What is the difference between hydrogen and helium? Before the internal structure of atoms was known atoms were thought to be like tiny pool balls. This can explain different sizes and masses, but fails to explain the difference in chemical properties. That’s when the vortex theory of atoms emerged. Atoms were believed to be vortexes in an aether that permeated everything. This theory went beyond established mathematics, so that its proponents had to develop hydrodynamics and establish a new field called knot theory. The full theory seemed to always be just out of reach, but surely with a bit more development of the mathematical foundations all open questions would be answered. In the end the downfall of aether theory took the vortex theory of the atom down with it. Do knot miss out on this week’s episode of Good in Theory!

After the great success of thermodynamics some scientists started to doubt that mechanics,

the theory describing the movement of matter, was fit to describe the underlying nature of

reality. They believed that thermodynamics teaches us that energy is more fundamental than

matter, leading them to the theory of energeticism. Not only was this theory met with

scepticism, its proponents were pretty much attacked by scientists backing the more

accepted theory of atoms. Everyone loves an underdog, but unfortunately this story ends

with the destruction of energeticism when atoms were experimentally discovered. If you want

some good energy, listen to this week’s podcast of Good in Theory.

Where did humanity as a species come from? By the end of the 19th century scientists had accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution. So what does this mean for humanity? Nowadays humans live (almost) all over the world, but where did the first humans live? Given that we all belong to one species scientists thought that we can’t have evolved independently everywhere, but that there was an original cradle of humanity and later humans embarked on their quest to populate (almost) all continents. The first evidence for early humans was found in south-east Asia. Bias and false ideas of how early humans should have looked like led to a long period of time in which people believed humanity stems out of Asia. But in the end scientists found evidence of earlier humans in Africa. Dig into the history of humanity by listening to this week’s episode of Good in Theory.