23: Plastic's Past, Imperfect Pitch, and the Dumb History of Generation Naming
What is the history of plastic, and what could the future hold? Why is perfect pitch, not so perfect, and do any animals have it? And how on Earth did we end up with these meaningless names for generations?
We also learn about: what is plastic? plastics are an invasive species, natural plastics, explosions are at the root of a lot of science, guncotton, oops we made it explosive, should have bought those 666 horses, patent drama, ella slumdog millionaires celloid tennis balls, flammable films, pronouncing bakelite, carrier bags vs plastic bags, the great pacific garbage patch, plastic quiz, all plastics made still exist, the future of plastics, testing our perfect pitch, Tom interviews Sidney Gish, being able to tell home depot paint swatches doesn’t make you a master architect, my brain is wet wet mud, the 1 in 10,000 number is bogus, guessing sine waves vs pianos, the Levitan Effect, more people have pitch memory than perfect pitch, perfect pitch in animals, dolphin octave mirroring, mosquitos matching pitch to mate, let’s bone doooooown, playing happy birthday for rats, describing happy birthday like an alien, perfect pitch RAMPANT among birds, birds understand spectal vocoder music, what is a generation? the origins of generation names, Strauss-Howe generational theory, retrofitting a logical system from a random idea, backfilling generations to arthurian times, THEY WERE PLAYWRIGHTS, there should never just be One center for research, a london doctor once said…, generational character archetypes, social theory shouldn’t sound like a D&D campaign, millennial and their avocado toast, why don’t millennials like Blue’s Clues anymore? people have always been complaining about “lewd wicked children”, scientists vs the pew research center.
Sources:
The Science Museum: The Age of Plastic
Essentials of Polymer Science and Engineering
UN: From Birth to Ban: A History of the Plastic Shopping Bag
Nat Geo: Great Pacific Garbage Patch
The Ocean Clean Up: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Earth Day: Fact Sheet- Single Use Plastics
Climate Foresight: The Future of Plastics is Uncertain
University of Birmingham: The Fate and Sustainable Future of Plastic
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Carden & Cline's Excellent Review of the Myth's of Perfect Pitch
Marisa Hoeschele's Amazing Review of Animal Pitch Perception
Guessing Sine Waves vs Piano Notes Experiment
Pitch Memory TV Theme Experiment
Singing Happy Birthday to Rats
Starling Spectral Shape Experiment
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Pew Research: The Whys and Hows of Generations Research