Learn what would happen if you could stop time; why speaking multiple dialects of the same language is good for your brain; and why there’s a secret room behind Mount Rushmore. In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: There's a Secret Room Behind Mount Rushmore Meant for Future Civilizations What Would Happen If You Stopped Time? Speaking Multiple Dialects of the Same Language Is Good For Your Brain Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron! Learn about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Learn what would happen if you could stop time; why speaking multiple dialects of the same language is good for your brain; and why there’s a secret room behind Mount Rushmore.
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Please tell us about yourself and help us improve the show by taking our listener survey! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/curiosity-listener-survey
If you love our show and you're interested in hearing full-length interviews, then please consider supporting us on Patreon. You'll get exclusive episodes and access to our archives as soon as you become a Patron!
Learn about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/what-would-happen-if-you-stopped-time-secret-room-of-mount-rushmore-and-dialect-benefits
CODY GOUGH: Hi, we've got three stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn what would happen if you could stop time, why speaking multiple dialects of the same language is good for your brain, and why there's a secret room behind Mount Rushmore.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: You know how some superheroes and super villains can stop time? Well, it turns out the real world effects of stopping time wouldn't be very practical, but they're a pretty fun way to learn about physics.
CODY GOUGH: Can I just say I loved this article?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, me too. I loved writing it.
CODY GOUGH: I'm really big into time stopping because I played a lot of Mega Man 2 when I was little--
ASHLEY HAMER: Aha.
CODY GOUGH: And Flash Man is iconic. Really good music too.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, actually you helped me with this article because I was like, what's an example of a time where you stopped time? And you're like, Mega Man.
CODY GOUGH: I remember. And then time stopped and I thought to myself, now is my chance.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS] Anyway.
CODY GOUGH: It was good.
ASHLEY HAMER: Before we get into this, let's define what we mean by stopping time. We're talking about when you stop time for everything, but you, obviously. Like in TV shows or movies where everything is frozen and a character walks around moving stuff. Adam Sandler in Click, Keanu Reeves in The Matrix, stuff like that.
Well, for this to even work, you need to account for every molecule of fluid and air inside and outside of your body. If you're able to move around, then we have to assume the molecules inside you can move around too. And if the air in the rest of the room stopped experiencing time, then every molecule would stay suspended precisely in the same location. So you wouldn't be able to move because you'd be trapped in a prison of air molecules.
So let's say the time keeps flowing normally for the molecules near your body, and beyond that, time standstill. All right, well, there's still a problem. As you listen to this, particles of light called photons are traveling at the speed of, well, light, obviously, into your eyes. You're also hearing this podcast at the speed of sound through the air as pressure waves that eventually get to your ears to vibrate your eardrums.
If you stopped time, then all light and sound would stop too, which might leave you instantly deaf and blind. Not super helpful, right? OK, let's say that any photons that had already been emitted from a source, like a light bulb, your cell phone, or the sun, let's say that those photons got to keep traveling. OK, well, then you've got anywhere from a fraction of a second to a full eight minutes where you could still see.
But we want unlimited time, so let's not stop it completely. Instead of stopping it, what if you slowed it to a crawl? Well, that wouldn't work either. When you slow down electromagnetic waves for light, and pressure waves for sound, you get waves of a lower frequency. But at a low frequency, you'd hear sounds that drop below the range of human hearing. And light at a lower frequency moves into the infrared, microwave, and radio wave realm. So you wouldn't be able to see that either.
In the end, maybe the ability to stop time is one of those super powers in the "be careful what you wish for" category, like reading thoughts and turning everything you touch into gold. Still, who said science fiction can't help us learn about science?
CODY GOUGH: You know that there are lots of advantages to speaking multiple languages, but what about speaking more than one dialect of the same language? A recent study suggests that there might be advantages to that too. You speak multiple dialects?
ASHLEY HAMER: We all speak slightly differently to different people, right? Like if you were going to be in a job interview, you'd use different language than you would with your friends.
CODY GOUGH: Right.
ASHLEY HAMER: But I think certain people actually do speak different dialects. One good example of this is African-American English, or AAE, which used to be called Ebonics. That's an actual, legit, alternate dialect of English.
CODY GOUGH: Oh wow. For this study, a team of researchers was outside of the US, but they tested three groups of Greek speakers. Now in Cyprus, the official language is standard, modern Greek, but the everyday language of life is Cypriot Greek. That's different from standard Greek in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, like the example that you gave.
The researchers tested three groups of children on cognitive performance tasks. One group spoke one language, another group spoke more than one language, and the last group spoke more than one dialect of Greek. Both those who spoke more than one language and those who spoke more than one dialect performed better than those who spoke one dialect of one language.
Now, modes of speaking, whether they're called languages or dialects, belong to communities of speakers, and it's usually the relative status of the community that determines whether they get to be called languages or dialects. But people can belong to many communities at once and they can learn to easily code switch among many modes of speaking.
So it may turn out that the practice of switching, or managing many modes of speaking at once, regardless of how formal, official, or prestigious those modes of speaking are, is where the cognitive leg up comes from.
ASHLEY HAMER: Today's episode is sponsored by PBS. Do you love a good book? Do you have a favorite novel?
CODY GOUGH: Catcher in the Rye, 1984, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Gone with the Wind, The Color Purple. There are so many classic and beloved stories it's hard to pick just one, but PBS needs your help doing just that.
ASHLEY HAMER: PBS has a list of America's 100 best loved novels, and they need you to help pick number one. The Great American Read returns Tuesdays this fall at 8:00/7:00 Central, starting September 11th on your PBS station.
CODY GOUGH: Host Meredith Vieira talks to some of your favorite authors, celebrities, and athletes about the subjects and stories found in our favorite books. They'll explore the many ways these novels affect, reflect, and connect us all.
ASHLEY HAMER: Visit PBS.org to see the entire list, vote for your favorites, and share with your friends. It all leads up to the grand finale on Tuesday, October 23rd, when all the votes are counted and America's favorite novel is announced.
CODY GOUGH: Celebrate reading, books, and imagination. And join the conversation at #GreatReadPBS. The Great American Read returns Tuesdays this fall at 8:00/7:00 Central, starting September 11th on your local PBS station.
ASHLEY HAMER: Every year nearly 3 million people visit Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where the carved busts of four American presidents stand six stories tall. Maybe you've been there, maybe not, but did you know that Mount Rushmore was never actually finished? And that is the least of its secrets.
Today, we've got the scoop on a secret room that actually does exist behind Mount Rushmore. This is not a conspiracy theory.
CODY GOUGH: However, my belief that there are aliens living inside it is definitely a conspiracy theory. I don't really believe that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Oh.
CODY GOUGH: Just, I know you were thinking I did.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well.
CODY GOUGH: Not this time.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right.
CODY GOUGH: All the aliens are in Nevada, everybody knows that.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS] The man behind Mount Rushmore is the sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the Idaho-born son of a Danish immigrant. He was quite the character, and you can read about some of his background in our full ride up on Curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS. But one thing he firmly believed was that he had to do something special so he wouldn't be forgotten.
He once wrote, quote, "Each succeeding civilization forgets its predecessor. Civilizations are ghouls," unquote. Construction on Mount Rushmore started in 1927, and 11 years later, he started working on a massive haul of records. It's just behind Abraham Lincoln's hairline. I never thought I'd say that phrase.
And he wanted to use the chamber to house all the information about the mountain, and the United States, that anyone would ever need, including the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, by the way. Visitors would climb an 800 foot rock staircase and look up through an 18 foot tall doorway at a gold plated eagle, stretching 38 feet wide.
CODY GOUGH: Modest.
ASHLEY HAMER: [LAUGHS] The US government didn't exactly share his vision, so they asked him to focus on the faces instead. But three years after he started work on the room, Borglum passed away, leaving the room and the faces unfinished. The Hall of Records is still there, but it's closed to the public so you'll have to be satisfied with photographic evidence.
Porcelain tablets were installed in 1998, laying out the history of the project, including words from the sculptor himself. Quote, "Let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces to show posterity, what manner of men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away," end quote.
CODY GOUGH: That's all for today, but Curiosity has big plans for the weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: This weekend you'll learn about a theory that says our universe is just one of many previous universes, a beach where thousands of glass orbs are hidden every year, why we itch, six magic words to get to the root of a misunderstanding, and more.
CODY GOUGH: If you've got a minute this weekend, then please take our listener survey. Thank you if you've already taken it. And if not, then you can find a link in today's show notes, and on our podcast page on our website, and on our Patreon page, and in a secret room behind Abraham Lincoln's hairline. We really appreciate it.
ASHLEY HAMER: Join us again Sunday to learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough. Have a great weekend.
ASHLEY HAMER: And stay curious.
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SPEAKER: On the Westwood One Podcast Network.