DiscoverEngines of Our Ingenuity
Engines of Our Ingenuity
Claim Ownership

Engines of Our Ingenuity

Author: Houston Public Media

Subscribed: 651Played: 58,703
Share

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.

323 Episodes
Reverse
Episode: 1286 A steam-powered motorcycle, invented well before its time.  Today, the motorcycle rides out of the Civil War.
Episode: 1285 Carriages: A forgotten technology.  Today, let's ride a gig, or a hack, or a phaeton.
Episode: 1284 Mikhail Goldshtik: A death and a beginning.  Today, a creative legacy.
Episode: 2387 Recycling Plastics.  Today, just one word.
Episode: 1983 Inventing the newspaper in seventeenth-century England.  Today, our guest, historian Cathy Patterson reports on the invention of the newspaper.
Episode: 2502 Computer assisted proofs: How machines extend our mind's reach.  Today, let's ask how computers help us see mathematical truths.
Episode: 1282 The development of the seemingly uncomplicated window pane.  Today, we learn to make window panes.
Episode: 1281 An old religious tract provides a window upon the Huguenots.  Today, an old book and a new look at creativity and dissent.
Episode: 1280 On making data tell their story.  Today, let's figure out how to plot a graph.
Episode: 1279 Two Newtons, an old mechanics text, and the fight against slavery.  Today, a moving bit of marginalia.
Episode: 2384 Swaying wooden roller coasters.  Today, we sway.
Episode: 2487 John von Neumann's ideas on the similarities and differences of computers and brains.  Today, UH math professor Krešo Josić talks about brains, computers and John von Neumann.
Episode: 2143 In which Emma Lazarus reinvents the Statue of Liberty.  Today, UH scholar Dorothy Baker tells us about Emma Lazarus.
Episode: 1278 The Quonset hut: a design with remarkable staying power.  Today, we build an instant house.
Episode: 1277 Railroads in winter: finding our way through the snow.  Today, rails and snow.
Episode: 1276 In which the art leads the mind how to cast light on nature.  Today, light calls up the creative muse.
Episode: 1275 Merthyr Tydfil, a window into the squalid conditions after the Industrial Revolution.  Today, let's visit Merthyr Tydfil.
Episode: 2361 Making ethanol from cellulose.  Today, we make moonshine.
Episode: 2279 In which medical people learn how to save babies on the boardwalk.  Today, our guest, medical historian Julie Anderson takes us to see premature babies at carnival sideshows.
Episode: 2356 Hebrew and Yiddish struggle for ascendancy after WW-II.  Today, scholar Richard Armstrong considers the world of language textbooks
loading