Engines of Our Ingenuity
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Engines of Our Ingenuity
The 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 th...
Recent Episodes
329 episodes
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1624: Garrett Morgan
Episode: 1624 Garrett A. Morgan: Black American inventor. Today, thoughts about traffic lights, gas masks, and hair straighteners.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2636: Admiral Michael Mullin and Mathematics
Episode: 2636 Admiral Michael Mullen and Mathematics. Today, leading the charge.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2851: Unplanned Obsolescence
Episode: 2851 The Lake Breeze Fan: Unplanned Obsolescence. Today, invention and obsolescence.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3404: Correspondence Schools
Episode: 3404 The rise and fall of ICS, The International Correspondence School. Today, International Correspondence Schools.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1623: Joel Dorman and Ester Steele
Episode: 1623 The textbooks of J. Dorman and Esther Steele. Today, we meet two very special teachers.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1622: Fingerprints
Episode: 1622 Fingerprints, crime detection, and identification. Today, I ask, "Who are you?"
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1621: Motherland
Episode: 1621 Motherland: The Stalingrad Memorial. Today, we visit a really big statue
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2753: Henry Gantt
Episode: 2753 Henry Laurence Gantt. Today, we chart new territory.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2641: Ghosts of Niagara
Episode: 2641 Niagara Falls and the development of hydroelectric power. Today, ghosts of Niagara.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2977: Thomas Jefferson and the Maison Carrée
Episode: 2977 Thomas Jefferson, the Maison Carrée, and the Virginia State Capitol. Today, Thomas Jefferson in love.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3403: Telephone in 1904
Episode: 3403 An old book about telephones reminds of a time before our technologies were not “black boxed.” Today, we look under the hood.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1620: The Indian Canoe
Episode: 1620 The Indian canoe -- another perfected technology. Today, birch-bark canoes.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1619: A Theatre of Machines
Episode: 1619 Theatre of Machines -- forerunners of engineering handbooks. Today, the first handbooks.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1618: Existence and Uniqueness
Episode: 1618 Today we wonder whether something other than one solution exists. Today, the forgotten lecture in your math course.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2631: The Double Slit Experiment
Episode: 2631 The Double Slit Experiment. Today, a mysterious experiment.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3402: Absolute Zero
Episode: 3402 Absolute Zero: The hunt for the lowest possible temperature. Today, absolute zero.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3401: Two Views of a Polymath
Episode: 3401 Samuel Smiles and James Nasmyth: Strange bedfellows. Today, two views of a polymath.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3400: Hell-Broth
Episode: 3400 In which we cause water to, like a Hell-broth boil and bubble within a nuclear reactor. Today, For a charm of powerful trouble ...
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1617: Connections
Episode: 1617 Reflections on the dicey question of cause and effect in history. Today, the connections problem.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1616: Ivan Polzunov
Episode: 1616 Ivan Polzunov and early Russian steam engines. Today, the steam engine comes to Russia.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1615: Learning to Use Coal
Episode: 1615 On learning to use coal. Today, we learn why we shouldn't bring coals to Newcastle.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2630: Determinism and the Many Worlds Interpretation
Episode: 2630 Determinism and the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3399: Fancy Fogs
Episode: 3399 In which we see fog dressed in fancy clothes. Today, we sing the merits of fancy fogs.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3398: Jerome Hunsaker
Episode: 3398 In which a remarkable engineer, Jerome Hunsaker, begins a career that will help to define American air power. Today, an engineer and an...
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3397: Magazine
Episode: 3397 In which old magazines returns us to a time when our reading was not limited by what we chose to read. Today, what is a magazine?
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1614: Advice for Living, 1836
Episode: 1614 Advice on how live our lives from 1836. Today, we learn how to live our lives -- in 1836.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1613: Faraday and Magnetism
Episode: 1613 In which Michael Faraday helps us to parse the word, Genius. Today, we watch genius at work.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1612: Enemy at the Gates
Episode: 1612 Trying to tell the story of the worst battle. Today, we wonder how to tell of history.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2627: The Bohr-Einstein Debates
Episode: 2627 Clash of the Titans: The Bohr-Einstein Debates. Today, a clash of titans.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3396: Treacherous Words
Episode: 3396 How we live with two competing vocabularies – technical and commonplace. Today, treacherous words.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3395: X-Ray’s First Year
Episode: 3395 Century Magazine reveals how scientists were viewing the new X-Rays in the year after their discovery. Today, X-Rays one year old.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3394: An Old Book of Aeroplanes
Episode: 3394 An old book of WW-I aeroplanes reveals something about technological change in wartime. Today, an old book with an unintended message.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1611: Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather
Episode: 1611 Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather: ideologies diverge and converge. Today, Benjamin Franklin and Cotton Mather.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1610: Experimental Proof
Episode: 1610 Thoughts on the nature and purpose of experiments. Today, we wonder why people do experiments.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1609: Franklin’s Heat Experiment
Episode: 1609 Benjamin Franklin's experiments in thermal radiation. Today, Benjamin Franklin thinks about theoretical and applied science.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2623: Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present
Episode: 2623 Thomas Carlyle and the Working of Free Markets. Today, economic salvation.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3393: Curtiss Robin
Episode: 3393 In which the 1928 Curtiss Robin airplane was far more than it seemed to be. Today, a ride in a bland airplane.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3392: Orientalism
Episode: 3392 The Rise of Orientalism and its crescendo in the Roaring ‘20s. Today, strange happenings in the 1920s.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3391: Project Mohole
Episode: 3391 In which Project Mohole looks inside Earth while Sputnik reaches outside. Today, Inner Space versus Outer Space.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1608: Members in Tension
Episode: 1608 Three scale models of structures, with vastly different weights. Today, we design for tension.