The Origin of Weird: Theft of Einstein's Brain/Chess = Genius

0:16 oh, hello I do. I do recall a recent episode where I went first and then you said I fucked it up, you couldn't even get the intro right. But hey, so I don't get yelled at again. We're the History Buffoons. I am Bradley and that is Kate. Oh, hello, oh, hey there. There it is, oh, hey there, good Lord. I mean right out of the gate. That was, that was epic I'm making a lot of chord noises you're doing something. Good lord, can you stop fucking with it to stop making the noises.

0:58 I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry oh, my word, jesus, mother, something or other. Oh hey there, oh hey there. This is all staying in, just so you're aware I'm kate yeah, I went over that oh okay, that's bradley yes, I am, and we are the history buffoons and this is an origin of weird story and I am not the topic, if you can believe it I can't because I thought we were going to talk about you and how fucking weird you are right now jesus christ. That was epic. That was epic I'm just gonna have some more of my coffee so, anyways, this is the origin of weird. I'm gonna just fill time until she's ready oh my goodness okay so it feels like I haven't done this in a minute.

1:41 Oh probably because we haven't we haven't. Well, I mean, we only do the origins every other week as a little side quest for our main buffoonery. A side quest. I love it so. So we're going to talk about the brain, the brain, the brain. Did you? Oh, I just hit my. That was weird and it echoed in my head. Did you ever watch Pinky and the Brain? Pinky, and the Brain Brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, brain, yeah. I used to love that when I was younger. Yeah, I mean a lot younger. I'm fucking old, yeah, I know, I know. You tell me every time I see you. So, she doesn't go. Hey, Brad, how are you? She goes, You're old.

2:22 Okay. So what are we talking about today? We're going to talk about the brain. We all know who Albert Einstein is Trying to play. Oh shit, that's not my topic. No, it's the brain. He was a genius right, he was. yes, he was what you would call a smart man. And you'd probably assume that his brain was also something extraordinary I'm going to go with. Not, it actually turns out it was extraordinary, but in a different way. Was it enlarged? No, I will tell you. Was it small? Was there a hamster running on a wheel? Jesus Einstein was actually pretty clear about what he wanted when he passed away.

3:04 He passed away at the Princeton Hospital on April 18th 1955. Okay, he had an abdominal aortic aneurysm oh shit and like internal bleeding, but he was pretty clear after he died that he did not want to be idolized in any kind of way. Well, apparently he didn't get his wish in any kind of way. Well, apparently he didn't get his wish. So, author of the book Postcards from the Brain Museum by Brian Burrell, he points out that Einstein's instructions were to cremate him and scatter his ashes privately, to avoid any kind of brain worship, so to speak. Was that like a common practice in 1955?

3:46 No, that's just what einstein wanted. He didn't want people like gushing over his, like his ashes. Essentially, he wanted everything to be done privately okay, okay because he already knew that he was kind of a big deal because of how smart he was right, and he didn't want to want to be sensationalized. Yeah, he was a modest fellow. Yes, exactly. But, the oncologist, nope, the pathologist on call. Oh, there it is. I see how you can fuck that up. The pathologist on call was made aware of Einstein's passing, so he was the one that would do the autopsy. Okay. And he did something that would probably get his medical license evoked today did he take the brain?

4:31 He took it the fucking brain I feel like that's really unethical so his name was thomas stoltz. Harvey was born in october 10th 1912 was his middle name Stoltz, or was he a Stoltz-Harvey? Stoltz-Harvey, there's no dash. So was it Stoltz's middle name. He was called. Dr Harvey. Oh, that's an interesting middle name yeah. So born October 10th 1912. He died April 5th 2007. Okay, oh, wow. So Harvey studied at Yale University as an undergraduate and then later as a medical student, and then he was the chief pathologist. On call on the night of Einstein's autopsy Okay, wow.

5:12 So, very briefly, we're going to talk about how to do a brain autopsy, because it's kind of fascinating, right, and I pared it down quite a bit so this wouldn't be a long episode. Oh, and that's good, because I probably wouldn't understand it well, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to dumb it down for you you're going to teach me, you're going to learn me some things. I am going to learn you some things. So the brain which is in the skull of the head, since when? So, during an autopsy, you have to be wearing some PPE, some personal protective equipment, right? Yes? And using a scalpel, you're going to make a coronal incision which is from ear to ear, okay, so top of one ear to the top of the other.

5:58 Up and around Yep, so you have a anterior and a posterior section. Right, okay, have a anterior and a posterior section. Right. Okay, and then you're going to cut along the occipital, which is the back of the head. I love the occipital. And again that's going to expose like the back of the skull. Like near your spine. Basically yes, Right, so you're going to retract the scalp, the anterior and the posterior, and using an autopsy saw and skull breaker, you remove the skull cap. Okay, that's just kind of like right on top there. Have you ever seen oh, it's a hannibal lecter movie with ray leota?

6:40 yeah, no, I've seen that which one is that? that is is it just hannibal? I think it's just called. Hannibal. It might be just the Hannibal one. Yeah, ray Liotta's character. Because they're sitting at the dining room table and he's he's got a brain exposed. Sure does. But that cap is missing. Sure is, the skull cap is missing Okay. I like't know I always fuck her name up for some reason. So when you're removing the skull cap, you have to avoid damage to the cortex, which is where higher level functioning happens, like thinking and memory and language. I don't think I have that. I was just going to say I don't think I have that either. Yeah, and then you're going to see the dura and it's called dura matter.

7:23 Okay, but it's essentially part of your meninges, oh meninges but it is tissue located right underneath the bone. Okay. Okay, that dura is cut with curved scissors. For everyone at home. she's using her fingers in a cutting motion Cutting motion and then the spinal cord is cut through the foramen magna. Foramen means hole, or like gap or whatever Large gap. Foramen, large hole essentially oh, okay, so it's a hole in the skull where your spinal cord goes through. Okay. So the spinal cord is cut. Right. And then the cranial nerves and the vessels are severed.

8:04 Wow, okay, the brain pops out, pops out and it's placed in a buffered saline solution which is like a ph balanced saline solution. Okay, or four percent paraformaldehyde or so it's one or the other. Yep, and then how do you know which one to use? Like what are? you feeling that day, or I mean what's I'm not sure if there is a way to determine which one to use or if they're both acceptable or what's on hand, maybe, yeah but the skull is then blotted um of like moisture if you will moisture, the cap is replaced and then the skull is sutured together.

8:46 Okay, okay. The removed brain is then weighted, photographed, and then hemi sac, so, like sliced down the middle, it's weighted. Yeah, they weigh it. There it is. Yeah, weighted, weighed Fuck. You got there. I appreciate that. I saw the hamster wheel turning in your brain there. They weighed. They weighted. Wow. Anyways, like I said, said my cortex is not not there it's. It's definitely absent and then so it's photographed and then hemisected, so it's like sliced down the middle, okay, okay, and then the brainstem and the cerebellum are then separated. Okay, so that is a brain biopsy.

9:26 That's how you take, or, uh, autopsy, you'd like take it out? Okay, that's wild. So, following the autopsy, einstein's brain weighed 1,230 grams, which is pretty normal. That is a normal range in the normal range for a human, a regular human, and this is when Dr Harvey decided to steal his fucking brain. I know you're going to get into it for a minute. He has such faith. You're right, it's very misguided faith. I don't know why I thought you would going to get into it for a minute. He has such faith. You're right, it's very misguided faith. I don't know why. I thought you would actually do that. That's my bad. What is it? What did he expect to do with this brain? Study it. I get that, but in that moment he's like I'm going to take this.

10:09 Is it going to be like a souvenir he's going to put up on his mantle, or is he like literally just going to study it? But like, I'm sure I'm not a smart man, however, it's like I'd just be like what am I going to do with this? So his reasoning was to study it, but he also was in a position that he thought this brain cannot go to waste, like it can't just be. But it did, he died. But you know what I mean, am I wrong? No, but he I know what you're trying to say. He wanted to study it and he wanted to make sure that it was preserved in some way, because it was kind of a big deal. Because he was a big deal? Because he was a fucking genius.

10:50 Yeah, so Because he was a big deal, because he was a fucking genius, yeah. So what was his IQ? Do you remember? Did you come across it at all in anything? Because I know it was super fucking high. I did not research his IQ because then I would have to research what the range is, and I didn't want to get into all that. I was just curious, if you happen to know. I know that was not a part of your research, but just in case you saw it. I was just curious, that's all so he took the brain without permission, permission yeah permission from einstein, aka. This is part of my will yeah, he didn't get his permission slip signed yeah and he took it without einstein's family's permission I mean obviously einstein at that point not needed, but his family.

11:31 That's kind of fucked up. I mean to do that. So so do you have to like smuggle it out in his like lunchbox or well, it wasn't a secret, so einstein's family demanded that the brain be returned sure and dr harvey struck a secret deal with hit with einstein's estate by essentially vowing to safeguard it from publicity and souvenir hunters. And he actually has a phone call with Einstein's son, Hans Albert. Hans Albert. And he was really pushing for the idea that keeping the brain would be like a huge scientific opportunity. And he's talking about analyzing it, looking for physical differences that might explain Einstein's genius, right.

12:16 So Hans Albert was concerned about the whole thing kind of blowing up in the media, right. But Dr Harvey made a pretty strong promise trying to reassure him I'll take good care of it no exploitation, no sensationalism. And he swore that he would be the brain's responsible caretaker, only using it for research and published findings in scientific journals. So even though Hans Albert was pretty upset about the unauthorized removal of brain, Hans. Albert agreedans. Albert agreed to let him study him that's wild okay. So it's kind of like retroactively agreed upon yeah he, he already went through with the fuck.

13:00 Yeah, the theft. Yeah, that's what it is. And then, like it's what's the saying, like, uh, I'm gonna butcher this um Ask for permission. Ask forgiveness. Yeah. Or whatever. You know what I'm talking about. Yeah, like ask for forgiveness before asking for permission or something like that, something or other, yeah. I know we're butchering it and that's whatever, but it's basically that. He's like fuck this, I'm going to take it, and then I'll just ask forgiveness later kind of. Thing. So Dr Harvey lost his job. Well, kind of thing. So, dr harvey. Harvey lost his job. Well rightly so, absolutely rightly so. I mean he did the wrong thing. He took the brain from princeton hospital to the university of pennsylvania, okay, where he carved it into multiple pieces.

13:45 Okay, some, some say 170 pieces, some say 240, so like I don't know if he started with 170 and then broke those down right or what so I saw the two numbers is there a significance to either one? not really just that, it was a lot of pieces yeah, so he had like brain steaks, like he sliced them up like lunch meat or something he did, and he actually actually like numbered them to where it would be in the brain. So, like a puzzle piece, essentially with numbers. I would expect nothing less if he's actually going to do this because otherwise you're going to oh man, was this the front or the? back. Because there's certain parts of your brain, obviously, that do different things.

14:27 So, if you start fucking that up, you're studying the wrong thing. So this whole process of him cutting up the brain took three months. I mean, it's not just like grabbing a steak knife, apparently I would have just put it in the bread slicer at the local piggly wiggly. True, yeah, yeah, yeah, it would have done this job. You can even pick different slice sizes so he put these pieces into jars and then stole and then stored them in his basement was a cool dry place that's where he kept it was just it was really fucking weird his wife was furious. She threatened to dispose of the brain herself. But karma had another plan on her new oh instead of becoming his ticket to scholarly fame it was his downfall it was his downfall.

15:19 Yeah. So the? So he lost his Princeton job over it. Yeah, he lost his medical license due to other factors. What do you have any of those? So he was supposed to attend some type of like three day competency test and he didn't go or he failed at one of the two, oh, and he lost his license free because of it. He had three failed marriages, oh shit. And he spent 40 years like drifting from place to place like he had no like substantial, like root, I guess. I guess. Yeah, yeah, um, he would hide einstein's brain in basements, in cinder boxes, next to beer cases, and he struggled to make ends meet while also trying to study the brain at the same time so if he's basically fucking cutting all of his ties to any institution, that will have him, because he's a fucking idiot apparently and he's probably not an idiot no, he's just acting.

16:15 He went to yale yale I said yale, not yell I said yale too, that's the funny part, um, but like not just that derailed me with my thought process there, but I don't know, he's a smart man. He clearly is a smart man because he was in a position of where he was to even have his hands on this brain. But then it's like, where are you going to study? You're not going to study it In your fucking basement, next to some beer boxes. I just I mean, what kind of beer was it? That wasn't part of my research. There it is Bringing it back. Everybody also knew that he had the brain.

16:57 He told his family, he told his friends. Even his fifth grade son knew, and he told his entire class. Well, he told everybody because he wanted to be famous because of this. Yes, so Harvey did everybody because he wanted to be famous because of this, yes, so Harvey did manage to publish three studies. Okay, okay. The first study done in 1985. All right. They looked at the balance between brain cells. That was the year you were born. Yes, so there are neurons which do the thinking and glial cells which support them Glial, g-l-i-a-l glial. Okay, in one part of Einstein's brain there were way more glial cells than usual. Okay. And this means that those brain cells needed extra energy to work.

17:41 Okay. And this is all layman's terms for my own purposes. Oh, and mine, Trust me, I need the layman him into. So study number two yeah, in 1996 they noticed the brain was a bit smaller than average, but they also found that the outer layer of his brain, the cortex, was thinner but packed with more neurons. Okay. So basically he had a lot of thinking power squeezed into a smaller space. So he was there to steal this brain in 1955. He's doing a study 41 years later. How old was this person at this time? Well, he died in 2007.

18:21 Do you have an age of his death? I don't wait, yes, I do, uh 94. He was 94. So he was born in 1912. So he did his second study at 83. Yeah. Wow Okay. Yeah. Still trying to make a name for himself. Good for him. Study number three in 1999. Oh, that's yeah. This one focused on the folds and the grooves of the brain. Okay. Um, and they found, like you know, like the, yeah, the weird texture, yeah. So they found a really unusual pattern in the area linked to math and spatial thinking. Some type scientists think that this can mean that his brain had, like, super efficient communication between neurons.

19:05 Okay, but other scientists point out that it's hard to say for sure based on just one brain. Sure, it would be like trying to figure out how all cars work by looking at a single fancy car. Right, no, you need to. What's the word you need? a pool. Yeah, basically. So they were essentially trying to compare a single person brain to everybody else's brain and you can't do it, and that's an issue. Yeah, 100% so even if the statistics were perfect, just because you find something different in Einstein's brain doesn't mean that that difference costs his genius Right. So there was a financial cost, with research fund allocated to studies that were, from their inception, fundamentally flawed because of this one thing.

19:47 Sure, were from their inception, fundamentally flawed because of this one thing. So those resources could have been directed towards investigations with greater likelihood of producing meaningful results. There was personal costs, as Einstein's family was essentially coerced into consenting. Well, yeah, because he said I already have it. So I'll just, I promise I'll fucking take care of it. Yeah, and then there was a public cost. The social media, or, excuse me, the popular media accounts of these studies, consistently misrepresented the findings and their supposed scientific value. Right, so by the end of Dr Harvey's life he sent it off to another doctor which he has not named. He did not name, oh, so I think it's actually at a university, but it was given to a doctor of unknown name.

20:39 At a potential university yes. You would hope it would go to someone like that instead of just like hey, man, can you put this in your basement? I'm about to die. Or can you put this in your basement, right, I'm? about to die, right? Can you flush this down the toilet? No, Well, no, I mean you got some beer boxes. Put it next to them in your basement, Cool Dry place. Put some mothballs with it. Okay, now we're going to we're, we're going to switch gears. Okay, we're going to talk about a different brain. Oh yes. Whose brain is this? We're going to talk about Laszlo Polgar. Laszlo Polgar and his idea is that you can raise a genius.

21:19 Okay. So Laszlo Polgar was born in 1946 in Hungary. He was born in 1946 in Hungary and he built a successful academic career with degrees in philosophy and psych pedagogy, which is the study of teaching methods. Okay. And then culminating in a PhD focusing on the development of human capabilities and the nature of genius. Oh of human capabilities and the nature of genius. Oh. So, supposedly, yes, he read over 400 biographies, okay, of renowned thinkers, renowned, renowned thinkers not renowned, from socrates to einstein okay he identified patterns and common traits among them.

22:05 Do you know 400 geniuses to read about? Do you know 400? Fuck no. I know Like what. I know of Einstein. Like if you said name me a genius that you would want to read about, I'd be like Einstein, yeah. Aristotle, socrates, plato, that's all I got, but see those-. Were they? I don't think so. I don't know. I'm not saying they're not, I'm just saying I don't think so. To me they're just philosophers from days of yore. Thomas Edison, he invented shit. Oh, oh, oh oh. Alan Turing. He was pretty cool. He was pretty cool. That's a great fucking movie. Yeah, the Imitation Game.

22:47 Okay, Rerouting. So Laszlo was determined to demonstrate that genius could be cultivated by starting to teach them young and often. Well, that's fucking groundbreaking. He was going to raise his children to be geniuses, sure, but he had no children. Or a wife. That seems like a fucking big hurdle in his plan so he needed a partner to participate in this experiment, and he met a ukrainian foreign language teacher named clara. He outlined his plan and she's like okay, let's do this. Wow, okay together they. They raised three children they procreated, so did they ever get married?

23:36 oh yes, yeah, they got married okay, yeah they got married. So they had three children susan, born in 1969 this is the oldest one. Yes, okay. Susan, born in 1969. Sophia, born in 1974. Okay, five years later. And Judith in 1976. Three girls. Three girls. I feel like that's not a good fucking like thing to have. You should have thrown a boy in there to see if that would work on them too. You know I'm sure they tried Well, did they so? To kick things off, laszlo and Clara, the wife, decided chess was going to be what they would teach their kids. Laszlo was really specific about why he wanted something where success was undeniable.

24:17 It was objective. It had no academic favoring, just results. Yeah, I get that. So Laszlo wasn't just curious. He wanted to flat out prove that any child could be exceptional in the right environment. Okay. So they decided to homeschool their three daughters, focusing heavily on chess. They also were taught German and Russian and English and advanced math that kind of stuff, so they did consider other subjects, but chess won out could you imagine going to school all day just to learn chess? so they stayed home I mean, I get that, but so susan the oldest actually remembers that it was her choice to do chess because she would always pick up the chess pieces like they were toys, and so that initial like curiosity was like okay, this is what we're going to choose.

25:08 Yeah, I mean, that's really loose in my opinion. I have kids and my kids pick up shit all the time. It doesn't mean they want to focus studies on that. But okay. So their experiment was built on the idea that any child could be a genius with early specialized education. So they lived in Budapest, was in a like cozy little apartment. Every inch of that place was dedicated to chess. It was packed with books, boards, trophies and a huge filing system for game analysis and player profiles did they have a checkered floor? I don't know, but that'd be funny if they didn't. They fucking did not do their fullest so laszlo started susan at four years old.

25:52 Wow, six months later, six months she is beating seasoned players at the local chess club sure and she's already dominating in tournaments. Okay, judith the youngest was beating their dad at age five. Okay. Okay For Judith it was like a part of life, Like this is just playing with my sisters, playing with dad. It's just a part of life. Can I ask a question? Mm-hmm? Judith started beating her dad at the age of five. That doesn't mean he was a good chess player. I just want to say that. Because what was his ranking in the chess world?

26:35 I don't really want to go into rankings because it's all about numbers and I don't know numbers that is accurate. It's a lot of weird numbers. My point is I used to play chess quite a bit when I was younger. We had this really nice chess board from Mexico with all carved pieces and stuff. It was really pretty. I think it still exists somewhere at my mom's house, but it doesn't mean I was good, but anyways. So it was emphasized that their parents were a really nice, delicate balance. They were hands-on, they were always there. They were there during all their chess tournaments, and the children realized that not all prodigies will have this support system.

27:15 So they all felt very loved and nurtured. So Laszlo was the chess coach and Clara was the rock of the family. They also employed actual grandmasters to help train the girls as well, Right, Okay. So Susan the oldest said that her dad believed talent was almost irrelevant. Irrelevant, and it was all about hard work. Okay. And, um, a lot of people criticize him for pushing his daughter so hard, but the girls themselves say that they loved it. Well, sure, at one point Laszlo finds Sophia, the second child, in the bathroom in the middle of the night, like 4 am, with a chest part on her knees and he's like what are you doing?

27:58 Go to bed, go put him away. And she's like Dad, they won't leave me alone. Okay, that's kind of creepy, isn't it? I kind of creepy, isn't it? I mean jesus. Okay, so it won't leave me alone. They're talking to me. I feel like we're in poltergeist or something. So the oldest, susan polgar, was a chess prodigy. At age four she won her first tournament against older girls by 12. She was the top-ranked female player globally. So in 1991, susan became the third woman ever to earn Grandmaster title. It made her the youngest female to do so at this time.

28:42 How old was she? Sorry, it was in 1991, so I think she was 22. Sure In 2000. You know math. I think she was 22. Sure In 2000. You know math, I don't. I know. In 2002, susan moved to the United States and in 2003, she was the first woman named Grandmaster of the Year. Oh, I didn't know that was a thing, apparently. The same year, she also became the first woman to win the U S blitz championship amongst um male grandmasters, and she won the title again in 2005 and 2006. Oh, good for her. She currently lives in St Louis. I'm just joking. Sophia number two, the second one In the 1986 World Under-14 Championship.

29:35 She finished second. Okay. At the age of 14 in a tournament in Rome. Yes. She won against several strong grandmasters. Okay. Her performance rating is one of the strongest performances in history. Oh, and for a time Polgar ranked as the sixth strongest female player in the world. She is called an international master. Oh, that sounds pretty grandiose. Not as grand as Grandmaster. She hasn't competed since 2010. Why. Because she wanted to be an artist. Oh okay so she actually did marry an Israeli grandmaster and with him and their two children they moved to Tel Aviv and that's where they live. Oh, wow, judith Polgar, the youngest, yeah, um, she was actually separated from her sisters while they were training cause they were older and you know a little bit farther along, but because they were always separate, that intrigued Judith a lot.

30:31 So after she had learned the rules because they're like, oh, she's curious, let's bring her in she learned the rules and they discovered that Judith was able to find solutions to problems that they were studying, and then she began being invited to the group to like participate wow, way to be a part of the family one evening, susan was studying an end game with a trainer oh dear um and unable to find the solution, they literally woke judith up, who was asleep in bed, said help us figure this out. She did and then went right back to bed. Wow, okay, at age five she defeated a family friend without looking at her board at. At the end of the game, the friend joked you are good at chess, but I'm a good cook.

31:14 And Judith replied with do you cook without looking at the stove? Wow, the balls on that chick. She first defeated an international master at age 10 and a grandmaster at age 11. An international master at age 10 and a grandmaster at age 11? Okay, in 1991, polgar achieved the grandmaster title by winning the hungarian national championship at the time the youngest ever, at 15 years and four months, wow, which bumped her sister susan off fucking susan's probably pissed on the 13th of august 2014, she announced announced to the London newspaper the Times her retirement from chess at the highest level, at a high level.

31:54 She married a vet surgeon with two children and they are living. They stayed in Hungary, so they all became incredible chess players. Laszlo was determined, having fought extensively with Hungarian authorities over his daughter's participation in chess. It was a man's game, so it was a big deal that these women want to come up and, you know, play in men's games. But laszlo's philosophy centered on work, love, freedom and luck, with work being paramount. He also addressed gender inequality, expressing expressing a traditional view but hoping his experiment would challenge it. Laszlo believed his educational methods had broader applications, even suggesting that they could contribute to solving major health crises.

32:44 The most famous of these is chess 5,334 problems, combinations and games, which includes 5,334 different instructional situations, many taken from real matches, including 306 problems for checkmate in one move how? No idea. I don't know, but it has been called one of the most iconic chess books ever written. So do you think you can make a genius? I think you can make someone really good at chess yeah, I didn't. I didn't see anything about them like testing their iq levels to see and that's the thing it's like okay, so your daughters are really good at chess.

33:29 Yeah. Again, they beat you at a young age. That doesn't prove anything to me, because you could have sucked, and also there's more to life than chess, to some people at least. So it's like how did they do in other factors of their life? Were they smart people? Or are they just really smart at chess? I don't know. Know there's a difference in that. Basically but in our show notes I am going to put a video it's like a four minute video of um judith the youngest battling um a grandmaster in 19 and winning in 19 moves. And they just did it in like a park, like a park chess board. That's wild to do that in 19 moves yeah did you also know there's a really good, a perfect circle song called judith? Anyways, um, I don't know.

34:12 Like don't again, don't get me wrong. I couldn't fucking beat somebody in 50 moves sometimes I. I think it's uh fascinating that he tried to push I mean push maybe not the right word on his daughters, like we're gonna try and make you a genius, learn chess, but nothing else well, they learn languages and math and everything. I get that, but maybe not the right word on his daughter's like we're going to try and make you a genius, learn chess, but nothing else. Well, they learn languages and math and everything. I get that, but you know I would have liked to known more about. Okay, was this a success in your eyes, then? Because you just taught them how to play chess really well, and, yes, learn some other languages and whatever but but we don't have like a beginning. What do they call that Like? uh, I know what, I think. I know what you're trying to say.

34:53 It's um. Oh my God, I can't think. Standard beginning standard. I know that's not the term not the proper word, but I know what you're trying to say. Um, the control? It's not a there's. They don't have a control right, so they don't know if these women are above IQ, lower IQ, like I didn't go into research with that. I know and this is an origin of weird, so I know we're not like full on in depth and whatever. It's fascinating that his mindset was well, let's do this and went that path. It's just, I don't know, seems kind of weird to me, because it's like how does that make you a genius? I just, I don't know. Yeah, whereas like einstein, even even though his brain was stolen, he was a genius so I mean, I get that it's just funny that the guy who stole his brain is like try to make a name for himself only because he had einstein's brain yeah and he well well, he was hoping to discover why, right like why Einstein was the way he was.

35:50 Just miraculous discovery of I know how we can make more people geniuses. Now, because I found this in Einstein's brain. That's what he's pretty much hoping for. Yeah, Very boiled down way of saying it, of course, but everyone's different, though. You can't just be like you're a genius because I say you are. Yeah, kind of thing. So I know, I am not a smart man, I'm more. I'm more Forrest Gump than Einstein. So, anyways, well, I suppose All right, buffoons, that's it for today's episode. Buckle up, because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Another historical adventure waiting for you next time, feeling hungry for more buffoonery?

36:31 Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore hit us up on social media. We're history buffoons podcast on youtube x, instagram and facebook. You can also email us at history buffoons podcast at gmailcom. We are brad and Kate. Music by Corey Akers. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop. Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us. Remember, the buffoonery never stops.