“Obviously Bold.” A Feminist Generation Keeps Marching

“Obviously Bold.” A Feminist Generation Keeps Marching

Pod­cast tran­scripts Wel­come to Math! Sci­ence! His­to­ry! I’m Gabrielle Bir­chak, your host. For Women’s His­to­ry Month, I want­ed to fea­ture one bril­liant thing, one clean win, and one woman whose work still qui­et­ly runs the world, even if most of us do not real­ize it. Today’s “one bril­liant thing” was a sort­ing sys­tem. A clas­si­fi­ca­tion scheme. A way to take the universe,

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Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Sci­ence fic­tion is not valu­able because it pre­dicts the future. It is valu­able because it trains the mind. It gives us a way to prac­tice think­ing about sys­tems before we build them, and to prac­tice car­ing about con­se­quences before con­se­quences have real names.

Flashcards! The Archive that Survives

Flashcards! The Archive that Survives

If you have ever felt your stom­ach drop when you’ve lost a file on your com­put­er, then you already under­stand the first les­son of his­to­ry. His­to­ry is not only made by peo­ple. His­to­ry is also made by what survives. 

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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