November 9, 2015
MP3 FILE / 41 MINUTES / 40 MB
FQXi launches a new large grant round & Neutrino physicists win the Nobel and Breakthrough Prizes; a cosmic test for time; safeguarding the future of humanity; & Brains from Thunderbirds explains quantum physics.
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Individual Stories
FQXi Grant & Neutrino Prizes
MP3 FILE / 10 MINUTES / 10 MB
In this week's news round-up, Zeeya & Brendan discuss the launch of FQXi's $2million grant round, Physics of the Observer, & the Nobel and Breakthrough Prizes in Physics for the discovery of neutrino oscillations--with help from astrophysicist Katie Mack.
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A Cosmic Test for Time
MP3 FILE / 11 MINUTES / 11 MB
A solar-system-sized experiment to test the nature of time: is time malleable, as general relativity suggests, or uncertain, as quantum mechanics asserts? SETI scientist Laurance Doyle describes his plans to bounce radar from the moons of Jupiter to reporter John Farrell.
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Existential Risk
MP3 FILE / 14 MINUTES / 14 MB
Nick Bostrom of the Future of Humanity Institute assesses the risks of a global catastrophe that could wipe out life, either from natural or human-induced environmental disasters or machine intelligence, synthetic biology, or nanotechnology that has got out of hand. With reporter Carinne Piekema.
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Thunderbirds Meets Quantum Physics
MP3 FILE / 5 MINUTES / 5 MB
Particle physicist Ben Still chats about his beginner's guide to understanding the subatomic world -- as told by Brains, of the 1960s science fiction series Thunderbirds -- with reporter Sophie Hebden.
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