Search a title or topic

Over 20 million podcasts, powered by 

Player FM logo
show episodes
 
Ever wanted to know how music affects your brain, what quantum mechanics really is, or how black holes work? Do you wonder why you get emotional each time you see a certain movie, or how on earth video games are designed? Then you’ve come to the right place. Each week, Sean Carroll will host conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the world. From neuroscientists and engineers to authors and television producers, Sean and his guests talk about the biggest ideas in science, ...
  continue reading
 
Artwork

1
Thales PressCast

Developing Classical Thinkers

icon
Unsubscribe
icon
Unsubscribe
Monthly
 
The Thales Press Podcast offers lectures and seminars on the Great Books of a Classical education to help edify, encourage, and empower students to take on the challenges of the modern world.
  continue reading
 
Conan O’Brien, born on April 18, 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts, is a towering figure in American entertainment, both literally and figuratively. Standing at 6 feet 4 inches tall with his trademark red hair, O’Brien’s comedic style, sharp intellect, and boundless creativity have made him one of the most beloved and enduring personalities in television history. With a career spanning decades, he has worked as a writer, producer, host, and performer, leaving an indelible mark on the comedy ...
  continue reading
 
Loading …
show series
 
On March 13-15, several Thales faculty members participated in the 2025 annual meeting of the Ciceronian Society in Harrisonburg, Virginia. This lecture comes from Winston Brady, director of Thales Press. In this address, Winston examined the relationship between limits and liberty, for the purpose of understanding what it means to be human, with i…
  continue reading
 
Economics is seeing an upsurge in the importance of controlled, reproducible empirical studies. One area where this has had a great impact is on development economics, which studies the economies of low- and middle-income societies. Edward Miguel has been at the forefront of both the revolution in empirical methods, and in applying those techniques…
  continue reading
 
The human brain is extremely complicated, but decades of careful neuroscientific research have revealed quite a bit about how it works, including how certain genes affect particular brain behaviors. Nevertheless, this progress has not led to quite as much improvement in the treatment of brain disorders as we might expect. I talk with neuroscientist…
  continue reading
 
Author David Bahnsen joins Developing Classical Thinkers to talk about the importance of work for our health and happiness, with insights drawn from his book, "Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life." In "Full Time," Bahnsen argues that the time has come to stop tip-toeing around the issues that matter and to encourage students to look at a theolo…
  continue reading
 
Welcome to the June 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questio…
  continue reading
 
Einstein's general theory of relativity, plus some reasonable assumptions about the universe and what it's made of, has a remarkable implication: that as we trace cosmic evolution into the far past, we ultimately hit a singularity of infinite density and curvature, the Big Bang. Did that really happen? Einstein's theory is classical, after all, and…
  continue reading
 
This week, we have a special episode in honor of Memorial Day, a holiday that honors those who have given their lives in service to our country and in preserving our freedom. In this episode, we look at the beginnings of Memorial Day, why we celebrate the holiday and how long we have done so. Then, we draw out the significance of the day by looking…
  continue reading
 
Every time you see an apple spontaneously break away from a tree, it falls downward. You therefore claim that there is a law of physics: apples fall downward from trees. But how can you really know? After all, tomorrow you might see an apple that falls upward. How is science possible at all? Philosophers, as you might expect, have thought hard abou…
  continue reading
 
Timothy traced his journey from shock-driven contemporary art to a lifelong mission of sculpting the sacred. He reflected on the role of sculpture as a public and permanent witness to faith, the unique power of Christian iconography, and his ambition to help reclaim the cultural imagination through beauty, story and form. Support the show…
  continue reading
 
In American history, tariffs have been one of the most controversial and divisive economic issues. Today, tariffs are back in the news as President Trump has levied massive import fees on various goods coming into the United States from around the world--but what is a tariff? How are these fees calculated? And who is really benefiting from these fe…
  continue reading
 
There are living creatures dwelling deep below the surface of the Earth, as deep as we are able to drill. These hearty microorganisms are related to more familiar life forms on land and under water, but the operate and survive in ways that are quite different from what we're familiar with. They live off of nutrients that have penetrated from the su…
  continue reading
 
A Socratic seminar is not a lecture where the teacher imparts information to students, nor is it some sort of a debate. Instead, it is a meaningful dialogue with teachers and students and the authors of the great ideas they are examining together. Join veteran educators Chelsea Wagenaar, Chris and Kellie Scripter, and Winston Brady and hear their b…
  continue reading
 
Medical science is advancing at an astonishing rate. Today we talk with leading expert Eric Topol about two aspects of this story. First, the use of artificial intelligence in medicine, especially in diagnostics. This is an area that is a perfect match between an important question and the capabilities of machine learning, to the point where AI can…
  continue reading
 
Welcome to the May 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the question…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, Winston Brady and Marc Fusco discuss the joys of teaching middle school and studying astronomy. Mr. Fusco currently teaches Junior High History and Trivium at Thales Academy Raleigh, where he shares his love of classical education, literature, and history with his students, and he also is an Assistant Varsity Soccer Coach at Thales…
  continue reading
 
The germ theory of disease is a crowning achievement of science, up there with modern physics, continental drift, and evolution via natural selection. (Even if there will always be cranky skeptics.) But the road to widespread acceptance isn't always an easy one. Why did it take so long between Anton van Leeuwenhoek seeing "animalcules" in a microsc…
  continue reading
 
At the root of classical education is a noble challenge championed by master teachers throughout the Western heritage: teaching is the process of soul-craft—by which educators cultivate virtue within other human beings so that they might live good lives. This challenge inherently elevates the role of teachers beyond mere transmitters of knowledge t…
  continue reading
 
What is the telos of education? In a free society, is it desirable or practical to attempt to design a single system of schooling that is ideal for everyone? Can schools hold a neutral position regarding morality and values, or is education a fundamentally ethical enterprise that inevitably adopts a new moral framework when an old one is removed? I…
  continue reading
 
The current education system in the United States is increasingly misaligned with the needs of many Americans. This paper explores the shortcomings of our “federalist” approach to education, emphasizing how federal overreach and bureaucratic stagnation have hindered progress and outcomes. While federal involvement was intended to promote equity and…
  continue reading
 
Questions about consciousness range from the precise and empirical -- what neurons fire when I have some particular experience -- to the deeply profound -- does consciousness emerge from matter, or does matter emerge from consciousness? While it might be straightforward to think that consciousness arises from the collective behavior of atoms in the…
  continue reading
 
In this presentation, Robert Luddy walked through Thales Academy’s mission—to offer the highest quality education at the lowest possible price—and the real, practical steps that educational entrepreneurs can take to establish similar schools and educational institutions. Robert "Bob" Luddy is the Founder and Chairman of Thales Academy, Thales Colle…
  continue reading
 
If values like respecting proper parental authority and discretion, promoting awareness and admiration for American and Western culture, preparing students for constructive and knowledgeable citizenship, and conveying an accurate sense of American history in world context, once again became priorities, as there were in the past, what would K-12 edu…
  continue reading
 
Winston Brady offers opening remarks at the 2025 Liberty & Literacy Forum in Wake Forest North Carolina. The word "liberal" comes from the Latin "libertas," and within the word "libertas" is the word "liber," meaning “book." The Romans never separated "liberty" from a sound, content-rich education, and neither should we. The ways of grammar, logic,…
  continue reading
 
Kim Tully serves as the lead for the Luddy Industrial and Vocational Arts program and the Luddy Institute of Technology at Thales Academy. These programs guide students through the fundamental skills and topics and through rigorous hands-on activities and experiments, all of which are explained in detail and with photos throughout the books Kim Tul…
  continue reading
 
Welcome to the April 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questi…
  continue reading
 
Cosmologists were, let us be honest, pretty stunned in 1998 when observations revealed that the universe is accelerating. There was an obvious plausible explanation, the cosmological constant proposed by Einstein, which is equivalent to a constant vacuum energy pervading space. But the cosmological constant was known to be enormously smaller than i…
  continue reading
 
Consciousness is easier to possess than to define. One thing we can do is to look into the brain and see what lights up when conscious awareness is taking place. A complete understanding of this would be known as the "neural correlates of consciousness." Once we have that, we could hopefully make progress on developing a theoretical picture of what…
  continue reading
 
Social media and smartphones present unprecedented challenges for educators and parents. Parents and teachers often recognize that smartphones and social media do not help students, but they have not had data to confirm this belief. In this episode of Developing Classical Thinkers, Ashley Bahor and Olivia Holliday discuss Jonathan Haidt's 2024 book…
  continue reading
 
We often study cognition in other species, in part to learn about modes of thinking that are different from our own. Today's guest, psychologist/philosopher Alison Gopnik, argues that we needn't look that far: human children aren't simply undeveloped adults, they have a way of thinking that is importantly distinct from that of grownups. Children ar…
  continue reading
 
Welcome to the March 2025 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questi…
  continue reading
 
In this episode, Winston Brady speaks with Joseph Wolak, assistant head of school at the Thales Academy Apex JH / HS campus. Joe is a veteran teacher with over twenty years of experience teaching mathematics, and he shares his best tips and strategies in the classroom concerning pedagogy, classroom management, preparation, and grading for math teac…
  continue reading
 
A lot of science goes into crafting the perfect cocktail. Balancing sweet and bitter notes, providing the right amount of aeration and dilution, getting it to just the right temperature and keeping it that way. And even if you have no interest in cocktails as such, the general principles extend to other activities in art and in life. I talk to scie…
  continue reading
 
January 31-February 1, the CiRCE Institute held its annual FORMA Symposium, hosted on the beautiful campus at Belmont Abbey College. The In this speech from the FORMA Symposium, Winston Brady addresses the plight of science education in the twenty-first century. Today, much of science education is not oriented toward truth but the cultivation and c…
  continue reading
 
Loading …
Copyright 2025 | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | | Copyright
Listen to this show while you explore
Play