Waiting for the Best Option Lowers Your Standards, Spies Can Eavesdrop Using Light Bulbs, and Why Atoms Don’t Look Like the Solar System
Curiosity Weekly
Warner Bros. Discovery
4.6 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 17 July 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn about how spies can use light bulbs to eavesdrop on conversations; why atoms remind us of our solar system; and how you predictably lower your standards when waiting for the best option.
Please vote for Curiosity Daily in the 2020 Podcast Awards! Just register, select Curiosity Daily in the categories of People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine, and click "submit" (voting in other categories is completely optional). Feel free to consider becoming a judge as well! https://www.podcastawards.com/app/signup/
Spies can eavesdrop on conversations by measuring changes in light output from a lightbulb by Grant Currin
- Greenberg, A. (2020, June 12). Spies Can Eavesdrop by Watching a Light Bulb’s Vibrations. Wired; WIRED. https://www.wired.com/story/lamphone-light-bulb-vibration-spying/
- Lamphone. (2020). Ben Nassi. https://www.nassiben.com/lamphone
Why do atoms and the solar system look alike? by Ashley Hamer (Listener question from Mohana)
- Dutch, S. (2005, updated 2020). What Do Atoms Really “Look Like?” Stevedutch.net. https://stevedutch.net/petrology/whatatomslooklike.htm
- PBS Space Time. (2016). Why is the Earth Round and the Milky Way Flat? | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj6Kc1mvsdo&t=643s
When waiting for the best option, you lower your standards in a predictable way by Kelsey Donk
- Decide now or wait for something better? (2020). EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/uoz-dno061820.php
- Baumann, C., Singmann, H., Gershman, S. J., & Helversen, B. von. (2020). A linear threshold model for optimal stopping behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(23), 12750–12755. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002312117
- Secretary Problem (A Optimal Stopping Problem) - GeeksforGeeks. (2017, October 20). GeeksforGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/secretary-problem-optimal-stopping-problem/
Subscribe to Curiosity Daily to learn something new every day with Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer. You can also listen to our podcast as part of your Alexa Flash Briefing; Amazon smart speakers users, click/tap “enable” here: https://www.amazon.com/Curiosity-com-Curiosity-Daily-from/dp/B07CP17DJY
Find episode trasncript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/waiting-for-the-best-option-lowers-your-standards-spies-can-eavesdrop-using-light-bulbs-and-why-atoms-dont-look-like-the-solar-system
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from |
| 0:05.0 | Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff, and I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you learn about how |
| 0:09.5 | spies can use light bulbs to eavesdrop on conversations. |
| 0:13.6 | Then we'll answer a listener question about why atoms remind us of our solar system. |
| 0:18.4 | You'll also learn about how you predictably lower your standards when waiting for the best option. |
| 0:23.0 | Let's satisfy some curiosity. |
| 0:25.0 | Researchers have announced a breakthrough in espionage technology. |
| 0:30.0 | They call it lamp phone, which I know might sound more Maxwell smart than James Bond. |
| 0:38.0 | And yet, this new technology could be a cheap way to eavesdrop on faraway conversations using nothing more than |
| 0:46.4 | the flickering of a light bulb. |
| 0:49.4 | So here's how it works. |
| 0:50.8 | When someone talks, only the tiniest fraction of their sound waves end up landing on an eardrum. |
| 0:57.0 | Almost all the energy is absorbed into the floor and the walls and the ceiling and objects around them. |
| 1:03.8 | The information encoded in those sound waves is typically lost for all practical purposes, |
| 1:09.9 | but the researchers behind Lampthone have figured out how to recover just enough of it to recreate what was said. |
| 1:26.5 | They used a telescope and a light sensor to measure the very slight vibrations those sound waves create on the surface of a light bulb. Then they used software to transform that analog signal into a digital one, which a special |
| 1:32.0 | algorithm could convert back into sound. |
| 1:35.0 | If you already have a laptop, the whole setup costs less than a thousand dollars. |
| 1:41.0 | If that wasn't unsettling enough, get this. |
| 1:44.8 | The researchers tested their design by training a telescope on a light bulb inside an office |
| 1:49.5 | building. |
| 1:50.7 | In the office, they played two recordings, a speech from a politician and the Beatles song Let It Be. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Warner Bros. Discovery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Warner Bros. Discovery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.