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May 2021
37m 32s

How do computers store so much info in s...

American Public Media
About this episode

If you translate “Hello! How are you?” to binary code, it looks like this: 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100001 00100000 01001000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00111111



This episode takes a look at how computers can do so much with such tiny parts. But computers weren't always small -- so we take a look at where computers came from. We visit Ada Lovelace, whose love of math and weaving paved the way for modern-day computers. And we hear about the material that let computers shrink from the size of a room to something that fits in our pockets. There’s also a visit from a yak and a ram, but you’re just going to have to listen to find out why.



All that plus a new Mystery Sound and Moment of Um that answers the question: what is the flavor of root beer?



This episode is sponsored by


Mathnasium (Mathnasium.com) and Sun Basket (sunbasket.com promo code: brains on)

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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