Rational Thinker

Rational Thinker is a podcast dedicated to exploring the rich and often surprising history of science — the discoveries, the debates, and the remarkable individuals whose curiosity and perseverance transformed our understanding of the world. From the revolutionary insights of the Scientific Revolution to the groundbreaking breakthroughs of the modern era, each episode examines the human stories behind the ideas that shaped civilization. I invite my listeners to look beyond the textbook and engage with science not merely as a collection of facts, but as an evolving, deeply human pursuit of truth. Whether you are a lifelong student of history, a science enthusiast, or simply someone who wonders how we came to know what we know, this podcast offers thoughtful, well-researched narratives that illuminate the minds and moments that moved science forward.

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24 episodes
fortnightly
Avg 18 min
English

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Wednesday · 30 min
The Physicist Who Predicted That Matter Is a Wave
In 1913, Danish physicist Niels Bohr proposed that electrons orbit atoms in fixed energy levels, where any jump between levels emits or absorbs a photon of light with an energy exactly equal to Planck's constant times its frequency. It was a revolution because it solved two problems. Under the previous model, orbiting electrons would quickly spiral into the nucleus, and also, spectral lines could now be accounted for (at least in light elements). But the model had its limits, and a French aristocrat would ultimately formulate a relation that would both show why Bohr's formula works intuitively, but also would ultimately usher in a new era of physics that would render the Bohr model obsolete.
September 18 · 21 min
How The Electric Force Was First Measured
By the 1750s, we had a pretty decent understanding of electricity. However, the theory was incomplete. This was demonstrated most precisely when Benjamin Franklin put a cork inside a charged metal can expecting it to be influenced by the can. However, the cork didn't move whatsoever. This confusion sparked a chain reaction of events that ultimately led to Coulomb's law, published in 1785.
September 14 · 31 min
How Quarks Were Discovered
Man, this video took me a while to make. It just may be my most ambitious project yet. Hopefully I didn't miss anything too important. If I did or made a mistake, feel free to let me know!
August 6 · 21 min
How the Solar System Was First Measured
Johannes Kepler had the relative sizes of the orbits of our planets in the solar system mapped by the 1630s. The shape of the solar system had been known relatively well, but it was a shape without scale. Determining the size of the solar system was a much more challenging problem, mainly because there was no known way to make such a measurement. However, that all changed with the development of parallax and taking advantage of an even more fascinating phenomenon: the transit of Venus.
July 16 · 20 min
How The Periodic Table Was Created
In 1875, French chemist Paul-Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered the element 'Gallium' after isolating it from a zinc blende ore. However, shortly after his publication, he received word from a Russian chemist with the name of "Mendeleeff" that claimed he had predicted such an element to exist 6 years earlier. This is the story of how that Russian chemist - and a fellow German chemist - turned rival - uncovered the periodic law of the elements and formulated them all into one cohesive unit, transforming chemistry forever.
July 2 · 20 min
How a Chemist Accidentally Destroyed a Scientific Myth
Before the modern days of organic and inorganic chemistry, there was an old theory called "Vitalism" that had made its way into chemistry. Pioneered into the field by the one and only Jöns Jacob Berzelius, this theory postulated that only living things can create organic compounds through acts of the 'Vital Force.' But cracks in this theory started to form when his pupil, Friedrich Wöhler, synthesized a compound that is found in the most unexpected of places: human urine.
June 11 · 29 min
How The Double Helix Was Discovered
You might think DNA was always the frontrunner by biologists to be the master blueprint of life. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. This video documents how DNA went from experimental backmarker to the frontrunner of a heated scientific race that used betrayal and abuse of power to reveal a winner... and rewrite history.
June 4 · 8 min
How Helium Was Discovered
Helium is a very common element in our universe. However, due to its characteristics, it's very rarely found on Earth. This video shows how scientists in the 19th century overcame this obstacle, over the course of decades, and isolated and discovered the rare gas. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.comfor information about our collection and use of personal data foradvertising.
May 28 · 22 min
How Relativity Was Validated
For over two centuries, Newton’s law of gravity accurately predicted the motions of all the planets in the solar system. But that all changed in 1859, when French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier discovered a strange anomaly regarding mercury’s orbit. This led to a problem in Newton's reality that didn't have an answer until Albert Einstein proposed General Relativity in 1915. Einstein accurately modeled Mercury's orbit with GR, but it wasn't enough for his theory to be accepted as fact. He needed to predict a testable anomaly that had been previously unobserved, and one of his predictions was light bending around the Sun. In 1919, that prediction was put to the test, and what was found would make Einstein a worldwide celebrity practically overnight.
May 14 · 20 min
How Electron Spin Was Discovered
In 1887, physicists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley discovered a new phenomenon that would come to be known as the fine structure of spectral lines. These spectral lines split into two or more components, and other effects like the Zeeman and Stark effects also showed cases where spectral lines split. The quest to answer why this happened took almost 40 years and would end with the discovery of a new characteristic of an electron known as "spin".
May 14 · 8 min
How the Atom Was Split for the First Time
Ever since the discovery of the proton in 1919 by Ernest Rutherford, scientists had been on a mission to break atoms apart, splitting them into their smaller components in hopes of changing elements into others. This was first successfully done by two of Rutherford's pupils, John Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, in 1932 after their invention of the world's first particle accelerator.
May 14 · 17 min
How Oxygen Was Discovered
In the 1770s, a revolution in chemistry had just begun, starting in Uppsala, Sweden. A young apothecary named Carl Wilhelm Scheele began a series of experiments that led to the eventual downfall of an entire theory of fire that had dominated chemistry for a century. This theory was known as the theory of phlogiston; phlogiston was an invisible substance that released from materials when they burned and was absorbed by air or other substances. Scheele supported phlogiston from his results, but his went unpublished for five years, leading to another chemist, Joseph Priestley, getting credit for the discovery of what Scheele called "fire air." This is the story of how Scheele, Priestley, and a French chemist named Antoine Lavoisier discovered a substance that would eventually tackle the theory of phlogiston and replace it with a new theory of oxygen.
May 14 · 8 min
How Absolute Zero Was Discovered
Absolute zero is the theoretical limit to how cold temperature can reach. The quest to calculate the value of it started in the 1700s, but wasn't accurately done so until the mid 1800s by British physicist William Thomson.
May 14 · 16 min
How Superconductivity Was Discovered
The first liquefaction of helium in 1908 by Dutch experimental physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes was revolutionary. For the first time, scientists could push the boundaries of extremely low temperatures and see what happens to materials. 3 years after that feat, Onnes wanted to test something new: what happens to a metals electrical resistance as you reach those critical temperatures? 3 theories existed before Onnes tackled the problem, one by Lord Kelvin, one by James Dewar, and one by Augustus Matthiessen. However, when it came time to experiment, he collected data that matched none of the 3 existing theories. His discovery shocked the world of physics and introduced an entirely new concept to the community.
May 14 · 19 min
The Quantum Debate That Changed Physics Forever
The 1920s were an era of intense discovery and progress in the world of physics. Concepts such as matrix mechanics, the Schrödinger model of the atom, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and more dominated this era of progress. All of these concepts had a particular trait in common with one another: they showed that probability was the driving force behind reality. Many physicists, most notably among them, Albert Einstein, were not so willing to accept this idea to its fullest. Einstein brought his concerns with him, along with his challenging thought experiments, to the 5th Solvay Conference in 1927, where he and his colleague, Niels Bohr, would start a decades long debate over probability and the true nature of reality.
May 14 · 17 min
How X-rays Were Discovered
In the late 19th century, cathode rays were the dominant topic of discussion in the world of physics. Scientists all over the globe were debating over what the nature of those rays were and what that implied for our reality. In 1895, a German physicist by the name of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen joined this debate, but in his experiments, found something else entirely... something that would change the world forever.
May 14 · 19 min
How Radioactivity Was Discovered
In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered a new type of radiation. It was invisible and penetrating to some materials, but not others. He called the radiation "X-rays," and the phenomenon took over the science world. The very next year, a French physicist named Antoine Henri Becquerel, while studying these rays and trying to link them to phosphorescence, accidentally stumbled upon a new phenomenon that would ultimately shape the following century.
May 14 · 18 min
The Origin of the Gravitational Constant
The gravitational constant, or at least what it represents, is a fundamental part of our universe. It represents the strength of gravity and, to our knowledge, remains unchanged throughout space and time. But how did our knowledge of this come about? It all started with the Principia, but Newton did not introduce the constant G. This video takes you through the historical process of discovering G and integrating it into the science landscape.
May 14 · 21 min
How Electricity Was Discovered
In 600 BC, Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus noticed that the gemstone amber attracted light objects when it was rubbed against a cloth. Unbeknownst to him, he had discovered the phenomenon of static electricity. But how did humanity progress from this knowledge of a certain gemstone to powering machines with batteries? The answer lies in two centuries of innovation starting shortly after the beginning of the scientific revolution. This video doesn't cover everything, but does cover the most important steps during the early era of electricity, starting from William Gilbert and ending with Michael Faraday.Keywords for search: Otto von Guericke, Francis Hauksbee Hawksbee, electromagnetism, magnetism, electric field, electron, magnetic field, electromagnetic, Stephen Gray, John Godfrey, Granville Wheler, Charles du Fay, Dufay, Leyden jar, von Kleist, van Musschenbroek, Dalibard, Benjamin Franklin, kite experiment, lightning, conduction, insulator, conductor, vitreous, resinous, luigi galvani, alessandro volta, wet pile, oersted, transformer, generator.
May 14 · 13 min
How the Neutrino Was Discovered
After the discovery of beta radiation by Ernest Rutherford in 1898 and the formulation of the mass-equivalency relation by Einstein in 1905, scientists realized that beta radiation was behaving in an odd way. The expected kinetic energy of the beta particles was less than expected and spread out over a spectrum as opposed to the expected single value. Some thought energy conservation was being violated, but a few scientists thought outside the box and proposed a new elementary particle, the neutrino, that would keep energy conserved and save the physics of beta decay.

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