Vol.4 Empirical Sciences

I. Astronomy
1. The Hubble Space Telescope
2. The ‘red shift’
3. Dark matter and dark energy
4. The rediscovery of Mars
5. The ‘comet scare’ of 1910
6. Bigger and better telescopes
7. Exobiology
8. The man who discovered Pluto
9. Politics and lunar missions
10. Planetoid impacts
11. Comet dust
12. Landing on Titan

II. Physics
1. Clouds
2. Tidal action
3. The invention of the laser
4. Plasma physics lab
5. Parallel computing
6. Cold fusion
7. Tornadoes
8. Albert Michaelson
9. John von Neumann
10. ENIAC
11. Charles Richter
12. Vannevar Bush

III. Chemistry
1. Oil, chemicals, and American life
2. The plastics industry
3. Pesticides and eagles
4. The ‘hydrogen economy’
5. The story of plasticine
6. Recombinant DNA
7. The DuPont empire
8. The search for new drugs
9. Poison specialists
10. The rubber expert
11. Tracking air pollution
12. The radon controversy

IV. Anatomy & Medicine
1. Phineas Gage’s head wound
2. Walter Reed
3. How the U.S. Army conquered typhoid fever
4. The Terri Schiavo case
5. Organ transplants: who decides?
6. The rise of the American hospital
7. America’s tallest man (and how he got that way)
8. Native American remedies
9. Strange medical theories
10. Early plastic surgery
11. Military hospitals, 1861-1865
12. George Washington’s health

V. Technology
1. Computers and society
2. The first American satellites
3. Early electronic computers
4. Subways
5. Skyscrapers
6. The great ocean liners
7. Tepee design
8. Thomas Edison
9. How radio changed America
10. Samuel Morse
11. Railroads and the U.S. economy
12. Nanotechnology