Dark Matters: Twisted But True (2011) s02e10 Episode Script
Human Puppets, Cadavers for Cash, Einstein's Revenge
Noble: This is your one and only warning.
Your screen will soon be filled with dramatized stories of scientific research that some people may find controversial or disturbing.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Ask yourself, does progress always come at a price? Are some experiments too risky or just wrong? A little curiosity can't hurt anyone Can it? There's a surgeon working tirelessly to advance the practice of medicine, and a pair of serial killers eager to provide all the fresh, human corpses he needs.
And there's Albert Einstein, the genius who reimagined the very fabric of our physical universe and who unleashed the power of "E" equals MC squared to stop Hitler.
But first, meet a man exploring the circuitry of the human mind, the electrical impulses that move us.
He wants to cure the mentally ill, but he figures out something else.
He can make people do almost anything by remote control.
Spanish neuroscientist José Delgado has just accepted a faculty position at Yale University.
José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado.
Delighted to meet you.
Man: Here, Doc.
Let me help.
[ Sighs .]
What's this? Ah.
It's for the heart -- to control the -- the -- the-- the-- the rhythm.
I call it a pacemaker.
It's very exciting.
It's a work in progress.
[ Pacemaker clatters .]
It's a chemitrode.
Release just the right amount of drugs into the brain.
Wow.
Does it work? It is the future.
[ Chuckles .]
The second World War revolutionized electronics -- sonar, missile guidance, radar.
And then, in 1947, the transistor was invented.
Delgado was one of the first people to consider ways of applying these new technologies to medical treatments.
His thinking was quite revolutionary, but to some people it seemed quite out there -- almost science fiction.
But Delgado was way ahead of his time.
Noble: Delgado wants to use electronics to cure mental illness.
Now, my really big idea is -- electrical stimulation of the brain.
I've heard.
But, I mean, what's the point, you know? We already have lobotomies.
And they work.
Lobotomy is a barbaric procedure.
Chopping into the brain with knives -- it's crazy.
Now, I convince you.
Delgado is fascinated by Swiss research on electrodes implanted in the brains of living cats.
When they stimulated the brain with electricity, the cat's paw moved, like so.
It is showing we can change the electrical workings in a living brain.
And I think -- no, I believe We can fix people.
So, it's true.
You want to stick wires in a human brain.
I offer a choice -- lobotomy, chop up the brains with a knife, or a few wires in the brain.
No permanent damage.
You control how strong is the effect.
Turn it off, the effect is gone.
Which would you choose? Stevens: Delgado suspected that mental problems like schizophrenia and epilepsy might be caused by aberrant electrical activity in the brain, not a physical defect.
And so, what he wanted to do was jolt these disruptions and hopefully reboot the normal, organized activity in the brain rather than cut it up with a knife.
Noble: It takes Delgado several years before he is ready to try his ideas on a human.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
Is this okay? Delgado was aware that different parts of the brain were involved in different things.
So, for instance, there's a part of the brain that's involved in controlling the muscles.
And the more frontal parts of the brain are involved in thinking and planning skills.
What Delgado didn't know was what would happen if he were able to stimulate these parts of the brain with electricity.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
Keep your hand like this.
No.
[ Chuckles .]
Like this.
[ Laughs .]
Now, don't move a muscle, okay? [ Electricity crackles, hums .]
Please, sir, keep it open.
[ Chuckles .]
Wow.
I guess, uh, I guess your electricity is -- is stronger than my will.
[ Both laugh .]
Okay.
Stevens: If you want to move your arm, an electrical impulse travels from motor cortex eventually to the arm.
What Delgado was doing is substituting that natural, electrical impulse with a man-made one.
And when he did, his subjects had no choice but to move.
Noble: Delgado begins working with mentally ill patients -- violent schizophrenics, normally candidates for lobotomy.
She stabbed several people.
It's mostly strangers.
And a nurse.
So, you need to be careful.
Man: What? Doc, if she does freak out -- I mean, she'll rip the wires out, ruin the equipment, maybe even hurt someone.
Don't worry.
The equipment will be perfectly safe.
Britt: To address this problem of wires needing dug in and out of the skull, he invented the Stimoceiver, which is a radio receiver attached to electrodes in the brain, which he operated with a radio transmitter and a remote control, much the same way as one might operate a model aircraft.
Okay, so, you are going to play for us.
[ Guitar plays .]
[ Electricity crackles .]
[ Playing stops .]
[ Screams .]
Aah! [ Screams .]
Turn it off! [ Crying .]
Turn it off now! Turn it off! [ Switch clicks .]
[ Gasping .]
Noble: Delgado can induce abnormal behavior in a mental patient by radio control.
[ Camera clicks, whirs .]
And he can manufacture emotions even more personal than anger.
[ Electricity crackles .]
Oh.
[ Gasps .]
MyGod, you're handsome.
I -- [ gasps .]
Oh.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone so handsome in my life.
[ Laughs .]
Devlin: The woman wasn't naturally attracted.
She'd had an electrode that was planted into her amygdala, which is this structure here.
And it's an important part of our emotional response system.
So, by electrically stimulating the region, they were able to induce a sexual response in this woman externally.
[ Electricity crackles .]
Noble: Delgado also produces fear, calmness, even euphoria [ Laughs .]
all at the touch of a button.
[ Electricity crackles .]
[ Screams .]
Aah! Though he set out to cure [ Singing .]
Delgado's research has produced an unintended side effect [ Laughs .]
[ Laughs .]
[ Electricity crackling .]
remote mind control.
[ Camera clicks, whirs .]
Noble: José Delgado can manipulate the thoughts and feelings of his patients by remote control.
He is so confident in his new power, he will risk his own life to test it.
Hey, new plan.
I'm going home.
What, to Spain? To Córdoba in fact.
What for? [ Book closes .]
I'm going to fight a bull.
A real bull.
Stevens: Delgado implanted a stimoceiver in the brain of a bull in the caudate nucleus, which is associated with high-level motor control.
He triggered the stimoceiver using a handheld radio receiver, and was able to stop a charging bull right in its tracks just a few feet away from him.
So, this is an explicit demonstration of a radio-controlled animal.
He's experimenting with mind control.
[ Projector whirring .]
[ Projector clicks .]
[ Whirring stops .]
The most spectacular demonstration of the modification of animal behavior through control of the brain.
New York Times -- front page! [ Projector clicks, whirs .]
Noble: It seems curing mental illness has slipped down Delgado's agenda.
Britt: Delgado started his work when the lobotomy was the dominant method of treatment.
But then, in the '60s, the drug therapies were gaining ground, and lobotomy was fading as there were concerns over its negative side effects.
So, Delgado needed a new justification for his approach, and the bull experiments -- that showed him that there was a potential here for control as well as cure.
However, that caused a lot of controversy among his colleagues, who were whispering about where he was exactly going with this research.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
[ Typewriter clacking .]
We are used to the idea that machines can be controlled from a distance.
A garage door can be opened by pushing a button.
We may also control the biological functions of human beings from a distance.
You sure about that, Doc? Noble: Delgado believes violent criminals can be controlled at the push of a button.
[ Keys jingle .]
But two colleagues of Delgado's, Frank Ervin and Vernon Mark, publish a book that expands his ideas far beyond prison.
Their book suggested that brain stimulation might be used to quell the violent tendencies of people rioting in the inner cities.
They said that these people could be controlled, their freedom of behavior taken away, as if they should become puppets.
We can control violent prisoners.
Yeah, but those guys on the street -- they're protestors, not prisoners.
They're just angry.
I mean, how can we treat that as a medical condition.
Where's the line? Of course, it is a matter of degree.
Noble: In a complex society, there is wide disagreement about "acceptable behaviors" -- what feelings to allow and what to cure.
[ Typewriter clacking .]
At that time, homosexuality was seen as a mental illness, right? No different in principal than epilepsy or schizophrenia.
So, in 1972, Robert Heath at Tulane University, embedded electrodes in the brains of homosexual men.
And then he had them go into rooms with prostitutes who had been paid to seduce the men while the electrodes stimulated the pleasure centers in their brain.
But the attempt was not a success.
Noble: Delgado's increasingly public work makes him an easy target.
I cannot believe this.
What? He receives a court summons.
[ Sighs .]
A woman claims he implanted a stimoceiver in her brain, and she wants compensation.
$1 million? I know every patient I have worked with.
I have never met this woman.
Lacking evidence, the woman's case never gets to court.
But Delgado's work is caught up in a fog of controversy that he cannot escape.
Delgado returns to Spain, where he continues his research using a new, non-invasive technique -- electromagnetic brain stimulation.
But is it to cure people or control them? That's a question Delgado never fully answers.
[ Applause .]
Before operating on live humans, surgeons must train with corpses.
I am entering the skull.
Where do these cadavers come from? One lecturer at the Royal Society has a secret supplier.
Practice makes perfect.
And the practice of medicine is no different.
How else would a surgeon get better without a fresh corpse to study? At the dawn of modern medicine, human bodies are in high demand among doctors.
So, a pair of enterprising low lives increase the supply.
A doctor's quest to preserve lives is their reason to end them.
[ Applause .]
Doctor Robert knox is Scotland's most-celebrated anatomist.
Knox: Sadly, in my time at Waterloo, I have see too many robbed of life by those surgeons sent to save them.
Today, I will teach you what you need to learn in order to become a surgeon, not a butcher.
To really get a feel for what a body is like when you handle it, what the texture's like, how hard you have to push if you're gonna cut into it, just where the things are on top of each other, you really need to handle a body.
It wouldn't just be medical students attending an anatomical demonstration like this.
Members of the general public could turn up, and this would be an exciting thing.
They would be wildly popular things to attend.
Noble: Knox is something of a 19th Century rock star.
[ Watch chain jingles .]
By contrast, William Burke and William Hare are nobodies.
They work as rent collectors at a flophouse.
Burke and Hare immigrated to Scotland from Ireland.
They were working-class men.
They met while they were working together on the Union Canal in Scotland.
They didn't have a lot of money.
They were struggling to make ends meet.
Burke! Eyes on the job.
Daft Jamie's not gonna pay the rent, now, is he? He's worse off than we is.
[ Groans .]
Where is that old drunk? He should be home by now.
[ Glass shatters .]
[ Clattering .]
Huh.
He's only gone and climbed in the back.
It's time to get the rent.
We been waiting long enough.
Time to get what's ours.
Can you credit it? He's only gone and drunk himself to death.
[ Bottle shatters .]
And him still owing us money.
What the hell are we gonna do now?! Unless teach you what you need to know.
Noble: Just across town, Dr.
Knox is getting rich on dead bodies as demand for his demonstrations soars.
We will start with the heart.
There was an increase in the British middle class.
These were people who could afford to pay for medical services, so the demand for physicians increased.
Therefore, the demand to train physicians increased.
And training physicians included anatomy.
The problem was you could only get bodies from execution, so there was a significant shortage of bodies at that time.
[ Both grunt .]
What on earth?! Dr.
Knox! [ Chuckles .]
May I present my business partner, Mr.
Burke? I, myself, am Mr.
Hare.
We heard you may be interested in old [ Taps barrel .]
Donald here.
[ Taps barrel .]
Poor Donald was a -- No.
Don't tell me.
I really don't need to know.
Ohh.
Remarkably fresh.
No alopecia.
I commend the lack of maggots.
[ Barrel lid thunks .]
Very well.
I'll pay £7.
W-would that be your top offer, sir? It's the going rate, Mr.
Hare.
Take it or leave it.
Vitkun: Burke and Hare were paid what amounts to about $500 in today's money, and the reason for this is that Knox was desperate for fresh cadavers.
[ Coins jingle .]
Ahh.
So, drunk Donald made good with the rent [ Laughs .]
in a roundabout way.
Makes you wish more of our tenants drank themselves to death.
[ Man coughs .]
Take poor Joseph up there.
[ Joseph coughs .]
Doesn't sound too long for this earth.
Does he, Mr.
Burke? Hm.
Wouldn't take much to help him get there.
[ Scoffs .]
I'm joking.
Obviously, I'm joking.
It'd be mercy, so it would.
And we'd only be helping him pay the rent, same as drunk Donald.
Only with less of the waiting.
[ Joseph snoring .]
Noble: William Burke and William Hare have stumbled across a lucrative trade in the very freshest of corpses.
[ Snoring continues .]
Let's do it.
They deliver the still-warm bodies for use in anatomy lectures.
[ Joseph gagging .]
[ Grunts .]
[ Gagging stops .]
[ Breathing heavily .]
Ohh.
Poor Joseph died -- Please, Mr.
Hare.
I really don't need to know.
My sole concern is training the nation's surgeons.
[ Man gagging .]
Noble: A traveler's lodging house is the perfect hunting ground for victims no one will ever miss.
Burke and Hare become serial killers.
Hilton: Burke and Hare kill 16 people in the year that they're active.
That's one every three weeks.
That's a lot of bodies.
[ Man gagging .]
They're earning up to £10 a body, which is about $800 in today's money.
They killed them through strangulation, which becomes known as Burking.
[ Gagging continues .]
Get on with it.
[ Grunts .]
[ Gagging stops .]
There's been no new tenants in weeks.
How are we supposed to collect our rents from Dr.
Knox if they don't show up here in the first place? Noble: James Wilson, a harmless imbecile.
He's well known in the area and affectionately called Daft Jamie.
Are you looking for your mommy? As luck would have it, I seen her just a minute ago.
Come on inside, and we'll have a wee dram while we're waiting for your mommy.
And if we examine this vital area, you'll see the ligatures caused by hanging.
Man: Good God.
Isn't that daft Jamie? I can assure you, sir, you are mistaken.
We will begin by examining the skull.
Noble: To be on the safe side, Knox makes his first incision to daft Jamie's face.
Vitkun: Knox, as a physician, had a very high standing in the Edinburgh society.
Many people held him in very high regard.
No one ever questioned the never-ending supply of bodies that Knox was able to obtain.
So, basically, society turned a blind eye to this very unusual practice.
[ Grunting .]
Noble: But Knox's stature cannot protect the murderers forever.
Aren't you rid of it yet?! Hurry yourself! Your woman's back, and she's brought her man along! Haven't I told you already, Mrs.
? Your stocking's ain't here.
Woman: I'll take a look for myself, if you do not mind.
Look sharp! Stick that under the bed.
Those stockings were from Paris.
And one isn't any good to me.
Come on in.
You see? Told you.
It's not here.
[ Screams .]
Man: So Noble: At first, Burke and Hare deny everything.
I'm saying nothing.
Noble: Because Dr.
Knox cut up the bodies, there's no evidence.
If they all keep their mouths shut, they might just get away with murder.
All right.
I'll make a deal with you, Mr.
Hare.
Complete immunity But Hare rats out Burke to get immunity for himself.
Hare: What can I say? It was all Mr.
Burke.
Hare's confession sealed Burke's fate.
He was sentenced on Christmas Eve 1828, and he was hanged before a cheering crowd of some 25,000 people, happy to see him meet this unhappy end.
What about the doctor? How come he gets away with it? Hilton: Knox is never actually tried for buying the bodies of murdered people, but he's convicted in the court of popular opinion.
There's a chant at the time that goes, "Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef.
" He's disgraced.
And, in a sense, his ultimate punishment is the fact that we remember him now simply as the accomplice of Burke and Hare.
Noble: Knox flees to London, but no one will employ him as a surgeon.
Shunned by polite society [ Sighs .]
he sinks low enough to become a journalist.
[ Children chanting "Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy who buys the beef!" .]
[ Chanting continues .]
When young Albert Einstein questioned the fundamental laws of physics, he expects an argument.
And where was he during the war?! But because he is a Jewish physicist in Germany before World War II, rational scientific debate is drowned out by a racist hate campaign, Everything you experience is relative.
Time can be bent, and space itself warped.
The physical world is not what it seems.
When Albert Einstein made such claims 100 years ago, some older physicists were furious.
One tried to discredit Einstein's theory.
Then, he went after the man with a campaign of racist hatred that echoes through history.
Philipp Lenard is one of Germany's most respected physicists.
He's adding the finishing touches to the grand edifice of physics, built by great men like Isaac Newton.
Faircloth: At the end of the 19th Century, physicists really thought all the big questions had been answered.
They thought that the Sun and the moons and the stars were held in place beautifully by Newton's laws.
Everything worked like clockwork.
All the big questions in physics had been answered.
Noble: Lenard receives the Nobel prize for brilliant, experimental work on the photoelectric effect -- how light on a metal generates electricity.
[ Laughing .]
Lenard's great contribution was he accurately described the photoelectric effect.
However, he could not explain it.
Noble: But 540 miles away in Bern, Switzerland, an unknown clerk in a patent office has the answer.
Einstein: "Dear, Professor Lenard, "I am writing to offer some humble observations "regarding your work on the quanta of light.
"Herr Albert Einstein.
" Hm.
Noble: Einstein has a new theory that explains Lenard's experimental results.
Lenard welcomes the assistance.
Back then, there was a pecking order in the physics department.
The German experimental physicist was at the top.
He had the power.
He had the prestige and the funding.
And the theorists were at the bottom of this totem pole.
They were the ones who would simply clean up the details.
Noble: But that same year, Einstein goes on to take an enormous theoretical leap without the benefit of any observation.
He develops a radical new view of the universe -- special relativity.
Isaac Newton said that space and time are absolute -- a second on the Earth is a second on the Moon is a second on Jupiter.
Here comes Albert Einstein, who says, "not so fast.
" Time beats faster on the moon than it does on the Earth.
Time beats slower on Jupiter than it does on the Earth.
So, space and time are relative.
Noble: Einstein's thought experiment, called the twin paradox, demonstrates how radical his theory is.
Two twins separate.
One boards a super-fast train traveling close to the speed of light.
The other remains on the platform.
On board, all seems normal.
[ Watch ticking .]
But in reality, time is now passing at completely different speeds for the twins.
[ Ticking continues .]
When the twin on the train returns, a year for him has been a lifetime for the stationary twin.
Newton's idea of a clockwork universe is wrong.
According to Einstein, time is elastic.
Manfred.
Have you see this? Einstein is tearing the physical world apart.
Even time, he says, is now no more constant than the wind.
It flies in the face of reason.
Faircloth: This was a real shock for the physicists of the time, who'd based their whole careers on Newtonian mechanics.
And so, no wonder these existing experimenters and physicists resented this new young upstart who told them that, "your way's not right.
This is the new truth.
" Noble: Several years later, Einstein pushes his theory to its conclusion.
Special relativity poked holes in Newton's physics but general relativity demolishes it.
Not only is time variable.
Space itself can also be warped and bent.
Newton visualized the force of gravity as the attraction between any two masses, such as these.
Einstein's revolutionary idea was that gravity wasn't based on that attraction as much as the bending of the fabric of space-time.
If we take a very heavy object, pop it on this fabric of space-time, you'll note the bending of that fabric.
And now this object is now attracted to that and actually moves towards it the same way the force of gravity -- as we observe all the time -- attracts other objects.
Noble: Experimental results confirm parts of Einstein's relativity.
He becomes world-famous.
But some say his ideas defy common sense.
Manfred! So, you see the apple speeding toward you, and you catch it, yes? Not if you're Einstein! You, in fact, sped towards the apple along with myself and the room while the apple sat suspended in space.
And he calls this science! Lenard thought of himself as numero uno.
He was the Nobel prizewinner.
He was the one who lorded over all the power.
And who is this Albert Einstein who comes along challenging the work of the great experimentalists? It is groundbreaking.
"Groundbreaking"?! It is self-publicity! This is not in the tradition of German physics! Noble: Lenard must defend his career and the physical world as he knows it.
He's heading for a confrontation with Einstein that will change history.
I shall publish! I shall expose him for the fraud he is! [ Applause .]
Noble: Albert Einstein faces his most vocal opponent, Philipp Lenard, in a public debate.
More than 200 years of Newtonian physics stand to be demolished in a day.
Herr Doctor Einstein is creating an abstract, mathematical world based on thought experiments in his head.
This is undoubtedly clever, but it is not physics.
Faircloth: Lenard was an experimentalist.
Lenard believed you could understand the universe by measuring it.
You could actually see reality.
Now, Einstein believed that you could find out about the universe by thinking about it, and this really riled Lenard.
He thought Einstein's theories were just airy-fairy sort of whims of the imagination.
Let us grant Herr Doctor Einstein his thought experiments and see where a little common sense leaves them.
He claims that when a train moves with respect to the Earth, one could just as easily say the Earth is moving with respect to the train.
Well, then, explain this -- if the train comes to a sudden halt [ Crash .]
It's inhabitants and their luggage are sent flying about.
Yet outside the window, all is at rest.
The steeple does not fly from the church.
Clearly, the train is moving with respect to the Earth.
The Earth is at rest with respect to the train.
Pure invention.
Noble: But for Einstein, the science speaks for itself.
You think this is the invention of Mr.
Relativity-Theoretician.
[ Laughter .]
It is true that it seems arbitrary, but only if you look upon a limited view of the world.
[ Applause .]
Lenard claims to be speaking up for common sense, but experiments increasingly support Einstein.
The universe really is that bizarre.
[ Applause continues .]
Lenard does attract attention from a fledgling Nazi party.
Miller: Germany lost the first World War, yet they had never been invaded.
And so, how could this have happened? Well, it must have been a stab in the back by the usual suspects, Jews and Bolsheviks.
Einstein was Jewish.
He was left-leaning.
He was a pacifist.
He was perfect ammunition for right-wing extremist groups.
that the world is confused by lies.
Noble: With the help of the Nazis, Lenard finds a new way to attack Einstein.
Is it any wonder that this second-rate science was invented by a Jew? It is irrational.
Non-Aryan even.
Yeah.
That's good.
Einstein's intellectual fantasies are a corruption of science.
They are, uhh Degenerate? Degenerate.
[ Applause .]
The theory of relativity is nothing but a Jewish fraud! Noble: Lenard now sees two kinds of science -- German and Jewish.
His attacks are soon taken up by the press.
Lenard: German science is simple! Lenard realized that he couldn't criticize the relativity theory itself.
That was okay.
So he took the gloves off and went after Einstein the man, Einstein the Jew.
He put together a proclamation against Einstein.
And by this time, one must bear in mind, that Lenard had allied himself with Hitler and the Nazis and foresaw a great career for himself as the fuhrer of German physics.
Noble: After 13 years of slander, Lenard finally succeeds in hounding Einstein out of Germany.
Lenard goes on to become head of Aryan science under the Nazis.
Einstein settles in America.
In 1939, he is visited by Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, who delivers some world-changing news.
Scientists in Germany have split the uranium atom.
And you're sure? I have seen the results of the experiment.
"E" equals MC squared is no longer theoretical.
It is a fact.
Hm.
Of course, you know what this means.
Faircloth: Einstein's famous equation, "E" equals MC squared, basically says that energy and matter are one and the same thing.
Matter is essentially a condensed form of energy, and a tiny amount of matter has billions of times the amount of energy than people previously thought.
And this opened the door to the atomic bomb.
Noble: Szilard wants Einstein to sign a letter to President Roosevelt endorsing an American atomic-bomb project.
You think Hitler's going to ignore this? You think he won't try and make an atom bomb if we don't beat him to it? It was obvious that the Germans were working on an atomic bomb.
Not only was the atom split in Germany -- not England or not in the United States -- but top German scientists like Werner Heisenberg, the greatest quantum physicist of the era, were working on the atomic bomb.
Noble: It is an appalling dilemma for the lifelong pacifist.
But he knows first-hand that German extremists will stop at nothing.
All right.
All right.
I'll sign your letter.
No need to keep hocking me a tshaynik.
Kaku: Here is Albert Einstein, kicked out of Germany for being a theoretician, unleashing the power of "E" equals MC squared, leading to a race between Germany and the United States.
And then here's Einstein, once again, the only man with enough prestige to write a letter to Roosevelt urging him to build the atomic bomb for the United States to challenge the German bomb.
Herr Doctor Einstein Noble: If the campaign against Jewish physics hadn't happened, Einstein and other scientists might never have left Germany for America.
Who'd have thought we'd end up grateful for the racist rantings of an anti-semitic bigot? Lenard: The theory of relativity is nothing but a Jewish fraud!
Your screen will soon be filled with dramatized stories of scientific research that some people may find controversial or disturbing.
Viewer discretion is advised.
Ask yourself, does progress always come at a price? Are some experiments too risky or just wrong? A little curiosity can't hurt anyone Can it? There's a surgeon working tirelessly to advance the practice of medicine, and a pair of serial killers eager to provide all the fresh, human corpses he needs.
And there's Albert Einstein, the genius who reimagined the very fabric of our physical universe and who unleashed the power of "E" equals MC squared to stop Hitler.
But first, meet a man exploring the circuitry of the human mind, the electrical impulses that move us.
He wants to cure the mentally ill, but he figures out something else.
He can make people do almost anything by remote control.
Spanish neuroscientist José Delgado has just accepted a faculty position at Yale University.
José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado.
Delighted to meet you.
Man: Here, Doc.
Let me help.
[ Sighs .]
What's this? Ah.
It's for the heart -- to control the -- the -- the-- the-- the rhythm.
I call it a pacemaker.
It's very exciting.
It's a work in progress.
[ Pacemaker clatters .]
It's a chemitrode.
Release just the right amount of drugs into the brain.
Wow.
Does it work? It is the future.
[ Chuckles .]
The second World War revolutionized electronics -- sonar, missile guidance, radar.
And then, in 1947, the transistor was invented.
Delgado was one of the first people to consider ways of applying these new technologies to medical treatments.
His thinking was quite revolutionary, but to some people it seemed quite out there -- almost science fiction.
But Delgado was way ahead of his time.
Noble: Delgado wants to use electronics to cure mental illness.
Now, my really big idea is -- electrical stimulation of the brain.
I've heard.
But, I mean, what's the point, you know? We already have lobotomies.
And they work.
Lobotomy is a barbaric procedure.
Chopping into the brain with knives -- it's crazy.
Now, I convince you.
Delgado is fascinated by Swiss research on electrodes implanted in the brains of living cats.
When they stimulated the brain with electricity, the cat's paw moved, like so.
It is showing we can change the electrical workings in a living brain.
And I think -- no, I believe We can fix people.
So, it's true.
You want to stick wires in a human brain.
I offer a choice -- lobotomy, chop up the brains with a knife, or a few wires in the brain.
No permanent damage.
You control how strong is the effect.
Turn it off, the effect is gone.
Which would you choose? Stevens: Delgado suspected that mental problems like schizophrenia and epilepsy might be caused by aberrant electrical activity in the brain, not a physical defect.
And so, what he wanted to do was jolt these disruptions and hopefully reboot the normal, organized activity in the brain rather than cut it up with a knife.
Noble: It takes Delgado several years before he is ready to try his ideas on a human.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
Is this okay? Delgado was aware that different parts of the brain were involved in different things.
So, for instance, there's a part of the brain that's involved in controlling the muscles.
And the more frontal parts of the brain are involved in thinking and planning skills.
What Delgado didn't know was what would happen if he were able to stimulate these parts of the brain with electricity.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
Keep your hand like this.
No.
[ Chuckles .]
Like this.
[ Laughs .]
Now, don't move a muscle, okay? [ Electricity crackles, hums .]
Please, sir, keep it open.
[ Chuckles .]
Wow.
I guess, uh, I guess your electricity is -- is stronger than my will.
[ Both laugh .]
Okay.
Stevens: If you want to move your arm, an electrical impulse travels from motor cortex eventually to the arm.
What Delgado was doing is substituting that natural, electrical impulse with a man-made one.
And when he did, his subjects had no choice but to move.
Noble: Delgado begins working with mentally ill patients -- violent schizophrenics, normally candidates for lobotomy.
She stabbed several people.
It's mostly strangers.
And a nurse.
So, you need to be careful.
Man: What? Doc, if she does freak out -- I mean, she'll rip the wires out, ruin the equipment, maybe even hurt someone.
Don't worry.
The equipment will be perfectly safe.
Britt: To address this problem of wires needing dug in and out of the skull, he invented the Stimoceiver, which is a radio receiver attached to electrodes in the brain, which he operated with a radio transmitter and a remote control, much the same way as one might operate a model aircraft.
Okay, so, you are going to play for us.
[ Guitar plays .]
[ Electricity crackles .]
[ Playing stops .]
[ Screams .]
Aah! [ Screams .]
Turn it off! [ Crying .]
Turn it off now! Turn it off! [ Switch clicks .]
[ Gasping .]
Noble: Delgado can induce abnormal behavior in a mental patient by radio control.
[ Camera clicks, whirs .]
And he can manufacture emotions even more personal than anger.
[ Electricity crackles .]
Oh.
[ Gasps .]
MyGod, you're handsome.
I -- [ gasps .]
Oh.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone so handsome in my life.
[ Laughs .]
Devlin: The woman wasn't naturally attracted.
She'd had an electrode that was planted into her amygdala, which is this structure here.
And it's an important part of our emotional response system.
So, by electrically stimulating the region, they were able to induce a sexual response in this woman externally.
[ Electricity crackles .]
Noble: Delgado also produces fear, calmness, even euphoria [ Laughs .]
all at the touch of a button.
[ Electricity crackles .]
[ Screams .]
Aah! Though he set out to cure [ Singing .]
Delgado's research has produced an unintended side effect [ Laughs .]
[ Laughs .]
[ Electricity crackling .]
remote mind control.
[ Camera clicks, whirs .]
Noble: José Delgado can manipulate the thoughts and feelings of his patients by remote control.
He is so confident in his new power, he will risk his own life to test it.
Hey, new plan.
I'm going home.
What, to Spain? To Córdoba in fact.
What for? [ Book closes .]
I'm going to fight a bull.
A real bull.
Stevens: Delgado implanted a stimoceiver in the brain of a bull in the caudate nucleus, which is associated with high-level motor control.
He triggered the stimoceiver using a handheld radio receiver, and was able to stop a charging bull right in its tracks just a few feet away from him.
So, this is an explicit demonstration of a radio-controlled animal.
He's experimenting with mind control.
[ Projector whirring .]
[ Projector clicks .]
[ Whirring stops .]
The most spectacular demonstration of the modification of animal behavior through control of the brain.
New York Times -- front page! [ Projector clicks, whirs .]
Noble: It seems curing mental illness has slipped down Delgado's agenda.
Britt: Delgado started his work when the lobotomy was the dominant method of treatment.
But then, in the '60s, the drug therapies were gaining ground, and lobotomy was fading as there were concerns over its negative side effects.
So, Delgado needed a new justification for his approach, and the bull experiments -- that showed him that there was a potential here for control as well as cure.
However, that caused a lot of controversy among his colleagues, who were whispering about where he was exactly going with this research.
[ Speaking indistinctly .]
[ Typewriter clacking .]
We are used to the idea that machines can be controlled from a distance.
A garage door can be opened by pushing a button.
We may also control the biological functions of human beings from a distance.
You sure about that, Doc? Noble: Delgado believes violent criminals can be controlled at the push of a button.
[ Keys jingle .]
But two colleagues of Delgado's, Frank Ervin and Vernon Mark, publish a book that expands his ideas far beyond prison.
Their book suggested that brain stimulation might be used to quell the violent tendencies of people rioting in the inner cities.
They said that these people could be controlled, their freedom of behavior taken away, as if they should become puppets.
We can control violent prisoners.
Yeah, but those guys on the street -- they're protestors, not prisoners.
They're just angry.
I mean, how can we treat that as a medical condition.
Where's the line? Of course, it is a matter of degree.
Noble: In a complex society, there is wide disagreement about "acceptable behaviors" -- what feelings to allow and what to cure.
[ Typewriter clacking .]
At that time, homosexuality was seen as a mental illness, right? No different in principal than epilepsy or schizophrenia.
So, in 1972, Robert Heath at Tulane University, embedded electrodes in the brains of homosexual men.
And then he had them go into rooms with prostitutes who had been paid to seduce the men while the electrodes stimulated the pleasure centers in their brain.
But the attempt was not a success.
Noble: Delgado's increasingly public work makes him an easy target.
I cannot believe this.
What? He receives a court summons.
[ Sighs .]
A woman claims he implanted a stimoceiver in her brain, and she wants compensation.
$1 million? I know every patient I have worked with.
I have never met this woman.
Lacking evidence, the woman's case never gets to court.
But Delgado's work is caught up in a fog of controversy that he cannot escape.
Delgado returns to Spain, where he continues his research using a new, non-invasive technique -- electromagnetic brain stimulation.
But is it to cure people or control them? That's a question Delgado never fully answers.
[ Applause .]
Before operating on live humans, surgeons must train with corpses.
I am entering the skull.
Where do these cadavers come from? One lecturer at the Royal Society has a secret supplier.
Practice makes perfect.
And the practice of medicine is no different.
How else would a surgeon get better without a fresh corpse to study? At the dawn of modern medicine, human bodies are in high demand among doctors.
So, a pair of enterprising low lives increase the supply.
A doctor's quest to preserve lives is their reason to end them.
[ Applause .]
Doctor Robert knox is Scotland's most-celebrated anatomist.
Knox: Sadly, in my time at Waterloo, I have see too many robbed of life by those surgeons sent to save them.
Today, I will teach you what you need to learn in order to become a surgeon, not a butcher.
To really get a feel for what a body is like when you handle it, what the texture's like, how hard you have to push if you're gonna cut into it, just where the things are on top of each other, you really need to handle a body.
It wouldn't just be medical students attending an anatomical demonstration like this.
Members of the general public could turn up, and this would be an exciting thing.
They would be wildly popular things to attend.
Noble: Knox is something of a 19th Century rock star.
[ Watch chain jingles .]
By contrast, William Burke and William Hare are nobodies.
They work as rent collectors at a flophouse.
Burke and Hare immigrated to Scotland from Ireland.
They were working-class men.
They met while they were working together on the Union Canal in Scotland.
They didn't have a lot of money.
They were struggling to make ends meet.
Burke! Eyes on the job.
Daft Jamie's not gonna pay the rent, now, is he? He's worse off than we is.
[ Groans .]
Where is that old drunk? He should be home by now.
[ Glass shatters .]
[ Clattering .]
Huh.
He's only gone and climbed in the back.
It's time to get the rent.
We been waiting long enough.
Time to get what's ours.
Can you credit it? He's only gone and drunk himself to death.
[ Bottle shatters .]
And him still owing us money.
What the hell are we gonna do now?! Unless teach you what you need to know.
Noble: Just across town, Dr.
Knox is getting rich on dead bodies as demand for his demonstrations soars.
We will start with the heart.
There was an increase in the British middle class.
These were people who could afford to pay for medical services, so the demand for physicians increased.
Therefore, the demand to train physicians increased.
And training physicians included anatomy.
The problem was you could only get bodies from execution, so there was a significant shortage of bodies at that time.
[ Both grunt .]
What on earth?! Dr.
Knox! [ Chuckles .]
May I present my business partner, Mr.
Burke? I, myself, am Mr.
Hare.
We heard you may be interested in old [ Taps barrel .]
Donald here.
[ Taps barrel .]
Poor Donald was a -- No.
Don't tell me.
I really don't need to know.
Ohh.
Remarkably fresh.
No alopecia.
I commend the lack of maggots.
[ Barrel lid thunks .]
Very well.
I'll pay £7.
W-would that be your top offer, sir? It's the going rate, Mr.
Hare.
Take it or leave it.
Vitkun: Burke and Hare were paid what amounts to about $500 in today's money, and the reason for this is that Knox was desperate for fresh cadavers.
[ Coins jingle .]
Ahh.
So, drunk Donald made good with the rent [ Laughs .]
in a roundabout way.
Makes you wish more of our tenants drank themselves to death.
[ Man coughs .]
Take poor Joseph up there.
[ Joseph coughs .]
Doesn't sound too long for this earth.
Does he, Mr.
Burke? Hm.
Wouldn't take much to help him get there.
[ Scoffs .]
I'm joking.
Obviously, I'm joking.
It'd be mercy, so it would.
And we'd only be helping him pay the rent, same as drunk Donald.
Only with less of the waiting.
[ Joseph snoring .]
Noble: William Burke and William Hare have stumbled across a lucrative trade in the very freshest of corpses.
[ Snoring continues .]
Let's do it.
They deliver the still-warm bodies for use in anatomy lectures.
[ Joseph gagging .]
[ Grunts .]
[ Gagging stops .]
[ Breathing heavily .]
Ohh.
Poor Joseph died -- Please, Mr.
Hare.
I really don't need to know.
My sole concern is training the nation's surgeons.
[ Man gagging .]
Noble: A traveler's lodging house is the perfect hunting ground for victims no one will ever miss.
Burke and Hare become serial killers.
Hilton: Burke and Hare kill 16 people in the year that they're active.
That's one every three weeks.
That's a lot of bodies.
[ Man gagging .]
They're earning up to £10 a body, which is about $800 in today's money.
They killed them through strangulation, which becomes known as Burking.
[ Gagging continues .]
Get on with it.
[ Grunts .]
[ Gagging stops .]
There's been no new tenants in weeks.
How are we supposed to collect our rents from Dr.
Knox if they don't show up here in the first place? Noble: James Wilson, a harmless imbecile.
He's well known in the area and affectionately called Daft Jamie.
Are you looking for your mommy? As luck would have it, I seen her just a minute ago.
Come on inside, and we'll have a wee dram while we're waiting for your mommy.
And if we examine this vital area, you'll see the ligatures caused by hanging.
Man: Good God.
Isn't that daft Jamie? I can assure you, sir, you are mistaken.
We will begin by examining the skull.
Noble: To be on the safe side, Knox makes his first incision to daft Jamie's face.
Vitkun: Knox, as a physician, had a very high standing in the Edinburgh society.
Many people held him in very high regard.
No one ever questioned the never-ending supply of bodies that Knox was able to obtain.
So, basically, society turned a blind eye to this very unusual practice.
[ Grunting .]
Noble: But Knox's stature cannot protect the murderers forever.
Aren't you rid of it yet?! Hurry yourself! Your woman's back, and she's brought her man along! Haven't I told you already, Mrs.
? Your stocking's ain't here.
Woman: I'll take a look for myself, if you do not mind.
Look sharp! Stick that under the bed.
Those stockings were from Paris.
And one isn't any good to me.
Come on in.
You see? Told you.
It's not here.
[ Screams .]
Man: So Noble: At first, Burke and Hare deny everything.
I'm saying nothing.
Noble: Because Dr.
Knox cut up the bodies, there's no evidence.
If they all keep their mouths shut, they might just get away with murder.
All right.
I'll make a deal with you, Mr.
Hare.
Complete immunity But Hare rats out Burke to get immunity for himself.
Hare: What can I say? It was all Mr.
Burke.
Hare's confession sealed Burke's fate.
He was sentenced on Christmas Eve 1828, and he was hanged before a cheering crowd of some 25,000 people, happy to see him meet this unhappy end.
What about the doctor? How come he gets away with it? Hilton: Knox is never actually tried for buying the bodies of murdered people, but he's convicted in the court of popular opinion.
There's a chant at the time that goes, "Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy that buys the beef.
" He's disgraced.
And, in a sense, his ultimate punishment is the fact that we remember him now simply as the accomplice of Burke and Hare.
Noble: Knox flees to London, but no one will employ him as a surgeon.
Shunned by polite society [ Sighs .]
he sinks low enough to become a journalist.
[ Children chanting "Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox the boy who buys the beef!" .]
[ Chanting continues .]
When young Albert Einstein questioned the fundamental laws of physics, he expects an argument.
And where was he during the war?! But because he is a Jewish physicist in Germany before World War II, rational scientific debate is drowned out by a racist hate campaign, Everything you experience is relative.
Time can be bent, and space itself warped.
The physical world is not what it seems.
When Albert Einstein made such claims 100 years ago, some older physicists were furious.
One tried to discredit Einstein's theory.
Then, he went after the man with a campaign of racist hatred that echoes through history.
Philipp Lenard is one of Germany's most respected physicists.
He's adding the finishing touches to the grand edifice of physics, built by great men like Isaac Newton.
Faircloth: At the end of the 19th Century, physicists really thought all the big questions had been answered.
They thought that the Sun and the moons and the stars were held in place beautifully by Newton's laws.
Everything worked like clockwork.
All the big questions in physics had been answered.
Noble: Lenard receives the Nobel prize for brilliant, experimental work on the photoelectric effect -- how light on a metal generates electricity.
[ Laughing .]
Lenard's great contribution was he accurately described the photoelectric effect.
However, he could not explain it.
Noble: But 540 miles away in Bern, Switzerland, an unknown clerk in a patent office has the answer.
Einstein: "Dear, Professor Lenard, "I am writing to offer some humble observations "regarding your work on the quanta of light.
"Herr Albert Einstein.
" Hm.
Noble: Einstein has a new theory that explains Lenard's experimental results.
Lenard welcomes the assistance.
Back then, there was a pecking order in the physics department.
The German experimental physicist was at the top.
He had the power.
He had the prestige and the funding.
And the theorists were at the bottom of this totem pole.
They were the ones who would simply clean up the details.
Noble: But that same year, Einstein goes on to take an enormous theoretical leap without the benefit of any observation.
He develops a radical new view of the universe -- special relativity.
Isaac Newton said that space and time are absolute -- a second on the Earth is a second on the Moon is a second on Jupiter.
Here comes Albert Einstein, who says, "not so fast.
" Time beats faster on the moon than it does on the Earth.
Time beats slower on Jupiter than it does on the Earth.
So, space and time are relative.
Noble: Einstein's thought experiment, called the twin paradox, demonstrates how radical his theory is.
Two twins separate.
One boards a super-fast train traveling close to the speed of light.
The other remains on the platform.
On board, all seems normal.
[ Watch ticking .]
But in reality, time is now passing at completely different speeds for the twins.
[ Ticking continues .]
When the twin on the train returns, a year for him has been a lifetime for the stationary twin.
Newton's idea of a clockwork universe is wrong.
According to Einstein, time is elastic.
Manfred.
Have you see this? Einstein is tearing the physical world apart.
Even time, he says, is now no more constant than the wind.
It flies in the face of reason.
Faircloth: This was a real shock for the physicists of the time, who'd based their whole careers on Newtonian mechanics.
And so, no wonder these existing experimenters and physicists resented this new young upstart who told them that, "your way's not right.
This is the new truth.
" Noble: Several years later, Einstein pushes his theory to its conclusion.
Special relativity poked holes in Newton's physics but general relativity demolishes it.
Not only is time variable.
Space itself can also be warped and bent.
Newton visualized the force of gravity as the attraction between any two masses, such as these.
Einstein's revolutionary idea was that gravity wasn't based on that attraction as much as the bending of the fabric of space-time.
If we take a very heavy object, pop it on this fabric of space-time, you'll note the bending of that fabric.
And now this object is now attracted to that and actually moves towards it the same way the force of gravity -- as we observe all the time -- attracts other objects.
Noble: Experimental results confirm parts of Einstein's relativity.
He becomes world-famous.
But some say his ideas defy common sense.
Manfred! So, you see the apple speeding toward you, and you catch it, yes? Not if you're Einstein! You, in fact, sped towards the apple along with myself and the room while the apple sat suspended in space.
And he calls this science! Lenard thought of himself as numero uno.
He was the Nobel prizewinner.
He was the one who lorded over all the power.
And who is this Albert Einstein who comes along challenging the work of the great experimentalists? It is groundbreaking.
"Groundbreaking"?! It is self-publicity! This is not in the tradition of German physics! Noble: Lenard must defend his career and the physical world as he knows it.
He's heading for a confrontation with Einstein that will change history.
I shall publish! I shall expose him for the fraud he is! [ Applause .]
Noble: Albert Einstein faces his most vocal opponent, Philipp Lenard, in a public debate.
More than 200 years of Newtonian physics stand to be demolished in a day.
Herr Doctor Einstein is creating an abstract, mathematical world based on thought experiments in his head.
This is undoubtedly clever, but it is not physics.
Faircloth: Lenard was an experimentalist.
Lenard believed you could understand the universe by measuring it.
You could actually see reality.
Now, Einstein believed that you could find out about the universe by thinking about it, and this really riled Lenard.
He thought Einstein's theories were just airy-fairy sort of whims of the imagination.
Let us grant Herr Doctor Einstein his thought experiments and see where a little common sense leaves them.
He claims that when a train moves with respect to the Earth, one could just as easily say the Earth is moving with respect to the train.
Well, then, explain this -- if the train comes to a sudden halt [ Crash .]
It's inhabitants and their luggage are sent flying about.
Yet outside the window, all is at rest.
The steeple does not fly from the church.
Clearly, the train is moving with respect to the Earth.
The Earth is at rest with respect to the train.
Pure invention.
Noble: But for Einstein, the science speaks for itself.
You think this is the invention of Mr.
Relativity-Theoretician.
[ Laughter .]
It is true that it seems arbitrary, but only if you look upon a limited view of the world.
[ Applause .]
Lenard claims to be speaking up for common sense, but experiments increasingly support Einstein.
The universe really is that bizarre.
[ Applause continues .]
Lenard does attract attention from a fledgling Nazi party.
Miller: Germany lost the first World War, yet they had never been invaded.
And so, how could this have happened? Well, it must have been a stab in the back by the usual suspects, Jews and Bolsheviks.
Einstein was Jewish.
He was left-leaning.
He was a pacifist.
He was perfect ammunition for right-wing extremist groups.
that the world is confused by lies.
Noble: With the help of the Nazis, Lenard finds a new way to attack Einstein.
Is it any wonder that this second-rate science was invented by a Jew? It is irrational.
Non-Aryan even.
Yeah.
That's good.
Einstein's intellectual fantasies are a corruption of science.
They are, uhh Degenerate? Degenerate.
[ Applause .]
The theory of relativity is nothing but a Jewish fraud! Noble: Lenard now sees two kinds of science -- German and Jewish.
His attacks are soon taken up by the press.
Lenard: German science is simple! Lenard realized that he couldn't criticize the relativity theory itself.
That was okay.
So he took the gloves off and went after Einstein the man, Einstein the Jew.
He put together a proclamation against Einstein.
And by this time, one must bear in mind, that Lenard had allied himself with Hitler and the Nazis and foresaw a great career for himself as the fuhrer of German physics.
Noble: After 13 years of slander, Lenard finally succeeds in hounding Einstein out of Germany.
Lenard goes on to become head of Aryan science under the Nazis.
Einstein settles in America.
In 1939, he is visited by Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard, who delivers some world-changing news.
Scientists in Germany have split the uranium atom.
And you're sure? I have seen the results of the experiment.
"E" equals MC squared is no longer theoretical.
It is a fact.
Hm.
Of course, you know what this means.
Faircloth: Einstein's famous equation, "E" equals MC squared, basically says that energy and matter are one and the same thing.
Matter is essentially a condensed form of energy, and a tiny amount of matter has billions of times the amount of energy than people previously thought.
And this opened the door to the atomic bomb.
Noble: Szilard wants Einstein to sign a letter to President Roosevelt endorsing an American atomic-bomb project.
You think Hitler's going to ignore this? You think he won't try and make an atom bomb if we don't beat him to it? It was obvious that the Germans were working on an atomic bomb.
Not only was the atom split in Germany -- not England or not in the United States -- but top German scientists like Werner Heisenberg, the greatest quantum physicist of the era, were working on the atomic bomb.
Noble: It is an appalling dilemma for the lifelong pacifist.
But he knows first-hand that German extremists will stop at nothing.
All right.
All right.
I'll sign your letter.
No need to keep hocking me a tshaynik.
Kaku: Here is Albert Einstein, kicked out of Germany for being a theoretician, unleashing the power of "E" equals MC squared, leading to a race between Germany and the United States.
And then here's Einstein, once again, the only man with enough prestige to write a letter to Roosevelt urging him to build the atomic bomb for the United States to challenge the German bomb.
Herr Doctor Einstein Noble: If the campaign against Jewish physics hadn't happened, Einstein and other scientists might never have left Germany for America.
Who'd have thought we'd end up grateful for the racist rantings of an anti-semitic bigot? Lenard: The theory of relativity is nothing but a Jewish fraud!