Science Social - Conversations on History, Science, and Society

While bookended by extended periods of unity and peace, the Period of Division in China was shaped by wars, displacement, and instability. Spanning nearly four centuries – from 280 to 589 AD to be exact – China fragmented into more than two dozen kingdoms at its peak. Social structures were installed and destroyed, competing canons of thought compiled, and multiple sects took shape. And yet, the P...

In the early modern era, European agriculture was in crisis. Soils had become depleted, crops grew smaller and fewer in number, and the growing seasons were shorter and cooler. Food production could no longer keep pace with population growth. To find solutions, some to turned to a field not commonly associated with agricultural production: alchemy. From the philosopher's stone to "vegetable salt"...

The Belgian physicist Léon Rosenfeld conducted groundbreaking research in theoretical physics. Yet he, and his work, are barely known about. Together, podcast host Stephanie Hood and historian of physics Bernadette Lessel go on a search for clues from Rosenfeld's life: What made his research so important, during a time when the field of physics itself went through a significant shift? Might lookin...

What is truth? When does a pandemic “end”? What decisions do we want to leave to artificial intelligence… and which would we rather not? These are some of the questions “that keep them up at night,” as science journalist Pakinam Amer puts it. “They” are researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science: Adrien de Sutter, Alexander Blum, Dora Vargha, and Yishu Mao. In this special...

Leonardo da Vinci is commonly known as the great inventor of creative machines, the artist of the famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man. But Leonardo was also an avid reader: his personal library contained nearly 200 books on science and technology, literature, and religion. The Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), with the Museo Galileo and the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, has re...

Analogies have been used throughout history as a means of explaining the world, and of grasping phenomena that could not otherwise be understood. In this episode of the "Science Social" podcast series, host Stephanie Hood and Postdoctoral Fellow Hannah Erlwein visit the "Islamic Golden Age," a period of cultural, theological, and scientific flourishing where analogies were central to understanding...

Over the past century, physicists and astronomers have brought to light one of the most elusive and powerful phenomena in our universe: black holes. Unobservable to the human eye, even their sheer existence has been contested until recently. The breathtaking first-ever image of a black hole, taken by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2019, marks just one step in a complex ongoing history of rev...

Some people use them as doorstops, a few even for weightlifting, and others actually read them! In this podcast episode we talk about books—or specifically, handbooks and manuals. From cooking to chemistry, these seemingly simple objects provide knowledge in a structured and standardized order. Yet despite their ubiquity and centuries-long history, many of us today are more likely to sit down in f...

Digitization has changed our present lives in many unexpected ways—also for historical research. So what happens if we look at the past through a digital lens? Scholars Shih-Pei Chen and Joseph Dennis use LoGaRT, a set of online digital tools for investigating a historical resource called Chinese Local Gazetteers. In doing so they work at an intersection between history and Big Data, and where dig...

It seems straightforward: we wear a mask because it protects us from pollution, from a contagious virus. Yet the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us that this seemingly simple object can also become a powerful symbol—one that can divide or unite us, silence or empower us. So how is it that this small piece of fabric can have political meaning? What role does it play in different cultures around the gl...

China is well on its way to becoming a global leader in science. The country has become the world's largest producer of scientific articles, pours a staggering amount of money into funding research, and is home to scientists whose groundbreaking and sometimes controversial findings increasingly make international news. If science needs freedom to thrive, how is this rise possible where a political...