The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1630: Creating Nature
Engines of Our Ingenuity

The Engines of Our Ingenuity 1630: Creating Nature

B2Upper-intermediateSeptember 18, 20263 min

Episode: 1630 In which we ponder a very subjective notion of reality. Today, nature changes before our eyes.

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Today, nature changes before our eyes.

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B2 · Upper-intermediate

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  • 24 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

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0:00

This is the Engines of Our Ingenuity, made possible by the friends of KUHF, Houston. Today, nature changes before our eyes. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.

0:20

The Romantic poets made a very odd claim, one which happens to be closely related to technological change. change. They repeatedly told us that we create nature by dreaming nature. At first that may sound delusional, but it makes more sense when we think about our response to new technologies. Imagine that we lived in America in 1850 and were thinking about Hong Kong. We gaze out

0:47

upon our flat horizon and imagine a three-month journey in a sailing ship. By now, we've seen the curved horizon from 35,000 feet. Ever since the moon landing, we've regarded Earth as a gossamer blue and white sphere, floating in inky black space.

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