Engines of Our Ingenuity
Dettagli canale
Engines of Our Ingenuity
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 th...
Episodi recenti
311 episodi
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1617: Connections
Episode: 1617 Reflections on the dicey question of cause and effect in history. Today, the connections problem.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1616: Ivan Polzunov
Episode: 1616 Ivan Polzunov and early Russian steam engines. Today, the steam engine comes to Russia.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1615: Learning to Use Coal
Episode: 1615 On learning to use coal. Today, we learn why we shouldn't bring coals to Newcastle.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2630: Determinism and the Many Worlds Interpretation
Episode: 2630 Determinism and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3399: Fancy Fogs
Episode: 3399 In which we see fog dressed in fancy clothes. Today, we sing the merits of fancy fogs.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3398: Jerome Hunsaker
Episode: 3398 In which a remarkable engineer, Jerome Hunsaker, begins a career that will help to define American air power. Today, an engineer and an...
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3397: Magazine
Episode: 3397 In which old magazines returns us to a time when our reading was not limited by what we chose to read. Today, what is a magazine?
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1614: Advice for Living, 1836
Episode: 1614 Advice on how live our lives from 1836. Today, we learn how to live our lives -- in 1836.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1613: Faraday and Magnetism
Episode: 1613 In which Michael Faraday helps us to parse the word, Genius. Today, we watch genius at work.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1612: Enemy at the Gates
Episode: 1612 Trying to tell the story of the worst battle. Today, we wonder how to tell of history.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2627: The Bohr-Einstein Debates
Episode: 2627 Clash of the Titans: The Bohr-Einstein Debates. Today, a clash of titans.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3396: Treacherous Words
Episode: 3396 How we live with two competing vocabularies – technical and commonplace. Today, treacherous words.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3395: X-Ray’s First Year
Episode: 3395 Century Magazine reveals how scientists were viewing the new X-Rays in the year after their discovery. Today, X-Rays one year old.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3394: An Old Book of Aeroplanes
Episode: 3394 An old book of WW-I aeroplanes reveals something about technological change in wartime. Today, an old book with an unintended message.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1611: Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather
Episode: 1611 Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather: ideologies diverge and converge. Today, Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1610: Experimental Proof
Episode: 1610 Thoughts on the nature and purpose of experiments. Today, we wonder why people do experiments.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1609: Franklin’s Heat Experiment
Episode: 1609 Benjamin Franklin's experiments in thermal radiation. Today, Benjamin Franklin thinks about theoretical and applied science.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2623: Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present
Episode: 2623 Thomas Carlyle and the Working of Free Markets. Today, economic salvation.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3393: Curtiss Robin
Episode: 3393 In which the 1928 Curtiss Robin airplane was far more than it seemed to be. Today, a ride in a bland airplane.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3392: Orientalism
Episode: 3392 The Rise of Orientalism and its crescendo in the Roaring ‘20s. Today, strange happenings in the 1920s.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3391: Project Mohole
Episode: 3391 In which Project Mohole looks inside Earth while Sputnik reaches outside. Today, Inner Space versus Outer Space.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1608: Members in Tension
Episode: 1608 Three scale models of structures, with vastly different weights. Today, we design for tension.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1607: Fire Control
Episode: 1607 Continuous-aim firing: a diagnosis of an ill-received idea. Today, we aim a gun from a rocking platform.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1606: The Skycity
Episode: 1606 The Skycity: a concept struggling against its own Gothic weight. Today, the skycity.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2622: Watson
Episode: 2622 Watson: A computer system that plays Jeopardy!. Today, Jeopardy!.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3390: Big Thicket Preserve
Episode: 3390 Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve. Today, Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3389: Carlo Antonio Testore
Episode: 3389 In which Carlo Antonio Testore’s violins and other stringed instruments show him to be a different kind of Luthier. Today, a luthier t...
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3388: Omar Khayyam
Episode: 3388 Let us see how much Omar Khayyam accomplished, beyond his having inspired poet Edward FitzGerald. Today, Omar Khayyam.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1605: The Rush to Height
Episode: 1605 The brief race to build very tall buildings: 1885 to 1931. Today, the brief day of the first skyscrapers.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1604: Hydrogen
Episode: 1604 In which hydrogen balloons bind science to technology. Today, hydrogen -- in 1783.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1603: Old Galileo
Episode: 1603 Galileo: An old man grieves his daughter and writes his last book. Today, an old man writes his most important book.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2618: Søren Kierkegaard
Episode: 2618 Søren Kierkegaard: Christian Existentialist. Today, an exit.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3112: Creative Editor
Episode: 3112 Donald Barthelme: Creative Editor. Today, a sheriff of an editor.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1660: Simple Gifts
Episode: 1660 Simplicity, complexity, and Shakespeare. Today, Seattle Actor Megan Cole is here to talk about complexity, simplicity, and Shakespeare.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1602: The Tragedy of the Commons
Episode: 1602 The tragedy of the commons revisited. Today, the tragedy of the commons.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1601: Dirt
Episode: 1601 Mother dirt. Today, let's play in the dirt.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1600: Adams’s Education
Episode: 1600 Henry Adams ponders the Virgin and the Dynamo. science, medieval architecture, Langley, 1900 Paris exhibition, Chartres cathedral.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1599: Urban Archaeology
Episode: 1599 Urban archaeology: a privy provides a window to the past. Today, history in a trash bin.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2614: Pixels
Episode: 2614 Engineering Pictures Made of Pixels. Today, painting with pixels.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity #3387: Burington’s Handbook
Episode: 3387 In which an old handbook keeps teaching me for almost eight decades years. Today, an old book keeps informing me.