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! The Physics of Shoveling Snow

FLASHCARDS! The Physics of Shoveling Snow

The hol­i­days have end­ed, the dec­o­ra­tions have come down, and many peo­ple have stepped out­side to find that the ground has been qui­et­ly trans­formed into a dense, slip­pery physics problem. 

FLASHCARDS! Your Brain on Puzzles

FLASHCARDS! Your Brain on Puzzles

Today we explore some­thing won­der­ful­ly nerdy: the neu­ro­science of puz­zles. Not just why puz­zles are fun, but what your brain is actu­al­ly doing the moment you lean over a cross­word, a log­ic grid, or a deli­cious­ly tricky time-trav­el cipher.

Carl Friedrich Gauss: The Quiet Genius Who Transformed Math, Astronomy & Modern Science

Carl Friedrich Gauss: The Quiet Genius Who Transformed Math, Astronomy & Modern Science

Wel­come to Math! Sci­ence! His­to­ry!, Today we’re explor­ing the sto­ry and the myths sur­round­ing Carl Friedrich Gauss, the Prince of Math­e­mat­ics. This isn’t because he chased fame, he didn’t, but because his insights were so deep they silent­ly built the scaf­fold­ing of mod­ern sci­ence. Hi, I’m Gabrielle Bir­chak. I’m a sci­ence com­mu­ni­ca­tor with a back­ground in math, sci­ence and journalism.

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FLASHCARDS! Does Turkey Really Make You Tired? The Science of Tryptophan and Holiday Meals

FLASHCARDS! Does Turkey Really Make You Tired? The Science of Tryptophan and Holiday Meals

Thank you for tun­ing into today’s pod­cast! If you are here for the recipes, just scroll to the bot­tom! PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS Wel­come to Flash­cards Fri­day! Today we’re tak­ing a clos­er look at some­thing that shows up every Novem­ber: tryp­to­phan. Yes, that mys­te­ri­ous amino acid that gets blamed every year for the leg­endary “post-Thanks­­giv­ing nap.” Turkey is the star wit­ness, but

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Turning Grief into Physics: Dr. Ronald Mallett’s Journey Through Time

Turning Grief into Physics: Dr. Ronald Mallett’s Journey Through Time

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTS Gabrielle Bir­chak I just fin­ished edit­ing this fan­tas­tic inter­view with Dr. Ronald Mal­lett, Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus of Physics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Con­necti­cut. This episode of Math Sci­ence His­to­ry is all about explor­ing one of physics most dar­ing fron­tiers, time trav­el. Dr. Mal­lett has spent a life­time inves­ti­gat­ing whether light itself can twist space time enough to form loops

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Time Travel IRL!

Time Travel IRL!

Time Trav­el Imag­ine step­ping into a machine, an elab­o­rate cham­ber of brass, gears, and hum­ming coils. You sit down, pull a lever, and sud­den­ly the world out­side your win­dow blurs. The clock on the wall no longer ticks in neat, famil­iar sec­onds. Instead, time itself bends and stretch­es like taffy. Days whirl past in moments, cen­turies col­lapse into a single

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