Podcasts about oxford physics

This time on Cleaning Up, Michael hosts Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, one of the UK's greatest living physicists, for a fascinating and detailed dive into the UK's energy storage requirements as it moves towards a fully carbon-free grid. Sir Chris is Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and a former Director-General of CERN. At CERN he steered the funding and commissioning of its Large Hadron Collider, and as a theoretical particle physicist, Sir Chris predicted the existence of the very particle - the Higgs Boson - that the Large Hadron Collider went on to help discover. Sir Chris is likely the only person ever to have been knighted for "services to particle physics." In the last few years Sir Chris has been busy leading a forthcoming Royal Society study on large-scale energy storage as part of the net-zero transition. He and Michael discuss the significance of storage to a newly configured, renewable grid, the likely cost of stored electricity, and the role of salt caverns in hosting hydrogen stores. Relevant Guest & Topic Links Sir Chris discussed the energy storage requirements of a net-zero UK at a virtual conference in March 2020. His slides are available here: https://www.era.ac.uk/write/MediaUploads/Other%20documents/Need_for_Storage_in_a_Net_0_World_Chris_Ll_S_23_3_20.pdf Discover more about Chris' storied career here: https://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/our-people/llewellyn-smith Watch Episode 104 with Yanis Varoufakis here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLbm8fg08hcWatch Episode 115 with Jorgo Chatzimarkakis here: https://youtu.be/_NCiEhprSOcWatched Episode 116 with Tom Samson here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjThq8c3tT4Guest Bio Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith FRS is a quantum field theorist and Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. Chris was Director of Energy Research at Oxford from 2011 to 2017, Director of the UK's fusion programme (2003-2009), Provost and President of University College London (1998-2001), Director General of CERN (1994-1998) when the Large Hadron Collider was approved and construction started, and was the first Chairman of Oxford Physics (1987-1992).  Chris holds a BA in Physics with First Class Honours from the University of Oxford, as well as a D.Phil in Theoretical Physics. He holds honorary doctorates from universities in the UK, Spain, Canada and China. He was knighted in 2001 for “services to particle physics.” He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded their Royal Medal in 2015. Chris captained Oxford's cross-country running team as an undergraduate in 1963. After completing his doctorate in 1967, Chris worked briefly in the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Bakers spend years perfecting their skill to make amazing cakes! But can you do it in minutes within a microwave? To find out we look into the science of baking and met up with Luke Jew, astronomer from the department of Oxford Physics, University of Oxford to find out...

The power of available computers has now grown exponentially for many decades. The ability to discover numerically the implications of equations and models has opened our eyes to previously hidden aspects of physics. In this lecture, Myles Allen addressed how computers have transformed our understanding of the role of chaos and exponential error growth in weather forecasting; and our understanding of how climate change is impacting regional weather. He showed how research in Oxford Physics, made possible by high-end computing, is demonstrating the crucial role of eddies in controlling ocean climate; and how the probability of extreme weather events may respond to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. He concluded by throwing out a more controversial suggestion that super-computers haven’t really contributed very much to the problem of predicting century-timescale changes in global average temperature, however much they may have contributed to understanding the regional implications of large-scale warming.

Tiffany Harte, Oxford Physics, discusses absolute zero temperatures and how by cooling atoms in a lab we can aim to replicate the coldest place in the Universe. I will be discussing how we cool atoms to create the coldest place in the Universe in the middle of a lab, and the fascinating states that emerge from these ultracold gases. We will look at cooling using lasers and evaporation, and see how the Highland Fling can explain giant quantum states.

A short flash talk from Peter Hatfield, Oxford Physics, who discusses the origins of the galaxies we see in our night sky and the mysterious nature of dark matter. Galaxies are huge clusters of hundreds of billions of stars - the Milky Way is our galaxy, itself just one of many billions more. But even these are diminutive compared with the sea in which they swim, dark matter, an unknown substance we cannot see with our telescopes. We will look back in time over more than half the age of the Universe to see how galaxies sloshed about in this ocean of dark matter during their creation and development, hopefully helping us learn more about the galaxies we see today and potentially even something about the mysterious nature of dark matter itself.

Tiffany Harte, Oxford Physics, discusses absolute zero temperatures and how by cooling atoms in a lab we can aim to replicate the coldest place in the Universe. I will be discussing how we cool atoms to create the coldest place in the Universe in the middle of a lab, and the fascinating states that emerge from these ultracold gases. We will look at cooling using lasers and evaporation, and see how the Highland Fling can explain giant quantum states.

A short flash talk from Peter Hatfield, Oxford Physics, who discusses the origins of the galaxies we see in our night sky and the mysterious nature of dark matter. Galaxies are huge clusters of hundreds of billions of stars - the Milky Way is our galaxy, itself just one of many billions more. But even these are diminutive compared with the sea in which they swim, dark matter, an unknown substance we cannot see with our telescopes. We will look back in time over more than half the age of the Universe to see how galaxies sloshed about in this ocean of dark matter during their creation and development, hopefully helping us learn more about the galaxies we see today and potentially even something about the mysterious nature of dark matter itself.

An exciting talk and demonstration about superconductivity and its potential practical applications by Ben Williams, Oxford Physics. Superconductivity is a weird property of some materials that has exciting applications both in the lab and outside, in new technologies. The only problem is, we don't quite know what makes superconductivity work! In this talk, you'll see superconductivity in action and find out how, just like modern-day alchemists, physicists are looking to turn the mundane into the magical!

An exciting talk and demonstration about superconductivity and its potential practical applications by Ben Williams, Oxford Physics. Superconductivity is a weird property of some materials that has exciting applications both in the lab and outside, in new technologies. The only problem is, we don't quite know what makes superconductivity work! In this talk, you'll see superconductivity in action and find out how, just like modern-day alchemists, physicists are looking to turn the mundane into the magical!

Dr John Wheater (Head of Physics Department), Emeritus Professor Derek Stacey and Dr Jay Watson (alumnus), give a talk about the Oxford Physics department and the study of physics today.

Dr John Wheater (Head of Physics Department), Emeritus Professor Derek Stacey and Dr Jay Watson (alumnus), give a talk about the Oxford Physics department and the study of physics today.