Science History Podcast

Updated: 10 Mar 2025 • 88 episodes
sciencehistory.libsyn.com/website

Monthly interviews on important moments in the history of science.

Categories:
Keywords:

Show episodes

The history of science is punctuated by moments of technological innovation that produce a paradigm shift and a subsequent flurry of discovery. A recent technological innovation that generated diverse discoveries, ranging from a profound shift in our understanding of the origin of humanity to a seismic change in the cr

100 min
00:00
01:40:48
No file found

Lise Meitner was the most important female physicist of the 20th century. She made fundamental discoveries on the atom, including, most famously, being the first to discover the idea of fission. This she did as she puzzled over experimental results generated by her colleague Otto Hahn. Hahn, but not Meitner, received t

72 min
00:00
01:12:56
No file found

Humanity's understanding of the universe radically altered with the advent of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century. The theory of quantum mechanics describes how nature behaves at or below the scale of atoms, and the road to that theory was littered with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. With us to discuss the

135 min
00:00
02:15:56
No file found

Societal problems big and small typically have a scientific element, often in a central way, yet most scientists are not directly involved in policy. My guests sought to change that in 1969 when they created the Stanford Workshops on Social and Political Issues, or SWOPSI. SWOPSI was founded by three students, two of w

103 min
00:00
01:43:49
No file found
11 Nov 2024 • EN

The Academy: Bret Stephens

Institutions of higher education, especially in the United States, have received a great deal of attention over the past two generations regarding their ideological march to the left, and the impacts, real or imagined, on society at large. Criticism of American universities has sharpened since Oct. 7, 2023, as the Hama

111 min
00:00
01:51:22
No file found
11 Oct 2024 • EN

Hebrew: Shalom Goldman

What was the Western World's understanding of the origins of humanity prior to the Enlightenment? Why did Christopher Columbus have a Hebrew speaker on his voyages of exploration? Why did the American universities founded before the Revolution have Hebrew in their curriculum? What role did linguistics play in the late

105 min
00:00
01:45:37
No file found