Hi everyone. I’m here to announce that science… sort of has a new baby brother. It’s name is The Titanium Physicists Podcast .

Turns out that Physics is full of SUPER SEXY IDEAS which are way too technical for science journalists to talk about. No, the best way to taste this fruit is to go to the tree. I (ben) have assembled a team: my titanium physicists. A group of  the rarest sort. technical experts, and also lucid and fun.

But you can’t just throw a group of experts together in a room. they start talking technical and it’s impossible to follow. So to keep everything under control, we bring on a special guest each week! Awesome people who are good at interrupting nerds.

the result is a half-hour long show, released fortnightly. it’s super fun and i encourage you to listen. we’re up on itunes!

written for Patrick, who wanted to know what i thought of SSO, based on an earlier claim that i thought SSO’s mandate is to socialize science.

My friends, Science is not something we DO, it’s something we are.
If you play video games, you are not necessarily a gamer.
If you answer phones for a living, you are not necessarily a receptionist.
But if you have been trained in the sciences, you are a scientist.

Continue reading Ben’s Science Sort of manifesto. →

Hey everyone! The christmas season is upon us, and it’s a chance to spend some time with your friends and family.

let me share my burden with you.

Being a theoretical physicist is terribly depressing. not because of the pay. that’s depressing, but it’s not why.

Are you familiar with the Total Perspective Vortex, from the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Theoretical physics often involves taking a long, deep stare into it. and then afterwards, when you look at your pretty wife and happy apartment…

Anyway! Merry Christmas. Today I’m going to explain what happens if you fall into a black hole. If you find it depressing, well. sorry. If you don’t find it depressing… don’t think too hard about it.

Continue reading Eternal Tragedy: falling into a black hole →

Hey peeps.

I listen to podcasts. A LOT OF PODCASTS. i am always wearing my headphones, and i am always listening to podcasts.

Like all the time. Podcast stories. Podcast news. Podcast science. I love podcasts!

So I decided that this week instead of telling you about awesome theoretical physics, I’ll just tell you about some podcasts that you might enjoy listening to… I call it THE 2010 Ben’s CHOICE IN EVERYTHING BUT SCIENCE PODCAST AWARDS.

Continue reading PODCASTS that i enjoy →

Okay, so In 1964, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson at Bell Labs were working on a radio telescope. It looked like this.

So. they got a kind of noisy signal. (incidentally, the same noisy signal you get when you plug a tv antenna in… that static screen) They thought, at first, that the noise was caused by pigeon and pigeon poop. So they cleaned it out. but it was still there.

Long story short, they’d discovered cosmic microwave background radiation. the residue of the big bang!

so what is cosmic microwave background radiation?

Continue reading Cosmic Microwave Background Beachballs →

Oh god why won’t this meme die?! Every time anyone refers to the infamous lyrics, we end up paying attention to the worst people in the world.

but it dawns on me that the problem here might be that most people don’t know how magnets work. So when we keep making fun of Scrabbly Jay and Mooman 4 Weed (no, i’m not going to look up their names), we’re actually wondering aloud about them. For instance, it topped one of the Lists of things people want famous physicist Sean Carroll to explain.   Recently I’ve even come across a video of Physics King Richard Feynman stumbling over the question.

Dick’s point, in brief, is that asking how magnets work is too difficult a question to answer. It demands a concise description of a completely unfamiliar system in terms of super familiar things. It’s like asking, “how does japan work”. what?

Anyway, i’m throwing my F*cking hat into the F*cking ring, in hopes that we can all forget about Scrabbly J and mooman 4 Weed.

Continue reading F*cking magnets: how do they work? →

Hi. so, i like time travel. I like it a lot.

today’s information is on the topic of how we can use einstein’s theory of gravity to generate time machines.

this is a real thing, you guys

I used different pens this time. lets see if they’re better…

Continue reading time travel! →