Physical Attraction

The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the formation of black holes. And, in short, they are: You can't win. You can't break even. You can't get out of the game. These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end. This episode deals with the Third Law of Thermodynamics - regarding the impossibility of attaining absolute zero. We'll also discuss the seeming paradox that, while you cannot reduce matter to a temperature of absolute zero in a finite time, you can have negative absolute temperatures.... according to certain definitions of temperature. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!

In this episode of Physical Attraction, we'll talk about the breaking news surrounding the birth of the world's first genetically modified CRISPR baby. "He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who claims to have helped produce the first people born with edited genomes — twin girls — appeared today at a gene-editing summit in Hong Kong to explain his experiment. He gave his talk amid threats of legal action and mounting questions, from the scientific community and beyond, about the ethics of his work and the way in which he released the results." - Nature Magazine. This experiment, which - if confirmed - marks the first instance where a genetically modified human was born - may well have crossed the Rubicon and opened Pandora's Box on behalf of humanity, to mix metaphors. An ethical and scientific storm is already brewing. We'll describe and discuss the experiment, and what it might mean, and then brief you on the future of the show. www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

• Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1915), chapter 4

And yet, throughout the years and decades and centuries, countless people have tried to convince others that they hold the key to violating the laws of thermodynamics and generating limitless amounts of free energy. Here, in the spirit of narrative fun, we explore the vast array of free energy scams that have been perpetrated over the years - from the age of PT Barnum style "inventors" to the age of GoFundMe and the tragic tale of the self-recharging battery. It didn't work. None of them work. Not the nuclear reactor that was secretly powered by wires. Not the magic liquid that could turn water into gasoline. Free energy is a scam as old as time, and yet people still seem to be taken in by it - often to the tune of millions of dollars. If you take only one thing from Physical Attraction, let it be this: It's much easier and infinitely likely that the laws being broken are laws that prohibit fraud, and not the Laws of Thermodynamics. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. If you're trying to sell me your free energy device, please, feel free to pitch it so that I can laugh and then report you to the authorities. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!

A brief appendix explaining why the definitions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics really just mean the same thing.

The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the formation of black holes. And, in short, they are: You can't win. You can't break even. You can't get out of the game. These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end. This episode deals with the Second Law of Thermodynamics - regarding the inevitable increase of entropy and the ultimate fate of the Universe. This is a law so philosophically profound that it is believed by many to have contributed to the suicide of one of its discoverers, Boltzmann. So, while you're still acting to keep your own entropy low by increasing the entropy of the Universe (a.k.a fighting the good fight), take a listen. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!

The laws of thermodynamics govern the flow of energy - from your coffee cup to the sparse plasma floating between stars to the formation of black holes. And, in short, they are: You can't win. You can't break even. You can't get out of the game. These laws, which were first derived by dreaming of ideal heat engines, turned out to have profound and vital physical and philosophical consequences. Far from just relating to an arbitrary concept called "temperature", they can teach us about how the Universe began - and how it will all, inevitably end. This episode deals with the First Law of Thermodynamics - regarding the conservation of energy. So kick your heels back in nice warm surroundings and take a listen. You can listen to all of our archived episodes up at www.physicspodcast.com or listen to our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com. On the physicspodcast website, you will find a contact form where you can discuss any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions for future show topics or interview guests - we'd love to hear from you. You can also donate to the show there, or buy some bonus episodes to help support us: we have a Patreon, or you can label your Paypal donation and I will send you the episodes. You can also contact us via Twitter @physicspod or @autocracynow. Thanks for listening, and tell fellow thermodynamic systems about the show!

Towards the end of Stalin's life, he became ever more paranoid, embittered, isolated, and vengeful. As his various ministers and members of the Politburo jockeyed for power and position around him, using his fits of paranoia to exact revenge on one another, the only thing that united them all was fear. This is the final omnibus in the series from our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, which brings the biography of Stalin to its conclusion. Listen to the rest of the show over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com

The Starshot Project is one of those rare, exciting technological plans that seems to come straight out of science fiction - a plan to visit the nearest star to Earth within our lifetimes. It will require huge technological advancements in virtually every relevant field, but it's still the most feasible way to get to the stars. We'll discuss the project, how it would work, and the physics of why interstellar travel is so damn difficult. Comments? Questions? Concerns? Praise? Rage? Visit the website at www.physicspodcast.com Follow us on that Tweet website at @physicspod. We have a Facebook page if that's your tech giant of choice. Don't forget our sister podcast, Autocracy Now, just about to wrap up the life of Stalin in its series of shows on the lives of notorious dictators and wannabe dictators.

A recent report released at https://maliciousaireport.com/ on the potential malicious uses for artificial intelligence brings us sharply to the present. In the TEOTWAWKI episodes on AI, we focused on "hard AI" - the potentials for chaos and rapid change if artificial intelligence becomes "truly sentient". But in the shorter term, machine-learning algorithms and increasing automation are already impacting all of our lives to a greater extent. Recent efforts at electoral manipulation, for example, exploited aspects of the algorithms used by social media companies. Meanwhile, as we turn over the wheel to self-driving cars and the economy to automated industries, we are changing the nature of society - and the potential risks of abuse. These episodes will talk about the near-term potential for machine learning and AI to be used maliciously over the next decade or two. To contact the show: www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod Don't forget our sister show, wrapping up the life of Stalin over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com Comments, concerns, criticism, praise all welcome via the contact link at www.physicspodcast.com

A recent report released at https://maliciousaireport.com/ on the potential malicious uses for artificial intelligence brings us sharply to the present. In the TEOTWAWKI episodes on AI, we focused on "hard AI" - the potentials for chaos and rapid change if artificial intelligence becomes "truly sentient". But in the shorter term, machine-learning algorithms and increasing automation are already impacting all of our lives to a greater extent. Recent efforts at electoral manipulation, for example, exploited aspects of the algorithms used by social media companies. Meanwhile, as we turn over the wheel to self-driving cars and the economy to automated industries, we are changing the nature of society - and the potential risks of abuse. These episodes will talk about the near-term potential for machine learning and AI to be used maliciously over the next decade or two. To contact the show: www.physicspodcast.com @physicspod Don't forget our sister show, wrapping up the life of Stalin over at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com Comments, concerns, criticism, praise all welcome via the contact link at www.physicspodcast.com