Claim OwnershipEngines of Our Ingenuity
Subscribed: 668Played: 64,924
Subscribe
℗ & © 2026 Houston Public Media
Description
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 the University of Houston. It is not a product of our news team.
764 Episodes
Reverse
Episode: 2864 The theorem of Reverend Bayes. Today, let's talk about uncertainty and an 18th century Presbyterian minister.
Episode: 3247 Proust, Turing, and the Measure of Humanity. Today, we go from Turing to Proust.
Episode: 1550 Making a book of The Engines of Our Ingenuity. Today, we wonder how to make a book.
Episode: 1549 Compte Rendus, 1836: a snapshot of science at high tide. Today, we read modern science when it was first being made.
Episode: 1547 Mystery at the threshhold of the Twentieth Century. Today, let's reclaim mystery.
Episode: 1546 Max Jakob: a breath of fresh air in a new land. Today, a great engineer escapes the Holocaust.
Episode: 2576 Are screw caps good for wine? Today, a turn of the screw.
Episode: 2687 Getting to know the organisms that live on and in the human body. Today, what lives within us.
Episode: 3367 In which Scientific American Magazine gets wrong, the airflow during singing. Today, Scientific American gets it wrong.
Episode: 3366 The throw-away bottle cap: More than it seems to be. Today, we invent the bottle cap.
Episode: 1545 The English and 18th century ballooning. Today, we ride the first hot-air balloons in England.
Episode: 1544 An operetta about electric lights, written before Edison's light bulb. Today, an electric-light opera.
Episode: 1543 Archimedes' pump, rediscovered by Ceredi, heralds the new science. Today, meet the person who reinvented Archimedes' pump.
Episode: 2575 The illustrious history of Prime Numbers. Today, some numbers for the ages.
Episode: 3228 Designing safe computer controls. Today, flying by computer.
Episode: 3365 A 1906 set of Shop Notes offers a lesson in technological change. Today, a manual tells us more than it means to.
Episode: 1542 In which Francis Bacon pushes a strict Aristotelian Agenda. Today, science tries to find its way.
Episode: 1541 Do 'Horseshoe Nails' really alter human history? Today, we ask if horseshoe nails are real.
Episode: 1540 The Korean Turtle Boat - the first ironclad. Today, we meet a turtle with an iron shell.
Episode: 2572 Melville and Anna Bissell and the Carpet Sweeper. Today, a husband and wife engineer success.
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States
traction motors on today's locomotives are essentially "hub motors" powered by 5000 hp diesel engines that generate the electricity needed to turn steel wheels.