The History of Physics Podcast

The History of Physics Podcast

By History Podcasts & Josh LinskSociety & CultureDocumentaryScienceHistory
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The History of Physics Podcast episodes

  • Al‑Biruni’s Mountain Survey: Measuring the Earth in the 10th Century

    In the early tenth century, Persian scholar Al‑Biruni used a mountain peak in Khwarazm to estimate Earth's radius with unprecedented precision. The episode traces his ingenious trigonometric method, the political patronage of Caliph al‑Mamun, and the lasting impact on navigation, astronomy, and global measurement standards.

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    15 min
  • Joule’s Paddle Wheel: Turning Work into Heat and Shaping Energy Conservation

    James Prescott Joule's 1843 paddle‑wheel experiment in a Manchester brewery proved that mechanical work can be converted into heat, overturning the caloric theory and laying groundwork for the first law of thermodynamics. This episode traces Joule’s meticulous measurements, the debate he sparked among contemporaries, and how his findings reshaped engineering, energy policy, and our modern understanding of conservation.

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    20 min
  • From Mass to Bombs: How Einstein’s Equation Sparked Nuclear Power

    Einstein’s 1905 insight that mass equals energy set the stage for Fermi’s Chicago Pile‑1 and the first controlled nuclear chain reaction, which in turn paved the way for the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. This episode traces the scientific journey—from theoretical formulation to experimental validation—and examines how measurement tools, political pressure, and engineering ingenuity turned a simple formula into world‑changing technology.

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    17 min
  • Thomas Young’s Double‑Slit Experiment: Light’s Wave Legacy

    In 1801 Thomas Young turned a simple paper slit into the first solid evidence that light behaves like a wave, challenging Newtonian particles and laying groundwork for quantum mechanics. This episode traces that experiment’s origins, its ripple through physics—from ether debates to modern interferometers—and why it remains a touchstone in experimental design.

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    16 min
  • Neutron Economy: How a Hidden Clue Sparked the First Self‑Sustaining Nuclear Reaction

    In this episode we follow Enrico Fermi and his Chicago team as they turn neutron physics into an engineering reality, calculate critical mass, build the first pile, and ignite the Manhattan Project. We trace how that single observation of neutron moderation reshaped war, power generation, and the entire field of nuclear science.

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    15 min
  • Avicenna’s Impetus: The Precursor to Inertia

    Explore how 11th‑century Persian scholar Avicenna (Ibn Sina) introduced al‑mayl, an early impulse theory that challenged Aristotle and foreshadowed Newtonian inertia. Hear the cultural context, key figures, and lasting influence on modern physics.

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    16 min
  • Einstein’s Photon Revolution: Light as a Particle

    From the puzzling photoelectric effect to Einstein’s 1905 photon hypothesis, this episode traces how a simple idea reshaped our understanding of light. We explore the experiments that confirmed photons, the ripple through quantum theory, and the lasting impact on technology from lasers to particle detectors.

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    17 min
  • Schrödinger’s Cat and the Birth of Quantum Reality

    Schrödinger’s 1926 wave equation set the stage for modern quantum mechanics, but it was his later thought experiment—‘the cat’—that exposed a clash between deterministic equations and probabilistic reality. The episode traces how Schrödinger, Einstein, Bohr, and later decoherence theory wrestled with this paradox, reshaping concepts of measurement, superposition, and the very meaning of physical law. It shows why that absurd picture still fuels quantum computing research and public imagination today.

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    20 min

About The History of Physics Podcast

From the publisher's feed

Explore the extraordinary history of physics, from the earliest attempts to explain motion, matter, light, and the heavens to the discoveries that transformed our understanding of space, time, energy, atoms, and the universe. The History of Physics Podcast follows the thinkers, experiments, equations, instruments, institutions, and scientific revolutions that built modern physics across thousands of years.