Podcast appearances and mentions of tom levenson

Tom Levenson shows how a nation's dosh differs from coin that appears from other sources, and why you should care.

Thank you for listening to our podcast episode with science history writer, Tom Levenson! Please make sure to like the Youtube video, subscribe, and share it with your friends! We hope that this episode can give you some insight as to how science in the past can help shape the science of the future.​ and for Everything Astronomy... Check us out on all of our podcast platforms! https://linktr.ee/everythingastronomy​​​​ Check us out on social media! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/evastropodc...​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EvAstroPodcast?s=... 0:00 Intro 0:07 The validity of science communication as news in light of Covid-19 10:20 The differences between scientific papers and science news 15:15 The efficiency of science communication 21:33 The importance of storytelling in scientific communication 26:00 The preparation involved with scientific communication beyond reading research papers 32:24 The failure to engage with science as a large human enterprise 38:58 How some scientific ideas were ignored initially but accepted later by other scientists 43:31 Professor Levenson's approach to writing about scientific discoveries 48:18 The gaps in the history of our scientific knowledge 59:49 The most interesting scientific stories that Professor Levenson has read about 1:03:50 Conclusion

In this episode of the @VersusHistory Podcast, we are delighted to interview Thomas Levenson, Professor of Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His new book ‘Money for Nothing' is the remarkable tale of the world’s first-ever financial crash, which took place 300 years ago, in the year 1720. It tells the captivating stories of a host of entertaining characters who became caught up in the world’s first financial bubble; with luminaries such as Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope and even Isaac Newton losing out in a scheme that was ‘too good to be true’. ‘Money for Nothing’ explores how the scientific revolution extended to matters far beyond the flight of a cannonball or the dynamics of the tides, extending into the idea that empiricism and maths could make sense of everyday life; and how the invention of modern ideas about money both made the world rich and expose us to predictable hazards that we have, to date, three centuries on, failed to fully prepare for. The South Sea Company was formed to monopolize trade with Spain’s American colonies. But it had almost no ships and did precious little trade. So it turned its hand to playing money games, until, in 1720, it launched the first great stock market boom, fraud and bust, in what is now remembered as the South Sea Bubble. The financial engineering pioneered in the Bubble didn’t go away. Instead, it evolved into the same kinds of market manipulation that brought the world’s economy crashing down in 2008. In the moment, though, it all seemed to work brilliantly. Exactly 300 years ago, in June 1720, South Sea shares hit their peak, a ten-fold gain. Britain’s punters—up to and including the King’s mistresses—had grown incredibly, impossibly rich—on paper. And then the carousel stopped and thousands lost their shirts. Isaac Newton, the Duke of Portland (England’s richest man) and others lost heavily. Tom Levenson's superb account of the South Sea bubble dissects that huge scam—but that tale isn’t just a disaster story. It is also the story of the birth of modern financial capitalism: the idea that you can invest in future prosperity and that governments can borrow money to make things happen, like funding the rise of British naval and mercantile power. These dreamers and fraudsters may have ruined Britons, but they made the world rich. For terms of use, please visit www.versushistory.com

Used to the controlled uncertainties of his work, science writer Tom Levenson is forced to confront the dramatic uncertainty of whether he’ll be able to adopt a son. Tom Levenson writes books (most recently The Hunt for Vulcan) and makes films, about science, its history, and whatever else catches his magpie's love of shiny bits. His work has been honored by a Peabody, a National Academies Science Communication and an AAAS Science Journalism Award, among others. By day he professes at MIT, where he directs the Graduate Program in Science Writing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MIT professor of science writing Tom Levenson discusses his new book, The Hunt for Vulcan…And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe. For decades, scientists discovered, dismissed, and rediscovered a hidden planet — Vulcan — thought to be responsible for the wobble in Mercury’s orbit. But in war-torn Berlin, in 1915, Albert Einstein proposed that gravity wasn’t as Newton saw it but was space itself, warped: what became his general theory of relativity. The discovery actually takes us back to 19th century astronomer Urbain Jean-Joseph Le Verrier, who originally identified Mercury’s wobble, and causes Levenson to ask: why did it take more than 50 years for science to change its mind about the existence of Vulcan? Levenson is director of our Graduate Program in Science Writing. He is the winner of Walter P. Kistler Science Documentary Film Award, Peabody Award (shared), New York Chapter Emmy, and the AAAS/Westinghouse award. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, the Boston Globe, Discover, and The Sciences. He is winner of the 2005 National Academies Communications Award for Origins. On sale at http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/254788/the-hunt-for-vulcan-by-thomas-levenson/

Governments, corporations, and communities plan for sudden crises: the White House drafts strong responsive rhetoric for the next terrorist attack; Toyota runs reassuring national TV spots within hours of a product recall; and 32 Massachusetts towns successfully publicize water distribution sites following a water main rupture. However, like the housing collapse or the recent Gulf oil spill, some crises are complex, difficult to warn of, and don’t cleanly fit traditional media frames. They are slow moving, and the media still struggles to rhetorically or technologically cover these simmering, rather than boiling, dramas. With government regulators weak, corporations still focused on the bottom line, and communities adapting to structural change, this Communications Forum asks: What new media tools and strategies can be used to help everyone better prepare for the unique communications challenges of slow-moving crises? Andrea Pitzer is editor of Nieman Storyboard, a project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University that looks at how storytelling works in every medium. Storyboard’s mission is to feature the best examples of visual, audio and multimedia narrative reporting. Abrahm Lustgarten is an investigative reporter for ProPublica — his recent work has focused on oil and gas industry practices. He is a former staff writer and contributor for Fortune, and has written for Salon, Esquire, the Washington Post and the New York Times since receiving his master’s in journalism from Columbia University in 2003. He is the author of the book China’s Great Train: Beijing’s Drive West and the Campaign to Remake Tibet, a project that was funded in part by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Rosalind Williams is a historian who uses imaginative literature as a source of evidence and insight into the history of technology. She has taught at MIT since 1982 and currently serves as the Dibner Professor for the History of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society. She has also served as head of the STS Program and Dean for Undergraduate Education and Student Affairs at the Institute, as well as president of the Society for the History of Technology. She has written three books as well as essays and articles about the emergence of a predominantly human-built world and its implications for human life. Her forthcoming book extends this theme to examine consciousness of the condition of “human empire” as expressed in the writings of Jules Verne, William Morris, and Robert Louis Stevenson in the late 19th century. Moderated by Tom Levenson, who is Head and of the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies as well as Director of its graduate program. Professor Levenson is the winner of Walter P. Kistler Science Documentary Film Award, Peabody Award (shared), New York Chapter Emmy, and the AAAS/Westinghouse award. His articles and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Boston Globe, Discover, The Sciences, and he is winner of the 2005 National Academies Communications Award for Origins.