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Science History Podcast
Published by Frank A. von Hippel
- Science
- Chemistry
Monthly interviews on important moments in the history of science.
Listen on Apple PodcastsPublished by Frank A. von Hippel
Monthly interviews on important moments in the history of science.
Listen on Apple Podcasts2 hr 16 min
On July 9, 1955, mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell announced the Russell-Einstein manifesto, which warned the world of the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The 11 signatories included Albert Einstein, who signed it just before his death. Physicist Joseph Rotblat stated that the manifesto was " t he last message from the man who was the symbol of the great heights the human intellect can reach, imploring us not to let all this be destroyed by human folly." Russell and Rotblat then initiated the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, with the first one occurring in 1957 in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Rotblat led the Pugwash Conferences until 1973, and he and the Pugwash Conferences jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms". With us to discuss the history of Pugwash, nuclear disarmament, and public policy related to science is John Holdren. John served as science advisor to President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, making him the longest serving presidential science advisor since World War II. He served in many other scientific leadership roles, including as chair of the executive committee of the Pugwash Conferences from 1987-1997. When the group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, John delivered the acceptance lecture, so he is the perfect person to reflect on the history of Pugwash and nuclear disarmament.
1 hr 6 min
What did the ancient world discover about the cosmos? What were the contributions of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo? How did the science of astronomy advance under Newton? And how did everything change again with the discoveries of special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics? With us to answer these questions is Sarah Alam Malik. Sarah is an expert on dark matter, and her work on large-scale experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider has placed her at the cutting edge of exploring the universe's mysteries and its fundamental laws. Today we discuss her new book entitled, A Brief History of the Universe (and our place in it).
1 hr 17 min
Chemical exposures in the womb can lead to what biologists call organizational effects - that is, impacts on the developing child that are irreversible. How were developmental problems associated with chemical exposures during pregnancy first discovered? And how did these discoveries influence policy? With me to discuss chemicals and child development is Tracey Woodruff. Tracey is a professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University, where she co-leads the UCSF/Stanford Environmental Research and Translation for Health Center. She is an expert on environmental pollution exposures and impacts on health, with a focus on pregnancy, infancy and childhood, and health equity. Tracey was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of her pioneering work advancing environmental health and reproductive justice.
1 hr 23 min
The age of exploration altered the course of human history, but how did early explorers find their way? Calculating their latitude at sea was a relatively straightforward proposition, but calculating longitude presented a vexing problem. Given the big power competition for colonies, conquest, and riches, the search to discover an accurate means of assessing longitude became a scramble. A major piece of the puzzle lay in the accurate assessment of time on a rocking vessel, which tested the ingenuity of the most creative clock makers. With me to discuss the history of the technologies associated with the measurement of longitude is Emily Akkermans. Emily is the Curator of Time at Royal Museums Greenwich, which includes the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The observatory is Britain's oldest purpose-built scientific institution, and it just celebrated its 350th anniversary - which is the impetus for this episode. The observatory is the birthplace of modern astronomy and the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian.
1 hr 53 min
Today we explore the life and legacy of the physicist Niels Bohr through the reflections of his grandson Tomas Bohr. Tomas is an Emeritus Professor at the Technical University of Denmark. He studies fluid dynamics, biophysics, chaos, turbulence and statistical mechanics, and he has a long and distinguished career publishing in these fields. He is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
1 hr 54 min
Often in the history of science, myths overrun scientific findings and take hold with such force that they are difficult or nearly impossible to dislodge from public understanding. Perhaps no example of this phenomenon is more pronounced than that of the societal collapse of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. With us to unravel the myth from the science is Mike Pitts. Mike is a writer and broadcaster (a frequent voice on BBC radio), archaeologist (directing excavations at Stonehenge), and one-time museum curator. He has written for The Times , Telegraph , Sunday Times , Observer , and Guardian , and many magazines including New Scientist , Archaeology , and BBC History . He edited British Archaeology magazine for 20 years and has written books on topics ranging from the discovery of Richard III's grave to How to Build Stonehenge . His original research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature , World Archaeology , and Antiquity . He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
1 hr 12 min
The Science History Podcast, now in its 9th year, has spanned Trump's first term in office, four years of the Biden Administration, and a year of the second Trump Administration, not to mention a global pandemic, horrific wars around the world, and the emergence of AI. So now seems like the perfect moment for some levity. The master of musical satire, Tom Lehrer, passed away in 2025. Here is my celebration of Lehrer's ability to make us laugh during the even more tumultuous times of the Civil Rights era, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, and political assassinations and violent polarization.
56 min
Today's episode is a discussion on the history of PFAS, or forever chemicals, including their accidental development, incorporation into commercial products, concerns about health effects, and environmental contamination and remediation. My guest is Sharon Udasin. Sharon is a Colorado-based environmental journalist and author of Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America . She was a Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder in 2019-2020 and received a SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2023. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Journalism School, she has reported for numerous publications over the past two decades — most recently for The Hill.
1 hr 3 min
The weather has always been a critical element of the human experience - deadly during storms and droughts, sustaining when aligned with the harvest schedule, beautiful and frightening, and integrated into the myths and religions of all societies. How did a scientific understanding of the weather come about? Here to guide us on this question is Simon Winchester. Simon's articles and approximately 30 books range in topic from travel writing to politics, geography, biography, and science history. Simon is best known for his books The Professor and the Madman , The Men Who United the States , The Map That Changed the World , The Man Who Loved China , A Crack in the Edge of the World , and Krakatoa , all of which were New York Times bestsellers. In 2006, Simon was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II. Today we discuss Simon's new book about the weather entitled, The Breath of the Gods , published by HarperCollins.
1 hr 24 min
In Episodes 10 and 11 of the Science History Podcast, I interviewed James Muller on the role that Winston Churchill played in the unparalleled advancement of science and technology during the first half of the 20th Century, particularly as it related to the two world wars. In today's episode, Jim returns to discuss Churchill and an earlier war fought in the Sudan at the end of the 19th Century. Jim is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Alaska Anchorage and one of the world's foremost authorities on Churchill. For more than a quarter century, Jim has chaired the Board of Academic Advisers of the International Churchill Society. He is the author of many works on Churchill, including edited and scholarly reprintings of Churchill's interwar books Thoughts and Adventures and Great Contemporaries . Today we discuss his remarkable new edition of the two-volume Churchill book The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan , published in 2021 by St. Augustine's Press, which won the Churchill Literary Award from the International Churchill Society. St. Augustine's Press also published Jim's 2024 scholarly edition of Churchill's book My Early Life, A Roving Commission.
1 hr 17 min
Our health, and the health of wildlife, depends on a clean environment. Since the advent of the industrial revolution, our environment has suffered from waves of pollution as different technologies came to the fore, each with its own set of practical benefits and associated chemical waste. Perhaps the most insidious of these environmental pollutants is lead. With us to discuss the history of lead as an environmental contaminant is Bruce Lanphear. For over 30 years, Bruce has investigated how toxic chemicals harm human health, especially the health of children. His research helped shape U.S. federal standards for lead in air, water, and house dust, and played a key role in the landmark conclusion that no amount of lead is safe for children .
1 hr 3 min
The year 2025 has seen the most aggressive moves ever by the US executive branch against scientific research as the Trump Administration has gutted federal science and regulatory agencies and cancelled billions of dollars in research grants that had already been awarded to universities. With me to discuss the Trump Administration attacks on university research is Claudia Polsky. Claudia is a clinical professor of law and the founding director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley.
58 min
In Episode 62, I interviewed two Reuters journalists about how industry and government in the United States use conservation easements to avoid rigorous cleanup of contaminated sites. Today, one of those journalists, Jaimi Dowdell, is back to discuss how a federal agency responsible for community health assessments has a history of failing to protect the communities that seek its aid. Jaimi was part of the Reuters team that won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting. Today we discuss the Reuters special report published in August 2024 and entitled, "How a US health agency became a shield for polluters."
1 hr 29 min
In prior episodes, we examined political interference and bias in science in a few contexts, including episode 3 on the history of U.S. congressional attacks on science, episode 57 on types of bias, episode 65 on ideology and science, and episode 84 on the academy's ideological march to the left and antisemitism on American college campuses. Since those episodes, America went back to the future with the election for the second time of Donald Trump, and the Trump Administration has attacked elite American universities such as Columbia and Harvard with historic intensity. These attacks are motivated by the right's revulsion with the dominance of leftist bias on these universities. We do not know what the outcome of these battles will be. Indeed, as of this recording, Harvard University is challenging the Trump Administration in the American courts, while many other universities are trying to placate the administration or avoid its gaze. However, the fundamental complaint by the right, that elite universities have become bastions of the left and lack diversity of thought, warrants an examination. In today's episode, I explore this topic with my brother Bill. We discuss how political bias distorts the science produced in universities, especially in the social sciences, and we discuss the implications. Bill is the author of over 150 articles in psychology, as well as the books The Social Leap , published in 2018, and The Social Paradox , published in 2025, both by Harper Collins Publishers.
1 hr 15 min
In prior episodes, I have interviewed many people about the history of physics and physics-adjacent topics such as nuclear disarmament. Many of the physicists we have discussed also made forays into biology. Today I explore this transition of physicists working in biology with William Lanouette. Bill is a writer and public policy analyst who has specialized in the history of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons.
1 hr 15 min
Prior to the rise of Nazism, the University of Göttingen hosted most of the top physicists in the world, either as resident or visiting scientists. With us to discuss the history of physics in Göttingen are Tim Salditt, Kurt Schönhammer , and Sarah Köster . In this conversation over tea at the University of Göttingen , we discuss how Göttingen became a focal point of physics, key moments and people during the decades that Göttingen hosted discovery after discovery, and what happened to the assembly of scholars in Göttingen as Germany descended into the abyss of fascism. Tim Salditt and Sarah Köster are both professors of experimental physics in the Institute for X-Ray Physics, and Kurt Schönhammer is a retired Professor from the Institute for Theoretical Physics .
1 hr 40 min
The history of science is punctuated by moments of technological innovation that produce a paradigm shift and a subsequent flurry of discovery. A recent technological innovation that generated diverse discoveries, ranging from a profound shift in our understanding of the origin of humanity to a seismic change in the criminal justice system, is the polymerase chain reaction, or PCR. With us to discuss the history of PCR is one of its innovators, Henry Erlich. As Director of the Human Genetics Department at Cetus Corporation and later as Director of Human Genetics and Vice President of Exploratory Research at Roche Molecular Systems, Henry led developments in diagnostic applications for infectious and autoimmune diseases, forensic genetics, and organ transplantation. His laboratory performed the first forensic DNA case in the United States in 1986 and the first DNA-based post-conviction exoneration. Henry has published over 450 journal articles and three books, which include PCR Technology: Principles and Applications for DNA Amplification , Silent Witness: Forensic DNA Analysis in Criminal Investigations and Humanitarian Disasters , and Genetic Reconstruction of the Past: DNA Analysis in Forensics and Human Evolution . Henry has received numerous awards, including the Association for Molecular Pathology Award for Excellence (2000) and the Profiles in DNA Courage Award (National Institute of Justice, 2005).
1 hr 11 min
Lise Meitner was the most important female physicist of the 20th century. She made fundamental discoveries on the atom, including, most famously, being the first to discover the idea of fission. This she did as she puzzled over experimental results generated by her colleague Otto Hahn. Hahn, but not Meitner, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this monumental discovery. More generally, Meitner overcame profound obstacles facing women in science to become a central figure in physics during its heyday as she worked with the likes of Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein to understand the atom, and hence the universe. With us to discuss the life and legacy of Lise Meitner is Marissa Moss. Marissa is the award-winning author and illustrator of over 70 books for children and young adults, including the book we discuss today, The Woman Who Split the Atom : The Life of Lise Meitner.
2 hr 15 min
Humanity's understanding of the universe radically altered with the advent of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century. The theory of quantum mechanics describes how nature behaves at or below the scale of atoms, and the road to that theory was littered with seemingly insurmountable obstacles. With us to discuss the development of quantum mechanics, and the major schools of thought represented by Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein, is Jim Baggott. Today we discuss many of the key players in the development of quantum mechanics, including Bohr, Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, and Max Born.
1 hr 43 min
Societal problems big and small typically have a scientific element, often in a central way, yet most scientists are not directly involved in policy. My guests sought to change that in 1969 when they created the Stanford Workshops on Social and Political Issues, or SWOPSI. SWOPSI was founded by three students, two of whom are with us today: Joel Primack and Robert Jaffe. The third student was Joyce Kobayashi. Also with us today is my uncle Frank, who worked on some of the early SWOPSI initiatives. In this episode, I ask Joel, Bob and Frank: How did they hack Stanford's rules for course credit to create workshops run by graduate students? What were the goals of SWOPSI? How effective were the workshops in tackling local vs. national or international problems? How did SWOPSI help to create programs for scientists to advise Congress on technical issues? Why did SWOPSI perish as an institution at Stanford? How has US military-sponsored research evolved since the Second World War? And is SWOPSI a good model for young scientists today who want to solve societal problems?
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