Rationally Speaking #27 - The Perihelinox Episode, With Historian Timothy Alborn on Anniversaries
Rationally Speaking Podcast
New York City Skeptics
4.6 • 787 Ratings
🗓️ 30 January 2011
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In honor of our first anniversary we invited Historian Timothy Alborn to help us understand the arbitrary nature of anniversaries, both those that mark events of personal significance and those that have a wider societal impact. We chose to record this episode on a very special "holiday": Perihelinox. If you've never heard of it it's because it was recently made up by our producer, Benny Pollak, to celebrate the night of the year when the earth is closest to the sun. Nothing is sacred in this episode, from Christmas to Kwanza, to Hanukkah, to Royal Jubilees. And, the Sex Pistols?
Timothy Alborn is a historian and the Dean of Arts and Humanities at the City University of New York—Lehman College (and, incidentally, Massimo's boss). He has a Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University. His recent publications include "Regulated Lives: Life Assurance and British Society, 1840-1920" and "Conceiving Companies: Joint-Stock Politics in Victorian England."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Rationally speaking is a presentation of New York City skeptics dedicated to promoting critical thinking, skeptical inquiry, and science education. |
| 0:22.6 | For more information, please visit us at NYCCEptics.org. |
| 0:35.5 | Welcome to rationally speaking, the podcast where we explore the borderlands between reason and nonsense. |
| 0:40.8 | I'm your host, Massimo Filucci, and with me as always is my co-host, Julia Galev. |
| 0:45.6 | Julia, what's our topic today? |
| 0:47.4 | Well, Massimo, today is a very special episode because it's our one-year anniversary. |
| 0:52.1 | Happy anniversary! |
| 0:53.7 | Did you get me anything? No. Sorry. |
| 0:56.6 | It would have been so easy. The official one-year anniversary gift is paper. So that really, |
| 1:02.4 | really would have been so easy for you. You're in the doghouse now. Yep. Interesting, |
| 1:06.9 | today is also another special holiday. It's Perry Heelanox, which if our listeners haven't heard of it, that's because our producer, Benny, made it up. |
| 1:14.5 | It's the day that the Earth is closest to the sun. |
| 1:17.5 | So we decided we would take... |
| 1:18.8 | Wait to make that one up, but it made that into a holiday. |
| 1:21.6 | Right, exactly. |
| 1:22.4 | He's on a personal quest to get this holiday wider renown. |
| 1:25.9 | And I'm so that there is exactly one Google hit on the word for now. |
| 1:29.9 | So that's... |
| 1:30.4 | Is it from our teaser? |
| 1:31.5 | I believe it, yes. |
| 1:32.9 | All right then. |
| 1:34.2 | So he's got his work cut out for him. |
... |
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