101: Why is the Sky Blue & Speech Disfluency

Show notes

For episode 101, we're challenging ourselves to make a technically family friendly, swear free episode! Why is the sky blue? Well it turns out it took a lot of science to understand why! And what is speech disfluency? Well it's like... um... you'll see! Images we Talk About: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/Inferior\_Mirage\_green\_flash.jpg"]( Green Flash [https://science.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/pia07997-spirit-sunset-at-gusav-crater-16x9-1.jpg"]( Sunset Timestamps: (00:00:00) Intro (00:06:43) Why is the Sky Blue (00:54:28) Speech Disfluency (01:40:45) Outro [https://maximumfun.org/join/"]( Support us with a Max Fun Membership! [https://discord.gg/EZBvwBZkXv"]( Join our Discord! We also learn about: [https://www.stellarnet.us/a-brief-history-of-the-skys-blueness/"]( StellarNet: A Brief History of the Sky’s Blueness [https://www.slowboring.com/p/greeks-blue"]( Blog: The bizarre myth that Ancient Greeks couldn't see blue [https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/23/14829/2023/"]( 2023 Paper: Revisiting the question “Why is the sky blue?” [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John\_Tyndall"]( Wiki- John Tyndall [https://theconversation.com/john-tyndall-the-forgotten-co-founder-of-climate-science-143499"]( The Conversation: John Tyndall: the forgotten co‑founder of climate science [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayleigh\_scattering"]( Wiki: Rayleigh Scattering [https://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/toolbox/emspectrum1.html"]( NASA: The Electromagnetic Spectrum [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-causes-a-mirage/"]( Scientific American: Mirages [https://www.iflscience.com/earth-used-look-orange-31924"]( IFL Science: Orange Sky [https://asm.org/articles/2022/february/the-great-oxidation-event-how-cyanobacteria-change"]( The Great Oxidation Event: How Cyanobacteria Changed Life [https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/why-sky-blue"]( Royal Museums Greenwich: Why Is The Sky Blue [https://marsinabox.iaa.csic.es/experiments/blue-sky-red-sky/"]( Mars in a Box: Martian Sunsets \--- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filler\_(linguistics)"]( Wikipedia: Filler (linguistics) [https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-filler-word-1690859"]( Thought Co: Definitions and Examples of Filler Words [https://www.theregister.com/2006/05/06/the\_odd\_body\_language\_fillers/"]( The Register: Why Do We Say Um? [https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03194926"]( Paper: Listeners' Uses of Um and Uh in Speech Comprehension [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/verbal-ticks-like-um.html"]( New York Times: So, Um, How Do You, Like, Stop Using Filler Words? [https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/advan.00110.2022"]( University of Colorado Paper: We, um, have, like, a problem [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word"]( Guardian: Why Do People Say Like So Much? [https://www.npr.org/2025/09/03/nx-s1-5521388/um-filler-word-of-the-week"]( NPR: Why Do We Say Um So Much? [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11426737"]( BBC: Teen Slang [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Boyd\_Davis/publication/233966359\_Fillers\_Pauses\_and\_Placeholders/links/5cf119dd92851c4dd01d1276/Fillers-Pauses-and-Placeholders.pdf"]( Paper: Fillers, Pauses and Placeholders [https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/2020/04/17/the-hidden-uses-of-fillers/"]( Cambridge: Hidden Use of Fillers [http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/bnc2014/doc/BNC2014manual.pdf"]( The British National Corpus 2014 [https://languagehat.com/the-mystery-of-fillers/"]( Language Hat: The Mystery of Fillers [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/08/men-say-uh-and-women-say-um/375729/"]( The Atlantic : “Men Say 'Uh' and Women Say 'Um'” [https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13873"]( Language Log: Men and Women’s Use of Words [https://daily.jstor.org/filler-words-floor-holders-the-sounds-our-thoughts-make/"]( JStor: Filler Words and Floor Holders [https://youtu.be/rIQrMS8eTIs?si=028bXynjCQ-zhWth&t=32"]( THE CALIFORNIA STORY 1906 By Thomas A. Edison