PBS
Perpetual Motion From Negative Mass?
Challenge question: if 1kg of apples is $5 and 2kg is $10, how much is -1kg of apples? The answer? Priceless. Because you could use negative-mass apples to build warp drives, travel in time, and construct a perpetual motion machine. In...
PBS
What's the Most Realistic Artificial Gravity in Sci-Fi?
2001: A Space Odyssey introduced a lot of people to the idea of rotation based artificial gravity, but in sci-fi, it’s far from the only one to implement the idea! Babylon 5, Halo, and Ringworld also used rotation-based artificial...
PBS
The Future of Gravitational Waves
On September 14th, 2015 LIGO announced the first detection of a gravitational wave. This was hailed at the time as the dawn of gravitational wave astronomy. However that’s only true if the we ever detect another gravitational wave. Now...
PBS
Juno to Reveal Jupiter's Violent Past
On July 4th 2016, the Juno spacecraft entered orbit around the planet Jupiter after leaving earth five years ago. The Juno probe will tell us what lies inside the mysterious gas giant and with this information we’ll better understand the...
PBS
New Fundamental Particle Discovered?? + Challenge Winners!
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider may have just discovered a new fundamental particle that could change the way we look at the universe. Is this Dark Energy? A giant Neutrino? The big brother of the Higgs Boson? Or could it be the...
PBS
What Happens to a Helium Balloon in Freefall?
Hey Everyone! This week’s episode isn’t a full episode, but you should DEFINITELY STILL WATCH because we’re giving t-shirts away to a few of those who can correctly guess the answer to the challenge question. Watch this week’s episode to...
PBS
How to Weigh a Fart | Space Time | PBS Digital Studios
EVER WANTED TO WEIGH A FART? Well, it isn't easy, but Gabe from PBS Space Time walks us through the math, physics, and science behind farts and explains how to measure them!
PBS
Cosmic Microwave Background Explained
HAS SPACE ALWAYS BEEN BLACK? As long as we've been around, YES. But the universe gets much more exciting, AND much BRIGHTER, as we start winding our clocks back to the early days of the universe. Near the beginning of the universe, when...
PBS
What If Alien Life Were Silicon-Based?
Life as we know it is carbon-based, but does it have to be this way? There’s another element on the periodic table that shares some of the key properties of carbon but is far more abundant on most planets. I’m talking about silicon. So...
PBS
Space DOES NOT Expand Everywhere
Space is big, and it’s getting bigger. But where does all that new space actually come from? And is it popping into existence all around you right now? Is that why the remote control is always further away than I thought?
PBS
Mapping the Multiverse
This is a map of the multiverse. Or in physics-ese, it’s the maximally extended Penrose diagram of a Kerr spacetime. And in english: when you solve Einstein’s equations of general relativity for a rotating black hole, the universe does...
PBS
Does Consciousness Influence Quantum Mechanics?
PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE ↓ More info below ↓ Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements!...
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Fermions Vs. Bosons Explained with Statistical Mechanics!
If I roll a pair of dice and you get to bet on one number, what do you choose? The smart choice is 7 because there are more ways for 2 dice to come up 7 than any other number. Well, it turns out that you can apply the same logic to...
PBS
How Much Of The Universe Can Humanity Ever See?
There’s an absolute limit to our access to the universe beyond our own galaxy. There’s a limit to what we can ever hope to explore or send signals to, and a very different limit to what we can ever hope to witness. Today we’re going to...
PBS
How Does The Nucleus Hold Together?
Two protons next to each other in an atomic nucleus are repelling each other electromagnetically with enough force to lift a medium-sized labradoodle off the ground. Release this energy and you have, well, you have a nuclear explosion....
PBS
How Earth REALLY Moves Through the Galaxy
Perhaps you’ve seen videos of how the planets of the solar system move through the universe in this cool helix. Not only are these misleading, but the Earth’s real motion - YOUR motion through the universe, is way more complicated and...
PBS
How Can Matter Be BOTH Liquid AND Gas?
Supercritical Fluids are one the strangest states of matter and yet they are found everywhere from Decaf Coffee, to dry cleaning, to the atmosphere of Jupiter. When we think of an exotic state of matter we tend to think of the really...
PBS
The REAL Possibility of Mapping Alien Planets!
I’m going to tell you about the craziest proposal for an astrophysics mission that has a good chance of actually happening. A train of spacecraft sailing the sun’s light to a magical point out there in space where the Sun’s own gravity...
PBS
Have We SOLVED The Black Hole Information Paradox with Wormholes?
Black holes are very real, but are also a theoretical nightmare. It turns out that in order to make sense of their paradoxical nature, every black hole has to be thought of as a multitude of imaginary black holes, all connected by...
PBS
Where Is The Center of The Universe?
Today we’re going to ask a simple-seeming question that will lead to so pretty wacky places. The question is this: If the universe has a center, where is it?
PBS
What If Charge is NOT Fundamental?
If you've studied any physics you know that like charges repel and opposite charges attract. But why? It's as though this thing - electric charge - is as fundamental a property of an object as its mass. It just sort of ... is. Well it...
PBS
Are Black Holes Actually Fuzzballs?
Black holes are a paradox. They are paradoxical because they simultaneously must exist but can’t, and so they break physics as we know it. Many physicists will tell you that the best way to fix broken physics is with string. String...
PBS
What If Our Understanding of Gravity Is Wrong?
What if there is no such thing as dark matter? What if our understanding of gravity is just wrong? New work is taking another shot at that Einstein guy. Let’s see if we’ve finally scored a hit with Modified Newtonian Dynamics aka MOND.
PBS
How Electron Spin Makes Matter Possible
Today I’m going to explain why you’re not falling through your chair right now using one simple fact, and one object. The fact is that all electrons are the same as each other, and the object is a structurally critical item of my...