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Announcer: This is
a Getty podcast.
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Host: When was the last
time you had the chance to
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look at something up close?
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How close?
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What about really, really close?
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[Theme music begins]
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Welcome to If Objects Could
Talk, the podcast where art
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and artifacts come alive to
tell their side of the story.
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Today, you’ll have to get
in close because we’re
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hearing from something small.
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It’s so small you’d struggle
to see it if it wasn’t pinned
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in place by a piece of glass.
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That’s right, our friend lives
on the slide for a microscope.
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They’re a flea from a cat,
which I know because the words
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“flea from a cat” are written
in French right there on the
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slide in very fancy handwriting.
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[Upbeat classical music plays]
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This slide has been stored
in the case alongside a
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French compound microscope
that was made around 1751.
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The microscope has delicate
glass lenses and shiny
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gilded bronze decorations
made in the Rococo style.
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That’s a word that is as fun
to say as it is to look at.
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The microscope is
objectively magnificent.
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Our guest, meanwhile,
is—well, a flea.
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Flea: Greetings, one and all!
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I am the flea on the slide,
specimen, subject, star!
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[triumphant music]
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You may now cheer!
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[sound of crickets] Hmph.
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Crickets for a flea?
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Maybe you haven’t heard,
but I’m a pretty big deal.
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If I wasn’t, why would they
make my permanent dig so fancy?
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Let me tell you about my home.
[laughs and then sighs]
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I live in the drawer
inside a case
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of a very fancy microscope.
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It was made in
Paris around 1751.
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There are 10 like it that
we know of, and one of
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them even belonged to Louis
the 15th, King of France.
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[triumphant music] His
collection had some of
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the finest scientific
instruments in the land.
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[Mellow classical music]
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This microscope was not
just for looking at things.
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It was a status symbol
with every detail
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executed to reflect that.
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The case is wood covered
with gilded leather and gilt
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bronze hinges and clasps.
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Along with the extra lenses
for the microscope and tiny
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tweezers, the microscope is
equipped with a wide range
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of accessories for its use
that are still in the case.
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There are also other glass
slides like mine that hold other
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specimens, like geranium petals,
a strand of hair, fly wings.
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[fly buzzes] Poor guy.
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And an ant.
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I do not speak to the ant.
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Ant: Hey!
[garbled chatter]
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Flea: The ant thinks it’s so
cool because it can carry 50
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times its own body weight.
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Congratulations!
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I can jump 150 times
my body length!
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Do the math, ant.
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Do the math.
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I’m distracted.
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Oh, well, it is in my nature
to jump from thing to thing.
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Hmph.
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[Light classical music]
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When the microscope case
is open, [case creaks open]
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you will see it is lined
with green silk velvet.
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Not cotton, not
felt—silk velvet.
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So luxurious, so opulent.
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You have to open this case with
the appropriate level of awe
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and appreciation for Rococo.
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Rococo isn’t just a
mouthful, it’s an eyeful.
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Rococo is a style that
was fashionable in
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Europe in the 1700s.
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It emphasized the beauty of
nature, like seashells and
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leaves and swirls and curlicues
on absolutely everything.
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Oh!
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[Classical music chord]
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This microscope stands
on four feet shaped
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like acanthus leaves.
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Big curling leaves twisting
into elegant C shapes.
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The body is gilded bronze,
Load full transcript
which means bronze with
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a layer of gold on top.
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[high pitch twinkle] The
lens tube is covered in
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green shagreen, which
is polished shark skin.
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[water moves] At the
top, the lens tube.
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In the middle, gears and dials
so precise they still turn
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smoothly today, [gears shifting]
more than 270 years later.
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If you’ve ever seen a microscope
or used one at school, or a
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science center or a museum,
you’d recognize mine.
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Although I highly doubt yours
was this gold, this fancy,
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or this great that it would
still work centuries later.
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My fancy microscope and the
others like it weren’t the
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only ones around at the time.
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There were simpler ones, less
gilded, less shark-skin-y.
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[voice yawns] Those were
accessible to a much wider
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range of people: a scholar,
[a page turns] a physician,
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[voice says “Say ahh…”] a monk
or a nun in a monastery [monks
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singing] with a library and
a love of the natural world.
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Curiosity does not
require gold fittings.
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After all, this was the
Age of Enlightenment!
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[Triumphant classical
music plays]
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People building instruments
to ask questions the naked
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eye could not answer.
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This microscope—my
microscope—has three lenses
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working together in sequence.
[mechanical shifting]
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Each one takes what
the last one showed
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and makes it larger and clearer.
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That’s why it’s called a
compound microscope, multiple
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lenses working together to show
what none of them could show
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alone, opening up a cosmos that
was hidden before, a fascinating
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world of the incredibly
small, and in my case, the
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incredibly good-looking.
[bell chimes]
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To see through these
lenses, you need light.
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In the daytime, the microscope
was placed near a window to
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catch sunlight, and in the
evening, candles were needed.
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[Classical music continues]
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Imagine it: Paris, 1751, a
candlelit room, the scratch
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of a quill on paper, someone
making notes about what
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appears under the glass.
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They’re pressing one eye to the
brass tube, the other squeezed
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shut, and suddenly, there I am:
the flea, gorgeous, magnificent,
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total package, my adorable
cat-like whiskers, my body
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like a polished suit of armor.
[metallic clunk]
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It’s giving: hero.
[triumphant trumpet]
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You know, someone called
me a knight once.
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[voice says “no way.”]
It’s true. I’ll tell
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you about it later.
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Uh, back to the someone with his
eye pressed to the brass tube.
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Who was that someone?
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It was Michel Ferdinand d’Albert
d’Ailly, Duc de Chaulnes.
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That is a name you say slowly
and with your chin slightly
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raised, if you are fortunate
enough to have a chin.
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Let’s say that together,
and if you have a chin,
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lift it a little higher:
Michel Ferdinand d’Albert
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d’Ailly, Duc de Chaulnes.
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Nice!
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The Duc de Chaulnes
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was a pioneering scientist.
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[typing sounds] He
made major discoveries
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in optics, geography,
astronomy, and physics.
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He was invited to join the
Academy of Sciences, the
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official group for important
thinkers like the Duc.
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[triumphant horns]
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[Classical music resumes]
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He was also very close with
King Louis the 15th, and
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helped design the cabinet
of curiosities for the king.
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He even invented the micrometric
stage, a cutting edge tool
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that enabled the very precise
measurement of specimens.
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What a gift to science!
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Oh! [sighs happily]
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The Duc might have
kept his microscope in what was
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called a cabinet de curiosité,
a small room that held a private
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collection of natural marvels.
[voices say “ooh!”]
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Like shells, bones, feathers,
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and other specimens.
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Specimens like me!
[triumphant horns]
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Well, at least they
tried to be like me.
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You do what you can
with what you’ve got.
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Let me tell you a
story about that.
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[Classical music resumes]
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[crickets chirping] Outside the
Paris city limits, the light
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in the countryside was long
and golden through the windows.
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A boy, maybe 10 years old,
had been running through
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the home, causing mayhem.
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I could hear him from my case.
[child running and laughing]
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I overheard his father
tell him to go outside and
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bring back subjects for
scientific investigation.
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That did the trick, because the
boy ran out of the door and did
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not return for almost two hours.
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Nice and quiet.
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When the boy came back
inside, bringing the noise
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and mud with him, he did
not return empty-handed.
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[crickets chirp and door shuts]
He had several teeny-tiny
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objects for review under the
microscope: a sliver of tree
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bark, assorted flower petals
in different sizes and colors,
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a clump of dirt, and a leaf.
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His father went to his desk
and opened the microscope case.
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[door creeks open] The
green silk velvet, the
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gleaming instrument. [gasps]
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One by one, the two
of them placed these little
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collected treasures on the
microscope, and the boy pressed
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his eye to the tube and saw
a new world unfold: craters
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in the bark, rivers of veins
through the flower petal
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and leaf, and tiny crystals
in the spattering of soil.
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When they ran out of the garden
things to look at, they reached
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for my slide, because I am
a headlining act, you know!
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[triumphant horns] The boy was
quiet for a moment, and then
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he said, “It’s armored! [metal
clinks] It has armor like a
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knight and whiskers like a
cat.” [cat meows] And then he
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said the best thing of all!
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He said I have so
much character!
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[cheers exuberantly] Boy,
that made me feel good.
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I might be a little guy, but
I’ve got lots of character,
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and someone noticed!
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I have never forgotten that.
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It’s nice to be seen.
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When is the last time you
looked closely at something?
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You do know you don’t need
to be a duke or have a
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case lined in silk velvet
to ask good questions and
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look closely at the world.
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Your school may
have a microscope.
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A science center or museum
near you almost certainly does.
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You might even find a simple
one at home, probably without
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a single drop of gilded bronze
on it, but with every bit
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as much power to open that
door to the small world.
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So here is what I want you
to do: find a microscope, and
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when you do, find something
small and seemingly ordinary,
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and take another look at
it, a real look, the kind
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where you lean in and study
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what you’re looking at.
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What do you see that you
have never seen before?
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How can you describe it?
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How would you draw it?
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Do you feel like the first
scientists who got to look at
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things up close and then figure
out how to share these new
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worlds with the whole big world?
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Do let me know what you found.
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I like keeping track
of all the exceptional
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characters that might one
day replace this pesky ant.
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Hmph!
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Now, if you will excuse me, I
have a slide case to get back
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to—silk velvet, gold fittings,
the most magnificent microscope
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in the history of small things.
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[Theme music begins]
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Host: I hope you
enjoyed learning about
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Rococo and microscopes.
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Join us next time when a brave
cat bounds into the studio.
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[cat meows] To see photographs
of the microscope as well
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as videos of it in action,
visit our website at
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Getty dot edu slash IOCT.
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We’ve also got a listening
guide with discussion questions
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and related activities there.
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This episode was written
by Tocarra Elise and
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produced by Zoe Goldman.
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Yeon Jin voiced the flea.
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Theme music, mixing, and sound
design by Alexandra Kalinowski.
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Christopher Sprinkle
is executive producer.
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Special thanks to curators
Anne-Lise Desmas and
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Miriam Schefzyk, as
well as Rebekkah Hart.
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These stories are
historical fiction.
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They’re based on historical
facts and deep research,
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but we’ve filled in the
gaps to make a good story.
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If you have questions about
what you’ve heard, write to us
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at podteam at getty dot edu.
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Catch you next time!