Brian Cox on quantum mechanics

The Life Scientific

BBC

Technology, Personal Journals, Society & Culture, Science

4.6 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 23 September 2014

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Brian Cox of Manchester University describes how he gave up appearing on Top of the Pops to study quarks, quasars and quantum mechanics. Although he describes himself as a simple-minded Northern bloke, he has acquired an almost God-like status on our TV screens; while the 'Cox effect' is thought to explain the significant boost to university admissions to read physics. He talks to Jim Al-Khalili about learning to be famous, his passion for physics and how he sometimes has difficulty crossing the road. In 2005 Brian was awarded a Royal Society Research Fellowship for his work on high energy particle collisions at CERN and elsewhere - an enviable academic achievement. In 2009, he was voted one of the sexiest men alive by People magazine. He has invented a new kind of celebrity - a scientist who's regularly snapped by the paparazzi. Brian wants everyone to be as excited as he is about the laws that govern our universe: the beautiful, counter-intuitive and often weird world of quantum mechanics that explains what happens inside the nucleus of every atom, right down at the level of those exotically named elementary particles - quarks, neutrinos, gluons, muons. Challenged by Jim to explain the rules of quantum mechanics in just a minute, Brian succeeds; while conceding that the idea that everything is inherently probabilistic, is challenging. Even Einstein found it difficult. Schrodinger's cat, or Brian Cox, for that matter, are simultaneously both dead and alive. That's a fact. What this is all means is another question. "Am I just an algorithm?" Brian asks. "Probably", says Jim. Producer: Anna Buckley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once you've wrapped up this podcast, how about trying a very British cult?
0:06.0	What happens if the person you trust with your future isn't what you think they are?
0:10.0	I did feel the whole time he was watching me Yeti. I saw a footprint and that really gave me gusmas.
0:16.4	Or people who knew me. Emme, I remember every secret, every lie. I'm the only one who knows the truth.
0:23.0	Discover more of our biggest podcast from 2003.
0:27.0	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:29.0	Thank you for downloading The Life Scientific from BBC Radio 4.
0:34.0	It's a rare physicist who can move seamlessly between this.
0:40.0	And this.
0:44.0	You can't be from five minutes in the future due to the hyperbolic geometry of space time.
0:49.0	A man who assumes almost god-like status on our TV screens and yet describes himself as a simple-minded northern bloke.
0:57.0	He's widely regarded as being responsible for a significant boost in application numbers to universities to read physics the so-called
1:04.3	Brian Cox effect. In 2005 he was awarded a Royal Society research fellowship for
1:09.9	his work at Cern, an enviable academic achievement. In 2009, he was voted one of the sexiest
1:16.0	men alive by People magazine. He's invented a new kind of celebrity, a scientist who's regularly snapped by the paparazzi and he's a man who wants us
1:25.7	all to be as excited as he is about the laws that govern our universe the beautiful
1:30.6	counterintuitive and often weird world of quantum mechanics that explains
1:35.1	what happens inside the nucleus of every atom, right down to the level of those exotically
1:40.4	named elementary particles, quarks, neutrinos,
1:44.2	gluons, muons, a world in which Schrodinger's kept can be simultaneously both
1:48.4	dead and alive. Brian Cox, welcome to the life scientific. Thank you.
1:53.4	So Brian, you have been called the pin-up of particle physics.
	...

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