Physics Frontiers
82 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★ - 102 ratingsJim Rantschler and Randy Morrison discuss physics from elementary particles to cosmological effects at the limits of our theoretical knowledge or have recently emerged.
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Episodes
Retrocausality
July 25, 2018 00:00 - 34 minutes - 23.9 MBJim and Randy look at how quantum mechanics is affected by time. Most importantly, what happens when temporal boundary conditions are used to create standing waves in the wave function of a particle? Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/33
Tunneling Time
July 07, 2018 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.4 MBJim talks to Randy about the amount of time it takes for an electron to tunnel through a forbidden region of space. Astoundingly, how quickly this happens has been a subject of debate for eighty years and is still unresolved. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/32
Post-Newtonian Gravitation
June 08, 2018 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.7 MBJim discusses the Parameterized Post-Newtonian formalism with Randy. The PPN framework is a general, linearized metric theory of gravity that can simulate all metric theories of gravity and compare them to solar system sized experiments. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/31
The Consistent Histories Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
May 24, 2018 00:00 - 46 minutes - 31.6 MBJim and Randy discuss the consistent histories interpretation of quantum mechanics. The brainchild of Robert Griffiths and with a surprisingly strong set of supporters, Consistent Histories seems to be a strong, logical description of what happens in the quantum world. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/30
Gravitational Alternatives to Dark Energy
May 16, 2018 00:00 - 46 minutes - 32.2 MBJim and Randy discuss how modifications to general relativity can be used to mimic the effects of dark energy. They discuss various forms of gravitational theory that can do the job, as well as the field particles that mediate their "fifth force." Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/29
The Quantum Vacuum and the Casimir Effect
April 25, 2018 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBJim and Randy review two very convincing papers that make the claim that the Casimir effect is due to materials fluctuations and not the zero point energy. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/28
The Gravitational Equivalence Principles
April 15, 2018 00:00 - 46 minutes - 31.7 MBJim talks to Randy about the different ways in which the equivalence principle of general relativity can be formulated. More than just the equivalence of accelerations, the different possible meanings of the equivalence principle mean different things about how gravity works. From weak to strong, from Einstein's equivalence principle to Schiff's conjecture, the implications of these theories are explored. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/27
Antimatter Production at a Potential Boundary
March 25, 2018 00:00 - 39 minutes - 27.2 MBRandy shows Jim an idea for generating antimatter using the Casimir effect that doesn't require a collider. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/26
Gravitational Field Propulsion
March 16, 2018 00:00 - 58 minutes - 39.8 MBRandy introduces Jim to several ways in which people have theorized that gravity can be used to propel an object through space. The slingshot effect is the only proven method here, but people have found many ways that theoretically could induce propulsion taking advantage of non-commutative motions in space-time, negative inertia, artificially-induced gravitational dipoles, and creating bubbles in space-time. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/25
The Island of Stability
February 24, 2018 00:00 - 25 minutes - 17.5 MBRandy tells Jim about the island of stability: a theoretically predicted oasis of stable nuclear isotopes that researchers keep getting nearer and nearer to discovering. Randy and Jim talk about what they are, how researchers are trying to produce the isotopes, and the theoretical methods that predict their existence. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/24
Dark Energy
February 09, 2018 00:00 - 1 hour - 31.5 MBRandy helps Jim get a handle on Dark Energy. Why do we need it? What could it be? What does it have to do with you? How close are we to knowing anything about it? Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/23
Weyl and Quasiparticles
January 22, 2018 00:00 - 37 minutes - 25.4 MBJim and Randy discuss quasiparticles recently found in condensed matter systems that mirror particles theorized nearly a hundred years ago, but never found in the vacuum. Weyl particles are massless fermions, and once it was hoped that neutrinos would turn out to be this kind of particle, and Majorana fermions have real-valued wave functions and therefore many strange and possibly useful properties. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/22
The Origin of Inertia
January 11, 2018 00:00 - 38 minutes - 26.6 MBRandy tells Jim about a scheme that uses Mach's Principle - the idea that there is a preferred background frame with respect to the fixed stars - to explain the origin of inertia. Show Notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/21
Time Crystals
December 22, 2017 00:00 - 1 hour - 23.6 MBJim talks to Randy about structures that are periodic in time like crystals are periodic in space. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/20
The 2T Physics of Itzhak Bars
December 06, 2017 00:00 - 44 minutes - 30.8 MBRandy tells Jim about a theory that complements other theories of fundamental physics based upon a phase space symmetry between the 4-position and the 4-momentum of a particle. The upshot of the theory is that there should be a second time dimension and a fourth space dimension, both macroscopic in extent, and the physics we see are 4D projections from the larger 6D space-time. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/18
The Physics of Time Travel
November 24, 2017 06:03 - 43 minutes - 30 MBRandy and Jim talk about traveling through through time, discussing relativity and, in particular, Kurt Goedel's solution for closed timelike curves in General Relativity. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/17
Stochastic Resonance Energy Harvesting
November 06, 2017 00:00 - 37 minutes - 25.9 MBRandy tells Jim about ways in which external vibrations can be used to do useful work in large-scale devices. These processes look at have happens when bistable systems (e.g., a bent cantilever) are subjected to random forcing from the environment. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/16
Five Proven Methods of Levitation
October 21, 2017 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.3 MBRandy shows Jim five different ways in which a body can be levitated: by magnetism, by superconductors, by Lenz' Law, by acoustics, and most recently by thermophoresis. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/15
Stochastic Electrodynamics
October 04, 2017 00:00 - 50 minutes - 32.7 MBRandy explains Stochastic Electrodynamics to Jim, the theory that vacuum fluctuations are the cause of quantum mechanical behavior. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/14
Exotic Photon Trajectories in Quantum Mechanics
September 14, 2017 00:00 - 26 minutes - 18.1 MBJim and Randy discuss strange trajectories observed in triple slit experiments with metallic plates. Photons seem to pass through one slit, come back through the middle slit, and out the third due to their interactions with surface plasmons. There are implications in this experiment about the way in which wavefunctions need to be interpreted in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/13
A Gravitational Arrow of Time
August 20, 2017 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBJim and Randy discuss a cosmological theory that purports to find an explanation for the arrow of time in gravitational theory based on the shape and distribution of matter and how it evolves. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/12
Photonic Molecules and Optical Circuits
July 16, 2017 00:00 - 36 minutes - 25.3 MBRandy tells Jim about photonic molecules, pairs of photons that create bound states like molecules do through a force mediated through an ultracold gas and similar ideas in optical circuits. They also discuss application of the same for quantum computing. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/11
Requirements for Alternative Gravity Theories
July 01, 2017 00:00 - 48 minutes - 33.2 MBIn this episode Jim and Randy talk about how to evaluate alternative gravity theories. What sort of things do we want them to explain, what experiments do they have to predict, and what theoretical requirements do they have to meet. This is in some ways a continuation of Episode 9 - f(R) Theories of Gravity, but the discussion is relevant to all attempts to amend gravitational theory. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/10 In the program, Randy talks about the outline I se...
f(R) Theories of Gravity
June 02, 2017 00:00 - 37 minutes - 25.6 MBJim and Randy discuss gravitational theories that modify general relativity by changing the action using a polynomial dependence on the Ricci scalar. Although not physically motivated, some of these theories produce effects similar to those of dark matter, dark energy, and cosmological constants. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/9
Vacuum Fluctuations and the Casimir Effect
April 27, 2017 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.8 MBJim and Randy discuss how vacuum fluctuations produce the van der Waals forces and the Casimir effect. Van der Waals forces are factors in atomic bonds and the Casimir effect produces an attractive force between nanoscale objects. The claim is that vacuum fluctuations -- the production and annihilation of particle-antiparticle pairs -- are the underlying reason for both effects. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/8
Virtual Gravitational Dipoles
March 14, 2017 00:00 - 50 minutes - 34.8 MBRandy discusses what the Cosmological implications of a negative gravitational mass would be with Jim. If there were a negative gravitational mass (as opposed to inertial mass), then every time that an electron-positron pair was created in the vacuum, that would create a gravitational dipole. This in turn would create effects similar to dark matter, dark energy, and a cosmological constant -- and this in turn would have an effect on the origin of the universe. Show notes: http://...
General Relativity for the Experimentalist
February 14, 2017 00:00 - 49 minutes - 34.2 MBRandy shares some of his favorite papers with Jim: papers on general relativity by engineer and science fiction author Robert L. Forward on how general relativity could be used in a terrestrial environment, including proposals for devices and materials. These papers are "General Relativity for the Experimentalist" and "Guidelines to Antigravity." Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/6
Pilot Wave Hydrodynamics
January 20, 2017 00:00 - 58 minutes - 39.9 MBRandy and Jim discuss a physical analogy to quantum mechanics consisting of a droplet of fluid bouncing off of the waves in a similarly composed fluid that were generated by the droplet's own bounces. The analogy is very close to the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/5
Phononics
January 05, 2017 00:00 - 47 minutes - 32.7 MBRandy tells Jim about the emerging field of Phononics: using quantum particles of heat in materials for information processing in advanced materials. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/4
Gravitoelectromagnetism
December 06, 2016 00:00 - 41 minutes - 28.4 MBRandy talks to Jim about gravitoelectromagnetism. Based on the similarity between Newtonian gravity and electrostatics, there should be a second gravitational field,the gravitomagnetic field. What are the implications of the existence of such a field, and how large are those effects? Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/3
The de Broglie-Bohm Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
November 15, 2016 00:00 - 30 minutes - 21.3 MBJim talks to Randy about the pilot wave interpretation of quantum mechanics, which separates the particle and wave behavior of a non-relativistic quantum particle into that of a particle moving in and exciting a quantum mechanical medium. Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/2
G4V: Four Vector Potential Gravitation
October 31, 2016 00:00 - 44 minutes - 30.5 MBRandy talks to Jim about Carver Mead's G4V, a formulation of gravitation combining the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass with a vector potential formulation of gravitation (a 4-vector form, with the usual gravitational potential in the temporal component). Show notes: http://frontiers.physicsfm.com/1