Engines of Our Ingenuity
1,199 episodes - English - Latest episode: 14 days ago - ★★★★★ - 165 ratingsThe story of technological progress is one of drama and intrigue, sudden insight and plain hard work. Let’s explore technology’s spectacular failures and many magnificent success stories.
This content is in service of Houston Public Media’s education mission and is sponsored by the University of Houston. It is not a product of our news team.
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Episodes
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2686: Frank and Lillian Moller Gilbreth
August 19, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2686 The Story of Frank and Lillian Moller Gilbreth. Today, cheaper by the dozen.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3261: Heavy Lift Vessels
August 17, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 3261 Meeting Global Construction Deadlines with Heavy-Lift Vessels. Today, heavy lift vessels.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2092: Is Thermodynamics a Science?
August 16, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2092 Is thermodynamics a science, or it is only derived from physics? Today, we wonder what makes a science.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2091: Hvalsøy Church
August 15, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2091 A wedding at the Hvalsøy Church in Greenland. The last word in AD 1408. Today, an old stone church.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2090: Mercenary Pilots
August 13, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2090 Aerial soldiers of fortune: In which war is more exciting than barnstorming. Today, flying mercenaries.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2683: Taylorism
August 12, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2683 Taylorism: early scientific management. Today, Neanderthal genes.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2680: The Electoral College
August 10, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2680 What happens when no presidential candidate receives a majority of electoral votes? Today, we vote for president.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2088: Johann Joachim Becher
August 09, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2088 Johann Joachim Becher, mercantilism, phlogiston, and gold. Today, a 17th-century thinker searches for gold.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2089: Nathan Read
August 08, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2089 Nathan Read, Colonial inventor: a life well-lived. Today, a life well lived.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2087: Gauss’s Algorithm
August 06, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2087 Gauss's famous calculation: an exercise in sorting fact from fiction. Today, Gauss's trick.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2678: Hugh Everett: The Physicist and the Man
August 05, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2678 Hugh Everett III: Man of Many Worlds. Today, a tragedy in at least one universe.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2765: The Turk
August 04, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2765 The Mechanical Turk. Today, the chess playing automaton.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2672: Self Replicating Machines
August 03, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2672 Self replicating machines. Today, remaking yourself.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3260: Lysenko
August 02, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 3260 Lysenko: How power corrupts science. Today, a sad wedding of science and politics.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2086: George Henry Lewes
August 01, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2086 George Henry Lewes, Victorian "man of letters." Today, a man of letters.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3259: A Treason to Yield
July 30, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 3259 Conceding error -- a treason to yield. Today, we resist reason.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2668: Quilting and the Houston Quilt Show
July 29, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2668 Learning about quilting at the Houston International Quilt Festival. Today, a stitch in time.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2831: Reading COSMO
July 28, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2831 Reading the Long History of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Today, a great American magazine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2665: When Obvious Isn’t Obvious
July 27, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2665 Intellectual vigilance: when obvious isn't obvious. Today, the people on the bus.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3258: Karl Plagge
July 26, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 3258 In which a Nazi is named Righteous Among the Nations. Today, righteousness in a strange place.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2085: The Thera Eruption
July 25, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2085 The Eruption of Thera: a terrible volcano redirects history. Today, a natural disaster alters history.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2083: Orukter Amphibolos
July 23, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2083 Trouble in the history books: Revisiting the Orukter Amphibolus. Today, trouble in the history books.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2663: Horatio Alger
July 22, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2663 Horatio Alger. Today, a Horatio Alger story.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3065: Victor and Eva Saxl
July 21, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.59 MBEpisode: 3065 Victor and Eva Saxl: Love, War and Homemade Insulin. Today, love, war and insulin.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2660: Inside the Machine
July 20, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2660 Computers, Brains, and the Church-Turing Thesis. Today, inside the machine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2082: Date Nails
July 19, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2082 Date Nails: a historical record left in the wood. Today, we nail down dates.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2084: Bush Pilots
July 18, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2084 Bush pilots: Opening up remote corners of the world. Today, bush pilots.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2080: The Survival of Invention
July 16, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2080 China: A case history in the survival/nonsurvival of invention. Today, we ask why only some inventions survive.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2659: Role Models for Creative Minds
July 15, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2659 The influence of role models in shaping creative minds. Today, possibilities.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2884: The Images of Kanji
July 14, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2884 Communicating Through Pictures: The Japanese Language. Today, the images of Kanji.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2657: Derangements and the Number e
July 13, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2657 Pierre de Montmort, derangements, and the number e. Today, derangements.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2079: A Lost Locomotive
July 12, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2079 A lost locomotive, The America. Today, a lost locomotive.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2072: The Star Spangled Banner
July 11, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2072 Exponential growth: trying to square the metaphor with the math. Today, a national anthem has come and gone.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2078: Why the Speed of Sound?
July 09, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2078 Today, why does sound have a speed?
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2652: Descartes the Scientist
July 08, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2652 Descartes, the Scientist. Today, an extended postscript.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3257: Red Dye
July 06, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.71 MBEpisode: 3257 The Discovery of Red Dye from Insects. Today, the mystery of red dye.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2077: Last Words
July 05, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2077 Last Words: What do we say before we die? Today, the last word.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2076: Exponential Growth
July 04, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2076 Exponential growth: trying to square the metaphor with the math. Today, exponential growth.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2074: Isabella Bird
July 02, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2074 Isabella Bird, A remarkable powerhouse of the 19th-century travel literature. Today, a Victorian lady takes a trip.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2651: American Women’s Suffrage and Alice Paul
July 01, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2651 American Women's Suffrage and Alice Paul. Today, we march.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2647: The Give and Take of Internet Shopping
June 29, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2647 The Give and Take of Internet Shopping. Today, getting to know you.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2070: Time and Ruth Belville
June 28, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2070 The Belville family: Selling time for 103 years. Today, Ruth Belville tells us the time.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2071: Parker’s Philosophy
June 27, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2071 Parker's and Plympton's Philosophy: retaining what is good across and intellectual chasm. Today, a book straddles an intellectual divide.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2069: Alexander Bain
June 25, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2069 Alexander Bain: so many ideas before their time. Today, invention at the wrong time.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2646: On Being the Right Size
June 24, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2646 J. B. S. Haldane's "On Being the Right Size." Today, on being the right size.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2754: Culturomics
June 23, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2754 Culturomics. Today, let’s talk about how to model culture.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2829: Cesare Lombroso
June 22, 2021 20:22 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2829 Cesare Lombroso and his Museum. Today, a head in a jar.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3256: Chemical Communication
June 22, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 3256 Insect chemical communication makes efficient delivery routes. Today, the invisible language of insects.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2068: Of Pandas and Airplanes
June 21, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2068 The Westland Lysander: Of Pandas and Airplanes. Today, pandas and airplanes.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2067: Of Sharks and Speed
June 20, 2021 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2067 Sharkskins and Fast Efficient Ships. Today, we touch a shark.