I am on the lookout for good videos that meet roughly the following criteria:
-available free online
-on condensed matter or chemistry
-accessible and interesting to a popular audience
-represent the science in a reasonable and helpful way
-lack hype
This is motivated by the following experience. I knew that there were people (mostly young) who will spend endless hours watching trashy videos (whether B-grade movies or silly antics) on Youtube. However, I only recently learned that there are also people who will spend hours watching videos on serious subjects (science, politics, history, religion, ...)
I am keen to find such material so I can recommend it as alternatives to the kind of thing featuring Michio Kaku or string theory propaganda from Brian Greene.
This is why I recently watched Forces of Nature with Brian Cox. Unfortunately, I think only the first episode is available for free.
In my search, I came across this nice history of the discovery of the transistor narrated by Ira Flatow and produced by PBS.
It nicely brings out the healthy interaction between Bardeen's theoretical work and Brattain's experimental work, even when one or both did not work out. They were a great stimulus to one another.
It also discusses the mixed legacy of Shockley, the Broken Genius.
What videos can you recommend that meet the criteria above?
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Emergence and protein folding
Proteins are a distinct state of matter. Globular proteins are tightly packed with a density comparable to a crystal but without the spatia...
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Is it something to do with breakdown of the Born-Oppenheimer approximation? In molecular spectroscopy you occasionally hear this term thro...
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If you look on the arXiv and in Nature journals there is a continuing stream of people claiming to observe superconductivity in some new mat...
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I welcome discussion on this point. I don't think it is as sensitive or as important a topic as the author order on papers. With rega...
Check this one out:
ReplyDeleteSo Close and Such a Stranger: a documentary about Condensed Matter Physics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3De1rLxvzyU
Thanks for the recommendation.
DeleteIt is worth watching and promoting.