Engines of Our Ingenuity
1,199 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 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 3076: Optimization
October 08, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 3076 Optimization. Today, we drive to work.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3074: John and Charles Deere
October 06, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.78 MBEpisode: 3074 John and Charles Deere. Today, we see green.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1341: Physiology in 1872
October 05, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.69 MBEpisode: 1341 A view of physiology in 1872 -- not that long ago. Today, let's look at medicine when my grandfather was young.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1939: Complex Simplicity
October 04, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1939 Simplicity on the other side of complexity: The standard deviation. Today, complex simplicity.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1937: Flying to Hawaii
October 02, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1937 The Great, and deadly, After-the-Fact, Flying-to-Hawaii, Race. Today, we fly to Hawaii.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3073: Continuity
October 01, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 3073 A Look at Continuity. Today, seeing and getting.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3070: Leon Theramin
September 29, 2020 05:01 - 6 minutes - 2.82 MBEpisode: 3070 Leon Theremin's Remarkable Music Machine. Today, an aural oddity.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1212: Macroparasites
September 28, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.66 MBEpisode: 1212 Human history in terms of macroparasites and microparasites. Today, we wonder who feasts upon whom.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1936: Electric Toy Making
September 27, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1936 Making electric toys in 1891. Today, we make electric toys.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1935: Wilson, Before Audubon
September 25, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1935 Alexander Wilson, America's ornithologist before Audubon. Today, an unlikely ornithologist.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3205: Alice Augusta Ball
September 24, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.88 MBEpisode: 3205 Alice Augusta Ball and Her Work on Leprosy. Today, a legacy with a sad coda.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3243: The Water Illusion Machine
September 23, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.84 MBEpisode: 3243 Hollywood's Heroic Water FX. Today, water effects.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3242: Dr. John McLoughlin
September 22, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.86 MBEpisode: 3242 Dr. John McLoughlin and the Colonies That Stayed. Today, a doctor helps expand a nation.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1210: Pasteur’s Biomilitarism
September 21, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.64 MBEpisode: 1210 In which Louis Pasteur puts medicine on a war footing. Today, the language of war attaches itself to medicine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1931: Wu Ting-Fang in America
September 20, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1931 Chinese diplomat Wu Ting-Fang looks at America in 1914. Today, Wu Ting-Fang looks at America.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1934: Somerville, Curiosity, and Learning
September 18, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1934 Mary Fairfax Somerville: a wild child teaches us about learning. Today, a wild young girl becomes a great scientist.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3202: Gladys West
September 17, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.83 MBEpisode: 3202 Gladys West and the Geoid. Today, a quiet hero.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2426: Charles Dow
September 16, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.78 MBEpisode: 2426 Charles Dow and the Creation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Today, an “average” guy.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3069: Edward Saylor: Repairman
September 15, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 3069 Edward Saylor: Repairman. Today, we fix things.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2511: Nostrums and Quackery
September 14, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2511 An Early 20th-century crackdown on medical quacks. Today, quack medicine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1932: The Lost Patents
September 13, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1932 1790 to 1836: Ten thousand lost patents. Today, we lose ten thousand patents.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1930: Durability of Writing
September 11, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1930 In which languages die out, but the letters live on. Today, the durability of writing.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3067: Multiples of Nine
September 10, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 3067 The Remarkable Perception of a Mathematical Oddity. Today, the creativity in all of us.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2579: Music and Mathematics
September 09, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2579 Music and Mathematics. Today, UH Math Professor Krešo Josić talks about music and mathematics.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1141: The Tipping Point
September 07, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.64 MBEpisode: 1141 Tipping points in human affairs: in disease, crime, and education. Today, a thought about math education, parents, and the camel's back.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1928: Moth Balls or M&Ms
September 06, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1928 Packing objects -- spheres, cannonballs, or M&Ms. Today, a thought about commerce, cannonballs and M&Ms.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1927: Balthazar-Georges Sage
September 04, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1927 Balthazar-Georges Sage: an example of history aging in the cask. Today, history as an aging process.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3066: Creativity Behind the Scenes
September 03, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 3066 Creativity Behind the Scenes. Today, creativity sneaks up on us.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2620: Reading Baden-Powell
September 02, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2620 Robert Baden-Powell and the Invention of the Boys Scouts. Today, the invention of the Boy Scouts.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3064: Crowdsourced Problem Solving
September 01, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 3064 Crowdsourced Problem Solving. Today, creativity outsourced.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2795: Carlos Finlay
August 31, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2795 Carlos Finlay, The Cuban Who Helped Defeat Yellow Fever. Today, Cuban who helped defeat yellow fever.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1925: In the Museums
August 30, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1925 Reflecting on nine museum-dense days in England. Today, we go to museums.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1924: George Green
August 28, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1924 In which a miller changes the course of 19th-C mathematics. Today, a miller takes up mathematics.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3063: Chrysler’s K Cars
August 27, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 3063 How the K Car Saved Chrysler. Today’s episode is brought to you by the letter K.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3062: The Rise and Fall of Rubber City
August 25, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 3062 The Rise and Fall of the Rubber City Capital of the World. Today, failure to adapt.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3240: Origins of Engines’ Ingenuity
August 24, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.84 MBEpisode: 3240 An Inventive Mind Reaches a Milestone. Today, The Engines of Our Ingenuity honors its own inventor.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1923: The London Eye
August 23, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.79 MBEpisode: 1923 The London Eye: In which a Ferris Wheel becomes a London icon. Today, the London Eye.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1919: Möbius
August 21, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1919 Möbius and his strip: an abstract spur to applied mathematics. Today, Möbius' strip.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2249: Mrs. Coade’s Stone
August 19, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2249 Mrs. Coade's remarkable stones. Today, architectural historian Margaret Culbertson tells about a woman who made artificial stone.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3060: Radical Behaviorism
August 18, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 3060 B.F. Skinner and Radical Behaviorism. Today, cultural engineering.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2687: What Lives Within Us
August 17, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2687 Getting to know the organisms that live on and in the human body. Today, what lives within us.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1920: The Life and Death of the Akron
August 16, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: The life and the death of Akron: A technology fails after a valiant struggle. Today, the life and the death of the Akron.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1916: Anesthesia in 1848
August 14, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 1916 An inside look at the use of anesthesia in 1848. Today, anesthesia in 1848.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3059: Vera Rubin and Dark Matter
August 13, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 3059 Vera Rubin and Dark Matter. Today, that which can’t be seen.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2531: Reading Vienna
August 12, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2531 Reading Vienna: A history through architecture. Today, we read Vienna.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3058: Bounding Billies
August 11, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 3058 Bounding Billies. Today, bounding billies.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2534: History and Epidemic Disease
August 10, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2534 History and Epidemic Disease. Today, medical historian Helen Valier offers us a new look at history and epidemic disease.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1918: Fairness
August 09, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1918 Cooperation and fairness: Enforcing the Golden Rule. Today, we put teeth in the Golden Rule.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1915: A Walk Up-Town
August 07, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1915 A walk through lower Manhattan in 1900. Today, a walk up-town.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3057: Ivan Pavlov
August 06, 2020 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 3057 Ivan Pavlov: Digestion and Conditioned Reflex. Today, a Pavlovian perspective.