The Lab With Brad

Vacuum tubes, with a side order of steampunk

We talk about vacuum tubes, how they work and how they made radio and telephone work so much better. We also spend some time talking about the very first computer programmer, the mother of steam punk, and enchantress of number—Ada Lovelace.

Here are a couple of videos about crystal radios.

Crystal Radio Sets from 1920s & 1930s

crystal radio

Here’s an article about how to build a crystal radio.

The Complete Guide on How to Build a Crystal Radio—Plus How They Work

Here’s something about using compressed air as an audio amplifier.

The Short but Loud Story of Compressed-Air Amplification

Here are a couple of things about Charles Babbage and his never quite built mechanical computing machines.

Charles Babbage

:The Babbage Engine

Here’s an article about the first computer programmer and, according to your hosts, the mother of steampunk-- Ada Lovelace.

Ada Lovelace - Life, Facts & Computer Program

And here are a couple of videos about vacuum tubes, and how they work.

How Vacuum Tubes Work

How A Tube Works

Phil’s hundredth episode!

It took a little over two years, what with the one episode a week format and all, but this is Phil’s one-hundredth time as our co-host extraordinaire! We share some of the things that we couldn’t squeeze into previous episodes, become baffled by Benford’s law, and otherwise relax and shoot the breeze.

Take that, you filthy air currents!

Here’s a link to a video about Benford’s law.

Number 1 and Benford's Law

Here’s a link to an article on how to use Excel and Benford’s law to detect fraud.

Using Excel and Benford’s Law to detect fraud

Binary boats and wireless

We spend some time with the ships and subs of the American Civil war, take our hats off to George Boole, and watch the beginning of radio.

Here are a couple of links with more about George Boole.

George Boole Bicentenary Celebrations

George Boole

Here are a couple of videos about spark gap transmitters.

How to build the simplest radio transmitter

Marconi Spark Gap Transmitter Demonstration

Here’s an article about spark gaps, and the history of radio.

Spark Gap Transmitter

Telegraph and tabulation

After the battery was invented, people began using electricity to do things like discover new elements and create new and better materials. Meanwhile, the punch card became a way to record information so that a machine could read and write it. Companies such as IBM were founded to keep track of it all. Wires stretched around the world to send messages fast enough to coordinate the new railroads, and new machines were invented to read and write faster than any human operators could manage.

Here’s an explanation of electrolysis—the use of electric power to tease chemicals apart.

What Is Electrolysis

Here’s a quick explanation of baud rate.

What’s The Difference Between Bit Rate And Baud Rate?

And the wheels keep turning

From water wheels to steam engines, to the taming of electricity, join us for another instalment in our episodes about where computers came from.

Here’s something on Francis Bacon’s binary code.

Binary code developed by Francis Bacon in the 17th century

Here’s a little about Otto von Guericke, the inventor of the air pump, and a generator for static electricity.

Otto von Guericke | Prussian physicist, engineer, and philosopher

Here’s an article about pumps.

Pumped Up | Science History Institute

Here’s an article about the early history of the steam engine.

Steam Engine History

Here’s a biography of James Watt, who turned the condensing steam engine into the new workhorse of the industrial revolution.

Watt Biography

And here’s an article on the industrial revolution.

Industrial Revolution: Definitions, Causes & Inventions

building bones and binary

We rewind slightly to cover the beginnings of automated logic. Then we have a look-see at the mechanical calculators of the 17th century, and the people who made it happen. Along the way, we find the birth of binary.

Here’s an article on the giant water clock built in china to track the motions of the heavens.

Cosmic Engine of Imperial China

Here’s a little something on the development of the pendulum clock.

History of the Pendulum Clock

Here’s a bit about Ramon Llull.

Ramon Llull

Here’s an article about the contribution of Leibniz to what would eventually become computer science.

Gottfried Leibniz

And here’s a translation of one of the papers Leibniz wrote on binary, unfortunately not the one with his marbles.

Leibniz: Explanation of Binary Arithmetic (1703)

The fall of Rome and the rise of zero

We’d planned to get a bit further, but there was just too much nifty history. Water wheels, paper mills, the fall of Rome, the golden age of Islam, and the spread of the number zero, more than enough for one episode.

which numbers count?

If you want to come up with a machine that computes, (a computer,) you need numbers with which to compute. Before we had the numbers we know and love, several other numbering systems were tried. Today we take a look at some of them and how they worked, along with their historical context.

Here is a video on old number systems.

A brief history of numerical systems

Here’s an article about many different ancient numbering systems, including examples.

Number Systems

Here’s an article on the ancient Egyptian numbers, including some little math problems you can quiz yourself with.

Egyptian Mathematics Numbers Hieroglyphs

And here’s an article on Heron of Alexandria, a first century scholar whose writings show us what sort of mechanics were understood by the ancient world.

Heron of Alexandria

Stone age computers

We decided to spend a few episodes telling the story of how we got computers. This episode, in typical “Lab With Brad” fashion, we’re going all the way back to the beginning of the story. And by “beginning,” we mean slightly before we were human beings.

Here’s a video on the earliest stone tools found.

Oldest Known Stone Tools Discovered

Here’s an article on chimpanzees that hunt with spears.

Chimps Use "Spears" to Hunt Mammals, Study Says

Here’s a description of a bone from 35,000 years ago, used as a way to count something.

The Oldest Known Mathematical Artifact

Here’s an article on a somewhat later bone artifact that may or may not be mathematical.

Ishango bone

It’s the end of the world as they knew it

The Permian period began with lush forests. new bugs arrived to feed on the succulent plants, strange sharks still swam the seas, and the first large plant eaters and their predators walked the increasingly dry earth. At the end of the period was the most devastating mass extinction in our planets history.

Here are a couple of videos about the Permian period and the dimetrodon.

Dimetrodon: Our Most Unlikely Ancestor

Dimetrodon vs Spinosaurus

Here are a couple of articles about the Permian period, and the mass extinction event that ended it.

Permian Period and Extinction

Siberian Traps likely culprit for end-Permian extinction