Extra Credits
Published on 7 Oct 2018What happens when we can’t link physical cause and effect between two actions? Well, quantum bits (or qubits) do this all the time. Let’s look into how quantum entanglement can be used in computing.
Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
October 10, 2018
Quantum Computing – Spooky Action at a Distance – Extra History – #4
October 3, 2018
Quantum Computing – The Einstein-Bohr Debates – Extra History – #3
Extra Credits
Published on 30 Sep 2018To understand the power and the challenges of the quantum computer, we have to spend a little more time watching the intense debates between Neils Bohr and Albert Einstein about the Uncertainty Principle. Can we really know the energy of a photon?
Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
September 26, 2018
Quantum Computing – Electron Boogaloo – Extra History – #2
Extra Credits
Published on 23 Sep 2018Today we’re exploring one of Albert Einstein’s most controversial papers: his ideas on the photoelectric effect, which describes light as quanta (discrete packets of energy) instead of a classical wave. This new understanding of light helped Niels Bohr create a new model of the atom.
Credit to Alisa Bishop for her art on this series: http://www.alisabishop.com/
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
Support us on Patreon! http://bit.ly/EHPatreon
September 20, 2018
Quantum Computing – The Foundation of Everything – Extra History – #1
Extra Credits
Published on 16 Sep 2018Is light a particle? Is light a wave? Let’s take a look at Thomas Young’s famous double-slit experiment — creating those really super funky interference patterns you might remember from your high school physics classes.
A tremendous thank-you to Alexander Tamas, the “mystery patron” who made this series possible. We finally found room in our busy production schedule to create and air this series alongside our regularly scheduled, patron-approved Extra History videos. A huge thank you to the multiple guest artists we got to work with, to Matt Krol for his skillful wrangling of the production schedule and keeping everyone happy, and to our Patreon supporters for your patience and support.
June 25, 2018
The History of Non-Euclidian Geometry – The World We Know – Extra History – #5
Extra Credits
Published on 23 Jun 2018Up until the 20th century, people assumed light behaved like a wave, passing through the “aether wind” — a fluid with incomprehensible properties. When the Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the aether’s existence, Einstein put out the theory of relativity — that space and time were part of the same package.
It’s 1887. Physics is almost complete. We almost know enough to see the clockwork of the universe. Only one last great question remains: how does light travel?
June 21, 2018
Extra Scenes! James May Explains Boomerangs | Earth Lab
BBC Earth Lab
Published on 23 Aug 2013James May discusses wings and propellers in these extra scenes from why boomerangs always come back.
June 19, 2018
The History of Non-Euclidian Geometry – A Most Terrible Possibility – Extra History – #4
Extra Credits
Published on 16 Jun 2018In the early 19th century, people started to wonder if the Fifth Postulate couldn’t be proven at all — meaning that it could be right, but it could also be wrong. Bolyai, Lobachevsky, and Riemann started exploring hyperbolic geometry and other strange realms…
February 10, 2018
When cinematography wins out over reality
Earlier this month, Charles Stross talked about why he’s been reading less and less science fiction lately, and touched on SF movies and (for example) why George Lucas chose to model space combat on World War 1 aircraft battles:
When George Lucas was choreographing the dogfights in Star Wars, he took his visual references from film of first world war dogfights over the trenches in western Europe. With aircraft flying at 100-200 km/h in large formations, the cinema screen could frame multiple aircraft maneuvering in proximity, close enough to be visually distinguishable. The second world war wasn’t cinematic: with aircraft engaging at speeds of 400-800 km/h, the cinematographer would have had a choice between framing dots dancing in the distance, or zooming in on one or two aircraft. (While some movies depict second world war air engagements, they’re not visually captivating: either you see multiple aircraft cruising in close formation, or a sudden flash of disruptive motion — see for example the bomber formation in Memphis Belle, or the final attack on the U-boat pen in Das Boot.) Trying to accurately depict an engagement between modern jet fighters, with missiles launched from beyond visual range and a knife-fight with guns takes place in a fraction of a second at a range of multiple kilometres, is cinematically futile: the required visual context of a battle between massed forces evaporates in front of the camera … which is why in Independence Day we see vast formations of F/A-18s (a supersonic jet) maneuvering as if they’re Sopwith Camels. (You can take that movie as a perfect example of the triumph of spectacle over plausibility at just about every level.)
… So for a couple of generations now, the generic vision of a space battle is modelled on an air battle, and not just any air battle, but one plucked from a very specific period that was compatible with a film director’s desire to show massed fighter-on-fighter action at close enough range that the audience could identify the good guys and bad guys by eye.
Let me have another go at George Lucas (I’m sure if he feels picked on he can sob himself to sleep on a mattress stuffed with $500 bills). Take the asteroid field scene from The Empire Strikes Back: here in the real world, we know that the average distance between asteroids over 1km in diameter in the asteroid belt is on the order of 3 million kilometers, or about eight times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. This is of course utterly useless to a storyteller who wants an exciting game of hide-and-seek: so Lucas ignored it to give us an exciting game of …
Unfortunately, we get this regurgitated in one goddamned space opera after another: spectacle in place of insight, decolorized and pixellated by authors who haven’t bothered to re-think their assumptions and instead simply cut and paste Lucas’s cinematic vision. Let me say it here: when you fuck with the underlying consistency of your universe, you are cheating your readers. You may think that this isn’t actually central to your work: you’re trying to tell a story about human relationships, why get worked up about the average spacing of asteroids when the real purpose of the asteroid belt is to give your protagonists a tense situation to survive and a shared experience to bond over? But the effects of internal inconsistency are insidious. If you play fast and loose with distance and time scale factors, then you undermine travel times. If your travel times are rubberized, you implicitly kneecapped the economics of trade in your futurescape. Which in turn affects your protagonist’s lifestyle, caste, trade, job, and social context. And, thereby, their human, emotional relationships. The people you’re writing the story of live in a (metaphorical) house the size of a galaxy. Undermine part of the foundations and the rest of the house of cards is liable to crumble, crushing your characters under a burden of inconsistencies. (And if you wanted that goddamn Lucasian asteroid belt experience why not set your story aboard a sailing ship trying to avoid running aground in a storm? Where the scale factor fits.)
Whatever you do, don’t go asking him about Han Solo’s claimed Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs…
July 25, 2017
The Greatest Scientist of the 20th Century You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Published on 13 Jul 2017
There’s a perception that religion and science go together about as well as mayonnaise and marshmallows. In some instances, this is, perhaps, true. But on a typically warm Southern California January in 1933 at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California (the same place and same time that Jack Parsons of rocket science fame was doing his experiments — history intersecting!), religion and science proved that these two ideals didn’t have to be enemies.
Want the text version?: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/02/georges-lemaitre-greatest-scientist-youve-never-heard/
July 17, 2017
How fast & how far do bullets go? – James May’s Q&A (Ep 13) – Head Squeeze
Published on 28 Mar 2013
James May imparts his wisdom on all things bullets.
History of Bullets and How they are Made: http://www.madehow.com/Volume-7/Bullet.html
Bullet Types and Abbreviations: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20889587/A-Guide-To-Bullet-Types-and-Abbreviations
Gun Timelines: http://inventors.about.com/od/militaryhistoryinventions/a/firearms_2.htm
10 Most Expensive Weapons in the World (Including R&D): http://www.therichest.org/technology/most-expensive-weapons/
5 Bullet Facts: http://www.howitworksdaily.com/technology/top-five-facts-bullets/
July 9, 2017
Why Are I-Beams Shaped Like An I?
Published on 8 Dec 2016
Thank you to my patreon supporters: Adam Flohr, darth patron, Zoltan Gramantik, Josh Levent, Henning Basma, Karl Andersson, Mark Govea
May 25, 2017
How Does Glue Work? (feat. VSauce) – James May’s Q&A (Ep 9) – Head Squeeze
Published on 28 Feb 2013
Michael Stevens from Vsauce makes a guest appearance with James May to discuss how glue actually works.
James May’s Q&A:
With his own unique spin, James May asks and answers the oddball questions we’ve all wondered about from ‘What Exactly Is One Second?’ to ‘Is Invisibility Possible?’A handy site if you’re unsure which glue to use on a particular surface: http://www.thistothat.com/
Glue Strength Test: http://www.honortronics.com/superglueandepoxytest.html
History of Glue: http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/glue.html
How to make homemade glue: http://sustainableecho.com/homemade-natural-glue/
5 Best uses for Superglue: http://www.doityourself.com/stry/5-best-uses-for-super-glue
April 28, 2017
What is a parallel universe? | Doctor Who Special | James May Q&A | Head Squeeze
Published on 22 Nov 2013
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the very first episode of Doctor Who James has a very special video on what exactly a parallel universe is!
Some physicists believe that in a parallel universe all of our mistakes have been corrected. Rather than taking a take away for one in a cold miserable flat, we are, in a parallel universe, living with our one true love having the best life ever. Outside our own universe, the theory goes, that there are an infinite number of other universes.
However maybe we don’t have to travel beyond our universe to find a parallel. The Schrodinger’s Cat paradox basically is that a cat in a box with a device that can kill at random exists in both alive and dead states. More info on Schrodinger’s Cat here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/google-doodle/10237347/Schrodingers-Cat-explained.html
Thanks to Alyssa Ann for her portrait of Jeremy Clarkson: http://alyssamenold.com/
March 8, 2017
Why can’t trains go uphill? – James May’s Q&A (Ep 30) – Head Squeeze
Published on 19 Jul 2013
James May looks at why trains can’t go uphill
October 16, 2016
QotD: Epicurean physics
It would be easy to diverge from this general overview into a detailed examination of the physics. This is because Epicurus seems to have been largely right. We now believe, as he did, that the universe is made of atoms, and if we do not now talk about motion, we do talk about energy and force. His physics are an astonishing achievement.
Of course, he was often wrong. He denigrated mathematics. He seems to have believed that the sun and moon were about the same size as they appear to us. Then there is an apparent defect in his conception of the atomic movements. Does the universe exist by accident? Or are their laws of nature beyond the existence and movement of the atoms? The first is not impossible. An infinite number of atoms in an infinite void over infinite time will, every so often, come together in an apparently stable universe. They may also hold together, moving in clusters in ways that suggest regularity. But this chance combination might be dissolved at any moment — though, given every sort of infinity, some of these universes will continue for long periods.
If Epicurus had this first in view, what point in trying to explain present phenomena in terms of cause and effect? Causality only makes sense on the assumption that the future will be like the past. If he had the second in mind, it is worth asking what he thought to he nature of these laws? Might they not, for example, have had an Author? Since Newton, we have contented ourselves with trying to uncover regularities of motion and not going beyond these. But the Greeks had a much stronger teleological sense.
Perhaps these matters were not discussed. Perhaps they were discussed, but we have no record of them in the surviving discussions. Or perhaps they have survived, but I have overlooked them. But it does seem to me that Epicurean physics do not fully discuss the nature of the laws that they assume.
On the other hand, let me quote two passages from his surviving writings:
Moreover, there is an infinite number of worlds, some like this world, others unlike it. For the atoms being infinite in number… are borne ever further in their course. For the atoms out of which a world might arise, or by which a world might arise, or by which a world might be formed, have not all be expended on one world or a finite number of worlds, whether like or unlike this one. Hence there will be nothing to hinder and infinity of worlds….
And further, we must not suppose that the worlds have necessarily one and the same shape. For nobody can prove that in one sort of world there might not be contained, whereas in another sort of world there could not possibly be, the seeds out of which animals and plants arise and the rest of the things we see.
What we have here is the admission that there may, in the infinite universe, be other worlds like our own, and these may contain sentient beings like ourselves. And there may be worlds inconceivably unlike our own. And there is the claim that living beings arise and develop according to natural laws. Epicurus would not have been surprised either by modern physics or by Darwinism. […]
However, while the similarities between Epicurean physics and modern science are striking, there is one profound difference. For us, the purpose of science is to give us an understanding of the world that brings with it the ability to control the world and remake it for our own convenience. This is our desire, and this has been our achievement because we have fully developed methods of observation and experiment. The Greeks had limited means of observation — no microscopes or telescopes, nor even accurate clocks. Nor had they much conception of experiment.
Moreover, scientific progress was neither conceived by Epicurus nor regarded as desirable. He says very emphatically:
If we had never been troubled by celestial and atmospheric phenomena, nor by fears about death, nor by our ignorance of the limits of pains and desires, we should have had no need of natural science.
He says again:
…[R]emember that, like everything else, knowledge of celestial phenomena, whether taken along with other things or in isolation, has no other end in view than peace of mind and firm convictions.
Sean Gabb, “Epicurus: Father of the Englightenment”, speaking to the 6/20 Club in London, 2007-09-06.
