Podcast Transcript You’ve probably heard of artificial intelligence systems which have gotten so good that they can beat the best humans at Go, chess, and even Jeopardy. However, over 200 years ago one Hungarian engineer created a mechanical device that could defeat the world’s greatest chess players. Sort of. Learn more about The Mechanical Turk …
Podcast Transcrip Despite what you might have been told, Christopher Columbus and his expedition were not the first Europeans to reach the Americas. Almost 500 years earlier, a small group of Norse settlers arrived on what is today the Island of Newfoundland. Yet, their presence on the continent was short-lived and no one ever came …
Podcast Transcript Believe it or not, one of the most valuable elements on the Periodic Table was also the first one that was discovered by humans. Since then it has held a prominent spot in almost every culture on Earth. We use it to signify first place, we use it as a metaphor for important …
Podcast Transcript On November 11th, 1918, the first world war came to an end. Or to be more precise, the fighting stopped. For the next eight months, a final peace treaty was hammered out, and hanging over the negotiations was the very real threat that fighting could break out again. In the end, the treaty …
Podcast Transcript 62 miles north of Los Angeles in the city of Palmdale, California, lies one of the most secretive aircraft design and production centers in the world: Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Program. From this location, some of the most famous and important military aircraft in the 20th and 21st centuries were created….and they are …
Podcast Transcript The planet Mercury is the smallest, fastest, and most pot-marked planet in our solar system. It is in many ways, unlike any other planet. However, there is more to this overlooked planet than meets the eye. It isn’t just a scarred, hot rock near the sun. There are some things about it that …
Podcast Transcript When the Austro-Hungarian Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated it set off a chain reaction resulting in the First World War. The war was fully anticipated and one of the belligerent countries, Germany, had a plan in their back pocket ready to go. It was a highly detailed plan, nine years in the …
Podcast Transcript If you were to call someone a snake oil salesman, it usually means they are trying to defraud someone, and more specifically it often implies making false medical claims. But what exactly is snake oil, and why did it develop such a bad reputation, and why specifically do we use snake oil for …
Podcast Transcript There is an old saying that everything old is new again. This is certainly true with electric cars. The recent surge in popularity of electric vehicles is technically a resurgence, because believe it or not, there was a time when electric cars were more popular than cars with internal combustion engines. Learn more …