The Scientific Odyssey

A look at pseudosciences and their characteristics through the lenses of critical thinking and inquiry.

In this episode, we begin our exploration of the Chinese cartographic tradition.

In this special solstice episode fo the podcast, we embark on a winter journey through the writings of John Muir and David Henry Thoreau among others.

In this episode, we conclude our examination of cartography in the Roman Empire by looking at the development of itineraries and travel maps from the period of the late Antonines to the Byzantine Empire.

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 look at applying the tools of good critical thinking and skepticism to analyzing conspiracy theories.

In this episode of our series on "Science as Inquiry" we look at those things that keep people from engaging in good critical thinking practices and how to overcome them.

"The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."-Archilochus

We trace this quote from the Archaic Greek poet through the work of the philosopher Isaac Berlin to see how it applied to create good practices of critical thinking.  Characteristics include having an inquiry focus, being flexible, understanding bias, practicing skepticism, using inference properly, and seeking multiple sources.

In this episode we broaden our focus to consider critical thinking in a more comprehensive way by looking at what it is, why its such a valuable habit of mind to have and what types of activities contribute to making it such a powerful process.

One of the pillars of the Roman Republic and Empire was its ability to survey, divide, assign and tax land.  In this episode of the podcast, we look at processes, people and tools that made such precise surveying possible.

Wherein your Navigator discusses the CoVID-19 virus, the global pandemic, how public health and public policy response is formulated, and how to engage with the information and misinformation that's coming through various media channels.

In this episode, we trace the development of roads from their pre-historic roots (or routes) to the development of the massive arterial network of the Roman Empire.

Some recent media accounts have speculated that the red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion is about to explode in a cataclysmic supernova based on recent observations of the star's dimming brightness.  We examine the evidence and offer a different explanation.

In this episode, we trace the development of Hellenistic geography from the work of Polybius, through Strabo, to its conclusion with Claudius Ptolemaeus.

In this episode we examine the development of a more empirically based geography in the Hellenistic period from the voyage of Pytheas to the map of Eratosthenes.

Beginning with Homer's Iliad, we look at the development of Greek geographical models of the Earth through the Classical Period.

For 220 years, the Cassini family was among the most powerful and influential scientific dynasties of Europe.  In we look at their work and lives in the period of Louis XIV, the sun King, through the end of the Bourbon monarchy.

In this episode we look at cartography in the ancient cultures around the Mediterranean Basin with an eye to understanding the role and purpose of maps and mapping.

We explore the connection between maps and other cultural ideas and technologies such as language, writing and time to see how the physical artifacts arise out of abstract conceptual constructs.

In this episode, we discuss the development and use of basic navigational tools and how they lead to map knowledge in ancient cultures.

Wherein we look at mapping as a human activity and begin our exploration of the evidence of the earliest maps known.

In this episode we interview Dr. Todd Timberlake about the book he co-authored with Dr. Paul Wallace: Finding Our Place in the Solar System, A Scientific View of the Copernican Revolution (Available March 28th, 2019 from Cambridge University Press).

Dr. Timberlake's teaching materials can be found at: https://sites.berry.edu/ttimberlake/teaching/copernican-revolution/

Wherein we prepare to once again slip our lines in search of new knowledge.  We discuss the effects of modern technologies and what is gained and lost in their use.

In the years between 1840 and 1866, a debate took place between William Whewell and the philosopher and politician John Stuart Mill over the nature of scientific inquiry and moral philosophy at a time of great social change in Britain.

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.

An examination of the scientific contributions of William Whewell through the early and middle parts of his career.

A look at the early life of the scholar and natural philosopher William Whewell.

Wherein the Navigator discusses the state of the podcast going forward.

In this episode we consider additional solutions to the Problem of Induction include those which rest on determining the certainty of inductively acquired knowledge.

In this episode we consider several possible solutions to Hume's Problem of Induction including William Whewell's description of scientific inquiry, the hypothetico-deductive methods and Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion.

In our new Science and Certainty mini-series, we take a look at what is known as the Problem of Induction in the junction between epistemology and philosophy of science.  We review what induction is and then look at various historical statements of the problem culminating with the work of Scottish philosopher, David Hume.

Wherein we reach the end of our journey.

In our final episode of the biographical series on Albert Einstein, we look at the last twenty years of his life in the United States.  We consider his conversations with the mathematician Kurt Godel, the letters to Franklin Delano Roosevelt that helped initiate what would become the Manhattan Project, his post-war efforts to promote peace and his principled defiance of McCarthyism.

In this episode of the Scientific Odyssey, we delve more deeply into Einstein's religious views and recap the months up to his emigration to the United States to take a position at the Institute of Advanced Study.

In 1930, Albert Einstein wrote, 

“I believe that the most important mission of the state is to protect the individual and to make it possible for him to develop into a creative personality.”

This concise statement of his political philosophy would guide his actions through much of the 1920's and early 30's as he used his fame and celebrity to advance causes important to him.  

In this episode, we'll examine those actions and causes.

In the words of physicist John Wheeler, 

“In all the history of human thought, there is no greater dialogue than that which took place over the years between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein about the meaning of the quantum.”

In this episode of the Scientific Odyssey we explore the relationship between the two men that began through journal articles on light quantum and the atom, was further entwined through Nobel Prizes awarded together and continued through debates shared in letters, papers and at scientific meetings.

In this episode we look at Einstein's rise to international fame and what it cost him.

When Einstein moved to Berlin in 1914, he entered into a period of intense turmoil, both in his scientific work and in his personal life.  In this episode, we take a look at the factors that led him to Berlin and what transpired once he got there.

This week we look at the period of Albert Einstein's life from 1905-1913 as he moved from one position to another on his rise among the European physics community

In the second half of 1905, Albert Einstein published tow papers that refined humanity's understanding of space and time as well as the relationship between mass and energy.  In this episode, we examine the factors that led to these discoveries. 

In 1905, Albert Einstein published five papers that changed the course of physics and the modern world.  In this episode, we look at the first three of those works including his paper on the photoelectric effect, his derivation of Avogardo's number and his analysis of Brownian motion that more or less proved the existence of atoms.

In this second part of our examination of Einstein's life before the Miracle Year of 1905, we examine the period between his graduation from the Zurich Polytechnic and his being hired at the Swiss patent office.  We discuss his scientific work as well as his relationship with Mileva Maric and the issues surround that.

In 1896, Albert Einstein enrolled in the teacher preparation program for physics and mathematics at the Zurich Polytechnic.  We look at the events that brought him to that point and what transpired while he was a student there, including the beginning of his romantic relationship with Mileva Maric.

In this first episode of our biographical series on Albert Einstein, we look at his childhood growing up in Munich and the various influences that would shape him in many ways.

In this episode, we look at the dispute between British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington and Indian prodigy Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar over white dwarf objects and the fate of higher mass stars.

For A. S. Eddington, the most important thing a think ing person could do, whether they be a scientist or a person of faith, was to follow a path of inquiry that sought to uncover new insights and new truths.  

In this episode, we look at how this value influenced Eddington's work in stellar structure and relativity.  Additionally, we look at how his other valence values such as internationalism influenced his actions during the Great War.

In this episode we consider the question of whether a person can be both religious and a scientist by looking at the early life of the British Astrophysicist and lifelong Quaker, Arthur Stanley Eddington.

In our final narrative episode of this series, we encounter the last piece of the cosmological puzzle-dark energy.  We look at the way in which is was discovered and what it means for the ultimate fate of our universe.

This week we look at the work of Vera Rubin and Fritz Zwicky that led to the idea that roughly 85% of the matter in the universe can't be detected except by the gravitational influence on the matter we can see.  We also consider alternative explanations and examine the evidence in favor of Dark Matter.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, several problems arose with the Big Bang Theory's attempt to explain certain aspects of the early universe.  In 1979, Alan Guth worked out a solution to those known as the Inflationary Model that added a new layer of understanding of the physical processes that governed the earliest moments of the cosmos.

Wherein we discuss the detection of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.

This week we look at the work of a number of astrophysicists including Cecilia Payne, Arthur Eddington, Hans Bethe and Charles Critchfield, and Fred Hoyle and Willie Fowler to better understand how the elements are made within the cores of stars.

Special introduction by Stephen Guerra of the History of the Papacy and the Beyond the Big Screen podcasts.

In 1948, one of the most important papers in the history of science was published in the pages of the Physical Review.  In it, authors Ralph Alpher, Hans Bethe (in absentia) and George Gamow not only perpetrated one of the greatest plays on words in the annals of science, they also put forward the physical calculations in support that the universe as we see it today began from a small, hot, dense state known as the Primeval Fireball.

In this episode, we trace the development of that idea.

In our third and final installment of the life of George Ellery Hale, we look at the establishment of the Mt. Wilson Observatory and his other endeavors.  We also examine the psychological pressures that drove him and eventually lead to his mental breakdown.

In the decade between 1890 and 1900, George Hale went from being a promising graduate of MIT to the world famous director of the Yerkes Observatory.  In this episode, we follow his life and work during this critical time. 

This week we begin a biographical series on George Ellery hale by covering his life from his childhood in Chicago up through his graduation and marriage.

The shift from astronomy to astrophysics necessitated the development of new tools of observation at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.  In this episode, we look at the rise of the reflecting telescopes and the men who use them including, James Keeler and George Ritchey, probably the greatest telescope designer in history.

In 1927 Fr. Georges Lemaitre published a paper in a little known Belgian scientific journal that described an expanding universe.  Two years later, Milton Humason and Edwin Hubble presented evidence to support support this model.  In this episode, we look at the development of the idea of a universe that was not static or steady.

On November 25th of 1915, Albert Einstein presented a paper on his General Theory of Relativity that by its end had conclusively shown that the Vulcan hypothesis was not necessary to explain the precession of the perihelion of the orbit of Mercury.  It also completely reimagined the structure of space and time and remade the universe.  In this episode of the podcast, we follow Einstein's journey of discovery from the work of James Clerk Maxwell to the eclipse observations of Arthur Stanley Eddington.

In 1925, the astronomer Henry Norris Russell read a paper at the 33rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society.  The paper, written by Edwin Hubble, a staff astronomer at the Mt. Wilson observatory, detailed observations of Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda Nebula. These observations and the analysis of them showed that the spiral was a million light years outside the Milky Way Galaxy, thus establishing it as an island universe once and for all.  The Great Debate was settled and the size of the universe was expanded to a scale unimaginable just a decade earlier.

On April 26th of 1920, Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis presented talks on the idea of island universes to the National Academy of Sciences.  Held at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Great Debate, as it would come to be known, would showcase two differing views of the scale and structure of the universe.

In 1914, Harlow Shapley moved to work at the Mt. Wilson Observatory.  Over the course of five years, using the 60 inch reflector there, he observed the 75 visible globular clusters and developed a whole new model of the Milky Way Galaxy and our place in it.

In our final episode of this mini-series on the women who worked at the Harvard College Observatory, we dive into the life of Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin from her time at Cambridge University to her life in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In this episode we take a look at the history of the development of the metric system out of the French Revolution.

Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt would form the core of the calculation staff at the Harvard College Observatory for nearly two decades.  They oversaw the transition of the Observatory from the directorship of Edward Charles Pickering to Harlow Shapley and established the dominant classification systems and physical laws for stellar spectra and variable stars in the early 20th century that would lead to foundational discoveries in the fields of astronomy and astrophysics.

In the first part of a multi episode series, we look at the lives of two very different women.  Williamina Fleming and Antonia Maury both made significant contributions to the field of stellar spectroscopy by developing classification systems to better understand the light from stars but their different backgrounds and training meant that they understood the role of being a calculator very differently.

This week we take an in-depth look at the work done at the Harvard College Observatory on cataloging and classifying variable stars under the direction of Charles Edward Pickering.  We examine the contributions of Williamina Fleming, Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt that resulted in the the period luminosity relationship, also known as Leavitt's Law.

This week we take a look at weather forecasting after the Navigator's trip to Boulder, CO for the NASA Social event for the launch of the JPSS-1 polar orbiting satellite.  We discuss a brief history of weather forecasting, the roles of both geosynchronous and polar orbiting satellites in that endeavor and the JPSS program.  Specific attention is given to the five instrument packages that will be places on the vehicle: CrIS, ATMS, VIIRS, OMPS and CERES.

In the years between 1905 and 1911, the astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung and Henry Russell Norris developed a way of representing the accumulating astronomical and astrophysical data on stars that revealed the presence of a relationship between a stars brightness and its temperature.  This Hertzsprung-Russell or H-R Diagram would come to revolutionize our understanding of stellar evolution.

This week, with the help of steampunk attired lady and gentleman bugs, we take a look at the Doppler effect.  We use water waves, sound and light to examine the consequences of what happens with the observer of a wave is moving with respect to the wave's source.  We also look at the history of the idea from the work of Christian Doppler to the applications suggested by Ernst Mach.

This week we look at the spectral classification work of Antonia Maury and Annie Jump Cannon at the Harvard College Observatory.

In this week's episode we look at the early work of the Harvard College Observatory under the direction of Edward Charles Pickering.  We discuss his three big research initiatives: the visual photometric survey of stars, the All-Sky Survey and Catalogue and the Draper Memorial Catalogue that catalogued and classified the spectra of over 10,000 individual stars.  Instrumental in this last effort was Williamina Fleming: Pickering's one time housekeeper turned lead calculator in the project.

When Kirchhoff and Bunsen unlocked elemental spectra, they opened a new avenue of astrophysical investigation.  This work work was originally done by the quartet of Lewis Rutherfurd, Astronomer Royal George Airy, Father Angelo Secchi and William Huggins.  This work would lead to advances by Hermann Carl Vogel and Norman Lockyer who would be among those to propose an early model of stellar evolution.

In 1861, Gustav Kirchhoff published the astonishing results that he could, merely by examining the light received from the Sun, determine what elements it was made from.  One this episode, we'll trace the scientific investigation of the nature of light from Isaac Newton through Joseph Fraunhofer to the work of Kirchhoff and Robert Bunsen.

In this episode we look at the various methods to determine the distances to the stars including Christiaan Huygens' comparison method, Robert Hooke's zenith telescope and Wilhelm Struve's and Freidrich Bessel's telescopic measurements.  We also review the various ideas as to the distributions of these stars as advanced by Isaac Newton, William Stuckley, Thomas Wright and William Herschel.

In this episode we examine the fates of Phaeton, Vulcan and Pluto as they were thought of by Olbers, Le Verrier and Clyde Tombaugh.  We also examine the observations of James Craig Watson, introduce William Henry Pickering and follow the work of Percival Lowell.

In 1782, William Herschel entered the service of his Royal Majesty, King George III of the United Kingdom.  Over the next 20 years, he, along with his brother Alexander, would build hundred of telescopes including the largest research instruments in Europe as well as create the largest catalogue of deep sky objects ever compiled.  Assisting him in this was his sister, Caroline Herschel, who would become an exceptional astronomer in her own right.

He would seek to answer questions about the Sun's motion through space, the behavior of variable stars, the nature of stellar spectra, the shape of the Milky Way galaxy and the Sun's position in it and the composition of nebulae.

In 1788, he married Mary Pitt (nee Baldwin) and, in 1792, fathered a son, John Herschel, who would go on to be the preeminent scientist of the mid-18th century; competing his father's catalogue work by extending his observations to the Southern Hemisphere and doing much to create the technology of photography as well as making significant contributions to the philosophy of science.  

John and his wife, Margaret, would have 12 children, three of whom would become scientists that would make significant contributions during their lifetimes.

William Herschel was a Hanoverian musician turned British astronomer.  In this episode we look at his journey from military band oboist to the court astronomer of King George III.  Along the way we look at his work as a composer and orchestral director, his entry into the field of astronomical instrument construction and his bringing of the techniques of natural history to astronomical investigation.

We also discuss telescope design, what's the best telescope for a beginner to invest in and the idea of scientific serendipity.

This week we look at the work of William Herschel, Giuseppe Piazzi, Heinrich Olbers, Urbain Le Verrier, Alexis Bouvard and Johann Galle as they discovered new worlds in a Newtonian solar system.  We consider the mathematical frameworks of Laplace and the Titius-Bode Law as guiding physical laws for the investigation of the natural universe.

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.

In our second episode devoted to the life and work of Edmond Halley, we recount his three voyages aboard the Paramour to create a map of magnetic variation and survey the tides and currents of the English Channel.  We also cover his predictions on the return of the comet of 1682, now known as Halley's Comet, his discovery of the proper motion of the stars, his translation of the works of Apollonius, and his work as Britain's Astronomer Royale among a host of other accomplishments.

This week we look at the earlier career of astronomer, mathematician and natural philosopher Edmond Halley.  We look at the first part of his career but through about 1693 including his trips to St. Helena, Danzig and Paris.  We also look at his ideas on measuring the size of the solar system, terrestrial magnetism, ocean salinity and the cause of the Biblical flood.

In this episode we finally conclude our biographical sketch of Isaac Newton by looking at his life in the years following the publication of the Principia.  We look at his political activities following the Glorious Revolution, his friendship with John Locke, the circle of young followers the gathered around him in London, including David Gregory, and his intense and troubled relationship with Nicolas Fatio de Duillier.  We look at the emotional breakdown that took place in 1693 and his work afterwards including his publication of Opticks.  Finally, we consider his legacy though the words of those who followed him.

IN this impromptu and unscripted episode, I talk about the recent announcement of the discovery of severn earth-like world orbiting a nearby class M star now named TRAPPIST-1 after the telescope used to make the initial discovery.  I look at how exoplanets are discovered, the specifics of this discovery, what we know and why it is important.  Also discussed are the ideas of scientific collaboration and the concept of universality.

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.

This week we look at Newton's work in the area of alchemy and examine his heretical religious views.

In this episode we look at the emergence of Isaac Newton onto the public stage with the publication of his first work on Optics in the pages of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1672.  We then examine the growing conflict between Newton and Robert Hooke and consider the work of the Society's secretary, Henry Oldenburg in fostering scientific communication during the turmoil.

In part 1 of our multipart biography of the father of physics, we look at the life of Isaac Newton from his early years in Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire through his grammar school days to his time at Trinity College, Cambridge.  We take some time to specifically look at the cultural and religious background that influenced his upbringing as well as his work on vision, color, light and optics.

In this episode we look at the work in mathematics and physics of Isaac Newton from his time at the University of Cambridge to the publication of the Philosophae Naturalis Principia Naturalis or "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy".  Specifically we look at the development of fluxional calculus, the Universal Law of Gravitation and Newton's Three Laws of Motion.

This week we consider the work of Jesuit astronomers across Europe and around the world before returning to a discussion of weighing the heliocentric and geoheliocentric models of the solar system.

In this episode, we look at the work of four men who bridge the period between Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Rene Descartes, Christiaan Huygens and Robert Hooke.  In this discussion we pay particular attention to each man's work in physics that will set the stage for Newton's great synthesis.

We examine the events leading up to the heresy conviction of Galileo Galilei in 1633.

In this episode we look at the 25 months leading up to the Congregation of the Inquisition censuring the two propositions related to the work of Copernicus; namely that the Earth moves and the Sun does not.  We specifically examine the Letter to Castello and Foscarini's Letter as well as the role of Galileo's work and Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina in the proceedings and what follows.

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.

In the first part of a three episode series on the emerging conflict involving Galileo, the Aristotelian natural philosophers of the Italian universities and the Catholic Church, we examine the factors that would lead to the initial confrontation of 1615 and 1616. These will include a debate that led to a fundamental revaluation of hydrology and a priority dispute on the discovery of sunspots.  Finally, we discuss the piece of information that may have led to Galileo's open support of the Copernican model o the solar system.

In this supplemental episode, we look at the study of hydraulics related to pulling water up a pipe by Galileo Galilei.  This leads us to the development of the mercury barometer by Torricelli and the investigations of atmospheric pressure and vacuums by Blaise Pascal and Florin Perier.  This, in turns leads us to the work of von Geuricke and Robert Boyle.

In our third episode discussing the Scientific Revolution we look at the development of the linguistic device we call the fact from Latin legal ideas.  We consider the work of Kepler and Galileo as well as the thinking of Blaise Pascal, Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle.

This week we look at the development of the idea of mathematics as a way to represent reality through perspective painting and accounting.  We also discuss the rise of the idea of laws of nature as the way in which the natural world was understood.