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Public Radio Sites
• National Public Radio
• Public Radio International
• This American Life
• WUIS/WIPA Springfield/Pittsfield Illinois
• WILL-AM FM TV Urbana, Illinois
• WIUM (Tri-States Radio)
• WSIU- FM Carbondale, Illinois

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October 2008
Bob Kearn - Inventor: The movie Flash of Genius starring Greg Kinnear has recently been released. It tells the story of Bob Kearns - the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper - and his struggle for justice. Kearns felt that the large automakers has stolen his design for the wiper blades. In a commentary from 2005 I reflect on Kearns life and struggle - I wrote this piece just after his death of brain cancer. Download an mp3 or use the RSS feed. Or listen here:

September 2008
Four-part Special Report on the Water Supply

Episode #4: How much water do we use? Bill Hammack follows his wife, Amy, through her morning routine to show how an average American uses 1800 gallons of water a day. This includes not only water used for domestic uses (toliets, cooking, hygine), but also water used in manfacturing. Since most of the items in our houses are imported from around the globe, this means that we tap into water supplies around the world, especially China. Download an mp3 or use the RSS feed.  Or listen here:

Episode #3: How should we manage our water supply? Bill Hammack visits with an Illinois State Geological Survey team as they drop a microphone down a borehole in order to understand the composition of the aquifer hundreds of feet underground. Clips from David Larson, geologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey and Derek Winstanley of the Illinois State Water Survey address how to manage our water supply from the Mahomet Aquifer. Winstantely highlights the key challanges, including the effects of global warming. The piece closes with a teaser that we import much of our water from ... China. Download an mp3 or use the RSS feed. Or listen here:

Episode #2: How much water do we have? Bill Hammack visits with Norm Stenzel who lives in rural Champaign County near Bondville. The new well field being built by Illinois-American Water surrounds - and threaten - his well. Clips from Derek Winstanley and Al Wehrmann at the Illinois Water Survey and David Larson at the Illinois Geological Survey highlight the key issue with the water supply: It isn't a fear of running out of water, but concern about how concentrated pumping can affect locally the cost of water by changing the characteristics of the wells. The pieces closes asking what we mean by "managing correctly" our water supply -- the subject of the next episode. Download an mp3 or use the RSS feed. Or listen here:

Episode #1 Where does our water come from?: Bill Hammack investigates the origins of the Champaign-Urbana Water supply. This episode introduces the listener to the Mahomet Aquifer explaining how it was formed. It includes audio clips from David Larson, geologist at the Illinois State Geological Survey and Derek Winstanely of the Illinois State Water Survey. It opens with Bill in his front yard looking for the water cutoff value to his house, then quickly moves to the best geographical point to detect the existance of the undeground Mahmet Aquifer valley. David Larson explains what an aquifer does. Bill closes with a teaser from Winstanley that the water supply isn't infinite. Download an mp3 or use the RSS feed. Or listen here:

October 2007

Two of my pieces appeared on Marketplace the week of October 1st. On Monday I did a piece on the "standards wars" for DVDs, and then on Thursday a commentary reflecting on Sputnik's anniversary.

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Most recently I've been doing interviews for public radio's Afternoon Magazine. Of most interest to visitors of this web site is an interview I did with John Tyler Bonner - a biologist at Princeton. He's written a wonderful book entitled Why Size Matters. Its about how size affects the biological shape, form and function of living beings. You can heard the interview at this link. Also, I interviewed P.D. Smith about his fortcoming book The Doomsday Bomb: The Real Story of Doctor Strangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon. You can listen to this interview on-line.

I have also been doing regular commentaries for Marketplace. You can hear some of the most recent at these links: Nanotechnology and on the Pentagon's New Map (about how technology and globalization are changing the military). I should be on the week of September 24th talking about the HD-DVD format wars.

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The Ice Hotel Podcast (November 16, 2006)

Each week the Nature Conservancy presents a Nature Stories audio podcast. They feature stories that bring listeners interesting and unexpected tales of people's connections with the natural world.

This week they are featuring a rarely heard public radio piece I produced about my visit to the Ice Hotel in the arctic circle of Sweden. In this 20 minute piece I investigate every aspect of the hotel from its construction to why anyone would build it. You can download the free podcast at www.nature.org/podcasts. Note: It is the November 15, 2006 piece. There is also a direct link to the audio. It is the Enjoy!

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I'm back on the air! (October 3, 2006)

As many of you know I left the airwaves for a year to serve in the State Department as a science adviser. After traveling from Vienna to Vietnam and living in DC I've returned to public radio.

Recently I created a commentary about YouTube (the Internet video phenomenon) for American Public Radio's Marketplace. You can read it or listen to it at the Marketplace website.

Also, I spent the last two weeks guest hosting public radio's Afternoon Magazine. Two interviews will likely be of interest to engineerguy.com readers: The Box: How the Shipping Container made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger and Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence. Click to get podcasts. (Of course, you might well be interested in other topics from those two weeks: Shakespeare, Television with David Bianculli, Orson Welles, the Arctic, Mirrors, or the reason things fail!) Enjoy!

Copyright 2006 William S. Hammack Enterprises

Recognition for engineerguy.com

Bill has received the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award. He has also received the IEEE Award for Literary Contributions Furthering the Public Understanding of the Profession. He's been recognized by the American Chemical Society's Grady-Stack Award; the American Society for Engineering Education's President's Award, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters Silver Reel for National News & Commentary, the National Association of Science Writers Science-in-Society Award; the Church Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Service to Society Award. Most recently, Bill served as a Jefferson Science Fellow at the Department of State.