Alaina Urquhart

In fact, despite the price of products containing radium, enthusiasm for the products seemed to be never-ending.

I mean, it had, like, boundless potential to be everything.

For example, advertisements for Radithor, a health tonic, sold the elixir as a cure for the living dead and perpetual sunshine.

Wow.

And it promised to cure everything from arthritis to gout.

Wow.

Yeah.

So it was like the thing.

And the public's understanding or probably better labeled, and Dave said this, which is very true, public misunderstanding.

It was a catastrophic misunderstanding by the public because of the people on top.

Right.

The people on top were causing this misunderstanding.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

The public's misunderstanding of radium seems probably like we're looking at this today in 2024 goggles being like, oh, my God.

Why are you not understanding that radioactivity is bad?

But in the early part of the 20th century, when most people's education stopped after grammar school, scientific knowledge was pretty limited, like you said.

And as is often the case today, people just keyed in on buzzwords and associated scientific discovery with human progress.

And of course, it's going to be unquestionably positive, right?

Like we're all progressing.