PhysicsCentral: Podcasts

How do you define a year? One trip around the sun? There are actually different ways to define a year, and those definitions yield different values. Listen and learn why a year can be hard to pin down.

Join Mike Lucibella as he explains the ups and downs of sound and how gasses can change everything.

This week on the podcast, we continue our discussion of uncertainty surrounding the Higgs. An announcement from CERN reported an "excess of particles" that could be a hint at the Higgs boson, the particle theorized to give matter mass. Reports on this subject state that the findings are a two sigma result, and a five sigma result would mean a definite discovery. But be warned! This is an oversimplification of the importance of sigma. Hear why, in this week's Physics Buzz podcast.

Researchers at CERN have announced an excess of particles which might turn out to be the much coveted Higgs boson, the particle theorized to give matter mass. The researchers are excited about the finding, but also say it does not qualify as a discovery. But why all the uncertainty? Why isn't the answer a simple yes or no? Today on the Physics Buzz podcast Calla Cofield talks with Dr. Bob Cousins about the uncertainty surrounding the search for the Higgs boson.

Researchers have found a way to hide secrete messages inside self-organizing patterns. Self-organizing patterns include zebra stripes, flocks of birds, and termite colonies, to name a few. These examples might seem biological, but it is physicists who study the science of self organizing patterns -- and sometimes hide top secret messages in them.

Over billions of years, living creatures have evolved elegant solutions to complex engineering problems that humans are just starting to figure out. Fish and whales have developed ways to swim efficiently in the ocean, which researchers are now hoping to adapt for power generating wind turbines.

For over 40 years after superconductivity was discovered, scientists wondered if they would ever find the theory behind it. Then suddenly, this seemingly unsolvable mystery was cracked wide open. Leon N Cooper, one of the physicists who won the Nobel Prize for the theory of superconductivity gave a talk emphasizing that we not give up on seemingly unsolvable questions too quickly, and cited many other examples of "unsolvable" mysteries that physics has managed to illuminate.

It's been 100 years since Ernest Rutherford and his lab associates fired helium atoms -- stripped of their electrons -- at a thin sheet of gold, and were shocked to see the atoms bounce back. Rutherford said the results were akin to a bullet bouncing off tissue paper. He realized he'd been given a clue about the structure of the atom -- an object too small to see with light -- and a glimpse into the quantum world.

A new laser-based technology may one day make it possible for diabetic patients to monitor their blood-sugar levels non-invasively, without drawing a drop of blood. Hear how scientists are using rather simple laser technology, and a few clever tricks, to solve this medical puzzle.

Dark matter and dark energy are both dark: literally, because they don't interact with light, and figuratively, because they remain mysterious. But we do know that dark matter and dark energy are two totally different things, despite the fact that they are often grouped together. Hear a little more about what makes these two things different, and the things they have in common.

There's a storm of comets bombarding the inner part of the Eta Corvi solar system. What's more? The exact same thing happened to Earth not too long before life started here.

What are your chances of surviving a zombie apocalypse? Calla Cofield explains how physics can help you stay alive.

In 2011 the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three men, for their work in discovering that the universe is accelerating as it expands. Join Calla Cofield as she sheds some light on this otherwise dark discovery.

Think, then laugh. How does Wasabi function as an alarm? What does a 40 year old experiment have to do with GPS? What does a tank have to do with parking in the bike lane? Listen as Mike Lucibella and this year's winners of the Ig Nobels discuss their work, you might find yourself laughing in the name of science.

What turns a fast-moving fire into a super-sonic explosion that can punch through concrete? Physicists studying the deflagration to detonation transition, or DDT, think they may understand this dangerous phenomenon.