The Inventions of Thomas Midgley | A Short Documentary | Fascinating Horror

foreign [Music] on the 18th of May 1889 Thomas mitchelly Jr was born in Beaver Falls Pennsylvania he would go on to become a brilliant inventor with over a hundred patents to his name during his lifetime his achievements would be lauded by his peers and the public alike by the late 1900s however it would become apparent that some of his Creations actually posed a grave threat not just to Public Health but to the entire planet invention was something that ran in mitchley's family his father Thoma

s mitchelly senior worked for an automobile tire manufacturer where he was responsible for several improvements to designs mitchley's maternal grandfather also made a small fortune as an inventor after patenting a new type of Saw as well as several improvements to other tools by 1911 Midgley had graduated from Cornell University having studied mechanical engineering he then moved to Dayton Ohio at the time a hotbed of technological innovation after working briefly for a company that sold cash re

gisters he soon landed a job working in a lab owned by a subsidiary of General Motors there he was given the task of finding a solution to engine knocking engine knocking is the name given to a type of abnormal combustion which sometimes occurs in engines and which is characterized by loud knocking or pinging sounds and excess vibration today engine knocking is a sign that something is wrong with an engine but in the early 1900s it was extremely common mitchelly went to work on the problem he wa

s intrigued by the periodic table and was said to carry around a copy of it in his pocket at all times he consulted this now and began working his way systematically through elements and combinations of elements seeking a fuel additive that would reduce or eliminate engine knocking by 1921 he and his team finally had a solution tetraethyl let when a tiny quantity of this substance was added to fuel it caused the fuel to burn more evenly instantly eliminating engine knocking to stop lead deposits

building up on the engine ethylene bromide was also added this would eliminate lead deposits and ensure that all traces of lead were ejected via the vehicle's exhaust system the discovery was transformative but wasn't instantly welcomed by the General Public many people recognized lead as a poisonous substance and so General Motors were careful to avoid any mention of lead when naming and promoting their new product calling it simply Ethel despite this there were several deaths and hospitalizat

ions as a result of lead poisoning among workers at the plants which produced the tetraethyl lead workers suffered from hallucinations insanity and damage to the brain and nervous system this quite naturally created a great deal of negative press around tetraethyl lead negative press that mitchelly was Keen to counteract at a press conference in 1924 he poured tetraethyl lead over his own hands and inhaled it from a bottle in order to demonstrate how safe it was this insistence that the substanc

e was safe combined with the huge demand for a solution to the problem of engine knocking was enough to silence any detractors Tetra ethyl LED was soon adopted across the country and then around the world in the form of leaded fuel even as his product took off however mitchley decided to take an extended break from his work he was suffering from some of the symptoms of lead poisoning and spent several months in Florida golfing and taking in copious amounts of fresh air in order to recover return

ing to work with one grand success under his belt mitchelly was given a new problem to work on refrigeration at the time mechanical Refrigeration was available but it certainly wasn't simple most methods required dangerous chemicals that could explode or leak out and poison users not something that many people would want in their homes if a way could be found to safely refrigerate foods and medicines it would be transformative Midgley set to work and quickly identified fluorine as a chemical tha

t might be of use it was highly toxic but by mixing it with chlorine and carbon he could produce pleurofluorocarbons or CFCs chemicals that could be used for refrigeration and which were neither explosive nor dangerous to human life a new CFC was patented under the brand name freon Midgley was so confident in the safety of this invention that he was again happy to demonstrate on himself at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in 1930 he inhaled Freon held it in his lungs then used it to bl

ow out a candle all without even a hint of ill effect the audience were convinced and Freon went on to become widely used in the refrigeration industry just a few years later fridges and air conditioners which used Freon could be found in millions of homes Across America and the world not only that but it was discovered that Freon made the perfect propellant for aerosols the miracle substance was used in not just Millions but billions of aerosol sprays around the world his two most high-profile

inventions leaded Fuel and safe Refrigeration seemed to have secured mitchley's place in history he was famous the world over highly respected by his peers and the recipient of numerous awards for his world-changing work in 1944 however Thomas mitchelly died unexpectedly and the final few years of his life he was affected by polio and lost the use of his legs ever the inventor he came up with a number of systems to make his use of a wheelchair easier one of these was a mechanical hoist that woul

d allow him to transfer from his bed to his chair without help it was this invention that ultimately killed him he was found on the 2nd of November 1944 Tangled in the straps of the device strangled to death by his own creation years passed then decades scientists started to be able to measure the world around them more accurately in the 1960s and 1970s the true effect of Mitchell's inventions slowly became apparent huge concentrations of lead were found across the world particularly in urban ar

eas at the same time conclusive evidence was published showing that lead could have a serious impact on the health and development of young children including causing brain damage in the 1980s the United States began the process of phasing out leaded fuel with many other countries following suit even so leaded fuel was in general use as late as the year 2000. there is no way to quantify the damage that leaded fuels have done but it is almost certain that they have contributed to millions of inst

ances of illness developmental difficulty and premature death the danger posed by Freon was recognized around the same time in 1974 scientists Mario Molina and Frank Roland published a paper based on the hypothesis that CFCs were drifting up into the atmosphere and destroying the protective layer of ozone which surrounded the planet should the ozone layer become too depleted it would cease to provide protection from the Rays of the sun with catastrophic consequences rates of skin cancer would Sk

yrocket crops would fail and food chains would be thrown into chaos in the most extreme scenarios it would become dangerous to set foot outside for longer than five minutes at a time the work of Molina and Roland was initially met with skepticism industry Representatives attempted to discredit their findings and prevent them from being disseminated in one instance by complaining that they had used the brand name Freon without permission in the 1980s though Molina and Roland were proven right whe

n the British Antarctic Survey confirmed that the ozone layer was thinning out to the point that there could be said to be holes in the ozone layer over the Antarctic in 1987 a global agreement known as the Montreal protocol was created signatories work together to phase out the chemicals mainly CFCs that were contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer over the course of more than a decade the use of CFCs was drastically reduced as of 2020 there is still measurable thinning in the ozone la

yer but it appears that the process is slowly reversing it is likely that the ozone layer will be at full thickness Again by the year 2070. had the issue not been addressed if CFCs had continued to be used in the amounts they once were some scientists predict that the Earth might well have become uninhabitable by as early as 2050. Thomas mitchley Jr was commended during his life as a brilliant inventor his solution for engine knocking was a massive Boon for the economy enabling unprecedented lev

els of growth and development the invention of safe Refrigeration saved countless lives by allowing the storage of food and the transport of Medicine but what wasn't understood during his lifetime were the long-term and unexpected results of his inventions as it emerged his two most famous inventions had utterly disastrous side effects it is likely that all things considered there is no single inventor whose Creations when combined have done more damage to human life and the environment than tho

se of Thomas Midgley Jr