On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our thirteenth and final installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. 

Philip, now an advanced student, discusses electric car technology in 1898. In contrast to a reciprocating steam engine operating at 4 to 6 cycles per second, an electric car motor spinning at 1000 rpm needs gears to reduce the car’s speed from 60 miles an hour to a manageable 18. Father reviews the years of Philip’s homeschooling: his parents laid the foundation of his moral structure at home, and can claim to have given him the investigating habit of mind. If you stay awake past the end of Philip’s Experiments, you’ll hear the remaining time filled with a few tidbits about hobbies in 1925: whittling ship models, making gesso, and using a lens to project an image for an unusual art project. 

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our twelfth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. 

This time, father and Philip listen to a lecture on electric lighting, specifically electric lights in houses. They hear that electric lighting is probably as safe as gas lighting, as long as the wires are properly separated and insulated. However, in most hotels and many houses the lights are too feeble and placed too high to be used for reading. Father tells about the time that Philip rescued their technologically illiterate neighbor by knowing how to pull fallen live wires out of a snowy road by using a dry fabric shawl as insulation. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear a discussion about whether electric doorbells are worthwhile, considering the maintenance required by the battery.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our eleventh installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. 

This time, father and Philip discuss fireplace designs and do experiments to determine whether rubber or lead tubing is better for making distilled water. Their neighbor, who thinks it is pointless to learn about technology when you can hire people to handle it for you, spends a sleepless night when the special push-button on his bedpost fails to turn off the electric lights. Another friend explains electricity to Philip and his father, including the importance of having insulation on wires for your electric lights if you don’t want your house to burn down. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear the story of a passenger in an electric car in France who saved a motoring expedition by replacing a blown fuse with a piece of foil from a chocolate wrapper.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our tenth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. 

This time, father and Philip contemplate the properties of water and related liquids. They consider how a dropper holds ink for dispensing into a fountain pen. This leads to experiments with a 30-foot rubber tube hanging from the loft of a barn. Philip finds that it may be theoretically true that water always rises to the level of its source, but in the real world a kind of friction adds complications. James the gardener says, “What water wouldn’t do was not written in any book.” 

If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear father and Philip discuss the design of their new house. Their architect is concerned with how stylish the windows will look from the outside, but the clients start by visualizing the house from the inside, making sure there’s enough daylight for reading.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our eighth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge.

This time, Philip’s father considers why boys study geometry and trigonometry, while young ladies consider themselves unsuited for those subjects even though they solve complex problems in embroidery design. The problem, he concludes, is that the subject is not taught in a way that is meaningful to the student. “Is it not because learning was confined to a few during the Middle Ages, and they made an unnecessary mystery of it? And so the schoolmen have continued to the present time, jealous of their methods, and insistent upon one’s looking through their spectacles and no other?”

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our eighth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge.

In this episode, father is delighted to see that his homeschooling has formed Philip into an interesting traveling companion, delighting other guests at the Swiss resort with his sketches and observations of mountain wildflowers. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear a discussion about whether a college graduate could figure out how to navigate a ship at sea if, hypothetically, the captain were murdered and the first mate incompetent.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our seventh installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. 

This time, Philip and his father, relaxing at an Alpine resort in Switzerland, listen to a photographer tell an incredible story about making a camera lens out of ice in Alaska after he dropped his glass telephoto lens into a glacial crevasse. The photographer quotes an old optician: “Remember that your character resembles a lens. If it is well formed, it will give a beautiful image of the world in which you are placed. If it is badly formed it will turn even beauty itself into a hideous object.”’ The photographer eventually gets his Alaskan pictures, concluding that “His striving to conquer obstacles and to attain perfection seemed to lift him into a higher world than that in which his companions slept and dreamed like dogs.”

If you stay awake long enough you’ll hear how Philip and his father estimated the distance to a railway construction project by timing the delay between seeing the construction crew blast the side of the mountain and hearing it.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our sixth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge.

Our narrator, Philip’s father, continues his contemplation of Philip’s interest in athletic feats of strength. Their friend Scribain says “Excess in athletics is like all forms of dissipation,” and quotes Locke as recommending gardening and woodworking as healthy recreations for a man of study or business. Father and Philip take a trip to Europe and enjoy estimating the height of the Matterhorn as seen from Zermatt using sight lines and geometry. If you stay awake long enough you’ll hear how, at the Swiss resort, they meet an American photographer full of stories about capturing Alpine scenery, especially with telephoto lenses. ”A long focus lens acts like time in bringing out the grandeur of a great character, and sinks the too obtrusive present,” he says.

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our fifth installment from the 1898 book “Philip’s Experiments, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge. Philip and his father, trying to survey their estate to build a golf course, discover that distance measurements may produce unexpected results when you go down into a ravine and back up the other side. Father’s friend Ruysart, a sculptor, works tirelessly on a statue representing Honor for the state capitol, but ignores his own son’s curiosity. Another friend pooh-poohs the idea of learning about such things as electricity: you can simply hire someone to do that for you; the important skill in life is to control men. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear further discussion about the value of athletics, as a friend says: “If your boy’s physical system is not constantly exercised, he will seek excitement in undesirable ways.”

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On the latest episode of the podcast with readings so interesting they put you to sleep, our fourth installment from “Philip’s Principles, or, Physical Science at Home,” by John Trowbridge, published 1898. Our narrator endeavors to teach geometry to his son Philip by surveying their yard with the intention of building a golf course with appropriate drainage. Father exploits Philip’s interest in George Washington by studying Washington’s youthful work as a surveyor. If you stay awake long enough, you’ll hear an old-fashioned adventure story in which Washington leads his crew in avoiding a party of Indians and their dog. Spoiler: by Washington’s order, the dog is not harmed. 

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