Transcript In 1957, Sputnik was launched into orbit as the world’s first artificial satellite. Today, 64 years later, there are more than 1,000,000 objects larger than 1 centimeter floating around the Earth. Almost all of those objects in orbit were not put there intentionally. Learn more about space junk, the problem, and possible solutions, on …
Transcript For over 30 years, Monty Hall was the host of the game show Let’s Make A Deal. In the show, they played a very simple game where you would choose one of three doors. This game has led to one of the most controversial and public kerfuffles amongst mathematicians, which caused many distinguished mathematicians …
Transcript The Apollo 11 mission to land humans on the moon was one of the most complex things ever undertaken by humanity. They had to prepare for any and every eventuality, including the failure of the mission. To cover that eventually, President Nixon’s speechwriter wrote a speech in the event that the unthinkable should happen. …
Transcript On the week of July 1, 1946, there were two explosions that shook the world. One was a physical explosion and the other was cultural. These two events, seemingly unrelated, are now linked forever due to the circumstances of that week. Learn more about what an atomic bomb test and a two-piece swimsuit have …
Transcript In 1912, a Polish rare book dealer purchased an extremely old codex that contained an unknown system of writing. Since then, the best and brightest minds in cryptography, linguistics, and artificial intelligence have not been able to decipher what is written in the book. That hasn’t stopped people from trying and periodically making claims …
Transcript In the 120 year history of the Nobel Prize, there have been four people who have been given an award twice. One of them is not Albert Einstein. Yet, when you look at his list of accomplishments and the different fields of physics which he has touched, he arguably deserved more than one Nobel …
Transcript One of the greatest battles in Roman history was one of its greatest losses. It was a defeat that shook the city to its core and could have very well ended the Roman Republic. …but it didn’t. The reason why it didn’t is a story of determination and the difference between tactics and strategy. …
Transcript Clair Patterson was a geochemist who worked at CalTech from the 1940s through the 1990s. His work involved studying the age of rocks and the age of the Earth. His greatest discovery, however, was one that was totally by accident and ended up directly impacting the lives of every person on the planet. Learn …
Podcast Transcript In 1987, a German teenager and novice pilot named Mathias Rust set out on a two-week flight where he visited several countries in Europe. What was remarkable about the flight wasn’t the age of the pilot or the distance he traveled. The reason people still remember it is where he ended up. Learn …