Engines of Our Ingenuity

Episode: 3403 An old book about telephones reminds of a time before our technologies were not “black boxed.”  Today, we look under the hood.

Episode: 1620 The Indian canoe -- another perfected technology.  Today, birch-bark canoes.

Episode: 1619 Theatre of Machines -- forerunners of engineering handbooks.  Today, the first handbooks.

Episode: 1618 Today we wonder whether something other than one solution exists.  Today, the forgotten lecture in your math course.

Episode: 2631 The Double Slit Experiment.  Today, a mysterious experiment.

Episode: 3402  Absolute Zero: The hunt for the lowest possible temperature.  Today, absolute zero.

Episode: 3401 Samuel Smiles and James Nasmyth: Strange bedfellows.  Today, two views of a polymath.

Episode: 3400 In which we cause water to, like a Hell-broth boil and bubble within a nuclear reactor.  Today, For a charm of powerful trouble ...

Episode: 1617 Reflections on the dicey question of cause and effect in history.  Today, the connections problem.

Episode: 1616 Ivan Polzunov and early Russian steam engines.  Today, the steam engine comes to Russia.

Episode: 1615 On learning to use coal.  Today, we learn why we shouldn't bring coals to Newcastle.

Episode: 2630 Determinism and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Episode: 3399  In which we see fog dressed in fancy clothes.  Today, we sing the merits of fancy fogs.

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 airplane.

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?

Episode: 1614 Advice on how live our lives from 1836.  Today, we learn how to live our lives -- in 1836.

Episode: 1613 In which Michael Faraday helps us to parse the word, Genius.  Today, we watch genius at work.

Episode: 1612 Trying to tell the story of the worst battle.  Today, we wonder how to tell of history.

Episode: 2627 Clash of the Titans: The Bohr-Einstein Debates.  Today, a clash of titans.

Episode: 3396 How we live with two competing vocabularies – technical and commonplace.  Today, treacherous words.

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.

Episode: 3394 An old book of WW-I aeroplanes reveals something about technological change in wartime.  Today, an old book with an unintended message.

Episode: 1611 Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather: ideologies diverge and converge.  Today, Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather.

Episode: 1610 Thoughts on the nature and purpose of experiments.  Today, we wonder why people do experiments.

Episode: 1609 Benjamin Franklin's experiments in thermal radiation.  Today, Benjamin Franklin thinks about theoretical and applied science.

Episode: 2623 Thomas Carlyle and the Working of Free Markets.  Today, economic salvation.

Episode: 3393 In which the 1928 Curtiss Robin airplane was far more than it seemed to be.  Today, a ride in a bland airplane.

Episode: 3392  The Rise of Orientalism and its crescendo in the Roaring ‘20s.  Today, strange happenings in the 1920s.

Episode: 3391 In which Project Mohole looks inside Earth while Sputnik reaches outside.  Today, Inner Space versus Outer Space.

Episode: 1608 Three scale models of structures, with vastly different weights.  Today, we design for tension.

Episode: 1607 Continuous-aim firing: a diagnosis of an ill-received idea.  Today, we aim a gun from a rocking platform.

Episode: 1606 The Skycity: a concept struggling against its own Gothic weight.  Today, the skycity.

Episode: 2622 Watson: A computer system that plays Jeopardy!.  Today, Jeopardy!.

Episode: 3390 Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve.  Today, Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve.

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 teaches us a lesson.

Episode: 3388 Let us see how much Omar Khayyam accomplished, beyond his having inspired poet Edward FitzGerald.  Today, Omar Khayyam.

Episode: 1605 The brief race to build very tall buildings: 1885 to 1931.  Today, the brief day of the first skyscrapers.

Episode: 1604 In which hydrogen balloons bind science to technology.  Today, hydrogen -- in 1783.

Episode: 1603 Galileo: An old man grieves his daughter and writes his last book.  Today, an old man writes his most important book.

Episode: 2618 Søren Kierkegaard: Christian Existentialist.  Today, an exit.

Episode: 3112 Donald Barthelme: Creative Editor.  Today, a sheriff of an editor.

Episode: 1660 Simplicity, complexity, and Shakespeare.  Today, Seattle Actor Megan Cole is here to talk about complexity, simplicity, and Shakespeare.