Frank Close
Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College at the University of Oxford
15 episodes
Appears in multiple episodes with: Harry Cliff, Val Gibson, Susan Cartwright, Ruth Gregory
Covers topics in categories such as:
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Werner Heisenberg's breakthrough, aged 23, that led to Nobel Prize judges celebrating him as the creator of quantum mechanics.
29 February 2024
Also featuring: Fay Dowker, Harry Cliff
The Electron
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the discovery of this atomic particle in 1897 and what our growing knowledge of electrons has revealed about our world and may yet reveal.
29 September 2022
Also featuring: Victoria Martin, Harry Cliff
The Manhattan Project
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the discovery of nuclear fission in Germany led quickly to the development of the first atom bomb in the USA and its lethal use over Japan
7 October 2021
Also featuring: Bruce Cameron Reed, Cynthia Kelly
Eclipses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the progress in our understanding of eclipses from the ancient world onwards and how their predictability illuminates historical records and myths.
31 December 2020
Also featuring: Carolin Crawford, Lucie Green
The Proton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the growing understanding of the Proton, found in the nuclei of all elements and, with three quarks, balancing the charge of a single electron.
26 April 2018
Also featuring: Helen Heath, Simon Jolly
Pauli's exclusion principle
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the key principles in quantum mechanics, the Pauli Exclusion Principle, and the life and ideas of Wolfgang Pauli who proposed it.
6 April 2017
Also featuring: Michela Massimi, Graham Farmelo
The Neutron
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the neutron in the atomic nucleus, in the laboratory and in the densest stars.
14 April 2016
Also featuring: Val Gibson, Andrew Harrison
Perpetual motion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the laws of thermodynamics put a stop to the idea perpetual motion.
24 September 2015
Also featuring: Ruth Gregory, Steven Bramwell
The Photon
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the photon, the fundamental particle associated with light.
12 February 2015
Also featuring: Wendy Flavell, Susan Cartwright
Conductors and Semiconductors
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the physics of electricity: why some materials conduct it and others do not, and how these properties can be usefully exploited.
23 February 2012
Also featuring: Jenny Nelson, Lesley Cohen
The Neutrino
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the neutrino, a mysterious subatomic particle which is one of the most numerous, and least understood, objects in the universe.
14 April 2011
Also featuring: Susan Cartwright, David Wark
Radiation
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the history of the discovery of radiation, from the idea that light consisted of waves, through electromagnetism to the naming of gamma rays.
12 November 2009
Also featuring: Jim Al-Khalili, Frank James
The Vacuum of Space
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Vacuum of Space, from the innards of the atom to the outer reaches of space.
30 April 2009
Also featuring: Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Ruth Gregory
Antimatter
Melvyn Bragg discusses theories of Antimatter in particle physics and cosmology and finds out why there isn’t more of it in the universe.
4 October 2007
Also featuring: Val Gibson, Ruth Gregory
Laws of Nature
Melvyn Bragg discusses the quest to find a single over-arching equation that unites all of physics and examines whether what is true in physics is true in all areas of existence.
19 October 2000
Also featuring: Mark Buchanan, Nancy Cartwright