Episode 30: Subtle Pursuits with Gareth L Powell
Posted Mar 10, 2013 by bn
particles moving through a cloud chamber leave trails!
Think of particle physics. It’s a rather popular field… and yet, It is concerned with objects which are too small to touch and too small to see. So. How is it done?
The answer is particle detectors: special machines we’ve built which allow us to amplify the effect of a particle on the world around it.
This show, we’re introducing a bunch of different particle detectors, from Geiger counters, to cloud and bubble chambers, to scintillators and CCD’s. We even talk about Photomultipliers and the tragedy at Super K.
This is what the inside of the Super Kamiokande Detector looks like. each ball is a photomultiplier. also, dudes in a canoe.
We wrap it up with a description of the ATLAS detector at CERN. Life is really fun, and this is one of the best shows we have recorded to date. WOOOOOOO!
This week’s guest is Gareth L. Powell, author of the Hit novel Ack-Ack Macaque, which is a story about a hard-boiled monkey who shoots people with his guns, and gets in monkey knife-fights, and there are other characters but there needn’t be. The monkey also flies a fighter jet. And he smokes a Cigar. And he is on twitter.
Physicists: Tia Miceli, Ken Clark
Intro Music: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
Exit Music: John Vanderslice
Transcript: Ep_30_Subtle_Pursuits
