Paul Tannery: The Tobacco Engineer Who Changed the History of Math

Paul Tannery: The Tobacco Engineer Who Changed the History of Math

The more I read, the more I dis­cov­ered a man whose intel­lec­tu­al habits felt sur­pris­ing­ly mod­ern. He ques­tioned accept­ed nar­ra­tives, exam­ined pri­ma­ry sources, and deeply learned the math­e­mat­ics he was study­ing. And the part that gets me is that he treat­ed the peo­ple of antiq­ui­ty not as leg­ends, but as human beings deserv­ing of care­ful understanding.

FLASHCARDS! Self-Taught Is a Skill

FLASHCARDS! Self-Taught Is a Skill

It’s Flash­cards Fri­day! This pod­cast is a fol­low-up to Tuesday’s episode about Ben­jamin Ban­nek­er. This bril­liant indi­vid­ual was pre­dom­i­nant­ly self-taught. I found his sto­ry very inspir­ing because he was self-edu­­cat­ed. In oth­er words, he learned every­thing he knew about astron­o­my and sur­vey­ing with­out being in a class­room. And today, when peo­ple say they are self-taught, that means so more than

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FLASHCARDS! Imagination Is the Engine of Science.

FLASHCARDS! Imagination Is the Engine of Science.

TRANSCRIPTS Wel­come to Flash­cards Fri­days! If you had a chance to lis­ten to Tuesday’s episode, I inter­viewed the the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Dr. Ronald Mal­lett, who shares how a moment of heart­break in his child­hood became the foun­da­tion for his entire sci­en­tif­ic career. It’s an inspir­ing inter­view, and I hope you lis­ten to it. Today I’m fol­low­ing up on his con­clud­ing state­ment, and

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