Genre | Educational |
---|---|
Running time | 3–4 minutes |
Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | KUHT |
Created by | John H. Lienhard IV |
Original release | 1988 – present |
Website | https://www.uh.edu/engines/ |
Podcast | https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/podcasts/engines-of-our-ingenuity/ |
The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a daily radio series produced jointly by KUHF-FM, Houston, Texas, and the University of Houston. [1] [2] [3] [4]
The series tells the story of human invention and creativity in 31⁄2 minute essays. The stories center on engineering and technology, but they venture freely into mathematics, science, literature, medicine, music, art and other areas. The program thus reveals much of the cultural history that is formed by technology and other creative enterprises, and it reveals how culture in turn shapes technology and science. The program airs nationally on many public radio stations, and on other outlets.
The Engines of Our Ingenuity was first aired on January 4, 1988. It reached 3000 finished episodes in March, 2015. The series was founded by John H. Lienhard IV, retired Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston, and member of the National Academy of Engineering. The program is now done by a group of experts in several fields, including Lienhard. [5]
The program airs nationally on many public radio stations, and on other outlets.
At any one time, the program is likely to be airing on 40 or so stations in the United States, and on such specialized outlets as Armed Forces Radio and the International Space Station, and occasional overseas radio. The program is made available free of charge and reporting of its use[ clarification needed ] is not enforceable. [6]
Part of the growing influence of the series has been an initiative to create a Spanish-language version of the program, Invenciones de la Inventiva. These are episodes that have been translated into Spanish and are airing on station KNTU. [7] [8]
The Engines of Our Ingenuity website features complete audio for all the episodes of the program, as well as complete illustrated transcripts. It also includes variety of value-added items: related technical papers, books, and other sources. For a complete list of Engines topics, see the list of titles and keywords. [9]
Engines has received many awards including the Ralph Coats Roe Medal of ASME to Lienhard for developing the program [10] and the Ralph Coats Roe Award from the ASEE. [11]
Lienhard has published three books that reflect the content of Engines.
Hero of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician and engineer who was active in his native city of Alexandria, Roman Egypt. He is often considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity and his work is representative of the Hellenistic scientific tradition.
Abu al-Qasim Abbas ibn Firnas ibn Wirdas al-Takurini, also known as Abbas ibn Firnas, Latinized Armen Firman, was a Berber Andalusian polymath: an inventor, astronomer, physician, chemist, engineer, Andalusi musician, and Arabic-language poet. He was reported to have experimented with a form of flight.
Adrian Bejan is an American professor who has made contributions to modern thermodynamics and developed his constructal law. He is J. A. Jones Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Duke University and author of the books Design in Nature, The Physics of Life, Freedom and Evolution and Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies
KUHF is a public radio station serving Greater Houston metropolitan area. It broadcasts on a frequency of 88.7 megahertz on the FM dial. The station is owned by and licensed to the University of Houston System, and is operated by Houston Public Media, also known as Houston Public Radio. KUHF is housed in the Melcher Center for Public Broadcasting, along with KUHT, on the campus of the University of Houston. Local productions include The Engines of Our Ingenuity, Houston Matters, Town Square, and Next Question.
Philip Deidesheimer was a mining engineer in the Western United States.
Jan Ernst Matzeliger was an inventor whose lasting machine brought significant change to the manufacturing of shoes.
Honoré Blanc (1736–1801) was a French gunsmith and a pioneer of the use of interchangeable parts. He was born in Avignon in 1736 and apprenticed to the gun-making trade at the age of twelve. His career spanned the decades from circa 1750 to 1801, a time period that included the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the French First Republic.
Arabella Burton Buckley was a writer and science educator. She championed Darwinian evolution with particular emphasis on the mind and morals, in contrast to the prevailing emphasis on competition and physical survival. Charles Darwin described her as being able to 'treat evolution with much dexterity and truthfulness'.
Loomis is a census-designated place (CDP) in Okanogan County, Washington, United States. The population was 159 at the 2010 Census. Its area is 0.85 square miles (2.2 km2), which is all land and no water.
Curuçá River is a river of Amazonas state in northwestern Brazil. It is entirely within the municipality of Atalaia do Norte. Curuçá is a tributary of the Javary River.
Vivek Wadhwa is an American technology entrepreneur and academic. He is Distinguished Fellow & Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon's School of Engineering at Silicon Valley and Distinguished Fellow at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School. He is also author of books Your Happiness Was Hacked: Why Tech Is Winning the Battle to Control Your Brain—and How to Fight Back, Driver in the Driverless Car,Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology, and Immigrant Exodus.
John Henry Lienhard IV is Professor Emeritus of mechanical engineering and history at The University of Houston. He worked in heat transfer and thermodynamics for many years prior to creating the radio program The Engines of Our Ingenuity. Lienhard is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering.
Thomas Augustus Watson was an assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, notably in the invention of the telephone in 1876.
KHVU is a non-commercial FM radio station in Houston, Texas. It is owned by Hope Media Group, which owns Christian AC-formatted KSBJ, and airs a Spanish-language Christian adult contemporary radio format. The studios and offices are on Treble Drive in Humble, Texas, near Bush Intercontinental Airport, and the transmitter is located off Sorters McClellan Road in Porter.
The descent propulsion system or lunar module descent engine (LMDE), internal designation VTR-10, is a variable-throttle hypergolic rocket engine invented by Gerard W. Elverum Jr. and developed by Space Technology Laboratories (TRW) for use in the Apollo Lunar Module descent stage. It used Aerozine 50 fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. This engine used a pintle injector, which paved the way for other engines to use similar designs.
The R-4D is a small hypergolic rocket engine, originally designed by Marquardt Corporation for use as a reaction control system thruster on vehicles of the Apollo crewed Moon landing program. Today, Aerojet Rocketdyne manufactures and markets modern versions of the R-4D.
Hodoyoshi-4 is a Japanese micro-satellite launched in 2014. The satellite is built in 0.5x0.6x0.7m box-shape bus, optimized for piggy-back launch. All instruments are powered by solar cells mounted on the spacecraft body and two stub wings, with estimated electrical power of 50W. For orbit-keeping, a "miniature" ion thruster with specific impulse 1100s and operating power 20W is integrated into the body. The satellite was developed under the Funding Program for World-Leading Innovation R&D on Science and Technology.
Sheri D. Sheppard is the Burton J. and Deedee McMurtry University Fellow in Undergraduate Education; Associate Vice Provost of Graduate Education; and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Curriculum, Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University. She focuses her teaching on engineering design for undergraduate and graduate students. In November 2014, the Carnegie Foundation bestowed on her the U.S. Professor of the Year award.
Ashwani K. Gupta is a British-American engineer and educator with research focus on combustion, fuels, fuel reforming, advanced diagnostics, High Temperature Air Combustion, and high-intensity distributed combustion, green combustion turbine, micro-combustion, and air pollution. He is an Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. Gupta is also Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Maryland and Director of Combustion Laboratory. He is also an Affiliate Professor at Institute of Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.
John Henry Lienhard V is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Water and Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on desalination, heat transfer, and thermodynamics. He has also written several engineering textbooks.