Mr Science Show

Is teleportation possible in the real world, or only in the world of science fiction?

In this very special episode, Dr Boob takes the reigns and leads

us on a journey through teleportation, whether or not

physics allows it and even if it does, can we technologically achieve

it? What are the implications if we recreate someone in another spot -

what about their soul? Does such a thing exist? And even if you can

technologically achieve this, is it possible to reanimate a copy of

someone? What do you do with their original version, if you have

simply copied them? This could be considered cloning, which brings in ethical

questions.

Perhaps wormholes could be a solution to this

problem, but we haven't found any yet - however they are, as physicists

like to say, theoretically possible.

Tune in to this very entertaining episode (and I can say this without any false modesty as Dr Boob did it all himself) here.

If you'd like to hear more of Dr Boob on this podcast, check out our past joint episodes, mostly on the science of superheroes. He's also on twitter, so come and follow him, he needs friends!

It's an Australian tradition on ANZAC Day to take yourself down to your local pub and play Two-up - an Aussie gambling game in which you toss two coins in the air and bet on the outcome.

I'm somewhat embarrassed to say that even though I am only a month away from turning 30, this year was the first time I've ever actually gambled on two-up.

It's not a game that is played very often, despite being iconically Australian - according to the GAMBLING (TWO-UP) ACT 1998, outside of casinos it is only legal to play two-up on commemorative days like ANZAC Day (unless you're in Broken Hill, where the local council can legally arrange a two-up game any day of the year).

The rules of two-up are pretty simple. The Spinner places two coins (traditionally pennies) on a small piece of wood (the kip) and tosses the coins into the air. In the version of two-up we played at the pub, the gambling was very simple. Players standing around the Spinner either gambled on HEADS - which is where both coins come up heads - or TAILS - which is where both coins come up tails. If a head and a tail come up, the coins are tossed again and no one wins or loses. To bet, you find someone else willing to gamble the same amount but opposite to you, and then you have a one-on-one contest. If you want to bet $10 on HEADS, then you find someone willing to bet $10 on TAILS, and if you win you get their $10 - if you lose, you hand over $10. It's very simple and I love its inbuilt honour system.

The probabilities involved are simple too - you have a 50% chance of winning each time you bet. At the start of our ANZAC day down in Balmain, most people were betting $5. By the end of the day, as more beers were consumed, many were betting $50 and $100. Gambler's Ruin also started to show it's head - many people think that by doubling your bet after you lose you can get yourself back into the game. This doesn't work in this form of two-up for a couple of reasons. The first is that you need to find someone willing to bet the same amount as you, which is increasingly unlikely the larger you want to bet. And secondly, unless you have unlimited funds (or strictly speaking, more than everyone else you could bet against - or the casino if you are gambling there), it is highly unlikely that you could continually bet without going out backwards.

Two-up is also played in casinos and other gambling houses, and not just on ANZAC day. The rules, as you would expect from such institutions, are not so simple. In this expanded form of the game, there are a number of ways to bet. The South Australian Government has a good guide to two-up play, but simply put:

Players can bet in the following ways:

1) HEADS - odds of 1/1 ($1 bet pays $2, including your original $1);

2) TAILS - odds of 1/1;

3) 5 consecutive ODDS - odds of 25/1 ($1 bet pays $26).

The Spinner can bet in the following ways:

1) 3 HEADS are thrown before TAILS is thrown and before 5 consecutive ODDS are thrown - odds of 7.5/1 ($1 bet pays $8.50);

2) 3 TAILS are thrown before HEADS is thrown and before 5 consecutive ODDS are thrown - odds of 7.5/1.

This makes the game a little bit more interesting. The Wizard of Odds website for two-up sets out the probabilities for each of these outcomes - let's derive where they come from. At each toss of the kip, for this analysis it is best to think of there being 3 possible outcomes - HEADS, TAILS or 5 consecutive ODDS. We think of it this way because if a single ODDS is thrown, it is re-thrown and only makes a difference if it is one of five in a row.

Player Odds:

As you can see, the House is paying out as if the odds are better than they actually are. It's not much, but this is how they make their money.

Spinner Odds:

Again we can see, the House is not paying enough for a win - the odds should be 7.8 to 1, rather than 7.5 to 1. However, were you to back HEADS on each throw rather than as the group of three, the house would offer you odds of 7 to 1 (this is left as an exercise for the reader...), so the spinner's bet is better.

As it turns out, I came out even at the end of the day! There's some more maths to be had here - sometime soon we might take a look at some of these pay-out distributions.

TED is a US based not-for-profit enterprise devoted to the propagation of Ideas Worth Spreading. TED started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design. TedxSydney was a Sydney-based TED event, bringing people together to share a TED-like experience. I ducked out to Carriage Works to catch some of the event, and you can see all the talks over at the TedxSydney youtube channel. Many of these talks were science based, so I'm going to put up some of my favourites over the next few posts.

The following video is from Bryan Gaensler, former Young Australian of the Year, NASA Hubble Fellow and Harvard professor, Australian Laureate Fellow at The University of Sydney, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics. His talk was entitled A new way of looking at the sky.

Ted Copyright

TEDTalks are distributed under a Creative Commons (CC) license. Anyone is free to download the videos from TED.com; share them with friends; republish or embed them on their website or blog. But this use must be made within the terms of the CC license "Attribution -- NonCommercial -- NonDerivative."

Beyond Zero Emissions is a not-for-profit, volunteer run organisation whose core goal is to develop blueprints for the implementation of climate change solutions. In partnership with the University of Melbourne's Energy Research Institute, BZE are undertaking the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Project, which puts together fully costed transition plans for getting Australia to zero emissions in ten years using commercially available technology.

Last year I attended their launch event for the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan which goes into detail about how Australia can reach 100% renewable energy within a decade. Speakers at the launch included former NSW premier Bob Carr, member for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and Matthew Wright, Executive Director of BZE. The event was hosted by journalist Quentin Dempster.

In this podcast, with permission from Matthew Wright, I bring you Matthew's speech at this launch which details the science behind their proposal. I also chatted to BZE volunteer Petra Liverani at the recent Say yes to a price on carbon pollution rally in Sydney.

Click play below or listen to this show here:

If you'd like to hear what Turnbull, Carr and Ludlam had to say, check out the full video of the launch below, reproduced here with permission.

And we're back! It's been a while, but finally it's time for another podcast, so we've made it a long one. Take this episode on a long train ride or car trip, as Dr Boob and I explore the science of the spells of Harry Potter.

Attempting to find scientific and engineering solutions to Harry Potter spells is probably the most difficult task we have set ourselves yet, so we would be very interested to hear how you would made the Harry Potter spells a reality. The spells dealt with in this episode are:

Although some of these are quite clearly impossible at the moment, in every case we have come up with a scientific or engineering solution to take us at least part of the way there. Listen in to find out what we came up with, and please write in and let us know where we have gone wrong or what you would do.

Click play below or listen to this show here.