Engines of Our Ingenuity

Episode: 1689 Numismatics -- coins as a historical record.  Today, let's read what's written on coins.

Episode: 1686 In which steam engines struggle to teach us thermodynamics.  Today, a story about theory and practice.

Episode: 2908 Kurt Vonnegut, engineers, and scientists.  Today, so it goes.

Episode: 1685 Lord Mad Jack Byron, James Watt, & George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron.  Today, a strange connection between Lord Byron and steam power.

Episode: 2907 Quantum Computing.  Today, it’s magic.

Episode: 1684 In which we study an old machinist's handbook.  Today, a revolutionary's handbook.

Episode: 1682 Count von Zeppelin learns about flying in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Today, see if you can guess our mystery inventor.

Episode: 2906 The Octopus Mind.  Today, alien intelligence.

Episode: 1681 The Literary Digest tells us about science in 1904.  Today, a bright new century.

Episode: 2904 Chatterbots and the Turing Test.  Today, we chat.

Episode: 1679 The last days of Pompeii, rather like our own lives.  Today, we visit Pompeii.

Episode: 1678 Weave a circle and change history.  Today, we close a circle.

Episode: 2903: Delicately Engineered Hummingbirds.  Today, life as a blur.

Episode: 1677 In which I encounter the 16th Century in a Fort Worth Museum.  Today, we trick the eye.

Episode: 2902 ELIZA: Artificial Psychotherapist.  Today, mindless conversation.

Episode: 1676 Some 2500 year old Chinese bells harbor a secret.  Today, some very-old bells with a surprising secret.

Episode: 1674 Fulton's last boat: the steam-powered Battery-Catamaran.  Today, Fulton's last boat.

Episode: 3207 Repairing New Zealand's Damaged Ecosystem.  Today, what once was.

Episode: 1673 Who was Marie Lavoisier, amanuensis or collaborator?  Today, meet Marie Lavoisier.

Episode: 2900 Hayek: the economist's contributions in neuroscience and philosophy.  Today, a man who crossed over.

Episode: 1670 John Tyndall: measuring sound without electronics.  Today, how did people measure sound in the nineteenth century?

Episode: 1669 Linus Torvalds, and giving away Linux.  Today, a parable about giving versus selling.

Episode: 2898 Keynes and Hayek: The nuances of their economic perspectives.  Today, how different were they?

Episode: 1668 Scientific instruments creating a new rhetoric.  Today, new sciences, new languages.

Episode: 2895 Measuring up: How we measure, and perceive, inclines.  Today, measuring "up."

Episode: 1667 In which we look at the problem of seeing what we expect to see.  Today, we try to see what we're looking at.

Episode: 1666 In which we watch books growing old.  Today, we watch books grow old.

Episode: 2894 Wastewater Treatment.  Today, the unmentionable.

Episode: 1665 Making Artificial hearts and minds in the sixteenth century.  Today, artificial hearts, minds, and voices.

Episode: 2891 Specifics and Generalities: teaching and the problem of universals.  Today, what exactly is that?

Episode: 1664 Nomogram: the analog computer in one of its early incarnations.  Today, nomograms, analogs, and a forgotten world.

Episode: 1662 A book on water: between two worlds in an old library.  Today, we're between two worlds in an old library.

Episode: 2889 An important step toward solving the twin primes conjecture.  Today, almost twins.

Episode: 1661 Where are all the Engineers? Appearing to be something else, it would seem.  Today, where did all the engineers go?

Episode: 2887 Apple's most famous flop: The Newton.  Today, before there was "i."

Episode: 1659 Otto Lilienthal and Orville Wright -- one died and the other lived.  Today, one pioneer of flight dies while another lives.

Episode: 1658 A skill eliminates itself: from drafting to computers.  Today, a skill eliminates itself.

Episode: 3206 Australia Wins The America's Cup.  Today, they came from the land down under.

Episode: 1657 In which nature multiplies outcomes.  Today, nature and multiplication.

Episode: 2886 Not Just Gadgets: The Science of Engineering Systems.  Today, beyond gadgets.

Episode: 1656 Electric power comes to Telluride, Colorado.  Today, we install a dynamo on a mountaintop.

Episode: 1655 After the flood: Freeze-drying the history of desegragation.  Today, we Freeze-dry our past.

Episode: 2883 A dead salmon points the way to better brain imaging.  Today, outrageous research.

Episode: 1654 The forgotten renewable energy source, tidal (or lunar) power.  Today, solar power and lunar power.

Episode: 2879 The Economics of Empty Shipping Containers.  Today, empty boxes.

Episode: 1653 Aeolian harps, transmission wires, and vortex wakes.  Today, the Aeolian harp.

Episode: 1652 Justus von Liebig and the first R&D laboratory.  Today, we create the first research laboratory.

Episode: U-boats in the First World War.  Today, full speed ahead.

Episode: 1650 Learning about the stability of aeroplanes in 1916.  Today, we worry about airplane stability in 1916.

Episode: 2875 Pierre Fauchard, Father of Modern Dentistry.  Today, a profession comes of age.

Episode: 1649 Reginald Fessenden endows radio with sound.  Today, we add sound to radio.

Episode: 1648 Building a dirigible to get to the California gold rush.  Today, some thoughts on success, failure, and flying to California.

Episode: 2872 The Stimpmeter: Golf's Supremely Simple Maintenance Tool.  Today, low tech in a high tech game.

Episode: 1646 Thinking about who had done what by what age.  Today, who did what by when?

Episode: 2870 The Canal du Midi.  Today, coast to coast.

Episode: 1645 Figuring out the value of Pi.  Today, let's talk about  -- and not the kind you eat.

Episode: 1644 An 18th-century doctor helps great-grandmother raise grandpa.  Today, we raise a nineteenth-century child.

Episode: 3205 Alice Augusta Ball and Her Work on Leprosy.  Today, a legacy with a sad coda.

Episode: 1643 In which Athanasius Kircher softens the 17th-C scientific revolution.  Today, -- after Galileo.

Episode: 3204 Transforming Transportation from Engines to Motors.  Today, our thoughts are about motors instead of engines.

Episode: 1642 Reflections upon Halley's, and other, Comets.  Today, a comet approaches.

Episode: 1641 Aaron Montgomery Ward and the catalog that didn't belong in a store.  Today, meet Montgomery Ward.

Episode: 2868 Scholasticism: Reason or Revelation?  Today, reason or revelation?

Episode: 1640 Learning electricity and learning about technological revolutions.  Today, we become electrified.

Episode: 2865 Computer Divide: The Future of Microprocessors.  Today, two roads.

Episode: 1639 Helios, NASA's high-flying almost-satellite.  Today, let us ride Helios' golden chariot.

Episode: 1638 Floating airports: How to fly the ocean in 1930.  Today, let us hop across the ocean.

Episode: 2863 Bits, Nibbles, and Bytes.  Today, bits, nibbles, and bytes.

Episode: 1637 In which science and magic struggle to become separate pursuits.  Today, let's practice Natural Magic. 

Episode: 2860 Navigating the Cascade Tunnel.  Today, the tale of a tunnel. 

Episode: 1636 Of books and learning in nineteenth-century America.  Today, thoughts on books and learning. 

Episode: 1635 At the Sign of the Barber Pole: of barbers and barber-surgeons.  Today, reflections in a barbershop.

Episode: 2859 The Mind of Georg Cantor.  Today, who was Georg Cantor?

Episode: 1634 Flying the Aegean Sea in Daedalus' slipstream.  Today, we mix a magic drink for Daedalus and Icarus.

Episode: 3203 The Shape of Proteins.  Today, let's talk about the shape of proteins.

Episode: 1633 In which a Cambridge don doubts his own calculus teaching.  Today, a mathematician misses the point.

Episode: 1632 Rediscovering the sunken Union Monitor.  Today, we find the first modern warship -- on the ocean floor. 

Episode: 3202 Gladys West and the Geoid.  Today, a quiet hero.

Episode: 1631 Learning to subtract 49 from 62: more than meets the eye.  Today, what is 49 from 62?

Episode: 2857 Leonid Kantorivich, Soviet Mathematician and Economist.  Today, an economic wonder.

Episode: 1630 In which we ponder a very subjective notion of reality.  Today, nature changes before our eyes.

Episode: 1629 An old book tells about textile engineering and conservatism.  Today, we resist change.

Episode: 3201  Some Reflections on Minimalist Music.  Today, minimal. 

Episode: 1628 The first red cross ambulance.  Today, we care for wounded soldiers.

Episode: 3200 Two for One: The Banach-Tarski Paradox.  Today, two for the price of one.

Episode: 1627 A shocking look at medications in 1892 shows us how far we've come.  Today, we measure how far we've come. 

Episode: 1625 Telephone inventor Elisha Gray talks about miracles.  Today, a telephone inventor talks about miracles.  

Episode: 1624 Garrett A. Morgan: Black American inventor.  Today, thoughts about traffic lights, gas masks, and hair straighteners. 

Episode: 2855 Plainchant, Gregorian Chant, and Today's Music.  Today, plain and simple. 

Episode: 1623 The textbooks of J. Dorman and Esther Steele.  Today, we meet two very special teachers.  

Episode: 1622 Fingerprints, crime detection, and identification.  Today, I ask, "Who are you?" 

Episode: 2853 Radio frequency identification and toll roads.  Today, we ease on down the road.

Episode: 1621 Motherland: The Stalingrad Memorial.  Today, we visit a really big statue.

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: 2566 Taking Champagne to the Masses.  Today, we pop the cork.

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

Episode: 2850 Centuries of Dutch Flood Control.  Today, living on the delta. 

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

Episode: 2848 The Corrugated Cardboard Box.  Today, the power of fluting.

Episode: 1585 In which the elephant Prathida teaches me about dissonance and Christmas.  Today, dissonance, elephants, and the holiday season.