Transcript Many people have an idealized view of how science works. They think that someone makes a discovery or publishes a paper, then everyone acknowledges their discovery, and everyone moves on to the next thing. Science! However, that isn’t quite how things work in reality. The real advancement of science can be quite messy. One …
Transcript Every February 14, people around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day. It is a day for everything heart-shaped, flowers, jewelry, candy, and romance. Why is this day the day dedicated to romance? What’s with the hearts? And who or what is a valentine? Is this all a giant conspiracy of greeting card manufacturers? Learn more …
Transcript After the end of World War II, the newly created Central Intelligence Agency investigated anything and everything which could give the US an advantage in the Cold War. That included investigating UFO’s and levitation, as well as creating exploding cigars for Fidel Castro. One such idea was mind control. Learn more about Project MK …
Transcript The musical Brigadoon is about a Scottish village which appears for one day every 100 years. The village can be thought of as a metaphor for things that are fleeting, or why we must take advantage of opportunities when they appear. Brigadoon doesn’t exist in our world, but we do have the next best …
Transcript In the waning days of the 19th century, a passenger steamer crossing the Pacific Ocean en route from Canada to Australia did a particular thing, at a particular place, at a particular time. If it wasn’t for a last-second decision of the captain of the ship, we wouldn’t be talking about the ship today …
Transcript In 1776, an obscure Bavarian professor of philosophy created a society for like-minded individuals who upheld the values of the Enlightenment. Fast forward over 200 years, and that organization is now the basis for conspiracy theories and fantastic stories of global dominance. Learn more about the Illuminati, the real Illuminati, on this episode of …
Transcript In a previous episode, I talked about how you can win by not losing. That is called the Fabian Strategy named after Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus. However, the opposite is true as well. You can lose by winning. Here too, ancient history has examples for us, this time in the case of King …
Transcript On March 23, 1989, two electrochemists from the University of Utah, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons, took part in a press conference where they announced to the world that they had achieved sustainable, tabletop nuclear fusion. The events which followed were what is called in scientific circles: a dumpster fire. Yet, despite everything, thirty …
Podcast Transcript In 1965, the director of research at Fairchild Semiconductor, Gordon Moore, made a prediction about the future of semiconductors. He said that over the next ten years, the number of transistors on an integrated circuit would double every two years. His prediction didn’t just hold true for the next 10 years, but it …