x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Relatively Certain

The Joint Quantum Institute

Hear the latest news about everything from quantum computers to astrophysics, all straight from scientists at the University of Maryland.

science & medicine natural sciences

All Episodes

17:52

Putting On a Particle Play

Relatively Certain ·

2023/08/18

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 the math as theoretical possibilities. But as physicists discovered more about the fundamental particles seen in nature, they found no evidence for paraparticles.In 2016 Cinthia Alderete, then a graduate student in theoretical physics, discovered a way to

en

19:36

Quantum-Safe Algorithms Face Off in NIST’s...

Relatively Certain ·

2022/08/23

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 that store information in quantum hardware—like individual ions, atoms or photons—would make quick work of the factoring problem and threaten the safety of current protocols. To thwart the threat posed by possible quantum computers, the National

en

11:53

Science in Quarantine: A Rush to Go Remote

Relatively Certain ·

2022/05/18

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, and hear about how he and his lab mates managed to turn their ion-based quantum computer into a remote-controlled experiment in a matter of weeks. We also learn how they used their newly remote lab to achieve a milestone in quantum computing.

en

19:30

Diamonds Are a Quantum Sensing Scientist’s Best Friend

Relatively Certain ·

2021/10/11

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 by quantum mechanics, and researchers are working on harnessing these properties to pick up on tiny signals coming from individual biological cells.

en

19:30

The Secrets Atoms Hold, Part 2: Gravity

Relatively Certain ·

2021/05/19

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 a higher-precision understanding of gravity but also possible new physics.

en

15:15

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

Relatively Certain ·

2020/09/25

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 the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to talk about how precision measurements with atoms might shed some light on matter that’s otherwise dark.

en

16:50

Donuts, Donut Holes and Topological Superconductors

Relatively Certain ·

2020/04/09

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.

en

14:04

Labs IRL: A Craving for Code

Relatively Certain ·

2020/02/03

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 gaining popularity in labs here at the University of Maryland and around the world.

en

9:35

Black holes: The ultimate cosmic whisks

Relatively Certain ·

2018/10/09

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 physics at UMD, to learn about some of the latest theoretical research on black holes—and how experiments to test some of these theories are getting tantalizingly close.

en

12:01

Life at the edge of the world

Relatively Certain ·

2018/06/01

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 shares some of her memories of station life and explains how plans at the pole don't always pan out. This episode of Relatively Certain was produced by Chris Cesare, Emily Edwards and Dina Genkina. It features music by Dave Depper. Relatively Certain is a

en

10:25

Physics at the edge of the world

Relatively Certain ·

2018/03/09

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 Friedman and physics professor Kara Hoffman to learn more about IceCube, the massive underground neutrino observatory located in one of the most desolate spots on Earth. It turns out that IceCube is blind to the highest-energy neutrinos, and Friedman

en

10:32

Ancient timekeeping with a modern twist

Relatively Certain ·

2017/12/21

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. So one morning when he spotted some sunlight dancing across his wall, he couldn’t help but dive in and calculate its movements. He then took his project a step further and began constructing a sundial. Emily sat down with Porto to hear about his clock-making hobby and how

en

9:34

The Nobel Prize: A LIGO Q&A

Relatively Certain ·

2017/10/04

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. Today, Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics for decades of work that culminated in the detection of gravitational waves in 2015—and several times since—by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave

en

11:45

Long live MATHUSLA

Relatively Certain ·

2017/08/01

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 made some profound discoveries about the fundamental nature of our universe. But what if all that chaos underground is shrouding subtle hints of new physics? David Curtin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Maryland Center for Fundamental

en

8:19

Labs IRL: Boxing up atomic ions

Relatively Certain ·

2017/07/10

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 of Maryland who run the lab, explain what it takes to keep things from burning down and muse about the future of quantum computers. This is the first installment of Labs in Real Life—Labs IRL, for short—a recurring segment on Relatively Certain that will explore what it's

en

12:12

The limits of computation

Relatively Certain ·

2017/05/19

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 of computers, cataloguing and classifying a universe of computational problems. For decades, they’ve been stuck on a particular nagging question, which boils down to this: What’s the relationship between solving a

en

14:28

JQI Podcast Episode 12 : HAWC and the high-energy...

Relatively Certain ·

2017/04/05

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.

en

15:24

Taming chaos with physics and AI

Relatively Certain ·

2016/09/06

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 some chaotic systems, making them more predictable than ever before. In this episode of Relatively Certain, Dina sits down with Michelle Girvan, a physics professor at the University of Maryland (UMD), to talk about how artificial intelligence

en

19:20

JQI Podcast Episode 11 - Discovery of heavy water...

Relatively Certain ·

2013/10/31

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 nuclear physics discoveries made that year. This podcast details the search for an isotope of hydrogen, culminating in the discovery of deuterium (heavy water).

en

19:23

JQI Podcast Episode 10 - Energy Levels: This isn't...

Relatively Certain ·

2013/09/20

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 information and atomic clocks.

en

28 results

Similar Podcasts

科学史评话最新专辑

科学史评话

Hablando con Científicos - Cienciaes.com

cienciaes.com

天方烨谈

基因频道

The Permaculture Podcast

Scott Mann

汪诘：科学有故事（主打）

科学有故事