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
The nation spoke in the language of liberty, but it had been built to deny liberty. It praised reason, but it fenced reason off by race. Yet here was a self-taught Black astronomer doing precise federal work for the capital of the United States.
It’s Flashcards Fridays. I’m Gabrielle Birchak, your host, and today I’m going to do a callback to Tuesday’s episode, which was about capturing thoughts. Last Tuesday’s episode was about photographing thoughts. Today I’m going to talk about those moments where you wish you could have just thought about the subject better, especially when you’re trying to learn something new. But
Can we photograph thoughts? Today on Math! Science! History! we examine the Victorian craze that …
It’s Flashcards Friday, and today I want to talk about something that matters as much as any experiment: how we talk to people who do not trust science. Not how to win an argument. Not how to humiliate someone with a fact. How to build a bridge. Because science does not spread by volume. It spreads when people feel safe
In the 1600s, philosopher Thomas Hobbes and experimental scientist Robert Boyle clashed over a strange new machine, the air pump, and a dangerous question: when should society trust scientific claims, and who gets to decide? Their disagreement wasn’t just about experiments …
But if the Sun Dagger teaches us anything, it is that science does not begin with explaining.
Science begins with watching and advances through listening.
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.
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.
UPDATE!! AS OF DECEMBER 18, NO ONE HAS SUBMITTED CORRECT ANSWERS! SO THANKS TO DAVID T. AT ASU, THE PUZZLE HAS BEEN GIVEN AN EXTENSION TO DECEMBER 31, 2025! Welcome to Math! Science! History! It’s December and that means it is Puzzle Month. Hi, I’m Gabrielle Birchak. I’m a science communicator with a background in math, science, and journalism. This year,