182. Orrery: Enlightenment Thought and the Science of Stars

This week Kyle and Emily take a trip to their local planetarium, to learn not about the cosmos but about the machine itself. They’ll chat about astronomy, invention, and perhaps a bit of theater as they explore the word orrery.

This word dips our hosts into a bit of Irish history, where they encounter an earl who was either a mechanical genius or a marketing shark. Kyle and Emily trace how earlier inventions, like the armillary sphere and the astronomical clock, led to many other delightful gadgets for displaying the movements of the Earth, moon, and planets.

Our hosts also discuss how the orrery grew from a tabletop marvel to a public spectacle. Kyle reveals how this model of our solar system made for the worst date night of Charles Dickens’s life, and Emily discovers the stage mechanics that eventually gave way to modern planetarium shows.