Ep 254: Reflection and Refraction
Light can do some pretty strange stuff, like pass through objects and bounce off them; it can be broken up and recombined. In fact, everything we “see” is actually the end result of reflection and refraction of light. Time to understand how it all works.
Ep. 253: Rayleigh Scattering (Why is the Sky Blue?)
Next time a kid asks you, why is the sky blue? Answer them: because of Rayleigh scattering. If they’re not happy with that answer, feel free to expand based on the knowledge we’re about to drop today, right into your brain.
Ep. 252: Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Quantum theory is plenty strange, but one of the strangest discoveries is the realization that there’s a limit to how much you can measure at any one time. This was famously described by Werner Heisenberg, with his uncertainty principle: how you can never know both the position and motion of a particle at the same time.
Ep. 251: Messier Catalog
Have you ever looked into the sky and noticed a fuzzy blob? That’s a Messier Object, carefully cataloged by Charles Messier to make it easier to find comets. We’ll learn about the history of the catalog, Messier’s criteria and some of the prominent objects you’ll see in the sky.
Ep. 250: Precision
Accuracy, precision and reproducibility. These are the foundations of science that make our progress possible. How do these play into a scientist’s daily activities? And just how precise can we get with our measurements?
Ep. 249: Schrödinger's Cat
You’ve probably all heard of Schrödinger’s Cat, that strange thought experiment designed by Erwin Schrödinger to show how the strange predictions of quantum theory could impact the real world. No cats will be harmed in the making of this episode, maybe.
Ep. 248: Carina Constellation
Time for another detailed look at a constellation; one of the most fascinating in the sky, but hidden to most of the northern hemisphere: Carina. Home to one of the most likely supernova candidates we know of: Eta Carinae. Let’s talk just about this constellation, how to find it, and what you can discover in and around it.
Ep. 247: The Ages of Things
This is going to be one of the “how we know what we know” kind of shows. How do scientist determine the age of things? How do we know the age of everything from stone tools, to the age of the Earth, to the age of the very Universe.
Ep. 246: What if Something Were Different?
The number of moons, the age of the Sun, and our placement in the Milky Way all had an impact on the formation of the Earth and the evolution of life on our planet. But what if things were different? What would be the implications?
Ep. 245: Calendars
Our lives are ruled by calendars. And calendars are ruled by astronomy. As we near the end of 2011, and get ready to ring in the new year, let’s discover the astronomy underlying the days, weeks, months and years that segment our lives.