Atom - The Clash of the Titans - Part 1

In this three-part documentary series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever: that the material world is made up of atoms. Part 1. THE CLASH OF THE TITANS Professor Al-Khalili takes us from the discovery of the atom to the development of quantum mechanics.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7694154455816736507

Atom - The Key to the Cosmos - Part 2

In this three-part documentary series, Professor Jim Al-Khalili tells the story of one of the greatest scientific discoveries ever: that the material world is made up of atoms. Part 2. THE KEY TO THE COSMOS This episode tackles world-changing discoveries such as radioactivity, the Atom Bomb and the Big Bang, and tries to answer the biggest questions of all - why are we here and how were we made?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5003968210604570515

BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 1 of 6)

BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 2 of 6)


BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 3 of 6)


BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 4 of 6)


BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 5 of 6)


BBC Atom 3 The Illusion of Reality (Part 6 of 6)


In the last in the series Professor Jim Al-Khalili explores how studying the atom forced us to rethink the nature of reality itself. He discovers that there might be parallel universes in which different versions of us exist, finds out that empty space isn't empty at all, and investigates the differences in our perception of the world in the universe and the reality.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1406370011028154810

'A Universe From Nothing' by Lawrence Krauss, AAI 2009

Lawrence M. Krauss gives a talk on our current picture of the universe, how it will end, and how it could have come from nothing. Krauss is the author of many bestselling books on Physics and Cosmology, including "The Physics of Star Trek."

Leonard Susskind - The Black Hole War

Recognizing a contradiction in Stephen Hawking's claim that things disappear in black holes, Susskind and Gerard t'Hooft offered a counterargument aimed at disproving this controversial theory.

Susskind discusses the story behind the black hole conflict and how it has led to a better idea of how our universe works - The Commonwealth Club of California

In The Drunkard's Walk, acclaimed writer and scientist Leonard Mlodinow shows us how randomness, change, and probability reveal a tremendous amount about our daily lives, and how we misunderstand the significance of everything from a casual conversation to a major financial setback. As a result, successes and failures in life are often attributed to clear and obvious cases, when in actuality they are more profoundly influenced by chance. By showing us the true nature of chance and revealing the psychological illusions that cause us to misjudge the world around us, Mlodinow gives us the tools we need to make more informed decisions.
View Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

The Strong Force

David Gross, the 2004 Nobel Laureate in Physics and the director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara, talks with veteran journalist Jerry Roberts about why scientists love KITP.

A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines:

Limits of Truth and Mind

Janna Levin is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University

From Levin's recent book comes a strange if true story of coded secrets, psychotic delusions, mathematics, and war. This story of greatness and weakness, of genius and delusion, circulates around the parallel lives of Kurt Gödel, the greatest logician of many centuries, and Alan Turing, the extraordinary code breaker during World War II. Taken together their work proved that there are limits to knowledge, that machines could be taught to compute, that one day there could be artificial intelligence. Yet Gödel believed in transmigration of the soul and Turing concluded that we were soulless biological machines. And their suicides were complementary. Gödel, delusional and paranoid, starved himself to death fearing his food was poisoned. Turing ate a poison apple, driven to suicide after being arrested and convicted of homosexual activities. These two men were devoted to truth of the highest abstract nature, yet were unable to grasp the mundane truths of their own lives. Through it all, you will explore, along with these two odd heroes, if any of us can ever really grasp the truth.

The Office of Janna Levin

Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

From here to eternity:

Global warming in geologic time

David Archer is a computational ocean chemist at the University of Chicago.

I have been a professor in the Department of The Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago since 1993. I have worked on a wide range of topics pertaining to the global carbon cycle and its relation to global climate, with special focus on ocean sedimentary processes such as CaCO3 dissolution and methane hydrate formation, and their impact on the evolution of atmospheric CO2.

I currently teach classes on global warming, environmental chemistry, and global geochemical cycles. I have written a textbook for non-science major undergraduates called Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast, published by Blackwell Press, and a book for a popular audience called The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 1000,000 Years of Earth's Climate, published by Princeton University Press. I am a contributing editor to the climate science blog site realclimate.org.

About the Lecture

Using results from models of the atmosphere/ocean/sediment carbon cycle, the impacts of fossil-fuel CO2 release will be examined – including the effect on climate many thousands of years into the future, rather than for just a few centuries as commonly claimed. Prof. Archer will explain how aspects of the Earth system, such as the growth or melting of the great ice sheets, the thawing of permafrost, and the release of methane from the methane hydrate deposits in the deep ocean, take thousands of years to respond to a change in climate. The duration of our potential climate adventure is comparable to the pacing of climate changes in the past, which enables us to use the geologic record of past climate changes to predict the trajectory of global warming into the deep future. In particular, the record of sea level variations in the past suggests that the ultimate sea level response to fossil fuel CO2 use could be 10 to 100 times higher than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecast for the year 2100.

View Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

The weird world of quantum entanglement

"Trust me, I'm a physicist"

Declaring that it is always useful to start a lecture with a literary quote, Professor Sir Peter Knight began his on quantum entanglement with the statement:

"Let's just say we want to avoid any Imperial entanglements."

After identifying his inspiration as Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope, Sir Peter, Head of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College London, went on to explain how quantum entanglement has divided scientists and transformed our understanding of the natural world.

Its discoverer, the physicist Erwin Schrodinger, defined entanglement as the process of two systems entering into temporary physical interaction and separating after a period of mutual influence. Following this process, he said, they can no longer be described in the same way as before.

This discovery sent waves through the scientific world and in 1927 a group of physicists, including Schrodinger and Marie Curie, gathered to debate the implications. Showing recently discovered film footage of that meeting, dubbed the Solvay Conference, Sir Peter drew his audience's attention to the appearance of the attendees, and asked: "Why were they looking so grim when they left, compared to when they started?"

The cause, he explained, was the real worry caused by this new theory's introduction of randomness to quantum physics. The idea that an electron might have the free-will to choose how and when to move even drove Albert Einstein to write in a letter to fellow physicist Max Born: "In that case I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming-house, than a physicist."

Schrodinger's response was that it is no more possible to experiment with single particles than it is to raise ichthyosauri in the zoo. Sir Peter adds, however: "In my game, we are in the business of raising ichthyosauri - it's what we do all the time."

Quantum entanglement, he explained, is now the basis for emerging technologies such as quantum computing and encryption, already used in the City of London to securely move financial information.

Further illustrations of the intriguing consequences of entanglement involved members of the audience including Rector Sir Richard Sykes taking part in the 'Balinese plate dance', about which Sir Peter commented: "I used to do this with 200 quantum mechanics students."
Sir Peter's lecture 'Quantum entanglement weird but useful' was delivered as Imperial's 18th annual Schrodinger lecture.

Watch the lecture "Trust me, I'm a physicist" - The Weird World of Quantum Entanglement' with RealPlayer stream

About Professor Sir Peter Knight

Professor Sir Peter Knight, 57, is the Principal of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College London. He is Chief Scientific Advisor at the UK National Physical Laboratory, a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and of the Optical Society of America and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999. He was awarded the Thomas Young Medal from the Institute of Physics in 1999, the Einstein Medal for Laser Science and the Parsons Medal. He was knighted in the Queen's Birthday Honours in June 2005 in recognition of his role in establishing the UK as a world centre for research into quantum optics.

18th Annual Schroedinger Lecture
The Schrodinger Lecture
Imperial College Online lectures

The Physics of Information:

From Entanglement to Black Holes

Leonard Susskind - Stanford University

Sir Anthony Leggett - University of Illinois

Christopher Fuchs, Seth Lloyd - Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Bob McDonald - Quirks and Quarks (CBC Radio One)

Do ideas about information and reality inspire fruitful new approaches to the hardest problems of modern physics? What can we learn about the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, the beginning of the universe and our understanding of black holes by thinking about the very essence of information? The answers to these questions are surprising and enlightening, but also controversial. The topic of information within physics has involved some of the 20th century's greatest scientists in long-running intellectual battles that continue to the present day. In this special debate, hosted by the CBC's Bob McDonald of 'Quirks and Quarks', you will enjoy a lively discussion between four prominent physicists who have thought long and hard about these questions.

View Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Before the Big Bang:

Is There Evidence For Something And If So, What?

Roger Penrose - University of Oxford

There is now a great deal of evidence confirming the existence of a very hot and dense early stage of the universe. Much of this data comes from a detailed study of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) - radiation from the early universe that was most recently measured by NASA's WMAP satellite. But the information presents new puzzles for scientists. One of the most blatant examples is an apparent paradox related to the second law of thermodynamics. Although some have argued that the hypothesis of inflationary cosmology solves some of the puzzles, profound issues remain. In this talk, Professor Penrose will describe a very different proposal, one that suggests a succession of universes prior to our own. He will also present a recent analysis of the CMB data that has a profound bearing on these issues.

Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Time and Einstein in the 21st Century:

The coolest stuff in the universe

Presented by: William (Bill) Phillips

NIST: Atomic Physics Div.

At the beginning of the 20th century Einstein published three revolutionary ideas that changed forever how we view Nature. At the beginning of the 21st century Einstein's thinking is shaping one of the key scientific and technological wonders of contemporary life: atomic clocks, the best timekeepers ever made. Such super-accurate clocks are essential to industry, commerce, and science; they are the heart of the Global Positioning System (GPS), which guides cars, airplanes, and hikers to their destinations. Today, atomic clocks are still being improved, using Einstein's ideas to cool the atoms to incredibly low temperatures. Atomic gases reach temperatures less than a billionth of a degree above Absolute Zero, without solidifying. Such atoms enable clocks accurate to better than a second in 60 million years as well as both using and testing some of Einstein's strangest predictions. This will be a lively, multimedia presentation, including experimental demonstrations and down-to-earth explanations about some of today's most exciting science.

View Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

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Thirty years of Imperial College

through the eyes of polymers and molecules

By Professor Dame Julia Higgins

Watch the lecture in RealPlayer

News and Events
By Naomi Weston

From neutrons and polymers to collections of molecules and mixtures, Professor Dame Julia Higgins, Principal of the Faculty of Engineering, has conducted research in the field of physics and chemical engineering for over 30 years.

The annual Athena Lecture, which highlights the advancement of women in science, engineering and technology in higher education, was held last week, and focused on the past 30 years at the College.

The lecture 'Growing Interactions: from individuals to systems in my research in the College' gave the audience an insight into how research and people have changed over Professor Higgins’ time at Imperial. After joining the Chemical Engineering Department in 1976 from a nuclear reactor in Grenoble, France, she continued her research on the behaviour of individual polymer molecules.

"Imperial College was a very different place in 1976," comments Professor Higgins. "There were 4,000 students and only 300 of them were women. It was an extremely masculine place with few female professors."

The 1960s and 70s were a vital time in the development of understanding how molecules were organised and how they moved, she says. Two Nobel prize winners emerged during this time including Paul Flory and Pierre Gilles de Gennes, with whom Professor Higgins worked. In the 1980s, Professor Higgins became more involved in the affairs of the College and became a Reader in 1985 and a College Tutor in 1990.

In addition, she became increasingly active in the teaching of engineering and design. "I was delighted that my colleagues in Chemical Engineering allowed me to get involved in so many engineering projects. I came in as a physicist and thoroughly enjoyed working in both areas." During this time her research broadened to investigation of the behaviour of collections of molecules particularly in mixtures and their material properties.

In 1993 she became Dean of City and Guilds, and heavily involved in College affairs. Together with other senior women she encouraged the Rector – Lord Oxburgh to set up the College’s Academic Opportunities Committee which has worked to provide a level playing field for the academic women at Imperial. Professor Higgins was the first Chair of this committee, a role now filled by Professor Dorothy Griffiths.

Under the leadership of her fourth Rector, Sir Richard Sykes, Professor Higgins explained, there was much improvement in structure and in infrastructure. There was a huge building renovation programme including the full renovation of the Bessemer building.

The College and Faculty structure also changed with the introduction of more interdisciplinary work. "These changes led to more flexible research being carried out and more interaction between the different departments." She went on to explain: "These important changes mean we have maintained strong academic departments but capitalised on the interaction between them."

The national Athena Project was started in 1999 and the College through the Academic Opportunities Committee has been successful in obtaining grants and awards from Athena. The project aims to advance and promote the careers of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) in higher education and research to achieve a significant increase in the number of women recruited to top posts.

In the College’s Centenary year there are now 12,000 students with just under half female, revealing a big difference in 30 years. There are 51 female professors and more women at a senior level in the College.

Professor Higgins concluded: "I have been here a third of the century! It has been great fun working with my female colleagues through the Academic Opportunities Committee and the more informal networks we have made. Similar to my research in polymer molecules shifting from individual studies to looking at collections of molecules, I have moved through different departments and positions and watched the College change from individual departments to greater interaction at senior level."

"I would like to thank the College and wish it well for the next 100 years."

The Physics of Impossible Things

Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

by Benjamin Schumacher

About the Lecture

Some things can happen in our Universe, and others cannot. The laws of physics establish the boundary between possibility and impossibility. Physicists naturally spend most of their time thinking about the possible. In this lecture, however, we will make a brief reconnaissance across the frontier to study impossible things and discover the surprising connections between them. We will encounter standard science-fiction devices like time machines and faster-than-light spaceships -- as well as other, less-familiar prodigies including quantum cloners and bounded electromagnetic miracles. A safe return to the real world is unconditionally guaranteed.

About the Speaker

Benjamin Schumacher is Professor of Physics at Kenyon College, where he has taught for twenty years. He was an undergraduate at Hendrix College and received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990, where he was the last doctoral student of John Archibald Wheeler.

As one of the founders of quantum information theory, Professor Schumacher introduced the term qubit, invented quantum data compression (also known as Schumacher compression), and established several fundamental results about the information capacity of quantum systems. For his contributions he won the 2002 Quantum Communication Award, the premier international prize in the field, and was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society. Besides his interest in quantum information theory, Dr. Schumacher has contributed to other areas involving black holes, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics. He is the author of numerous scientific papers and a textbook, Physics in Spacetime: An introduction to special relativity.

Professor Schumacher has been a visitor at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Institute for Quantum Information at Caltech (where he was a Moore Distinguished Scholar), the Isaac Newton Institute of Cambridge University, the Santa Fe Institute, Perimeter Institute and the Universities of New Mexico, Montreal, Innsbruck and Queensland. At Kenyon College, Professor Schumacher teaches physics, but he also regularly ventures into astronomy, mathematics, scientific computing and the humanities.
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The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces

Anticipating a New Golden Age

By Frank Wilczek

About the Lecture

Listening to Frank Wilczek describe his research, one might not recognize simple English words, for they assume unfamiliar meanings in the context of physics. The deceptive lexicon of particles, forces and equations includes “up,” “down,” “flavor,” “color,” “strange,” “everything,” and the compelling “beautiful.” Rigorous science is conveyed in poetry and metaphor.

The springboard for this presentation is the final chapter of Wilczek’s new book, The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. For a sense of history, he first touches on breakthroughs of the 20th century that gave rise to conceptual revolutions: 1910 – theory of relativity; 1925 – quantum mechanics; 1970 – standard model of normal matter. He then broaches current exploration in particle physics and the promise residing in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva.

Just as Wilczek finds “standard model” too modest a designation for what it represents in physics – redubbing it “core theory” – likewise he upgrades the archaic notion of “ether,” more precisely naming it “the grid” to connote the essential structural material of the universe. As to examining the oxymoronic “dynamic void,” Wilczek explains that “to see something, you must disturb it.

”LHC experiments seek to give substance to the calculations of unified field theory, the quest to combine harmoniously the four fundamental interactions – gravity, electromagnetism, weak force, strong force. The LHC is the logical successor, extending the capability of the human eye, to Leeuwenhoek’s 17th century optical microscope and Rosalind Franklin’s 1952 x-ray images of DNA. As “an ultrastroboscopic nanomicroscope,” it advances seeing to new extremes of scale and resolution (temporally and spatially).

Through a virtual recreation of Big Bang conditions in a tunnel of 27 kilometers circumference, investigators endeavor to understand the nature of innermost space…as Wilczek terms it, “the deep structure of reality.” He intends no paradox in saying that the LHC will take pictures of “what appears to our senses as nothingness.” He emphasizes that the LHC is grand not only in concrete size but also “in every aspect of engineering and concept,” touting its distributed computing facilities at 100 sites around the globe as “the Internet on steroids.”

As a theoretical scientist, Wilczek hopes highly energized, accelerated protons will collide to reveal new subatomic particles, bolster the unification of forces, and confirm his postulate of supersymmetry. As a curious human, he embraces this massive effort with profound wonder and gratitude. In closing, he offers that “If you’re willing to make the investment to expand your mind, it’s an exciting time to be a thinking being!”

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