A Matter (or Antimatter) of Physics—Amar Vutha—Canada Research Chair in Precision Atomic & Molecular Physics, University of Toronto
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2020
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Amar Vutha is the Canada Research Chair in Precision Atomic & Molecular Physics at the University of Toronto, and he joins the show to discuss the nature of his fascinating work.
In this episode, you'll discover:
- What the difference is between dark matter and dark energy, why Vutha believes it's important to figure out what each is comprised of, and how scientists are researching these topics
- What makes a molecule stable or unstable, and what happens when you remove some or all of the electrons from an atom
- How atomic clocks work, and how they are related to highly-charged ions
- How antimatter is made in the lab
Everything we see around is—including every galaxy identified telescopically—comprises only 5% of the universe. The consensus among scientists is that this 5% of the universe is understood fairly well, but Vutha second guesses that position. Rather than the questions that can be answered in physics, Vutha is interested in the questions that cannot be answered…or at least haven't been answered yet.
By studying and conducting precision measurements of the properties of atoms and molecules, Vutha aims to understand more about how the universe and the laws of physics work. He discusses what he believes to be three of the most important unsolved problems in physics, emergent properties and energetically-favored states of molecules, how highly-charged ions are able to resist perturbation by external stimuli (and why this is useful in making atomic clocks), the absence of identifiable natural antimatter in the universe (and why scientists reason that we should be able to identify it), and so much more.
Visit https://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~vutha/ to learn more about Vutha's research.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions. |
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| 0:07.0 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed. |
| 0:11.0 | 5% go above and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.0 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, sleep science, |
| 0:25.7 | cancer, stem cells, ketogenic diets, and more. Here come the geniuses. This is the Finding Genius |
| 0:32.1 | podcast that Richard Jacobs. This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That is Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:41.0 | My guest is Amar Hutha. He's a Canadian research chair in |
| 0:45.1 | precision atomic and molecular physics and he also deals with machine learning and |
| 0:49.9 | you know a lot of interesting questions things that most people I'm sure don't think about. |
| 0:53.7 | So Amar thanks for coming. How you doing? |
| 0:56.0 | I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. |
| 0:59.6 | Well good. So what in your mind what's some of the most interesting stuff that you're working on right now? |
| 1:06.8 | Of course everything I do is awesome and interesting right but I'll maybe say that well I there are questions which I wish I knew how to answer and I don't know how to answer them yet and so to me those are the ones which are the most interesting because those are the ones which I feel like if I was smart enough to figure out how they work on those I would be working on. |
| 1:30.0 | Well, what's something that you have figured out that's really surprising to maybe the scientific community outside of your direct work that you think is really important? |
| 1:39.0 | Well, again, I should preface this by saying that the things I work on are measuring properties of atoms and |
| 1:44.4 | molecules and so these are in some sense things we do because we want to |
| 1:48.8 | understand more about how the universe works and some unravel some of the mysteries about the universe, |
| 1:55.0 | but none of these are going to be important or useful |
... |
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