1649: "Ernst Stuhlinger"

1649: "Ernst Stuhlinger"

Author: JC May 11, 2026 Duration: 6:41
Interesting Things with JC #1649: "Ernst Stuhlinger" – A NASA engineer answers a nun asking why Mars missions matter while people are starving on Earth, and the answer comes from a former V-2 rocket scientist whose later work moves spaceflight away from explosive force and toward ion propulsion that pushes for years.

Curiosity often leads us down the most rewarding paths, and that's the spirit behind Interesting Things with JC. Each episode is a compact dive into a story that makes you pause and think, hosted by JC. You'll find a mix here: forgotten chapters from our past that explain the present, nuanced looks at cultural shifts happening now, and those remarkable tales that simply never got the spotlight they deserved. This isn't a dry lecture but a conversation about the threads connecting history, society, and our everyday lives. The focus is on depth over breadth, making each installment of this podcast a self-contained exploration. Whether it's an obscure historical event with surprising modern echoes or a fresh perspective on a current topic, the aim is to feed that curiosity with something substantive. Tune in for a thoughtfully researched and engagingly presented look at the world's fascinating corners.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Interesting Things with JC
Podcast Episodes
1636: "AM Radio as the Last Mass-Mind Medium" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 4:33
Interesting Things with JC #1636: "AM Radio as the Last Mass-Mind Medium" – A 50,000-watt AM station is transmitting one voice across multiple states at night while millions of people in different places hear the same si…
1635: "Nahanni: The River That Refused to Be Touched" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:24
Interesting Things with JC #1635: "Nahanni: The River That Refused to Be Touched" – A river runs for hundreds of miles with no dams and no control, then suddenly drops nearly twice the height of Niagara while the land ar…
1634: "Chernobyl Explodes and Igor Khiryak Goes Back In" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:51
Interesting Things with JC #1634: "Chernobyl Explodes and Igor Khiryak Goes Back In" – A pontoon bridge is being assembled in a moving river while radiation levels are unknown, sections pinned and anchored as current pus…
1633: "Alfred Adler & Happiness" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:28
Interesting Things with JC #1633: "Alfred Adler & Happiness" – Alfred Adler sits with a patient and ignores their past to ask where they are going, breaking from Sigmund Freud as he treats behavior as forward movement, a…
1632: "Double Slit Experiment at the Quantum Level" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:44
Interesting Things with JC #1632: "Double Slit Experiment at the Quantum Level" – One photon goes through two slits and hits as a single dot while a wave pattern still builds, even after the setup removes anything that s…
1631: "We Stopped Talking Without Noticing" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:17
Interesting Things with JC #1631: "We Stopped Talking Without Noticing" – Two people sit together while one speaks and the other looks at a phone, and the conversation continues as if it was heard even though part of it…
1630: "The 392 HEMI" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:06
Interesting Things with JC #1630: "The 392 HEMI" – Inside the 392 HEMI, air is pulled across a wide hemispherical chamber as the piston drops, but the same layout that improves high-RPM cylinder filling also makes the en…
1629: "The Sacking of the Libraries of Alexandria and Cleopatra" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:13
Interesting Things with JC #1629: "The Sacking of the Libraries of Alexandria and Cleopatra" – Caesar burns ships in Alexandria’s harbor to block an enemy fleet, but the fire spreads into a city built to collect written…
1628: "Shooting Drones with an F-35" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:56
Interesting Things with JC #1628: "Shooting Drones with an F-35" – An F-35 pilot slows a supersonic aircraft to match a drone moving slower than highway traffic, because closing too fast erases the shot, and even with fu…
1627: "British Columbia Tree Seed Centre" [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 2:39
Interesting Things with JC #1627: "British Columbia Tree Seed Centre" – A government seed bank stores millions of tree seeds labeled by exact origin while forests are already being cut and replanted, and every new hillsi…