Podcasts and other intersting conversations

[auntieannie]

I find this youtube channel about medieval times fascinating.

Here's an example - this one is audio only:

[slowcoach]

I sometimes watch the popular science videos on Sabine Hossenfelder's blog. Her day job is as a physicist at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies

More often I just read her blog.

I think I may just have redefined "popular" !

[slowcoach]

There are jokes, some may not be obvious, e.g. unless you know that she, Sabine Hossenfelder, is also known as "Bee".

[slowcoach]

Something that always bugs me is the narrative that Einstein failed to grasp an essential component of Quantum Mechanics.

Put simply, he got it wrong and refused to accept his mistake. And belief that this is the case is almost universal, and in popular science that belief is dogma.


But I don't suppose anyone ever won a sou, by betting against Albert, here is one of the heretics, it's that women again;

(There is an importance in the following video that goes beyond any need of a technical understanding, it is also about the politics of science.)

[slowcoach]

This week's includes published papers that were hilariously obviously junk. Some written by bots.

[auntieannie]

I think Chuck is there to make the conversation a bit fluffier. but the subject matter of this star talk podcast is rather nightmare inducing:

[slowcoach]

The BBC has a steady output of short science videos but it has an annoying habit of dreaming up catchy titles that can be irrelevant, misleading, or downright wrong:

Here is an example: Are we all living in a hallucination?

The answer to the unnecessary question is: NO!

The video is about how we perceive the world and how we cannot be sure that others do so in the same way. I.E. that perception is an individual experience. It is also a rather good explication.

The presenter and author is a professor specialising in consciousness. He would know the meaning of the term hallucination.

Wikipedia puts in succinctly: A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception.

Perhaps it is a wry comment on our predilection to believe stupid stuff we see on the internet which might or might not include this post.

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ETA: Does the video address the titular question? Of course not. Dream on!

[auntieannie]

Maybe no so highbrow, but I enjoy "Scotland History Tours" youtube channel. here: Scotland History tours

I learn stuff and have a bit of a laugh.

And also "Medieval Madness" - also a youtube channel. here: link

[auntieannie]

Maybe, you'll find this video interesting? this is part of a tour of Dublin, with historical context:

[slowcoach]

I think this scientist is exceptional:



It is fortunate for us that the interviewer has the sense not to spoil the flow.