Episodes can be found on Anchor, Spotify, Pocket Casts, RadioPublic, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Breaker, and Apple Podcasts. You can also listen to them here!
Latest episode:
Bonus Episode 5: Intelligent Speech 2022 / You Are My Sun-Line
Hello! It’s been a while, but I’m back with some updates and with a new bonus episode for you all 🙂 I was happy to be invited back to the Intelligent Speech podcasting conference, held on June 25, 2022. I took part in the STEM roundtable discussion and also presented a talk entitled “You Are…
Bonus Episode 4: Stein a Little Light
This bonus episode is about the photoelectric effect and features a couple revolutionary and Nobel prize winning concepts – the quantization of energy and of light. From the ultraviolet catastrophe to the revolutionary beginnings of modern physics. Grab a “quantum” coffee and give this episode a listen! (Also, Happy New Year!!) You can listen to…
Episode 12: Where Are We, Anyhow?
In this episode, I take a bit of a broader look at ancient Greece in the 7th – 4th centuries BCE (Archaic and Classical Greece) and discuss some of the reasons why natural philosophy arose here at this time. You can listen to the episode here. You can check out a map of ancient Greece…
Episode 11: Mix and Mingle Like Nothing is Single
This episode is about Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, the final Presocratic I’m planning on covering! He thought there was a little bit of everything in everything and that mind set the universe in motion. He also did some observational science and is credited as the first to correctly explain the cause of eclipses. You can listen…
Episode 10: It’s Elementary
This episode is about Empedocles, who tried to solve the Parmenidean problem in a different way than his near contemporaries – the atomists. Empedocles launched the ancient Greek theory of the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water). You can listen to the episode here.
Episode 9: The Original Atomic Age
Welcome to Season 2! This episode is on the original atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, and their original atomic theory from way back in the 5th century BCE. I discuss the nature of the void and ancient atoms, how they relate to the matter we can also sense, and how this theory relates to some of…
Announcement – Season 2
Hello again! It’s been a while (sorry!), but I am finally back to producing podcast episodes and will start releasing them in a couple of weeks. This short announcement will have a bit more information about the (seasonal) release schedule for Season 2 and my exciting news about school next year 😀 You can listen…
Bonus Episode 3: Gender and Sexual Orientation Among STEM Nobel Prize Laureates
This is a recording of the talk I gave at the UBC Gender Equity & STEM Virtual Conference on November 14, 2020. Abstract: One of the most famous awards in history, the Nobel prizes are given for the most important academic, cultural, and scientific advances around the world. Nobel laureates are some of the top…
Promo: UBC Gender Equity & STEM Virtual Conference
Since I don’t yet have the next proper podcast episode recorded and ready, I wanted to share with you all one of the other things I’ve been working on the last little while. I’m the founder and president of a volunteer group called the UBC Young Women for STEM which seeks to reduce the gender…
Bonus Episode 2: Intelligent Speech Conference Talk
This bonus episode is a recording of the talk I gave at the Intelligent Speech Summer 2020 online podcasting conference! I speak about four women from scientific history: Hypatia of Alexandria, St. Hildegard of Bingen, Ada Lovelace, and Tu Youyou. They lived in time periods as far apart as Ancient Greece and the Modern Day…
Episode 8: To Infinity and Absurdity
This episode is on Zeno of Elea (born c. 490 BCE) – student of Parmenides, namesake of the quantum Zeno effect, and originator of some puzzling paradoxes. I’ll focus on Zeno’s arguments against plurality and his paradoxes of motion as recorded by Simplicius and Aristotle. You can listen to the episode here.
Episode 7: He Never Changes His Mind
This episode focuses primarily on Parmenides (6th – mid-5th century BCE), the “Father of Metaphysics”. He believed that a lot of what we see and believe in (concepts such as creation and movement) are actually an illusion and that reality is unchanging. I’ll discuss Parmenides’s theory, argument, and influence and take some side-trips into the…
Episode 6: He’s Always Changing His Mind
Can you step in the same river twice? This episode will give an answer to this question by discussing Heraclitus, the “philosopher of flux”. I’ll focus mostly on his doctrines of flux and the unity of opposites, but also mention some of his writings on ethics, politics, and theology. Supposedly self-taught and quite critical of…
Bonus Episode 1: The Most Epic Math Club Ever
This is a bonus episode on Pythagoreanism, AKA the Most Epic Math Club Ever. A religious cult and school of mathematics combined, Pythagoreanism has had a lasting impact on science and philosophy. I’ll discuss the religious influences on Pythagoreanism, early Pythagorean beliefs, some of the most famous early Pythagoreans, its link to medieval European education,…
Episode 5: That One Thing From Grade School Math
This episode focuses on Pythagoras of Samos (c. 590 – c. 470 BCE) – the man, the primarily myth, the legend with a golden thigh. A surprisingly controversial figure, what do we know or not know about the namesake for one of the most well-known theorems in all of mathematics? You can listen to the…
Episode 4: All That Matter(s) Part 2
This episode continues Part 1’s discussion of the first Greek philosophers with Anaximander (“father of cosmology”) and Anaximenes (sadly, no catchy title) of Miletus. You can listen to the episode here.
Episode 3: All That Matter(s) Part 1
This episode and the following episode focus on the beginnings of Western philosophy in the Ionian city of Miletus. Part 1 dives in with Thales, the first known philosopher of the Greek tradition. I also have an exciting announcement at the end about the upcoming Intelligent Speech Conference! You can listen to the episode here.
Episode 2: How to Philosophy??
This is another background episode, covering some “philosophy for science” that I think will be important. It focuses mainly on logic (deduction, induction) and the analysis of arguments. You can listen to the episode here.
Episode 1: Keeping Up with the Babylonians
This episode provides a bit of background to the history of physics. It focuses on the Babylonians and some of their important developments in the fields of mathematics and astronomy. Listen to the episode here. Also, here is a photo of a cuneiform tablet at the Musee National d’Histoire et d’Art in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg.…
Episode 0: Introduction
Welcome to The History and Philosophy of Physics Podcast! This episode is just a short introduction to the topic and why I was interested in starting up this project. Listen to the episode here.
The History and Philosophy of Physics Podcast 