Engines of Our Ingenuity

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.

Episode: 1602 The tragedy of the commons revisited.  Today, the tragedy of the commons.

Episode: 1601 Mother dirt.  Today, let's play in the dirt.

Episode: 1600 Henry Adams ponders the Virgin and the Dynamo.  science, medieval architecture, Langley, 1900 Paris exhibition, Chartres cathedral.

Episode: 1599 Urban archaeology: a privy provides a window to the past.  Today, history in a trash bin.

Episode: 2614 Engineering Pictures Made of Pixels.  Today, painting with pixels.

Episode: 3387 In which an old handbook keeps teaching me for almost eight decades years.  Today, an old book keeps informing me.

Episode: 3386 In which the search for visualizing four dimensions leads, ultimately, to mathematics.  Today, the missing dimensions.

Episode: 1598 Surface Tension: a tiny force, but omnipresent.Today, we look at the edge of a water droplet.

Episode: 1597 The Ottoman Empire telegraph, linking Europe and Asia.  Today, the telegraph connects Europe and Asia.

Episode: 1596 Looking for the "first" automobile.  Today, let's try to find the first automobile.

Episode: 2611 Early science fiction: Kepler's Somnium.  Today, a dream.

Episode: 3264 David Hockney, Digital Painting, and Art's Technophobia.  Today, painting with pixels, in the hands of a master.

Episode: 3385 The weird Blohm & Voss BV141 airplane, and reflections on asymmetry.  Today, a weird aeroplane.

Episode: 3384 Further thoughts about the search for extra-terrestrial life.  Today, Alien life forms.

Episode: 1595 In which Alfred Stieglitz and 291 anticipate Modern.  Today, Stieglitz and photography, art and reality.

Episode: 1594 The Mad Scientist -- he keeps coming back.  Today, the mad scientist.

Episode: 1593 The LST-325: Thirty old men and an old ship become young again.  Today, the LST-325.

Episode: 2608 Maria Telkes: Solar Energy Pioneer.  Today, here comes the sun.

Episode: 3383 Mr. Herschel’s Milky Way “millstone”.  Today, an early Milky Way model.

Episode: 3382 Thoughts about coping with the disorder in our lives and the disorder in our world.  Today, disorder.

Episode: 3381 The last ride of NASA’s Shuttle carrier, N905NA.  Today, the last Shuttle-carrier.

Episode: 1592 In which we use fancy words instead of simple ones.  Today, the quotidian denominator.

Episode: 1591 Baroque violins and the notion of a completed technology.  Today, let's talk about complete technologies.

Episode: 1590 The Great Wall of China -- a long and checquered history.  Today, a 2300-year-old wall.

Episode: 2606 More Beautiful Books: revisiting books by the foot.  Today, the measure of a book.

Episode: 2901 Norbert Wiener and Cybernetics.  Today, let's talk about Norbert Wiener and cybernetics.

Episode: 2888 The Strength Through Joy Car: Hitler's Volkswagen and American Consumer Culture.  Today, the "strength through joy" car.

Episode: 1589 Pluto: We finally reach the outer fringe of the Solar System.  Today, we discover Pluto.

Episode: 1588 The Nieuport 17, early harbinger of the finished WW-I fighter.  Today, a case history of technological change.

Episode: 1587 In which airplanes gradually learn to wage war.  Today, we turn plowshares into swords.

Episode: 1586 Topsell's history of four-footed beasts and serpents.  Today, a zoology book.

Episode: 2603 Correlation and Risk: When more egg baskets don't help.  Today, eggs and baskets.

Episode: 2893 How the batteries work; The electrodes and electrolytes; The Wonders of Electrochemistry.  Today, the magic of batteries.

Episode: 3380 What underlies a term from physics: Ergodic (or Ergodicity).  Today, let us steal a word from physics.

Episode: 3379 A look at the overarching meaning of the word “Gestalt.”  Today, a curious word: Gestalt.