Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
Dr. Ben Tippett and his team of physicists believe that anyone can understand physics. Black Holes! Lightning! Coronal Mass Ejections! Quantum Mechanics! Fortnightly, they explain a topic from advanced physics, using explanations, experiments and fun metaphors to a non-physicist guest. Visit the website to see a list of topics sorted by physics field.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ accessible physics explanations • quantum computing, entanglement, decoherence • particle physics: neutrinos, muons, strong force, Higgs • cosmology: Big Bang, CMB, heat death • astrophysics: stars, galaxies, black holes • gravitational waves detectors • planets, Moon, Mars • instruments: interferometry, lasers, NMR/ESR, sensors • materials: glass, superconductors • dark matter candidatesThis podcast is a conversational science show aimed at making advanced physics understandable to non-specialists. Each installment typically pairs one or more working scientists with a non-physicist guest—often a writer, comedian, musician, or fellow podcaster—so that complex ideas can be unpacked through analogy, everyday language, and occasional thought experiments. The result is a tour through both the big-picture questions of the universe and the fine-grained mechanisms that make modern physics work.
A major theme is astronomy and cosmology: how stars form, evolve, and explode; how galaxies change shape; how we measure distance in the cosmos; and how observations support models such as the Big Bang and the universe’s long-term fate. Black holes recur in multiple ways, from what happens near an event horizon to how accretion can regulate star formation in galaxies, and how black holes can be studied through gravitational waves and large telescope networks.
Another consistent focus is particle and quantum physics. Topics include the behavior of neutrinos and muons, the strong force and quark structure, candidates for dark matter, and core quantum concepts like entanglement, superposition, and decoherence. These discussions often connect fundamentals to experiments and instruments that test them, including particle-physics detectors and precision tests of general relativity.
The show also spends time on the technologies and measurement techniques that let scientists “see” otherwise invisible phenomena. Listeners encounter interferometry (in radio astronomy and black hole imaging), gravitational-wave detection strategies, and a range of sensors and imaging methods spanning digital camera detectors, superconducting devices, resonance techniques related to MRI, and biophysical optics used to probe cells. Materials and condensed-matter topics appear as well, such as superconductivity and magnetic behavior, as do planetary and lunar science subjects like Neptune’s extreme environment, Mars habitability, and moonquakes.
Interspersed are occasional listener-question episodes that address specific conceptual sticking points, especially in cosmology and particle physics.
