The Titanium Physicists Podcast

Hooooooohh! It's Natasha Allegri! The Creator of Bee and PuppyCat! and also Fionna and Cake! We're going to talk about Craters! CRATERS! how they form! I've recruited Charlie Barnhart (from science sort of) and Lissa Ong to explain everything  to us!

Direct download: Ep_35_Crater_I_Hardly_Know_Her.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 10:50pm PDT

Mookie Terracciano! James Silvester! Amanda Bauer!

Lets talk about the methods we use to figure out how far stars are away from us. 

the answer is: LOTS OF CLEVERNESS.

Direct download: Ep_34_Ladder_To_The_Stars.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 7:05am PDT

“Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain/ His dark materials to create more worlds,--/ Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend/ Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross. ”

I went to meet Ben Caplan, notable indie rock musician, and I asked him what he wanted to learn about. He told me "Dark Energy", so I laid my plans. This EPISODE: the return of Rupinder Brar! The return of Vicky Scowcroft! Ben Caplan! Dark Energy! ALLEZ! 

Direct download: Ep_33_His_Dark_Materials.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 8:59pm PDT

Reuben: "Hey dad, why is the sky blue?"

Steve: "Sky Marlins. probably."

Reuben: "You're not sure?"

Steve: "umm. lets ask the Titanium Physicists."

So When Steve asked if we could teach his 10 year old kid physics we were like "YESS!" because it's like we are training our own encyclopedia brown. So. If you have a mystery that needs solving, go ask Reuben.

So this episode we have Amanda Bauer and Ken Clark.

*note: I'm sorry Ken fans. Ken gets dropped from the call, and we couldn't get him back. T_T sorry everyone.*

okayy! Lets talk about why the sky is blue!

Direct download: Ep_32_Sailors_Take_Warning.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 6:01pm PDT

Lets Talk about the Casimir Effect! The difference between the vacuum between two mirror and the vacuum beyond them sucks the mirrors together! Vacuum Energy! Negative Mass! Warp Drives! Quantum mechanics! Tia Miceli, Mike Zemcov! I SUMMON YOU! explain quantum field theory to Megan Harns!

Direct download: Ep_30_Pushing_Mirrors.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 5:07pm PDT

Particle Detectors! Tia Miceli! Ken Clark! I summon you! Explain geiger counters, scintilators, cloud chambers, bubble chambers, photomultipliers, CCD's, and CERN's mighty ATLAS detector to our guest Gareth L. Powell, author of Ack-Ack Macaque! this episode is a little long, but it's a lot great. 

Direct download: Ep_30_Subtle_Pursuits.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 9:48pm PDT

Alasdair Stuart joins Jocelyn and Dave on this episode. We talk about black holes and time: specifically how black holes affect time.Everything we say will make sense, because we will introduce the Equivalence Principle.  the movie "Twins" is referred to about 1,000,000 times this episode. BE WARNED. 

this episode is rated explicit because sometimes I don't want to cut the mildly dirty jokes, okay?!

Direct download: Ep_29_Dark_Equivalence.mp3
Category:physics -- posted at: 7:00pm PDT

Episode 28: Smoke Like Swirls on the Moon

"Conceiving my heart as gutter broke,

 my sweet love grants me a boon,

and  joy rose up, grey billowing smoke,

smoke like swirls on the moon" 

-no quality poem ever.

So back when i started the show I sent Catherine an email. She's always been one of my most gifted astronomy friends. I said "hey, give me a topic for the show." I expected her to say like "variable stars that wobble because of acoustic waves" or something. she said "lunar swirls". i said "I'll get back to you". 

Anyway.

she persisted. 

i gave in.

and we put together a show about SWIRLS ON THE MOON. 

apparently there are swirls on the moon. and they're AWESOME.

So my experts today are Catherine Neish and Sebastien Besse. and we explain everything to Jordan Harbinger, who hosts the Pickup Podcast.

Life is fun.  

Direct download: Ep_28_Smoke_Like_Swirls_On_The_Moon.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:40pm PDT

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