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Big Picture Science

It's All Relative

Big Picture Science

Big Picture Science

Science, Technology

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2015

⏱️ 54 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A century ago, Albert Einstein rewrote our understanding of physics with his Theory of General Relativity. Our intuitive ideas about space, time, mass, and gravity turned out to be wrong. Find out how this masterwork changed our understanding of how the universe works and why you can thank Einstein whenever you turn on your GPS. Also, high-profile experiments looking for gravitational waves and for black holes will put the theories of the German genius to the test – will they pass? And why the story of a box, a Geiger counter, and a zombie cat made Einstein and his friend Erwin Schrödinger uneasy about the quantum physics revolution. Guests: •  Jeffrey Bennett – Astronomer, author of What Is Relativity?: An Intuitive Introduction to Einstein’s Ideas, and Why They Matter •  Beverly Berger – Theoretical physicist and the Secretary for the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation •  Hiawatha Bray – Technology reporter, Boston Globe, author of You Are Here: From the Compass to GPS, the History and Future of How We Find Ourselves • Paul Halpern – Physicist at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, author of Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.

0:05.0

Tech moves fast.

0:08.0

So keep pace with the Daily Crunch Podcast from Tech Crunch.

0:12.0

With new episodes every day, this podcast Crunch new tech, regulations, and more.

0:23.0

Listen to Tech Crunch Daily Crunch now,

0:25.5

wherever you get your podcasts.

0:27.6

That's Tech Crunch Daily Crunch,

0:29.9

wherever you get your podcasts.

0:37.0

Get ready to geek out. The Wired Science Podcast explores all the latest and greatest in science,

0:42.0

everything from strange diseases and biological breakthroughs

0:45.6

to interesting tech and mysteries in outer space.

0:48.6

Listen to Wired Science today wherever you get your podcasts.

0:52.2

That's Wired Science, wherever you get your podcasts. That's Wired Science wherever you get your

0:54.6

podcasts.

0:57.0

For if we did, the operation is to be repeated till the trajectory is exactly enough determine.

1:07.0

Okay, well that's it.

1:10.0

572 pages and my book is not only finally complete, but it is the final book on physics.

1:16.4

This should knock Will Shakespeare off the bestseller list.

1:20.5

In 1687, Isaac Newton completed his epic treatise known as the Principia,

1:26.0

describing the laws of mechanics, how everything from planets to pendulums moved.

1:31.0

For centuries, most thinkers figured this was the last word on that great underpinning of science, physics.

1:37.0

We lived in a clockwork universe in which time and space were absolute and unchanging.

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