More than Abstract
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© Pranjal Tiwari 2021
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Have you even wondered the story behind how we got our oxygen rich atmosphere, or how we got the x-ray machine? This podcast tells you the story of how we got to this point, starting from the people that were responsible for the modern marvels we take for granted today.
39 Episodes
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Someone recently won an art competition by submitting an imagine generated by an AI. This caused some mild controversy, but here we look at how this AI works at the most basic level.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
The tides come in and out, but the physics of tidal forces are so much more fascinating that just that. We explore what tidal forces can really do this week going from the earth-moon system to forming planetary rings and finally stars being ripped apart by black holes.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Have you wondered how to make a processor? Or why there are really only two cpu brands when it's such a lucrative business? That's what we talk about this week.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Ice ages are a very common thing on geological timescales, but the behavior of these ice ages changed 1 million years ago. That's a bit of a mystery and we discuss the background behind this unsolved riddle this week.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
There are many methods to reducing our carbon emissions to mitigate climate change. One of these is using carbon credits to offset emissions from companies, but this week we talk about how the best intentions can go wrong with poor implementation.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Is it actually possible to control the weather to some degree? That's what they claimed was possible at the Beijing Olympics and we talk about the science behind how this is possible.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Terraforming mars has been a topic on science fiction for decades, but it is actually possible. There are still many problems associated with it and one of the biggest issues of transforming the Martian atmosphere is heavily based in physics. I don't hear this mentioned very much, but that's what we talk about this week.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
How was it that earliest civilizations suddenly disappeared. During the bronze age, there were complicated interconnected societies most of which collapsed over the course of a few centuries. We talk about some of the leading theories that lead to this collapse.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
How do we tell when an asteroid is going to hit the earth. It's a difficult task with very few prediction. We talk about all the problems with trying to identify an asteroid.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
How is it that a new currency can be made out of thin air and used to purchase good. We talk about how to make a currency called sandwich coins and a bit about the system that lends money through banks.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
We've heard from scientists that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that is causing average global temperatures to rise, but that's it. Few people know why that is the case and even fewer know the physics behind this phenomenon, which is surprisingly simple. Here we go through why climate change is just logical physics.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
How are old satellites decommissioned. We spoke about this in one of our previous episodes, but didn't go into detail. This episode, we talk about how massive achievements like the Hubble Space Telescope will be decomissioned.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Just like fusion, hydrogen fuel cells have been touted as being the fuel of the future, but as the years go on that promise never becomes a reality. This week we talk about what fuel cells are and some of the challenges that face the technology along with some of its benefits over conventional electric or gas vehicles.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Perhaps the most consistent question asked about scientific research is why does this matter. It is something each researcher struggles with everyday. That question is important, but it needs to be put into a larger context before its importance can be realized. That's what we talk about this week using two historical examples and relating it to the launch of JWST.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
How were we able to observe a black hole 50 million light years away so clearly. It is a massive undertaking that we talk about this week including why it is such a big deal to the scientific community.
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Outro by Eric Pierce
The existence of market bubbles are not unique to our modern world. They've existed in the past and possibly the first market bubble involved the sale of Tulips. How exactly did the situation lead to a bubble that eventually popped and is it any different from the bubbles we are aware of today?
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Outro by Eric Pierce
Have you ever wondered what it is about a viral infection that makes you feel so terrible? When you're told about some infection, it's usually only the beginning part, where the virus infects a cell, but nothing after that. Nothing about how the body responds specifically. That's the topic of this weeks episode of More than Abstract, join Pranjal and Eric as they tackle this problem.
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Intro/Outro by Eric Pierce
Why is lead bad for us. We all know that it is, but nobody has ever said why though. That's what Pranjal and Eric try to tackle in this weeks episode, why does our body need metals to begin with and why certain heavy metals are toxic to us, instead of simply leaving our system entirely.
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Intro/Outro by Eric Pierce
You might have heard some people being concerned over the availability of potable water in countries half way around the world. But a possible water crisis can occur anywhere in the coming decades. That's what Pranjal and Eric talk about today, what is this water problem, whether we should be worried and who to blame.
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Intro/Outro by Eric Pierce
We've talked about what happens to the earth when "The sun gets angry", but if you are in a part of the world that is not very geologically active, one of the overlooked natural disasters are volcanic eruptions. Pranjal and Nat talk about what a volcanic winter would look like taking the example of the "year without summer" and following reports from that time.
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Intro/Outro by Eric Pierce
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