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Physical Attraction

New? Head to the episode guide or drop us a line with the contact form.

We are a physics podcast. But not just that - interviews with scientists, scholars, authors and reflections on the history and future of science and technology are all in the wheelhouse. Over the years, for over 200 episodes, we've had shows on the astrophysics of stars, a comprehensive history of nuclear fusion, thermodynamics, particle physics, climate change, economics, philosophy, the psychology of conspiracy theories, and even the lives of Louisiana Senator Huey Long, or scientists under Stalin in the Soviet Union. 

We are an independent show: everything you hear is created by one person out of passion and love. My aim in producing this show is never to talk down to people, but instead to discuss fascinating and vital subjects with scientific rigour, compassion, and an eye for narrative: to educate, inform, and entertain. I hope that you, the listener, will find something you like here. 

You can read about us here, which includes a comprehensive episode guide for new listeners covering all of the shows that we've done, as well as links to transcripts of many of the episodes.  

You can contact us here - everything goes through to my email and I try to answer each one. Your comments and questions help me to improve the show and also motivate me to carry on, so I highly appreciate reading anything you feel like sending. 

If you like what we do and want to help us keep doing it, you can donate here. I am extremely grateful for those of you who have done so. 

You can also subscribe to the Physical Attraction: Extra! Feed over at Patreon: www.patreon.com/PhysicalAttraction - where for a small fee per bonus episode, you can help to support the show, and get some juicy bonus content too. The Patreon includes unique bonus episodes that stand alone, or alongside our existing series. But you will also get episodes as soon as I finish producing them, which is often months in advance: so, if you can't wait for your fix, that's where to go. 

We had a sister podcast, Autocracy Now, which deals with the lives of famous historical dictators. You can find some of their episodes on our feed, or the show itself at www.autocracynow.libsyn.com 

Aug 26, 2017

It's easy to forget that we are on a pale, blue dot - the one habitable place we know of in the whole, wide, Universe. Fragile. Perhaps too fragile.

It's not that the Universe wants to kill us; it's just that astrophysics doesn't care too much whether a planet is inhabited, or whether the inhabitants have feelings - or...


Aug 19, 2017

Let’s talk about earthquakes. As we know, the Earth’s crust is made up of tectonic plates – vast plates of rock that shift around due to convection and the motion of fluid in Earth’s mantle. They, roughly speaking “join together” at fault-lines. But in reality, the plates can’t slide past each other...


Aug 16, 2017

We're going to be presenting a very special series of episodes over the next few months.

The end of the world. Is it going to end in fire, or ice? And is there anything we can do about it?

Get ready for the apocalypse.


Aug 12, 2017

Are we alone in the Universe? Or are there alien civilisations out there?
And if there are, where are they, and why aren't they talking to us?

We'll explore the Fermi paradox, the Drake equation, and, of course... the simple fact that we're all living in a computer simulation. Don't miss it.

"Hope that there's...


Aug 8, 2017

Bonus midweek edition, coming to you as close to LIVE as is humanly possible...

Inspired by last week's episode, Seduced By A Robot, I downloaded a neural network and started to play around with it. See what happens when I feed it:

  • The works of Shakespeare
  • My Facebook conversation history
  • A biography of Stalin
  • and, of...