For many of the crew of the Scientific Odyssey, the next couple of weeks promises to be stressful with the coming US Presidential elections, a rising number of CoVID-19 cases, and many difficult decisions related to school, work, and family.
To help give folks a respite from the stormy seas ahead, we offer this episode of the podcast as a safe harbor to take refuge in when it all seems to be a bit overwhelming and it's time to furl the sails, if only for a little while.
In this anniversary celebration of our journey, we turn the canvas over to other voices to explore the intersection between inquiry in the sciences and the humanities.
In this episode, we interview Dr. Todd Timberlake about his forthcoming book, "Finding Our Place in the Solar System: A Scientific View of the Copernican Revolution." The book is published by Cambridge University Press and will be available on March 28th, 2019.
Dr. Timberlake's educational materials cane found at: https://sites.berry.edu/ttimberlake/teaching/copernican-revolution/
Our 2018 Christmas episode: In 1851, Dr. William Whewell gave the inaugural lecture of a series reflecting on the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. This is a reading of that lecture.
Following the publication of Newton's Principia, the extended process of adoption began. In this episode, we look at what barriers there were to Newton's ideas and how they were overcome. We also look at the acceptance of heliocentricism and the reworking of Newton's mathematical formalism up through the work of Pierre-Simon Laplace. Other scientists discussed include Francois-Marie Arouet, otherwise known by his pseudonym, Voltaire, the mathematician Alexis Claude Clairaut, the polymath Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis and a pair of remarkable women: Gabrielle-Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet and Laura Maria Caterina Bassi.
In 1687, Issac Newton, through the hard work and auspices of Edmund Halley, published the greatest scientific work of all time. In this episode we examine the events that led to the book's creation including Newton's correspondences with Robert Hooke and John Flamsteed. We also spend a bit of time considering the work's content.
In the tradition of the Icelandic custom of Jolabokaflod, we read one of the earliest works of science fiction-Johannes Kepler's The Somnium. Break out some chocolate and settle in for an hour-long journey to the Moon.