How to Calculate the Age of the Earth With the Smallest of Particles

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A note on notes: We’d much rather you just went into each episode of The Memory Palace cold. And just let the story take you where it well. So, we don’t suggest looking into the show notes first.

Music

• Dance PM from Horishi Yoshimura

• Amor - C.B. Rework by Clark

• Here’s What You’re Missin by Bing and Ruth

• Meredith Monk’s Ellis Island as played by Bruce Brubaker

• Alto Paraiso by Aukai

• Opening from Nathaniel Bartlett

• Rivers That you Cannot See by North Americans

• First of the Tide by Erland Cooper featuring Benge

Notes

• The episode old episode I mention in the credits as a companion to this one is here.

• Most of the biographical details in this were found in the official biography written for the National Academy of Sciences by his Uranium-hunting colleague, George Tilton, and a terrific, entertaining oral history interview.

• Also, if you’ve left episode in the mode where you’d just like to know some more, I came across this old Mental Floss article by Lucas Reilly that I thought did a particularly good job of weaving a lot of the back story (some of which I’d covered before in the Midgely episode linked above) into Patterson’s story. Just wanted to shine a light on it.