Great lives
Clair Patterson, who dated the Earth and then cleaned the air
11 min
The geochemist who finally measured the age of the planet, discovered how much lead industry had poured into our bodies, and spent decades fighting to get it out.
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Show notes
Patterson determined the Earth is four point five five billion years old using uranium decay in meteorites.
Modern human lead levels are one thousand times higher than those of our ancient ancestors.
Ice core data from Greenland and Antarctica linked atmospheric lead spikes directly to the Industrial Revolution.
The lead industry pressured California Institute of Technology to defund Patterson for his environmental research.
Blood lead levels dropped eighty percent by the late nineties following the removal of leaded gasoline.
Patterson built one of the first ultra-clean rooms to prevent environmental lead from contaminating his samples.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Quest for Four Point Five Billion Years3 min
- 3The Invisible Poison in the Air3 min
- 4The War with Big Lead3 min
- 5A Legacy of Clean Air2 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Clair Patterson, the Caltech Scientist Who Led the Charge Against Lead<br/> — Caltech Magazine
- Clair C. Patterson - Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
- Getting the Lead Out - www.caltech.edu
- Immeasurable
- HEAVY METAL - Transcript - Radiolab
- Clair Patterson
- The Question of Timing
- When Clair Patterson set out in 1948 to measure the age of the Earth using lead in meteorites, his samples kept coming back contaminated, and the seven-year detour he took to find the source ended with him almost single-handedly forcing leaded gasoline out of American cars by 1986. - Make Tech Easier
- The geochemist who first measured the true age of the Earth kept ...
- Duck Soup and Lead - Caltech Magazine
- https://www.nasonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/patterson-clair-c.pdf
- Getting the Lead Out - This is Caltech
- Clair Cameron Patterson Oral History Interview
- Clair Patterson
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