Relatively Certain

Relatively Certain episodes:

• 08.18.2023

  Putting On a Particle Play

  Back in the 1950s, theoretical physicists postulated that the kinds of particles we actually see in nature are just the tip of the iceberg. Many other types of particles with weird properties, which they termed paraparticles, were popping out of...

  
• 08.23.2022

  Quantum-Safe Algorithms Face Off in NIST’s Cryptography Showdown

  While browsing the web, you might not realize that the security of your online transactions is guaranteed by a hard-to-crack math problem called factoring. But this security could evaporate in an instant—if a big enough quantum computer is built. Computers...

  
• 05.18.2022

  Science in Quarantine: A Rush to Go Remote

  In this episode, we look back at the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when impending lab closures were threatening scientific progress and graduate student careers. We sit down with Laird Egan, then a graduate student in physics at JQI,...

  
• 10.11.2021

  Diamonds Are a Quantum Sensing Scientist’s Best Friend

  We all know that diamonds can hold great sentimental (and monetary) value. As luck may have it, diamonds—particularly defective ones, with little errors in their crystal structure—also hold great scientific value. The defects have properties that can only be described...

  
• 05.19.2021

  The Secrets Atoms Hold, Part 2: Gravity

  In this episode of Relatively Certain, JQI Adjunct Fellow Marianna Safronova and JQI Fellow Charles Clark return to discuss the limits of our understanding of gravity, and how new experiments with atom interferometers may be the key to not only...

  
• 12.22.2020

  Science in Quarantine: Microscopy Migrates from Lab to Living Room

  In the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic, the luckiest among us have simply been relegated to working from home. And many people have had to find creative ways to turn their home into an office, a classroom, or—in the...

  
• 09.25.2020

  The Secrets Atoms Hold, Part 1: Search for Dark Matter

  In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina Genkina sits down with JQI Adjunct Fellow Marianna Safronova, a physics professor at the University of Delaware, and JQI Fellow Charles Clark, an adjunct professor of physics at UMD and a fellow of...

  
• 04.09.2020

  Donuts, Donut Holes and Topological Superconductors

  In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina Genkina sits down with JQI Fellow Jay Sau, an associate professor of physics at UMD, and Johnpierre Paglione, a professor of physics at UMD and the director of the Quantum Materials Center.

  
• 02.03.2020

  Labs IRL: A Craving for Code

  Software just might be the unsung hero of physics labs. In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina sits down with JQI postdoctoral researcher and programming aficionado Chris Billington to talk about his passion project—a piece of experimental control software that’s...

  
• 09.06.2019

  Taming chaos with physics and AI

  In many situations, chaos makes it nearly impossible to predict what will happen next. Nowhere is this more apparent than in weather forecasts, which are notorious for their unreliability. But the clever application of artificial intelligence can help reign in...

  
• 10.09.2018

  Black holes: The ultimate cosmic whisks

  Chaos. Time travel. Quantum entanglement. Each may play a role in figuring out whether black holes are the universe’s ultimate information scramblers. In this episode of Relatively Certain, Chris sits down with Brian Swingle, a QuICS Fellow and assistant professor of...

  
• 06.01.2018

  Life at the edge of the world

  What's it like living and working in Antarctica? Upon returning from a five-week trip to the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, UMD graduate student Liz Friedman sat down with Chris and Emily to chat about her experience. In this episode, Friedman...

  
• 03.09.2018

  Physics at the edge of the world

  Deep within the ice covering the South Pole, thousands of sensitive cameras strain their digital eyes in search of a faint blue glow—light that betrays the presence of high-energy neutrinos. For this episode, Chris sat down with UMD graduate student Liz...

  
• 12.21.2017

  Ancient timekeeping with a modern twist

  Trey Porto, a NIST physicist and Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute, spends his days using atoms and lasers to study quantum physics. But even outside of the lab, he views the world as one great physics problem to tackle....

  
• 10.04.2017

  The Nobel Prize: A LIGO Q&A

  A little more than a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein worked out a consequence of his new theory of gravity: Much like waves traveling through water, ripples can undulate through space and time, distorting the fabric of the universe itself....

  
• 08.01.2017

  Long live MATHUSLA

  More than 300 feet underground, looping underneath both France and Switzerland on the outskirts of Geneva, a 16-mile-long ring called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) smashes protons together at nearly the speed of light. Sifting through the wreckage, scientists have...

  
• 07.10.2017

  Labs IRL: Boxing up atomic ions

  What makes a university physics lab tick? Sean Kelley grabs a mic and heads to a lab that's trying to build an early quantum computer out of atomic ions. Marko Cetina and Kai Hudek, two research scientists at the University...

  
• 05.19.2017

  The limits of computation

  Modern computers, which dwarf their forebears in speed and efficiency, still can't conquer some of the hardest computational problems. Making them even faster probably won't change that. Computer scientists working in the field of computational complexity theory explore the ultimate limits...

  
• 04.05.2017

  JQI Podcast Episode 12 : HAWC and the high-energy gamma rays

  In our own galaxy and beyond, violent collisions fling a never-ending stream of stuff at the earth, and astrophysicists are eager to learn more about the processes that produce this cosmic barrage.

  
• 04.04.2017

  JQI Podcast Episode 12

  In our own galaxy and beyond, violent collisions fling a never-ending stream of stuff at the earth, and astrophysicists are eager to learn more about the processes that produce this cosmic barrage.Researchers from around the world have teamed up to...

  
• 09.06.2016

  Taming chaos with physics and AI

  In many situations, chaos makes it nearly impossible to predict what will happen next. Nowhere is this more apparent than in weather forecasts, which are notorious for their unreliability. But the clever application of artificial intelligence can help reign in...

  
• 10.31.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 11 - Discovery of heavy water makes waves

  This past March, NIST Fellows Joseph Reader and Charles Clark co-authored an article in Physics Today: "1932, a watershed year in nuclear physics." In a small detour from our typical quantum conversation, Charles sat down with Phil to recount some remarkable...

  
• 10.30.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 11

  This past March, NIST Fellows Joseph Reader and Charles Clark co-authored an article in Physics Today: "1932, a watershed year in nuclear physics."In a small detour from our typical quantum conversation, Charles sat down with Phil to recount some remarkable...

  
• 09.20.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 10 - Energy Levels: This isn't your great-grandmother's plum pudding

  Phil Schewe discusses quantized energy levels with Steve Rolston (JQI) and Wes Campbell (former JQI postdoc and current UCLA professor). The concept of electronic energy levels in an atom has applications everywhere, from sodium lamps to brake lights to quantum...

  
• 09.19.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 10

  Phil Schewe discusses quantized energy levels with Steve Rolston (JQI) and Wes Campbell (former JQI postdoc and current UCLA professor). The concept of electronic energy levels in an atom has applications everywhere, from sodium lamps to brake lights to quantum...

  
• 08.08.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 9 - That's really tiny: Story of a photon

  Can you see a single photon? Does it weigh anything? Emily Edwards talks to Alan Migdall, an expert on single photon technology. Part 2 of three installments on photons.

  
• 08.08.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 9

  Can you see a single photon? Does it weigh anything? Emily Edwards talks to Alan Migdall, an expert on single photon technology. Part 2 of three installments on photons.

  
• 05.21.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 8

  Phil Schewe discusses how matter, such as atoms and electrons, can display wave-like properties. Steve Rolston describes early scattering experiments. Gretchen Campbell talks about matter waves in the context of modern Bose-Einstein condensate experiments.

  
• 04.03.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 7 - A dual personality: What is a photon?

  Emily Edwards and guests Steve Rolston and Alan Migdall talk about the history of the photon. Photons sometimes behave both like particles and waves. The nature of light has intrigued scientists for centuries. Quantum physics provides clarity in the early...

  
• 04.03.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 8 - Waves Matter for Studying Matter

  Phil Schewe discusses how matter, such as atoms and electrons, can display wave-like properties. Steve Rolston describes early scattering experiments. Gretchen Campbell talks about matter waves in the context of modern Bose-Einstein condensate experiments.

  
• 04.03.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 7

  Emily Edwards and guests Steve Rolston and Alan Migdall talk about the history of the photon. Photons sometimes behave both like particles and waves. The nature of light has intrigued scientists for centuries. Quantum physics provides clarity in the early...

  
• 03.05.2013

  JQI Podcast Episode 6

  Solving the mystery of blackbody radiation brings on the quantum revolution. Phil Schewe, Emily Edwards, and Steve Rolston discuss this pivotal moment for modern physics. 2006 Nobel Prize laureate John Mather discusses how his work relates to blackbody radiation. (This...

  
• 08.08.2010

  JQI Podcast Episode 5

  Fifty years ago, Theodore Maiman invented the laser. Steve Rolston and two guest experts describe how the device has utterly transformed quantum information science.

  
• 06.17.2010

  JQI Podcast Episode 4

  Modern timekeeping, and the ongoing effort to slice time into ever-thinner pieces, now depend critically on techniques of quantum information science.

  
• 05.24.2010

  JQI Podcast Episode 3

  TQW looks at recent research in the weird world of "ultracold" chemistry, where scientists have just discovered that chemical reactions can occur at only a few billionths of a degree above absolute zero.

  
• 04.22.2010

  JQI Podcast Episode 2

  A discussion of one of the most eerie aspects of quantum mechanics -- the utter randomness of measurements -- with guest Dr. Chris Monroe of JQI. Topics include the weird state called "entanglement," and the uses of quantum-mechanical systems for...

  
• 03.18.2010

  JQI Podcast Episode 1

  A primer on the fundamental terms and concepts of quantum information science, with guest Dr. Carl Williams, Chief of the Atomic Physics Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Topics include the bizarre condition called superposition, the nature...