2017 Nobel Prize Special: Gravitational Waves

TEOTWAWKI 7 - Supervolcanoes: 75,000 years ago, the human race was on the brink of extinction. The cause was the Toba supervolcanic eruption, which had plunged the earth into a volcanic winter and killed all but a few thousand remaining humans. This moment was the closest we have... by Physical Attraction

23 min listen

Rafael Alves-Batista: Resilience of Life, Astrobiology and Fine-Tuning: Joining me today is Dr Rafael Alves-Batista. Rafael is a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Oxford. He received his Bachelor’s Degree and his Masters’ at the State University of Campinas in Brazil, moved to Hamburg, Germany for... by Physical Attraction

51 min listen

Fermi and Drake: Are we alone in the Universe? Or are there alien civilisations out there? And if there are, where are they, and why aren't they talking to us? We'll explore the Fermi paradox, the Drake equation, and, of course... the simple fact that we're all... by Physical Attraction

32 min listen

Physics Gets Hot and Heavy II: Physics gets hot and heavy, part two. This episode we'll be looking at what happens to stars after they join the main sequence - one of the most beautiful theories in astrophysics. Neutron stars, black holes, supernovae... Things are only going to get... by Physical Attraction

20 min listen

Seduced By A Robot: OK Computer, seduce me. What happens when Japanese scientists try to programme an AI to give love advice? Are we going to be able to talk to robots in our lifetimes and have them say anything that makes an earthly lick of sense? Should you stop... by Physical Attraction

31 min listen

Physics Gets Hot and Heavy I: Our inaugural episode! Explaining physics, one chat-up line at a time. This episode, I'm going to explain some of my motivations behind creating the show, and then we're going to be looking at how stars are born, how they're formed, and how... by Physical Attraction

23 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 9: It Came From Outer Space: It's easy to forget that we are on a pale, blue dot - the one habitable place we know of in the whole, wide, Universe. Fragile. Perhaps too fragile. It's not that the Universe wants to kill us; it's just that astrophysics doesn't care too much... by Physical Attraction

31 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 10: Earthquakes: Let’s talk about earthquakes. As we know, the Earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates – vast plates of rock that shift around due to convection and the motion of fluid in Earth’s mantle. They, roughly speaking “join together” at... by Physical Attraction

25 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 8: Cyberwarfare: We know that a great deal of our critical national infrastructure depends on complex cyber-systems; but in the fast-changing world of the internet and computer systems, it's become impossible for slow-moving legislators to catch up to the shifting... by Physical Attraction

28 min listen

Unusually Hot: The Radiation Episode: What is radiation, and why won't it give you superpowers? How can we shield future generations from nuclear waste? What's the Oh-My-God particle? And, most crucially of all, how many bananas does it take to crush a person to death? ... by Physical Attraction

23 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 6: Malthus' Revenge: The human population has been growing exponentially for a long time. It’s been continuously growing since the Black Death in the 1300s – and although wars, famines, and plagues cause occasional blips in the growth since, it’s been pretty close... by Physical Attraction

28 min listen

Climate Conversation with Ben Franta: Scientist, Historian, Activist (I): We have a guest on the show today - Ben Franta. Ben is a scientist, science historian, science writer, and activist. He studied for a PhD at Harvard working on solar cells; while he was at Harvard, he became involved in the movement to persuade that... by Physical Attraction

40 min listen

2017 Nobel Prize Special: Gravitational Waves: As you may already know, yesterday, the Nobel Prize in Physics, 2017 was announced: it went to Kip Thorne, Barry Barish, and Rainer Weiss for their contributions towards the LIGO collaboration that detected gravitational waves. In this special... by Physical Attraction

33 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 4, Supervirus Part I: Nature: Human beings have been facing apocalyptic circumstances for thousands of years. Our competitors, our nemesis have been pathogens like malaria, Yersinia Pestis, smallpox... every few generations, a cataclysmic plague would tear through human... by Physical Attraction

33 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 4, Supervirus II: The Human Factor: Earlier this year, a couple of scientists in a laboratory did something incredible. Using nothing but the genetic code and a well-equipped lab, they raised the dead. Specifically, the extinct horsepox virus was brought back to life. The... by Physical Attraction

36 min listen

Get Ready for the Apocalypse: We're going to be presenting a very special series of episodes over the next few months. The end of the world. Is it going to end in fire, or ice? And is there anything we can do about it? Get ready for the apocalypse. by Physical Attraction

2 min listen

Good Vibrations: Can you really explain a huge chunk of what we know about physics with a single equation? What does this equation look like, and how does it behave? And - most importantly - what happens when a platoon of soldiers try to flirt with a bridge? ... by Physical Attraction

19 min listen

XRiskology: Existential Risks with Phil Torres, Part I: We have a guest on the show today – Phil Torres. Phil Torres is an author, Affiliate Scholar at the , former contributor at the , and founding Director of the . He has published in Bulletin of the Atomic... by Physical Attraction

47 min listen

Physical Attraction: Trailer: The show that explains physics, one chat-up line at a time. Coming soon to an internet near you. by Physical Attraction

1 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 3 - The Singularity, Part I: Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial... by Physical Attraction

41 min listen

News: Neutron Star Merger, Yay Science!: LIGO hold a big press conference and announce the merger of Neutron Stars detected via gravitational waves and optical instruments for the first time. We now know about types of gamma ray burst, and where gold and platinum come from. Since we... by Physical Attraction

16 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 5: Peak Oil: This episode of the TEOTWAWKI specials, we're focusing on every crazed doom-prepper's favourite scenario for the end of the world - Peak Oil. Our society runs on oil and petroleum products (sadly, still). These fossil fuels are the fossilised remains... by Physical Attraction

30 min listen

Bonus Episode: Solar Panels + Splitting Sunbeams: Occasionally, in the world, we observe empirical laws – the laws of experiment - that seem to be spookily accurate. There’s no theoretical reason why they should be obeyed, but they just happen to describe the world remarkably well. Perhaps the... by Physical Attraction

21 min listen

Bonus: AI Shakespeare vs. AI Trump, call for Listener Questions: Bonus midweek edition, coming to you as close to LIVE as is humanly possible... Inspired by last week's episode, Seduced By A Robot, I downloaded a neural network and started to play around with it. See what happens when I feed it: The works of... by Physical Attraction

16 min listen

TEOTWAWKI: The Singularity, Part II: Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Martin Rees... all have warned about the risk from Artificial Intelligence. Centres like the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford, and the Centre for Existential Risk at Cambridge, rate the risk from artificial... by Physical Attraction

46 min listen

Announcing Patreon and how to Support the Show: www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction, that's www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . If you go there, and subscribe selecting the $3/episode option, the RSS feed and access to all of the online bonus episodes will be yours. I want to make the subscription... by Physical Attraction

5 min listen

Units and Dimensional Analysis, Pt I: The Metric Revolution: Units and Dimensional Analysis, Pt I: The Metric Revolution No physicist would be anywhere without dimensional analysis. In this episode, we answer the surprisingly complicated question - how long is a metre? for previous shows, information,... by Physical Attraction

25 min listen

TEOTWAWKI 2.1: Ecotastrophe: Our environment links us all: and we know that we are doing immense harm to that natural environment with our human activities. But where are the weak links? What are the potential pitfalls for the natural world, and for civilisation? In other words -... by Physical Attraction

52 min listen

BONUS: Autocracy Now, Stalin I: Rebel to Revolutionary: This is a bonus episode coming out on the Physical Attraction feed. The topic is even less related to physics than usual, but since it's extra, I hope you'll forgive me. As I mentioned a few episodes ago, this wasn't the first podcast I ever made. In... by Physical Attraction

39 min listen

TEOTWAWKI Bonus: Alien Attack (Free Episode): Things have been very serious and very depressing on our TEOTWAWKI specials; so I thought it was about time to do a little bit of light-hearted debunking, rather than ranting about the genuine dangers of apocalypse that might await us in the future. ... by Physical Attraction

24 min listen

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2017 Nobel Prize Special: Gravitational Waves

2017 Nobel Prize Special: Gravitational Waves

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