Shows / Engines of Our Ingenuity
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 the University of Houston. It is not a product of our news team.
Episodes
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1622: Fingerprints
Episode: 1622 Fingerprints, crime detection, and identification. Today, I ask, "Who are you?"
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1621: Motherland
Episode: 1621 Motherland: The Stalingrad Memorial. Today, we visit a really big statue
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2753: Henry Gantt
Episode: 2753 Henry Laurence Gantt. Today, we chart new territory.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2641: Ghosts of Niagara
Episode: 2641 Niagara Falls and the development of hydroelectric power. Today, ghosts of Niagara.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1620: The Indian Canoe
Episode: 1620 The Indian canoe -- another perfected technology. Today, birch-bark canoes.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1619: A Theatre of Machines
Episode: 1619 Theatre of Machines -- forerunners of engineering handbooks. Today, the first handbooks.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2631: The Double Slit Experiment
Episode: 2631 The Double Slit Experiment. Today, a mysterious experiment.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3402: Absolute Zero
Episode: 3402 Absolute Zero: The hunt for the lowest possible temperature. Today, absolute zero.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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 ...
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1617: Connections
Episode: 1617 Reflections on the dicey question of cause and effect in history. Today, the connections problem.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1616: Ivan Polzunov
Episode: 1616 Ivan Polzunov and early Russian steam engines. Today, the steam engine comes to Russia.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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 airplane.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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?
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3396: Treacherous Words
Episode: 3396 How we live with two competing vocabularies – technical and commonplace. Today, treacherous words.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
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.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1607: Fire Control
Episode: 1607 Continuous-aim firing: a diagnosis of an ill-received idea. Today, we aim a gun from a rocking platform.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1606: The Skycity
Episode: 1606 The Skycity: a concept struggling against its own Gothic weight. Today, the skycity.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2622: Watson
Episode: 2622 Watson: A computer system that plays Jeopardy!. Today, Jeopardy!.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3390: Big Thicket Preserve
Episode: 3390 Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve. Today, Geraldine Watson & The Big Thicket National Preserve.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3389: Carlo Antonio Testore
Episode: 3389 In which Carlo Antonio Testore’s violins and other stringed instruments show him to be a different kind of Luthier. Today, a luthier teaches us a…
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3388: Omar Khayyam
Episode: 3388 Let us see how much Omar Khayyam accomplished, beyond his having inspired poet Edward FitzGerald. Today, Omar Khayyam.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1605: The Rush to Height
Episode: 1605 The brief race to build very tall buildings: 1885 to 1931. Today, the brief day of the first skyscrapers.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1604: Hydrogen
Episode: 1604 In which hydrogen balloons bind science to technology. Today, hydrogen -- in 1783.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1603: Old Galileo
Episode: 1603 Galileo: An old man grieves his daughter and writes his last book. Today, an old man writes his most important book.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2618: Søren Kierkegaard
Episode: 2618 Søren Kierkegaard: Christian Existentialist. Today, an exit.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3112: Creative Editor
Episode: 3112 Donald Barthelme: Creative Editor. Today, a sheriff of an editor.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1660: Simple Gifts
Episode: 1660 Simplicity, complexity, and Shakespeare. Today, Seattle Actor Megan Cole is here to talk about complexity, simplicity, and Shakespeare.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1602: The Tragedy of the Commons
Episode: 1602 The tragedy of the commons revisited. Today, the tragedy of the commons.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1601: Dirt
Episode: 1601 Mother dirt. Today, let's play in the dirt.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1600: Adams’s Education
Episode: 1600 Henry Adams ponders the Virgin and the Dynamo. science, medieval architecture, Langley, 1900 Paris exhibition, Chartres cathedral.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1599: Urban Archaeology
Episode: 1599 Urban archaeology: a privy provides a window to the past. Today, history in a trash bin.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2614: Pixels
Episode: 2614 Engineering Pictures Made of Pixels. Today, painting with pixels.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity #3387: Burington’s Handbook
Episode: 3387 In which an old handbook keeps teaching me for almost eight decades years. Today, an old book keeps informing me.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3386: Fourth Dimension
Episode: 3386 In which the search for visualizing four dimensions leads, ultimately, to mathematics. Today, the missing dimensions.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1598: Surface Tension
Episode: 1598 Surface Tension: a tiny force, but omnipresent.Today, we look at the edge of a water droplet.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1597: Ottoman Telegraph
Episode: 1597 The Ottoman Empire telegraph, linking Europe and Asia. Today, the telegraph connects Europe and Asia.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1596: The First Automobile?
Episode: 1596 Looking for the "first" automobile. Today, let's try to find the first automobile.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 2611: Kepler’s Somnium
Episode: 2611 Early science fiction: Kepler's Somnium. Today, a dream.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3264: Hockney’s iPad Impressionism
Episode: 3264 David Hockney, Digital Painting, and Art's Technophobia. Today, painting with pixels, in the hands of a master.
- Engines of Our Ingenuity
The Engines of Our Ingenuity 3385: Blohm & Voss BV141
Episode: 3385 The weird Blohm & Voss BV141 airplane, and reflections on asymmetry. Today, a weird aeroplane.