The Titanium Physicists Podcast

Yaaaay! Today we're talking about Entropy. It's an oft cited but also oft misunderstood law of nature. 

Our Guest is Cory Doctorow, Author, Blogger, King of the Blogosphere!

(If you go to the website www.titaniumphysics.com you can read an additional explanation which... I forgot to mention while we were recording the show, even though it IS REALLY actually very neat)

It's Jocely and Miles. My old friends. 

Have FUN!

Direct download: Ep_27_Death_and_Heat_Death.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 7:03pm PDT

Episode 26: Black Gold

Pssst. Want some free energy? 

who doesn't want an unlimited supply of energy? no one, that's who!

today we're talking about how to use a black hole to turn everyday objects (like garbage and ducks) into sweet, sweet energy.

our guest is Kai Nagata, and the physicists are Laura Hainline and Mike Zemcov.

three things to note:

1) listen past the end credits to hear a long-ass conversation about whether having free energy is a good thing. 

2) Kai's internet connection was lousy and kept dropping out. so today's episode is less conversational than we are used to. we had to fix it in editing.

3) speaking of editing, the bulk of this episode's edits were done by a gentleman named John Heath. John made our horrible skype recording sound so good. If you meet John on the street, please give him all the money in your pockets. you know, from me. 

Direct download: Ep_26_Black_Gold.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 8:02am PDT

This week's guest is Anne Casselman! and Dave and Jocelyn are back. and we're talking about what happens if you fall into a black hole. mostly, we make bear spaghetti. Things are very sad. Listen past the end song to hear a fun discussion of the no hair theorem, and Hawking radiation. WHAT FUN!

Direct download: Ep_25_The_No_Bear_Theorem.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:30pm PDT

Zounds! What Fun!

So when I started the show, everyone was like "HEY BEN! DO A SHOW ON THE HIGGS"

and i was like "No, it's boring and hard to explain and they aren't even going to find it anyway."

then they found it and everyone was like "Hey Ben! Do a show on the higgs!"

and i was like "ugh, I need to do at least four episodes. One on particle decay, one on particel detectors, one on the higgs field, and then maybe a detailed on on how they found it. but that's hard..."

anyway. So. here's a show on the Higgs field. It's how everything gets mass. kind of. we're in tip of the iceberg territory here.

OKAY! SO!

Today's physicists are Tia Miceli, and Matt Buckley.

and our guest today is Greg Proops, The smartest man in the world

Enjoy. 

Direct download: Ep_24_Higgs_In_A_Blanket.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:11pm PDT

well. here is a very stupid riddle: How does a very small mole?

if you answer it, send me an email and i'll send you a prize.

lets talk shop.

1) todays show is about quantum tunneling. it features henry Reich blowing us all out of the water with his high caliber explanations. It also features Justin Pierce of Wonderella fame. you should watch one minute physics videos and read wonderella. skip work today.

2.0) sorry about the sound quality, i'm still fighting a new internet connection. I'm doing my best, and i have honestly spent about 12 hours edting this. 

2.1) at the end of the show is a lot of content that I threw into the appendices. enjoy. 

2) Apple has a new podcast app. go see if you can find us on it? if you can't write us a review or something. I'm still trying to wrangle it currently. I hate it when things change.

3) maybe nominations for this year's podcasting awards are going to open up? maybe we should be nominated for the science category? maybe we don't stand a chance against those skeptics podcasts. maybe lots of things happen. getting on that list sure would make a lot of people notice the show though.

4) KEEP SCIENCE IN YOUR HEARTS!

5) If we get nominated for a podcasting award, i'll try to find a better (cheaper) place that sells t-shirts. then, tshirts for everyone!

Direct download: Ep_23_Quantum_Tunneling.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:24pm PDT

Episode 22: Falling Down the Stepped Leader

Hi everyone! 

We're back, after a short vacation, with a show for the summertime!

THUNDER! banana-nananana THUNDER! banana-nananana! THUNDER!

today's guest is Elizabeth Bear, award winning author!

and our experts are Amanda Bauer and Zach Weinersmith!

lots of fun for everyone.

SHAZAM!

Direct download: Ep_22_Falling_Down_The_Stepped_Leader.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 5:34pm PDT

Today the topic is Particle decay. it's the first of a larger set of episodes leading up to an explanation of the discovery of the Higgs. 

but more interestingly. particles decay. 

My guest is Dan Jankwoski, and my physicists are Ken Clark and Tia Miceli! 

ALLEZ! PHYSIQUE!

Direct download: Ep_21_Things_Fall_Apart.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 8:11pm PDT

Oh gosh,

we got carried away on the discussions in this one.

the raw recording was about 100 minutes long,

and even after some heavy editing, i couldn't get the "regular show" part under 40 minutes *shame*.

perhaps... your clock is just running faster than mine?

well... it's summer.

anyway! This episode's guest is Michael Mookie Terracciano, author of the webcomic "Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire"

and we're taking the special event of our 20th episode to talk about SPECIAL RELATIVITY. 

Direct download: Ep_20_Time_Dilates_When_Youre_Having_Fun.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:00pm PDT

Hello everybody. 

What causes the northern lights? 

as far as I understand it... northern lights are what happens when polar bears drink cocacola. 

but... maybe I'm just being silly.

Today's guest is Nathan Lowell! Go listen to some of his books on your next car trip. when you arrive, you'll feel pretty good about everything. maybe you'll even want to go back to school. learning is cool. 

man, these things sure sound a lot different in the final cut than they do in their initial raw audiofile.

for one thing, we don't all talk like genius auctioneers. 

maybe you should try listening to this with the *1/2 speed* turned on on your ipod. @_@

Direct download: Ep_19_The_Northern_Lights.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:01pm PDT

Episode 18: That Superconductor Episode

Fiona Burnell! Darren Peets! Ryan North!

it's a Festival of wonderful.

listen, i'm going to admit it here. I didn't know much about how superconductors work when i chose this topic.

I don't know why i never learned how it worked, but I never did. whoops. 

anyway, the answer is crazy. it has to do with electrons getting married and having to get their credit card spending under control. 

I don't know if that Gail Lady visited them or what. 

Direct download: Ep_18_That_Superconductor_Episode.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 6:55pm PDT

Hi tiphyters!

there was a problem this week and we had to postpone recording. boooo I know. 

but don't feel bad. the next episode will have ryan north and fiona return. we'll talk about superconductors.

anyway, I thought I'd try one of the fun features of the brachiolope media network: The Substitute Brachiolope System.

so the deal is that when one of our shows can't make it (for whatever reason) we can reroute content from one of our sister podcasts. 

That way you get lots of science, and we feel slightly less guilty.

So. I'm putting in an episode of The Weekly Weinersmith. this one is lots of fun!

Direct download: Episode_2-Plaits_Pluns_and_Planets.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 6:23pm PDT

Hellooo. today we're going to talk about how the solar dynamo causes sunspots to form. 

and we're doing it with David Malki!  

this episode is pretty rad.

listen past the end music to hear a lot of silly conversations. there are a lot of them. :( why does my show have to be half an hour of ramming physics down your gullet? why cant i leave the funny and distracting stuff in context? If you know the answer to these questions, email me, and I'll give you a prize. 

Direct download: Ep_17_Ti_Phy_See_Spot_Sun.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 3:00pm PDT

Oh My gosh! It's Kelly Link! The awardwinning Author of my favourite short story "Magic for Beginners"!!! You can download some of her stories for free, and even listen to them on the internet

Anyway, we're talking about superfluids today. What's a superfluid? Well. It's what you get when you cool helium down really cold. It has strange properties. Watch some videos on it, if you have time... It might help.

Fiona and Jocelyn are back to help me explain. well. try to explain. 

Direct download: Ep_16_Ti_Phy_Drinking_Superfluid_From_The_Firehose_Of_Knowledge.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:43pm PDT

Today's Show is Awesome because our guest is TED LEO! the guy from the intro-song (Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead)! I bring together Vicky Scowcroft and Mike Zemcov and we talk about how GIANT SOUND WAVES which rang through the universe at a time before recombination (like.. 13+ billion years ago) provided that seeds for gravitational collapse. as a result, the size of these sound waves explain the size of the largest "objects" in the universe: gravitational super clusters! They also explain why there's nothing bigger.

It turns out that before there was any differentiation at all, there was music.

ROCK ON TED LEO!

ROCK ON TIPHYTERS! 

(P.S. there's a couple rad conversations after the end music. that Ted Leo is a smart guy.)

Direct download: Ep_15_Ti_Phy_Music_From_Before_Time.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 1:06pm PDT

Hey everyone! 

I decided to do a show on Quasars. because I didn't know what they were. So then I looked It up. Turns out, they're black holes! My Favourite.

I also looked up two of my other favourites, Laura Hainline and Sean Moran. Turns out, they know Everything about Quasars. 

So then I looked up the author of one of my favourite webcomics,  Howard Tayler.

This show is fantastic. Too bad we had to record the show using two tin cans and a piece of string, and an old wax cylinder sound recorder. Oh well. It's not like I have any money to spend on sound quality (I spend it all on quality of character).

by the way, if anyone can spot the magical SUPERFLUOUS word I've worked into the usual script, send me an email with it as the subject line, and I'll write you back a prize. 

the prize is a haiku about whatever's on my mind.

Also note that there are a couple extra bits after the bunny song. not much. I left a couple extra (edited) minutes in the regular part of the show, so we ran a couple min overtime. 

bn

Direct download: Ep_14_Ti_Phy_How_Do_You_Spell_Quasar.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 10:45pm PDT

Today we've got Andrew Johnstone from the Podcast Squared Podcast. I wanted to do him ONE BETTER, and In a cool way, so today we're going to talk about Ice Cube (not the rapper).

ICE CUBE is humankind's largest constructed structure. It's a one-kilometer squared cube neutrino detector buried one mile deep under a glacier in antarctica. 

to help me along with this show, I've brought on my old friends Ken Clark and Laura Gladstone. note: This isn't an episode of the flintstones. if it were, Ken's name would be Slate Clarkrock.

BIG NOTE: this show has a long series of very silly conversations following the bunny song at the end. they are very silly. please don't try riding a bicycle slowly through a crowd of toddlers when listening to the appendix bits. you will probably laugh, lose your ballance and crush a child. 

Direct download: Ep_13_Ti_Phy_That_Which_Lies_Beneath_The_Ice.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:45pm PDT

HaHa! 

You all remember how Pluto got kicked to the curb. 

It turns out that Pluto is just one of a large family of worlds: The Dwarf planets of the Kuiper Belt!

I have brought on two fantastic astronomers to aide me: Sean Moran and Laura Hainline.

We explain everything you've ever wanted to know about the Dwarf Planets of the Kuiper Belt:

what's a planet. what's a dwarf. How big are Kuiper's pants? 

We explain everything to Keith Hayward and Max Wellenstein of the Henshin Justice Unlimited Podcast and Website

Listen after the closing bunny song to hear an interesting discussion on whether there's a big giant planet the size of jupiter (planet X) out beyond pluto. 

Direct download: Ep_12_Ti_Phy_Exiled_Worlds_On_The_Outskirts.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:11pm PDT

Hello everyone. Allow me to introduce my old friend Ken Clark, and my new friend Amanda Bauer. He works on Ice Cube and she works in australia. But he's not a bar tender, and she is not a kangarooist. rather, they are my NEWEST TITANIUM PHYSICISTS! and today we're going to talk about how dark things matter. specifically, dark matter.

 

We've invited the clever Kai Nagata, the revolutionary canadian journalist onto the show. I felt that we'd need a journalist to figure out the nature of that which could not be seen but which clearly exists.

 

Check out the website for this episode especially. Both Amanda and Kai have done some fantastic things which can be found on the internet, and you should not miss out. Ken is fantastic too. Once I made him a spinach sallad and I didn't wash the spinach enough so it was super sandy, but he still wolfed it down and told me that it was the greatest salad he ever ate because he is VERY POLITE.

 

enjoy the show. 

and if you read this, send me an email the phrase "sky palace 7" to tiphyter@titaniumphysics.com  I'll give you a prize. 

Direct download: Ep_11_Ti_Phy_Of_Matters_Dark.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 5:14am PDT

Episode 10: Neutron Stars

OH HOH HOH! we're on episode 10. double digits! A NEW ORDER OF MAGNITUDE. 

To celebrate, I've invited my old standards Jocelyn Read and David Tsang up from the basement I keep them in to help me explain Neutron Stars to my dear wife Bethany Murray. 

What's a neutron star, you ask? well it's like a star made of neutrons. listen to the show. 

Direct download: Ep_10_Ti_Phy_Neutron_Stars.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:12pm PDT

In episode 9, Its back to the A team (which stands for Apple, which points to "g", cuz their words have weight!) with Jocelyn Read and Dave Tsang! Today We're talking about the Alcubierre Warp Drive. You've probably heard of this before, but not in this detail. Oh, we definitely brought our Bee game to this episode!

  To help keep us in line and on time, we’ve invited Zach Weinersmith from  Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal and our sister podcast: The Weekly Weinersmith. It's lively and fun, so Sit Down in your seat, turn up the podcast, pay attention, and bee hive yourself.

Note: There’s some Extra bits after the end music. Two extra bits actually. There was a third very long conversation about bees, but It didn't make the cut. 

Direct download: Ep_9_Ti_Phy_Warp_Bubble_Bobble.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:55pm PDT

Episode 8: The Sea of Dirac

Jocelyn is back, and this time it's with our good pal Fiona Burnell! Today we get to talk to Ryan Haupt of Science Sort Of  fame. The Topic of today's show is The Dirac Sea! You know how when you cookie-cutter out a cookie from some rolled out dough, there's a hole left behind the size and shape of the cookie? particles are like that too. and the cookie dough is called the Dirac sea: named after Dirac, the great lover of cookies. Listen past the end credits for a bit where I try to explain the dirac sea using bees, and jocelyn sings a song about the everlovin' Hulk! HULK! HULK!

Direct download: Ep_8_Ti_Phy_The_Sea_of_Dirac.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:56pm PDT

It's my old Friends Rupinder Brar and Joanna Woo! Today we get to talk to Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame. We try to explain how planets around other stars get detected.  Also Star Trek gets mentioned. There's some edited-out conversation after the end music, for those of you who like to hear people talk even more about star trek. May The Force Live Long And Prosper With YOU!!!

Direct download: Ep_7_Ti_Phy_Extra_Solar_Planets.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:28pm PDT

Episode 6: Gravitational Waves

Dave and Jocelyn are back, and we talk to Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer (from the HP Lovecraft literary Podcast) about Gravitational waves. Long story short, Physicists are on the verge of being able to listen to the music of the spheres... those horrible monstrous spheres which have been devouring planets and stars for untold aeons. Who knows what we will hear? 

Direct download: Ep_6_Ti_Phy_Gravitational_Waves.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:15pm PDT

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