Tim Harford

speaker

476 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 20 Jul

Tim Harford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal · Britain's Worst Airship Disaster · 20 Jul 2026 podcast

Yeah. voice-verified

The Wright brothers have built the Wright Flyer. voice-verified

There have been planes have flown across the channel and they were used in the First World War, but it's difficult to get very far in an aeroplane. voice-verified

So if you want to fly from England to India, for example, which you might well want to do because India is under the sway of the British, it's part of the British Empire. voice-verified

you're going to have to stop in continental Europe and then you're going to have to stop in Cairo and then you're going to have to stop somewhere further in the Middle East and then maybe stop in Iran, Persia. voice-verified

So you'll have all of these different stops and every stop is risky and every stop you need this whole paraphernalia of how are you going to refuel. voice-verified

Airports don't even exist. voice-verified

What are you going to do? voice-verified

So there's an alternative. voice-verified

And the alternative is to build a craft that's lighter than air. voice-verified

Now, this is a very old idea. voice-verified

So the Montgolfier brothers had their hot air balloon. voice-verified

But an airship is a different thing. voice-verified

An airship has propellers and engines so it can be pointed and propelled. voice-verified

You're not just drifting with the wind. voice-verified

So that's the basic idea. voice-verified

And once you start to develop that idea, you realize you could go big with it. voice-verified

And these chips were very big. voice-verified

So some of them are the size of the biggest New York skyscrapers at the time. voice-verified

So imagine the Chrysler building or the Empire State Building. voice-verified

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