Episode 10: For the Fun of It (Or, the Play in Great Work)
In the final episode of the season, we explore ornamentation, the non-medical application of a device made with gold leaf, and how the MIT M...
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Society & Culture
Wonderland Podcast with Steven Johnson
A series about the past and future of play and innovation, hosted by Steven Johnson, bestselling author and co-creator of the PBS series How We Got To Now. Necessity isn't always the mother...
Episodes
10 episodesEpisode 9: Sphere of Life (Or, Why Humans Are So Obsessed With a Bouncing Ball)
An investigation into one of humanity's oldest and most ubiquitous inventions: the ball. From Egyptian rituals to the birth of the rubber in...
Episode 8: Party in the Front (Or, How We Incorporate Play into Work)
An exploration of the cultural shift that began with a leisure space of idle chatter and led to some of our most productive modern work envi...
Episode 7: In Pursuit of Condiments (Or, How the Spice Trade Changed Our Palates)
From the thrilling story of the Pepper Wreck and its salvage to the strange tale of a 12 year old slave who solved the riddle that changed t...
Episode 6: Clever Like a Fox (Or, What Happens Inside Our Brains When We Play?)
A look into how games and childhood play encourage the kind of adaptive, flexible thinking we need to navigate a complex world. Special gues...
Episode 5: Greater Than Zero (Or, the Politics of Serious Games)
An investigation into the surprising history of games designed to change our political values, from the radical origins of Monopoly to a bra...
Episode 4: Airplanes, Zoos, and Infinite Chickens (Or, Why Do Humans Like To Play?)
An exploration of the power of play, from screen-based games like Pokemon Go or Minecraft, to the imaginative worlds of children inventing p...
Episode 3: Strange Loops and Circuit Benders (Or, How New Music Comes from Broken Machines)
A mysterious stranger in San Francisco's Union Square helps jumpstart a sonic revolution with a malfunctioning tape recorder. The story of h...
Episode 2: 32 Dots Per Spaceship (Or, the Video Game That Changed Tech History)
A look back at the origins of Spacewar! , the first original video game and one of the most influential pieces of software ever written. Wit...
Episode 1: Babbage and the Dancer (Or, Can You Fall in Love With a Robot?)
An eight-year-old boy's encounter with a robotic toy doll ends up changing the course of technological history. Steven Johnson talks with sp...