In this invention-themed episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe explore the ancient origins of the gimbal, its connections to Chinese incense censers and its role in technological innovation.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick, and I want to start this episode of the quote just because this is where my mind instantly went for this episode, which is going to be about the gimbal I. I thought of this of this line from the poem The Jabberwocke by Lewis Carroll. Okay, twas brillig and the slivey toes to gyor and gimble in the wabe. Okay, So I was about to say that every noun, verb and adjective in this u in this couplet is nonsense, but then I realized there are actually a couple of real verbs in there. There's twas and there's did. In fact, actually twas I think contains a noun and a verb because the t in twas is for it, so we get it was and did. But yeah, everything else I don't know what those words mean. And you're I think you're not supposed to, Well, gyre is real um to whirl or or to gyrate um. Do you think that's what it's supposed to mean? In this context, though I think yes, or mostly yes. Stem But but that's the thing about Lewis Carroll. A lot of nonsense words, and then gimbal throws one off because when you look at this gimbal, as in the title of this episode in case you don't have the title in front of you, is spelled g I M B A L, and in the Lewis Carroll poem it's spelled g I M B L E. And if you look that spelling of gimbal up in a dictionary, you get to make a face or two grimace, which does not seem to be what's going on here. Um. The gimble we're talking about is is well to define more clearly in a bit a mechanism typically consisting of rings pivoting at right angles for keeping an instrument um horizon toll uh in a moving vessel or on a moving plane, that sort of thing. Um. So it that definition would seem to sort of line up more with what's going on here, the idea of some sort of um jy or some sort of revolution going on. But I was reading, I read a little bit more about this, and it turns out that Lewis Carroll is absolutely of no help to us today. Um he in this text, apparently Humpty Dumpty himself weighs in, I either didn't know this or had forgotten this on the meaning of all this pointing out that toathes are a kind of lizard badger creature, and that gimbal in this context means quote to make holes like a gimlet. A gimlet is a hand tool for drilling small holes in wood. Slithy is a combination of lithe and slimy, so it's a slimy badger lizard that rotates in bores. Okay, I see, but wait, I'm still confused when you say that gimbal in this line means to make holes like a gimble. It was that a general definition of the word at the time this poem was written, or is that unique to the meaning within the poem. My understanding is that this is a Lewis Carroll thing. Okay, Humpty Dumpty is explaining it because, or at least in the dictionaries I was looking at, I did not see this as an accepted definition or alternate definition for gimbal g I M. B. L E. Well, in that case, that would support my initial interpretation that even though gyre is a real word, in this context, is supposed to be a nonsense word, right, but but the nonsense being perhaps less removed from the reality. It's it's I mean, that's I guess that the light of Lewis Carroll text. As you have all of these nonsense words, you have words that are are being used, at the very least in the pursuit of some sort of nonsense. This may be the most whimsical opening effort to a podcast about a rotation mechanism. Yeah, it's probably a bad opening since the com well, now the example does not have a useful definition of the word involved. It's more of a tangent. But still, I mean entertaining, I would hope. I I enjoyed going on this little Lewis Carroll journey with you. But okay, so we're gonna talk about gimbals today. What is a gimbal? I think we might need to do a little bit of concept sorting, because when I was searching for information about gimbals on the internet, first of all, a lot of what comes up is just camera equipment, and we can discuss that later in the episode. But even when you're just trying to find information about the underlying mechanical concept. A lot of what comes up seems to be references to a complex device made out of three parts that are in fact each individually called a gimbal. So anyway, I got this sorted out by consulting a reference manual. I went to the Oxford Dictionary of Mechanical Engineering. If that's not an authoritative source, I don't know what is. And according to this volume, a gimbal is quote, a pivoted support that allows row tation of a supported object about a single axis. Two orthogonal gimbals are used in supports of, for example, compasses. So I think the object mounted within a gimbal is most often going to be a platform that is supposed to maintain its orientation with respect to gravity, or it's some kind of detector, sensor or measuring device. But when I was thinking about simple examples that people might know from around their homes, actually thought of the C shaped mounting for a globe. Uh Actually was was looking at a globe just the other day and admiring all of the like names of countries that are no longer accurate on it um. But on a globe, you've got this. You know often have this either either a full ring or or sort of a C shaped metal ring that connects to the globe at the poles and allows the globe to rotate within it. Uh and of course this simulates the rotation of the Earth. Now, often when you read about references to gimbals, they will be referring to systems that use two or three or even more gimbals in combination in succession with one another to allow more dimensions of free rotation. For example, probably the most famous one is known as card Ends suspension, and this is again according to the the Oxford Handbook of Mechanical Engineering, quote a system that uses three gimbals with orthogonal axis orthogonal meaning at at ninety degree angles orthogonal axis, so as to support a component in a fixed orientation despite rotation of the mounting of the gimbals. Card And, by the way, that's named for Geralamo Cardano, a sixteenth century Italian polymath who developed a or made use of a three ring gimbal. Right, and the handbook goes on to say that the card and suspension is most often used to support gyroscopes for navigational use or for various types of experiments about freely rotating bodies. So to return to the globe analogy, imagine you've got a regular globe. It's got a C shaped mounting that allows it to rotate freely on its axis. But then imagine you mount that C shaped mounting to a ring that allows the C shaped mounting to rotate freely on the equatorial axis. So that's two dimensions of rotation. And then say you mount that within a third ring, and within that ring you can actually have the globe rotate sort of say top front to back. And with these three rings you can rotate freely in all three dimensions of space, the dimensions that in the context of, say talking about the attitude of an airplane, you would call pitch, roll and yaw. Now, there's normally no reason you would want a globe to rotate in three dimensions, but there are situations where it would be very useful to have an object mounted within two or three gimbals. For example, what if you want to create an object that maintains a fixed orientation with respect to some outside frame of reference, even though the ground or the housing in which the object is mounted will itself move. So so you want a platform that maintains orientation with respect to the Earth, maybe the Earth's center of gravity, or maintains uh, maintains orientation with respect to some point in the stars, or some fixed point of focus like say the subject of a frame. Uh, when you're using a camera, all while being mounted inside of housing that is prone to moving and jostling around. For a simpler version of all that, just imagine you want you want a cup holder or any open reservoir for liquid that will stay upright and not spill, even though it's a mounted in a ship that is expected to be going through rough seas. Yeah, and looking around, I know you can get some some gimbal duh drink holders for I think mostly boats. This reminds me, though, I think the earliest example of this mechanism that I remember seeing, uh, I mean I would have seen compasses and so forth, but a situation where someone who's really calling out the gimbal technology was some sort of I don't know if this was like a Mr. Wizard or Reading Rainbow or some Nickelodeon show, but it was like something with kid inventors, and kids were rolling out their inventions, and one of the kid inventions was essentially a gimbal drink tray. Um so I think, if memory serves, these weren't round frames, but they were square frames. But it created the same sort of situation, and they demonstrated it showing like a glass of coke or PEPSI, you know, they're in the middle of it. And I remember at the time thinking, well, this is phenomenal. This is what we should use all the time. And and of course then you go back into the world you know, well, no, I guess, I guess the engineering benefits of this design do not make this a better option than simply being careful with a tray. But at the time I remember being really impressed with it and thinking, well, this, this is the way, This is the way we should be carrying drinks around on trays. We should see this in every restaurant in in every city around the world. Oh yeah, I mean when you're carrying your coffee cup and it's and it's too full, and it just starts slashing back and forth and you're like, I can't I've got to stop walking, or I've got to spill it there. That's pretty much it a sort of gimbaled sling for your coffee cup. I suspect would help overcome that problem. Yeah, or say a Martini glass where it's like this, This is a horrible design. I mean, and you know, I could easily go off on the Martine glass is easy. It's so easy to slash. But it makes you think, well, we gotta have gimbal trays for these things. If we're gonna insist on drinking out of these ridiculous glasses and not something more reasonable, like a like a coop or a Nick and Nora, then well then well let's get special lies trays. You know, I think the poor design of the Martini glass is actually intentional. There's like a psychological effect of the fact that it slashes so easily. It makes the act of drinking the martini kind of delicate experience. So you imagine, I don't know, Don Draper having a martini or whatever, and he's not just knocking it back, you know, he's got to like hold it very carefully and sip it carefully, and it makes it a tender moment. Yeah, And then I guess the threshold for for for becoming sloppy with your drink is that much closer, and therefore maybe the idea as well if they're getting they're having too much to drink, They're gonna spill more of it. They'll spill more of it on themselves, and they'll think twice about ordering more of this particular bedridge. They'll realize, I maybe I should just get a water and go home. Maybe I should just get six dozen more oysters and then go to the meeting. Well, okay, anyway, a lot of sources if you try to look for the origins of the gimbal system. I think this is one of the many mechanical designs that we don't know for sure the the actual origin of it. But uh the one of the earliest mentions of a gimbal is often cited to a third century b c. E. Greek engineer and author named Philo of Byzantium or Philon of Byzantium. I was reading about this in a book called Gears by Vincenzo Vulo published by Springer in and there's just a short paragraph about Philo here, uh A, Vulo writes quote. Filo was also the first to describe a gimbal. It was applied to an eight side ink pot that could be turned anyway, driven by gears without the ink being poured. This was done by suspending the ink well at a central plate after assembling this on a series of concentric metal rings which were stationary regardless of how the pot could rotate. Now, like many things, like many inventions mentioned in ancient Greek reference texts, this doesn't necessarily mean that Filo was the inventor of the subject, or that Filo was the inventor of the gimbal or the gimbal system. But this does appear to be a very early, if not the earliest written reference to it. Yeah, in looking at and considering the history of the gimbal, i'm i'm reminded of our discussions of the wheel. So you look at the history and go, certainly we have an invention episode on the wheel, at least one, I can't remember. It's a one part or two partner. But one of the things we touched on is that it's one thing to happen upon the concept, to invent the concept of the wheel. But then how practical is it if you don't have roads? And so if we have various examples of cultures where there wasn't really a practical use of the wheel, but the wheel was still around as a novelty. We'd see that would the one would see it in the use of toys for children, And so one can easily imagine a situation where the gimbal is much the same where UH, craftsmen and curious minds would have happened upon this property, would have developed this. But if there's not something that you need to keep stable and then then then why roll it out? Why make any more of a of an issue out of it? Because again I come back to that example of the kid inventors with the with the tray, Like that's cool and all, but if it's not actually better than just carefully carrying a tray, then it's not an invention that's going to actually have any legs. Right, And in the end, a lot of the real uses of gimbal systems seem to be highly specialized. They're not usually like everyday use kind of objects. They're often for special kinds of uh detectors and sensors in special contexts of course, in scientific experiments and UH later we'll get to this in space travel after the invention of photography, but earlier than that, at least in the use of c navigation. Right, right, at what point do you have something where it makes sense to bust out this technology to keep it stationary. Thank and you just said the word sensor, you were, of course you're referring to a different spelling and usage of the word. But the in this we're coming back to our discussion of incense and incense sensors from the previous episodes of the show, because, as we teased towards the end of Incense Part two, this episode on gimbals is kind of a continuation of that journey. Um So, while a great deal of the history of incense usage has more to do with religion and pure aesthetics, there are still practical applications and we when we consider the technology of sensors again dedicated incense burning containers and devices, Uh yeah, things get a bit more complicated. And indeed, in this case, we see links between sensors and gimbal technology that will ultimately play a big role in say, the future of things like photography and marine navigation and even rockets science. But but we can go back to very old traditions, very old technologies involving the use of incense, and I guess you might might wonder, well, why would you need to use a gimbal on an incense, at which point does it pass that kid inventor test of the practicality um overpowering the This is the pure novelty of the thing. So one of my main sources for this is a two thousand twenty two article by art historian Bing Wong published in the journal Religions UH. He cites several sources here, including the work of noted sinologist Joseph Needham, whose writings we recently reference on the show as well. Um. This is an individual who casts cast along shadow in the study of Chinese science and technology, especially in the West. His multi volume work on the History of Science and Civilization in China was very much a career defining work, so as Huang describes here, it would seem based on Needham's reas Urchin writings, the Chinese knowledge of the gimbal dates back at least to the second century CE, but also possibly to the second century b C. We have a poet by the name of Sima scheng Ru who makes a reference to the jin Zoo and Chuang. These are the metal rings containing the burning perfume, and this is in the marin fu uh. This is owed on beautiful women a poem that contains a seduction scene and in doing so describes the various these a bed chambers and the items inside that bed chamber. And it's inferred then in Needham's writing that, based on other texts, the artifact described here might in fact be a gimbal suspension to keep the burning perfume stable. Okay, So much like you might have, say a cup holder on a boat that could use a gimbal system in order to keep the drink from spilling while the boat rocks in the waves, this could potentially be a container for burning incense that would use a gimbal system to keep it stable, to make sure it didn't it didn't spill. Right now that you may be wondering about the again the kid inventor test here, like why is it really necessary? Well, there's a potential answer for that, and I'll get through that in a second. But um, if this is this is true, if this would seem to position the earliest Chinese references to gimbal um pretty early on. In some case, I don't know if this would necessarily be earlier than um than than Philo, but but certainly this would be pretty early on. Um and Eastern traditions compared with Western traditions. I should note that when it comes to critics of need Him, a common one was that he tended towards Chinese superiority in his analysis. Apparently. Other critics, however, argued quite the opposite, that he struggled to shake free of the shackles of Europe in exceptionalism in his synology. So um, you know, ultimately, I'm not sure exactly where the truth falls on all of that, but uh, probably worth reminding everyone the need Him live and and and it was I think pretty active up and towards the toward towards the end of his life, as like an editor of these volumes. But Um long does not raise the spectr of either inclination, though he does look at new evidence, disagrees with a few Needham theories, but otherwise did not does not seem to oppose the second century BC date, Uh, though does firmly base it in the analysis of need Um. So, anyway, coming back to this question, Okay, why why would you need your burning perfume? Why would you need your incense to have some sort of a mechanical system to keep it level? I mean, if you're taking a gut on a ship. Are you running with it? Right? Like? What's the what's the purpose? Yeah? Well this brings us to consideration of the spherical incense burner that had been previously referred to by archaeologists as as a perfume ball, but eventually written descriptions were discovered that referred to them as a hung nun, which Huong translates as sachet, in which Yabla Chinese, which is a website for translating Mandarin, translates as spiceball. Now, to be clear, these are metal uh spheres as opposed to silk or cloth bound bags of incense. So one points out that these metal spheres seem to have two primary uses. In Tang dynasty China, this would be uh, we're we're moving ahead several centuries here. This would be the period of six eighteen through nine oh seven CE, So they would have two purposes basically as an incense burner, but also as a hand warm warmer as well as quote a sensor amid the covers which allowed it to set or I guess even roll around on bedding without fear of tipping over. WHOA, yeah, so and I so this is something that based on some of the the the explanations I was reading. It kind of brings the mind this idea of like, here's this and you can look up images of this their ornate. Uh, it's a it's a metal sphere, and inside there's a gimbaled system to keep a tray of burning coals and and incense from tipping over. And then you would be able to place this amid some some some regal bedding, and the fumes from it would of course, uh make the bed smell nice. The heat from it would would potentially warm the bed, and I mean, I'm not sure from the descriptions I was reading if this is something that would actually stay there all night. Maybe it would. And maybe that's the idea that you could be in the bed and you wouldn't have to worry about kicking it over and you know, then burning your covers, even with the gimbals. I don't know that that would kind of freak me out, but I guess I'm not used to it. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, there's a there's a fun history. I don't know if we could get a full Invention episode out of this, But when you get into the history of bed warmers. It's pretty fascinating the use of everything from essentially just hot bricks too, of course, bottles of water, and and then of course various technological systems. I think we did touch on some of these in our History of the bed, you know, ideas where you have bed and heating apparatus in a home far more integrated than we're used to today in many parts of the world world I should I should mention there are parts of the world where you still find this integration. So this is this is insightful. Here Huong's Chairs a description of of this invention from a Western Hans source. The sources as the translated title of Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital, and it even credits some key inventors and innovators. Here quote Ding Juan, a skilled craftsman from chang On, made an always full lamp. It had extraordinary decorations, sporting seven dragons and five phoenixes, which were supported by lotus shaped platforms resting on stalks. He also created an incense burner which lay on the bedcloths. It was also called the censor amid the covers. The technique is original from Feng Feng, a Han dynasty skilled artisan whose skills are unprecedented but now lost. It is not until ding Juan that the technique is made possible again. To make it, Dinghan fashioned a series of mechanically connected rings. The sensor could roll in any direction and yet the central incense burning chamber would remain level. Thus one could position it on the bed covers. This is how it acquired its name. Wow, so it is like the cup holder on board a ship, except instead of the ocean, it is the the roll king tide and waves of the bed. Yeah. Yeah, So this would be a situation seemed to be a situation where at least on some level it passes the kin inventor test and someone's like, no, look, we cannot have the bed govers burned anymore. We can't risk the bed govers being burned anymore. Is there not some sort of system we could employ here? And and once you see examples of it too, I think it's a situation where you you kind of buy into the style of it as well. Uh, this idea that here's this this sensor that you know has this internal novelty to it but also looks quite beautiful and then apparently can also be picked up and held as a handwarmer. Like it allows the like space between the heat source, which again would not be a roaring fire, but like some hot coals, and that would allow UM. I think like that. It's often when it's depicted or described, it's often like noble women or royal um uh, female members of the of the the king's entourage, of those kinds of individuals that might be holding one of these to keep them warm. So something fancy but also useful. Other inventions attributed to Ding Juan, by the way, include an evaporative cooling system and something that might have just been like a flip book, but might have been some sort of zootrope kind of device like it gets. I think historians are kind of split on exactly what this might have been. It also might have just been some novel form of sequential artwork, the first graphic novel. Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe so, yeah, they have. The history of sequential art is quite quite fascinating. So so some of these these balls, these are these mental spheres. Um. They they had chains for hanging, others did not. Um. These were apparently more used for for betting or handwarmers. So I think that's interesting. As well, that you end up with with hanging varieties of these where I guess in I guess that would make sense. I don't know what would be shaking the room or the house so much, but I guess if you're gonna have something hanging from a chain, you there's the potential for that movement to take place, and therefore the gimbal system would would potentially be useful. And then during the Ming dynasty, it's also mentioned that specific types of incense could be used in one of these devices to ward away insects. So we have another uh practical use of the device here. And One describes that this design eventually spreads from China to the Islamic world and Venice quote possibly influencing the development of the gyroscope from maritime navigation in Europe, and he points out that while incense was widely used throughout the Islamic world, this was fascinating. It never became, according to this author, an essential part of Islamic ritual. But of course the same cannot be said for Christianity, as we discussed in the in those incense episodes, so we do see the appearance of spherical incense burners in Islamic culture as though not in religious ritual again based based on this paper, but also we we do see spherical incense burners popping up in European churches and being involved in or very closely alongside religious rituals within Catholicism. Okay, so generally yes, secular but not religious uses of incense in the Islamic world. In Christianity, we talked about this in the in the previous series on incense, that incense was mostly missing from Christian religious use until around the fourth and fifth century and and then um it seems to be concurrent with the with the overtaking of the Roman Empire, with Christianity is a dominant religion, that incense becomes an integral part of Christian worship. Yeah. Now, an important thing here and this is I thought this was a great point and it's it makes so much sense when you hear it spelled out. But when we talk about technologies and ideas spreading from one culture to the next, we often think of just a very sequential arrangement, like you imagine something say traveling on the Silk Road out of China, or in this case, you can imagine this ball like Okay, now the ball goes to um goes, it goes to the Middle East, and it takes on Middle Eastern properties, and then it travels to Venice, and then it takes on European properties. End of story. But but one points out that it's not it's not just a matter of the technology traveling from China eventually to Europe, but there's a rather a fair amount of eventual back and forth involving not only European craftsmen but also Sasanian craftsmen. Um. We of course talked about the Sasanian Empire in previous episodes as well. Uh uh Persian Iranian craftsmen adding their own touches to this uh to to this type of technology, and then some of that flowing back. So quote. The metal work utilized in the Tang dynasty Sensor is a consequence of the chasing and hammering techniques taught to the Chinese by the Sasanian goldsmiths of Persia, while the culture of burning incense is from Indian Buddhism, so they're there are various beautiful examples of where like you can look up the Chinese examples of these incense of spears that you can also find some wonderful examples, for example, included a picture here for you, Joe, of of one of these that was apparently forged in Damascus around the thirteenth century. And you can see the and like the elegant script in here. Yeah, it's beautiful. So with this invention we see an early use of the gimbal um, which at this time is largely I guess best used for just this purpose. Like, here is something that you would want to keep stable, so here is how you can keep it stable, and then I and then like the the the art artistry of the invention seems to take on a life of its own, and we see it employed in situations where maybe it doesn't doesn't make as much sense. But once you're crafting these beautiful globes of of like silver and bronze and so forth in there you can imagine them emitting this a sweet smelling smoke, it like kind of takes on a life all its own. Now, another example that came up in the research here is the patheke eon um. This is an example of a gimbal in action, and we have reference is to a device called the pothecon or little ape as it is often translated in a second century text on siegecraft titled on Machines by an author that is referred to by historians as Athenaeus Mechanicals. Oh, i'd seen this is an interesting coincidence. I'd sometimes seen a Philo of Byzantium, the person cited with this early description of the gimble in the third century BC, as sometimes called Philo Mechanicus. So I don't know where that appellation comes from. Apparently in this case it's because um Uh Athenaus was a common enough name, and then there in referring to this particular Athenaus, we just add the title of the text. They're most known for on Machines, So this is Athenaus Mechanicals. Some historians identify them with Athenaeus of Solutia, but there are also some alternative theories as well. Again, this is a common name, and apparently some of the dating of it is based on the book's preface, which references one Marcellus, and according to historian David Whitehead Uh, this causes the dating of the text to oscillate from as early as the late third century b C. To the mid third century CE. But anyway, the the Salucia idea would date this to mid to late first century BC. Okay, the Whitehead white Head here along with pH blythe they're responsible for a two thousand and four translation of the on Machines text, so anyway, it would regardless on which Apanaus wrote it and when exactly during this time period it was written. The book is largely concerned with siege machinery um, and it's not that long of a text either. But later in the work the author does make mention of the patheke eon or a little ape. Whitehead describes it as fall follows in the paper Athanaus Mechanicals for the Oxford Classical Dictionary quote a device perhaps involving nets or gimbals for stabilizing shipborn machines when they are deployed in choppy seas. Why is this an ape? I'm so curious about the name. I yeah that I have a lot of questions about that as well. Uh and and I ultimately have maybe more questions than answers here for everyone. But apparently this does relate to Roman siegecraft, in which they would take merchant ships yoked them together to bear the weight of siege weapons in attacking coastal towns. The little ape here was used, and this is where I get kind of foggy, apparently used to keep the machines from rolling around with the movement of the ships. That's one interpretation that I've seen, but I'm not sure about that. The quote from the text from All Machines says, you quote, you must fix the chion on the platform attached to the merchant ships in the middle, so that the machine stays upright in any angle. Well, I don't know. I mean, at this period of time, I don't know how much minute aiming would be involved in the use of siege weapons. But of course gimbals are very useful in the mounting of of modern weapons like of you know, machine gun turrets and stuff like that, or if they're within like a ship or an airplane or something, they can be mounted within gimbals in order to stabilize for aiming purposes, because otherwise, like you're trying to aim while the ground or the housing is rocking all over the place. Yeah. I have a very hard time imagining a gimbal system big enough on a Roman ship that would accommodate some sort of really robust form of siege work. Machinery, you know, like some sort of a large crossbow or catapult type device. Um. It seems like it would make more sense if it was designed for some more subtle too of siegecraft, some sort of as we see in in the nautical traditions, something uh that would aid in the use of siege weapons, but not the siege weapon itself. Yeah. And when I looked around for more examples, more descriptions of what the pathechion would have looked like, indeed why it it is compared to an ape um, I wasn't able to find much I was looking at. In one case, I was reading about deck based weapons. I was looking at The Navies of Rome by Michael Potassi, and they mentioned that during the war between Caesar and POMPEII, the later constructed three story towers the top merchant ships and mounted artillery on them. Uh and and use these against Caesar's blockade, just as an example of something that the Romans would have would have done with merchant ships and some sort of a combat scenario. But there's no mention of gimbal technology in that book as far as I could tell. And he does site a text by Athenaeus at one point or by unaps. But yeah, so I wasn't really able to find much in the way of answers about exactly what the little ape was achieving. But it seems based on all these other examples, it seems like we would probably be talking about a way to keep some sort of measurement tool steady as opposed to some sort of large catapult or crossbow or what have you. Okay, I did find a wonderful illustration though this was used. I think this was in Wang's article. Uh, I could be mistaken on that, but it's um a drawing from fifteen sixty seven UM by Jacques Bisson's book. Let's say, what is this lick Cosmo LABU uh like Cosmo Lab, Cosmo Lab, but it's a it's it's a wonderful illustration of a ship. And we see this fascinating and I have a hard time imagining if this was ever built either. But we see like a table, um and chair, like a basically of the little desk, a little office mounted inside this large spherical gimbal system. Um that it takes up a large portion of the ship in this illustration. Yeah, I see, you gotta have a gimbal system if you want to like mount a platform on which you can put a pool table on a ship so that you can play pool or you can play ping pong. Yeah, I I wonder with illustrations like this, it's if it's more about sort of illustrating the purpose or if it's a or a telephone game of of relating what a gimble is and how it functions and enable context. And then of course you're also probably getting into the situation where why while it might if you're just familiar with the basics of the gimble, you might think, well, yeah, let's just put the whole office in the gimbal. Why can't we put the whole ship in the gimbal? Everybody on the ship is in the gimble, and then nobody will get sick. And the reality is probably a bit different from that. Umus, once you get an off weight, you're probably putting a lot of strain on the on the little pivot hinges for those rings. Yeah, so you probably come up and come back to the situation then either in practicality, oh you know, through experimentation, or through just learning more about what they're actually doing out there at say you realize, now this makes the most sense as a way to keep specialized tools steady, generally small measurement tools or burning incense. Certainly, yeah, that makes sense to me. So we mentioned earlier that systems of orthogonal gimbals are used in many technologies today, and one major theater of use is space travel. And funny enough, I actually found an old house Stuff Works article about this by our colleague Jonathan Strickland of the podcast tech Stuff highlighting the use of gimbals by NASA. If you're if you're not familiar, uh, Rob and I we've been doing this podcast for a while, but we started doing it long ago under the auspices of a website called how Stuff Works. So in this short little article, Jonathan highlights a number of different uses of gimbals by by NASA. For example, a harness mounted within a gimbal system is sometimes used to simulate spacewalks during astronaut training. So you want to get astronauts used to, um, you know, the different ways that their body will sort of float around and reorient smoothly in space if they're trying to do say, external repairs on a on a spacecraft or something. Of course, the gimbals will not remove the influence of Earth's gravity, but they will simulate other aspects of of space walking, the way that you can you know, change your body's orientation in any direction in space. And then of course there are lots of other uses within spacecraft and the mechanical parts, so like you might have motorized gimbals to orient solar panels to keep facing the sun even as the position of a space station changes. Of course, there are detectors and sensors. For example, an instrument called the inertial Measurement Unit UH, which is a sort of mechanical inner ear. It measures the orientation of the spacecraft so pitch, role and yaw, and it also measures acceleration. And I guess this also highlights different ways that gimbals can be used. I mean, most of the gimbals we've been talking about um have been free rotating gimbals that are supposed to allow, say a platform to keep its orientation with respect to the Earth's gravity no matter how the outer housing moves. So in that case it would just be the goal of the different gimbals in the in the card end suspension or the or you know, even just one or two gimbals the purpose would just be that they can rotate easily and freely smooth movement to allow a naturally gravity oriented platform to stay as it is. But you can also, of course create motorized gimbals if you want to intentionally maintain the orientation of a central object or platform, uh with some kind of external control mechanism and gimbal systems like this or have proven very useful for cameras. So imagine you are trying to shoot something, keep something in focus, keep a subject of a frame in focus while the camera itself is moving. You're shooting moving video. If you just hold a camera and then you walk or run. If you ever tried this rob like, you will often be very dissatisfied with the results. There's a lot of jostling, yeah, like like blair, which effect at times ten Yeah. So to keep the movement smooth, you can make a mounting system with motorized gimbals that detect the movement coming up through the frame that's holding the camera and then use little computers inside to algorithmically adjust the camera itself to cancel out that movement. So it's not just allowing the camera to sort of like rotate freely within the gimbal system, it's actually making adjustments deliberately to smooth out any jostling that comes through the housing. You know, in the in the natural world, of course, as we're looking around, there's kind of a gimbling effect just to our the way we position our head. But it's also been pointed out that the chicken is a is a like a natural gimbal. It's nature's gimbal, the the way a chicken can keep its head perfectly stationary whilst someone holding the chicken moves its body around. Oh yeah, there's some really fun videos of this, including one that uh that I'm not sure if this was an April Fools video or not, but it's a it's a parody in which they're saying, well, we've discovered the ultimate for photography and filmmaking gimbals. We just put a little camera on top of the chicken's head and then use the chicken as the gimble, which I thought was very very funny. Now, um, not, not only can you keep things stable with this kind of a layout, you can also, of course just mess with whatever is strapped in the middle. Particularly I'm thinking of those various uh gyroscope um mounting systems. You would see these sometimes and get like carnivals. I remember seeing these, uh perhaps at carnivals or in sort of like carnival type towns where you could come up, you paid your money and they would strap you into one of these things and just spin you around. Um. I think sometimes there's a virtual reality headset that is employed in these. And of course, if you've ever seen any kind of VR VR exploitation film, I'm particularly thinking of the lawnmower Man films here, but films like that, there's always going to be a scene where somebody puts some some sort of shiny jumpsuit, uh, some VR goggles and then they're put in some sort of like Neon Strobe light gyroscope or uh you know, or or Gimbalt system and then they're spinning all over the place. It's pierrece brasman get in one of those or is that is that just Jeff Ahey? I think they both do. Yeah, okay, I think also sometimes with Max you see this, right, I can't remember if we saw this sort of outfit in robot jocks, but I feel like maybe they had it in I don't know, a Pacific room or one of these type of shows. Well, we've hit our lawnmower man quota, so I think it may be time to call this episode. Yeah, yeah, but I thought this was fascinating, especially when you get again. It's kind of like the wheel where you begin asking questions. All right, at what point in human history is this technology both possible and uh, you know, achievable and also recognizable? Like, at what point might someone have made one of these at least as a lark? But then at what point does it become practical to put something in the middle of it? At what point point is it practical, uh, to to put to build a card, to build even a very simple card. At what point? What point does it become practical to build some sort of gimbald system to keep something steady if there's not truly a practical reason for it. When will we discover the meaning of the little ape? Yeah? So if anyone out there has insight on that, certainly right in let us know, and just in general, examples of amazing gimbals from other technologies, other cultures and histories. Right in, we would love to hear from you. I especially would love to hear from anyone who's seen some other great examples of these uh these these these globes that burn in since and various cultures in which they were built and uh and designed. Uh so yeah right in let us know, send us your photos. We'd love to hear from. We would love to see them. In the meantime, we'll remind you that Stuff to Blow Your Mind publishes its core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and this Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast feed. Uh, you'll find that feed wherever you get your podcasts these days. And on Mondays we do listener mail. On Wednesdays we do a short form artifact or monster fact episode, and then on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. That is a time for us to set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a weird film. And I have to say, we didn't even think about the energy between this episode and the movie that we're going to be discussing this Friday. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listening to your favorite shows.