Engines of Our Ingenuity: Recent Episodes
Houston Public Media
The story of technological progress is one of drama and intrigue, sudden insight and plain hard work. Let’s explore technology’s spectacular failures and many magnificent success stories.
This content is in service of Houston Public Media’s education mission and is sponsored by the University of Houston. It is not a product of our news team.
Episode: 1393 Early inventions of the electric telegraph. Today, we look at ninety years of electric telegraphy before Morse.
Episode: 2798 Behold the Mighty Transistor. Today, a small item creates a large impact.
Episode: 2597 Mathematical models of historical events. Today, let's see what mathematics tells us about history.
Episode: 3133 Juan Pujol García: the Liar Who Helped Win D-Day. Today, a great big liar saves the day.
Episode: 1389 The supply of wood: trouble along the Equator, good news to the North. Today, some good news and some bad.
Episode: 1388 A short history of tunneling. Today, let's tunnel our way through history.
Episode: 1387 The ghost fleet of wooden ships in Mallows Bay. Today, a fleet of sunken ships.
Episode: 1386 Benjamin Franklin invents the glass armonica** -- no mouth organ, this. Today, singing wine glasses.
Episode: 2467 Graph Theory and the Königsberg Bridge Problem. Today, the bridges of Königsberg.
Episode: 2946 Man or Monster? The Legend of the Golem and the Age of Technology. Today, what can an old legend tell us about the future?
Episode: 1385 How David Bushnell built his submarine for the Colonial Army. Today, a new look at a Colonial technology.
Episode: 1384 The samurai sword and quality control through ritual. Today, let's talk about ceremony and technology.
Episode: 1383 In which we invent the watch and take possession of time. Today, we look at time as a new possession.
Episode: 1381 Naming our machines - finding out who they are! Today, we name a new machine.
Episode: 2464 Marion Donovan: The Woman who Engineered a Better Diaper. Today, engineering the diaper.
Episode: 1766 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who hated Sherlock Holmes. Today, our guest, Bill Monroe, from the UH Honors College, tells us about doctors and detectives.
Episode: 2577 Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's "Frankfurter Kuche" — The Birth of the Modern Kitchen. Today, UH architecture professor, Dietmar Froehlich tells us about Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and her kitchen.
Episode: 1380 William O'Shaughnessy and India's telegraph system. Today, telegraphy comes to India.
Episode: 1379 Frank and Peter Griffin: teaching calculus. Today, an obituary brings back memories.
Episode: 1378 The wreck of the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald; "Only a lake!" Today, just a lake!
Episode: 1377 Benjamin Franklin writes about music and electricity. Today, Ben Franklin talks about music.
Episode: 3314 The Navier Stokes Equations in Movies, Video Games and Hurricane Forecasts. Today, the Navier Stokes equations.
Episode: 3313 The Allure of Shimmering Iridescence. Today we observe shimmering "Iridescence".
Episode: 1376 Frére Jacques: The canonical hours and mechanical clocks. Today, religious practice and the mechanical clock.
Episode: 1375 Leibniz, Newton, and the great calculus dispute. Today, we throw Leibniz's cat into the super collider.
Episode: 1372 Mark Twain and the Paige Compositor. Today, meet the man who bankrupted Mark Twain.
Episode: 2426 Charles Dow and the Creation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Today, an "average" guy.
Episode: 2619 Practicing Medicine Off the Planet; A New Physiology. Today, Astronaut Michael Barratt talks about medicine in space.
Episode: 1371 The great evolution war at Oxford in 1860. Today, we join the first major battle in a long war.
Episode: 1370 Anno Domini 1370: So much going on just below the surface. Today, the story behind an arbitrary date.
Episode: 1369 Fokker and the machine gun interrupter mechanism. Today, we meet a nice young man and his killing machines.
Episode: 1368 Edmund Beckett, Lord Grimthorpe: of clockwork and convervatism. Today, clocks for the rich and clocks for the poor.
Episode: 2458 A Visit to the Container Port of Houston. Today, working on the dock of the bay.
Episode: 1367 Struggling with abstraction in schools and in public. Today, we think about thinking abstractly.
Episode: 1366 Rain, Steam, and Speed: Turner's vision of modern times. Today, a painting tells the coming of rail.
Episode: 1364 Our radar warning of the Pearl Harbor attack. Today, devastation follows when we don't trust a new technology.
Episode: 3312 An 1861 Natural Philosophy test reveals far more than it meant to.Today, a look at physics before our Civil War.
Episode: 2579 Music and Mathematics. Today, UH Math Professor Krešo Josić talks about music and mathematics.
Episode: 1362 The first twenty years of transatlantic flights. Today, we fly the Atlantic.
Episode: 1359 The Windmill: A device that has come, gone, and which may come again. Today, let's tilt at windmills.
Episode: 2268 The Lucifer Effect: From Stanford University to Abu Ghraib. Today, our guest, UH journalist Michael Berryhill, looks at the Lucifer effect.
Episode: 2557 Linear algebra, the mathematics behind Google's ranking algorithm. Today, let's talk about how Google ranks your search results.
Episode: 1358 William Minor helping us to understand language from an insane asylum. Today, a great dictionary and an asylum for the criminally insane.
Episode: 1357 An airplane propeller test facility, twelve years before the Wright Brothers. Today, we test airplane propellers, 12 years before the Wright brothers flew.
Episode: 1356 Betting on science. It's been going on for a long time. Today, let's bet on science.
Episode: 1355 Major General George Squire, Muzak, and struggling to be generous. Today, a story about altruism and Muzak.
Episode: 2450 A Musical Transition: The Beatles 1965-1967. Today, a great music group changes.
Episode: 2419 Peter Schlumbohm and the invention of modern coffee-making techniques. Today, a chemist and his coffee.
Episode: 3310 Nature, Romanticism, and the Poetry of John Clare. Today, we look closely at Romantic nature.
Episode: 3311 A 1918 National Geographic Magazine makes propaganda as it reports WW-I aerial warfare. Today, Aerial warfare in another century.
Episode: 1351 Balloonists Jean-Pierre and Marie Blanchard, the first barnstormers. Today, we join George Washington at a balloon ascent.
Episode: 2447 The Special Theory of Relativity in Einstein's Own Words. Today, simple but brilliant.
Episode: 2010 George McJunkin and Ales Hrdlicka: Who discovered the Clovis culture? Today, guest historian Cathy Patterson looks at an unlikely anthropologist.
Episode: 1349 Short-lived, but dramatic technologies. Today, technologies that last only a little while.
Episode: 1348 Castel del Monte: in which Frederick II plays with geometry. Today, we wonder why a castle was built.
Episode: 1347 The invention of money: an abstraction of goods and services. Today, a history of money.
Episode: 1346 The World's Work magazine shows what we were thinking a century ago. Today, a magazine looks at the century past, and the one to come.
Episode: 2444 Of Wombats and Armadillos: Using Animals to Teach Probability. Today, why did the wombat cross the road?
Episode: 2944 The Father of Quantum Theory, The Perseverance of a Scientist Facing Multiple Tragedies. Today, a scientist's triumphs and tragedies.
Episode: 2497 Frederick Law Olmsted on the Texas Frontier. Today, we go from the Texas frontier to Central Park.
Episode: 1345 Hadrian's Pantheon: The world's largest domed structure for 1800 years. Today we build a big room.
Episode: 1344 The Monitor's flush toilet: lessons from emerging technologies. Today, lessons from emerging technologies, under the worst conditions.
Episode: 1343 Forgotten lore: How much should we trouble to remember. Today, the past fades away.
Episode: 1041 A Chinese pharmacopoeia -- 2000 years ago. Today, we ask how the Chinese managed to hide their candle under a bushel.
Episode: 2441 Temple Geometry: Sacred Mathematics in Japan's Edo Period. Today, temple geometry.
Episode: 2249 Mrs. Coade's remarkable stones. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells about a woman who made artificial stone.
Episode: 1040 Ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe: virtues and vices. Today, an old Greek mummy tells us about the Renaissance.
Episode: 1342 The Wright Brothers' fight for priority over Langley. Today, an attempt to rewrite history.
Episode: 1341 A view of physiology in 1872 -- not that long ago. Today, let's look at medicine when my grandfather was young.
Episode: 1340 Animals and emotion: figuring out what is obvious. Today, let's talk to animals.
Episode: 2437 Cooking With Fire In the Colonial Period and Now. Today, fire in the kitchen.
Episode: 2075 Rudolph Ackerman and his amazing chronicles of 19th-century art and technology. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells us about a great chronicler of technology and art.
Episode: 2382 The Invention of the American Paperboy during the Great Depression. Today, the invention of the paperboy.
Episode: 1339 The Good Soldier Svejk, a fine organizational model. Today, an old, but very sound, book on corporate management.
Episode: 1055 Reflections on roller skates, roller blades, and stability. Today, a strange parable of appearance and reality.
Episode: 1054 In Praise of Bats. Today, we meet some beleaguered animals that should be our friends.
Episode: 1052 In which wasps teach us to make paper from wood. Today, wasps try to teach us to make paper.
Episode: 2696 Winged Words: The Homeric Epics as Oral Poetry. Today, classicist Casey Dué listens to the Homeric epics.
Episode: 1330 Electric lights in the 80 years before Edison. Today, we go looking for the first electric lights.
Episode: 1329 16th Century scientist, Christiaan Huygens, looks for alien life. Today, an old inquiry into life on other planets.
Episode: 2373 The Phrasebook: A Dangerous Invention. Today, UH scholar, Richard Armstrong tells us about German phrasebooks.
Episode: 3307 A Tool to Curb Pride: Don’t Believe Your Reviews. Today, A Tool to Curb Pride.
Episode: 1328 The medieval character of the wild West. Today, the wild West holds up a mirror to medieval life.
Episode: 1326 Lift-off: Reflections on the launch of NASA Flight STS-91. Today, we all count 3-2-1.
Episode: 1325 The day Mulholland's St. Francis Dam broke. Today, an almost-forgotten catastrophe.
Episode: 3266 Fireworks, Firecrackers, and Lunar New Year. Today, we ring the new year in with a bang.
Episode: 2838 The World of Small Dimensions; Nano-Dimensions and Pico-Times. Today, we explore Small.
Episode: 1324 C rations: Armies trying to travel on their stomachs. Today, an army tries to travel on its stomach.
Episode: 1323 Fleming, the light bulb, and the vacuum tube. Today, an analogy changes our world.
Episode: 1322 Five college degrees in six years: What does it mean? Today, some thoughts about beating the system.
Episode: 1321 A modern solar collector, a century before its time. Today, an idea whose time had not yet come.
Episode: 2418 Quantifying the chance of losing at casino games. Today, luck and Las Vegas.
Episode: 3235 Gender, labor history, and the devaluation of film editing. Today, the mother of all film editors.
Episode: 2822 Herodotus describing historical events of 5th century BC, fantastical and entertaining component of The Histories. Today, we visit Herodotus.
Episode: 1320 Today, we wonder where to look for our new widget. Intellectual misdirection: looking inside and outside our heads for knowledge.
Episode: 1319 Vannevar Bush and the great Rockefeller Differential Analyzer. Today, a eulogy for a machine.
Episode: 1318 Three-field crop rotation and the origins of Western technology. Today, putting horses to work proves harder than we might think.
Episode: 3305 An inland shipping port expands our vision of seaports. Today, an inland seaport.
Episode: 2553 Emergence and complexity in virtual and living systems. Today, let's talks about emergence.
Episode: 1317 The first iron-smelting in Colonial America: Hammersmith on the Saugus. Today, we smelt the first American iron.
Episode: 1316 Parachutes: for fun or for survival? Today, let's fall safely out of the sky.
Episode: 1315 Chlorella: the day we decided not to eat algae burgers. Today, we try to create a new food.
Episode: 1314 Amistad, art and revolution: artists join the fight for freedom. Today, art and slavery.
Episode: 2412 Disney's Spaceship Earth: Past and Future Communication. Today, the future — one step at a time.
Episode: 2770 Developing the P-51 Mustang fighter. Today, our guest, NASA engineer Fitz Walker, remembers the P-51 Mustang.
Episode: 2544 How humans and computers recognize faces. Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić recognizes your face.
Episode: 1313 Rotation: of coins, racquetballs, ballet dancers, and more. Today, let's think about rotation.
Episode: 1312 Crossing Australia -- from nine months to six minutes. Today, we cross Australia.
Episode: 1311 The Cistercian order, power technology, and innovation. Today, let's talk about monks and waterwheels.
Episode: 1310 Redeeming math and abstraction in our schools. Today, we ask why American math and science scores are slipping.
Episode: 2364 46 BC: In which Julius Caesar creates the longest year. Today, UH scholar Richard Armstrong tells us about the longest year in history.
Episode: 2014 Boiling bubbles and fizzing bubbles: So alike, so different! Today, bubbles in soda and bubbles in teakettles.
Episode: 1309 The DH-4: a forgotten and terribly influential WW-I warplane. Today, America tries to get off the ground in WW-I.
Episode: 1308 In which Charles Dellschau draws secret airships.Today, a Texas immigrant dreams and draws flight.
Episode: 1307 Pendulum clock escapement: science and technology merging. Today, we attend the wedding of science and technology.
Episode: 1563 Looking back at the impact of toys. Sorting through a box the other day, I found old toys -- a lead soldier, a stuffed dog, a set of blocks.
Episode: 2039 In which we experience quiet on the Western Front. Today, it's quiet on the Western Front.
Episode: 2669 Plants and greens associated with the Christmas Season. Today, Christmas greenery.
Episode: 1306 Voices from Adelaide; Horace Lamb and Andrew Thomas on Mir. Today, a 120-year journey into space.
Episode: 1305 Setting concert pitch -- the elusive 440 A. Today, we set the pitch of a concert A.
Episode: 1304 In which we learn how musical pitches are formed. Today, we learn what makes a musical tone.
Episode: 2401 Today, the world at our fingertips. The World At Our Fingertips: From Books to the World Wide Web.
Episode: 3304 Today, an encyclopedia and a new nation. Thomas Dobson publishes a multi-volume encyclopedia in the newly independent United States.
Episode: 2514 Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić talks about math and your movie choice. How Netflix uses linear algebra to determine what movies you will like best.
Episode: 1303 Chasing the transit of Venus over the tundra. Today, we chase a mini-eclipse.
Episode: 1302 Francois Marcet's steam globe: measuring vapor-pressure. Today, a piece of apparatus and a piece of history.
Episode: 1301 The Boy Mechanic: endangering boys seeking danger. Today, a boy's world, a century ago.
Episode: 1300 Daniel Fahrenheit invents the thermometer and its scale. Today, we invent the thermometer.
Episode: 2951 Scurvy, Vitamin C, and the Origins of the Modern Clinical Trial. Today, we go to sea.
Episode: 2367 Georgie Clark and the invention of white-water rafting. Today, let's go whitewater rafting.
Episode: 1299 The improbable earth-quakeproof Japanese pagoda. Today, pagodas and earthquakes.
Episode: 1298 Edward Ritchie: building instruments and shaping education. Today, let's watch machines shape education -- and invention.
Episode: 1297 Ramon Verea's calculating machine: inventing to make a point. Today, invention serves an unexpected purpose.
Episode: 1296 In which Andrew Carnegie contemplates James Watt. Today, Andrew Carnegie looks at James Watt.
Episode: 2397 How Computers are Helping Officiate Tennis Matches. Today, where did that ball bounce?
Episode: 2368 In which Shakespeare and Cervantes die on the same day, but eleven days apart. Today, UH scholar, Richard Armstrong tells us about puzzles in chronology.
Episode: 3244 Bias and Diversity in Photography and Face Recognition Software. Today, bodies, in beautiful black and white.
Episode: 1294 The clock as preparation for modern science. Today, clocks tell us more than just the time of day.
Episode: 1293 Some technology that we don't see when we first look. Today, some technologies we don't see when we first look.
Episode: 1292 Alchemy and modern science: how much magic should we accept? Today, old magic finds a place in modern science.
Episode: 2393 What Can Be Done About the Energy Consumed by Computers? Today, greener computing.
Episode: 2768 Percy Spencer and the microwave oven. Today, our guest, NASA engineer Fitz Walker considers the Microwave Oven.
Episode: 3303 Painting wood grain to express alternate realities. Today, painting the swirls of wood grain.
Episode: 1291 In which sheet music offers a record of our country. Today, America's story spins out in the songs we sing.
Episode: 1290 Risk and vocation: when smart people look for safe lives. Today, we teach our best and brightest to avoid risk.
Episode: 1289 Those Vulgar Tubes: human waste disposal aboard old ships. Today, we try to keep ships clean.
Episode: 1288 Instability, self-control, and the metaphor of flight. Today, flight shapes yet another metaphor.
Episode: 2353 Reflections on -- or in -- the key of C. Today, French hornist Roger Kaza plays in C.
Episode: 1286 A steam-powered motorcycle, invented well before its time. Today, the motorcycle rides out of the Civil War.
Episode: 1285 Carriages: A forgotten technology. Today, let's ride a gig, or a hack, or a phaeton.
Episode: 1983 Inventing the newspaper in seventeenth-century England. Today, our guest, historian Cathy Patterson reports on the invention of the newspaper.
Episode: 2502 Computer assisted proofs: How machines extend our mind's reach. Today, let's ask how computers help us see mathematical truths.
Episode: 1282 The development of the seemingly uncomplicated window pane. Today, we learn to make window panes.
Episode: 1281 An old religious tract provides a window upon the Huguenots. Today, an old book and a new look at creativity and dissent.
Episode: 1280 On making data tell their story. Today, let's figure out how to plot a graph.
Episode: 1279 Two Newtons, an old mechanics text, and the fight against slavery. Today, a moving bit of marginalia.
Episode: 2487 John von Neumann's ideas on the similarities and differences of computers and brains. Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić talks about brains, computers and John von Neumann.
Episode: 2143 In which Emma Lazarus reinvents the Statue of Liberty. Today, UH scholar Dorothy Baker tells us about Emma Lazarus.
Episode: 1278 The Quonset hut: a design with remarkable staying power. Today, we build an instant house.
Episode: 1277 Railroads in winter: finding our way through the snow. Today, rails and snow.
Episode: 1276 In which the art leads the mind how to cast light on nature. Today, light calls up the creative muse.
Episode: 1275 Merthyr Tydfil, a window into the squalid conditions after the Industrial Revolution. Today, let's visit Merthyr Tydfil.
Episode: 2279 In which medical people learn how to save babies on the boardwalk. Today, our guest, medical historian Julie Anderson takes us to see premature babies at carnival sideshows.
Episode: 2356 Hebrew and Yiddish struggle for ascendancy after WW-II. Today, scholar Richard Armstrong considers the world of language textbooks
Episode: 1274 The Maxim Gorky, largest airplane of its time. Today, Stalin builds a big airplane.
Episode: 1273 Some surprises in the 1852 Annual of Scientific Discovery. Today, an old book takes stock of science and art in 1852.
Episode: 1271 In which automobiles race around the world in 1906. Today, an incredible, and nearly-forgotten, race!
Episode: 1270 Wallace's line and the evolution of modern humans. Today, we cross Wallace's line.
Episode: 2808 Plastic encapsulation of microchips, protection from environment and loads. Today, the encapsulation story.
Episode: 2231 Of cuckoos, cuckoldry and brood parasitic cupidity. Today, our guest, classicist Richard Armstrong goes cuckoo over brood parasites.
Episode: 1267 The secret American Navy of the War of 1812. Today, a secret American navy for the War of 1812.
Episode: 1266 In which Mrs. O'Leary is absolved of the Great Chicago Fire. Today, a new look at an old fire.
Episode: 1265 Science and the myth of the self-evident truth. Today, a closer look at scientific knowledge.
Episode: 2350 Dystopia: Getting to know utopias evil twin. Today, the evils of technology.
Episode: 2341 Richard Wagner conceives a sound, then invents an instrument to create it. Today, horn player Roger Kaza tells us about the tuba Wagner built.
Episode: 1940 In which Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister build a model house to pay for a mansion. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells us about a cabin, a mansion, and a model home.
Episode: 1262 An 18-century environmental disaster in Brittany, France. Today, an 18th-century environmental disaster.
Episode: 1261 Healthy equilibrium: only a platform for instability. Today, we try to keep our equilibrium.
Episode: 1260 Darwin boards the Beagle and sails into history. Today, a young man boards a ship and redirects history.
Episode: 1258 Inventing the steamboat, inventing the riverboat. Today, the present helps us to understand the past.
Episode: 2530 The observation is evolution & the theory is natural selection. Today, what did Darwin really do?
Episode: 2776 Isaac Asimov's fantastic worlds, robots that roam among us, and energy storage methods. Today, our guest Haleh Ardebili talks about Isaac Asimov and Energy Storage.
Episode: 1257 Digging the first Suez Canal, 4000 years ago. Today, we ask, when was the Suez Canal built?
Episode: 1255 On being healthy, wealthy, and (maybe) wise as well. Today, we seem to find that it's healthy to be wealthy.
Episode: 1254 A new look at the wheel: the problem of rotation. Today, another look at the invention of the wheel.
Episode: 1253 Hanna Reitsch: a true believer in a cursed cause. Today, a brave woman and a terrible cause.
Episode: 2338 How Skill and Chance Influence the Outcome of Games. Today, skill and chance.
Episode: 2228 Ancient Explanations of Bird Migrations. Today, our guest, classicist Richard Armstrong, watches the ancients studying bird migrations.
Episode: 3230 How close-ups offer social and psychological benefits that selfies do not. Today, psychology of the close-up.
Episode: 1252 Forgotten invention of manufacturing with interchangeable parts. Today, a brilliant invention is forgotten.
Episode: 1055 Reflections on roller skates, roller blades, and stability. Today, a strange parable of appearance and reality.
Episode: 1054 In Praise of Bats. Today, we meet some beleaguered animals that should be our friends.
Episode: 1052 In which wasps teach us to make paper from wood. Today, wasps try to teach us to make paper.
Episode: 2334 Edward Bellamy: The year 2000 as envisioned in 1888. Today, Looking Backward.
Episode: 3133 Juan Pujol García: the Liar Who Helped Win D-Day. Today, a great big liar saves the day.
Episode: 1051 A Conservation Laboratory keeps vanishing arts alive. Today, we ask: Just what is a conservator conserving?
Episode: 1049 Hugh Miller: a fundamentalist radicalizes 19th century geology. Today, a 19th-century geologist struggles with the creation of the earth.
Episode: 1048 Medieval machines in a 20th century hydraulics text. Today, two 20th-century thinkers look at the end of an era.
Episode: 1047 In which I question the dubious practice of ghost-writing. Today, we ask, "Who writes our story?"
Episode: 2331 A cow's eye view: Temple Grandin and mercy for the the condemned. Today, the unspeakable.
Episode: 3130 A War of Concrete: The Mulberry Harbors and the Invasion of Normandy. Today, a portable port saves the day.
Episode: 1046 The mind of Faraday and the merging of science and religion. Today, a look inside the mind of a surprising scientist.
Episode: 1045 A lesson in engineering design on the sports pages. Today, lessons in modern design from the sports pages.
Episode: 1044 Finding the largest Japanese submarine after 51 years -- 4,400 lb. of gold, 17,000 feet down. Today, we look for gold, and we find history.
Episode: 1042 Tiny type: shrinking writing down to atomic dimensions. Today, let's write on the head of a pin.
Episode: 2327 George Dantzig, linear programing, and a curious priority question. Today, a Nobel Prize lost.
Episode: 3224 Fake rocks, forced perspective, and other forms of illusion in the private home of Disney Imagineer Fred Joerger. Today, facades, both physical and personal.
Episode: 3129 What Went Wrong on D-Day: The Paradox of the Allies' Greatest Campaign. Today, when things go terribly wrong.
Episode: 1041 A Chinese pharmacopoeia -- 2000 years ago. Today, we ask how the Chinese managed to hide their candle under a bushel.
Episode: 1040 Ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe: virtues and vices. Today, an old Greek mummy tells us about the Renaissance.
Episode: 1251 Katherine Stinson and her siblings help America learn to fly. Today, meet the Stinson kids.
Episode: 1250 Qanats: ancient watercourses, heroic constructions. Today, we talk about qanats.
Episode: 2323 "Beam me up Scotty," The longed-for grail of teleportation. Today, we teleport.
Episode: 3139 Maryam Mirzakhani: A life in Mathematics. Today, let's talk about the Iranian-American mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani.
Episode: 3080 The First Marathon and the Athens Olympics of 1896. Today, we run through the history of the marathon.
Episode: 1248 Hester Stanhope creates her own British Empire in Syria. Today, a prime minister's niece doesn't get the message.
Episode: 1247 America's first women architects: three very different people. Today, a story about three very different women.
Episode: 1246 Figuring out what the word momentum means. Today, let's talk about momentum.
Episode: 2320 Tracing recent history: computer memory over three decades. Today, we get smaller.
Episode: 3109 Mathematics says that we should never disagree, but we still do. Today, let's talk about what I know that you know.
Episode: 3078 Restoring the Parthenon: The Acropolis Restoration Service and 40+ Years of Hard Work. Today, how to rebuild a ruin.
Episode: 1245 In which Sarah Bagley opens the field of telegraphy to women. Today, a woman claims a job market for other women.
Episode: 1244 Is fun rightly under assault in science education? Today, we ask whether or not science should be fun.
Episode: 1243 In which we are surprised by the power of five-fold symmetry. Today, let's think about fives.
Episode: 1242 What did the defeat of Kasparov by Deep Blue really mean? Today, we wonder what Deep Blue was telling us.
Episode: 2316 Operations Reasearch, the invisible engineering that everyone uses and few people know. Today, the science of better.
Episode: 2899 The Rise and Fall of Celestial Navigation As Seen Through the Development of the Sextant. Today, the Vanishing Sextant.
Episode: 1241 The search for Franklin and the search for the Northwest Passage. Today, we go looking for a lost explorer.
Episode: 1239 Ensemble theory offers us insight through parallel universes. Today, a practical use for an abstract theory.
Episode: 1238 The 1893 Chicago Columbia Exposition: America comes of age. Today, America celebrates her coming of age.
Episode: 1237 Why did the Hindenburg really burn? Today, we ask, "Why did the Hindenburg burn?"
Episode: 2312 How we finally put crews of computers to work on our desktops. Today, when is one computer not enough?
Episode: 3107 Why it matters that we expect boys to brilliant and girls to work hard. Today, let's talk about who we expect to be brilliant.
Episode: 3209 Net of Life: Can Technology Protect Us from Ourselves? Today, a net of life.
Episode: 1236 In which an old man finally flies in a B-17. Today, a child's wish is finally granted.
Episode: 1234 The biggest domed structure before the Houston Astrodome. Today, who were we in 1900?
Episode: 1233 Today, the empire finally takes to the air. Baden-Powell flies in balloons, airplanes, and even kites.
Episode: 2307 A Canadian-American icon and nature's engineer: The Beaver. Today, scientist Andrew Boyd and nature's engineer.
Episode: 3077 When is a Victory not a Victory? The Battle of Navarino Today, we ask: when is a victory not a victory?
Episode: 3072 The brewer, chemist and statistician William Sealy Gosset. Today, a master brewer and a statistician.
Episode: 1232 A Neanderthal flute made from the thigh of a cave bear. Today, the oldest musical instrument.
Episode: 1231 In which automobile advertising mirrored the public. Today, we trace a new technology through advertisements.
Episode: 1230 The problem of teaching mathematics in a computer world. Today, let's teach math to our grandchildren.
Episode: 1229 The invention of double entry bookkeeping. Today, we learn to keep track of our money.
Episode: 2303 William LeMessurier corrects his error -- in public. Today, scientist Andrew Boyd averts disaster.
Episode: 2751 Mrs. Maud Mellish Wilson, architect of the Mayo Clinic's style of medical writing. Today, we look at a woman who made medical history.
Episode: 3302 Imitation, Originality, and the Creativity of Fan Culture. Today, when imitation is a good thing.
Episode: 1228 Medieval Europe learns to measure reality with numbers. Today, why did Europe emerge so rapidly from the medieval age?
Episode: 1227 So, did we ever make paper from a mummy's linen wrappings? Today, the mummy's curse.
Episode: 1226 In which Matteo Ricci tries to convert the Chinese by building a memory palace. Today, a memory palace in an odd place and the wrong time.
Episode: 1225 Lincoln Beachey, first great daredevil of heavier-than-air flight. Today, the death of Lincoln Beachey.
Episode: 2301 Making sports balls: how to get from flat to round. Today, scientist Andrew Boyd makes flat into round.
Episode: 3071 The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Sciences. Today, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics.
Episode: 1224 On filling time and compressing time: electronic communication. Today, we compress time.
Episode: 1223 Ghosts from the sky: a visit to the Oshkosh Fly-in. Today, a surprising way to preserve our past.
Episode: 1221 Large hall acoustics: drifting away from reality. Today, we try to hear the music in a large hall.
Episode: 1220 In which Levi Hill invents color photography 80 years too soon. Today, the first color photographs.
Episode: 2296 Moog the man and Moog the machine: a lesson in engineering design. Today, we meet a musical engineer with guest scientist Andrew Boyd.
Episode: 2728 The Great Laxey Wheel; The Water Wheel at the Peak of Function and Grace. Today, the Laxey Wheel.
Episode: 1219 A chance encounter with a hero: Ploesti remembered. Today, a chance meeting with a hero.
Episode: 1218 Galveston's alleys and the democratization of low incomes. Today, walk with me through Galveston's alleys.
Episode: 1217 Large earth movers: a paradox of large and small. Today, we find some very big machines.
Episode: 1216 Insect wings/human wings: trying to copy what can't be copied. Today, we try to fly on a bee's wings.
Episode: 2290 The Platonic "regular" solids: mathematics and divinity. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd looks at some divine shapes.
Episode: 3187 The Raspberry Pi, a Small Computer with a Lot of Flavor. Today, a very sweet computer.
Episode: 3301 Gustav Fechner and the origins of psychophysics. Today, Gustav Fechner and the mathematics of the senses.
Episode: 1215 The tyranny of large numbers: of averages and ubiquity. Today, large numbers do some strange things.
Episode: 1214 Medieval Novgorod, more advanced than we realized. Today, an old city coughs up a surprising secret.
Episode: 1213 Experiment, theory, and the role of the computer. Today, the old question about theory and experiment comes back to haunt us.
Episode: 2284 Books by the foot: the ultimate reductio ad absurdum. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd finds a new use for books.
Episode: 2869 James Watt's introduction of horsepower as a measurement unit. Today, the power of horses.
Episode: 1212 Human history in terms of macroparasites and microparasites. Today, we wonder who feasts upon whom.
Episode: 1211 Theodore Roosevelt and the mad Marquis create Medora ND. Today, we visit Medora, North Dakota.
Episode: 1210 In which Louis Pasteur puts medicine on a war footing. Today, the language of war attaches itself to medicine.
Episode: 1209 Early fliers -- all seem to've been good-looking and literate. Today, we write about flight.
Episode: 2237 Modeling the atom: Making quantum uncertainty reveal corporeal solidity. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd models the atom.
Episode: 3299 Vernor Vinge, Marvin Minsky and the future of technology. Today, Vernor Vinge, Marvin Minsky and the future of computation.
Episode: 1208 The first transcontinental railroad -- and no golden spike! Today, we build the first transcontinental railroad.
Episode: 1207 In which a balustrade shows us that laws were made to be broken. Today, we see how laws were made to be broken.
Episode: 1206 Harriet Beecher Stowe: "No talent, only genius." Today, a woman turns slavery from theoretical wrong into personal evil.
Episode: 1205 Henry Chapman Mercer: An aristocrat redirects anthropology. Today, a shy aristocrat redirects anthropology.
Episode: 2234 Spherical horses and frictionless wheels -- When are we close enough to reality? Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd asks, "What makes a good Model?"
Episode: 2858 Hearing Pictures: Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Today, hearing pictures.
Episode: 2722 Gathering of Materials and Methods to Craft Sailing and Space-faring Vessels. Today, voyaging at the edge of technology.
Episode: 1204 Baron von Humboldt's remarkable exploration of Meso-America. Today, a nearly forgotten hero.
Episode: 1199 Gallup Poll: spawn of intellect with some saving imperfection. Today, we try to foretell how you plan to vote.
Episode: 1198 In which Virgil visits a theme park and writes the Aeneid. Today, we pass through the Gates of Hell.
Episode: 2150 Scotty on Starship Enterprise: an image of an engineer. Today, we beam up with guest scientist Andrew Boyd.
Episode: 3054 Electioneering in Ancient Rome: the Commentariolum Petitionis Attributed to Cicero's Brother. Today, how to get elected in ancient Rome.
Episode: 3162 A Jacket With Embedded Flexible Thin-Film Batteries That Can Charge a Device. Today, a wonderful technology.
Episode: 1196 Reflections on batting 400, evolution, economics, and diversity. Today, what do batting averages, evolution, and the economy have in common?
Episode: 1195 Dhuoda writes to her son in Ninth Century France. Today, a remarkable woman opens a window on another age.
Episode: 1194 A scientifically illiterate people goes bankrupt on health care. Today, thoughts on medicine, self-deception, and scientific literacy.
Episode: 1193 Beryl Markham flies out of Africa, and across the Atlantic. Today, a daring flight and an unlikely book.
Episode: 2117 The Internet of Tubes: In which a gaffe evokes the history of communication. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd and the Internet of Tubes.
Episode: 3018 Compressed Sensing. Today, let's talk about getting something from nothing.
Episode: 2833 Kykkos Monastery, Cyprus, and the origins of Western monasticism. Today, monks and hermits.
Episode: 1192 In which a deluge transforms the Black Sea -- and farming. Today, let's ride the wake of an old old flood.
Episode: 1190 The only mustard gas attack in WWII yields new medicine. Today, a story about cancer and a WW-II mustard gas attack.
Episode: 1189 The other Pachelbel brings music to Colonial America. Today, the first "recorded" concert in America.
Episode: 1188 William Billings, Colonial composer and American original. Today, we meet America's first significant composer.
Episode: 2094 Thinking inside the box: the invention of containerization. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd discusses The Box.
Episode: 2710 The First Fatality in Powered Flight Awakens the World to the Dangers of Aviation. Today, the first powered aviation fatality.
Episode: 1187 Good people make good machines: Bad people make bad machines. Today, we try to construct an aphorism.
Episode: 1186 Bach, Handel, and their charlatan eye doctor. Today, an odd connection between Bach and Handel.
Episode: 1185 Adam Smith: of economics and natural law. Today, a bright Scot looks to natural law for an economic model.
Episode: 1184 The mirror: something that looks far more obvious than it is. Today, we look in the mirror and find something strange.
Episode: 2062 How much may I justly charge for my widget? Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd asks "what's it worth?"
Episode: 3297 Modeling the future of human civilization. Today, modeling the future of human civilization.
Episode: 1183 Leda and swan Zeus: Leonardo contemplates life. Today, we watch as myth drives science.
Episode: 1181 In which Edith Humphry doesn't quite receive the Nobel Prize. Today, a woman doesn't quite get the Nobel Prize.
Episode: 1180 Dionysius Lardner looks at early steam power technology. Today, a contemporary look at power technology, 170 years ago.
Episode: 1179 How does Aspirin find your headache? (More Feldman questions). Today, aspirin looks for your headache.
Episode: 2053 A reflection on John Cage and his silences. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd goes silent.
Episode: 2973 The Lady of Mysteries Agatha Christie; The Famous Detectives Miss Marple and Hercule Piorot. Today, the lady of mysteries.
Episode: 1178 The Encyclopaedia Britannica before/after the Wright Brothers. Today, we see what happens when an old goal is reached.
Episode: 1177 Thomas Watson, the man on the other end of Bell's telephone. Today, we meet the man on the other end of Bell's new telephone.
Episode: 1176 Ilizarov orthopedic surgery: growing new bones. Today, we straighten crooked bones.
Episode: 1175 The collapse of the Elizabethan renaissance. Today, we visit a 400-year-old revolution.
Episode: 2040 The envelope game: a common-sense-defying selection problem. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd defies common sense.
Episode: 1947 Physiological Synchronicity: mirroring emotions. Today, actor Megan Cole talks about faces and feelings.
Episode: 1174 Nature or nurture, explaining intellectual dynasties. Today, more on the matter of heredity or environment.
Episode: 1171 The IgNobel Prizes: At what point does satire go wrong? Today, a concern about satire.
Episode: 1170 A visit to an iatros -- a doctor -- in a 400 BC clinic. Today, we visit a 2400-year-old clinic.
Episode: 2006 Sequim's strange blue hole in the midst of rain. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd stays dry.
Episode: 2243 Organizing for disaster: One place where New Orleans did it right. Today, our guest, UH journalist Michael Berryhill, prepares for a rainy day.
Episode: 2693 On the Nature of Ships, and a Fond Farewell to the Shuttle Discovery. Greetings from the flight deck of the Space Shuttle Discovery, where today we celebrate our ships.
Episode: 1169 From stacked stone to steel: a shift in structural concept. Today, we make buildings by stacking stone.
Episode: 1168 Voltaire, Newton, science, and the French Revolution. Today, Newton, Voltaire, and the French Revolution.
Episode: 1167 Machiavelli's attempt to make objective science of statecraft. Today, thoughts about Machiavelli and immature science.
Episode: 1166 Searching for the historical Josquin Desprez. Today, academic detectives look for the real Josquin.
Episode: 1994 Encryption: abstraction in the world of practical business. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd sends secret messages.
Episode: 2897 A (Very) Short History of Privacy and Technology. Today, privacy and technology.
Episode: 2779 Smartphones/Wise Phones, our changing relationship with phones over the last century. Today, smartphones vs. wise phones.
Episode: 1165 Benjamin Thompson/Count Rumford and the conservation of energy. Today, we meet a Bavarian count who was born in colonial Massachusetts.
Episode: 1163 To build a better mousetrap -- that people will use. Today, let's build a better mousetrap.
Episode: 1162 Systems: Much more than the sum of their parts. Today, let's see how machines transcend themselves.
Episode: 1979 How to process five thousand airline reservation requests in one second. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd buys plane tickets.
Episode: 2739 Evolution of the Hall from Anglo-Saxon times to the present. Today, a room without a view.
Episode: 1161 An old Roman mill tells about the acceptance of technology. Today, we try to make sense of an old Roman power plant.
Episode: 1159 In which Nevil Shute looks at the ordeal of aerial bombing. Today, Nevil Shute predicts the chilling anonymity of war.
Episode: 1158 The Crystal Palace, the 1851 exhibition, and Victorian art. Today, we look for art to equal the building that holds it.
Episode: 1157 Merchandising Windows 95 and the Ford Model A. Today, we sell Model A's and Windows 95.
Episode: 1971 In which Lame, Cauchy, and Kummer race to prove Fermat's last theorem. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd relives a race.
Episode: 1156 We mirror machine mirrors we mirror machine mirrors we ... Today, an analogy game.
Episode: 1154 In which Adam's navel poses the question of pre-creation history. Today, a silly question about Adam's navel paves the way for evolution.
Episode: 1153 Grosseteste, Bacon, and the rise of realism. Today, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and cyberspace.
Episode: 1152 Macbeth, populism, and insanity. Today, Shakespeare tells us how to stay sane.
Episode: 1961 The Four-Color Problem -- an strange old puzzle, almost resolved. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd colors maps.
Episode: 1150 Arguing racism: Time for rational, rather than moral, arguments. Today, we analyze racism.
Episode: 1149 Heat Transfer Conference ("Wherever there's a thermal gradient"). Today, we move energy.
Episode: 1148 1846: Origin of the Smithsonian Institution in a momentous year. Today, let's talk about American expansion, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Episode: 1147 Points-Off thinking: a damaging force in education and sports. Today, we ask how many points to take off.
Episode: 1952 The only-possible constants of nature: The only-possible us. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd looks at the grandest machine of all.
Episode: 2944 The Father of Quantum Theory, The Perseverance of a Scientist Facing Multiple Tragedies.
Episode: 3123 The Halifax 1917 Explosion and Vincent Coleman's Final Goodbye. Today, a final goodbye.
Episode: 1146 Early Massachusetts: a cultural beachhead, not yet a new country. Today, America leaves its Eastern beaches.
Episode 1145: Jacquard, Babbage, Hollerith, IBM: from weaving to computers. Today, a story about wool weaving and computers.
Episode: 1144 A Fokker D-VII mysteriously lands on an Allied airstrip. Today, the last vestige of fictional war.
Episode: 1143 Shakespeare's long-standing fascination with medicine. Today, Shakespeare's fascination with medicine.
Episode: 1950 Girolamo Cardano: The tormented life of a towering renaissance thinker. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd shares a story of triumph and tragedy.
Episode: 2714 Hub Motors, aka In-Wheel Motors and their applications in electric vehicles. Today, re-inventing...wheels.
Episode: 3296 Icons of Hong Kong: Neon Signs, and Local Cinema. Today, we hope the lights never go out in Hong Kong.
Episode: 1142 The accumulation of empirical data in the legends of flight. Today, old stories turn from legend into experimental development.
Episode: 1140 Tents: a very old and very modern architecture. Today, a new architecture -- the tent!
Episode: 1139 The Wounded Story Teller recovers from illness. Today, we tell the story of an illness.
Episode: 1138 Texas City, Roseburg, World Trade Center, Oklahoma City: a story of fertilizer and cigarettes. Today's story is about cigarettes and fertilizer.
Episode: 1948 Sex, Love and Lobster Shells. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd asks where lobsters come from.
Episode: 2977 Thomas Jefferson, the Maison Carrée of Nîmes, and the Virginia State Capitol. Today, Thomas Jefferson in love.
Episode: 1137 America goes to the first modern Olympic Games. Today, amateur America goes to its first Olympic Games.
Episode: 1135 Trying to hold a river that doesn't want to be held. Today, the Mississippi writes a parable about going with the flow.
Episode: 1134 Linear A and Linear B: Decoding the old Minoan scripts. Today, we struggle to read what our ancestors are saying to us.
Episode: 1133 Of Lucille Treganowan and automobile transmission repair. Today, let's meet an unexpected auto mechanic.
Episode: 1929 Wendy Carlos and Switched-On Bach -- new technology, new music. Today, guest scientist Andy Boyd makes music.
Episode: 2851 The Lake Breeze Fan: Unplanned Obsolescence. Today, invention and obsolescence.
Episode: 1132 In which balloons deliver the mail during the Siege of Paris. Today, the very first airmail service is used to break a siege.
Episode: 1131 John Hunter: idiosyncratic medical pioneer. Today, the history of medicine provides a strange hero.
Episode: 1129 In which Alphonse Penaud invents the model airplane. Today, a very young man teaches us to fly, after all.
Episode: 1128 Of whales and elephants: a remarkable convergence of attributes. Today, we find that whales and elephants have more in common than just size.
Episode: 1926 Rhetoric: An ancient idea in serious need of rehabilitation. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd persuades us.
Episode: 2654 Recumbent bicycles and the One Hour record. Today, variations on a bicycle.
Episode: 3295 The Age of Non-Carbon Species; The Age of Artificial Intelligence. Today, the age of silicon-based species.
Episode: 1127 Why Germany didn't make an atomic bomb during WW-II? Today, we ask about Germany and the atom bomb in WW-II.
Episode: 1126 An academic hoax: When we let our words get too complicated. Today, a disturbing parable about clarity and falsehood.
Episode: 1125 The Visible Man: An executed convict is brought back to life on the internet. Today, we create a body of knowledge.
Episode: 1124 Pythagoras' Trousers: How physics and the priesthood are reopening to women. Today, let's talk about physics, religion, and gender.
Episode: 1921 Arrow's Paradox and third party candidates. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd votes.
Episode: 1786 Acting and reality: in which the story is formed by circumstances unseen. Today, our guest, Seattle actor Megan Cole, has an acting technique for understanding behavior.
Episode: 1123 Whiplash: Why doesn't it exist in Lithuania? Today, we go looking for whiplash.
Episode: 1121 How farming came to Europe 8000 years ago. Today, farming comes to Europe.
Episode: 3294 How the length of coastlines depend on how you measure them. Today, how long is a coastline?
Episode: 1912 Am I conscious, or do I just think I am? Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd explores how we think.
Episode: 2193 Matthew Arnold's honeymoon on Dover Beach: an odd Valentine's Day greeting. Today, a Valentine's Day greeting.
Episode: 2976 Puzzles, Intellectual Exercise, and Everyday Problem Solving. Today, we put puzzles to use.
Episode: 3293 A look at water in its many forms as a subject of university research. Today, let’s talk about research and water.
Episode: 1120 Cayley's Flying Machine. Today, a boy begins what the Wrights will finish.
Episode: 1119 Lee's Priceless Recipes: How to make everything from lipstick to dynamite. Today, a book tells how our great-grandparents did things.
Episode: 1118 What in the world did we let happen to nuclear power? Today, let's talk about nuclear power in America.
Episode: 1897 Optimization: much more than just driving to work and selling door-to-door. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd drives us to work.
Episode: 2798 Behold the Mighty Transistor. Today, a small item creates a large impact.
Episode: 3204 Transforming Transportation from Engines to Motors. Today, our thoughts are about motors instead of engines.
Episode: 1117 Searching out the early history of treating wounds. Today, we look for the history of the wound.
Episode: 1116 Revisiting a 1970 attack on the Interstate Highway System. Today, let's look at an old attack on the Interstate Highway System.
Episode: 1114 Today, let's talk about distributed intelligence. Al Gore's metaphor of distributed intelligence.
Episode: 1115 New York Library's selection of the Books of the Century. Today, a bold listing of books that've shaped us.
Episode: 1859 Today, our guest, scientist Andrew Boyd discusses a legendary movie figure. Waiting for HAL 9000: the lure of artificial intelligence.
Episode: 2279 In which medical people learn how to save babies on the boardwalk. Today, our guest, medical historian Julie Anderson takes us to see premature babies at carnival sideshows.
Episode: 1113 How can we talk to our children about mathematics? Today, three mathematicians wonder how to teach math.
Episode: 1112 Rene Dubos asks "What makes us human?". Today, a scientist wonders what sets us apart as humans.
Episode: 1111 Reading the symbolic content of the numbers 1 through 10. The Numbers 1 Thru 10.
Episode: 1818 Leon Theremin's remarkable music machine. Today, our guest, scientist Andrew Boyd, talks about the man who wed music to electricity.
Episode: 2999 Hannibal's Grand Strategy: Genius or Failure? Today, Hannibal at the gates.
Episode: 1108 100,000,000 land mines -- killing off civilians in perpetuity. Today, land mines tell us about modern war.
Episode: 1107 In which we call ourselves engineers, for the last 200 years. Today, we learn where engineers come from.
Episode: 1105 Mary Roberts: The frustration of a 19th century woman scientist. Today, we face the anger of a woman who's been erased.
Episode: 1104 Nobel, The Baroness von Suttner, and the Peace Prize. Today, the origin of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Episode: 1748 A remarkable perception of a mathematical oddity. Today, Guest Andrew Boyd, chief scientist at the PROS organization, shares an "age-old" story about numbers.
Episode: 2846 Coffeehouses and the Birth of a Public Sphere. Today, let's share a cup of coffee.
Episode: 2960 CSI Herculaneum: How A Terrible Discovery Helps Paleodemography. Today, CSI Herculaneum.
Episode: 1103 How We Die: A surgeon comes to terms with death. Today, a doctor reflects on death and the machinery of sustaining life.
Episode: 1101 A Roman engineer's not-quite-right idea for moving a pedestal. Today, a clever Roman engineer outsmarts himself.
Episode: 1098 In which we try to decide who really invented the telephone. Today, an old question: who invented the telephone?
Episode: 1097 A surprising answer to the question, "How much risk is really acceptable to us?" Today, let's look at the idea of risk homeostasis.
Episode: 2946 Man or Monster? The Legend of the Golem and the Age of Technology. Today, what can an old legend tell us about the future?
Episode: 2621 Giovanni Gabrieli and the Venetian School of Polychoral music at St. Mark's Basilica, Venice. Today, a marriage of sound and space.
Episode: 2871 In which Samuel P. Langley talks about solar powered engines in 1884. Today, an idea, long before its time.
Episode: 2867 Augustin Fresnel, light, and lighthouses: from the science of light to the saving of ships. Today, Fresnel and his Lighthouses.
Episode: 2866 How many wings on an aeroplane — How many strings on a violin? Thoughts on the maturation of technologies. Today, How many wings or strings on an aeroplane or a violin?
Episode: 2849 Fern Andra and Lothar von Richthofen: One lived, one died. Today, Fern and Lothar.
Episode: 2539 Define technology? Why, it's as easy as riding a bike! Today, medical historian Helen Valier offers us a new look at the language of technology.
Episode: 2827 Dimensionless groups, helping us to deal with the similarity of often very different situations. Today, dimensionless groups.
Episode: 2825 In which our lack of fluency with numbers (innumeracy) threatens our national well-being. Today, innumeracy.
Episode: 2812 poised to begin transatlantic flight in 1938. How it came out in 1945. Today, we fly the Atlantic.
Episode: 2807 3D printing provides the latest view of the downward diffusion of technology. Today, technology keeps diffusing downward.
Episode: 2905 Imagination's Contributions to Science and Technology, Developmental Psychology and Imagination. Today, the gift of imagination.
Episode: 2820 A Spectacular Series of Spectaculars: Remaking Ben-Hur.Today, remaking Ben-Hur.
Episode: 2800 Two information revolutions: 2800 years ago, and surrounding the 2800th Episode. Today, 2800 years ago.
Episode: 2792 Glorious revolutions - which we see only after they've passed. Today, silent revolutions.
Episode: 2788 Measuring and testing our machines — not yet as electronic as it might seem. Today, an old book on testing machines harbors a surprise.
Episode: 2787 Doolittle's Tokyo raid: Much more than the mere gesture it seemed to be. Today, a costly gesture that may've saved America.
Episode: 2018 The Chamberlen family secret: the invention of forceps. Today, guest historian Cathy Patterson reveals family secrets.
Episode: 2691 What Happens to the Human Body When Exposed to Vacuum? Today, the body at vacuum.
Episode: 3290 In which Technology and Engineering reveal themselves as Liberal Arts. Today, technology, engineering, and art.
Episode: 2781 While water seeks its own level, it sometimes fools us. Today, water's own level.
Episode: 2775 What should the end of a wing look like, and why — on birds, airplanes (or even propellers). Today, airplanes, birds, and their wingtips.
Episode: 2761 Dr. G. Hartwig's far away places: Other worlds in another time. Today, a world opens up.
Episode: 2818 The Pompeian Paradox and Fiorelli's Body Casts. Today, the Pompeian paradox.
Episode: 2758 War and Peace: Hugo Junkers' famous airplane. Today, Hugo Junkers' famous airplane.
Episode: 2757 George Forbes, forgotten builder of our electrically lit and driven world. Today, a forgotten electrical pioneer.
Episode: 2757 George Forbes, forgotten builder of our electrically lit and driven world. Today, a forgotten electrical pioneer.
Episode: 2752 A visit to the Commemorative Air Force and an airplane that pilots trained in. Today, a morning with the Commemorative Air Force.
Episode: 3290 In which Technology and Engineering reveal themselves as Liberal Arts. Today, technology, engineering, and art.
Episode: 2905 Imagination's Contributions to Science and Technology, Developmental Psychology and Imagination. Today, the gift of imagination.
Episode: 2750 The Wings Over Houston Air Show, a learning laboratory. Today,we go to an air show.
Episode: 2746 Stereotomy, the mason's art of cutting stone in three dimensions. Today, I'll bet you never heard of a trumpet squinch.
Episode: 2744 Measuring Inequality of Income — the harbinger of hard times. Today, inequality of income.
Episode: 2010 George McJunkin and Ales Hrdlicka: Who discovered the Clovis culture? Today, guest historian Cathy Patterson looks at an unlikely anthropologist.
Episode: 2549 Cahokia, an Ancient American Metropolis. Today, an ancient American metropolis.
Episode: 2734 Artisan flintknappers of Blombos Cave, 60,000 years too soon. Today, we meet some ancient flintknappers.
Episode: 2732 A waystation in our mastery of computation: The cheap throwaway selection-slide-rule. Today, some early computers.
Episode: 2730 How the superconductor led us to yet one more unanticipated future. Today, the semiconductor rewrites our future.
Episode: 2729 The China Clipper, 25 seaplanes that touched our imaginations. Today, a brief bright moment.
Episode: 2924 Not In This Universe: When the possible really isn't. Today, we do a lot of typing.
Episode: 2893 How the batteries work; The electrodes and electrolytes; The Wonders of Electrochemistry. Today, the magic of batteries.
This special, one-hour Engines episode explores the effect of music in our lives. Music for a While
Let us explore the place of music in our lives. Let us see how it creates calm in our hurried existence – how it opens windows into understanding. Let us trace its action in our lives, both in the way it is made, and in the many ways it affects us so deeply.
Episode: 2724 Let's be pedants — well, insofar as language allows. Today, let's be pedants.
This special, one-hour Engines episode explores the effect of music in our lives. Music for a While
Let us explore the place of music in our lives. Let us see how it creates calm in our hurried existence – how it opens windows into understanding. Let us trace its action in our lives, both in the way it is made, and in the many ways it affects us so deeply.
Episode: 2816 Sir William Hamilton and the Beginnings of Volcanology. Today, the beginnings of volcanology.
Episode: 2724 Let's be pedants — well, insofar as language allows. Today, let's be pedants.
Episode: 2726 Rigid Origami — much more than a decorative art. Today, we fold rigid origami.
Episode: 2721 Fort Trumbull -- dramatic, inappropriate, icon of the history of its place. Today, Fort Trumbull.
Episode: 2708 The first airplane prize, for June Bug's 1-km flight — and what followed. Today, the first airplane prize.
Episode: 2923 The opossum: nature's little sanitary engineer. Today, nature's sanitation engineer.
Episode: 2696 Winged Words: The Homeric Epics as Oral Poetry. Today, classicist Casey Due listens to the Homeric epics.
Episode: 2704 Muscle memory, perfect pitch, typewriters, and engineering design. Today, muscle memory and engineering design.
Episode: 2702 Octave Chanute, scholarly mentor of the Wright Brothers. Today, Octave Chanute.
Episode: 2699 Heligoland, a bucolic magnet for the machines of war. Today, we visit Heligoland.
Episode: 2922 Gearing up: the continuously variable transmission. Today, we change gears.
Episode: 2740 The mathematics of slot machines. Today, the mathematics of slot machines.
Episode: 1702 Memory and meaning: How actors remember all those lines. Today, our guest, Seattle actor Megan Cole, talks about memory and meaning.
Episode: 2695 The 21st Century information floodtide, seen as applied hydraulics. Today, information flows like water.
Episode: 2689 Chester Carlson: The hard life that gave us photocopiers. Today, we copy a page.
Episode: 2688 Specific Strength: Another way of deciding how strong a material is. Today, wood or metal?
Episode: 2918 Norman Brinker and the History of Restaurant Chains. Today, one link at a time.
Episode: 2719 The Mathematics of Language. Today, let's see what mathematics can tell us about language.
Episode: 2002 The almost-first patent: from stained glass to genetically modified mice. Today, guest historian Cathy Patterson with a story about patents.
Episode: 2681 Mary and Richard Proctor: Two generations of astronomy science and popularization. Today, Mary Proctor and the stars.
Episode: 2685 C. P. Snow's two cultures after 52 years and the coming of the Internet. Today, C. P. Snow at a cocktail party.
Episode: 2679 The SS Selma: a strange monument to ferrocement ships in Galveston Bay. Today, a story for anyone who's been to Galveston.
Episode: 2677 What is a Tun? Reflections on a confusion of weight and volume. Today, what is a T-U-N?
Episode: 3235 Gender, labor history, and the devaluation of film editing. Today, the mother of all film editors.
Episode: 2813 Seneca the Younger and the Great Earthquake of 62 AD. Today, an ancient earthquake.
Episode: 2676 In which soaring birds teach us about airplanes, and vice versa. Today, soaring birds.
Episode: 2673 Contrast: Population density above and below 20 people per square mile. Today, twenty people per square mile.
Episode: 2671 Why do our automobile (or airplane or motorcycle, or ship) engines have so many cylinders? Today, how many cylinders?
Episode: 2667 Hilda Hewlett: Pioneer pilot from a different mold. Today, Hilda Hewlett -- not a young daredevil.
Episode: 2914 Charles Loring Brace and the Orphan Trains Movement. Today, for the love of children.
Episode: 2978 Henri Matisse cuts paper to design a cover for the art magazine Verve. Today we look at heroism through cut paper.
Episode: 2670 The Expanded Human Habitat: Our Solar System as a Defining Environment. Today, we expand the notion of environment.
Episode: 2662 Lucretius gives us modern atomic theory — 1900 years too soon. Today, Roman atoms.
Episode: 2661 A view of where we have come, from an airplane window. Today, then and now from an airplane window.
Episode: 2656 An American in Paris: Eugene Bullard, Black hero in the jazz age. Today, an American in Paris.
Episode: 2913 The price of making a commercial airline seat. Today, airline seat prices.
Episode: 2488 Revision: An Essential Component of the Creative Process. Today, creator vs. revisor.
Episode: 3230 How close-ups offer social and psychological benefits that selfies do not. Today, psychology of the close-up.
Episode: 2650 RRS Discovery: 1901 research vessel whose legacy lives today. Today, the RRS Discovery.
Episode: 2655 Common sense, our common senses, and our uncommon universe. Today, common sense.
Episode #2649 Also-rans: forgotten airplanes and forgotten composers, worth remembering.
Episode: 2648 Ebenezer Howard's Garden City Utopia -- another might've been. Today, a Garden City Utopia.
Episode: 2910 Something big: The world's largest manmade enclosure. Today, something really big.
Episode: 2473 King Ludwig II and his castle at Neuschwanstein. Today, a swan on a mountain.
Episode: 2810 The Concrete Revolution in Ancient Rome. Today, some concrete achievements.
Episode: 2635 How we thought in 1875: A magazine article titled in Morse Code. Today, code for Kate.
Episode: 2634 North America's three triple divides — or is it four? Today, triple divides.
Episode 2633: After the Chicago Fire: A city shrugs off a cataclysm. Today, Chicago, after the Fire.
Episode: 2632 Edith Cavell -- a mountain, a nurse, a smuggler, a heroine. Today, Edith Cavell.
Episode: 2884 Communicating Through Pictures: The Japanese Language. Today, the images of Kanji.
Episode: 2204 Earthquakes and Volcanoes remember, while hurricanes forget. Today, our guest, geologist Peter Copeland tells us about rocks, air and memory.
Episode: 2629 In which we invent electric lighting in real time. Today, electricity and light.
Episode: 2626 Little airplanes riding in big airplanes -- but they're called Parasites. Today, parasite airplanes.
Episode: 2625 Strange inhabitants of Amy Darlington Sharpless's Natural Philosophy book. Today, Amy's Book.
Episode: 2624 John Winthrop, jr. brings Christian Alchemy to an ironworks on the Saugus. Today, iron and alchemy in the Plymouth Colony.
Episode: 2820 A Spectacular Series of Spectaculars: Remaking Ben-Hur. Today, remaking Ben-Hur.
Episode: 2862 Randomness out of Nothingness. Today, let's talk about how to pick random numbers out of thin air.
Episode: 2616 When radio and singing met: The Golden Age of popular singing. Today, a time when popular singers really sang.
Episode: 2615 Water for 9,000,000 New Yorkers, beginning with The Old Croton Aqueduct. Today, water for New York City.
Episode: 2612 America's ceremony of innocence, about to drowned in WW-I. Today, an American ceremony of innocence.
Episode: 2610 Everyday Electricity: Looking for the Connecticut Yankee. Today, everyday electricity.
Episode: 2469 Ancel Keys and the Link between Diet and Heart Disease. Today, a heart doctor who wasn’t.
Episode: 2768 Percy Spencer and the microwave oven. Today, our guest, NASA engineer Fitz Walker considers the Microwave Oven.
Episode: 2609 Brewster Buffalo vs. Grumman Wildcat: a parable about technological change. Today, the texture of change.
Episode: 2607 The steam engine comes to China, and even greater change follows. Today, steam comes to China.
Episode: 2605 To hold our new skyscrapers, we reinvent foundations. Today, we reinvent foundations.
Episode: 1983 Inventing the newspaper in seventeenth-century England. Today, our guest, historian Cathy Patterson reports on the invention of the newspaper.
Episode: 2601 What did we see when we looked at the new century in 1900? Not what you might expect. Today, America in 1900.
Episode #2600: The mysterious Nevil Shute and his Mysterious Aviator. Today, fact, fiction, and futures.
Episode: 2595 4'33", John Cage's prank or penetrating insight into sound and silence. Today, four minutes and thirty-three seconds.
Episode: 2593 John Edward Lennard Jones, and how molecules act upon one another. Today, who was Lennard Jones?
Episode: 3224 Fake rocks, forced perspective, and other forms of illusion in the private home of Disney Imagineer Fred Joerger. Today, facades, both physical and personal.
Episode: 2592 The Steep Ascent: Anne Morrow Lindbergh fascinatingly fuses fact and fiction. Today, fact and fiction meet.
Episode: 2590 In which Orville Wright tries to predict the future of the aeroplane. Today, Orville Wrignt and flight.
Episode: 2589 In which automatic calculation leads to the black-boxing of mathematics. Today, mathematics vanishes.
Episode: 2587 The existential pleasure of knowing your city's secrets. Today, city's secrets.
Episode: 2882 Eliezer Ben Yehuda and the Revival of Hebrew. Today, the revival of an ancient language.
Episode: 2584 The Sweet Track: A 6000-year-old roadway. Today, a 6000-year-old roadway.
Episode: 2581 How animals see: monocular and binocular sight, and more. Today, we see with two eyes.
Episode: 2580 A movie in Esperanto: William Shatner stars in Incubus. Today, a movie in Esperanto.
Episode: 2574 Houston's herons — especially the lovely snowy egret. Today, herons and egrets.
Episode: 2900 Hayek: the economist's contributions in neuroscience and philosophy. Today, a man who crossed over.
Episode: 2638 Artificial Gravity for Human Spaceflight; What is Gained, What is Lost. Today, astronaut Michael Barratt discusses the pros and cons of artificial gravity.
Episode: 2873 The Search for Extraterrestrial Life; Drake Equation Explained; Aliens from Other Planets. Today, an encounter of the third kind.
Episode: 2573 Science and technology reporting: Reading the difficulties in the 1885 Scientific American. Today, a future takes form.
Episode: 2571 A dream gone over the top: Intercity dirigible service. Today, how about intercity dirigible service?
Episode: 2569 Learning about ships of the ancient Levant: When a picture is not a ship. Today, only a picture of a ship.
Episode: 2568 Detention basins: where engineering, conservation, and myriad birds converge. Today, engineering and birds.
Episode: 2898 Keynes and Hayek: The nuances of their economic perspectives. Today, how different were they?
Episode: 2809 Laurence Housman designs an edition of Christina Rossetti's poem Goblin Market. Today, Goblins, sisterly love, and a masterpiece of book design.
Episode: 2725 The Atocha Bombing Memorial: Remembering the dead — creating hope. Today, mourning and monuments.
Episode: 2565 The de Havilland DH.9 — a failure in war, a laboratory in peace. Today, swords and plowshares.
Episode: 2560 Hybrid cars and T. S. Eliot's fourth tempter — understanding what was there all the time. Today, hybrid cars -- and the fourth tempter.
Episode: 2558 How to cool an internal combustion engine — with water or with air? Today, cooled by air or water?
Episode: 2895 Measuring up: How we measure, and perceive, inclines. Today, measuring "up."
Episode: 2456 The invention and history of Kodachrome film. Today, photographic memory.
Episode: 2684 Will Computers Replace Scientists? Today, will computers replace scientists?
Episode: 2551 In which Daniels, Dough, Etheridge, Brinkley and Moore watch the Wright Brother's first flight. Today, we witness history.
Episode: 2546 In which William Froude shows us how to model ships, and much more. Today, meet William Froude.
Episode: 2541 Charlotte, of Charlotte's Web, in real life. Today, I relive Charlotte's Web.
Episode: 2951 Scurvy, Vitamin C, and the Origins of the Modern Clinical Trial. Today, we go to sea.
Episode: 2540 Semi-Submersible Ships, or how the USS Cole hitched a ride home. Today, semi-submersible ships.
Episode: 2537 Vredefort, Chicxulub, Apophis — once and future threats to Earth. Today, Vredefort and Apophis.
Episode: 2532 Fanny Kemble, technology, and London's circle of radical intellectual women. Today, another kind of radical.
Episode: 2891 Specifics and Generalities: teaching and the problem of universals. Today, what exactly is that?
Episode: 2448 Sergei Rachmaninoff visits a hypnotist to remove his writer's block. Today, a composer unblocked.
Episode: 2528 le Systeme international d'units, our real standard of units. Today, another look at weights and measures.
Episode: 2526 John Montague, Lord Sandwich, and a little-known island chain. Today, Sandwich's islands.
Episode: 2525 Reflections on protruding land, shipwrecks and lighthouses. Today, protruding land.
Episode: 2889 An important step toward solving the twin primes conjecture. Today, almost twins.
Episode: 2658 Massively Multiplayer Math. Today, let's talk massively multiplayer mathematics.
Episode: 2724 Let's be pedants — well, insofar as language allows. Today, let's be pedants.
Episode: 2522 Farnum Thayer Fish, first airplane combat casualty. Today, first aerial combat casualty.
Episode: 2521 The Stata Center, Caligari's Cabinet, and radical buildings. Today, radical buildings.
Episode: 2519 James Dewar freezes hydrogen solid and invents the thermos bottle. Today, the man who froze hydrogen.
Episode #2518: Annular wings: another idea that seems as though it should work. Will it? Today, a strange airplane wing.
Episode: 3216 World War II, the Los Angeles Art Students League, and Japanese American internment. Today, art and survival.
Episode: 1660 Simplicity, complexity, and Shakespeare (with guest Megan Cole). Today, a treat.
Episode: 2516 The Atapuerca dig and a missing link: Homo Antecessor. Today, the Atapuerca dig.
Episode: 2512 Saluda: The worst steamboat explosion, not much worse than all the rest. the Saluda, the Glenco, Captain Francis Belt, steamboats, riverboats, boiler explosions, safety, accidents, Mormon migration, LDS, California Gold Rush, Missouri Mississippi Rivers, Lexington, MO.
Episode: 2511 An Early 20th-century crackdown on medical quacks. Today, quack medicine.
Episode: 2886 Not Just Gadgets: The Science of Engineering Systems. Today, beyond gadgets.
Episode: 3287 Darwin Goes to Hollywood - Learning Evolution from Movies. Today, offbeat lessons in evolution.
Episode: 2508 The paradox of asymmetry — in faces, airplanes, and tigers. Today, dare we look upon asymmetry?
Episode: 2509 Human-Powered Machines — bringing the question of human endurance back to technology. Today, human and machine endurance.
Episode: 2506 Spanish Moss — not at all the stuff of antebellum decay. Today, a remarkable stuffing.
Episode: 2504 The most decorated woman in France: Marie Marvingt. Today, a remarkable woman.
Episode: 2883 A dead salmon points the way to better brain imaging. Today, outrageous research.
Episode: 2439 Reflections on Hurricane Ike and the effect of satellite technology on the hurricane experience. Today, picturing monsters.
Episode: 2249 Mrs. Coade's remarkable stones. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells about a woman who made artificial stone.
Episode: 2498 The Ju-87 Stuka, another troubling story of military technology. Today, a troubled machine.
Episode: 2496 Trilobites: Wondrous window upon the processes of evolution. Today, the evolution of the trilobite.
Episode: 2494 Inventing the cotton gin: More to it than we thought. Today, we gin cotton.
Episode: 2492 The Schooner Wyoming, world's largest wooden ship — an example of technology over-reaching. Today, the largest wooden ship.
Episode: 2534 History and Epidemic Disease. Today, medical historian Helen Valier offers us a new look at history and epidemic disease.
Episode: 2489 Before we invent the aeroplane, let's decide how to power it. Today, we wonder how to power our flying machines.
Episode: 2490 In which footprints, 1.5 and 3.6 million years old, tell their story. Today, we walk in some very old footsteps.
Episode: 2486 Who remembers the once ubiquitous sectional wooden windmill? Today, sectional windmills.
Episode: 2482 Where does a wise man hide a leaf: Harold Warp's Museum. Today, where would a wise man hide a leaf?
Episode: 2479 Restigouche River: site of the last naval battle in the French and Indian War. Today, the last naval battle of The Seven Years War.
Episode: 2476 Jesse Ramsden, Instrument maker to King George and to the Enlightenment. Today, Jesse Ramsden.
Episode: 2875 Today, a profession comes of age. Pierre Fauchard, Father of Modern Dentistry.
Episode: 2597 Today, let’s see what mathematics tells us about history. Mathematical models of historical events.
Episode: 2841 Today, we imagine the Big Bangs. Multiple Big Bangs and Multiple Universes; The Fantastical Multi-Reality of Multiverse
Episode: 2474 Antoine de St. Exupéry, André Gide, and a new vocabulary for a new technology. Today, Antoine de St. Exupéry.
Episode: 2471 In which Henry Farman and Glenn Curtiss emerge from the pack of pioneer airmen. Today, aeroplanes in embryo.
Episode: 2470 The design and construction of a spider web. Today, let's weave a spider web.
Episode: 2468 Fort Independence, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Cask of Amontillado. Today, a cask of Amontillado in Boston Harbor.
Episode: 2872 The Stimpmeter: Golf's Supremely Simple Maintenance Tool. Today, low tech in a high-tech game.
Episode: 2579 Music and Mathematics. Today, UH Math Professor Krešo Josić talks about music and mathematics.
Episode: 2505 Roger Tory Peterson and James Fisher's Wild America. Today, a legendary road trip.
Episode: 3157 Martin Luther King Jr's. remarkable means. Today, a preacher teaches us about invention.
Episode: 2466 In which renewable energy enters by the back door. Today, a silent arrival.
Episode: 2465 Victor Lougheed's extraordinary 1909 aeroplane book. Today, where were the first aeroplanes going?
Episode: 2462 The Mississippi Delta: Rewriting Geography. Today, geography shifts before our eyes.
Episode: 2075 Rudolph Ackerman and his amazing chronicles of 19th-century art and technology. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells us about a great chronicler of technology and art.
Episode: 2460 In praise of the City: A fine piece of the natural world. Today, another look at form and function.
Episode: 2459 St. Anthony Falls, beauty lost, beauty found. Today, a lost and found story.
Episode: 2457 Isabella Beeton's remarkable book on "household" management. Today, Beeton's household management.
Episode: 2455 The Fairey Swordfish: An airplane in a timewarp. Today, the bite of a dinosaur.
Episode: 2628 When traveling into space, how do you know you're there? Today, astronaut Michael Barratt asks, where exactly is the border of space?
Episode: 3286 The pause, a simple act of kindness. Today, the pause, a simple act of kindness.
Episode: 2453 Albert Einstein and meandering rivers -- seen from above. Today, we look down on a river.
Episode: 2451 Guillaume Dufay, still clear as day to us, six centuries later. Today, Guillaume Dufay.
Episode: 2038 Putting a leap second in an elastic year. Today, we add a second to our lives.
Episode: 2014 Boiling bubbles and fizzing bubbles: So alike, so different! Today, bubbles in soda and bubbles in teakettles.
Episode: 2838 The World of Small Dimensions; Nano-Dimensions and Pico-Times. Today, we explore Small.
Episode: 2449 Francis Hopkinson: My Days Have So Wondrous Free and other accomplishments. Today, America's first song.
Episode: 2039 In which we experience quiet on the Western Front. Today, it's quiet on the Western Front.
Episode: 1760 The Christmas Lectures: Michael Faraday's Gift to children. Today, the Christmas Lectures.
Episode: 1671 Quantum mechanics takes to a place we didn't know was there. Today, we think about multiple Christmases.
Episode: 2669 Plants and greens associated with the Christmas Season. Today, Christmas greenery.
Episode: 3285 Literature's Famous Epiphanies: Real and Fictional. Today, one of literature's famous epiphanies.
Episode: 2445 In which Renaissance engineer Robert Norton thinks about gunnery. Today, the inner life of an early engineer.
Episode: 2443 The Dornier X: another of yesterday's extreme airplanes. Today, Dornier's flying palace.
Episode: 2442 The Mysteries of Nature and Art, John Bate's legacy for Isaac Newton. Today, John Bate's wonderful book.
Episode: 2822 Herodotus describing historical events of 5th century BC, a fantastical and entertaining component of The Histories. Today, we visit Herodotus.
Episode: 2497 Frederick Law Olmsted on the Texas Frontier. Today, we go from the Texas frontier to Central Park.
Episode: 3284 A place for scary spiders in STEM education. Today, Spiders and STEM education.
Episode: 2440 Johannes Georg Sulzer, and two views of the word taste.Today, taste in the mind and taste on the tongue.
Episode: 2438 Phoebe Omlie changes the face of flying in her Velie Monocoupe. Today, Phoebe Omlie's airplane.
Episode: 2436 John Jacob Niles: Looking beyond the consummate showman. Today, John Jacob Niles.
Episode: 2143 In which Emma Lazarus reinvents the Statue of Liberty. Today, UH scholar Dorothy Baker tells us about Emma Lazarus.
Episode: 2619 Practicing Medicine Off the Planet; A New Physiology. Today, Astronaut Michael Barratt talks about medicine in space.
Episode: 2435 Arachnophobia: A fearful spider spins us a pair of socks. Today, arachnophobia and fabric.
Episode: 2433 After the Indian canoe: bateaux, Adirondack guide boats, and more. Today, new boats in a new land.
Episode: 2431 The Fieseler Stork in a last dogfight -- between two very unlikely combatants. Today, a last dogfight.
Episode: 2430 How we equipped today's medical clinics in 1915. Today, your doctor's office comes into being.
Episode: 2557 Linear algebra, the mathematics behind Google's ranking algorithm. Today, let’s talk about how Google ranks your search results.
Episode: 2188 The day the earth moved: plate tectonics and the right question. Today, our guest, geologist Peter Copeland tries to ask the right question.
Episode: 2428 Electric hope in 1889: drunk on the new elixir of electricity. Today, we "discover" electricity.
Episode: 2425 In which the Smithsonian Institution celebrates sketching. Today, we make sketches.
Episode: 2421 William Ferrel: a story of genius, geophysics and coincidence. Today, serendipity in the whirlwind.
Episode: 2420 Georg Rheticus, Copernicus' only student and his prophet. Today, Copernicus' prophet.
Episode: 2426 The National Institute of Standards and Technology. Today, an “average” guy.
Episode: 2808 Plastic encapsulation of microchips, protection from environment and loads. Today, the encapsulation story.
Episode: 2417 Kill Devil Hill: the texture of the Wright Brothers' accomplishment. Today, we watch invention unfolding.
Episode: 2416 In which the PaleoClock puts time in perspective. Today, a very slow clock.
Episode: 2415 In which camels return to their native continent and are ill-received. Today, camels in Canada.
Episode: 2413 Of hawks and flying wings: airplanes without tails. Today, airplanes without tails.
Episode: 2857 Leonid Kantorovich, Soviet Mathematician and Economist. Today, an economic wonder.
Episode: 2410 Was cave art too good to have been made 30,000 years ago? Today, a new look at old art.
Episode: 2409 Struggling to keep our grip on the past as we move from books to the Internet. Today, we struggle to remember what we once knew.
Episode: 2405 Jean-François de Rozier: first aeronaut to fly, and first to die. Today, first to fly, first to die.
Episode: 2856 Torricelli's Trumpet: The Infinite Meets the Finite. Today, the impossible.
Episode: 2806 Thor, the god of thunder, engineering behind comic books, college courses that deal with fracture.
Episode: 2402 In which Bertha Benz shows the world what the automobile can do. Today, Bertha Benz's ride.
Episode: 2404 Napoleon's megalomania thwarting the use of observation balloons. Today, Napoleon's aerial crown.
Episode: 2400 A view of American football in its earliest days. Today, we play football.
Episode: 2398 A great Union Army disaster: the Battle of the Crater. Today, the Petersburg Crater.
Episode: 2553 Emergence and complexity in virtual and living systems. Today, let’s talk about emergence.
Episode: 3213 How a Chinese immigrant helped make one of Disney's most beloved films. Today, we save Bambi.
Episode: 2396 The Indus Valley: a third great ancient civilization coming to light. Today, the Indus Valley.
Episode: 2395 The world's worst weapons: Why were some so bad? Today, the world's worst weapons.
Episode: 2392 A weather report, and more, from the South Pole. Today, a weather report.
Episode: 2391 Sopwith's WW-I airplanes, An epoch in the history of the airplane. Today, the brief ancestry of an airplane.
Episode: 2853 Radio frequency identification and toll roads. Today, we ease on down the road.
Episode: 2776 Isaac Asimov's fantastic worlds, robots that roam among us, and energy storage methods. Today, our guest Haleh Ardebili talks about Isaac Asimov and Energy Storage.
Episode: 2388 In which Paul Otlet invents the hyperlink, and almost invents the Internet. Today, we invent the hyperlink.
Episode: 2386 Things we know are false, but one of them is true. Which one? Today, one of these is true.
Episode: 2383 In which the ghost of E. Ball Hughes speaks from an old book on perspective. Today, a sculptor's ghost speaks.
Episode: 2544 How humans and computers recognize faces. Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić recognizes your face.
Episode: 2373 The Phrasebook: A Dangerous Invention. Today, UH scholar, Richard Armstrong tells us about German phrasebooks.
Episode: 2380 Isaac Newton's other life as Master of the Royal Mint. Today, Isaac Newton coins money.
Episode: 2378 Badly needed aeroplanes come to the Australian outback. Today, aeroplanes in the outback.
Episode: 2371 Early Igor Sikorsky -- a great and largely forgotten contribution. Today, young Sikorsky.
Episode: 2369 19th century public lending library. Today, we take the bit on our teeth.
Episode: 2367 Georgie Clark and the invention of whitewater rafting. Today, let's go whitewater rafting.
Episode: 3282 Wayfinding without Instruments: Polynesian Navigators. Today, finding our way.
Episode: 2366 Remembering when Hell Gate in the East River really was daunting. Today, Hell Gate in the East River.
Episode: 2362 A photo, older than we thought, rewrites history. Today, we look for the first photo.
Episode: 2355 Before Edison? Well, what can really be called recording? Today, a picture of music.
Episode: 2514 How Netflix uses linear algebra to determine what movies you will like best. Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić talks about math and your movie choice.
Episode: 2353 Reflections on -- or in -- the key of C. Today, French hornist Roger Kaza plays in C.
Episode: 2351 A kind of perpetual motion machine that conserves energy. Today, another kind of perpetual motion.
Episode: 2349 Building early railroads -- the bands that shrunk Earth. Today, rail and romance.
Episode: 2347 Watching the Deutsches Museum evolve: 1903 until now. Today, a museum is born.
Episode: 2346 Sitting down to supper, 10,000 years ago. Today, what did we eat, long ago?
Episode: 2502 Computer-assisted proofs: How machines extend our mind's reach. Today, let’s ask how computers help us see mathematical truths.
Episode: 2368 In which Shakespeare and Cervantes die on the same day, but eleven days apart. Today, UH scholar, Richard Armstrong tells us about puzzles in chronology.
Episode: 2344 Transco/Williams Tower, your perfect neighborhood skyscraper. Today, a lone skyscraper.
Episode: 2342 A horrific chapter of history gives us Maya blue. Today, we have the blues.
Episode: 2337 Frank Hornby and his Meccano sets -- still there, over a century later. Today, arts, crafts and Meccano sets.
Episode: 2341 Richard Wagner conceives a sound, then invents an instrument to create it. Today, horn player Roger Kaza tells us about the tuba Wagner built.
Episode: 2356 Hebrew and Yiddish struggle for ascendancy after WW-II. Today, scholar Richard Armstrong considers the world of language textbooks.
Episode: 2332 Learning who we were in 1915 by looking at automobiles. Today, the automobile in transition.
Episode: 2335 Houston's great port: the engine behind a city. Today, life in a seaport town.
Episode: 2330 Iceboats: Faster than a speeding locomotive -- when we still rode horses. Today, we go iceboating.
Episode: 2329 Robert Thurston looks at Robert Fulton and sees beyond the folly. Today, Thurston looks at Fulton.
Episode: 1940 In which Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister build a model house to pay for a mansion.
Episode: 3281 Dyslexia and Orton-Gillingham Multisensory Reading Instruction. Today, dyslexia and reading.
Episode: 2328 George Lindenthal's great unbuilt bridge from Manhattan to New Jersey. Today, an unbuilt bridge.
Episode: 2326 Emerging from the muddle of war to invent the modern steam vessel. Today, ocean warships struggle to come of age.
Episode: 2324 Jumping fences and inventing things: kissin' cousins. Today, let's jump a fence.
Episode: 2322 Civilians and the making of the steam-powered U.S. Navy. Today, pruning hooks into spears.
Episode: 2487 John von Neumann's ideas on the similarities and differences of computers and brains. Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić talks about brains, computers, and John von Neumann.
Episode: 2319 Trying to get to the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon. Today, we fly to the North Pole.
Episode: 2317 Backwater curves and a natural bayou redesigned. Today, we watch flowing water.
Episode: 2315 Paying for our entertainments by watching advertising -- back in 1885. Today, we think about Internet advertising.
Episode: 2313 Herman Sörgel's Atlantropa project: Lebensraum from a lowered Mediterranean. Today, we rewrite geography.
Episode: 2228 Ancient Explanations of Bird Migrations. Today, our guest, classicist Richard Armstrong, watches the ancients studying bird migrations.
Episode: 3166 Spoonerisms and Their Unwilling Namesake. Today, spooning in speakerisms.
Episode: 2308 A twentieth-year reminder of what we're trying to accomplish. Today, twenty years together.
Episode: 2306 In which Wayne Gilbert paints in earth tones from Earth itself. Today, we look at earth tones.
Episode: 2302 Henry Koster: one man's life in the movies. Today, one man's life in the movies.
Episode: 2674 The Royal Navy Surgeon; Taking Medicine to Sea in the Age of Sail. Today, the Royal Navy Surgeon.
Episode: 3139 Maryam Mirzakhani: A life in Mathematics. Today, let's talk about the Iranian-American mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani.
Episode: 2300 Pink Flamingos: vicissitudes in the search for art. Today, pink flamingos.
Episode: 2304 Andrew Carnegie reads an important lesson in the life of young James Watt. Today, Carnegie speaks through Watt.
Episode: 2299 A snapshot view of dazzling technological change. Today, we try to focus on a blur of change.
Episode: 2297 Balsa wood: triggering the imagination and creation of composite materials. Today, we build with balsa wood.
Episode: 2832 Math meets engineering: Claude-Louis Navier's bridge. Today, building bridges.
Episode: 2858 Hearing Pictures: Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.Today, hearing pictures.
Episode: 2295 All the old biplanes allowed to crash, because it was so much fun. Today, we use up the old aeroplanes.
Episode: 2294 Contaminating the indelible mirror of everyday life -- the Internet. Today, I'll contaminate the Internet.
Episode: 2292 Music, creativity, and anarchy: accomplishment arising from the ground up. Today, music and creativity -- from the ground up.
Episode: 2291 It's moving day for a hundred thousand bees. Today, sex in the parking lot.
Episode: 3187 The Raspberry Pi, a Small Computer with a Lot of Flavor. Today, a very sweet computer.
Episode: 2994 Escaping from a Stricken Aircraft; the Rise of Ejection Seats. Today, “punching out”.
Episode: 2289 The rise and demolition of New York's first skyscraper. Today, the skyscraper arrives.
Episode: 2288 William Faulkner and the Handley Page bomber at the movies. Today, William Faulkner takes us for a ride in a bomber.
Episode: 2287 The ceremony of innocence is drowned: Fritz Haber swallowed by wars. Today, innocence is drowned.
Episode: 2286 Ponzi and pyramid schemes: How we love to throw our money away! Today, we get rich quick.
Episode: 3210 Scourge of the Sea, the long search for a cure for scurvy. Today, a medical cure, lost and found.
Episode: 2826 Reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide with carbon sequestration. Today, the world’s highest profile molecule.
Episode: 2282 In which the Gokstad Viking ship tells its story. Today, the Gokstad ship.
Episode: 2281 Lindbergh, Nungesser, and the stories woven about them. Today, Lindbergh, Nungesser, and their stories.
Episode: 3162 A Jacket With Embedded Flexible Thin-Film Batteries That Can Charge a Device. Today, a wonderful technology.
Episode: 2280 In which Hiroo Onoda and Shoichi Yokoi cannot figure out that the war has ended. Today, the strange tales of Onoda and Yokoi.
Episode: 2278 Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn: friendship in the face of terrible odds. Today, Meitner and Hahn, an odd couple.
Episode: 2285 In which Fiat builds the last great combat biplanes. Today, Fiat Biplanes.
Episode: 2283 An anachronistic old book links shoe polish and lubrication. Today, shoe polish and bearing lubrication.
Episode: 2276 The Cascade Effect: In which we join in conclusions based on incomplete science. Today, we try to sort out science.
Episode: 2274 Old graves in an old town and a new view of who we were. Today, old gravestones.
Episode: 3133 Juan Pujol García: the Liar Who Helped Win D-Day. Today, a great big liar saves the day.
Episode: 2273 Why we rifle footballs, bullets, knives, and arrows. Today, a look at rifling.
Episode: 2270 Louis de Broglie: The prince and blurred pea. Today, the prince and the blurred pea.
Episode: 2269 James David Forbes and the contradiction of fire and ice. Today, a story of heat and ice.
Episode: 3130 A War of Concrete: The Mulberry Harbors and the Invasion of Normandy. Today, a portable port saves the day.
Episode: 3279 The machine as the physical shadow of the idea. Today, the shadow of an idea.
Episode: 2265 Timbuktu: The romance and reality of a Renaissance intellectual center. Today, we finally reach Timbuktu.
Episode: 2263 Delaunay Deslandes misses the Industrial Revolution. Today, we're left behind by the revolution.
Episode: 2899 The Rise and Fall of Celestial Navigation As Seen Through the Development of the Sextant. Today, the Vanishing Sextant.
Episode: 3278 Pedestrianism: How an old sport mutated into a new one. Today, an odd old sporting event lingers on.
Episode: 1478 A sneak preview of the Statue of Liberty. Today, a sneak preview of the Statue of Liberty.
Episode: 2261 Ford's dream of a 75-mile city along Muscle Shoals. Today, a 75-mile city.
Episode: 2260 When metal grows tired: Trying to predict fatigue failures. Today, metal grows tired.
Episode: 2259 ETAOIN, SHRDLU, QWERTYOP and the printed word. Today, we learn about Etaoin Shrdlu.
Episode: 3046 Chemical Energy Storage that is Billions of Years Old. Today, a type of storage that is billions of years old.
Episode: 2802 One Track Mind: the central processing unit of a computer. Today, a one track mind.
Episode: 3277 Microstates, Micronations, and the impulse to create small countries. Today, Very small countries.
Episode: 2258 Sawing without back-and-forth motion: a conceptual leap. Today, let's saw wood.
Episode: 2258 Sawing without back-and-forth motion: a conceptual leap. Today, let's saw wood.
Episode: 3276 Should airplane engines be cooled by liquid or air? Today, a design might go either way.
Episode: 3209 Net of Life: Can Technology Protect Us from Ourselves? Today, a net of life.
Episode: 3275 Katherine Boyle Jones, a Sister of the Scientific Revolution. Today, a sister of the Scientific Revolution.
Episode: 2256 Darwin uses emotional expression to explain our kinship with animals. Today, we smile with our animal cousins.
Episode: 2253 Revisiting the Commons in a rapidly changing world. Today, we visit the commons.
Episode: 3109 Mathematics says that we should never disagree, but we still do. Today, let's talk about what I know that you know.
Episode: 2252 Ervin S. Ferry and the persistence of illumination. Today, the persistence of light.
Episode: 2251 Engine: Englisch Für Ingenieure -- in which I better learn my own language. Today, I learn English.
Episode: 2250 Sir Michael James Lighthill, the man who could do everything. Today, greatness swims by me.
Episode: 2248 Arc lights, glow lamps, incandescent bulbs -- Edison's in there somewhere. Today, light bulbs in 1886.
Episode: 3129 What Went Wrong on D-Day: The Paradox of the Allies' Greatest Campaign. Today, when things go terribly wrong.
Episode: 3273 The biggest unsolved question in computer science. Today, questions with answers that are hard to find, but easy to check.
Episode: 2247 The Voyageurs: sailors, monks, and chain gangs -- in harmony. Today, we look for harmony.
Episode: 2245 Slats Rodgers' Old Soggy No. 1, the first Texas-Built aeroplane to fly. Today, Texas' first aeroplane.
Episode: 2244 The Gentleman traveler: Victorian polymath, Francis Galton. Today, we travel the wilds with the highborn.
Episode: 2242 The Flying Circus of Physics: Of questions and answers. Today, a book of questions.
Episode: 2789 The evolution from impact to non-impact printers. Today, we don’t make an impact.
Episode: 3080 The First Marathon and the Athens Olympics of 1896. Today, we run through the history of the marathon.
Episode: 2241 Otto Brunfels and the two reformations: religion and representation. Today, two reformations.
Episode: 2239 Last places on Earth -- a new way to look at things. Today, we look for last occurrences.
Episode: 2238 Cecilia Payne-Gospochkin and the Golden Apples of the Sun. Today, we ask what the sun's made of.
Episode: 2236 Industrial Design: Showing us how function is art. Today, another look at form and function.
Episode: 2786 Creativity Leashed: How a new way of looking at computers got away. Today, learning from an Alto.
Episode: 3271 An Obsession with Round Numbers. The two-hour marathon milestone has been smashed. But what exactly does that mean? Today, an obsession with round numbers.
Episode: 3270 Marcel Leyat adapts his experience designing aircraft to disrupt automotive development. Today, car design takes flight.
Episode: 2235 John Perry, Lord Kelvin, Earth's age, and the role of conduction and convection. Today, we see history evolving.
Episode: 2229 Hurdles that children must leap to learn science. Today, children and science.
Episode: 3107 Why it matters that we expect boys to be brilliant and girls to work hard. Today, let’s talk about who we expect to be brilliant.
Episode: 2897 A (Very) Short History of Privacy and Technology. Today, privacy and technology.
Episode: 3269 Blueprint: Once a thing, now only a metaphor. Today, a thing lingers as a metaphor.
Episode: 2227 A Late Night Movie: Beatrice Lillie and a glimpse of another time. Today, let us go to a very old movie.
Episode: 2232 The real story behind Amelia Earhart, and other tales to good to be true. Today, I'm in trouble.
Episode: 2226 Aesop's Fables and scientific illustration. Today, Aesop's fables illustrate a new science.
Episode: 2784 Environmentally Sustainable Golf Courses. Today, where the grass is always greener.
Episode: 3072 The brewer, chemist and statistician William Sealy Gosset. Today, a master brewer and a statistician.
Episode: 2225 Jean-Charles Borda: More than just a name on an orifice meter. Today, let's meet Jean-Charles Borda.
Episode: 2223 Charlie Taylor, builder of the Wright brothers' engines. Today, the Wright brother's engine.
Episode: 3078 Restoring the Parthenon: The Acropolis Restoration Service and 40+ Years of Hard Work. Today, how to rebuild a ruin.
Episode: 2222 Jeremiah Horrocks, the 23-year-old "Father of English Astronomy." Today, a planetary prodigy.
Episode: 2221 Who owns the streets: the invention of jaywalking. Today, who owns the streets.
Episode: 2224 Thomas Jefferson and megalonyx, the great-clawed ground sloth. Today, Jefferson meets Great Claw.
Episode: 2778 Qualia and Mary's Black and White Room. Today, there's something about Mary.
Episode: 3268 Social Media and the Places We Call Home. Today, we take a view from my window.
Episode: 2216 Good Health for Boys and Girls in 1889. Today, we raise your great grandparents.
Episode: 2215 Surviving Ourselves: Another look at the long ecology debate. Today, the problem of saving the world.
Episode: 2774 The Massad Family Research Center and Hospitality Industry Archives. Today, travel made easier.
Episode: 2912 David Hume and the Is-Ought Problem in Philosophy. Today, David Hume dissects a problem.
Episode: 3018 Compressed Sensing. Today, let’s talk about getting something from nothing.
Episode: 2213 Henri Pitot, his tube, and the Pont du Gard. Today, a story about aqueducts and airspeeds.
Episode: 2212 In which Joseph and John LeConte accept evolution as they themselves evolve. Today, a tale of two slaveholders.
Episode: 2211 Concrete Canoe: a metaphor, a vehicle for learning, and new technology in old clothing. Today, we build our boat from concrete.
Episode: 2210 Taking out the trash -- and there's so much to take out. Today, we take out trash.
Episode: 2209 Before the DC-3: The primitive years of commercial airlines. Today, what did we fly in before we had DC-3s?
Episode: 2208 Franklin, Beccaria, and Volta: Setting the stage for the electric 19th century. Today, we invent electricity.
Episode: 3267 The Human Benefits of Writing by Hand. Today, handwriting in the digital era.
Episode: 2207 How the little-remembered eruption of Mt. Tambora killed 70,000 people and gave rise to the novel Frankenstein. Today, a terrible volcano gives birth to Frankenstein.
Episode: 2206 A 1944 progress report on the subject of human evolution. Today, an old progress report on evolution.
Episode: 2205 The view from above: Another way of seeing. Today, a new look -- at seeing things.
Episode: 2769 Math Wars: The progressive math movement in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Today, math wars.
Episode: 2869 James Watt's introduction of horsepower as a measurement unit. Today, the power of horses.
Episode: 2203 The Chankillo Observatory, first in the Western Hemisphere. Today, we learn the time of the year.
Episode: 2202 Brownie cameras and brownie sprites -- two sides of one coin. Today, cameras and sprites.
Episode: 2201 Mount Toba: the worst volcano and the worst human catastrophe. Today, a very big volcano.
Episode: 2846 Coffeehouses and the Birth of a Public Sphere. Today, let’s share a cup of coffee.
Episode: 2198 Getting ready to invent the airplane in 1901. Today, a journal tries to read the tea leaves.
Episode: 2760 Mathematics and the Early 1900s Progressive Education Movement. Today, doing away with math.
Episode: 2833 Kykkos Monastery, Cyprus, and the origins of Western monasticism. Today, monks and hermits.
Episode: 2196 In which the future we seek to know is already among us. Today, the future is among us.
Episode: 2195 Earth, Moon, and their inertial dance through the Heavens. Today, we keep track of the moon.
Episode: 2955 The Friendship Paradox: Why Your Friends Are More Popular Than You Are. Today, let's talk about your friends.
Episode: 2763 The legacy of Steve Jobs, who simplified computers and computing devices. Today, the man who made it simple.
Episode: 2194 John Smeaton: an engineer for all seasons. Today, the engineer who did everything.
Episode: 2192 Benjamin Franklin stirs up the new technology of flight. Today, Ben Franklin assesses a newborn child.
Episode: 2191 The steam boiler as neglected part of steam engine development. Today, steam boilers for the new steam engines.
Episode: 3204 Transforming Transportation from Engines to Motors. Today, our thoughts are about motors instead of engines.
Episode: 2189 Tom Benoist and the first commercial airline. Today, we invent the airline.
Episode: 2187 In which last Survivors connect then with now. Today, the last survivors.
Episode: 2184 The Aeroplane Speaks: A 1917 book plays counterpoint to war. Today, the airplane speaks.
Episode: 2973 The Lady of Mysteries Agatha Christie; The Famous Detectives Miss Marple and Hercule Piorot. Today, the lady of mysteries.
Episode: 2193 Matthew Arnold's honeymoon on Dover Beach: an odd Valentine's Day greeting. Today, a Valentine's Day greeting.
Episode: 2186 Lost beauty of old words: nostalgia thwarted a flood of new books. Today, language slips away from us.
Episode: 3225 Abraham Lincoln invents a boat which can free itself from sandbars. Today, Abe Lincoln, inventor.
Episode: 2927 Dual Inheritance Theory: How our Genes and our Culture are co-evolving. Today, let's talk about cultural complexity.
Episode: 2181 In which a car salesman becomes a camel driver and rewrites archaeology. Today, two car salesmen rewrite history.
Episode: 2180 The strange longevity of the Hollow Earth hypothesis. Today, the Hollow Earth.
Episode: 3077 When is a Victory not a Victory? The Battle of Navarino. Today, we ask: when is a victory not a victory?
Episode: 3266 Fireworks, Firecrackers, and Lunar New Year. Today, we ring the new year in with a bang.
Episode: 2179 Science magazine's list of Breakthroughs in 2006. Today, the big science news of 2006.
Episode: 2178 Liaison airplane in WW-II: modest swords made from plowshares. Today, peacetime airplanes at war.
Episode: 2722 Gathering of Materials and Methods to Craft Sailing and Space-faring Vessels. Today, voyaging at the edge of technology.
Episode: 2176 Hoaxes: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Today, we walk a fine line.
Episode: 2172 Forgetting the past, and then seeing it resurrected. Today, we remember what we'd forgotten.
Episode: 2901 Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics. Today, let's talk about Norbert Wiener and cybernetics.
Episode: 2944 The Father of Quantum Theory, The Perseverance of a Scientist Facing Multiple Tragedies. Today, a scientist's triumphs and tragedies.
Episode: 3157 Martin Luther King Jr's. remarkable means. Today, a preacher teaches us about invention.
Episode: 2171 Margaret Knight, origami, and a machine to make paper bags. Today, flexible origami and paper bags.
Episode: 2170 In which Fermi guesses the number of piano tuners in Chicago. Today, we ask, How many piano tuners in Chicago?
Episode: 2739 Evolution of the Hall from Anglo-Saxon times to the present. Today, a room without a view.
Episode: 2169 Energy from the sea -- harnessing waves and tides. Today, power from the waves.
Episode: 2166 John Fitch, a steamboat builder surrounded by the early makers of America. Today, a host of creative people hovers over a steamboat.
Episode: 2751 Mrs. Maud Mellish Wilson, architect of the Mayo Clinic's style of medical writing. Today, we look at a woman who made medical history.
Episode: 2164 Henry Selby Hele-Shaw, and the many faces of yesterday's engineer. Today, a remarkable engineer from another century.
Episode: 2165 Trucks, the important quiet cousins of our fancy automobiles. Today, we look at trucks.
Episode: 2038 Putting a leap second in an elastic year. Today, we add a second to our lives.
Episode: 2014 Boiling bubbles and fizzing bubbles: So alike, so different! Today, bubbles in soda and bubbles in teakettles.
Episode: 3052 Frankincense and Myrrh: The True Value of a Famous Gift. Today, the true value of a famous gift.
Episode: 2163 Missing Fliers: In which no conspiracy means slow sales. Today, missing fliers.
Episode: 2162 A new book of quotations, and new insights into quotations. Today, some new quotations.
Episode: 2039 In which we experience quiet on the Western Front. Today, it's quiet on the Western Front.
Episode: 1671 Quantum mechanics takes to a place we didn't know was there. Today, we think about multiple Christmases.
Episode: 1760 The Christmas Lectures: Michael Faraday's Gift to children. Today, the Christmas Lectures.
Episode: 2669 Plants and greens associated with the Christmas Season. Today, Christmas greenery.
Episode: 2161 When the eye plays tricks, and we see more than is. Today, our eyes trick us.
Episode: 2920 A Trip to the Moon, The First Science Fiction Film, The French Filmmaker Georges Méliès. Today, the first sci-fi film.
Episode: 3123 The Halifax 1917 Explosion and Vincent Coleman's Final Goodbye. Today, a final goodbye.
Episode: 3265 The path from graffiti to street art to wall murals. Today, it all began with graffiti.
Episode: 2160 The day the Dix went down: Puget Sound's worst maritime disaster. Today, the sinking of the Dix.
Episode: 2159 An old book with two stories about technological change. Today, an old book with two messages.
Episode: 2081 A Monstrosity, a Skeptic, and a new view of the 16th century. Today, guest historian Cathy Patterson gives birth to a cat.
Episode: 2864 The theorem of Reverend Bayes. Today, let’s talk about uncertainty and an 18th century Presbyterian minister.
Episode: 2157 The web-fed press and the limits of useful production output. Today, speed outruns us.
Episode: 2156 Earth without people: What would it be without us? Today, What would happen if we were gone.
Episode: 2155 From Jamestown 'til now: the glass bottle in America. Today, America makes bottles.
Episode: 2154 Wieliczka Sol, Poland's "Great Salt Treasure." Today, we take more than salt from a mine.
Episode: 2153 Of cliques and connections: graph theory, society and surveillance. Today, social cohesion, graph theory, and surveillance.
Episode: 2151 Earth Abides: Thinking about Apocalypses and lesser ills. Today, Earth Abides.
Episode: 2714 Hub Motors, aka In-Wheel Motors and their applications in electric vehicles. Today, re-inventing...wheels.
Episode: 2148 The selling of phrenology -- and other would-be sciences. Today, an old book offers a parable of our times.
Episode: 2149 Electrical words and a vision of the future. Today, a new language for a new technology.
Episode: 2147 Technological survival in metaphors of the human body. Today, we wonder which technologies last.
Episode: 2731 Invention from Injury: The Story of Louis Braille. Today, injury sparks creativity.
Episode: 3264 David Hockney, Digital Painting, and Art's Technophobia. Today, painting with pixels, in the hands of a master.
Episode: 2145 The far fringes of time -- fringes beyond our comprehension. Today, extreme time.
Episode: 2138 The P-39, Bell Airacobra: lemonade from a lemon. Today, we're given a lemon, and we make lemonade.
Episode: 2142 Schenectady seen as a surprising window into American history. Today, we look for American history in a single town.
Episode: 2152 Far from home: Traveling with the USO. Today, UH theatre director Sidney Berger is far from home.
Episode: 2909 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Providing Renewable Energy, A Comparison of Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Lithium Ion Battery. Today, a neat way to get energy.
Episode: 2139 Old Sears and Roebuck catalogs tell us about buying power then and now. Today, old catalogs and buying power.
Episode: 3263 Standard Time's slow victory of common sense over individualism. Today, clocks, railways ... and individualism.
Episode: 2137 Tenement Houses: Trying to keep a roof over the poor. Today, we look for affordable housing.
Episode: 2727 Quantum Theory's Copenhagen Interpretation and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paper. Today, we get spooky.
Episode: 2654 Recumbent bicycles and the One Hour record. Today, variations on a bicycle.
Episode: 2999 Hannibal's Grand Strategy: Genius or Failure? Today, Hannibal at the gates.
Episode: 2136 Hi-Tech in 1740: The Musical Instrument Maker of Williamsburg. Today, we make the machines that make our music.
Episode: 2135 Zeitgeist: a dangerous guest, or ghost, who walks among us. Today, more about ghosts and machines.
Episode: 2133 Industrial Arts vs. Arts and Crafts: The perfect marriage of opposite. Today, we remember the industrial arts.
Episode: 2720 Project Habbakuk: Ice Aircraft Carriers and Pykrete. Today, something simple.
Episode: 2035 The Gunpowder Plot: Terrorism little-changed in four hundred years. Today, historian Cathy Patterson asks us to "Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Episode: 2132 Absolutism: Biblical distortion and the death of scientific literacy. Today, evolution and education.
Episode: 2130 Before GPS: airplane directions painted on rooftops. Today, what did we do before GPS?
Episode: 2129 Thomas Ewing French: A reflection on "leadership" vs. true positive influence. Today, we think about being influenced.
Episode: 2960 CSI Herculaneum: How A Terrible Discovery Helps Paleodemography. Today, CSI Herculaneum.
Episode: 2128 Ken Richmond, James Blades, and the J. Arthur Rank gong. Today, the death of an icon.
Episode: 2127 How It Works vs. How to Make It: An early 20th-C case history. Today, How It Works.
Episode: 2125 Religious cartoons: a window into the mechanics of media persuasion. Today, a window into the mechanics of media persuasion.
Episode: 2717 Kant, rationalism, empiricism, and the Critique of Pure Reason. Today, a critique of pure reason.
Episode: 2815 The spread of ideas in social networks. Today, let’s talk about engineered social networks.
Episode: 3262 Where Is Skull Island & Could Such A Place Be Real? Today, explaining the impossible.
Episode: 2124 On Crystal Ballgazing: A 1918 airplane of the future. Today, a crystal ball.
Episode: 2122 Other people's money: Thoughts about diamonds and con games. Today, other people's money.
Episode: 2121 Reading about domestic mechanics in 1918 -- how soon we forget. Today, how soon we forget.
Episode: 2905 Imagination's Contributions to Science and Technology, Developmental Psychology and Imagination. Today, the gift of imagination.
Episode: 2888 The Strength Through Joy Car: Hitler's Volkswagen and American Consumer Culture. Today, the "strength through joy" car.