Transcript Poor Pluto. It was totally unknown, then it was a planet, and now it’s not a planet anymore. This change in the status of planets isn’t the first time such a thing has happened. Since the dawn of history, the number of things we call a planet has gone up and down. Find out …
Transcript What is today’s date? If you answer that question, most likely you are giving an answer based on a calendar that goes all the way back to one put in place by Julius Caesar. Caesar’s calendar, aka the Julian Calendar, was pretty good, but it developed problems over time, so it was modified in …
Transcript In the aftermath of the horrors of WWI, many people in Europe wanted to find a better future going forward. A future of peace and prosperity, where energy, food, and jobs would be available for everyone. One man from Germany named Herman Sörgel had a VERY ambitious idea. An idea that would literally change …
Transcript In a previous episode of the podcast, I touched on how it was difficult to pin down the date in which the United States actually became independent. In the case of the United States, it was a matter of pinning down when we wanted to define independence. Was it at the start of the …
Transcript Everyone knows who Neil Armstrong is and why he is famous. Being the first person to set foot on the moon has placed him in a unique position in world history, and he is a name that people will probably remember for thousands of years. But Apollo 11 was not his first spaceflight. His …
Transcript The British Crown is unquestionably the best-known monarchy in the world. As with all monarchies, there is a strict line of succession featuring many names you’ve probably heard of: Prince Charles, Prince William, and little Prince George. However, the rules regarding succession are more elaborate than most people realize, and the number of people …
Transcript If you look at the list of officer ranks in the United States armed forces, there are 10 ranks listed which are held today They go from Second Lieutenant all the way up to the rank of General, which is the four-star variant of the rank. There is a rank above general, a five-star …
The following questions have been delivered by Pony Express, processed by the Dwarves of Mal-Kunath, scanned and security tested by the best and brightest TSA Agents, and finally kept in a hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall’s doorstep. This my dear friends, is the September 2011 Q&A! Bogdan Epureanu asks on Google+: I …
Podcast Transcript One of the first mathematical concepts that most of us grasp when we are children is that there is no such thing as the biggest number. No matter what number you pick, you can always add one to it. You might think that such a simple idea wouldn’t have any profound impact in …