{"podcast":{"title":"Science History Podcast","slug":"science-history-podcast-766905","podcast_index_feed_id":766905,"rss_url":"https://sciencehistory.libsyn.com/rss","website_url":"http://sciencehistory.libsyn.com/website","image_url":"https://static.libsyn.com/p/assets/d/e/e/9/dee9ef7f4ebfa0fc/IconPNG.png","author":"Frank A. von Hippel","episode_count":100,"summary":"Monthly interviews on important moments in the history of science.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-12T18:18:13.159532+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/science-history-podcast-766905"},"episode":{"title":"Episode 96. The Weather: Simon Winchester","slug":"episode-96-the-weather-simon-winchester","published_at":"2025-11-11T01:18:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/science-history-podcast-766905/episode-96-the-weather-simon-winchester","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/science-history-podcast-766905","url":"https://sciencehistory.libsyn.com/episode-96-the-weather-simon-winchester","audio_url":"https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/sciencehistory/SHP_Episode_96.mp3?dest-id=618721","summary":"The weather has always been a critical element of the human experience - deadly during storms and droughts, sustaining when aligned with the harvest schedule, beautiful and frightening, and integrated into the myths and religions of all societies. How did a scientific understanding of the weather come about? Here to guide us on this question is Simon Winchester. Simon's articles and approximately 30 books range in topic from travel writing to politics, geography, biography, and science history. Simon is best known for his books The Professor and the Madman , The Men Who United the States , The Map That Changed the World , The Man Who Loved China , A Crack in the Edge of the World , and Krakatoa , all of which were New York Times bestsellers. In 2006, Simon was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II. Today we discuss Simon's new book about the weather entitled, The Breath of the Gods , published by HarperCollins.","meta_description":"The weather has always been a critical element of the human experience - deadly during storms and droughts, sustaining when aligned with the harvest sched…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3820,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/science-history-podcast-766905/episodes/episode-96-the-weather-simon-winchester/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/science-history-podcast-766905/episode-96-the-weather-simon-winchester.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}