Transcript Standards make everything easier. When everyone can agree on a standard way to do things, regardless of how it is done, it can reduce confusion and facilitate progress. You’d […]
Episode – 0162 : All About ZIP Codes
Episode – 0162 : All About ZIP Codes Transcript Back in the day, sending letters was slow and complicated. Nothing could travel faster than the speed of a horse or […]
Episode – 0159 : Aluminum
Episode – 0159 : Aluminum Transcript Hundreds of years ago gold and silver were rare and valuable, and today they are rare and valuable. Iron and tin were cheap and […]
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Episode – 0156 : Roman Concrete
Episode – 0156 : Roman Concrete Transcript There are lots of stories about technologies and knowledge from ancient peoples that have been lost to us through history. In reality, most […]
Episode – 321 : The Mercator Projection (Encore)
Transcript Have you ever looked at a map and said to yourself “Wow, Greenland is really big!”, only to then look at a globe and realize, that Greeland wasn’t actually […]
Episode – 0152 : The Voynich Manuscript
Episode – 0152 : The Voynich Manuscript Transcript In 1912, a Polish rare book dealer purchased an extremely old codex that contained an unknown system of writing. Since then, the […]
Episode – 0143 : Get the Lead Out
Episode – 0143 : Get the Lead Out Transcript Clair Patterson was a geochemist who worked at CalTech from the 1940s through the 1990s. His work involved studying the age […]
Episode – 0127 : Really Big Telescopes
Episode – 0127 : Really Big Telescopes Transcript Since the dawn of time, humans have looked up at the night sky to watch the stars. …and then nothing happened for […]
Episode – 0113 : The World’s Deepest Hole
Episode – 0113 : The World’s Deepest Hole Transcript In 1970, scientists in the Soviet Union set out to drill the deepest hole in the world. They weren’t drilling for […]
Episode – 0098 : The SR-71 Blackbird
Episode – 0098 : The SR-71 Blackbird Translate The Lockheed SR-71, nicknamed the Blackbird, holds the record for the fastest airplane ever. A record which it set in 1976 and […]
Episode – 349 : The Tunguska Event (Encore)
Transcript In 1908, in the middle of the Siberian wilderness, near the Tunguska River, an explosion took place which was equivalent in size to the detonation of a 5 megaton […]
Episode – 336 : Isambard Kingdom Brunel (Encore)
Transcript In 2002 the BBC did a poll where they named the top 100 Britons in history. It had many people you have probably heard of, including Isaac Newton, Princess […]
Episode – 0082 : Isambard Kingdom Brunel
Episode – 0082 : Isambard Kingdom Brunel Transcript In 2002 the BBC did a poll where they named the top 100 Britons in history. It had many people you have […]
Episode – 0079 : The Global Positioning System
Episode – 0079 : The Global Positioning System Transcript Today, GPS devices that can determine where you are in the world have become ubiquitous. In fact, there is a very […]
Episode – 0074 : Potpourri Volume I: Survival
Episode – 0074 : Potpourri Volume I: Survival Transcript In the course of doing research for shows, I often come across interesting facts that wouldn’t really make for an entire […]
Episode – 0069 : An Incredibly Bright Idea
Episode – 0069 : An Incredibly Bright Idea Transcript Thomas Edison is often credited with the invention of the light bulb. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. If […]
Episode – 0067 : The First Transatlantic Cable
Episode – 0067 : The First Transatlantic Cable Transcript Today the world can communicate with text, images, audio, and video at the speed of light. Most of this is done […]
Episode – 0062 : A Brief History of Timekeeping
Episode – 0062 : A Brief History of Timekeeping Transcript Our ability to measure time is one of the fundamental things which makes us human. We’ve gone from very crude […]
Episode – 0060 : Eponymous Laws
Episode – 0060 : Eponymous Laws Transcript Everyone is probably familiar with Murphy’s Law which says that “Anything which can go wrong will go wrong.” However, there are many such […]
Episode – 0052 : The Man Who Fed the World
Episode – 0052 : The Man Who Fed the World Transcript Which person can be credited with having saved the most human lives in history? There might not be a […]