
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified: what, he wonders, is a magnetic field?
Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard / physicist Dr Felix Flicker - author of the The Magick of Matter - and materials scientist Dr Anna Ploszajski.
They cover the secrets of lodestones - naturally occurring magnetic rocks - and how to levitate crystals, frogs and maybe even people.
Matthew Swallow, the Chair of the UK Magnetics Society, explains why magnets make the best brakes for rollercoasters, and Dr Ploszajski explains how magnetically-induced eddy currents are used to sort through our recycling.
Finally, Dr Flicker persuades Adam and Hannah that to really understand magnetic fields you have to leave classical physics behind, and go quantum... So our sleuths take a leap into the strange subatomic realm.
Contributors: Dr Felix Flicker, Lecturer in Physics at Cardiff University and author of ‘The Magick of Matter’, Dr Anna Ploszajski, materials scientist and author of ‘Handmade’, Matthew Swallow, Chair of the UK Magnetics Society
Presented by Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford
4.8
718718 ratings
Magnets are inside loads of everyday electronic kit - speakers, motors, phones and more - but listener Lucas is mystified: what, he wonders, is a magnetic field?
Our sleuths set out to investigate the mysterious power of magnets, with the help of wizard / physicist Dr Felix Flicker - author of the The Magick of Matter - and materials scientist Dr Anna Ploszajski.
They cover the secrets of lodestones - naturally occurring magnetic rocks - and how to levitate crystals, frogs and maybe even people.
Matthew Swallow, the Chair of the UK Magnetics Society, explains why magnets make the best brakes for rollercoasters, and Dr Ploszajski explains how magnetically-induced eddy currents are used to sort through our recycling.
Finally, Dr Flicker persuades Adam and Hannah that to really understand magnetic fields you have to leave classical physics behind, and go quantum... So our sleuths take a leap into the strange subatomic realm.
Contributors: Dr Felix Flicker, Lecturer in Physics at Cardiff University and author of ‘The Magick of Matter’, Dr Anna Ploszajski, materials scientist and author of ‘Handmade’, Matthew Swallow, Chair of the UK Magnetics Society
Presented by Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford
5,441 Listeners
7,653 Listeners
530 Listeners
2,126 Listeners
894 Listeners
289 Listeners
2,072 Listeners
1,054 Listeners
484 Listeners
227 Listeners
404 Listeners
4,843 Listeners
479 Listeners
626 Listeners
353 Listeners
150 Listeners
327 Listeners
3,069 Listeners
93 Listeners
99 Listeners
596 Listeners
1,000 Listeners
508 Listeners
613 Listeners
189 Listeners
116 Listeners
121 Listeners
272 Listeners
29 Listeners
105 Listeners
36 Listeners
3 Listeners