10. Dear Hank & John. 010. When Your Friend Likes Ayn Rand... Part 5/6
• [Question 7]
John: Hank, I have one last question for you. This comes from Presley, who you know, as the Crash Course fan who really inspired us to rethink Crash Course in 2012 at VidCon when she was probably 8 or 9 years old and she told us that she was using Crash Course to learn history and biology and chemistry and we, that was really the first time that we realized that Crash Course could be like, a proper educational tool.
Hank: Yeah, and also that it had a much broader demographic than we were expecting.
John: Yes, much broader. Presley asks, "If you could witness any moment of history, which would you witness?" It's a good question. It's a big question, and there's a lot of things to consider. Are you witnessing, just like, one day or one hour or do you get to hang around for a few years to figure out some things that happened?
Hank: Well, I think Presley said moment, right? Presley said moment?
John: Moment. A moment. So is there some critical juncture in history that you would like to be able to witness? Now, we're assuming here, I think, that you're able to travel with antibiotics, all the things that you will need to prevent yourself from getting some past scourge.
Hank: Right, that you won't, you can't be hurt and you can't affect the situation, I think is implied. So the situation can't affect you and you can't affect the situation. You are just witnessing it.
John: I love it. It's a great question.
Hank: I mean, I think that I would have to defer to a historian, I'd have to go to, I'd have to like, poll a bunch of historians and say, like, "What do you guys want me to witness, because I don't know enough about this." I wouldn't put that decision up to me, because who am I? I'm just a videoblogger.
John: Yeah, well, let's actually, if there are any historians listening to this podcast, we'd love your input on this. You can e-mail us at hankandjohn@gmail.com and let us know what moment of history we should witness, because obviously Hank and I are both-
Hank: Yeah.
John: -a little unsure on this one.
Hank: Right, but I mean, my fir... I would love to ha... like, it would be a really amazing thing to be there to witness Neil Armstrong stepping onto the Moon, because then I would be on... And I'd like, get to be on the Moon, suddenly. Hopefully like, not being effected by the entire, like, the lack of atmosphere, or, or I could be there for the moment in history when Curiosity landed on Mars, and then I'd be there and I'd get to watch that, and that would be pretty epic. I, hopefully, I could bring a GoPro.
John: Oh, God, it's always space with you, you know? Why wouldn't you go back to 2002 and be able to witness the moment that AFC Wimbledon were created-
Hank: Oh my God! (Hank laughs)
John: -out of the ashes of Wimbledon FC? The most important moment in world history.
Hank: Um, yeah. I mean, there's also like, what would you think about being able to witness Jesus, John?
John: Oh, I'd be in favor of that. I think that you could learn a lot, I mean, my initial thought was, immediately went to the moment that Muhammad and the Islamic community in exile in Medina sort of settled with the Meccans to allow a return to, an annual return to Mecca, which is a critical moment in Islamic history, and one that we don't know a ton about, that's one moment, and then the other moment, yeah, would be the crucifixion of Jesus, just because, well, for one thing, like, it would establish a lot of things about the historicity of Jesus's life and whether there was a Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified and if so, for what and all of that stuff. I would love to be there for that for that day, although I'm sure that it would be unpleasant.
Hank: Yes.
John: Yeah. Those are the two things that initially come to mind because I am, you know, most of my interest in history and understanding of history is from, you know, the history of religion, but also, I don't know, the moment the Buddha reached Nirvana, sitting under a tree? That would be really interesting, like, to watch someone reach Nirvana. I don't know. There's a lot. There's a lot that I wouldn't mind seeing from the past as long as I could bring antibiotics.
Hank: The... Oh man, it would be so cool to be able to bring back a sample of the biology of the day and like, know more about their flus and...
John: Yeah, I mean, if I could take a camera, I would love to go back in time to dinosaurs-
Hank: Oh, yeah.
John: -and just take some pictures of T-Rexes because Henry would freak, like, that's my five year old son, he would freak. He would, if I was like, "Oh, Henry, I went to the Jurassic Period and here's a picture of an actual Tyrannosaurus Rex" he would flip. Hank: Well, I mean, technically, you're talking about prehistory now. I was thinking of history, but if we're talking about pre-history, then wouldn't you just go and witness the Big Bang and be like, okay, there it is.
John: Yeah, I don't know, I wouldn't go back all the way back to the Big Bang. I think that, I mean, the Big Bang was like, the only interesting moment in the history of time for several billion years.
Hank: Well, you could kind of say that it was the only interesting moment in the history of time, because time has been awfully boring as an institution since then. Time hasn't changed at all.
John: Sometimes I think about the fact that there was no time before the Big Bang and my head starts to hurt, like, when I think about how there's supposedly no edge to the universe. Can we move on Hank to the news from AFC Wimbledon and Mars?
Hank: Your problem there was the word "before" in dealing with the, you know, the creation of time. John: Right, like, yeah, exactly. That even that sentence is incorrect, that there was no time before the creation of time. Yeah, it's hard to get your head around the idea of time being created, but it was. It will also cease to exist in the fullness of time, like all things. Let's talk about the news from AFC Wimbledon and Mars.
Hank: And now I'm wondering if time will actually cease to exist, but I'm not gonna go there, so let's talk about...
John: Of course it will, Hank.
Hank: Let's talk about... Because everything ceases eventually, even time. I don't know, I don't know that that's true, I'm not sure that we know whether or not that's true.
• [News from Mars]
Hank: But let me tell you some news from Mars. Are you ready for it?
John: Oh my God, I'm so excited.
Hank: Alright, well, the Curiosity rover celebrated its 3rd birthday on Mars last week, though actually on the day that this podcast is being recorded, it is officially the 3rd birthday of the Curiosity rover on Mars, which is exciting and as we discussed last week with Felicia, it sang itself Happy Birthday today.
John: That's wonderful. That's really lovely. You know what else has turned three?
Hank: What?
John: Like, a billion humans, just this year, no big deal, whatever. Now, you're not gonna impress me with turning three, Curiosity.
Hank: Well, that's not actually our Mars news, which comes from an older mission, still operating in orbit around Mars. The European Space Agency's Mars Express Orbiter has been photographing Mars for over 11 years, and this week, they released a video. It's really cool, it's frickin' gorgeous, that they compiled from the data and photographs collected by the Mars Express Orbiter. It's a 3D render fly-over of Mars' Atlantis Chaos region using stuff from the high-resolution stereo camera. It's super, super gorgeous and the only thing I wanted from it was for it to be longer so that I could continue flying over the surface of Mars, and you can virtually fly over the surface of Mars yourself. All you've just gotta go to YouTube and search for Atlantis Chaos and that is Atlantis Chaos, yes, that is what it's called, that's a pretty cool region of a pretty cool planet.
John: I'm sorry. I wasn't listening for the last three minutes because the first minute of that was so incredibly boring.
Hank: Atlantis Chaos, John!
