Math! Science! History!

FLASHCARDS! Alcuin of York

In this episode of Math Science History, we journey back to 8th-century England to uncover the story of Alcuin of York, a quiet but powerful force behind the Carolingian Renaissance. From his beginnings in the cathedral school of York to his influential role as Charlemagne’s advisor, Alcuin shaped the future of Western education, preserved ancient texts, and helped revive a culture of learning in a world on the brink of intellectual collapse. Discover how this humble teacher from northern England helped build the foundations for modern classrooms and script systems—and even shared a few brain-teasing puzzles along the way. Three Things You’ll Learn How Alcuin’s work at the Palace School of Charlemagne helped ignite the Carolingian Renaissance Why the trivium and quadrivium became the foundation for medieval education—and how they still echo in modern curricula The surprising origins of the wolf, goat, and cabbage river-crossing puzzle and its connection to Alcuin’s teaching style Resources and Further Reading Bullough, Donald A. Alcuin: Achievement and Reputation. Brill, 2004. McKitterick, Rosamond. Charlemagne: The Formation of a European Identity. Cambridge University Press, 2008. Folkerts, Menso. “Alcuin's Propositiones ad acuendos juvenes.” Historia Mathematica 5, no. 4 (1978): 385–404. The Alcuin Club: www.alcuinclub.org.uk 🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h Let’s Connect! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathsciencehistory  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-science-history/  Threads: https://www.threads.com/@math.science.history  YouTube: Math! Science! History! - YouTube Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mathsciencehistory  🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? If you love Math, Science, History, here’s how you can help:🌟 Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show!📢 Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs!🔔 Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal 🛍 Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store 🎵Audio mixed by David Aviles 🎵 Music: On Matters of Consequence from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers CC0 Farseer, from Vindsvept CC 4.0Until next time, carpe diem!

Science Under Siege

In this urgent episode of Math! Science! History, Gabrielle Birchak exposes how the United States is dismantling its scientific foundation through lawsuits, defunding, censorship, and intimidation. From shuttered labs to banned books and silenced climate scientists, Gabrielle connects today’s attacks on knowledge to historical examples of authoritarian suppression—from Galileo’s house arrest to the German Reich’s university purges and Stalin’s pseudoscience. This is more than a culture war; it’s a battle for truth itself. If science falls, society falters. History has shown us the red flags—will we recognize them before it’s too late? Three key takeaways Historical Warnings – How past regimes like Germany's Third Reich, Stalin’s Soviet Union, and Mao’s China crippled their own futures by silencing science. Present-Day Threats – The U.S. government’s defunding of universities, dismantling of climate research, and politicization of curricula. How to Act – Practical ways to defend truth, support at-risk scholars, protect data, and safeguard scientific integrity globally. Resources & References ·         Scholars at Risk ·         IIE Scholar Rescue Fund ·         Union of Concerned Scientists ·         American Association for the Advancement of Science ·         Climate Mirror ·         Internet Archive ·         WHO Foundation ·         iNaturalist 🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h  🌍 Let’s Connect! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathsciencehistory  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-science-history/  Threads: https://www.threads.com/@math.science.history  YouTube: Math! Science! History! - YouTube Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mathsciencehistory  🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show! Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs! Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers 🎵 Audio Editor: Podcast mixed by David Aviles Sound Effect by Amy from Pixabay MMM Ominous Music by Max from Pixabay Radio static by Sound Effect by DRAGON-STUDIO from Pixabay Fire swoosh Sound Effect by Krzysztof Szymanski from Pixabay Keyboard sound by Sound Effect by Rinku from Pixabay Power off sound Effect by DRAGON-STUDIO from Pixabay Evil cyberpunk drones by Bertsz from Pixabay Until next time, carpe diem!  

FLASHCARDS! More than 24 Hours in a Day

Trains, telegraphs, and global trade turned local solar time into a worldwide system, yet the story didn’t stop at 24 neat slices. In this Flashcards! episode, we explore why there are more than 24 time zones, how half-hour and 45-minute offsets came to be, how the International Date Line adds extra zones, why the North Pole has no official time, and how you’d pick a clock for a polar meeting (with a nod to Nunavut coffee culture near the top of the world). G.M.T.- Great Mini Takeaways Prime Time: Why the “24-zone” model grew to include half-hour and 45-minute offsets. Date Line Design: How zigzags in the Pacific create “tomorrow” (and even UTC+14). Polar Protocol: No time zone at the North Pole, so teams pick one and sync. Links & Resources What is Greenwich Mean Time?  Royal Museums Greenwich. Royal Museums Greenwich The International Date Line explained. Timeanddate.com. Time and Date Time in Kiribati (GILT/PHOT/LINT; includes UTC+14) Overview. Time and Date Samoa’s 2011 “skipped day” (time-zone shift) Wired magazine. WIRED Alert, Nunavut (northernmost continuously inhabited place) Background. Wikipedia Tim Hortons locations in Nunavut (Iqaluit listings) Official directory. locations.timhortons.ca (Note: You’ll hear a shout-out to coffee “near the top of the world” in Nunavut; official Tim Hortons locations are listed for Iqaluit. Alert is the northernmost inhabited place, but it’s a military station without a public Tim’s listing.) (OTHER NOTE! Collaborate with us! Add to our Nerd Party Playlist!  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7hIpM6G5lrW2HzksRb3BhH?si=306ba7a9f7034f74&pt=8125ceb04b19d9a9d2132be18a5abbb2  🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h  🌍 Let’s Connect! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathsciencehistory  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-science-history/  Threads: https://www.threads.com/@math.science.history  YouTube: Math! Science! History! - YouTube Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mathsciencehistory  🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? If you love Math, Science, History, here’s how you can help:🌟 Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show!📢 Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs!🔔 Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal 🛍 Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store 🎵 Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers Until next time, carpe diem!

The History of Time: From Sundials to Atomic Clocks

Time feels natural, but the way we measure it is entirely human-made. From Mesopotamian star charts and Egyptian solar calendars to Roman reforms, medieval clock towers, and modern atomic precision, this episode explores how we constructed the framework of time itself. 3 Timeless Takeaways: How ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt laid the foundations for calendars and timekeeping. Why the Babylonians chose base-60 and how it still shapes our clocks today. How mechanical clocks, trains, and atomic physics transformed time into the precise system we live by. Resources & Links Mentioned: More on the Sexagesimal System: My eponymic contribution to Sexagesimal math - Math! Science! History!™ Leap Year, Caesar’s Propaganda, and a New Calendar: Leap Year, Caesar's propaganda, and a new calendar - Math! Science! History!™ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) on Atomic Time: https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division 🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h 🌍 Let’s Connect! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathsciencehistory  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-science-history/  Threads: https://www.threads.com/@math.science.history  YouTube: Math! Science! History! - YouTube Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mathsciencehistory  🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show! Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs! Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store Music: All music is public domain and has no copyright and rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers Travelling and Discovering by Musinova from Pixabay Lake of Light by Vinsvept from Pixabay Orlando Gibbons (bap.1583-1625) - Galliard à3, for Treble & Bass Viols with Great Bass, Dr. Phillip W. Serna, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Deafening Bounce Groove by Rockot from Pixabay  Until next time, carpe diem!

FLASHCARDS! Google Maps, Waze, and the Science of Map Distortion

We use maps all day, including Google Maps, Waze, Apple Maps. We use them without even noticing that every one of them distorts reality. In this episode, Gabrielle explains why flattening a round Earth always bends the truth, how classic projections (like Mercator) live inside today’s apps, and why those distortions shape our mental picture of the world. Practical, visual, and myth-busting, this is cartography you can feel on your daily commute.  To hear the podcast on Marie Tharp, visit: Math Science History with Gabrielle Birchak Three Coordinates to Remember Why distortion is unavoidable when projecting a 3D globe onto a flat screen (thanks, Gauss). How Web Mercator powers Google Maps/Waze, great for street-level navigation, misleading at global scales. How projection choices shape perception, from Greenland vs. Africa to who appears “big” or “central” on a map. Resources & Visuals Gall–Peters (equal-area) projection: Peters Projection Map: Everything Your Ever Wanted To Know Compare Map Projections: https://map-projections.net/compare.php Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion map (unfolded globe): https://www.bfi.org/about-fuller/dymaxion-map “The True Size Of…” (drag countries to compare real sizes): https://thetruesize.com 🔗 Explore more on our website: mathsciencehistory.com 📚 To buy my book Hypatia: The Sum of Her Life on Amazon, visit https://a.co/d/g3OuP9h 🌍 Let’s Connect! Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/mathsciencehistory.bsky.social Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/math.science.history Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mathsciencehistory  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/math-science-history/  Threads: https://www.threads.com/@math.science.history  YouTube: Math! Science! History! - YouTube Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/mathsciencehistory  🎧 Enjoying the Podcast? If you love Math, Science, History, here’s how you can help:🌟 Leave a review! It helps more people discover the show!📢 Share this episode with friends & fellow history buffs!🔔 Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform ☕ Support the Show: Coffee!! PayPal 🛍 Check out our merch: https://www.mathsciencehistory.com/the-store 🎵 Music: All music is public domain and has no Copyright and no rights reserved. Selections from The Little Prince by Lloyd Rodgers Until next time, carpe diem!