A science teacher with a master’s degree in history publicly struggles to make sense of his world and yours.
The first split second. But first, constants of nature versus prototype objects. But also, scientific notation.
It occurs to Ben that giving up on public education might not be a great idea.
Ben turns to animism. Neil deGrasse Tyson bursts into the studio Kool-Aid style to hawk his wares.
Ben sits down with the Sun for an exclusive interview.
Ben finds out that someone beat the Irish to America. Recorded in the Honda Fit Studio in May 2020.
The Algic language family. Peter Minuit. Beavers. This episode has it all.
Ben proposes that all things have infinite causes and that one set of causes is “absent-factor” causes. He confides in the listener that he has genes on both strands of his DNA. And, subsequent to purportedly teaching it, he realizes that there's a difference between inter-atomic and inter-molecular bonds and that liquids are caused by atmospheric pressure.
Ben attends an AA meeting for the cookies, inexplicably struggles to understand why someone can't see you when you're hiding behind a door, and argues that it's misleading to say telescopes allow you to see back in time.
Ben defends the Emancipation Proclamation in his car.
Ben proposes a model of planetary and stellar development he calls the Developmental Trajectory of Gravitationally-Bound Spherical Objects, and then he drinks a seltzer in his car.
Ben talks about why he does the podcast, resenting people, and how to form durable memories. Ramses the Great pops in to discuss Richard Evans' The Third Reich in Power over Bubly Bounce.
Ben opens his mouth and words come out, for better or worse. Robert Sapolsky remains nameless.
Ben attempts to draw some lessons from the first four years of his teaching career but doesn't.
Ben discusses the Algonquian and Iroquois people who first settled what would one day become New York State, the coastal geography of New York City, and the arrival of European explorers in North America, including John Cabot, Giovanni da Verrazzano, and Henry Hudson. He also discusses what it means to discover.
Ben talks about the twelve fermions and six bosons that apparently constitute everything.
Ben argues that facts are mental models and proposes what he calls the spectrum of variability of independently-arrived-at ideas to help explain why some concepts seem too obvious to merit analysis while others seem infinitely fungible.
Ben explores how our minds trick us into achieving larger, hidden goals by inspiring us to pursue a series of seemingly unrelated proximal, local goals. He also explores the evolutionary significance of ridicule.
Ben describes a clever study that made use of the ability of Russians to more quickly discern between shades of blue.
Ben tells the story of Pompeii, from its Etruscan origins through its Samnite and Roman phases and its destruction and eventual rediscovery. He begins by exploring the sources of heat that drive plate tectonics and volcanism, then describes the Scramble for the Bay of Naples, the Greek influence on the structures of the Etruscan Altstadt, and how the Etruscans left their mark on the place names of the region. He describes the Temple to Jupiter, the Basilica, and the House of Sallust, each erected in Pompeii by the Oscan-speaking Samnites following their conquest of the region around 500 AD. He describes the changes brought by the Romans following the conquest of the city by Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He describes the House of the Faun, a riot in the amphitheater, and the earthquake and volcanic eruption that silenced the city for more than a millennium and a half. He also describes the rediscovery of Pompeii and the role of nineteenth-century Italian nationalist and archaeologist Giuseppe Fiorelli in both associating the city with Italian national identity and establishing it as an iconic and haunting symbol of sudden destruction recognized around the world.
Ben surreptitiously brags about correcting an elite academic while explaining that the Three-Fifths Compromise isn’t what you probably think it is and that the First Amendment is first by accident.
Ben learns that if you kick a quantum field hard enough, fermions come out; sleepwalks 3 mph on the night side of Mercury so that he never has to wake up for work again; and wonders if the universe is just trying to make us feel stupid when it claims to have a beginning but no origin point.
Ben makes good on his threat. Livin’ in a dump is the first Teenage Ninja Kids recording in about a decade.
Ben rambles about electricity, Mulder doesn’t trust a local meteorologist, and Sean McQuilken is struck by lightning. Ben and Tim play catch with a trash barrel at Courtney Drive.
Ben shares a brief clip of a Teenage Ninja Kids song that he’s working on.
Ben extrapolates from a tedious litany of his own personal spelling errors, discusses Forensic Files episodes featuring mistimed performances, and remembers when the UFC accidentally ran the wrong ad.
Ben talks SCOTUS, including the June Medical Services abortion ruling and whether or not there is a constitutional right to the insanity plea. Pope Formosus joins us from beyond the grave for an exclusive interview.
Ben argues that we don’t take seriously enough the negative consequences of emotionally unavailable parenting.
The Supreme Court incorporates the sixth-amendment implied guarantee that jury convictions must be unanimous, Ben learns that Ursa Major is a prehistoric constellation, and Edwin Hubble discovers that, no matter how hard you try, some things are out of reach.
Ben asks whether color is real, explores the electromagnetic spectrum, and remembers Ms. Rosenblatt’s class. Injustice is done to the comparative anatomy of vision. Kamala Harris pops in to explain why Biden is wrong to agree with her on busing.
In response to a high volume of listener requests, Ben shares his thoughts on Brett Weinstein’s recent appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Ben ventures back to the Stone Age, likens JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson to heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, and remembers playing with toy cars. Along the way, he meets a one-off Hellenic caveman, hafts a spear, and finds a clay spindle whorl. Virginia congressman Howard Smith plies our studio audience with hemlock.
Ben defends being wrong and criticizes intellectuals who quibble about the causes of police brutality rather than proposing policies that would reduce its incidence.
Ben endorses hiring more women cops, requiring two-year degrees for cops, legalizing marijuana, and having someone other than cops respond to certain types of emergencies. Ulysses S. Grant runs through a McDonald’s naked. This episode was written by our bass player Greg.
Ben categorizes people based on their relationship to knowledge, Erasmus shoots the breeze in Restored Classical Pronunciation Greek, and Chinese people speak Chinese.
Ben argues that retrodictions are impossible and words don’t have essences.
Ben examines the psychology of Facebook birthday fundraiser posts, shares his parsimonious working theories of podcasting, and addresses the motivation to produce art that has no audience.
Ben enters second grade, Pantera releases Cowboys from Hell, and Hubble glimpses doom. Dick van Dyke stops by to snap some photos.
Ben learns something terrible, Ian gets to know a pterodactyl, and Doug bumps into an old pal.
Ben takes you back to Buffalo, New York in 1881 when a dentist named Alfred Porter Southwick witnesses an accidental electrocution. What happened next changed the way we carry out executions and helped shape the War of the Currents that soon erupted between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse. Ben also recounts the tale of Zambian Afronaut Edward Nkoloso and remembers the call he placed that landed him in his first band.
Ben loses to his girlfriend at Chess Costanza-style, shares what he’s learned about constellations, and remembers Chantel singing Mariah Carey.
Ben confronts our lack of inborn knowledge, learns ancient Mesopotamian history from the bass player for the Bangles, and proposes a new way of talking.
Ben explores the significance of impermanence, remembers Nana and Henry, and confesses to having toppled the Sick Man of Movie Rentals. Boethius pops by to worship Satan.
Ben shares his online dating experiences. He then recounts his harrowing encounters with both the Burger Kings of Beverly and the Hell’s Angels.
Ben explores definition types, including the definitional boundary problem, his disappointment with Wittgenstein’s concept of family resemblances, and the elusiveness of essences. He also mischaracterizes the nature of body heat.
Ben explores what it means for a debate to be purely semantic, why he doesn’t believe plants feel pain, and neuroscience research that helps explain why he is a pizza-eating zombie. Michael Gazzaniga pops in to lobotomize our studio audience.
Ben grapples with the concepts of blame and causation while a certain Roman dictator stops in to ply our studio audience with garum.
Ben talks interstellar objects, space travel disasters, and sublime Martian landscapes. In the process, he mispronounces scientific terms and mistakenly calls a prefix a suffix. He also takes a deep dive into Hawaiian politics.
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