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Ep. 442: Destroy and Rebuild Pt. 6: Magnetic Pole Reversal

By on February 27, 2017 in Forces, Our Solar System, Physics, Planets

If we look back into the geologic record of the Earth, it appears that our planet’s magnetic field flips polarity every few hundred thousand years or so. Why does this happen? When’s it supposed to happen next? Is it dangerous? We usually record Astronomy Cast every Friday at 1:30 pm Pacific / 4:30 pm Eastern […]

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Ep. 437: Destroy and Rebuild, Pt. 1: The Torino Scale

By on January 24, 2017 in Forces, Physics, Planetary Science

We love to destroy the universe, and also rebuild it. Today we begin a new series where we destroy and rebuild. Let’s talk about some existential threats we face, and ways we could recover, starting with the sword of Damocles hanging over our head: killer asteroids! We usually record Astronomy Cast every Friday at 1:30 […]

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Ep. 391: Entropy

By on November 16, 2015 in Astronomy, Forces, Physics

Have you ever been doing thermodynamics in a closed system and noticed that there’s a finite number of ways that things can be arranged, and they tend towards disorder? Of course you have, we all have. That’s entropy. And here in our Universe, entropy is on the rise. Let’s learn about entropy in its specific, […]

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Ep. 370: The Kaufmann–Bucherer–Neumann Experiments

By on March 25, 2015 in Forces, History, Physics

One of the most amazing implications of Einstein’s relativity is the fact that the inertial mass of an object depends on its velocity. That sounds like a difficult thing to test, but that’s exactly what happened through a series of experiments performed by Kaufmann, Bucherer, Neumann and others. Download the show [MP3] | Jump to […]

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Ep. 312: The Inverse-Square Law and Other Strangeness

By on August 7, 2013 in Astronomy, Forces, Physics

Why don’t we have insects the size of horses? Why do bubbles form spheres? Why does it take so much energy to broadcast to every star? Let’s take a look at some non-linear mathematical relationships and see how they impact your day-to-day life. (more…)

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Ep. 270: Inertia

By on September 10, 2012 in Forces, Physics

An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Isaac Newton dismantled the traditional idea that objects would tend to slow down over time, and described the concept of inertia: the amount an object will resist changes in its motion.




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Ep. 165: Doppler Effect

By on December 16, 2009 in Forces

You know how a police siren changes sound when it passes by you? That’s the doppler effect. It works for sound waves and it works for light waves. Astronomers use the doppler effect to study the motion of objects across the Universe, from nearby extrasolar planets to the expansion of distant galaxies. Doppler shift is […]

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