Sometimes I am surprised what sparks controversy on social media. A few weeks ago, I talked about the question whether quantum mechanics requires complex numbers that turned out to spark more arguments than expected. I recently stumbled over an even weirder topic, is 2+2 always =4? That's what we'll talk about on Saturday -- see you there :)
We have talked a few times about how scientists can fool themselves into believing they've discovered something when really there is nothing, eg in my videos about data anomalies in particle physics or in the one about alleged alien discoveries. This weekend we look at some of the psychological quirks that trigger such "sightings": Apophenia, pareidolia, and anthropomorphism. This video will be fun! See you Saturday.
2021-06-03 10:14:31 +0000 UTC
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One of the things that's been interesting with switching from writing to video is that some topics that will do fine as a written piece won't work as video at all, and some topics that wouldn't work in writing will do fine as a video. In the latter category are answers to tricky science problems that are maybe not new but that are difficult to wrap one's head around. On Saturday, I'll pick up one of those tricky questions that has been much asked-for: What does the universe expand into? And a...
2021-05-26 16:26:57 +0000 UTC View PostOne of the things that worries me about popular science news is the abundance of headlines about discoveries that are never heard of again. We already talked some weeks ago about alleged particle discoveries that turned out to be statistical noise. On Saturday, I'll summarize some alleged alien discoveries that turned out to be natural phenomena. I think this is really useful to keep in mind to put big headlines into context.
2021-05-20 05:16:52 +0000 UTC
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I know I talk about quantum things a lot. That's because quantum technologies are developing so super quickly now. It's hard to keep track of what's going on. For the next view we have made a lot of effort to summarize the most important quantum computing technologies, their pros and cons, and who is working on what. This has been months in the making and each time I thought it's time, something new came up!
2021-05-12 12:57:13 +0000 UTC
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In the past weeks, I have been working like crazy on my new book, which will hopefully be published a year from now. When I was looking for the original reference of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" I fell into a rabbit hole of letters exchanged between Albert Einstein, Max Born, and Paul Dirac. I learned a lot from that. On Saturday, I tell you what I think Einstein really meant by "spooky action at a distance."
2021-05-05 16:39:10 +0000 UTC
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A few weeks ago I gave a seminar about my research on dark matter. It was both livestreamed on YouTube and also recorded. However, the recording hasn't been published yet and I don't have a copy. Since many of you asked about it, I decided to make a brief, non-technical summary of that seminar, explaining how my opinion about dark matter has changed in the past 20 years.
I have gotten a lot of requests to comment on Fermilab's recent measurements that confirmed the muon g-2 anomaly or, earlier this month, on the B-meson anomaly at the Large Hadron Collider. But there isn't really a lot to say. Anomalies come and go. So I decided to instead make a video about anomalies that have come and did go, so that you can draw your own conclusions about how seriously to take 3 sigma.
2021-04-22 09:54:57 +0000 UTC
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Hope you enjoyed the two part video on extra dimensions. I can't find enough time to do more than 10 minutes a week, but since the two-part solution worked quite well, I might do some longer pieces in the future that way. This week we have an extra video about Elon Musk's carbon X-prize, though in all honesty it's just a welcome excuse to talk about carbon capture, something that I've always wanted to look closer into. Video will be up later this afternoon.
2021-04-20 11:10:52 +0000 UTC
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Well, after last week's video was Part 1 about Higher Dimensions, it isn't hard to guess that this Saturday, we'll have Part 2! We will talk about what extra dimensions of space have to do with black holes at the Large Hadron Collider, and whether it makes sense to dream of traveling through hyperspace.
Last week we talked about Stephen Hawking's achievements. Hawking is famous for his calculation showing that black holes emit radiation, now called "Hawking radiation". But this would be observable only if tiny black holes could be created in particle colliders. For this you need additional dimensions of space. This gave me the idea to do a two-part video about higher dimensions. On the coming Saturday, we will talk about the origin of the idea and Kaluza-Klein theory. And next week, we will ...
2021-04-07 06:17:39 +0000 UTC View PostLast week, we talked about the idea that the universe is a hologram, what string theorists call the "holographic principle". String theory of course is famous for conjecturing that the universe isn't only a hologram but also has six additional dimensions of space. One of the consequences of this is that it might become possible to produce black holes in particle colliders. Stephen Hawking has repeatedly joked that if the LHC would see these black holes he might win a Nobel Prize. Was that a r...
2021-04-01 04:12:48 +0000 UTC View PostPhysicists certainly have a knack for inventing catchy terms. Think of "dark energy", "worm holes" or "penguin diagrams". This weekend we will look at another phrase that has caught the public imagination, the "holographic principle". How do holograms work and what do they have in common with the universe according to string theorists?
One of the major reasons I ended up having a YouTube channel is that I like to look at the scientific literature rather than just the media reports about it, and making a video is always a good excuse for that. So on Saturday we will look at a discovery that made big headline a few months ago, that researchers had found phosphine on Venus and that this might be a sign of life. Several other papers have since criticized the original study and in my new video, I'll tell you what they all said a...
2021-03-17 05:18:35 +0000 UTC View PostI spent the New Year's break thinking about where our YouTube channel should go, looking at your comments, and talking to friends and colleagues. One of the conclusions I came to is that we will cover a larger variety of topics. For one it's because I myself like learning new things. But also because I think there's a lot of interesting science that doesn't get the coverage it deserves.
On Saturday we'll be talking about one such underrated topic that is, believe that or not, the scie...
I hope you enjoyed last week's video about Schrödinger's cat! I find it amazing how much progress there has been in quantum technologies in the past two decades to make these new experiments possible. But I guess deep down I'm still a theoretician, and so, next week we'll talk about math again. More specifically, we'll look at the question whether physics needs complex numbers. What are they good for, what do physicists use them for, and are they actually necessary? I hope you'll be as stunn...
2021-03-03 05:08:59 +0000 UTC View PostLast week, we talked about some new developments, China's push for weather modification and the unexpectedly slow recovery of the ozone layer over the tropics. On Saturday, we'll return to a timeless topic: Schrödinger's cat. Far from being an old idea, it's still giving physicists headaches today, and I tell you about some recent research on it.
One of the things that bugs me about science reporting in the media is that they cover a lot of stuff I think isn't worth the attention (and, yeah, I'll have something to say about life on Venus in a few weeks). Another thing that bugs me is that some topics I think deserve attention aren't mentioned. On Wednesday I tell you about a development of the latter type, some recent research on the ozone layer that I think more people should know about.
2021-02-23 05:01:42 +0000 UTC
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I hope you enjoyed the new channel trailer, in which I explain what the idea is behind Science without the gobbledygook. Though, in all honesty, I am not entirely sure myself where we are going with this! So, your feedback is very much appreciated. We really want this channel to be useful for you, so let us know what you would like to see more, or less, of.
After last week's look at what happens when philosophers do physics but don't notice, on the coming weekend, we are looking at an ...
Last week was all about new technologies, some of which deserve the attention that they get, some not. This week I want to return to a topic that inevitably makes big headlines whenever it comes up, but that conflates science with religion: The simulation hypothesis, that is, the idea that we live in a computer simulation. On Saturday, we'll talk about just what that would mean and why, alas, it's not a scientific hypothesis.
2021-02-11 06:10:46 +0000 UTC
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Two days ago, our channel crossed the 200k subscribers mark! Thanks everyone for being here, you support is instrumental to keeping "Science without the gobbledygook" going. On the coming weekend, we are separating the wheat from the chaff in headlines about quantum things. Quantum computing, quantum simulations, the quantum internet -- what's up with all that and what is the most common hype that you should be wary of? We'll go through this on Saturday.
2021-02-03 17:32:15 +0000 UTC
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Hi Everybody! First of all, welcome to the newcomers and thanks to all of you -- you are making it so much easier for me to continue with the videos. For now, all your donations go to the videographer who edits my recordings. This has freed up my time to look into some new topics, so on the coming weekend we will talk about what's behind the recent headline that the protein folding problem was "solved" by artificial intelligence.
2021-01-27 11:57:45 +0000 UTC
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In the past weeks, we covered a range of topics in the foundations of physics, the reality of time, the mathematics of consciousness, and the question whether the universe is finetuned for life. This week we look at a less philosophical but not less fundamental question, where atoms come from. How do they form and how did they get here and are there atoms that we haven't seen so far?
I hope you enjoyed last week's video about the consciousness conference. While I personally think that we will eventually have a satisfactory, mathematical model of consciousness, I don't think that will happen in my lifetime. And whether such a model will ever be predictive, rather than just descriptive, is a different story entirely. (And one of the topics of my next book.)
On the next weekend, we take on the question whether the universe is somehow especially made for us.
Many of you will remember that last year I talked for a bit about determinism and free will. Needless to say, it is a topic that physicists discuss a lot, though they don't always want to be caught doing it... I was lucky to attend a workshop on the mathematics and physics of consciousness just before COVID shut down the world. In my next video, I briefly summarize some of the most interesting topics that were discussed at the workshop, among others, Integrated Information Theory and the Stua...
2021-01-07 11:37:58 +0000 UTC View PostWe have almost left the year 2020 behind us! As you know, I now have help from a professional videographer, so beginning with the next video, you will probably see a change in style. Let me know how you like it!
The first topic of the New Year will be "Is Time Real?" A brief dive into the nature of time, why physicists are questioning its reality, and what that even means.
Hi everybody! Happy holidays and great to see you here :) This week is a busy one for Science without the gobbledygook, because I have two mid-week videos coming up. On Wednesday, we'll have a fun one about "How to talk like a physicist" and on Thursday we'll have a short one with the first of my from now on monthly Patreon shout-outs, and some channel updates.
2020-12-27 07:32:41 +0000 UTC
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Hi Everybody :) Thanks for being here and thanks for your patience while I try to figure out how this site works. On Saturday we talked about the new 5G technology. Next week we will talk a little more about radiation. What is radiation, what different types are there, and what information do you need to figure out whether a type of radiation is harmful. This video was a spin-off of me trying to figure out whether "radiation hormesis" is science or pseudoscience. If you don't know what that e...
2020-12-21 06:27:21 +0000 UTC View PostIn the first half of December we spoke about infinity and singularities, both the mathematics and the question whether they are physically real. Next weekend, we will turn to a more timely topic, namely the new 5G wireless network technology. What's new about it and why are some people scared of it? What does the science say?
