all these different texts, all these different people, and then also talking like corresponding with these great minds and talking to them. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (28:22) Yeah, so compilation, he's more of a compiler of all knowledge. Okay, Aarati Asundi (28:27) But at the same time, when we look back at the Naturalis Historia, there's a lot of it, like a lot of things that are wrong that we know today are completely incorrect, ⁓ that he totally just got wrong. And some of that, of course, is because he is living in ancient Rome and they just don't have like the scientific technology that we have and the understanding that we have after 2000 years. Jyoti Asundi (28:49) And also knowledge itself has evolved from before. even in terms of, I don't know, did they already know the earth was round, the earth was flat? Aarati Asundi (28:56) I think so at this time. Jyoti Asundi (28:58) What did they think? Yeah, I don't even remember now. Aarati Asundi (29:01) I think they understood it was round at this time. Jyoti Asundi (29:03) They knew it was round by this point? Yeah. Aarati Asundi (29:04) Yeah, they knew it was round because they had observed eclipses and things like that. And so they kind of understood the Earth was round. But for example, Jyoti Asundi (29:11) Yeah, but there will be things like that. Aarati Asundi (29:13) Yeah, I have some examples. Like he thought that due to eclipses and what he observed with eclipses, he thought that the moon must be bigger than the earth, since from our perspective, it seems like the moon can completely blot out the sun. And so that obviously is incorrect. He also thought that the craters on the moon were like puddles on the moon, that the moon was drawing up moisture from the earth's oceans and it was traveling to the moon and creating puddles there. Jyoti Asundi (29:44) So tides due to the phases of the moon, he was tying it like that. Aarati Asundi (29:49) Yeah, I was like, okay, so at least he figured out that the moon and the tides have something to do with each other. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (29:53) There's something to do with each other. Yeah, but then he got it wrong at the end. It's okay. That's okay. But at least they made a stab at it. Aarati Asundi (30:00) Yes, and also there's like... There are some sources that also said, you know, he's reading all of these things from scientists and philosophers, but he's not actually fully understanding it. So whatever he wrote was also sometimes, like if you actually went and read the source material of what the scientist at the time said, that scientist got it right, but Pliny got it wrong because Pliny didn't fully understand what the scientist was trying to say. And so, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (30:26) Got it, didn't fully understand. So maybe the tides and the moon are one example, very good example of that. Aarati Asundi (30:35) Yes, yes. So he was like, oh, there's something, you know, they're tied to each other somehow. Jyoti Asundi (30:38) Something going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right. Aarati Asundi (30:40) Yeah. So he got a lot of stuff wrong. But that being said, these books were not necessarily meant to be completely scientifically accurate because I like Pliny did not write it with that intent is what I mean. There's a lot in there about politics and Pliny's personal observations and thoughts about religion and society. So it's not meant to be this like very unbiased, you know, scientific fact thing, the way that encyclopedias are today where they don't take a side and they're just like, these are the facts he was putting in his, you know, his two cents in everywhere. Jyoti Asundi (31:17) Yeah, yeah, Aarati Asundi (31:19) For example, he tells us that the best thing a person can do to be godly is "To assist man is to be God. This is the path to eternal glory. This is the path which Roman nobles formerly pursued. And this is the path which is now pursued by the greatest ruler of our age, Vespasian Augustus. He who has come to the relief of an exhausted empire as well as by his sons." So it's like clearly, you have this really high opinion about Vespasian. You have very strong opinions about what it means to be a good person and you're, you know. Jyoti Asundi (32:00) Yeah, you know this in the same sort of keeping an irreverent tone going here, there was a pastor who was trying to teach very young children to be closer to God and how to get into heaven. So he asked these very young kids if pray to God every day, will I go to heaven? And they all say no. And, okay, if I come to the church and clean all the pews and every day and make everything nice and be good, will I go to heaven? They said, no. if I give alms to the needy and if I help all the poor people of this town, will I go to heaven? They said, no. So what will get me to heaven? He said, you have to be dead. Aarati Asundi (32:44) Oh my god. I mean, true though, you have to be dead. Oh my god. Jyoti Asundi (32:52) You have to be dead. You have to be dead to go to heaven. All this other stuff is not getting you anywhere. Aarati Asundi (32:59) It's like, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Yeah Jyoti Asundi (33:01) It doesn't matter. Going nowhere near heaven. So, okay. I'm sorry. I took it off to a different angle, but maybe he meant assisting, assist God. ⁓ He might have meant in the terms that be good to all the people and that is, that's what pleases God. Aarati Asundi (33:21) Yes, assist man. Jyoti Asundi (33:23) Yeah, assist men, assist men in order to reach God. And that means, you know, that is that theme is a very recurring theme in all religions actually but it's a good concept. Aarati Asundi (33:33) It is a good concept... Jyoti Asundi (33:33) It's a good concept. It's a good concept, okay. Aarati Asundi (33:34) ...but it is definitely Pliny's concept. It's his own two cents. So it's not... Jyoti Asundi (33:40) Yeah, but then I think he's trying to just keep it simple the times in those days, this was the time where Christianity was slowly rising. It was just around the time. Because the Romans, they believed in the Roman gods and they didn't like Christians. And in fact, that whole when Rome was burning, Nero was fiddling. Nero, order to avert to blame from himself, had actually blamed Christians for the fire and put a whole bunch of them to death. So there was a bit of a religious warfare already that had started. These people believed polytheistic, Roman gods kind of thing. And here the Christianity was rising on the side. And so I think it might be a sign of the times where Pliny was, he was almost being like a Buddha where he says, hey, listen, keep it simple. Just if you want to reach God, just be good to everybody. Don't make it so complicated and don't bring so many different names into it. And don't say my God and your God and her God and his God, just be good to everybody. That'll make God happy. Aarati Asundi (34:52) Yeah, which is a great concept and I fully agree, that's all you need to do. It's just interesting that it made it into the first to people. Jyoti Asundi (35:02) Yeah, but in those days there was absolutely no concept of separation of church and state. Aarati Asundi (35:08) Oh yeah. Jyoti Asundi (35:11) So the concept of God was completely integrated into everybody's life and what was considered scientific could also include the concept of God, what was considered political could also include God. And so I can see him saying, we have to figure this out. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (35:34) Hi everyone, Aarati here. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. If so, and you wish someone would tell your science story, I founded a science communications company called Sykom, that's S-Y-K-O-M, that can help. Sykom blends creativity with scientific accuracy to create all types of science, communications, content, including explainer videos, slide presentations, science, writing, and more. We work with academic researchers, tech companies, nonprofits, or really any scientists. To help simplify your science, check us out at sykommer.com. That's S-Y-K-O-M-M-E r.com. Back to the story. Aarati Asundi (36:18) Okay, so in addition to his two cents that he's adding in to everything, there's also, like I said a lot, that's blatantly false or things that wouldn't necessarily chalk up to the limits of science. It was just wrong. He did not do his due diligence at all in some of these things. So he included a bunch of flat-out rumors about mythology like the supposed existence of creatures called Scaipodae which was a magical dwarf that had one large foot and quote, "They are in the habit of lying on their backs during a time of extreme heat and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet" end quote. Jyoti Asundi (37:03) Oh my god. But you know, to give him the benefit of the doubt, it could be that these rumors were so well integrated into his world at that time, his little world at that time, that he believed them to be fact. Aarati Asundi (37:18) Yeah, but he's including these things that are like rumors, like somebody went to India on a ship, they claim that they saw a scaipodae other people kind of say this, and then he doesn't actually go and check. Has anyone literally actually seen this thing or not? It's just he's heard of its existence, he knows what it's supposed to be, he includes it in the book. Jyoti Asundi (37:40) Yeah. Aarati Asundi (37:41) Andh you know, he's included it without really checking to see whether, like, does a zoologist know about these things? Has anyone actually, like, seen them? Do they actually exist? He's just like, yeah, we're including that. Jyoti Asundi (37:57) This looks interesting and make my book more interesting. Let me do it. Aarati Asundi (38:00) Yeah. But I think this is where he kind of gets his kind of crazy cult following is like these random things that he's included in the book that today people just kind of find hilarious. Like, why is this? Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (38:11) Yes, I can see that. Yes, yes, this is part of the first encyclopedia? Are you kidding me? Yeah, I can see that. It's And I bet you it's one of those trivia things where "Do you know what was included in the first encyclopedia? Do you know about Scaipodae? Wrong or right, doesn't matter. More wrong is better because then everybody doesn't know it, only you know it. Yeah, only you know it. Aarati Asundi (38:35) It's funnier, yeah. And I think it's just funny from our perspective, like knowing that he thought the craters of the moon were puddles and that these like mythical creatures existed. I think people just find it really hilarious that he was diligently studying all of this stuff and writing it down and as if it's fact or whatever. And people just find it really funny. Jyoti Asundi (38:58) Yeah. It's like, I can see the cult following. Okay. Aarati Asundi (39:08) So although Pliny claims that the books were well-researched, containing over 20,000 facts that he had spoken to over 100 expert authors and read over 2,000 books compiling all this information, didn't keep it strictly verifiable. And as I was researching this, I kind of just got the general feeling that people thought that although Pliny was very enthusiastic about science, he himself was not the best scientist Jyoti Asundi (39:28) Yes, that makes sense. Aarati Asundi (39:30) because he wasn't sticking to any sort of impartial scientific method. And he was often stating his opinions as facts. But that being said, it was very impressive. And I think the reason people also remember him is because he is the first to kind of try and make this scientific data accessible to people by making the attempt to review so many different fields and compile all of these facts into one place. Jyoti Asundi (40:00) Yes. Yes. Aarati Asundi (40:00) Like take all of human knowledge and put it into one set of books that people can reference at any time. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (40:07) Yes, which you can have on one shelf in one place and then you can just go there and look at it and look at the topic. Nice, nice. The concept of the encyclopedia. Yes. Aarati Asundi (40:16) Yes. So it's quite an ambitious undertaking, even though he wasn't quite accurate about it. The concept was good. And the fact that he wanted to share this kind of knowledge with the common man and teach the common man everything that they had learned from nature and working with nature, is very laudable. It also is interesting to people like archaeologists today and historians because it kind of gives us a glimpse into the past. Because he was writing about all of these societal things and political things and economic things, so we get a really clear picture of what it was like living in ancient Roman times... Jyoti Asundi (41:02) That's useful. Aarati Asundi (41:02) ...that we would not have gotten if just by digging up artifacts. Like we don't really understand... Jyoti Asundi (41:09) Yes, piecing together with archaeological diggings is not the same as having this all written down. Aarati Asundi (41:16) Yeah, so we kind of get a really clear idea of like what foods they ate, what the fashion of the time was, you what was considered high art. Jyoti Asundi (41:23) Yeah. Plus what they were thinking, which you can never get from an archaeological dig, like, they believed in all these weird rumors of, you know, weird creatures their thoughts was about the moon. You would never have that because it's in the mind. It doesn't translate into an archaeological dig. Aarati Asundi (41:43) Yeah, and same with like their value system and how their society hierarchy was set up and how like their economy functioned, things like that we would not really have a good idea of. And so that in itself makes this text just invaluable. And the fact that he has put all of that kind of stuff into there where he's like, you know, " these ladies prancing around with this jewels, like, diamonds and rubies, and they should be focused more on, you know, godly pursuits rather than decking themselves up the highest fashionable emeralds." And we're like, "okay, so emeralds were in high fashion at the time, good to know, like we did not know that, you know? Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (42:27) Nice, nice. All the derivations, yeah. Aarati Asundi (42:31) Yeah, and so I thought it was especially cool that he wrote about technologies that the Romans used at the time, some of which we do have archaeological evidence of, but some of which we never would have known that the ancient Romans were able to do. Like he wrote about how they used water mills to grind grain or use a flood of water to find mineral veins in rocks when mining. Jyoti Asundi (42:55) Oh wow, so those techniques had already started. Aarati Asundi (43:00) Yeah, and some of those things don't leave behind any archaeological evidence, so we never would have known that, you know, they were using watermills and things like that. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (43:05) That hydraulic power already existed yeah the use of hydraulic power existed already. Nice. Aarati Asundi (43:11) Yes. And sometimes actually today, if archaeologists find an object dating back to that time and they don't know what it is, they will try to look it up in the Naturalis Historia and see if Pliny wrote about it. Maybe they can figure it out. Jyoti Asundi (43:24) Can we please figure out what they call this? Wow. Aarati Asundi (43:28) Yeah, so they are kind of using it like an encyclopedia as he intended. Yes. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (43:29) Yeah, it is still being used, still useful. Nice, nice. Aarati Asundi (43:26) He published his first edition in 77 AD and from then on he spent his time revising it. Pliny, remember though, is still working for Emperor Vespasian and at some point he had appointed Pliny to be an admiral in the Roman navy. So in 79 AD Pliny was stationed which is in the province of Naples. And if we have any history buffs in the audience, they may have kind of where this is going already because 79 AD is the same year that Mount Vesuvius infamously erupts. And it is one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in history. The eruption released a cloud of gases and superheated rock, pumice, and ash 21 miles into the sky, which then rained down on the surrounding cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The eruption released 100,000 times the thermal energy of an atom bomb and lasted over two days. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (44:40) Wow, wow, wow, that is something. Aarati Asundi (44:45) Yeah, isn't that crazy? Jyoti Asundi (44:46) It must have destroyed those places. Aarati Asundi (44:49) It absolutely did, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (44:50) Oh my God. Aarati Asundi (44:51) It's one of those things like destruction of the city of Pompeii due to Mount Vesuvius is in countless documentaries. Like we still have those sites where people were kind of just buried in ash and you can see the outlines of people because they didn't have the time to run away. So they're just kind of crouched in their houses. Jyoti Asundi (45:11) Oh my god, just frozen, Aarati Asundi (45:15) Yeah, yeah. Jyoti Asundi (45:16) They have been converted to stone probably at this point, but they were people once. Oh god. Aarati Asundi (45:22) Yes. And you can just kind of see like people were trying to take their jewelry or trying to take their precious things and leave, but they just couldn't leave in time. So yeah. Jyoti Asundi (45:32) Yeah, frozen, frozen in those positions. Aarati Asundi (45:34) And I think a lot of people were also just trying to hunker down in their houses and hope that they could just survive by staying put in one place. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (45:42) Going under the bed or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓ horrible. Okay. Aarati Asundi (45:47) So it's just one of those like disasters that happened... Jyoti Asundi (45:51) Huge, huge one. Aarati Asundi (45:52) ...that is just today, people are just fascinated by it because it was such a tragedy. Jyoti Asundi (45:56) Yeah, yeah, that sounds bad. Aarati Asundi (46:59) The ash and pumice spewed into the air, completely blotting out the sun. And Pliny the Younger, who also lived in Misenum at the time, wrote, quote, "It was now day everywhere else, but there deeper darkness prevailed than the thickest night. So Misenum is where Pliny is stationed at the time. Jyoti Asundi (46:19) Yeah, yeah. Aarati Asundi (46:20) And it's nearby when the volcano is erupting. So he prepares an exploratory vessel because he wants to go get a closer look at the volcano erupting. Jyoti Asundi (46:31) Oh no! No way, no way. Aarati Asundi (46:32) Yes. Yes. Which is again why people again have this cult following of him because it's like, are you insane? This huge volcano is erupting. Don't go get a closer look. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (46:44) Yeah, everybody is like, yeah, everybody is like, I almost thought that he might want to go help people or something, but no, he wants to go take a closer look. Oh my God. Aarati Asundi (46:54) Yes, so that was kind of his secondary thing. So first was, ooh, this volcano's erupting... Jyoti Asundi (47:00) I need to see more! Aarati Asundi (47:00) I want to go see it and then maybe I could write about it in my Naturalis Historia. Like, ooh, this is interesting. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (47:07) Yeah. ⁓ Okay, yeah, let me share this. Let me go get a first-hand experience and then go share it in my book. God, okay. All right. Aarati Asundi (47:16) Yeah. Yeah. So people are like, are you nuts? You're actually nuts. Yeah. Jyoti Asundi (47:19) He goes to it in small vessel that too. Aarati Asundi (47:22) So he's preparing. He's preparing an exploratory vessel. But then he gets an urgent message from one of his friends, Rectina, who is stranded in a city called Stabiae which is right across the bay from Misienum... or Misenum. So she's trapped there and her only way out of Stabaie is by leaving by ship. So upon hearing from Rectina, Pliny immediately sets sail to go to Stabaie and rescue her and try to rescue anyone else who might be in need of his aid, including Senator Pomponianus, who is, you know, over there. Jyoti Asundi (48:05) Yes. Aarati Asundi (48:06) Important to note that Pliny the Younger opts to stay home in Misenum at this time. Jyoti Asundi (48:10) Okay, yeah, somebody had sense in that family. Aarati Asundi (48:14) Yes. Yeah. He's like, no thanks. Enjoy. Jyoti Asundi (48:16) Yeah, you do you. Aarati Asundi (48:19) So he does not want to get any closer to this eruption. Jyoti Asundi (48:21) No. Aarati Asundi (48:22) So yeah, which logical. Jyoti Asundi (48:25) Hello, I have a brain. Aarati Asundi (48:27) So Pliny the Elder and his crew set out and they sail across the bay and as they are sailing, pumice stones are raining down on the ship. Jyoti Asundi (48:36) Holy! Aarati Asundi (48:37) And the helmsman is like, we need to turn back. This is really bad. We need to turn back. Jyoti Asundi (48:39) Yeah! Why are you putting a poor boatman into this situation? Okay, okay. Aarati Asundi (48:46) Yes, but Pliny made them press on saying, fortune favors the brave. Jyoti Asundi (48:50) Oh Lord, no. And ⁓ Lord, there are so many counter... It's like those who fight and run away live to fight another day. What happened to that? Aarati Asundi (49:00) Yes, yes. Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. Yeah. Run away, run away. Jyoti Asundi (49:07) Run away so I can fight another day. Aarati Asundi (49:11) Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly not his mentality though. So they reached Stabaie and they found Senator Pomponianus. but the same winds that they had used to get to Stabaie now prevented the ship from leaving. So yeah, so they're stuck there. Jyoti Asundi (49:27) Duh! Yes, duh because yeah, because you're it's not motorized yet. Hello. You have to wait for the wind to change now. Nice. So you in the order to rescue your trapped friend got yourself trapped right next to her. Aarati Asundi (49:42) Yeah, have become trapped yourself. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (49:44) Brilliant. Lord. OK. Aarati Asundi (49:48) But I mean, apparently, Pliny did not seem too concerned by them being trapped at Stabaie. He decided that since they were stuck, they might as well have dinner and a bath. Jyoti Asundi (50:00) Okay. Go see Vesuvius maybe. We are trapped here anyway. Aarati Asundi (50:02) Yeah, let's go see it. Jyoti Asundi (50:03) Let's go to the place which actually burned down. Let's go to Pompeii and where it burned down. Let's go there. Aarati Asundi (50:10) Well, they can't because that night they are forced to hunker down in a building while pumice stones are raining down all around them. And at one point they are seriously debating whether it's better to stay inside the building or leave because the roof is threatening to collapse in on them under the weight of stone. Jyoti Asundi (50:31) Wait, I'm little bit confused still. Initially you said that the Mount Vesuvius burst and then it was affecting two places and that was Aarati Asundi (50:43) Pompeii and Herculaneum. Jyoti Asundi (50:44) Pompeii and? Aarati Asundi (50:46) Herculaneum. Jyoti Asundi (50:47) Herculaneum. But and then this Stabiae where he's now trapped also seems to be affected. So... is it like... Aarati Asundi (50:58) I think it kind of depends on where the winds are shifting and how far away you are from the mountain. Jyoti Asundi (51:02) Okay. So he has basically gone into the danger zone. And this... Aarati Asundi (51:07) So when I was looking at a map of this, you can imagine the bay kind of like the letter C, a backwards letter C. So Misenum centum is at the top of the letter C. Stabaie is at the bottom. And this whole inner part of the sea is filled with water. And Mount Vesuvius is right in the middle of the sea, right here. And it's exploding. Pompeii is kind of southeast, I guess, of this. And the wind is blowing that way, so it's getting affected and Herculaneum is right at the base of Mount Vesuvius, so these two places are getting really badly affected. And now the people at Stabaie have nowhere to go because they can't go towards Mount Vesuvius because it's exploding. So the only way they can go is away by ship. Jyoti Asundi (52:00) Yes and then the winds are not favoring that. Aarati Asundi (52:03) Yeah, and the winds are not favoring that. So he was okay up here in Misenum because the winds were blowing everything kind of southeast. Yeah, and they allow... Jyoti Asundi (52:10) Yes, allowing him to go downward, but the winds were not letting them. Aarati Asundi (52:14) Yeah. So they're trapped there. Jyoti Asundi (52:5) Oh goodness, alright. Aarati Asundi (52:17) So they're hunkering down in a building while the pumice stones are raining down all around them. And at one point they're seriously debating whether it's better to leave or stay because the roof is threatening to collapse under the weight of the stones on top of it. Finally, they decide to leave, but as they are fleeing, Pliny the Elder collapses and he's unable to breathe. Jyoti Asundi (52:41) Oh! Aarati Asundi (52:42) So according to Pliny the Younger, Pliny the Elder had some sort of respiratory condition, possibly asthma. Jyoti Asundi (52:49) Oh, of course. Aarati Asundi (52:51) Also, he wasn't really in the best shape. He was kind of overweight and not taking care of his health in general. Jyoti Asundi (52:59) And yet when danger beckoned he said yes. He answered yes. Wow okay. Aarati Asundi (53:05) Yeah. So he collapses and the group can't do anything about it. They can't really carry him. Jyoti Asundi (53:11) Yeah. Yeah. Aarati Asundi (53:12) He's a big guy. And so they have to leave him where he fell. Two days later, when the eruption was over, the group returned back to where Pliny the Elder had fallen. And he's right there where he had fallen and he's dead. Jyoti Asundi (53:29) Okay. Aarati Asundi (53:31) There are no marks on his body and in fact people said it looked like he was just asleep. Pliny the younger thinks he died from inhaling the toxic gases from the volcano and others say it might have been a stroke from trying to run. ⁓ Probably a combination of the two I could imagine. When all was said and done, over 2,000 people died when Mount Vesuvius erupted. But Pliny the Elder was definitely the most famous to have died in that. Jyoti Asundi (54:00) ...to have died in that. The father of the encyclopedia died also due to Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD. Holy. Aarati Asundi (54:06) Yes. Which is just even more interesting because I've watched documentaries about Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii and things like that. It's definitely one of those things that just captures your mind with the horror of it and the destruction of it. It's just so crazy and you can't tear your eyes away and you're just imagining these people. And yet, I'd never heard of Pliny the Elder in all of this. Jyoti Asundi (54:32) No, he kind of, even spite of his stature, he did get dwarfed by such a big event. Aarati Asundi (54:40) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (54:40) So the event of Mount Vesuvius was so horrifying that it didn't matter. Like probably a couple of senators died too or something, maybe, you know, the people who were in charge of those cities. So big, names must have died there. Aarati Asundi (54:53) Yes, definitely. Yeah, but because of his encyclopedia and it's surviving, we still remember him today and not all the other senators who might have died and anyone else who may have died. They all faded into obscurity, but Pliny the Elder, we still remember today. Jyoti Asundi (55:11) That is such a fun story, in a way and it's the story of not quite a scientist. It's a wannabe scientist. It's a he's a wannabe. Aarati Asundi (55:19) Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit of a different story today. Yeah, definitely. Yes. Jyoti Asundi (55:22) Yeah, it's a bit of a wannabe scientist. And that's... that's fun, too, actually, because science is open to everybody. Everybody can be and- and- Yeah, like he didn't keep up with the rigors that were required, but his intention was good. And ultimately, he did do something extremely novel. And that is the documentation part of it. As a laboratory scientist, we are told this over and over. If you have not entered your experiment into a notebook, then that experiment does not exist. It's as good as you did not do it. so, yeah, he was not the scientist part, but he brought in the documentation part which is crucial. It's like if you didn't document it, it did not, does not exist which is true today after so many other archaeological digs. That documentation is what is allowing us to understand the times better and therefore make better derivations of what was happening in those days. So, crucial contribution. Aarati Asundi (56:23) Yeah. And I think the reason I to cover him was because he's like a very early science communicator Jyoti Asundi (56:30) Yeah! Aarati Asundi (56:30) And he was working really hard to make this information accessible to the common people and kind of teach them about the science that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. And even though he didn't get it... Jyoti Asundi (56:42) Yes, very good point. Aarati Asundi (56:45) ...completely right like his intention was good his intention of spreading knowledge was very good Jyoti Asundi (56:51) And also though he got things wrong, the ultimate product was good. Aarati Asundi (57:58) Yes. Jyoti Asundi (56:59) Even the fact that he went and documented all those rumors. It gives us very strong insight into how those people thought in those days, which is also very helpful. Like, hey, they believed these kind of things. That's interesting. Look where we have come. Things like that. So that's very useful. Aarati Asundi (57:20) Yeah, so that's his story. Welcome to the cult of Pliny the Elder. You are now officially inducted. Jyoti Asundi (57:25) Interesting. I am inducted. I'm making great strides. Aarati Asundi (57:30) Yes, congratulations. Jyoti Asundi (57:31) Thank you. Thank you. All right. Aarati Asundi (57:33) Thanks for listening. If you have a suggestion for a story we should cover or thoughts you want to share about an episode, reach out to us at smarttpodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Blue Sky at SmartT Podcasts and listen to us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a rating or comment. It helps us grow. New episodes are released every other Wednesday. See you next time.