Initial Conditions: A Physics History Podcast
1) Bonus: Initial Conditions Off Mic
Justin, Maura, and Allison reflect on the creation of Initial Conditions and speak to some of the other staff at the Niels Bohr Library & Archives and the Center for History of Physics. They share the...Show More
2) Bonus: Live from PhysCon!
In this episode, Justin and Maura interview speakers and students who attended the 2022 Society for Physics Students Physics Congress. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell shares the story of her 1967 discovery ...Show More
3) Hawai'i and the Thirty Meter Telescope
Featuring a discussion with experts Samantha Thompson and Kalewa Correa from the Smithsonian Institution, this episode is about the history of Hawai’i and the controversy surrounding the Thirty Meter ...Show More
4) The Legacy of Ptolemy’s Almagest
This episode dives into the story of the oldest book in NBLA’s Wenner Collection: a 1528 Latin translation of the Almagest. Claudius Ptolemy wrote the Almagest, originally titled Mathēmatikē Syntaxis,...Show More
5) The Newton You Didn't Know
Apart from his publications on gravity and optics, Newton was also a biblical scholar, religious mystic, and alchemist. In fact, a great deal of his work focuses on subjects that modern audiences migh...Show More
6) The Unexpected Hero of Light
This is the story of how a Pittsburgh steel worker became the lensmaker behind some of the most important experiments of 19th century physics. John Brashear fell in love with the night sky as a kid in...Show More
7) An Interview with Dr. Ronald Mickens
In June, after several technical mishaps, I flew down to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet Dr. Ronald Mickens and talk about his research on the history of African American physicists. In this episode, you’ll...Show More
8) The African American Presence in Physics
Based on the Ronald E. Mickens collection, this episode describes the history of the community of Black physicists in the United States. In 1999 the American Physical Society celebrated its centennial...Show More
9) Historical Romance and LGBTQ+ Representation
This episode will tell the stories of Caroline Herschel and Mary Somerville. It features an interview with Olivia Waite, who combines the two historic women in the protagonist of her regency, sapphic,...Show More
10) Was Einstein Wrong??
What is pseudoscience? The answer to that question is more difficult than you might think. In trying to answer the question, we can learn a lot more about what science is, how it is practiced, and wha...Show More