Physical Attraction

Thomas

Physical Attraction is the show that explores topics in science, technology, and the future - from a physicist's perspective. From the birth of stars to the end of the world, from interviews with experts to meticulously-researched deep dives, we'll explore the topics that shape our world.

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247 episodes
Updated Mar 9, 2022

Episodes247

Newest first

Nov 28, 2018 · 24 min
Thermonuclear Takes: CRISPR Babies, Future of the Show
In this episode of Physical Attraction, we'll talk about the breaking news surrounding the birth of the world's first genetically modified CRISPR baby. "He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who claims to have helped produce the first people born with edited genomes — twin girls — appeared today at a gene-editing summit in Hong Kong to explain his experiment. He gave his talk amid threats of legal action and mounting questions, from the scientific community and beyond, about the ethics of his work and the way in which he released the results." - Nature Magazine. This experiment, which - if confirmed - marks the first instance where a genetically modified human was born - may well have crossed the Rubicon and opened Pandora's Box on behalf of humanity, to mix metaphors. An ethical and scientific storm is already brewing. We'll describe and discuss the experiment, and what it might mean, and then brief you on the future of the show. www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod
Nov 22, 2018 · 33 min
Free Energy Scams: No, Really, You Can't Break The Laws of Thermodynamics
"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1915), chapter 4 And yet, throughout the years and decades and centuries, countless people have tried to convince others that they hold the key to violating the laws of thermodynamics and generating limitless amounts of free energy. Here, in the spirit of narrative fun, we explore the vast array of free energy scams that have been perpetrated over the years - from the age of PT Barnum style "inventors" to the age of GoFundMe and the tragic tale of the self-recharging battery. It didn't work. None of them work. Not the nuclear reactor that was secretly powered by wires. Not the magic liquid that could turn water into gasoline. Free energy is a scam as old as time, and yet people still seem to be taken in by it - often to the tune of millions of dollars. If you take only one thing from Physical Attraction, let it be this: It's much easier and infinitely likely that the laws being broken are laws that prohibit fraud, and not the Laws of Thermodynamics. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. If you're trying to sell me your free energy device, please, feel free to pitch it so that I can laugh and then report you to the authorities. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!
Nov 20, 2018 · 4 min
Minisode: Kelvin and Clausius are Equivalent Statements
A brief appendix explaining why the definitions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics really just mean the same thing.
Nov 16, 2018 · 29 min
Thermodynamics, The Second Law: You Can't Break Even
The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the formation of black holes. And, in short, they are: You can't win. You can't break even. You can't get out of the game. These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end. This episode deals with the Second Law of Thermodynamics - regarding the inevitable increase of entropy and the ultimate fate of the Universe. This is a law so philosophically profound that it is believed by many to have contributed to the suicide of one of its discoverers, Boltzmann. So, while you're still acting to keep your own entropy low by increasing the entropy of the Universe (a.k.a fighting the good fight), take a listen. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!
Nov 8, 2018 · 30 min
Thermodynamics, The First Law: You Can't Win
The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the formation of black holes. And, in short, they are: You can't win. You can't break even. You can't get out of the game. These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end. This episode deals with the First Law of Thermodynamics - regarding the conservation of energy. So kick your heels back in nice warm surroundings and take a listen. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!
Nov 4, 2018 · 2 hr 2 min
BONUS: Stalin Episode XI-XII-XIII Omnibus
Towards the end of Stalin's life, he became ever more paranoid, embittered, isolated, and vengeful. As his various ministers and members of the Politburo jockeyed for power and position around him, using his fits of paranoia to exact revenge on one another, the only thing that united them all was fear. This is the final omnibus in the series from our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, which brings the biography of Stalin to its conclusion. Listen to the rest of the show over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com
Oct 29, 2018 · 23 min
Interstellar Travel: Shooting for the Stars
The Starshot Project is one of those rare, exciting technological plans that seems to come straight out of science fiction - a plan to visit the nearest star to Earth within our lifetimes. It will require huge technological advancements in virtually every relevant field, but it's still the most feasible way to get to the stars. We'll discuss the project, how it would work, and the physics of why interstellar travel is so damn difficult. Comments? Questions? Concerns? Praise? Rage? Visit the website at www.physicspodcast.com Follow us on that Tweet website at @physicspod. We have a Facebook page if that's your tech giant of choice. Don't forget our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, just about to wrap up the life of Stalin in its series of shows on the lives of notorious dictators and wannabe dictators.
Oct 25, 2018 · 35 min
Malicious Uses for Artificial Intelligence: Part II
A recent report released at https://maliciousaireport.com/ on the potential malicious uses for artificial intelligence brings us sharply to the present. In the TEOTWAWKI episodes on AI, we focused on "hard AI" - the potentials for chaos and rapid change if artificial intelligence becomes "truly sentient". But in the shorter term, machine-learning algorithms and increasing automation are already impacting all of our lives to a greater extent. Recent efforts at electoral manipulation, for example, exploited aspects of the algorithms used by social media companies. Meanwhile, as we turn over the wheel to self-driving cars and the economy to automated industries, we are changing the nature of society - and the potential risks of abuse. These episodes will talk about the near-term potential for machine learning and AI to be used maliciously over the next decade or two. To contact the show: www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod Don't forget our sister show, wrapping up the life of Stalin over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com Comments, concerns, criticism, praise all welcome via the contact link at www.physicspodcast.com
Oct 18, 2018 · 32 min
Malicious Uses of Artificial Intelligence, Part 1
A recent report released at https://maliciousaireport.com/ on the potential malicious uses for artificial intelligence brings us sharply to the present. In the TEOTWAWKI episodes on AI, we focused on "hard AI" - the potentials for chaos and rapid change if artificial intelligence becomes "truly sentient". But in the shorter term, machine-learning algorithms and increasing automation are already impacting all of our lives to a greater extent. Recent efforts at electoral manipulation, for example, exploited aspects of the algorithms used by social media companies. Meanwhile, as we turn over the wheel to self-driving cars and the economy to automated industries, we are changing the nature of society - and the potential risks of abuse. These episodes will talk about the near-term potential for machine learning and AI to be used maliciously over the next decade or two. To contact the show: www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod Don't forget our sister show, wrapping up the life of Stalin over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com Comments, concerns, criticism, praise all welcome via the contact link at www.physicspodcast.com
Oct 9, 2018 · 36 min
Nobel Prize 2018 Special!
So, as you probably already know by now, the Nobel Prize in Physics 2018 was awarded to another trio: Gérard Mourou, Arthur Ashkin and Donna Strickland, "for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics". Specifically, Arthur Ashkin was awarded the prize ""for the invention of optical tweezers and their application to biological systems" and Mourou and Strickland were awarded the prize for developing chirped pulse amplification, a method of generating very short but very high-intensity pulses of light with lasers. In this episode, we'll describe how they made these groundbreaking discoveries, and what they meant for science and physics in the years that followed. But as dismal as the world might seem sometimes, there's still so much joy to be found in the world of science, the world of physics, and the glorious intricacies of the vast, complex, beautiful and mysterious universe we all live in. And the human ingenuity that has gone into allowing us to discover that, to even make strides towards understanding it, is one of the best parts of our species. Both of these discoveries, chirped pulse amplification and optical tweezers, represent clever tools that we have developed to allow us to probe and explore and understand nature, and there can be few greater undertakings than that. So here's to the scientists who won the Nobel Prize in 2018, for giving us the tools that can help in many more discoveries to come. That's all for this special episode. Remember, if you like the show, which consumes my nights and weekends with its fiery lust, there are plenty of things you can do to support us. Visit the website at www.physicspodcast.com where you'll find a contact form: I read all your email and try to respond where I can, but it's really the best part about doing this show is actually hearing from listeners, so you can know that if nothing else you'll make my day by sending your message. Go ahead, punk. There you'll also find a form where you can donate to the show, or purchase some of our previous bonus episodes. There's a Patreon where you can subscribe to do that automatically in the future, so you don't even need to fiddle with Paypal. You can follow us on Twitter @physicspod and on Facebook, Physical Attraction. You can go listen to our sister show, and by our sister show I mean the other thing I record in my free time, Autocracy Now – at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com – we're just coming to the end of Stalin's life, which is a great relief both for me personally and the people of the world in general. But, as I always say, the best thing you can possibly do to support is to tell your friends about the show, and to tell them to listen. I have printed up thousands of postcard-sized flyers, so if you really want to go the extra mile or just give people some merchandise with our logo on, get in touch with me and I can send some of those over to you!
Oct 5, 2018 · 27 min
Superconductors: Hard to Resist
In this episode, we'll discuss the discovery and possible applications of superconductors - these seemingly miraculous materials which have an electrical resistance that drops to zero at a low enough temperature. Contact us at www.physicspodcast.com Or follow us on Twitter @physicspod And tell as many people as you can about the show if you've enjoyed it or if you learned something worth knowing.
Sep 25, 2018 · 25 min
Thermonuclear Takes: #ExxonKnew and Solar Road to Nowhere
Welcome to Thermonuclear Takes, our roundup of all the news in science and technology that's been fascinating me lately. Some of it will relate to things that we've discussed on the show before; some of it will relate to things that we'll discuss in the future – and some will be just plain interesting. This episode, we're going to be talking about Ben Franta's latest reporting that Exxon Knew about climate change in advance, and we'll discuss why Solar Freakin' Roadways might not be such a good idea. You can visit our page at www.physicspodcast.com There, you can contact us with questions, comments, concerns - I love getting your messages! You can donate to us on Paypal You can subscribe to our Patreon Subscribing to us on iTunes really helps us to get the show noticed And follow the show on Twitter @physicspod or follow the Facebook page at Physical Attraction for all the latest updates.
Sep 20, 2018 · 41 min
Concealing A Hadron III: I'm Sparticle!
Everything is made up of fundamental particles. You have the leptons: that's the electron, muon, tau, and their ghostly neutrinos that help us to conserve momentum. You have the quarks, which make up all of the hadrons. The up, down, and strange quarks: and their heavier cousins, the top, bottom, and charm quarks. Mixing quarks can give you baryons, like the proton and neutron. It can give you mesons, like the pion particles. But you also have four forces. There's gravity, which pulls on everything with mass. There's electromagnetism, which pulls on everything with charge. There's the weak nuclear force, which is involved in the decay of neutrons and other particles, and it's also how the ghostly neutrinos interact. And, finally, there's the strong nuclear force: which binds the protons and neutrons together in the nucleus, and binds the quarks within each proton and neutron. It turns out that the final part of the Standard Model is associated with these forces. Because, although we can imagine force fields that extend throughout space like Maxwell did, it turns out that forces have 'carriers'. In some sense, when one particle exerts a force on another, another particle jumps between them to spread that influence. These force carriers are bosons. In this episode, we'll complete our picture of the Standard Model by adding the force carriers and the Higgs Boson into the mix. And then, we'll dive into the terrifying world of BDSM - BeyonD the Standard Model. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow.
Sep 14, 2018 · 25 min
Concealing a Hadron II: The Standard Model
Quarks, hadrons, baryons, leptons - we explore the material particles, ponder the question of why the electron has two heavier cousins, and describe the snark of Wolfgang Pauli in this - our second episode in a series explaining fundamental subatomic and atomic physics, and the Standard Model. Can you tell your quarks from your elbow? If not, never fear, because these episodes will be your guide to particle physics, and, specifically, what's called the Standard Model. Has absolutely nothing to do with the catwalk, but instead the fundamental building blocks that make up all of visible matter and energy in the Universe. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show, subscribe to our Patreon, or buy extra episodes if you want to help support us for what we do. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow.
Sep 12, 2018 · 1 hr 43 min
Autocracy Now: Stalin Omnibus Ep VIII, IX, X The Storm
A triple helping of our sister podcast, as we follow Stalin's career from the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact to the Battle of Stalingrad.
Sep 7, 2018 · 31 min
Concealing a Hadron: Particle Physics 101.1
Can you tell your quarks from your elbow? If not, never fear, because these episodes will be your guide to particle physics, and, specifically, what's called the Standard Model. Has absolutely nothing to do with the catwalk, but instead the fundamental building blocks that make up all of visible matter and energy in the Universe. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show, subscribe to our Patreon, or buy extra episodes if you want to help support us for what we do. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. This episode was brought to you by the American National Standards Institute. To find out more, visit https://www.ansi.org/.
Sep 3, 2018 · 26 min
Thermonuclear Takes: Hothouse Earth and Heatwaves
Sometimes, a news story that relates to some of the topics we talk about on this show catches my eye. That's when you know it's time for a Thermonuclear Take! (tl;dr, experimenting with new bonus episode format.) This episode, we're going to talk about the recent heatwaves over Europe, Japan and North America, and the thorny issues of Climate Change attribution. We'll also discuss that Steffen et al. paper about a Hothouse Earth: Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. Will climate feedbacks doom us to 4-5C of warming if we fail to meet the Paris Agreement? Can anyone state that definitively? A perspective. Naturally the aim of these bonus episodes is to be topical and provoke debate, so why not get in touch with us via Twitter @physicspod or via www.physicspodcast.com where you'll find all the archival episodes, alongside opportunities to donate to the show? If you're more interested in historical than current events, our podcast series about Stalin is in the midst of covering the Second World War... Trajectories of Earth System in the Anthropocene http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/31/1810141115
Aug 31, 2018 · 24 min
Units and Dimensional Analysis II: GI Taylor and the Bomb
In this episode, we'll discuss how you can use dimensional analysis to measure the yield of the blast of a nuclear bomb, and weird units from banana equivalent doses to the distance at which sheep remain picturesque. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. This episode was brought to you by the American National Standards Institute. To find out more, visit https://www.ansi.org/.
Aug 24, 2018 · 25 min
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? www.physicspodcast.com for previous shows, information, donations. @physicspod on Twitter www.autocracynow.libsyn.com for Autocracy Now, a show about historical dictators.
Aug 10, 2018 · 1 hr 16 min
CJ Schilt (Corpus Newtonicum) on Isaac Newton, part 2
So in this episode, I am fortunate enough to interview Cornelius Schilt – perhaps better known to the world by his blog title, Corpus Newtonicum, which you can go and read at Corpus Newtonicum.wordpress.com. He is a DPhil student at the University of Oxford, studying the History of Science, and focused on the life, career, and works of Isaac Newton. What's more, he just handed in his thesis the day before I conducted this interview – best of luck on the viva, CJ! In this, the second part of our interview, we talk about the context of the philosophy of time and Newton's philosophy of the universe, Newton's personal life, his alchemy, his legacy. Our guest today was CJ Schilt, a History of Science DPhil student here at Oxford – in a few weeks' time, I have no doubt, Dr Schilt. If you want to find out more, you can follow him on Twitter, and do visit the blog Corpus Newtonicum. You can also check out the newton project atwww.newtonproject.ox.ac.uk which CJ contributed to – an attempt to transcribe all of Newton's works. In the meantime, for us – subscribe to the sister podcast, Autocracy Now, which deals with the history of notorious dictators. Follow us on Twitter @physicspod. If you visited the website at www.physicspodcast.com, you'd be able to use the contact form to send us any of your comments, questions, or concerns. You'd also be able to donate to the show if you wished, or purchase some of the bonus episodes I've created for the low low price of $3 using the Paypal link. But, of course, the best thing you can do to support the show is always to tell as many of your friends as possible about the show – listeners make it all worthwhile!