Physical Attraction

You can get too caught up in praising the beauty of science and conflating that with praising the individual. I think we should recognise and appreciate brilliance, but stop short of hero-worship. It's reductive. It diminishes people. It removes important parts of who they were. It can, in its worst excesses, be downright dangerous. Nevertheless, that's not a problem I have today, even though I'm going to tell this story partly biographically. Because Edward Teller, for all his brilliance in physics, is not the kind of person you'd want to worship as a hero. Yet it's Teller, for good or ill, rightly or wrongly, who is most associated with the first successful large-scale harnessing of the power of fusion by human beings: the hydrogen bomb. If you've ever seen the film Dr Strangelove, or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb", you'll know something of the popular perception of Teller. If you haven't, you should immediately find a copy and watch it. From the moment that Teller was brought onto the Manhattan project, he was pushing for it to expand – not just to create a bomb that would harness the power of nuclear fission, but a fusion bomb. A hydrogen bomb, that would – according to theoretical calculations – be thousands of times more powerful. It would begin a long career in physics and the military that would see Teller consistently and endlessly advocate for more and more powerful weapons – total nuclear supremacy over the Soviet Union. It was an obsessive quest that led some of his oldest friends and colleagues to turn on him, in the end. The physicist Isidore Rabi later said: "He is a danger to all that is important. I do really feel it would have been a better world without Teller."

Physical Attraction is the podcast about physics, science, and technology. You can find further details about the show at www.physicspodcast.com - where you'll find the contact form, for any comments, questions, or concerns you may have. [I'm very good at responding to stuff that isn't spam.] You can also donate to the show via www.paypal.me/physicspodcast and you can subscribe to our Patreon via www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . Both will give you the opportunity to purchase our past bonus episodes for a nominal donation! The best way you can support the show, though, is to tell as many people about it as you possibly can. You can engage with us on social media - Twitter @physicspod and Facebook, Physical Attraction. Until next time, take care.

Physical Attraction: 100th Episode Competition Physical Attraction is the podcast focused on physics, science and technology – and we're about to reach a very big milestone when our 100th episode releases later on this year. To celebrate, we're hosting a special competition with FABULOUS PRIZES. To enter, you need to send us your answer to the question "What is physics?", either in written form, or (even better) recorded by you on some suitable equipment. Ideally, entries will be more than a few sentences long and no longer than 1000 words / ten minutes spoken audio, although exceptions will be made for shorter or longer entries of exceptional quality! You can interpret this as broadly or as specifically as you like, and it doesn't have to be a dictionary definition. What has physics meant in your life? How do you view the boundaries between physics and "other sciences"? What role do you think physics and physicists have to play in society, in our pursuit of knowledge, philosophically? What does physics mean in the modern world? What can it mean in the future? Or you can focus on some specific aspect of physics that fascinates you. All suitable entries will form part of the 100th episode extravaganza, which is why I want to get as many different perspectives as possible. You will be on the podcast! Feel free to introduce yourself and details of your own story. All suitable entries will also receive a Physical Attraction postcard and ceramic mug, alongside free download links for the extra bonus episodes that we've released so far. Then there will be first and second place prizes! The second place winner receives everything above, plus books by Physical Attraction interview guests Phil Torres, Simon Ings, Britt Wray, and SMBC Zach Weinersmith: Phil Torres - Morality, Foresight, and Human FlourishingSimon Ings – Stalin and the Scientists Britt Wray – Rise of the Necrofauna Zach and Kelly Weinersmith - Soonish The first place winner receives everything from second place, including the four books, plus the right to choose the subject of one episode of the show – anything science and technology-related, topic subject to discussion. I will then research, write, and record that episode, which can include a special dedication to the contest prize winner as part of it. Sounds good? Great! Get your entries in by March 31st 2019 to be eligible. Entries should be submitted via the competition email [email protected], or you can contact me on Twitter @physicspod or Facebook.

All details of the contest can be found here: www.physicspodcast.com/about while you can contact us for any clarifications here: http://physicalattraction.libsyn.com/contact

The good people of the United States Senate were not prepared for Huey P. Long.

Could Huey Long's personality, travelling-salesman charm, and Share Our Wealth populism catapult him into the White House? In this episode, we find out. www.autocracynow.libsyn.com

www.physicspodcast.com

There's a famous saying that's attributed to the statistician Henry L Box – but it's one of the most important sayings for thinking about physics, and science in general. "All models are wrong, but some models are useful." What does this mean, and how does it relate to the nucleus of the atom? Can we work out how the atomic energy levels behave... without knowing the first thing about quantum mechanics or the strong nuclear force that binds the atom together? Physical Attraction is the podcast about physics, science, and technology. You can find further details about the show at www.physicspodcast.com - where you'll find the contact form, for any comments, questions, or concerns you may have. [I'm very good at responding to stuff that isn't spam.] You can also donate to the show via www.paypal.me/physicspodcast and you can subscribe to our Patreon via www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . Both will give you the opportunity to purchase our past bonus episodes for a nominal donation! The best way you can support the show, though, is to tell as many people about it as you possibly can. You can engage with us on social media - Twitter @physicspod and Facebook, Physical Attraction. Until next time, take care.

Our series of episodes on nuclear fusion begins with the Rutherford Gold Foil experiment, which first discovered the nucleus and changed our understanding of the atomic world forever. From an experiment "every bit as astonishing as if you shot a 15-inch shell at tissue paper and it bounced back", to the poor graduate students who had to stay up all night in pitch dark counting tiny flashes, we'll discuss this seminal experiment and its results. Physical Attraction is the podcast about physics, science, and technology. You can find further details about the show at www.physicspodcast.com - where you'll find the contact form, for any comments, questions, or concerns you may have. [I'm very good at responding to stuff that isn't spam.] You can also donate to the show via www.paypal.me/physicspodcast and you can subscribe to our Patreon via www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . Both will give you the opportunity to purchase our past bonus episodes for a nominal donation! The best way you can support the show, though, is to tell as many people about it as you possibly can. You can engage with us on social media - Twitter @physicspod and Facebook, Physical Attraction. Until next time, take care.

What happened when one of history's most esteemed biologists fought with one of history's most esteemed physicists about how old the Earth could be? And what has any of this got to do with nuclear fusion? Find out more in the next, exciting instalment of The Hitchhiker's Guide To --- I mean, Physical Attraction.

Physical Attraction is the podcast about physics, science, and technology. You can find further details about the show at www.physicspodcast.com - where you'll find the contact form, for any comments, questions, or concerns you may have. [I'm very good at responding to stuff that isn't spam.] You can also donate to the show via www.paypal.me/physicspodcast and you can subscribe to our Patreon via www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction . Both will give you the opportunity to purchase our past bonus episodes for a nominal donation! The best way you can support the show, though, is to tell as many people about it as you possibly can. You can engage with us on social media - Twitter @physicspod and Facebook, Physical Attraction. Until next time, take care.

In 1928, Huey Long was riding high. He'd beaten all opposition and achieved the second step in his life-plan. Get elected to minor public office, check. Get elected to the Governorship, check. There's little doubt given everything we know about him that he was already angling for a seat in the Senate - although in his early addresses he was already lying about "ridding the state of corruption and waste... without ambition for ever again holding another public office." A bold claim for a man who had "become President" on his to-do list.

But in order to do that, he would have to deliver on his outlandish promises that he'd made in the campaign to be Governer. He had to keep his base onside and prove that he wasn't the lying demagogue that his hated media constantly portrayed him to be. In the meantime, the powers that be in the state of Louisiana dusted themselves off and began strategizing how they would manipulate the young and inexperienced Governor to keep their interests at heart.

They had dealt with demagogues before; Huey was not unique in that respect, although few of them had made it to his lofty position. Confidence was probably high amongst the establishment that most of them could work with Huey, that things would continue more or less as they had before, and in a few years - promises largely broken - the political machines could wrestle back control. This was how many people thought it was going to go. A lot of them were mistaken.

"I would rather go down to a thousand impeachments than admit that I am the Governor of the state that does not dare to call the Standard Oil company to account so that we can educate our children and care for the destitute, sick, and afflicted." Huey called mass rallies, warning his supporters to "beware the lying newspapers, pay no attention to what they say". At the rallies, he quoted his favourite poem, Invictus:

"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul!" This is the story of the impeachment of Huey Long.

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Physical Attraction. In this episode, I interview Karin Kuhlemann on the subject of population. We touched on this briefly during the TEOTWAWKI specials, particularly in relation to the ancient ideas of Malthus - that famine might "correct" natural excesses of human population in due course. In that case, a technological fix in the form of agricultural and green revolutions allowed the Earth to support many times more people. But how sustainable is this? And, if you decide that the world is overpopulated, and there aren't enough natural resources to allow everyone to live fulfilling lives, what could we do to change this situation? Whenever I read any article about the environment, people in the comments section are often quick to blame "overpopulation" rather than "overconsumption", but seldom suggest any solutions that aren't utterly terrifying.

So all this means we have an interesting interview in store today. Karin Kuhlemann is a PhD candidate at the UCL Department of Political Theory and a practicing lawyer specialised in public, financial services and regulatory law. In the course of her PhD, she's published several articles in both the academic and popular press, and they're all well-worth reading: in this interview we particularly refer to "Any size population will do? The fallacy of aiming for stabilization of human numbers", but you can find several of them at http://ucl.academia.edu/KarinKuhlemann.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction. I think this topic is a truly important one to debate, even though it's incredibly complex and prone to all kinds of misunderstandings and moral hazards, emphasising one argument over another too much. Sometimes, dealing with humanity's problems isn't always easy: it requires difficult conversations. But if you'd like to be part of that conversation, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch to discuss this or any of our episodes - you can contact us via the form at www.physicspodcast.com, you can contact us on Twitter @physicspod or Facebook at the Physical Attraction page.

Soon, we'll be launching our series on nuclear fusion. I'm going through some very busy weeks at the start of this year, so it's possible that I might have to duck out for the odd week, but rest assured - there are enough scripts written for us to keep doing shows way into 2019, and I'm not done writing yet. So stick around, and we'll explore all kinds of things in the world of physics and beyond!

Until next time, be kind to each other.

This week, we're going to be talking to Amy Westervelt, host of the new podcast - Drilled - which looks into how fossil fuel companies secretly funded fossil fuel deniers and misled the public about the science. https://podtail.com/en/podcast/drilled/ Amy Westervelt is a print and radio reporter who contributes regularly to The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, Fast Company, and various NPR shows and stations. Her work has also appeared in The Guardian, Popular Science, Elle, Teen Vogue, and many other publications. She now hosts multiple podcasts via the Critical Frequency Podcast network. You can find her and the network

@CriticalFreqPod @AmyWestervelt

We had a fascinating conversation about climate change and politics in the United States, her inspiration behind the show, and the "true crime" aspects of denialism. So without further ado, my interview with Amy Westervelt. www.physicspodcast.com

@physicspod

Imagine, for a moment, that there was a politician in the United States very unlike the others. One who was willing to promise all things to all people, who had no qualms about changing his position on a daily basis. One who viciously attacked the establishment, made personal attacks on his opponents and gave them derogatory nicknames and violated every democratic norm in the book. One who fought against freedom of the press, and constantly denounced the 'lying newspapers', when they reported on the corruption that he was steeped in. A politician who was perfectly happy to tear up the constitution, and anyone who stood in his way, in order to achieve his ends. A demagogue whose rise and rise to power seemed absurd to the establishment, but made sense to the people, many of whom loved him and believed that he was the only one on their side. And, on this wave of popular support and crazy promises, and with a complete disregard for the way things should be done, a politician who set himself up as a ruthless, corrupt, kleptocratic dictator. Now imagine there was a politician in the US who fought against vested interests, big corporations, and argued tirelessly and energetically for redistribution of the wealth. A politician who was never afraid to speak his mind, and to speak truth to power: who had contempt for Washington because it was contemptible. A man of the people who was frustrated with being blocked and slandered at every turn, and the ineffective methods of his fellows at dealing with crisis, and subverted a corrupt and contemptible democracy on behalf of the ordinary people. He destroyed a system that needed destroying, and sought power in order to do the good that he knew other politicians couldn't do. A man with a sense of destiny, who was unfairly slandered and maligned by the vested interests and the wealthy elite that he sought to undermine. He would argue he was only doing openly what everyone else had done covertly for years. A man who said: 'A demagogue is someone who doesn't keep his promises to the people, and I kept every one of mine' - and many went along with him, and refused to believe any of the attempts to smear him, because they knew he was on their side. Both men existed in the manic, whirlwind frame of Huey P Long, who cut such a dramatic figure in Louisiana politics, and later national politics, in the 1920s and 30s. The man and the methods make him an irresistible figure for politicised histories. There are always two Hueys: the straight-talking man of the people who sought power to make things better, and the vicious demagogue who exploited lies and popular support to dominate the state and enrich himself. Now, more than ever - when there seem to be two of every major political figure floating around, depending on your stripes - we should examine such a life. It helps that it's also a quite incredible story, and Huey himself is as quotable a politician as has ever lived. In these episodes, we will deal with his origin story, from obscurity in Louisiana to running for office for the first time.