Physics World Stories Podcast

This episode of the Physics World Stories podcast features an interview with Kai Bird, co-author of the book that inspired the recent blockbuster film Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan. Winner of the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Biography, American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer is an exploration of the brilliant and enigmatic physicist who led the project to develop the world’s first atomic weapons.

Oppenheimer is a fascinating but complicated character for a biographer to tackle. Despite excelling in his leadership of the Manhattan Project, Oppenheimer’s conscience was torn by the power he had unleashed on the world. “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” is the line he infamously recalled from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavad Gita, upon witnessing the Trinity Test fireball in 1945.

Parallels between the nuclear dawn and AI today

The physicist’s relationship with politics was also fraught and difficult to define. Oppenheimer held personal connections with Communist Party members prior to the Second World War, and spent the post-war years warning against nuclear proliferation – provoking the ire of McCarthy Era politicians and ultimately having his security clearance revoked in 1954.

Unsurprisingly, American Prometheus is receiving a resurgence of interest following the success of Nolan’s film. Readers are fascinated once again with the dawn of the nuclear age, which Bird says has parallels with where we are today with AI and the threat of climate change. He also sees the political threads from McCarthyism to the post-truth tactics and populist playbook deployed in US politics today.

As always, the podcast is presented by Andrew Glester and you can read his review of the film Oppenheimer, as well as a recent opinion piece by Robert P Crease “What the movie Oppenheimer can teach today’s politicians about scientific advice“.

Spring has just about sprung here in the UK, as the bluebells and daffodils are emerging after a long gruelling winter. In Physics World April podcast, Andrew Glester embraces the botanical theme by looking at a selection of technological innovations inspired by plants.

First up, Glester speaks with Claudia Zeiger about the idea of cleaning up oil spills using lotus leaves and a type of aquatic fern called Salvinia. Zeiger’s team at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology is interested in how these hairy-leaved species can selectively soak up oil particles while repelling water. It’s a property that could inspire more efficient clean-up operations than current approaches.

Later in the episode Glester catches up with Amirkhosro Kazemi from the department of ocean and mechanical engineering at Florida Atlantic University. Kazemi’s studies the physical properties of mangroves – common in tropical and subtropical regions – which provide a natural buffer to flood waters as well as the more routine coastal erosion. Gaining a better understanding of how these shoreline trees can dissipate water and its kinetic energy could inform the design of innovative coastal defence structures.

To find out about more nature-inspired research, check out the April issue of Physics World, a special edition on the physics of plants.

• Lotus image courtesy Houroumono (CC BY 2.0)

For many years, the electric car industry was viewed as a fringe sector, with some believing that cars running entirely on electricity would always remain on the margins. But electric cars are becoming mainstream much faster than anticipated. In September 2019, 7.5% of all cars sold in Europe were electric, which is double the number for the previous September. The number in the US is lower, but it is projected that 10% of all new cars sold in China will be electric by 2020.

In the September episode of Physics World Stories, Andrew Glester investigates the latest technologies in electric cars and some of the developments expected in the near future. He also looks at some of the economic factors that are making electric cars a more viable choice for consumers. Entangled in the technology and economics are a number of environmental issues, including the need to find a sustainable source of metals and minerals for the batteries.

On his journey through the land of electric cars, Glester meets a variety of people. Most of the interviews took place at the recent Full Charged Live event at Silverstone – home of the British Grand Prix and other high profile motor races.

Actor and tech aficionado Robert Llewellyn speaks about his experiences as an early adopter of electric cars and the vast improvements in the UK’s network of charging points.

Simon Moores of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence talks about the challenges in the life cycle of electric car batteries.

Chris Day, technical director of Jaltek Systems, discusses the interface between electricity grids and electric cars, including the idea that vehicles can store electricity that can later be transferred back to the grid.

Taking a different turn, Mihai Caleap from the University of Bristol, introduces the field of meta sonics. He explains how metamaterials can be used to filter external noises to make driving a car a more pleasant experience.

Finally, Clare Jones introduces an innovative new addressing system, developed by her company what3words. By giving every location an earth a unique string of 3 words, it will help drivers (and automated cars) to precisely locate places, including charging points that can be tricky to find.

Driving in the present, is a follow on to the August 2018 episode of Physics World Stories, entitled ‘Driving in the future’. That episode took a more general look at the need for more environmentally conscious transport decisions.

Glester will be back with another episode of Physics World Stories next month. In the meantime you can listen to our more regular podcast Physics World Weekly. You can subscribe to both programmes on Apple podcasts or your chosen podcast provider.

Today, in our “post-truth” era, these sorts of statements have become commonplace. A type of politics has entered the mainstream that rejects the claims of “experts” and pitches itself against what it perceives as the intellectual and political elite. This sometimes includes scientists and the scientific consensus on issues such as climate change. One factor in the rise of this brand of populist politics is a perceived failure of professionals to predict significant events such as the global economic crash and high-profile election results. Levitan – who used to write for FactCheck.org – discusses the types of tactics deployed by populist politicians in relation to science, and he emphasizes that his book is not exclusively an attack on the Republican Party.

Of course, these issues don’t just affect the US. The podcast also features the British scientists Tara Shears and Alice Roberts, who share their concerns about the current lack of evidence-based debate in the UK. This was particularly apparent during the campaign ahead of the 2016 referendum on the UK’s membership status in the European Union, in which spurious claims were made on both sides of the argument. One of the defining statements of the campaign came from vote-leave campaigner Michael Gove who said “The people of this country have had enough of experts from organizations with acronyms saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.” In the Physics World podcast, Glester and his contributors explore how and why this sort of sentiment can hold such wide appeal among voters.

You can also read Tara Shears’ review of Not a Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent, and Utterly Mangle Science.

The search for signs of extraterrestrial life looks set to be one of the most exciting scientific endeavours of the 21st century and scientists have no shortage of places to look. Astronomers have already discovered nearly 2000 exoplanets and they look set to find many more. While most of these known exoplanets are gas giants that appear to be inhospitable to life, the discovery of Earth-like rocky exoplanets could come courtesy of the next generation of telescopes.

In this podcast recorded at the Canadian Association of Physicists Congress in Edmonton, Sara Seager tells physicsworld.com editor Hamish Johnston how astronomers are gearing up to use the James Webb Space Telescope – due to launch in 2018 – and other ground- and space-based facilities to look for water vapour, oxygen and other gases in the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. These and other gases such as methane could indicate the presence of life on these distant worlds, but Seager points out that many measurements on many different exoplanets will be needed before we can say with reasonable certainty that life exists.