Physics World Stories Podcast

When discussing the capabilities of the latest AI chatbots, a physicist may argue: “Okay, they’re impressive at regurgitating texts that sound increasingly human. But we physicists don’t have much to worry about. It will be ages before the bots learn to grapple with physical concepts and the creativity required to do real physics!”

Such a view is almost certainly misguided. In a recent paper uploaded to arXiv, Colin West from the University of Colorado Boulder reported that the latest version of ChatGPT (built on GPT-4) scored 28 out of 30 on a test designed to assess students’ grasp of basic Newtonian mechanics. The previous version (GPT-3.5) managed just 15 correct answers, and neither version had any explicit programming regarding the laws of physics. Can you imagine the improvement 20 years from now?

In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester considers how the exponential improvement in GPT (and other large language models) will change the way we teach and practise physics. Should we be excited or scared? Should physics courses ban or embrace the use of AI chatbots? What are the skills that future physics will need? Will physics cease to exist as a discipline in the way we understand it now? These are just some of the existential questions tackled by two guests from the University of Nottingham: Philip Moriarty, a nanotechnology specialist; and Karel Green, an astronomy PhD student and Physics World contributor.

If you were awarded $3m prize money for your scientific excellence and hard graft, would you give it all away to strangers? That’s what the Northern Irish astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell did in 2018 after winning the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her 1967 discovery of pulsars and her inspiring scientific leadership. She used the cash – topped up with more personal money from a separate prize – to launch the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund, which supports PhD students in the UK and Ireland from groups under-represented in physics.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, we look at the impacts the award is already having on the lives of early-career physicists. Our first guest is Helen Gleeson, a liquid crystals and soft matter researcher at the University of Leeds, who is chair of the selection panel for the fund. She talks about the importance of providing opportunities for physics students from non-traditional backgrounds, who may face multiple barriers – both personal and structural within the physics community.

https://youtu.be/EigAPYgJo0M

Later in the episode, we also hear from a fund awardee. Joanna Sakowska, a PhD student at the University of Surrey, is studying the formation and evolution of the Magellanic Clouds galaxies, while searching for neighbouring ultra-faint dwarf galaxies believed to contain large quantities of dark matter. Sakowska offers inspiring, practical advice to anyone interested in a career in physics, emphasizing the importance of reflecting on your personal achievements, even if self-promotion does not come naturally!

Want to know more about the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund and how to apply? Listen to the episode or read this recent Physics World article by Helen Gleeson.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are set to play a key role in the transition to a decarbonized world. They are one of the principal energy sources for electric vehicles, grid storage and many consumer electronics. As things stand, however, the way that we produce and manage LIBs over their life cycles is far from perfect – bringing environmental, economic and geopolitical concerns. In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester looks at how we can make LIBs more sustainable, with a focus on activities in the UK.

The first guest is Gavin Harper, a metallurgy researcher at the University of Birmingham, a lead author on a recent LIB roadmap article in JPhys Energy. Harper talks about opportunities for improving LIB waste management and creating circular economies. For instance, batteries can be designed to make it far easier to reuse constituent parts, while smart grids can enable consumers to trade energy between electric cars, houses, and the grid. Harper tackles the big question: is it more environmentally friendly to own an electric car, rather than a conventional fossil fuel-powered vehicle, if you consider the full life cycle?

Local lithium supplies

Some of the most contentious issues with LIBs relate to lithium mining. Roughly 60% of known lithium reserves are located within the salt flats of Latin America, mostly within the “lithium triangle” of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. The vast amounts of water needed for extracting lithium from brine deposits can lead to water scarcity, pollution of local soils and water, and disruption of local ecosystems. Meanwhile, China has surged ahead of the world in its capacity for manufacturing LIBs, with Western nations now keen to build up their own knowledge bases and search for local lithium deposits.

One intriguing possibility in the UK is to extract lithium directly from geothermal waters near the coast of Cornwall. Ali Salisbury, an exploration geologist at Cornish Lithium, joins the podcast to explain how Cornwall’s unique geology – lying on top of a large, fractured mass of granite containing lithium-rich minerals – is enabling this possibility. Cornish Lithium says the method could have minimal environmental impacts, and the company is also investigating more sustainable forms of hard-rock lithium mining in the same region.

When pioneering musicians such as Kraftwerk and Brian Eno began experimenting with synthesizers and digital samplers in the 1970s, it was considered avant-garde and confined to niche audiences. It didn’t take long, however, for electronic music to explode in popularity, and today computer-produced music is ubiquitous among many genres and styles. This episode of the Physics World Stories podcast looks at a new trend in its nascent stages – music generated by quantum computers.

The first guest is science writer Philip Ball, who recently attended an improvised musical performance at the Goethe-Institut in London, an experience he described in this Physics World feature. Ball explains why the interface of quantum mechanics and music is interesting from both a scientific an artistic point of view.

Later in the episode, podcast host Andrew Glester is joined by Maria Mannone, a theoretical physicist working on quantum information at the University of Palermo in Italy, who is also a composer. Mannone discusses some of her experiments that incorporate scientific concepts into sound, and you can hear some of the music that emerges.

For much more quantum-inspired content, make sure to visit this website again on 14 April for World Quantum Day. During that week, the Physics World Weekly podcast will have a quantum theme and we will share a selection of quantum-related feature articles, interviews and analysis pieces. There will also be a chance to access quantum content and discounted quantum ebooks, shared by IOP Publishing – which publishes Physics World.

A new film Space, Hope and Charity tells the story of Charity Woodrum, an astrophysicist whose childhood dream of working for NASA was nearly derailed by a personal tragedy. Woodrum is now studying for a doctorate in galaxy quenching at the University of Arizona using data from the James Webb Space Telescope. She joins this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast to speak about finding purpose in academic research, and her gratitude to the colleagues who helped her through the darkest moments.

Podcast host Andrew Glester is also joined by the film’s director Sandy Cummings, a broadcast journalist with more than 20 years of experience working for NBC News. Cummings says she is drawn to stories of people facing huge challenges, and the quest for hope and purpose.

Space, Hope and Charity aired at this year’s American Astronomical Society annual meeting in Seattle, US. Its official premiere is at the Phoenix Film Festival with three screenings and Q&A sessions over three days, 31 March – 2 April 2023. See the trailer on YouTube.

The European Space Agency (ESA) recently made history by selecting John McFall – an amputee, Paralympic sprinter and medical scientist – among its latest cohort of astronauts. McFall’s inclusion is part of an ESA parastronaut feasibility project for making human spaceflight accessible to people with physical disabilities. In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, people involved in this initiative explain why making space more accessible is not only fair but also the very essence of exploration.

The first guest is Mike Miller-Smith, chief executive of Aerobility, a UK-based charity that helps people with any disability to fly planes. Aerobility is being consulted as part of ESA’s feasibility study and the organization will share its experiences in adapting aircraft. “People often say to us: ‘when I’m flying, I’m leaving my disability on the ground’,” Miller-Smith tells podcast host Andrew Glester.

Also in the episode you will hear from Irene Di Giulio, an anatomy and biomechanics researcher at King’s College London, whose research group is also part of ESA’s initiative. Di Giulio says that almost everything we currently know about space biomechanics is based on non-disabled people, often with athlete levels of fitness. She says that small adjustments to equipment can make space far more accessible, and certain disabilities may even bring advantages in microgravity environments.

Long-term listeners will know that the December episode of Physics World Stories is a celebration of the year’s best popular-science writing. This year, Andrew Glester is joined by comedian and writer Robin Ince, author of the recent book The Importance of Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity and host of the longstanding BBC Radio 4 science show The Infinite Monkey Cage, co-presented with the physicist Brian Cox.

Ince talks about his circular journey with science: from enjoying it as a child, to feeling disengaged as a young adult, to now building his entire creative output around his fascination with the natural world. In an entertaining conversation, Ince talks about the importance of critical thinking and how he longs for a society that celebrates the beauty of uncertainty.

Also in the episode, Physics World editors discuss the following books, reviewed in the latest issue of the magazine:

First Dawn: From the Big Bang to Our Future in Space by Roberto Battiston

Horizons: a Global History of Science by James Poskett

Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval by Gaia Vince

This month’s episode of the Physics World Stories podcast looks in depth at the science behind the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics and the technologies that are emerging as a result. Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger shared this year’s award “for their experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell’s inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”.

The first guest is Maksym Sich, co-founder and chief executive of Aegiq, a quantum-photonics spin-out company working on the development of secure quantum data communications and quantum photonics. Aegiq, which received a business start-up award from the Institute of Physics in 2021, has developed a high-performance source of indistinguishable single photons on demand.

“The one thing that is harder than actually doing quantum mechanics is describing it verbally,” says Sich. The quantum entrepreneur gives it a go anyway and neatly explains how quantum technologies emerging today relate to the pioneering experiments of Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger. Their work helped to demonstrate that entanglement is indeed a quantum phenomenon rather than a classical one.

Later in the episode you will hear from Oscar Kennedy, a quantum engineer from Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), a start-up based in Reading, UK. OQC has developed a chip based on superconducting quantum bits “qubits”, which is billed as the UK’s most advanced quantum computer.

In addition to explaining his company’s technology innovations, Kennedy also speaks about what it’s like day-to-day working in quantum computing. Spoiler alert: he loves it. “OQC are hiring all sorts of roles that transcend quantum information because we’re building a world-class company. So if anyone wants to join the quantum revolution, we’re always looking,” he says.

You can discover much more about some of the themes in this episode by visiting the quantum section of the Physics World website, where you can also sign up to our Quantum bimonthly newsletter.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup is about to kick off in Qatar, with millions of football fans across the planet set to be gripped by sporting drama. But in the years leading up to the event, concerns have been raised over the environmental impact of the seven huge new stadia that have been built in and around Doha for the event.

In this episode of Physics World Stories, podcast host Andrew Glester talks to Gilles Dufrasne from the not-for-profit organisation Carbon Market Watch. Dufrasne has co-authored a recent report that questions the claim by FIFA – football’s governing body – that the 2022 World Cup will be a carbon-neutral event. Among other things, Dufrasne discusses why the idea of “transportable stadia” is good in principle but challenging in practice.

Given that most sporting events take place at the local level, Glester then catches up with representatives from local sports teams in Physics World‘s home city of Bristol, UK, to learn about their attempts to inspire more sustainable behaviours.

Peter Smith from Bristol Sport talks about initiatives at Bristol City Football Club to reduce the environmental impact, which includes redistributing the first team’s excess food to local food banks during home and away matches in the second tier of English football. Later, Xeena Cooper speaks about why she founded the Bristol Dodos, a local cricket team that began life as part of the Extinction Rebellion environmental movement.

Researchers in the United Kingdom are facing an uncertain future, due to a political spat about the UK’s participation in Horizon Europe – Europe’s flagship research funding programme. Following Brexit, the UK was set to become an official associate within the scheme, which brings funding and leadership opportunities within European projects. This is now threatened by a political disagreement over trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, science communicator Andrew Glester speaks with physical scientists affected by the issue. Rachel Armstrong, an experimental architecture researcher explains why Brexit repercussions led her to relocate from the UK to KU Leuven in Belgium. Medical physicist Karen Kirkby, based at the Christie Hospital in Manchester, explains why failure to associate with Horizon Europe will damage European partnerships developed over years.

Glester also catches up with science policy researcher Graeme Reid from University College London, a former engineer who has been advising the UK government on its post-Brexit science strategy. Reid outlines the government’s recently mooted ‘Plan B’, which would involve launching an alternative national funding body. The issue, as Reid explains, is that it would take years to develop, and the UK science community is almost unanimous in its desire to remain associated with Horizon Europe.

Find out more about the political debacle around the UK’s status in Horizon Europe in this analysis article by science writer Michael Allen.

A small alien creature crash lands on Earth before striking up a rapport with a boy. Sound familiar? Two decades before ET was released, Indian director Satyajit Ray wrote a script for a film that would be called The Alien, which bears striking similarities with Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood blockbuster. The movie was never made. Ray was ahead of his time in many ways. Although not primarily remembered for his science fiction, the Bengali polymath was frequently inspired by a scientific way of thinking. Ray’s legacy is revisited in this latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.

Born in Calcutta (Kolkata) in 1921, Ray was not only a film director but also an established author, essayist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher and music composer. Between 1955 and 1991, Ray directed almost 30 features, as well as short films and documentaries. Many won leading prizes at international film festivals. In 1991 he was awarded an Oscar for lifetime achievement – the only such Oscar to be bestowed on an Indian director. Ray also received an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford, the second film director to be awarded this honour after his hero Charles Chaplin.

Ray’s work is explored in this episode of Physics World Stories, presented as always by science communication specialist Andrew Glester. Joining the podcast is Andrew Robinson, author of Satyajit Ray: the Inner Eye, who reflects on Ray’s personality and creative process, having known the Indian director personally. Also featuring is Moumita Dasgupta a biophysicist at Augsburg University in the US, who credits Ray’s work – especially his writing – as an inspiration for her career in science.

Discover more about Satyajit Ray’s work and the story behind The Alien in Andrew Robinson’s feature article from the August issue of Physics World.

Everyone knew something big was coming. Students had camped outside CERN’s designated seminar hall overnight in the hope of grabbing one of the few unreserved seats. Finally, on the morning of 4 July 2012, the suspense was ended. Spokespeople for the large hadron collider’s two general purpose experiments, ATLAS and CMS, confirmed the rumours: both experimental teams had detected a “Higgs-like particle” and the masses were very similar.

In the July episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester revisits that historic day in 2012. He’s joined by two guests who were there at the particle physics lab in Geneva to live through that memorable day. Achintya Rao was a communications officer at the CMS experiment and Cristina Botta was a research scientist.

Discover much more about the past, present and future of particle physics in the July issue of Physics World, a special issue to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Higgs boson discovery.

From windows and bottles, to optical fibres and solar cells, glass is an incredibly versatile material that underpins many technologies. In the June episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester explores a lesser known application of glass – bioglass in healthcare.

First you will hear from Julian Jones at Imperial College London, who explains how glass putty can help to heal broken bones by stimulating tissue growth. Jones has previously worked with the inventor of bioglass, Larry Hench, a materials engineer whose 1969 breakthrough was inspired by a chance conversation with an army major recently returned from the Vietnam War. Jones is currently developing “bouncy bioglass” that can stimulate bone growth while simultaneously sharing the load placed on bones – making it particularly useful for bad traumas where bones struggle to re-join.

Later in the episode, Glester is joined by Martyna Michalska, a nanotechnology researcher at University College London. As part of her research, Michalska designs glass surfaces patterned with nanoscale features that can be tuned to resist unwanted bacteria. In hospital settings, surfaces could be fitted with the technology as an alternative to chemicals that bacteria can evolve to resist. Michalska is working with industrial partners and they are looking at the option of retrofitting windows and other surfaces with thin films of her nanopatterned glass.

To learn more about glass-based technologies, take a look at the June issue of Physics World, a special issue inspired by the International Year of Glass (IYOG2022).

Science benefits enormously from supercomputing, which enables researchers to process vast amounts of data and conduct complex simulations. But these machines can be notorious energy guzzlers, with the largest supercomputers consuming as much power as a small city. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, scientists discuss how individuals can reduce the environmental impact of supercomputing without compromising research goals.

Simon Portegies Zwart, an astrophysicist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, says more efficient coding is vital for making computing greener. While for mathematician and physicist Loïc Lannelongue, the first step is for computer modellers to become more aware of their environmental impacts, which vary significantly depending on the energy mix of the country hosting the supercomputer. Lannelongue, who is based at the University of Cambridge, UK, has developed Green Algorithms, an online tool that enables researchers to estimate the carbon footprint of their computing projects.

Find out more on this topic in the article “The huge carbon footprint of large-scale computing“, originally published in the March issue of Physics World.

One of longest-running physics jokes is that, despite numerous promising breakthroughs, practical nuclear fusion will forever be 30 years away. Earlier this year, there was an exciting result in the UK that suggests that – sooner or later – fusion scientists will have the last laugh. The Joint European Torus (JET) nuclear-fusion experiment based in Oxfordshire, UK, more than doubled the amount of sustained fusion energy produced in a single “shot” – smashing a previous record that JET has held since 1997.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester catches up with two engineers from the UK Atomic Energy Authority to learn more about this latest development. Leah Morgan, a physicist-turned-engineer explains why JET’s recent success is great news for the the ITER project – a larger experimental fusion reactor currently under construction in Cadarache, France. Later in the episode, mechanical design engineer Helena Livesey talks about the important role of robotics for accessing equipment within the extreme conditions inside a tokamak device.

To hear from more scientists about the quest for practical nuclear fusion, you can also listen to this episode from Physics World’s 30th anniversary podcast series.

From Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” concertos to the Beatles’ “Blackbird” – musicians have always been inspired by nature. Many artists have even incorporated the sounds of nature into their songs. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are taking a more fundamental approach, exploring the music of the building blocks of life and how they interact in harmonious ways.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, host Andrew Glester speaks with Markus Buehler, an MIT engineer who is translating living structures into sound – and vice versa. In one project he has created harmonies informed by the structure of spider webs, through research that could help uncover the secrets of spider silk. More recently his team translated the spike protein of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 into sound to visualize its vibrational properties.

Find out more in this feature article by Markus Buehler and Mario Milazzo, originally published in the January 2022 issue of Physics World.

After decades in the making, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) finally launched on 25 December 2021, ushering in a new era for astronomy. On Monday the $10bn mission reached its destination, the L2 Lagrange point 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, where it will remain in orbit throughout the mission.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester meets JWST scientists to recall their experiences of the mission launch and the telescope’s journey so far. Now, the researchers are looking ahead with excitement to the science programme, which gets under way in June or July.

Jonathan Gardner, the JWST’s deputy senior project scientist, describes the fierce competition among astronomers to win time to use the state-of-the-art telescope. Gardner’s own research in deep surveys will benefit as the JWST can peer back to some of the first galaxies to form after the Big Bang.

Joining Gardner on the podcast is Stefanie Milam, the JWST’s deputy project scientist for planetary science. Milam describes how the telescope will explore the watery moons of Europa and Enceladus within our solar system, as well as investigating the atmospheres of exoplanets in search of intriguing chemical signals.

Find out more about the JWST mission in this feature article by Keith Cooper, originally published in the January issue of Physics World.

In keeping with our festive tradition, the December episode of Physics World Stories is all about physics books. Host Andrew Glester is joined by Physics World’s reviews and careers editor Laura Hiscott and the magazine’s editor-in-chief Matin Durrani to discuss a handpicked selection of popular-science books reviewed in 2021.

One of the year’s most memorable titles is Hawking Hawking: the Selling of a Scientific Celebrity by Charles Seife. Stephen Hawking’s status as an exceptional scientist and human being are beyond question. But Seife takes a warts-and-all look at the role self-publicity played in the British cosmologist’s public persona as the smartest scientist since Einstein.

Hawking Hawking is discussed in the first part of the podcast and there is a fun quiz for you to test your knowledge of Hawking’s life. In the second part, the Physics World journalists discuss these other books and the wider talking points that they raise:

• Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate by Paul Halpern
• Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli
• Shell Beach: the Search for the Final Theory by Jesper Grimstrup
• Science Fiction by Sherryl Vint
• How to Talk to a Science Denier: Conversations with Flat Earthers, Climate Deniers, and Others Who Defy Reason by Lee McIntyre

The open hardware movement advocates the sharing of designs for material objects. For the global science community it means people can access instructions to 3D print increasingly sophisticated tools. Just as importantly, the movement is decentralizing knowledge and giving users the ability to customize scientific equipment then repair it when things go wrong.

In the latest episode of Physics World Stories, Andrew Glester meets researchers at the University of Bath who are part of the open science community.

First, social scientist Julieta Arancio discusses the open hardware movement’s origins and some impactful projects. Among them are: Open Science with Drones; GORGAS tracker for Malaria and Human Mobility in the Peruvian Amazon; and Mboa Lab, a makerspace community in Cameroon.

Later, Richard Bowman and Julian Stirling describe the journey of developing a low-cost, laboratory-grade microscope. The OpenFlexure project, developed with the University of Cambridge and partners in Tanzania, can become an important tool in the fight against malaria.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast astronomers discuss the search for signs of extraterrestrial technologies. Fingerprints might include traces of pollution in exoplanet atmospheres, lights on the night sides of planets, and even the waste heat from megastructures such as Dyson spheres.

Podcast host Andrew Glester meets the following guests:

• Jacob Haqq Misra, senior research investigator at Blue Marble Space Institute of Science;
• Thomas Beatty, an astronomer at the University of Arizona who is also part of the team for the NIRCam instrument on James Web Space Telescope – scheduled to launch in December;
• Amedeo Balbi, an asrophysicist at the Tor Vergata University of Rome.

Find out more by reading ‘Scanning the cosmos for signs of technology,’ a feature article by science writer David Appell, originally published in the December issue of Physics World.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast you will hear from scientists and software engineers at the vanguard of developing free and open-source software for physics research. Guests talk about the role of open software in astronomical imaging, the search for dark matter, medical physics and other fields. Software also plays a big role in the wider open-science movement but there are ongoing debates around how to provide suitable recognition to software developers who have contributed to scientific breakthroughs.

Featuring the following guests:

• Kirstie Whitaker, director of the Tools, Practices and Systems research programme at the Alan Turing Institute in London
• Tim Smith, head of collaboration, devices and applications group at CERN
• Katie Bouman – computer scientist at Caltech, whose algorithms helped to transform data from the Event Horizon Telescope into the first ever image of a black hole
• Suchita Kulkarni, a particle physicist at the University of Graz, Austria
• Juanjo Bazán, an astrophysicist from the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research in Madrid, Spain.

Find out more by reading “Standing on the shoulders of programmers: the power of free and open-source software“, originally published in the September issue of Physics World.

Why lie on a beach when you could go to Chernobyl? In the past few years there has been a steady growth in alternative tourism, which includes people going to sites of scientific interest. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester meets three people who are unashamedly drawn to geeky destinations.

Ruth Nichol is a yoga instructor who travels the world with her husband seeking eclipses. She describes the emotional impact of witnessing totality and her trip to see the Northern Lights from a plane.

Tom Scott is a radiation researcher at the University of Bristol whose work regularly takes him to Chernobyl, Ukraine, the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster. Scott talks about his research using robotics to track radiation levels in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, which he also described in the Physics World article “Glimpsing Chernobyl’s hidden hotspots“. Over the years Scott has witnessed the rise of Chernobyl tours, which had grown to attract around 100,000 visitors annually before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, Glester catches up with Jeffrey Brunstrom, an experimental psychologist at the University of Bristol specializing in nutrition. As Brunstrom explains, there are tricky psychological barriers that make our post-holiday diets easier to speak about than actually stick to. Brunstrom also describes his love of the Marconi centre in Cornwall, which celebrates the Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi who undertook groundbreaking telecommunications experiments in the region.

Find out more about science-themed holidays in the August special issue of Physics World, which also has features on the physics of sandcastles and rollercoasters.

You could be forgiven for thinking the themes in this month’s episode of Physics World Stories have been stolen from Hollywood. Podcast host Andrew Glester profiles two upcoming NASA missions to asteroids: one that will explore an all-metal world, and the other will deliberately smash into a near-Earth asteroid.

Glester’s first guest is Jim Bell from Arizona State University who is involved in the mission to the asteroid Psyche, which launches in 2022 and arrives in 2026. Located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter with an average diameter of 226 km, Psyche consists largely of metal. Astronomers speculate that the asteroid is the exposed core of an early planet that lost its rocky outer layers due to a number of violent collisions billions of years ago.

Also joining the podcast is Angela Stickle from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. Stickle is a project scientist in the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, scheduled to launch in November aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Sounding like a remake of Armageddon or Deep Impact, the solar-powered DART craft will hurtle towards the binary near-Earth asteroid Didymos, before crashing into the smaller of the two bodies in late 2022. By observing the changes in the asteroid’s orbit, mission scientists are testing the feasibility of deflecting a large Earth-bound asteroid – should that perilous scenario transpire in the future.

In June 1925 Werner Heisenberg retreated to Helgoland in the North Sea, a treeless island offering the 23-year-old German physicist a space to think, along with some respite from the extreme hay fever he was suffering. On that remote outpost, Heisenberg had an idea that would revolutionize physics and bring profound implications for philosophy and technology. This was an event that would kickstart quantum mechanics.

Helgoland is the title of the latest book by physicist and science writer Carlo Rovelli. It is essentially a journey through the origins of quantum physics, interwoven with narrative about Heisenberg, Dirac, Einstein and the other luminaries from the first quantum generation. Rovelli also discusses his own interpretations of the quantum world, and connects quantum theory with diverse ideas, from Buddhist thinking to the grand themes of the Russian revolution.

Rovelli speaks about Helgoland in this latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast. In a wide-ranging conversation with podcast host Andrew Glester, Rovelli discusses quantum concepts, the often overlooked role of philosophy in science, and his minimalist approach to science writing.

If you enjoy this episode, make sure to also join us for the inaugural Physics World Quantum Week. Running on 14–18 June 2021, the event showcases the latest developments in quantum science and technology. It includes a series of free-to-view webinars and a curated selection of quantum articles.

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are designed to replicate human capabilities, and in some cases improve upon them. Lifelike robots are physical examples of AI technology, but it is the digital AI systems that already have a ubiquitous influence on our daily lives – from facial recognition software to decision-making tools used by banks, recruiters and the police. Too often, these systems can reflect preexisting social inequalities.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast Andrew Glester investigates the ethical issues that can plague AI and machine learning technologies. He finds out about the concepts of deep learning and neural networks, why these systems can amplify problems in society, and who are the people adversely affected by these flaws.

It turns out that the physics community is part of the problem and potentially part of the solution. Directly and indirectly, physicists are involved in developing AI technology so are ideally placed to raise awareness of the issues. Featuring in the episode:

• Alan Winfield, a robot ethics researcher at the University of the West of England
• Julianna Photopoulos, a science writer based in Bristol, UK
• Savannah Thais, an experimental particle physicist at Princeton University, US

To find out more about the issue of bias in AI systems, take a look at this feature article by Photopoulos, which is summarised in the video below.

The global particle physics community has been energised by two recent results that offer tantalising glimpses of new physics beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

Researchers at CERN’s LHCb experiment have observed something unusual in the way that B mesons decay into leptons – the class of fundamental particle incorporating electrons, muons, taus and their corresponding neutrinos. Meanwhile, researchers at Fermilab may have glimpsed an unknown force at work in the way muons “wobble” in the presence of a magnetic field inside their Muon g-2 experiment.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester dissects these new results with the aid of particle physicists who discuss what this means for the field. Joining Glester in this episode are:

Patrick Koppenburg, leader of LHCb’s user analysis software
Jessica Esquivel, a physicist and data analyst at Fermilab
Mark Lancaster and Rebecca Chislett, UK physicists working on the Muon g-2 experiment.

1 December 2020 was a dark day for Puerto Rico and the global astronomy community. The iconic Arecibo Observatory collapsed, with the radio telescope’s 900-tonne suspended platform crashing into the 305 m dish below. Warning signs had been there in the preceding months, but that did little to soften the shock felt by the astronomy community.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester speaks with astronomers about the impact of this dramatic event. Abel Méndez, a planetary astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico, explains why the observatory was a beacon for Puerto Rican scientists and engineers. Mourning continues but Méndez and colleagues have already submitted a white paper to the National Science Foundation with plans for a new telescope array on the same site.

https://youtu.be/J-_FStTee9w

Constructed in the 1960s with US funding, Arecibo was originally used for military purposes. Its powerful radar was bounced off the ionosphere to better understand the nature of the Earth’s upper atmosphere and to look for signs of incoming Soviet missiles. Seth Shostack, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, talks to Glester about Arecibo’s origins and how scientists soon saw the potential for bouncing Arecibo’s radar off astronomical objects such as asteroids.

Arecibo was the world’s largest radio dish until it was surpassed in 2016 by China’s FAST telescope. Arecibo’s size and tropical setting captured the public imagination and the observatory appeared in the films GoldenEye and Contact – the adaptation of the Carl Sagan novel. Contact’s lead protagonist is Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster), partly based on SETI scientist Jill Tarter. Tarter joins the podcast recounting her experiences advising Jodie Foster on the character and role.

February 2021 is an exciting month for Mars exploration, with three separate missions arriving at the red planet. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester takes a closer look at one of those missions – NASA’s Perseverance rover. Equipped with sophisticated imaging devices, Perseverance will look for signs of ancient microbial life and will help pave the way for future human missions to our neighbouring planet.

Today, space exploration is an increasingly global pursuit, involving many nations and private companies, with Mars being an enticing destination. On 9 February the Emirates Mars Mission delivered the Hope probe into Martian orbit, which will provide the most complete picture yet of the planet’s atmosphere. That will be followed by China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft, which arrives in orbit on 10 February ahead of landing a rover in May into a massive impact basin.

Completing the Mars trio is NASA’s Perseverance rover, landing on 18 February – the focus of this episode. Its destination is the Jezero Crater, a 45-km-wide basin in the Martian northern hemisphere, a landform carved by a river roughly 3.5 billion years ago. The mission will collect rock and sediment samples for future return to Earth, search for signs of ancient microbial life, characterise the planet’s geology and climate, and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon.

You will hear from Luther Beegle, the principal investigator for the rover’s SHERLOC instrument – a Raman spectroscopy device that can detect organic matter and minerals. You also hear from Kelsey Moore, a geobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose research has informed the mission’s search for traces of ancient life.

The podcast is sponsored by Teledyne Princeton Instruments. To learn more about how the company is changing scientific astronomy sign up to their upcoming astronomy webinar.

In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, scientists and engineers from the CERN describe how the pandemic has affected the particle physics lab and the way they collaborate with colleagues.

CERN’s large hadron collider (LHC) is currently in shutdown ahead of its third run scheduled for later in 2021. José Miguel Jimenez, head of CERN’s technology department, explains how engineers have adapted in order to limit the delays brought about by the pandemic.

Jimenez also looks ahead to the LHC’s next long shutdown – scheduled for 2025 – when the particle accelerator will undergo a major upgrade. The transformed high-luminosity machine (HL-LHC) will generate 10 times more collisions than at present.

Also in the podcast is Archana Sharma, a physicist who’s been working as a project manager on the GEM experiment at the LHC’s CMS detector. Her team has designed gas electron multipliers that will improve the muon-detection abilities of CMS in the HL-LHC era.

Glester’s final guest is Sahal Yacoob of the University of Cape Town. Yacoob’s year-long sabbatical at the LHC’s ATLAS experiment coincided with the pandemic, changing the experience somewhat. As Yacoob explains, CERN researchers were accustomed to virtual communications, but he is sorely missing those informal coffee-break chats, which can lead to unexpected developments.

For another personal account of CERN during the pandemic, take a look at this feature from the January 2021 issue of Physics World. Dave Barney describes how despite lockdown he has continued his important work on developing a new calorimeter for CERN’s CMS experiment – a piece of equipment that will be pivotal to the success of the HL-LHC.

In this episode, Andrew Glester is joined by Physics World journalists to discuss some of 2020’s best physics books, along with their favourite examples of physics featuring in television and film this year. For more information about all of the media discussed, you can revisit these reviews that have appeared in Physics World during 2020.

• You Look Like a Thing and I Love You: How Artificial Intelligence Works and Why It’s Making the World a Weirder Place by Janelle Shane
• Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World by David Kaiser
• Synchronicity: the Epic Quest to Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect by Paul Halpern
• The TV show Devs
• The Smallest Lights in the Universe: a Memoir by Sara Seager
• Why Trust Science? by Naomi Oreskes
• The film Proxima
• For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals and Reflections for Finding Wonder by Sasha Sagan

An unlimited world of structures built from precision-engineered unit parts – it is easy to see why LEGO appeals to many physicists. But in addition to the pure enjoyment, this plastic construction toy is also a great teaching tool, and it has even featured in serious science experiments. In the November episode of Physics World Stories, Andrew Glester meets physicists who have used LEGO in fun and creative ways to communicate physics.

The first guest is Lewis Matherson aka @LegoPhysicsGuy, a former physics teacher who now makes physics videos aimed at students and teachers. These videos regularly incorporate LEGO to illustrate core physics concepts in GCSEs and A levels – exams typically sat by 16- and 18-year-olds in the UK.

Next up is Joshua Chawner, a low-temperature-physics researcher at Lancaster University, UK. Chawner captured the imagination by subjecting LEGO pieces to the coldest temperatures on Earth, placing them inside his group’s dilution refrigerator, as documented in an award-winning video (below). Despite reaching 1.6 millidegrees above absolute zero (2000 times colder than deep space) the bricks proved to be extremely good thermal insulators, a surprising result described in Scientific Reports.

https://youtu.be/zaIFZsBOeZc

Last but not least is Maria Parappilly, a physics education expert at Flinders University, Australia. One of Parappilly’s successful initiatives was to create a LEGO race cars exercise for an introductory physics course that previously seen high drop-out rates. Parappilly is also the founder of the STEM Women Branching Out at Flinders University, designed to make science and other technical subjects more inclusive.

Media coverage of quantum computing often focuses on the long term potential for these devices to leave classical computing in the dust. But what about the rudimentary quantum systems that are already being developed and tested by technology companies? What are the latest advances in the field? And what might these systems realistically be able to achieve in the short to medium term? Andrew Glester investigates these questions in the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.

The episode previews Quantum 2020, a free online event running 19–22 October hosted by IOP Publishing (which also published Physics World). Tim Smith, associate director for journals product development, describes how the conference will cover the latest developments across quantum science and technology. While Claire Webber, associate director for content and engagement marketing, explains how you can participate in the event.

Glester then catches up with one of the speakers at Quantum 2020 – Ryan Babbush, head of quantum algorithms at Google. In 2019 Google made headlines after asserting that its Sycamore quantum processor was the first to achieve “quantum supremacy”, whereby a quantum computer solves a problem in a significantly shorter time than a conventional computer. Although the specifics of that claim have been disputed, it was still celebrated as a key breakthrough in the field.

Babbush describes some of the key goals for Google’s first generation of practical quantum computers. One of them is to realize Richard Feynman’s idea of using quantum devices to simulate physical systems that behave according to the laws of quantum physics. Such a system could be used to solve the fiendishly complex chemistry equations required to predict the properties of new materials. Another key goal is quantum cryptography, which could offer secure communication systems.

The news last week that scientists had spotted a potential signature of life in the clouds of Venus was always likely to cause a stir. But arriving the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic – during which our everyday lives have changed significantly – the story has truly captured the public imagination. In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester takes a broad view of the discovery: an inspiring example of lateral thinking, persistence and collaboration.

The deduction that Venus could be harbouring life is linked with the detection of phosphine gas in the planet’s atmosphere. For terrestrial planets such as Venus and Earth the only known processes to generate phosphine in such a location are connected with metabolism. To learn more about astrobiology, Glester catches up with two members of the team behind the discovery, both based at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Clara Sousa-Silva is a quantum astrochemist who for over a decade has studied phosphine as a potential signature for extraterrestrial life. She is joined by Sara Seager, an astronomer and planetary scientist, who among other things speaks about future missions to Venus to help resolve this mystery. As both researchers explain, the “life hypothesis” came as a last resort following a rigorous search for alternative explanations.

Studies suggest that human error is responsible for over 90% of the 1.25 million people who die each year globally due to car accidents. Therefore, improving driver safety is one of the biggest incentives for increasing the autonomy of vehicles. But this brave new world of autonomous driving is not without its own risks – as Andrew Glester discovers in the August episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.

To learn about how automated features can reduce human error, Glester catches up with Siddartha Khastgir, the head of Verification & Validation of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles at WMG, University of Warwick, UK. Khastgir describes the form that fully automated vehicles might take, and explains why it is a myth that these vehicles could provide absolute safety without human intervention.

Cars today already have a degree of autonomy, such as parking-assist systems that use ultrasonic sensors. This autonomy is increasing every year, as sensors and other hardware can monitor a car’s state and create dynamic maps of its surroundings. But these systems bring a new threat – opportunities for hackers to access cars remotely. To learn about these emerging risks, Glester speaks with Simon Parkinson, a computer scientist who leads the Centre for Cyber Security at the University of Huddersfield, UK.

Find out more about the cyber threat posed to autonomous vehicles in this feature by Stephen Ornes, originally published in the August edition of Physics World, a special issue on the physics of cars.

Planet Nine is a hypothetical world in the far reaches of our solar system. Proposed in 2016 by Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, its existence would explain the unusual orbits of certain Kuiper belt objects (KBOs). But are we completely sure that Planet Nine in fact a planet?

A paper in September 2019 suggested the gravitational effects could instead be explained by the presence of a primordial black hole smaller than your fist. To get to the bottom of this mystery, there have been recent proposals to send fleets of tiny probes to the general region of this mysterious object.

In the July episode of Physics World Stories Andrew Glester gets the latest on the mystery of Planet Nine. Appearing in the podcast are Mike Brown and the University of Maryland’s Zeeve Rogoszinski, co-author of one of the mission proposals.

For certain fields of physics, it can be tough to explain how the research has a direct benefit to society. That is never the case with medical physics – a career where you can apply a technical skillset to directly improve people’s everyday lives. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester catches up with three medical physicists from The Christie – the largest cancer hospital in Europe – to learn about their careers.

Heather Williams, the principal physicist in nuclear medicine at The Christie, speaks about some of the latest developments in positron emission tomography (PET). Williams also explains how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the working practices at the hospital, requiring some difficult decisions around risk management. Among other developments, clinical engineers have been working with industry to develop new systems to deliver oxygen to coronavirus patients.

Later in the podcast, you will also hear from Patricia Amata who is studying for a PhD in ultrasound modalities. Medical ultrasound is most commonly associated with the field of obstetrics, where it is used to generate images of the foetus developing in the womb. But this non-ionising form of imaging is used across the medical spectrum – from breast scans to neurology, and often as a way of calibrating other imaging techniques.

Finally, clinical scientist Imran Patel speaks about the Christie’s proton therapy centre, which has been treating patients since December 2018. Patel, who leads the proton therapy physics group, explains why proton therapy can offer benefits in certain circumstances, such as paediatric cases. Unlike photons and electrons, protons beams can deliver a radiation to a highly localized sites, minimising damage to surrounding healthy tissue.

You can take a look inside the Christie’s proton therapy centre in this video produced in 2019.

In the May 2020 issue of Physics World, science journalist Marric Stevens wrote about the problem of the missing plastic in the world’s oceans. Although we are starting to see large amounts of plastic in the oceans, the quantity is far smaller than we expect to see – based on the quantities of plastic being released into the oceans every year. In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester digs deeper into the mystery to find out where the plastic might be ending up.

To learn about the threat of plastic to marine wildlife, Glester meets Lucy Quinn, a seabird ecologist with the British Antarctic Survey. Quinn was the researcher who captured public awareness of the plastics issue when she appeared in the BBC’s Blue Planet 2 showing the horrific impacts of ingested plastic on an Albatross colony in Bird Island, South Georgia.

Also in the podcast, physical oceanographer Erik van Sebille outlines the extent of the missing plastics issue. He explains how his research on ocean flow at Utrecht University in the Netherlands can help to better understand where the plastics are ending up. While Alethea Mountford from Newcastle University, UK, describes how oceanographers combine physical measurements with modelling to get a handle on the issue.

To find out more, read ‘The search for the missing plastic‘, a feature originally published in the May 2020 issue of Physics World – a special edition on plastic waste.

This podcast is sponsored by Teledyne Hastings Instruments.

Across the world, personal and professional lives have been profoundly affected during the past few months – and scientists are no exception. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, we find out how physics and physicists are adapting to coronavirus-related lockdowns. Among physicists – as with many professions – there is a growing realisation that things are not about to go back to normal anytime soon.

Isolation from colleagues, facilities and important conferences bring obvious disadvantages. But as you will hear in the podcast, some physicists are also finding positive outcomes from the situation. Before the lockdown, did you ever meet a researcher who didn’t complain about being time-poor? Plenty were sick of travelling to international events because they felt they had to show their face. And you name an academic didn’t have a paper they kept meaning to write but never got around to it because of things like endless faculty meetings.

First up in the episode is the theoretical physicist and author Sabine Hossenfelder. Among other things during the pandemic, she has teamed up with climate physicist Tim Palmer to record a coronavirus-inspired reworking of the REM classic hit “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”. You will also hear from Bonnie Tsim and Rebecca Waters who both attended the recent Women in Graphene Career Development Day – an online event that reimagined various aspects of real-world conferences. Perhaps the success of this virtual event is a sign of what physics conferences will be like for the foreseeable future.

For more personal accounts of the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns, take a look at the “physics in the pandemic” series on the Physics World blog.

Most of the time science appears in the media – including in this podcast – the focus is on the scientific results. Rightly so, as scientific research consistently delivers inspiring breakthroughs. But this type of coverage can present an idealized version of science. Researchers are presented as dispassionate beings working together seamlessly to uncover the common truths of their discipline.

In reality, scientists are people with a range of personalities and backgrounds, displaying all the usual human traits – the good and the bad. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester meets a selection of successful researchers to discover what it is really like to carve out a career in physics. What motivates them? What are the big challenges lying ahead for early-career researchers? What are the rules they play by?

For more information and advice on this topic, see the 2020 edition of Physics World Careers. In the March issue of Physics World magazine, we also launched our new “Ask me anything” interview series, providing careers advice for physics graduates. Physics World’s Tushna Commissariat asks 10 of today’s top physicists three questions to find out about their roles and what they wish they knew when they started their careers.

In the latest episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester learns about the acoustic design of public spaces, through conversations with acousticians and architects. He visits the Bristol Old Vic – the oldest continuously running theatre in the English-speaking world – which has recently undergone a refurbishment. Glester also visits Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, a place with which he has a strong personal connection, having worked there in the past.

Find out more about acoustics in architecture in this article by science journalist Anna Demming, which first appeared in the February issue of Physics World.

Well written, novel and scientifically interesting for physicists – these are the criteria we use to select our Book of the Year prize. To reveal the winner of the 2019 award and discuss the runners up, Physics World’s reviews and careers editor Tushna Commissariat joins regular host Andrew Glester for the December episode of the Physics World Stories podcast.

Since 2009, Physics World has named a shortlist of its 10 best books of the year, before selecting one for its award. In recent years, it has also become a tradition to dedicate the December episode of Physics World Stories to discussing our shortlist, before revealing the winner and hearing from the author of the victorious book. As Andrew Glester notes, the only problem with this tradition is that we inevitably end up adding more books to your ever-growing Christmas reading list!

In no particular order, here is the full shortlist for the 2019 Physics World book of the year:

The Moon: a History for the Future by Oliver Morton
As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Apollo Moon-landings, Oliver Morton’s book tells the story of our Moon, from its origin to its role in humanity’s history and future.

The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald D Hoffman
Reality is more than meets the eye, and cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman makes the case for why this applies to everything from evolution to optics.

Fire, Ice and Physics: the Science of Game of Thrones by Rebecca C Thompson
From dragons to walls of ice, everyone’s favourite fantasy TV show has more physics fun hidden within than you would have thought; and Rebecca Thompson takes readers on an epic quest.

Underland: a Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane
From dark matter to nuclear waste, Robert Macfarlane’s Underland will take you deep within the bowels of our planet, and our relationship with these hidden worlds.

The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information are Solving the Mystery of Life by Paul Davies
What exactly is life, how and why does it emerge, and what distinguishes the living from the non-living? Paul Davies’ latest book attempts to answer some of the biggest questions that we have long pondered over.

The Second Kind of Impossible: the Extraordinary Quest For A New Form of Matter by Paul J Steinhardt
A rip-roaring adventure tale, featuring a mild-mannered theoretical physicist who found himself leading an expedition to the mosquito-and-bear-infested wilderness of eastern Russia in search of tiny grains of rock from outer space.

Superior: the Return of Race Science by Angela Saini
After her award-winning book Inferior scientifically analysed the supposed differences between the sexes, Angela Saini now tackles the difficult topic of racism, and the erroneous belief that race, a social construct, has a basis in biology.

Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution: the Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum by Lee Smolin
US theoretical physicist and author Lee Smolin presents a bold “realist” formulation of quantum mechanics, in which time is fundamental, but space is emergent.

The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Maths Reveals Nature’s Deepest Secrets by Graham Farmelo
In his latest book, Graham Farmelo offers a bracing defence of string theory, and the power of mathematics in making progress in physics.

Catching Stardust: Comets, Asteroids and the Birth of the Solar System by Natalie Starkey
Natalie Starkey shares her fascination with these cosmic visitors, detailing how scientists study comets and asteroids to understand the 4.6-billion-year history of the solar system.

Those of you with insatiable reading appetites should also check out this recent episode of our weekly podcast, which celebrates a decade of our book of the year award. Tushna Commissariat is joined by Physics World‘s previous reviews and careers editor Margaret Harris and the magazine’s editor-in-chief Matin Durrani. The trio discuss some of their favourite books from the 100 that made it to our shortlists this past decade, as well as chat about some pet peeves and personal favourites of science writing.

“Physics at the movies” is the theme of the November issue of Physics World magazine. In this star-studded episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester interviews a trio of people who have worked on – or inspired – Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters.

First up, Glester travels to MCM Comic Con in London to meet Paul Franklin, a member of the team that won the 2014 Oscar for Best Visual Effects for its work on Interstellar. Franklin is the creative director of DNEG, which has worked with director Christopher Nolan on his various other films including Inception, The Dark Knight trilogy and Dunkirk. But the conversation focuses on Interstellar and what it was like to work with science advisor Kip Thorne, a process that even led to a scientific paper about previously unseen details of black holes.

Next up, Glester is in conversation with Jill Tarter, former director of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Tarter is said to be the inspiration for Ellie Arroway, the lead character in Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, which was adapted into the 1997 blockbuster of the same name starring Jodie Foster. Tarter describes how she reentered astronomy thanks to a government scheme, and shares anecdotes about working with Foster to portray her personality on screen.

Finally, Glester catches up with Andy Weir, author of the book The Martian, which was adapted into the 2015 film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon. Weir speaks about the calculations and thought-experiments that underpinned some of the book’s plot. He admits that he never expected the story to appeal to such a wide audience and that Mark Watney – the story’s lead character – is a version of himself with all the good traits magnified.

To find out more about about physics at the movies take a look at the November special issue of Physics World, which features interviews with the actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Daniel Radcliffe.

In this month’s Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester discovers why microgravity environments are such interesting places to do physics experiments. Perhaps the ultimate microgravity laboratory is the international space station (ISS), where astronauts carry out experiments designed by scientists across the globe. But microgravity environments can also be created here on Earth, via parabolic flights and drop towers that can achieve microgravity conditions within the gravitational field of the Earth.

In the episode, Glester travels to Swindon to meet Libby Jackson, the human exploration programme manager at the UK Space Agency. Jackson explains why removing gravity from the equation can allow researchers to probe a range of questions, not necessarily related to space science. She herself, has flown on a so-called “vomit comet” and she describes the experience of adapting to weightlessness while trying to control a science experiment.

Marco Marengo, a thermal engineering research at the University of Brighton, UK, is another frequent flyer on parabolic flights. He describes some of the physics experiments he has been involved with and the process through which researchers can apply for time at these facilities. Unsurprisingly, he always finds time to have some fun while weightless in addition to doing the serious science.

Within Europe, researchers requiring a microgravity environment regularly visit the ZARM drop-tower, located in Bremen, Germany. Just shy of 150m in length, this facility comprises an experimental capsule housed inside a long steel tube. In the video below, you can see Paxi – the European Space Agency’s educational mascot – falling down this drop. The ESA website has full details of how to apply to use parabolic flights, drop towers and other related facilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36637WobHZA

While researchers are less likely to be making a trip themselves to the ISS, the options for sending your experiment there are expanding. Jackson explains how it is now possible to buy time on the ISS through the ICE Cubes service, which involves launching your experiment in a 10cm³ container. Companies can also pay for time on the the ISS securing the rights to any resulting intellectual property.

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.

Support for this podcast came from Pfeiffer Vacuum.

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.

The UK, France, Ireland and Canada have already taken the symbolic step of declaring a climate emergency, but many believe that the actions of these and other countries do not yet match the boldness of their rhetoric. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester speaks to Will Cook of Extinction Rebellion – a movement that wants governments to accelerate their response to the climate crisis – about the need for politicians around the world to commit to meaningful action.

Glester also explores how academics and physicists are taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. He speaks to Anna Lewis, the sustainable labs officer at the University of Bristol – the first UK research institution to declare a climate emergency – who explains how the university plans to meet its pledge of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

Lewis point out that science labs can be some of the biggest users of energy, and Glester talks to Caroline Jarrett, technical manager for the university’s school of science, about the practical measures that researchers can take to make their labs more sustainable. Finally, Glester tackles the thorny question of air travel, not least to academic conferences, and speaks to Matthew Tulley from Solid Carbon Storage about an innovative way to offset your carbon emissions on the occasions when you do need to fly.

• You can find out more about efforts to make science labs and research facilities more sustainable in the article “Leading by example: going green in the lab”

Throughout July the world has been celebrating 50 years since Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong took those historic first steps on the Moon. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester looks to the future, at the prospects of returning humans to the Moon before setting our sights on Mars.

Glester reports from the Blue Dot festival at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, UK. There, he enjoyed a lively mix of contemporary music, scientific talks, and plenty of other creative performances. In the podcast, you will also hear from:

• Monica Grady, professor of planetary and space science at the Open University
• Michaela Musilova, an astrobiologist and director of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS).
• Libby Jackson, director of human space flight at the UK Space Agency.
• Kerry Sanz, operations director of MDA, a company offering LiDAR mapping technologies.

This podcast follows on from the June episode of Physics World Stories, which looked back at some of the lesser known stories from the Apollo era. For a comprehensive view of the Apollo legacy and future space travel, take a look at the July special issue of Physics World.

In July the world will be celebrating 50 years since Apollo 11, when Neil Armstrong took those historic first steps on the Moon. In this episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester looks back at some of the lesser known stories from the Apollo era.

Glester catches up with Kevin Fong, presenter of 13 Minutes to the Moon, the BBC podcast exploring the final dramatic 13-minute descent of the Apollo 11 mission, when everything came close to going badly wrong. Fong explains why the Apollo rockets’ guidance systems were so ground-breaking at the time. He also describes the extraordinary psychology of the Apollo astronauts who risked their lives in the pursuit of progress.

Next up, Alan Andres speaks about Chasing the Moon, the book he co-authored with Robert Stone that has been turned into a PBS documentary. He discusses the complex dual life lived by Wernher von Braun, Nazi scientist-turned NASA rocket pioneer. Andres also explains why James Webb, the American government official who oversaw NASA from 1961 to 1968, left such a lasting legacy on the US education system.

Glester also visits the Cheltenham Science Festival in the UK where he catches up with a trio of Apollo aficionados. Science presenter Dallas Campbell shares some of his favourite stories including the surprising modest origins of the US flag that was planted into the lunar surface. Astronomer Nick Howes speaks about the social value of the Apollo programme and why we need to recapture the era’s spirit of adventure. While geoscientist Louise Alexander explains why it is still worth analysing samples of lunar rock returned during the Apollo missions.

Finally, you can hear an archive interview with Apollo astronaut Alan Bean, who went to the Moon on Apollo 12. Since retiring, Bean developed a passion for painting and creates works inspired by his adventures in space. This pursuit brought Bean the freedom of expression he never had as an astronaut where speed of thought and precision were among the required skills.

In the July episode of Physics World Stories, Glester will look forward to some of the missions that will see humans (and machines) return to our nearest celestial neighbour. Also look out for the July issue of Physics World magazine, a special issue devoted to the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11.

In the May edition of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester reflects on the biggest astronomy story of the year – the first ever image of a black hole and its “shadow”. Unless you’ve been living in a black hole yourself, you will have seen the glowing donut/eye of Sauron/smiley face, which is actually the supermassive black hole at the centre of the M87 elliptical galaxy, some 55 million light-years from Earth.

The image represents an incredible feat of science and engineering, produced from petabytes of data captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of individual radio telescopes and telescopic arrays scattered across the globe. The EHT team reported the results in six papers in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters, which is published by the Institute of Physics on behalf of the American Astronomical Society.

To find out more about the story behind the discovery, Glester catches up with three scientists from the EHT team who also hold positions at Radboud University in the Netherlands. First up is Monika Mościbrodzka, a member of EHT’s data analysis team who speaks about the significance of the discovery and the future prospects for the project. “Black holes are no longer just a theory. It’s now reality”, she says.

Meanwhile, Freek Roelof explains how the group generated the image from all the raw radio wave data. He worked on data collection at the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT) on Mount Graham, Arizona. When not doing cutting edge science Roelof plays the guitar and you can hear some of his black-hole-inspired songs in the podcast.

Since the publication of the image, many people have asked the question: “Why did these astronomers look all the way to the M87 galaxy, when we have a black hole – Sagittarius A* – at the centre of our own galaxy?” The reason comes down to scale. Despite being a thousand times further away, the black hole at the centre of M87 is a whopping 0.7 billion solar masses, a thousand times more massive than Sagittarius A*.

But now that the EHT has proved its capability, you wouldn’t bet against the collaboration capturing an image our Sagittarius A* at some point. In the meantime, you can take a look at this virtual reality simulation based on best-fit models of observations of Sagittarius A*. Its creator, Jordy Davelaar, joins the podcast to explain how and why he created it.

If you enjoy what you hear, then you can subscribe to Physics World Stories via your chosen podcast host. Also check out our other podcast Physics World Weekly, which brings you regular updates on the latest research developments in the physical sciences.

In the previous episode of the Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester revisited the birth of the World Wide Web at CERN in 1989. This month, Glester looks to the future of Internet technologies, profiling some of the developments that might transform our daily lives.

Glester finds out about the different ways we will connect to the Internet in the near future. Global access could be expanded thanks to WiFi provided by satellites in low-Earth orbit. Meanwhile, a more secure way of connecting to the Internet could be provided by LiFi – wireless data encoded into everyday light sources.

Looking beyond the individual technologies, the concept of an Internet of Things (IoT) holds the promise of making everyday living more convenient. Devices are already on the market, such as fridges that monitor your eating habits and automatically order replenishments. In the future, these sorts of systems could become commonplace in all aspects of society.

But as we move to an ever-more connected world, we also leave ourselves more vulnerable to cybercrime. To discuss security considerations, Glester catches up with ethical hacker Freaky Clown who describes the cat-and-mouse battle between the security services and cyber criminals.

If you enjoy what you hear, then you can also subscribe to Physics World Stories via Apple podcasts or your chosen podcast host.

On the 30th anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web at CERN, the Physics World Stories podcast visits the particle-physics lab in Geneva to learn how things developed from an esoteric proposal to something that has changed the world forever.

The Web is for everyone and collectively we hold the power to change it

Tim Berners-Lee

Physics World magazine has also recently turned 30 and we have been celebrating with a five-part podcast series exploring key developments in physics. This fifth and final episode revisits the birth of the World Wide Web at CERN in the late 1980s. In March 1989 British physicist turned computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee produced the now-famous document entitled “Information management: a proposal”. Over the past three decades, this modest origin has evolved into a globally connected web of computing systems, transforming the way we live our lives.

To mark the occasion, Physics World Stories host Andrew Glester visits CERN to meet some of the scientists who were there in the early years of the Web. Along the way he meets, Jean-François Groff (see left), François Flückiger, Ben Segal and Tim Berners-Lee’s former boss Peggy Rimmer.

You will also hear from Tim Berners-Lee himself, who shares his hopes and fears for the future of the Web. The creator of the Web is amazed by the speed and extent of global change brought about by the Web. But, like the majority of us, he also fears the worrying trend for nefarious activities enabled by the Web, including misinformation and the amplified voices of those who choose to spread hate. “The Web is for everyone and collectively we hold the power to change it,” says Berners-Lee. “It won’t be easy but if we dream a little and work a lot we can get the Web we want.”

The 30th anniversary of the Web is also the theme of the March special issue of Physics World magazine. You can enjoy many of that issue’s articles – along with a host of others – in a special online-only collection. The collection includes a brilliant graphic by Jess Wade, a look at the business impact of the Web, and the latest episode of the Physics World Weekly podcast in which Physics World journalists chew the fat over how on earth we got anything done before the Web came along.

If you enjoy the podcast, then take a listen to the first four podcasts in the 30th anniversary series. Glester began in October by looking at the past and future of particle physics before tackling gravitational waves in November. In January he examined the prospects for nuclear fusion, then in February he looked at how high-temperature superconductivity research has evolved over the past three decades since the phenomenon was first observed. Don’t forget you can also subscribe to Physics World Stories via Apple podcasts or your chosen podcast host.

Physics World has recently turned 30 and we are celebrating with a five-part podcast series exploring key areas of physics. This fourth episode in the series explores how high-temperature superconductivity research has evolved over the past three decades since the phenomenon was first observed.

In the late 1980s there was a lot of hype surrounding these materials because of the many exciting applications that would follow. Among the promised spin-offs were lossless transmission lines, lossless magnetism and levitating trains. All of these applications have been demonstrated to some extent but it is also fair to say that high-temperature superconductors are not as ubiquitous as some had hoped.

In this podcast, Andrew Glester picks up the story to find out more about the history of high-temperature superconductivity and its prospects for the future. He catches up with the physicists Elizabeth Blackburn from Lund University in Sweden and Stephen Hayden from the University of Bristol, UK.

If you enjoy the podcast, then take a listen to the first three podcasts in the 30th anniversary series. Glester began in October by looking at the past and future of particle physics before tackling gravitational waves in November and then nuclear fusion in January. Don’t forget you can also subscribe to Physics World Stories via Apple podcasts or your chosen podcast host.

Physics World has recently turned 30 and we are celebrating with a 5-part series podcast series exploring key areas of physics. This third episode in the series explores the prospects for fusion energy ­­– a carbon-free form of energy generation that may finally be on the cusp of becoming practical.

For the past few decades, the running joke has been that despite the excitement, fusion energy is “always 30 years away.” In the January episode of Physics World Stories, Andrew Glester meets fusion researchers at the UK company Tokamak Energy to learn about the practical challenges and the technology that could make fusion a reality within the next 15 years.

Melanie Windridge, a communication consultant (and adventurer), explains the science behind the two main approaches to achieving fusion. The first is known as inertial confinement fusion and its feasibility is being investigated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US. The alternative involves using intense magnetic fields to confine hot plasma inside a device known as a tokamak. This is the approach taken at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), an international collaboration based in southern France.

In contrast to the much larger tokamak ITER tokamak, the technology being developed by Tokamak Energy could lead to a compact tokamak that can run at much higher plasma pressure. Glester visits the company in Oxfordshire to meet the company’s chief executive David Kingham, who believes this smaller-scale approach could make fusion energy more economically viable. Both Kingham and Windridge believe that practical fusion energy has become more realistic due to two key factors – the growing global consensus that we need to act on climate change coupled with the arrival of private enterprise in this space.

If you enjoy the podcast, then take a listen to the first two podcasts in the 30^th anniversary series. Glester began in October by looking at the past and future of particle physics. Then in November he explored gravitational waves by looking at the exciting future for multimessenger astronomy. Don’t forget you can also subscribe to Physics World Stories via the Apple podcast app or your chosen podcast host.

Each year since 2009, Physics World has been awarding one excellent popular-science book with the title of Book of the Year, not to mention creating a shortlist of nine other top titles from all the books we reviewed that year. We also love talking about physics books, and ever since our first such podcast in 2011, we get together each December to discuss our shortlist and reveal our winner. As is becoming a tradition, this chat was hosted by our regular podcast presenter and producer Andrew Glester, in his garden shed, where he can often be found musing about “science fiction, science fact and everything in-between” for his own podcast the Cosmic Shed.

As this year’s winner is the 10th to bag our Book of the Year, we decided to catch up with some previous winners to see what they are working on today; to chat about how their books have aged; and hear what they would do differently today. Tune in to the podcast to hear 2009 winner Graham Farmelo talk about Paul Dirac and his family; find out what 2015 winner Amanda Gefter is working on today; hear what 2010 winner Anil Ananthaswamy has to say about travel and science-writing; and find out more about hippies and physics from 2012 winner David Kaiser.

Of course we also discuss the various exciting books on the 2018 shortlist, and reveal our 10th winner of the Physics World Book of the Year, so tune in to the podcast to hear from a host of interesting writers and scientists.

We hope that everyone will find something to appreciate on this list, and hopefully we have given you a few ideas for some excellent holiday presents.

Shortlist for Physics World Book of the Year 2018 (in no particular order):

Treknology: the Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drives by Ethan Siegel

Ad Astra: an Illustrated Guide to Leaving the Planet by Dallas Campbell

Exact Thinking in Demented Times: the Vienna Circle and the Epic Quest for the Foundations of Science by Karl Sigmund

Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Quantum Physics is Different by Philip Ball

The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli

Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder

The Dialogues: Conversations About the Nature of the Universe by Clifford V Johnson

When the Uncertainty Principle Goes to 11: Or How to Explain Quantum Physics with Heavy Metal by Philip Moriarty

What is Real: the Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics by Adam Becker

Hello World: How to be Human in the Age of the Machine by Hannah Fry

As regular readers will know, Physics World has just turned 30 and we have been celebrating the anniversary with a range of special content. This includes a 5-part series for our monthly podcast, Physics World Stories, exploring key areas in physics that evolved significantly during the past 30 years. This second episode in the series looks at gravitational waves by revisiting the celebrated first detections by the LIGO collaboration, then looking to the exciting future for multimessenger astronomy.

Along the way, presenter Andrew Glester speaks with several members of the LIGO team: Mark Hannam of Cardiff University; Chris Messenger from the University of Glasgow; and Lisa Barsotti from the MIT Kavli Institute who received of a New Horizons Breakthrough prize for her work on the LIGO detectors. He catches up with Paul McNamara, a project scientist on the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission – a precursor to the first space-based gravitational wave observatory.

Glester also examines the controversy surrounding a recent analysis suggesting that LIGO has not yet discovered gravitational waves. The group at the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark claimed in a paper on the arXiv preprint server that the positive detections could just be correlated “noise” from LIGO’s two detectors, and they have since followed up with further analyses of the LIGO data. Glester speaks with the group’s spokesperson Andrew Jackson and offers LIGO researchers the chance to respond.

If you enjoy what you hear, then you take a listen to the first episode in this special podcast series, which looked at the past and future of particle physics. Don’t forget you can also subscribe to Physics World Stories via the Apple podcast app or your chosen podcast host.

In October 1988 the first ever edition of Physics World magazine was published, so this month marks our 30th birthday. The October 2018 issue of Physics World revisits some of the key topics and issues in physics from 30 years ago, examines how they’ve developed, and contemplates their prospects for the next three decades. Particle physics, gravitational waves, optics and laser technology, fusion energy, and high-temperature superconductivity, are all reviewed.

As part of the ongoing 30th anniversary celebrations we are also producing a five-part series of podcasts to look deeper into the crystal ball, exploring the future of these key fields in more detail. The episodes form part of our monthly Physics World Stories podcast series, hosted by Bristol-based science communicator Andrew Glester.

Particle physics is where we start as Glester looks for hints of life beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Sharing their thoughts are Valerie Gibson of the University of Cambridge and Derek Fox who has recently published intriguing research using data from the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment.

One big difference over the coming 30 years will be the growing influence of China, which has released details for a huge particle collider that will produce over a million Higgs bosons in a seven-year period. Glester explores the plans for this the China Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) facility with Yifang Wang, Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of Chinese Academy of Sciences and researcher Yiming Li. Glester also gets the thoughts on China’s rise as a scientific powerhouse from Dutch-born astronomer Richard de Grijs who spent a decade working at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University, before recently relocating to Australia.

If you enjoy what you hear, then you can subscribe via the Apple podcast app or your chosen podcast host.

As the summer draws to a close in the northern hemisphere, Andrew Glester looks back on two festivals he attended this year – the Blue Dot Festival in Cheshire and Green Man Festival in Wales. Glester meets a range of people involved in communicating science to festival audiences, often in surprising and innovative ways. He wants to know what motivates these people and what they have found to be the most effective ways of combining science with entertainment.

Along the way, Glester meets the following people:

• Tim O’Brien, who curates the science elements of Blue Dot Festival. O’Brien talks about the festival’s origins and his personal journey in science communication from shy early-career researcher to addressing thousands from the Blue Dot stage.

• Jim Wild, a space physics researcher from Lancaster University, who was at Blue Dot festival to talk about space weather. Delving into the science, Wild speaks about the hazard to astronauts posed by solar radiation – something that would be especially challenging in a manned mission to Mars.

• The playwright Dave Windass who speaks about Pale Blue Dot, a new play he’s scripted that tackles global environmental issues and the search for more sustainable ways of living. Windass, who had not previously worked with science themes, speaks about the challenges of marrying science communication with successful storytelling.

• Sam Illingworth, a science communicator who is part of the Games Research Network at Manchester Metropolitan University. With a particular interest in table-top games, Illingworth believes that puzzles can lead to deep engagement in science. You will also hear recordings of some of Illingworth’s science-inspired poetry, which he delivered to audiences at Green Man festival.

• Maddie Foard, who runs the Solar Stage at Green Man Festival. She explains why her approach is to grab the attention first, then slip in the science almost by stealth.

• Will Hunter, the curator of Einstein’s Garden, a performance area at Green Man that blends a diverse range of acts relating to science and technology. Hunter describes his approach as “playful” because he wants to embrace the ethos of the festival.

• Anna Ploszajski, materials scientists and science communicator who was at Green Man speaking about the wonders of “smart materials”. Ploszajski, who often takes a humorous look at science and engineering, speaks about the various unexpected skills you can develop in the process of science communication.

If you enjoy what you hear, then you can subscribe via the Apple podcast app or your chosen podcast host.

In the August episode of the Physics World Stories podcast Andrew Glester investigates the challenges of moving towards personal transport with a smaller carbon footprint. While flying cars powered by hydrogen are unlikely to hit mass market anytime soon, Glester instead looks at some of the realistic solutions for the present and the near future. Along the way, he gets the thoughts of various people he met at Blue Dot 2018 – a festival blending science, art and music.

Francis Hill from the Centre for Alternative Energy gives her opinion on why citizens in developed countries need to reconsider their lifestyle choices. Her proposed changes include travelling less and using fewer non-renewable materials such as single-use plastics.

Kevin Anderson is part of a group called Rapid Acceleration of Car Emission Reductions (RACER), which is part of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Anderson believes that petrol-powered cars still have a role to play in the short-medium term future, but they use should be limited in urban areas. Increasingly, journeys will be made by alternative means, especially by electric bicycles (e-bikes).

Michael Taylor is a PhD student at the Power Networks group based at the University of Manchester. Taylor highlights the fact that a rapid growth in use electric car will put a big strain on power networks – caused by large volumes of people recharging their vehicles at the same time. He is investigating solutions, such as smart-charging systems that respond to the level of demand.

Finally, Glester meets a couple of students from Durham University’s society for electric motorsport. They are part of a team developing a new solar-powered race car to improve on existing models, which they will enter into competitions. They discuss the outlook for solar-powered and hybrid-solar cars hitting the market place.

In the July edition of Physics World Stories, Andrew Glester looks at the latest developments in technologies based on quantum mechanics. While quantum computing often steals the headlines, there is a whole world of other quantum-based devices in the pipeline for a range of applications.

Glester speaks first with Raphael Clifford and Ashley Montanaro at the University of Bristol about quantum computing. They are interested in the prospects of achieving “quantum supremacy” – the point at which quantum computers can outperform classical computers at specific tasks.

Next, Glester hands the reigns over to Physics World’s Margaret Harris who recently attended the 2018 Photonics West conference in San Francisco. At that event, Harris caught up with Anke Lohmann, the director of ESP Central Ltd, which supports the transfer technology form academic settings to the marketplace. Lohmann gives her opinion on the quantum innovations most likely to have the most significant impacts in the coming years, among them is quantum key distribution for secure communication.

Finally, Glester heads to the University of Birmingham, the site of one of the UK Quantum Technology Hubs. He is given a tour of the lab by Kai Bongs who explains how the goal is to transform scientific concepts in practical applications that are economically viable. The focus at the Birmingham hub is on developing sensors and metrology techniques. Targeted applications include gravity-mapping beneath the Earth’s surface and highly precise optical clocks.

In this month’s Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester looks at some intriguing developments in the space industry. He is in conversation with Harvard University astrophysicist Martin Elvis about the prospects of asteroid mining moving from science fiction to reality.

Later in the podcast, Glester investigates how the UK space industry might be affected by Brexit – the UK’s imminent departure from the European Union. Lucy Berthoud from the Space Universities Network explains why it is so important for the UK government to get the right deal because of what is at stake in the space sector.

Finally, Glester takes a trip to Goonhilly Earth Station on the south-western tip of the UK. Goonhilly representative Kat Hickey explains why the site is such a unique place to do science and why she believes it should be chosen for the UK’s first spaceport.

Look out for a special collection of articles about the space industry to be published on this site in the next week or so. Also, if you enjoyed this podcast then you can subscribe via iTunes or your podcast provider. Also check out Physics World Weekly – our news-focused podcast presented by the Physics World editorial team.

In the May episode of our Physics World Stories podcast, Andrew Glester is in conversation with the Nobel laureate Mario Molina. The Mexican researcher shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on understanding formation and decomposition of ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere. He talks about how winning the award transformed his status as a scientist, giving him a unique platform to influence politicians.

The banning of substances (mainly CFC chemicals) that deplete the ozone under the 1987 Montreal Protocol is hailed as a shining example of coordinated global action in tackling an environmental issue. Molina talks about how industries in the 1980s paid attention to the scientists at a relatively early stage, and sought alternative products and processes to CFCs. He engages with the reasons why it is harder today when dealing with the more multifaceted issue of climate change.

Later in the podcast, Glester picks up the story with Lorraine Whitmarsh, a social scientist at the Tyndall Centre – a network of universities seeking sustainable responses to climate change. Whitmarsh is interested in why the general public responds to the science of climate change in particular ways. She is also interested in practical solutions for shifting to a lower carbon lifestyles and offers her top tips for reducing your carbon impact.

If you enjoyed this podcast then you can subscribe via iTunes or your podcast provider. Also check out Physics World Weekly – our news-focused podcast presented by the Physics World editorial team.

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)

Artificial intelligence (AI) bots are going to replace our jobs.

AI cars are not to be trusted, they will drive us off a cliff

AI machines will inevitably conspire to kill us all.

These are exaggerated versions of three fears commonly associated artificial intelligence (AI). Even the late Stephen Hawking spoke about a potential future in which humans could be superseded by advanced forms of artificial intelligence. But these concerns are not so present in the mind of Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief technology officer at Microsoft who once worked in Hawking’s theoretical physics group at the University of Cambridge.

Myhrvold is the co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, which develops and licenses intellectual property. Having also written a several tomes about modernist cooking techniques, Myhrvold does not shy away from lofty academic pursuits. Earlier this year, the Seattle-born polymath presented the annual Tacitus Lecture in London with a talk entitled “Cyber-Trade: Will AI Displace or Enhance our Work?”

In our latest podcast, Andrew Glester reports from the event where he spoke to Myhrvold, who explained why he is optimistic that AI can be a force for good in the world. You will also hear clips from that lecture, a few words on the topic from Hawking himself, and a fruity anecdote from Prue Leith one of the judges from the popular TV show The Great British Bakeoff. All will be revealed!

When the SpaceX Falcon Heavy made its maiden launch on 6 February, the overwhelming reaction was one of awe. Its widely reported payload – Elon Musk’s personal cherry red Tesla Roadster sportscar – added to the audaciousness of the mission and reaffirmed Musk’s rock-star status. No doubt, vast numbers of students around the globe will have had their imaginations lit up, some may even have started thinking about the exciting opportunities of a career in engineering.

However, there have been a few voices of dissent. Some critics have suggested that the rocket payload is merely adding to the growing problem of space junk. Perhaps an even stronger criticism is that firing a flashy sportscar into space is a symbol of the distain the super-rich have for the many people on Earth who live in poverty. The controversy around the Falcon Heavy launch is the subject of the Physics World monthly podcast, which is presented as always by Andrew Glester. Joining Andrew in the busy café at Physics World HQ is Physics World careers editor Tushna Commissariat and special guest Tim Gregory who recently appeared on the BBC show Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?

Andrew and crew also discuss the recently launched Humanity Star, which has also generated some controversy in the astronomical community. Launched in January by the private company Rocket Lab, the mission’s payload is described as “a highly reflective satellite that blinks brightly across the night sky to create a shared experience for everyone on the planet.” However, some astronauts fear that this “giant disco ball” is frivolous and might even interfere with their view of the night sky. Andrew puts some of these concerns to Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck and debates the issue at length with Tushna and Tim, asking whether they see a fundamental difference in the ethos and impact of these two high-profile private launches.

Fortunately for scientific soothsayers, some developments in 2018 are entirely predictable, not least the space missions scheduled for the next 12 months. Physics World managing editor Matin Durrani introduces a few of these, starting with BepiColombo, the European Space Agency mission to Mercury, scheduled for October. He also talks about China’s Chang’e 4 mission to the far side of the Moon, as well as the two asteroid-sampling missions – Japan’s Hayabusa 2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex – that will reach their targets in July and August respectively.

Closer to home, Physics World will complete its own launch in the form of a new website, which will go live in the next month or so. One of the changes is that we’ll be expanding to incorporate three existing websites in the fields of environment and energy, nanotechnology and biomedical physics. Journalists James Dacey and Liz Kalaugher focus on the environmental side of things, discussing the type of coverage you can expect in that area, including climate studies, renewable energy and natural hazards. You’ll hear about the launch of a new video series for 2018 focusing on environmental challenges and the possible technology solutions.

Of course, any look to the year ahead can’t avoid a mention of how science interacts with political situations around the world. Physics World journalists share their views on the continued emergence of Chinese science, the likely impacts of Brexit and whether the March for Science events in 2017 can pave the way for a more unified global movement in 2018. For a quick dip into some of the news and analysis likely to feature on the Physics World website in the coming year, look no further than this podcast.

Here at Physics World, we love talking about popular-science books. Indeed, we enjoy it so much that we braved the cold, not to mention a sore throat and cracked ribs (you’ll have to listen to find out more!), to share our thoughts on a few of the year’s best popular-physics books in a special edition of our podcast.

As is becoming a tradition, this chat was hosted by our regular podcast presenter and producer Andrew Glester, in his garden shed, where he can often be found musing about “science fiction, science fact and everything in-between” for his own podcast the Cosmic Shed. Despite the freezing December morning, we gathered in the shed with hot drinks, blankets and a pile of books, as we discussed some of the themes that link the year’s books, on what was a somewhat out-of-the-ordinary shortlist.

Congratulations to all of the shortlisted authors on their fantastic books – tune in to the podcast to hear some words from our winner. We hope that everyone will find something to appreciate on this list, and hopefully we have given you a few ideas for some excellent holiday presents.

Shortlist for Physics World Book of the Year 2017 (in no particular order)

Marconi: the Man Who Networked the World by Marc Raboy

Hidden Figures: the Untold Story of the African American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly

The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars by Dava Sobel

Scale: the Universal Laws of Life and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies by Geoffrey West

Not A Scientist: How Politicians Mistake, Misrepresent and Utterly Mangle Science by Dave Levitan

Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That’s Rewriting the Story by Angela Saini

Mapping the Heavens: the Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal the Cosmos by Priyamvada Natarajan

We Have No Idea by Jorge Cham and Daniel Whiteson

The Secret Science of Superheroes edited by Ed. Mark Lorch and Andy Miah

The Death of Expertise: the Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters by Tom Nichols

To say the past couple of years have been a whirlwind for scientists engaged in gravitational-wave research would something of a cosmic understatement. After detecting its first gravitational waves in 2015, the LIGO experiment in the US went on to announce three more detections, all of them from the merger of two black holes. One of these was also detected by the Virgo experiment in Italy. This October Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne shared the shared the Nobel Prize for Physics for their pioneering contributions to the field and to the LIGO detector itself.

Less than two weeks after the Nobel announcement, astronomers gathered at the Royal Society for the announcement of arguably the most significant breakthrough of all. The merger of two neutron stars was observed by the LIGO–Virgo collaboration, while gamma rays from the same event were picked up by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. This prompted the global astronomical community to point up to 70 different telescopes and detectors around the world, and in space, at the origin of the signals in a distant galaxy – building a detailed picture of the collision and its aftermath.

Glester was at that latest announcement at the Royal Society to soak up the atmosphere and learn all about multimessenger astronomy. Among the people he met was the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees, whose CV also includes terms as president of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. Rees hails the latest result as “sociologically very important” because it demonstrates international collaboration between teams of scientists and engineers to achieve measurements of phenomenal precision. “It illustrates how astronomy is a very broadly based international and multi-technique subject,” he says.

As the editor of physicsworld.com, Hamish Johnston, pointed out shortly after the Nobel prize announcement, we should not forget that for millennia, humans could only see visible light from the cosmos. It is only during the last century that we have been able to view the universe across much more of the electromagnetic spectrum – as well as through the arrival of high-energy particles such as cosmic rays and neutrinos. Adding gravitational waves to the mix now brings a new way of seeing the heavens that could reveal astronomical events that had been beyond the view – and even beyond the imagination – of astrophysicists.

For a more in-depth look at the significance of these latest discoveries, take a look at Multimessenger Astronomy by Imre Bartos of the University of Florida and Marek Kowalski of Humboldt University and DESY. Part of the Physics World Discovery series, this free-to-read ebook explores the scientific questions surrounding these new messengers and the detectors and observational techniques used to study them. It also provides an overview of current and future directions in the field.

• Neutron-star collision artwork courtesy of the University of Warwick and Mark Garlick

2017 marks a couple of important anniversaries for the astrophysics community at Jodrell Bank. First, it is the 60th anniversary of the first light of the Lovell Telescope, which was the largest steerable dish telescope in the world (it is still the third largest). Second, it is the 50th anniversary of the first detection of pulsars being made by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell who was then a PhD student at the University of Cambridge.

The telescope takes its name from Sir Bernard Lovell who founded the Jodrell Bank Observatory in 1945. Over the decades, this astrophysics hub has been a valuable tool for studying various astrophysical objects and it even played a role in tracking events during the Space Race. Today it is the HQ of the Square Kilometre Array, a distributed telescope array that promises to usher in a new era in radio astronomy.

In recent years, Jodrell Bank has also developed a significant science-outreach programme, including the Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, which opened in 2011 and now attracts thousands of visitors every year. The Blue Dot Festival is an extension of this and has been graced by music acts including Elbow, Sigur Rós and the Flaming Lips. The festival also features the winning work of the COSMOS art–science project, a collaboration between Jodrell Bank, Blue Dot Festival and the arts organization Abandon Normal Devices.

This year’s winning artist was Daito Manabe from Tokyo, an audiovisual artist whose specialisms include the visualization of data. Among his previous collaborators is the Icelandic popstar Björk. In this latest project, Manabe collaborated with astrophysicists at Jodrell Bank to transform pulsar data (live and archival) into sounds and images projected onto the Lovell dish. In this podcast, Glester experiences the event and discusses the project with Manabe. You can also hear what the rest of the festival-goers thought of this otherworldly experience.

“Writing the book has made me question my own feelings about the world,” says Saini. The engineer-turned-journalist admits that she fully expected to discover more clear-cut differences between men and women, and was surprised by the inconclusive science behind many claims. One of Saini’s key points is that scientific studies of gender always need to be viewed within their historical and cultural contexts. Journalists and science communicators also play a role in translating research findings, which often include subjective interpretations.

Also in the podcast, Glester travels to Birmingham to the International Conference on Women in Physics (ICWIP), which took place earlier this year. Accompanied by Physics World journalist Sarah Tesh, the pair meet delegates who share their experiences working in physics. Among them is Jess Wade from Imperial College London, who reviewed Saini’s book for the July issue of Physics World, and Helga Danga who is the only female physicist she knows of in Zimbabwe.

For more information about the ICWIP event, check out Sarah’s account on our blog.

In his quest to find out what makes good science comedy, Glester meets performers at the Green Man festival in Wales and the Edinburgh Fringe festival in Scotland, both of which took place in August. Among them is the actor, comedian and radio presenter Samantha Baines whose interest in science was boosted through a fixation with the “dishy” physicist (her word) Brian Cox. Baines’ Fringe show 1 Woman, a High-Flyer and a Flat Bottom celebrated women astronauts and space scientists and played to sell-out audiences throughout the festival.

Other performers featured in the podcast include astrophysicist Catherine Heymans and the improv group Captain Train, whose show Lowpothesis involves them interacting with scientists on stage. For each of the performers, Glester finds out why the comedians chose science as their source material and what they hope to achieve with the routines, beyond hopefully making the audience laugh. He also explores how it can be liberating and challenging to take science to the comedy circuit, a world where subject matter is usually more directly linked with people’s everyday experiences.

Glester  reviewed several science-themed shows from this year’s Edinburgh Fringe for the October issue of Physics World. You can read his review here.

Featured in the podcast is UK recording artist Hannah Peel, along with a track from her 2016 album Awake But Always Dreaming. Peel talks about how that record was inspired by witnessing her grandma’s struggle with dementia and how music helped the pair to communicate when memory began to fail. Peel says her forthcoming album, Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, is a journey from the mind into space, influenced by a visit to an Alzheimer’s research lab at University College London.

Glester recorded the podcast at the Cheltenham Science Festival 2017, where he met academics with a variety of interests and opinions about music. On the one hand, polymath Raymond Tallis believes that scientific data about people’s physical response to music is of limited value to understanding why we appreciate music. On the other hand, physicist and “rock doctor” Mark Lewney speaks about the useful role acoustics can play a role in designing guitars with the tonal properties desired by musicians. Researcher and science popularizer Alice Roberts speaks about the possible evolutionary functions of music, while violinist Jenny Glester speaks about her experiences taking music into healthcare settings.

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.

Scientists are aware that many different animals appear sensitive to the Earth’s magnetic field lines. But what is not so well understood are the underlying mechanisms that make navigation possible. In this latest work at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, researchers have identified particles of magnetite – a ferromagnetic material – within the abdomen of honey bees.

In the podcast, Glester speaks with biologist Veronika Lambinet and physicist Michael Hayden who describe the group’s experiments with bees. They describe studying the reaction of live bees exposed to magnetic fields stronger than the Earth’s field. Another experiment involved placing bee body parts within a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) to study the magnetization effects.

Glester also meets with Heather Lampard, a science communicator and beekeeper in Bristol, UK, where Andrew and Physics World are based. Clearly a huge admirer of her stripy friends, Lampard gives a crash course in the science of bees, explaining how they detect plants’ electric fields and why honeycombs are hexagonal-shaped. You can watch Lampard explain how bees produce honey, in this video she produced for the Bristol Nature Channel.

https://youtu.be/4-zb9bmZ5Ls

Just 40 light-years from Earth, TRAPPIST-1 is relatively small compared with the size of our Sun, with a mass 80 times that of Jupiter. Researchers were able to spot periodic drops in intensity of light from the star, as observed by the TRAPPIST telescope in Chile. Using the “transit” method of exoplanet detection, the astrophysicists were able to infer the presence of seven planets sweeping across the face of the star. Remarkably, all seven objects appear to be similar in size to Earth, with radii ranging from 0.77–1.13 Earth radii. The team was able to determine the mass and density of six of the exoplanets, which suggests that they have rocky compositions.

In this podcast, Glester meets researchers involved in the discovery to find out what they know so far about the system. What would it be like to stand on the surface of a TRAPPIST-1 planet and stare out at the night sky? What is the geology of the planets? How can future space missions enable us to learn more about the system?

With his characteristic enthusiasm, Glester discovers that these planets could be even more intriguing than we first thought. You can also hear Glester’s extended conversation with lead researcher Michael Gillon on the Cosmic Shed podcast .

As recently reported on this website, the app can be used with virtual reality (VR) headsets, enabling users to observe particle tracks inside the detector and enjoy tutorials about the nature of neutrinos. It can be downloaded free of charge from the App Store and Google Play.

Developed by an international team of physicists, the app also has a game element whereby users can search for neutrino signals. In the podcast, Glester asks the developers why they believe it is important for professional physicists to develop outreach tools such as VENu to inspire public interest in their work. Not one to rest on his laurels, the app’s chief developer Marco Del Tutto is already considering ways in which the group can further develop the app. Eventually, such an app could even be used as a citizen science tool in which the public can help particle physicists to identify neutrino detections amid large data sets.

As Glester mentions in the podcast, VENu is not the only immersive video experience that might be of interest to physicists. CMS-cardboard is a VR visualization of the CMS detector at CERN’s large hadron collider (LHC). Meanwhile, NASA has created a 360-degree artist’s impression of the surface of one of the seven planets recently discovered around the TRAPPIST-1 star.

The proposal comes from a group of researchers at the University of Bristol in the UK, who say they have a practical way of dealing with some of the nearly 95,000 tonnes of radioactive graphite that was used as a moderator in the UK’s nuclear reactors. Applications of such devices could include long-lasting power supplies for pacemakers and even a lightweight power supply for space missions.

Unsurprisingly, this eye-catching research captured the attention of specialist and mainstream media publications alike when it was announced towards the end of 2016. In this podcast, we probe deeper into the science behind the headlines.

The episode is presented and produced by Andrew Glester, a science communicator based in Bristol, who says he takes a “sceptical optimism” to such bold scientific claims. Glester visits the research team at the University of Bristol to find out more about the proposal – its applications, nuclear safety concerns, and the challenges that stand in the way of this idea becoming a practical reality.

We love talking about great physics books. In fact, we could go on about them for hours. The sparkling writing and deft analogies. The precise explanations that draw out the essence of complex concepts. The humorous anecdotes that make the research process come alive. We love it all, and as usual at this time of year, we’re sharing our thoughts on a few of the year’s best popular-physics books in a special edition of the Physics World podcast.

As with last year’s Book of the Year announcement, we teamed up with local science communicator Andrew Glester to record the 2016 edition in his garden shed, where he can often be found musing about “science fiction, science fact and everything in-between” for his podcast the Cosmic Shed. It was a trifle chilly in the shed this year, but thanks to hot drinks and some lively conversation, the time flew by as Glester quizzed Physics World’s current reviews editor, Tushna Commissariat, and her predecessor Margaret Harris about their favourite books of the year.

The decision about which of these books should be Physics World’s 2016 Book of the Year was an unusually tough one, for reasons you’ll hear about in the podcast. We congratulate all of the shortlisted authors on their fantastic books, and we hope that everyone will find something to appreciate on this list.

Shortlist for Physics World Book of the Year 2016 (alphabetical by author)

The Jazz of Physics: the Secret Link Between Music and the Structure of the Universe by Stephon Alexander

Why String Theory? by Joseph Conlon

Storm in a Teacup: the Physics of Everyday Life by Helen Czerski

Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex by Michael Hiltzik

Strange Glow: the Story of Radiation by Timothy Jorgensen

Cosmos: the Infographic Book of Space by Stuart Lowe and Chris North

Spooky Action at a Distance: the Phenomenon that Reimagines Space and Time by George Musser

Goldilocks and the Water Bears: the Search for Life in the Universe by Louisa Preston

Reality Is Not What It Seems: the Journey to Quantum Gravity by Carlo Rovelli

The Pope of Physics: Enrico Fermi and the Birth of the Atomic Age by Gino Segrè and Bettina Hoerlin

When not pondering the underlying principles of the physics universe, Sajjad is also a strong advocate of improving accessibility for people with visual impairments. He makes the case that everybody stands to benefit from diversifying the ways in which physics is taught. In his spare time Sajjad is also a keen baseball player and is often travels to other US cities with his team the Boston Renegades. At heart though, Sajjad admits that he prefers cricket!

Fang and Weng were named in the Physics World Top 10 Breakthroughs of 2015 for their work on Weyl fermions, which are quasiparticles that they found lurking in their Weyl semimetal. Weyl fermions also have unique properties that could make them useful for creating high-speed electronic circuits among other applications.

Fang explains how his team of theorists uses mathematics and computer simulations to predict which materials are topological. He also explains how topological materials could be useful in creating quantum computers of the future. Weng then takes up the challenge of explaining just what a Weyl semimetal is and why it is home to Weyl fermions. He also explains how the topological material could be used to create another elusive quasiparticle – the Majorana fermion.

Disillusioned by the charms of string theory, he began writing a book detailing the history and the “overwhelming triumph” of the Standard Model of particle physics, the birth of string theory and its subsequent “overwhelming failure to find any way to make further progress on fundamental questions”. This year marks the 10th anniversary of that book – Not Even Wrong: the Failure of String Theory and the Continuing Challenge to Unify the Laws of Physics.

Not Even Wrong coincided with the publication of another book – The Trouble with Physics – that had a similar theme and tone, penned by Woit’s friend and renowned physicist Lee Smolin. Together, the two books put the theory and its practitioners under a critical spotlight and took string theory’s supposed inadequacies to task. The books sparked a sensation both in the string-theory community and in the wider media, which until then had heard only glowing reports of the theory’s successes.

To mark the anniversary of Not Even Wrong, Physics World reporter Tushna Commissariat caught up with Woit to talk about the book, the subsequent “string wars” and the sociology of science. In the resulting podcast, you can also find out what has happened in fundamental and particle physics over the past decade – including the discovery of the Higgs particle at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, but the lack of any supersymmetric particles until now. Woit also explains what he thinks needs to happen in the field to propel it into the future.

Both scientists and philosophers have long hunted for the ultimate theory – one that perfectly explains the universe we observe, from a quark to a quasar. In the mid-1980s string theory emerged at the top of the pile as the most promising candidate in this quest for a “theory of everything”, or more specifically, a theory that unified quantum mechanics and general relativity.

The original theory was a framework in which the point-like particles were replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. It emerged that for the theory to work and to be mathematically consistent, it would require at least 10 dimensions of space–time, rather than our usually observed four dimensions. The extra dimensions, according to the theory, are “compactified” or fold in on themselves. Each extra dimension can be of a variety of “shapes” and there exist a myriad ways in which they can be compactified, meaning that there are too many possible solutions to be able to make a clear prediction.

Not being able to make clear predictions, combined with the lack of falsifiability, are the major deficiencies of string theory, according to Woit, Smolin and others such as the Nobel-prize-winner Sheldon Glashow, who once said “Sadly, I cannot imagine a single experimental result that would falsify string theory. I have been brought up to believe that systems of belief that cannot be falsified are not in the realm of science.”

String theory still polarizes opinion, but its advocates remain firm and deem it a beautiful and mathematically rigorous framework. As Woit explains in the podcast, “For many years, I’d been thinking that the situation with string theory was really pretty odd…this junction between the public perception of it, the way it had been portrayed and what was actually going on.”

Robert Grosseteste was born sometime around the year 1170. By the time he died in 1253, he had gained a reputation as one of the leading scholars and philosophers of his age. However, some modern researchers have gone even further, calling him “the most brilliant scientist you’ve never heard of”.

“One idea he’s very famous for is a theory for the physical origin of the universe that, believe it or not, starts with a flash of light and expands out with a giant rapidly moving sphere – it’s a big bang theory of the universe,” says Tom McLeish, a physicist at Durham University.

McLeish is a member of the Ordered Universe Project, an interdisciplinary group of scientists and historians who are re-examining Grosseteste’s writings and, in many cases, “translating” his ideas into a modern mathematical form. This process has led the group in some unexpected and fruitful directions. For example, while the details of Grosseteste’s “big bang” are not compatible with modern theories – like other ancient and medieval scholars, he believed that the Earth was at the centre of the universe – McLeish notes that “physicists love playing with alternate realities and counterfactuals and toy models”. And as it turns out, analysing Grosseteste’s equations poses some interesting computational problems.

In this podcast, you’ll hear from McLeish and other members of the Ordered Universe Project, including:

• medieval historian Giles Gasper on who Grosseteste was and the difficulties of reading early copies of his works;
• physicist Brian Tanner on putting Grosseteste’s ideas into modern mathematical form, and on the differences between observing natural phenomena and conducting experiments;
• psychologist Hannah Smithson on Grosseteste’s ideas about colour and the rainbow, and what they tell us about how people perceive the world around them.