Dr. John Lienhard – Houston Public Media

Episode: 3370 A Look at Poetry and the Importance of Rhythmic Metre. Today, the rhythm of poetry.

Episode: 3368 The possibility that there exists a reality out of reach of any human science. Today, we wonder what's real.

Episode: 1564 The Second Law of Thermodynamics and time’s arrow. Today, we see why time goes only from then to now.

Episode: 1562 Guido da Vigevano uses war as an excuse to invent. Today, a medieval inventor goes to war — almost.

Episode: 1561 ‘Hustling Hinkler, Up in the Sky’ – an early Australian flier leaves his mark. Today, an odd hero of early aviation.

Episode: 1560 In which we ‘look’ at the world through a narrow slit. Today, we look at the world through a narrow slit.

Episode: 1559 Music-making: the first technology. Today, we look for the oldest technology.

Episode: 1558 Mastered by nature, we o’ercome by art – then as now. Today, an old debate in a new arena.

Episode: 1556 In which we run out of manual arts teachers for our schools. Today, let’s work with our hands.

Episode: 1554 In which new science yields new instruments: 1500 to 1950. Today, a new class of machines and new viewpoint.

Episode: 1553 Galileo, Torricelli, von Guericke, and the idea of a vacuum. Today, we invent vacuum.

Episode: 1552 The ocean – the wild card in global warming. Today, we wonder how things are really heating up.

Episode: 1551 In which Gary Larson tells us the piano was invented earlier than we thought. oday, a lesson in invention from the Far Side.

Episode: 1550 Making a book of The Engines of Our Ingenuity. Today, we wonder how to make a book.

Episode: 1549 Compte Rendus, 1836: a snapshot of science at high tide. Today, we read modern science when it was first being made.

Episode: 1547 Mystery at the threshhold of the Twentieth Century. Today, let’s reclaim mystery.

Episode: 1546 Max Jakob: a breath of fresh air in a new land. Today, a great engineer escapes the Holocaust.

Episode: 3367 In which Scientific American Magazine gets wrong, the airflow during singing. Today, Scientific American gets it wrong.

Episode: 3366 The throw-away bottle cap: More than it seems to be. Today, we invent the bottle cap.

Episode: 1545 The English and 18th century ballooning. Today, we ride the first hot-air balloons in England.

Episode: 1544 An operetta about electric lights, written before Edison’s light bulb. Today, an electric-light opera.

Episode: 1543 Archimedes’ pump, rediscovered by Ceredi, heralds the new science. Today, meet the person who reinvented Archimedes’ pump.

Episode: 3365 A 1906 set of Shop Notes offers a lesson in technological change. Today, a manual tells us more than it means to.

Episode: 3364 In which my understanding of invention turns upon a simple hinge. Today, we begin with a simple door hinge.

Episode: 1542 In which Francis Bacon pushes a strict Aristotelian Agenda. Today, science tries to find its way.

Episode: 1541 Do ‘Horseshoe Nails’ really alter human history? Today, we ask if horseshoe nails are real.

Episode: 1540 The Korean Turtle Boat – the first ironclad. Today, we meet a turtle with an iron shell.

Episode: 3362 A 1914 Engineering Magazine teaches us much about the evolution of our technology. Today, a revealing old magazine.

Episode: 3361 The versatile, intelligent, Raven has much to teach us. Today, ravens in thin air.

Episode: 1539 In which a thin layer of fluid determines whether an airplane flies. Today, a wind blows by us.

Episode: 1538 In which the various centuries show their faces. Today, we ask what a century looks like.

Episode: 1537 John Wilkins talks about life on the Moon, in 1638. Today, life on the moon.

Episode: 3359 An very special lineage: Charles Darwin: Grandson of Josiah Wedgwood and Erasmus Darwin. Today, Charles Darwin's grandparents.

Episode: 3358 Onesiphore Pecqueur and the invention of your car's differential gears. Today, let us meet Onesiphore Pecqueur.

Episode: 1536 A seventy-year old picture of transcontinental flight. Today, let’s fly across American in 1930.

Episode: 1535 The mechanical clock as tactile philosophy. Today, we invent the mechanical clock.

Episode: 1534 Making sense of the slippery concept of acceleration. Today, let’s think about falling.

Episode: 3355 The rise of the lowly and ubiquitous Tin Can, and its various openers. Today, let us make tin cans.  

Episode: 1533 The Triple Nickel: the first Black paratroopers become smoke jumpers. Today, a secret WW-II battle.

Episode: 1532 The invention and selling of the typewriter. Today, the typewriter teaches us its purpose.