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Impressionism (Episode 38)

Thanks for tuning in to our episode about the late nineteenth century Impressionist art movement. Here's a visual guide to this week's show! Prior to the Impressionists, the French art world was strictly controlled by the Royal Academy of Arts, who determined which paintings could be displayed at the Salon de Paris (The Paris Exhibition). They preferred studio portraits painted in the classical way with traditional religious or historic subjects, like Alexandre Cabanel's Chr

RM Zubairi

Mar 282 min read

Show Notes 2/16/25: Measuring Mountains

In this week's show, we mentioned that the Indian subcontinent was measured and mapped using a tool called Gunter's chain. This was a device invented by a clergyman and mathematician named Edmund Gunter. It's a 66-foot-long measuring device consisting of 100 links. Measurements obtained with this device gave us units like the furlong, mild, and acre. Here is a Gunter's chain. As we also mentioned, you can't really use measuring chains for mountains. For that you need a tool t

RM Zubairi

Feb 141 min read

12/8/25 Show Notes--The Mercator Map

Hey there! We hope you enjoyed this week's show on the Mercator Projection, Gerardus Mercator's successful attempt to make a workable map for navigators. On the show, we talked about Mercator's brilliance in constructing a map that allowed navigation by drawing straight lines between points that were easy to plot. But the downside of the Mercator Projection is that it progressively distorts the size of landmasses the further you get from the Equator. This happens because Merc

RM Zubairi

Dec 8, 20251 min read