The Scientific Odyssey

In the words of physicist John Wheeler,  “In all the history of human thought, there is no greater dialogue than that which took place over the years between Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein about the meaning of the quantum.” In this episode, we explore the relationship between the two men that began through journal articles on light quantum and the atom, was further entwined through Nobel Prizes awarded together and continued through debates shared in letters, papers and at scientific meetings.

In this episode we look at Einstein's rise to international fame and what it cost him.

When Einstein moved to Berlin in 1914, he entered into a period of intense turmoil, both in his scientific work and in his personal life.  In this episode, we take a look at the factors that led him to Berlin and what transpired once he got there.

This week we look at the period of Albert Einstein's life from 1905-1913 as he moved from one position to another on his rise among the European physics community

In the second half of 1905, Albert Einstein published tow papers that refined humanity's understanding of space and time as well as the relationship between mass and energy.  In this episode, we examine the factors that led to these discoveries. 

In 1905, Albert Einstein published five papers that changed the course of physics and the modern world.  In this episode, we look at the first three of those works including his paper on the photoelectric effect, his derivation of Avogardo's number and his analysis of Brownian motion that more or less proved the existence of atoms.

In this second part of our examination of Einstein's life before the Miracle Year of 1905, we examine the period between his graduation from the Zurich Polytechnic and his being hired at the Swiss patent office.  We discuss his scientific work as well as his relationship with Mileva Maric and the issues surround that.

In 1896, Albert Einstein enrolled in the teacher preparation program for physics and mathematics at the Zurich Polytechnic.  We look at the events that brought him to that point and what transpired while he was a student there, including the beginning of his romantic relationship with Mileva Maric.

In this first episode of our biographical series on Albert Einstein, we look at his childhood growing up in Munich and the various influences that would shape him in many ways.

In this episode, we look at the dispute between British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington and Indian prodigy Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar over white dwarf objects and the fate of higher mass stars.

For A. S. Eddington, the most important thing a think ing person could do, whether they be a scientist or a person of faith, was to follow a path of inquiry that sought to uncover new insights and new truths.   In this episode, we look at how this value influenced Eddington's work in stellar structure and relativity.  Additionally, we look at how his other valence values such as internationalism influenced his actions during the Great War.

In this episode we consider the question of whether a person can be both religious and a scientist by looking at the early life of the British Astrophysicist and lifelong Quaker, Arthur Stanley Eddington.

In our final narrative episode of this series, we encounter the last piece of the cosmological puzzle-dark energy.  We look at the way in which is was discovered and what it means for the ultimate fate of our universe.

This week we look at the work of Vera Rubin and Fritz Zwicky that led to the idea that roughly 85% of the matter in the universe can't be detected except by the gravitational influence on the matter we can see.  We also consider alternative explanations and examine the evidence in favor of Dark Matter.

In the late 1960's and early 1970's, several problems arose with the Big Bang Theory's attempt to explain certain aspects of the early universe.  In 1979, Alan Guth worked out a solution to those known as the Inflationary Model that added a new layer of understanding of the physical processes that governed the earliest moments of the cosmos.