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 1171: The Ignobel Prizes
May 11, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.64 MBEpisode: 1171 The IgNobel Prizes: At what point does satire go wrong? Today, a concern about satire.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1170: The Iatros
May 10, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBEpisode: 1170 A visit to an iatros -- a doctor -- in a 400 BC clinic. Today, we visit a 2400-year-old clinic.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2006: Rain Shadow
May 09, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2006 Sequim's strange blue hole in the midst of rain. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd stays dry.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2243: Organizing for Disaster
May 08, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.62 MBEpisode: 2243 Organizing for disaster: One place where New Orleans did it right. Today, our guest, UH journalist Michael Berryhill, prepares for a rainy day.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2693: To Our SHips
May 07, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2693 On the Nature of Ships, and a Fond Farewell to the Shuttle Discovery. Greetings from the flight deck of the Space Shuttle Discovery, where today we celebrate our ships.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1169: Two Kinds of Structural Design
May 06, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBEpisode: 1169 From stacked stone to steel: a shift in structural concept. Today, we make buildings by stacking stone.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1168: Voltaire and Science
May 05, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.65 MBEpisode: 1168 Voltaire, Newton, science, and the French Revolution. Today, Newton, Voltaire, and the French Revolution.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1167: Machiavelli
May 04, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.65 MBEpisode: 1167 Machiavelli's attempt to make objective science of statecraft. Today, thoughts about Machiavelli and immature science.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1166: Josquin Des Prez
May 03, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.66 MBEpisode: 1166 Searching for the historical Josquin Desprez. Today, academic detectives look for the real Josquin.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1994: Theory and Encryption
May 02, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1994 Encryption: abstraction in the world of practical business. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd sends secret messages.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2897: Privacy and Technology
May 01, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2897 A (Very) Short History of Privacy and Technology. Today, privacy and technology.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2779: Smart Phones / Wise Phones
April 30, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2779 Smartphones/Wise Phones, our changing relationship with phones over the last century. Today, smartphones vs. wise phones.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1165: Count Rumford
April 29, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.59 MBEpisode: 1165 Benjamin Thompson/Count Rumford and the conservation of energy. Today, we meet a Bavarian count who was born in colonial Massachusetts.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1164: Things Bite Back
April 28, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.62 MBEpisode: 1164 Why Things Bite Back: The Revenge Effect. Today, nature takes revenge.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1163: A Better Mousetrap
April 27, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.6 MBEpisode: 1163 To build a better mousetrap -- that people will use. Today, let's build a better mousetrap.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1162: Systems
April 26, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.61 MBEpisode: 1162 Systems: Much more than the sum of their parts. Today, let's see how machines transcend themselves.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1979: Airplane Reservations
April 25, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1979 How to process five thousand airline reservation requests in one second. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd buys plane tickets.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3001: Archimedes To the Rescue
April 24, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 3001 Archimedes to the Rescue. Today, Archimedes to the rescue.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2739: Hall
April 23, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2739 Evolution of the Hall from Anglo-Saxon times to the present. Today, a room without a view.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1161: Roman Water Wheel
April 22, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBEpisode: 1161 An old Roman mill tells about the acceptance of technology. Today, we try to make sense of an old Roman power plant.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1159: Nevil Shute’s Ordeal
April 21, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.62 MBEpisode: 1159 In which Nevil Shute looks at the ordeal of aerial bombing. Today, Nevil Shute predicts the chilling anonymity of war.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1158: The Crystal Palace
April 20, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.61 MBEpisode: 1158 The Crystal Palace, the 1851 exhibition, and Victorian art. Today, we look for art to equal the building that holds it.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1157: Marketing Model A
April 19, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.64 MBEpisode: 1157 Merchandising Windows 95 and the Ford Model A. Today, we sell Model A's and Windows 95.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1971: Lame, Cauchy, and Kummer
April 18, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1971 In which Lame, Cauchy, and Kummer race to prove Fermat's last theorem. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd relives a race.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3029: Model Citizen
April 17, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.65 MBEpisode: 3029 Model Citizen. Today, lets talk about models.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3241: Hooker’s Green
April 16, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.82 MBEpisode: 3241 Green with Immortality. Today, we go green with immortality.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1156: The Machine as Mirror
April 15, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.66 MBEpisode: 1156 We mirror machine mirrors we mirror machine mirrors we ... Today, an analogy game.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1154: Adam’s Belly Button
April 14, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.62 MBEpisode: 1154 In which Adam's navel poses the question of pre-creation history. Today, a silly question about Adam's navel paves the way for evolution.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1153: Grosseteste and Bacon
April 13, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBEpisode: 1153 Grosseteste, Bacon, and the rise of realism. Today, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, and cyberspace.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1152: Macbeth
April 12, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.62 MBEpisode: 1152 Macbeth, populism, and insanity. Today, Shakespeare tells us how to stay sane.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1961: The Four-Color Problem
April 11, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 1961 The Four-Color Problem -- an strange old puzzle, almost resolved. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd colors maps.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3121: Getting Typhus
April 10, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 3121 Charles Nicolle and the Transmission of Typhus. Today, we get typhus.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2985: Relative Accuracy
April 09, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2985 Relative Accuracy. Today, we'll question the virtue of accuracy.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1150: Arguing Racism
April 08, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.65 MBEpisode: 1150 Arguing racism: Time for rational, rather than moral, arguments. Today, we analyze racism.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1149: Heat Transfer
April 07, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.67 MBEpisode: 1149 Heat Transfer Conference ("Wherever there's a thermal gradient"). Today, we move energy.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1148: 1846
April 06, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.66 MBEpisode: 1148 1846: Origin of the Smithsonian Institution in a momentous year. Today, let's talk about American expansion, and the Smithsonian Institution.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1147: Points Off
April 05, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.61 MBEpisode: 1147 Points-Off thinking: a damaging force in education and sports. Today, we ask how many points to take off.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1952: Constants of Nature
April 04, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1952 The only-possible constants of nature: The only-possible us. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd looks at the grandest machine of all.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2944: Max Planck’s Triumphs and Tragedies
April 03, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2944 The Father of Quantum Theory, The Perseverance of a Scientist Facing Multiple Tragedies.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3123: Vincent Coleman
April 02, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 3123 The Halifax 1917 Explosion and Vincent Coleman's Final Goodbye. Today, a final goodbye.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1146: Creating a New Country
April 01, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.61 MBEpisode: 1146 Early Massachusetts: a cultural beachhead, not yet a new country. Today, America leaves its Eastern beaches.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1145: Jacquard and Babbage
March 31, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.6 MBEpisode 1145: Jacquard, Babbage, Hollerith, IBM: from weaving to computers. Today, a story about wool weaving and computers.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1144: Fokker D-VII
March 30, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.68 MBEpisode: 1144 A Fokker D-VII mysteriously lands on an Allied airstrip. Today, the last vestige of fictional war.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1143: Shakespeare and Medicine
March 29, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.6 MBEpisode: 1143 Shakespeare's long-standing fascination with medicine. Today, Shakespeare's fascination with medicine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1950: Girolamo Cardano
March 28, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 1950 Girolamo Cardano: The tormented life of a towering renaissance thinker. Today, guest scientist Andrew Boyd shares a story of triumph and tragedy.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2714: Hub Motors
March 27, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2714 Hub Motors, aka In-Wheel Motors and their applications in electric vehicles. Today, re-inventing...wheels.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3296: Keeping the Lights On in Hong Kong
March 26, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 3.38 MBEpisode: 3296 Icons of Hong Kong: Neon Signs, and Local Cinema. Today, we hope the lights never go out in Hong Kong.
Engines of Our Ingenuity1142: Legend and Flight
March 25, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.63 MBEpisode: 1142 The accumulation of empirical data in the legends of flight. Today, old stories turn from legend into experimental development.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1140: Twentieth-Century Tents
March 24, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.65 MBEpisode: 1140 Tents: a very old and very modern architecture. Today, a new architecture -- the tent!
Engines of Our Ingenuity 1139: The Wounded Story-Teller
March 23, 2024 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.66 MBEpisode: 1139 The Wounded Story Teller recovers from illness. Today, we tell the story of an illness.