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 2967: In Praise of Confusion
October 22, 2023 05:00 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2967 How we learn only by engaging our confusion and working through it. Today, let's make use of confusion.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2965: Forgetting Names
October 21, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2965 Our names: emblems of power, sooner or later forgotten. Today, let us forget names.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2964: Lettice Curtis
October 20, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2964 Lettice Curtis: just one of many heroes of Britain's Air Transport Auxiliary. Today, meet Lettice Curtis.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2945: The Once Great Port of New York
October 19, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.82 MBEpisode: 2945 The Once Great Port of New York. Today, a gritty beginning.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2035: The Gunpowder Plot
October 18, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2035 The Gunpowder Plot: Terrorism little-changed in four hundred years. Today, historian Cathy Patterson asks us to "Remember, remember, the fifth of November.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2815: How Ideas Spread
October 17, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2815 The spread of ideas in social networks. Today, let's talk about engineered social networks.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2963: Paradoxes
October 16, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2963 What is a paradox? No such thing, once we understand! Today, paradoxes.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2961: Infinity
October 15, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.78 MBEpisode: 2961 In which we struggle to give meaning to the word infinity. Today, infinity.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2959: A Great Divide
October 14, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2959 Learning to fact-check in a nation divided by contradictory facts. Today, truth-seeking across a great divide.
Engines of our Ingenuity 2958: Octave Lapize
October 13, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2958 The Tour de France and WW-I: bicycles, aeroplanes, and Octave Lapize. Today, bicycles, airplanes, and war,
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2943: Recording Without Electricity
October 12, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2943 Recording Before Electricity. Today, a cornucopia of sound.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2920: The Moon’s Eye
October 11, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2920 A Trip to the Moon, The First Science Fiction Film, The French Filmmaker Georges Méliès. Today, the first sci-fi film.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2790: Vaccine Scares
October 10, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2790 The Dynamics of Vaccine Scares. Today, let's talk about vaccine scares.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2954: A Singular Floatplane
October 09, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2954 The U.S. Navy Floatplane: A lost evolutionary branch of the airplane family tree. Today, a singular floatplane.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2950: Oil Under the Sea
October 08, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2950 Oil under the sea: the evolution of offshore drilling for gas and oil. Today, oil under the sea.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2941: A Last Piggy-Back Airplane
October 07, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2941 NASA's Shuttle Carrier Airplane (SCA), a last piggy-back airplane, retires. Today, a last piggy-back airplane.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2937: Shukhov’s Hyperboloids
October 06, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2937 Vladimir Shukhov's hyperboloid structures: double curvature and Moscow's Shukov Radio Tower. Today, Vladimir Shukhov's hyperboloids.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2942: Hilton Hotels in Space
October 05, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2942 Hilton Hotels in Space. Today, we reach for the stars.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2782: Group Decision Making
October 04, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2782 Decision Making in Animal and Human Groups. Today, let's talk about how groups make decisions.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 3236: The Humble Index Card
October 03, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.78 MBEpisode: 3236 Analysis, Creativity, and the Humble Index Card. Today, the humble index card.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2935: Whale Aerodynamics
October 02, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2935 In which humpback whales revise airfoil theory with the tubercles on their flippers. Today whale aerodynamics.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2932: Snopes, Monopoly, and POWs
October 01, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2932 Monopoly games for POWs and the creation of myths. Today, Monopoly games and mythology.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2929: Goodwin Sands
September 30, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2929 The treacherous Goodwin Sands give up the last Dornier-17. Today, the Goodwin Sands.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2925: The Francis H Leggett
September 29, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2925 The wreck of the Francis H. Leggett and the question: What makes history interesting? Today, Oregon's worst shipwreck.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2940: Polio and Mathematics
September 28, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.77 MBEpisode: 2940 Polio and Mathematics. Today, mathematicians ask, "should we rid the world of polio?"
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2831: Reading Cosmo
September 27, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2831 Reading the Long History of Cosmopolitan Magazine. Today, a great American magazine.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2765: The Mechanical Turk
September 26, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2765 The Mechanical Turk. Today, the chess playing automaton.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2921: Airplane Genetics
September 25, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2921 The development of Italy's Reggiane 2005 fighter plane from the American P-35 as genetic analogy. Today, airplane genetics.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2911: Quincy Mine Hoist
September 24, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2911 A very big spool: The Quincy Mine No. 2 Shaft Hoist, the largest in the world. Today, a very big spool.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2896: Nadezhda Popova
September 23, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2896 In which Nadezhda Popova beats off the Wehrmacht in a crop-duster. Today, Nadia Popova.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2892: Steampunk
September 22, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2892 Steampunk: An exercise in writing science fiction without predicting the future. Today, steampunk.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2939: Alternative Power Transmission
September 21, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2939 Getting Power Inside: Alternative Power Transmission Systems. Today, why electricity?
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2909: Renewable Energy
September 20, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2909 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Providing Renewable Energy, A Comparison of Hydrogen Fuel Cell and Lithium Ion Battery. Today, a neat way to get energy.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2829: Cesare Lombroso
September 19, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2829 Cesare Lombroso and his Museum. Today, a head in a jar.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2880: Glacier Bay
September 18, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2880 Glacier Bay as seen by John Muir before 1885 — different now. Today, Glacier Bay, in another time.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2877: What Bees See
September 17, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2877 What do bees and other creatures see with their unimaginable eyes? Today, technology, engineering, and art.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2876: The Scientists Speak
September 16, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2876 In which engineers and scientists assess their work in 1945. Today, scientists speak as WW-II ends.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2874: The Ground Effect
September 15, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.75 MBEpisode: 2874 The ground effect in the service of birds and human vehicles. Today, the ground effect.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2938: The Gospel of Wealth
September 14, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2938 Andrew Carnegie's The Gospel of Wealth. Today, the gospel of wealth.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2946: Man or Monster?
September 13, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.73 MBEpisode: 2946 Man or Monster? The Legend of the Golem and the Age of Technology. Today, what can an old legend tell us about the future?
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2621: A Marriage of Sound and Space
September 12, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.72 MBEpisode: 2621 Giovanni Gabrieli and the Venetian School of Polychoral music at St. Mark's Basilica, Venice. Today, a marriage of sound and space.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2871: Solar Power in 1884
September 11, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2871 In which Samuel P. Langley talks about solar powered engines in 1884. Today, an idea, long before its time.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2867: Fresnel and Lighthouses
September 10, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2867 Augustin Fresnel, light, and lighthouses: from the science of light to the saving of ships. Today, Fresnel and his Lighthouses.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2866: How Many Wings or Strings?
September 09, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2866 How many wings on an aeroplane — How many strings on a violin? Thoughts on the maturation of technologies. Today, How many wings or strings on an aeroplane or a violin?
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2849: Fern Andra
September 08, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2849 Fern Andra and Lothar von Richthofen: One lived, one died. Today, Fern and Lothar.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2936: Parker Brothers
September 07, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2936 George S. Parker and the Parker Brothers. Today, for the love of games.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2539: τέχνη, Tacit & Spoken
September 06, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.74 MBEpisode: 2539 Define technology? Why, it's as easy as riding a bike! Today, medical historian Helen Valier offers us a new look at the language of technology.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2823: Hypnotic Crimes
September 05, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2823 Gilles de la Tourette and Hypnotic Crimes. Today, hypnotic crimes.
Engines of Our Ingenuity 2827: Dimensionless Groups
September 04, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2827 Dimensionless groups, helping us to deal with the similarity of often very different situations. Today, dimensionless groups.
Engines of our Ingenuity 2825: Innumeracy
September 03, 2023 05:01 - 3 minutes - 1.76 MBEpisode: 2825 In which our lack of fluency with numbers (innumeracy) threatens our national well-being. Today, innumeracy.