Merry Christmas from SPI! Whether you’re in the holiday mood or you’re tired of endless Christmas music and lines at Target, we’ve got just the thing for you. While you’re driving from house to house collecting presents and gorging yourself on roast beast, give your brain a present and take in Self Proclaimed Intellectuals #9!
This is one heck of an episode, and as you can see below, we’ve filled up the show notes with cool and interesting stuff for you to read, watch, and reference. Here are your segments:
- Which of these psychoactive drugs have you done? You might just be surprised!
- Near the Fringe: Crazy science — the layman’s primer on quantum physics
- Philosophomores: Just what exactly quantifies a “leap of faith”? What kind of things do we accept “on faith” that we might not acknowledge?
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Show notes
Segment 1: Have you ever done drugs?
Drug lethality and dependence potential:
Drugs’ personal and social harm scores, from the Freakonomics episode “What’s more dangerous: marijuana or alcohol?”:
And in case you thought we were kidding about caffeine being a serious drug, here’s some recent news articles regarding deaths from caffeine overdose:
Segment 2: Crazy science: your introduction to quantum mechanics
Adam’s suggestion: The Wheel of Time series
In case you’ve been in a hole the last few month, here’s Interstellar on IMDB so you can get the gist
Interstellar’s representation of the 4th dimension:
A video detailing the 10 dimensions concept:
Both speed and gravity can affect the passage of time, a phenomenon known as “time dilation.” Nearby massive objects cause time to slow down as compared with less massive objects at greater distances, and faster travel causes time to slow down for the traveler. Here’s a video explaining time dilation at relativistic speeds (speeds significant versus the constant speed of light):
And here’s a slightly goofy video talking about what quantum entanglement is:
Now on to quantum tunneling:
Read about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that we mentioned. Or Google that term for a simplified explanation!
This video is a bit creepy and definitely cheesy, but it’s a pretty darn great explanation of the classic double-slit experiment that we had so much trouble explaining. Watch it!:
Segment 3: Ya’ gotta have faith
The most tedious way to arrive at the proof that 2+2=4. Don’t show this to your kids who just started learning math!
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