Nobel Prizes | The Episodic Table of Elements

92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

May 29, 2023

6:00 am

18 Comments on 92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)

Alsos, Belgium, Church Rock, Congo, Edwin Kemble, Espionage, France, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, George Kistiakowsky, Georgius Agricola, Germany, Harvard, Indigenous Americans, Italy, Leslie Groves, Mining, Moe Berg, Navajo Nation, Nazis, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Accidents, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, Otto Hahn, Paracelsus, Radioactivity, Samuel Goudsmit, Shinkolobwe, The Manhattan Project, Three Mile Island, United States, Werner Heisenberg, World War II

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

America’s worst radioactive accident isn’t Three Mile Island, and the Nazi nuclear physicist wasn’t assassinated by the famous baseball player.

Continue reading “92. Uranium: Two Untold Tales (Live At Harvard)” →

88. Radium: Several Sordid Affairs

October 18, 2021

6:00 am

4 Comments on 88. Radium: Several Sordid Affairs

Albert Einstein, Art & Science, Cosmetics, Eben Byers, France, Frank Zappa, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Irene Joliot-Curie, Labor, Marie Curie, Mark Twain, Medicine, New Jersey, Nobel Prizes, Paul Langevin, Paul Painlevé, Pierre Curie, Radioactivity, Radium Girls, Satan, William J. Bailey, Women In Science

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Out of all the characters who encounter radium in this episode, the only one to emerge unscathed is the guy who comes face-to-face with Satan.

Continue reading “88. Radium: Several Sordid Affairs” →

36. Krypton: It’s A Metric

May 6, 2019

6:00 am

3 Comments on 36. Krypton: It’s A Metric

Comics, Dmitri Mendeleev, France, Geography, International System of Units, James Clerk Maxwell, Napoleon, Nobel Prizes, Radioactivity, Space Exploration, Spectroscopy, The Cold War, William Ramsay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Like argon, today’s noble gas coincidentally features prominently in science fiction — albeit in name only. But krypton also takes a place in the science factual story of international weights and measures.

Continue reading “36. Krypton: It’s A Metric” →

27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed

December 17, 2018

6:00 am

5 Comments on 27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed

Albert Einstein, Chien-Shiung Wu, Fallout, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Georg Brandt, Leo Szilard, Magnetism, Medicine, Mining, Mythology, Nobel Prizes, Nuclear Weapons, Parity, Radioactivity, Symmetry, Wolfgang Pauli, Women In Science, World War II

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Cobalt is a tricksy little element, which means the scientists who’ve dealt with it the most are some of the cleverest people to have ever walked the Earth.

Continue reading “27. Cobalt: Mischief Managed” →