In the mid-1930's, Alan Turing made the revolutionary discovery that launched the digital age. He proved that information can be translated and communicated using nothing but a series of ones and zeroes. And that was just the first of Turing's intellectual achievements. Biographer Andrew Hodges explained Turing's genius to Jim Flemming in 2012.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Abram de Swaan is a Dutch sociologist who studies the politics of language. He tells Steve Paulson that English is the worldwide language of business and diplomacy, though many wish it weren’t.
Alex Stone is a magician with a degree in physics. He performs a magic trick over the radio and explains how it works.
To hear one of Alex Stone's favorite bar tricks, listen here.
Annie Murphy Paul talks with Jim Fleming about her research into the field of fetal development. As if pregnancy wasn’t scary enough!
For 26 years, Dan Pierotti knew — really knew — that his days were numbered. In 1988 he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. In this first installment of his story, the former Lutheran minister talks about his feelings on death and the afterlife.
Ahmed Rashid worked as an advisor to Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy to the Pakistani region and says the U.S. was never really interested in the Afghanistan's real problems when we rush in.
Alison Bechdel calls her comic book memoir Are You My Mother? “a comic drama.” The New York Times Book Review calls it “as complicated, brainy, inventive and satisfying as the finest prose memoirs.” Here’s Steve Paulson’s NEW and UNCUT interview with Bechdel.
Mary Oliver has said, "The poem is meant to be given away, best of all by the spoken presentation of it; then the work is complete." To complete the second hour of the Death series, here's her reading of "When Death Comes," taken from At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver and used with permission from Beacon Press, 2006.
Pages
