Episodes
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Can We Test Quantum Gravity?
S10 E20 - 16m 51s
If we discover how to connect quantum mechanics with general relativity we’ll pretty much win physics. There are multiple theories that claim to do this, but it’s notoriously difficult to test them. Let’s talk about some ideas for quantum gravity experiments that can be done on a non-galaxy-sized lab bench, and in some cases already have been done.
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Is Gravity RANDOM Not Quantum?
S10 E19 - 19m 25s
The holy grail of theoretical physics is to find the long-sought theory of quantum gravity. But what if this theory is as mythical as the grail of legend? What if gravity isn’t weirdly quantum at all, but rather … just a bit messy? Or random? So says the postquantum gravity hypothesis of Jonathan Oppenheim.
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Can We Create New Elements Beyond the Periodic Table
S10 E18 - 17m 2s
Scientists have been slowly extending the periodic table one element at a time, pushing to higher and higher masses, and have discovered some incredibly useful materials along the way. But the elements at the current end of the table are so unstable that they decay almost as soon as they’re created in our particle accelerators. Astronomers have found a cosmic phenomenon that may populate table.
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Do Black Holes Have to Be Black?
S10 E17 - 15m 32s
It turns out there is a way to make a coloured black hole—as long as by colour you mean quantum chromodynamic charge.
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Was Penrose Right? New Evidence For Quantum Effects In The Brain
S10 E16 - 18m 26s
Nobel laureate Roger Penrose is widely held to be one of the most brilliant living physicists for his wide-ranging work from black holes to cosmology. And then there’s his idea about how consciousness is caused by quantum processes. Most scientists have dismissed this as a cute eccentricity—a guy like Roger gets to have at least one crazy theory without being demoted from the smartypants club.
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How To Detect Faster Than Light Travel
S10 E15 - 16m 28s
Warp drives may or may not be possible, but if they are then could a distant alien civilization’s warp fields produce gravitational waves that we could see here on Earth? According to a recent study.. Actually maybe, at least eventually. And we now know just what to look for and how to look for it.
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Can a Particle Be Neither Matter Nor Force?
S10 E14 - 20m 7s
All particles belong to two large groups: fermions like protons and electrons make everything we consider "matter", while bosons like photons and gluons transmit the fundamental forces. And that about covers the universe: matter moving through space and time under the action of forces. But what if we could create particles in between these two possibilities. Physics says these neither matter nor f
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Will The Sun’s Magnetic Field Flip This Year?
S10 E13 - 16m 11s
Solar activity is still increasing in a sunspot cycle that is proving way more intense than scientists predicted. Just how much stronger is it going to get?
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Is It Impossible To Cross The Event Horizon? | Black Hole Firewall Paradox
S10 E12 - 17m 25s
So you’ve decided to jump into a black hole. Good news: as long as the black hole is big enough you can sail through the event horizon without harm.
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What’s The Universe’s Strongest Particle Accelerator?
S10 E11 - 12m 51s
Cern's Large Hadron Collider routinely collides particles at energies equivalent to a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, but a particle with the energy of an LHC collision hits every square kilometer of the Earth every single second. And we only relatively recently figured out where these cosmic rays are coming from.
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Can Black Holes Unify General Relativity & Quantum Mechanics?
S10 E10 - 13m 28s
Black holes clash in multiple ways with quantum mechanics. One such clash is the black hole information paradox—and a proposed solution—black hole complementarity—may forced us to radically rethink what it even means to say that something to exists.
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Interstellar Expansion WITHOUT Faster Than Light Travel
S10 E9 - 20m 15s
In the far future we may have advanced propulsion technologies, but what if those technologies never materialize? Are we imprisoned by the vastness of space—doomed to remain in the solar system of our origin? Perhaps not. A possible path to a contemporary cosmic dream may just be to build a ship which can support human life for several generations; a so-called generation ship.
Extras + Features
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Quantum Physics in a Mirror Universe
S5 - 12m 19s
When you look in mirror, and see what you think is a perfect reflection, you might be looking at universe whose laws are fundamentally different.
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