The emotions of discovery, the quantum TV thriller Devs, nanosponges take on COVID-19

07/02/20 • 48 min

In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast the philosopher of science Bob Crease chats about how physicists react when they have discovered something new – the topic of his latest column in Physics World: “The feelings you get when you discover something new”.

Murder and the interpretations of quantum mechanics feature highly in the plot of the television series Devs, which is set on the campus of a fictitious quantum computer company in Silicon Valley. Science writer Phil Ball joins Physics World editors for a lively discussion about how quantum physics is portrayed in Devs and whether it works as a physics thriller.

One way of treating people with COVID-19 is to prevent the virus from attacking healthy cells. We chat about how researchers in the US are developing nanosponges that do this by soaking up virus particles.

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David Leckrone on his 33 years with the Hubble Space Telescope mission, Twitter poster conference takes off

Launched three decades ago, the Hubble Space Telescope is a triumph of the modern scientific era. In this episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast we hear from David Leckrone, who began working on Hubble before it launched and was the mission’s senior project scientist in 1992–2009.

Leckrone, whose new book Life with Hubble is an insider’s view of the Hubble mission, talks about the shock of discovering that the telescope’s optics were blighted by spherical aberration and how scientists and engineers banded together to work-out a solution. He describes how the Space Shuttle programme played a crucial role in maintaining Hubble and he also pays tribute to the people who made the mission such a success.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the very nature of the scientific conference and physicists have responded by using various online platforms to keep the lines of communication open. IOP Publishing’s Tim Smith talks about a Twitter poster conference that he is helping to organize for 15–16 July and how you can get involved – and even win a prize for best poster.

In a separate audio clip on the Physics World blog, David Leckrone talks about some of the outstanding science that has been done by the Hubble Space telescope over the past 30 years. His highlights include the 1994 impact of fragments of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, and the landmark 2001 measurement of the Hubble constant by Wendy Freedman and colleagues.