Podcast: From the Arrival of Einstein to the Gateway of Quantum Mechanics

The podcast has been updated.

With just a microscope and a stopwatch, the way you see the world can be turned upside down—that's how this reflection episode began. We talk with the same excitement about the thrill of an era where, even without the latest equipment, you could verify right in front of your eyes that 'atoms likely exist' and 'light seems to be made of particles.'

The first half focuses on Albert Einstein during his 'miracle year' of 1905. While shivering at the speed of his work as he released the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, and the theory of relativity in quick succession, we get sidetracked into discussions about how time and space stretch and shrink based on the constant speed of light, the behind-the-scenes story of his Nobel Prize, and even his very human private life.

The second half dives into the contents of an atom. We move from experimental results that couldn't be explained by the plum pudding model to Rutherford's atomic nucleus model, and then to Niels Bohr's hypothesis, which tackled the problem of why electrons don't fall into the nucleus. Before we know it, we've arrived at the gateway of quantum mechanics, a worldview where things are both waves and particles.

With the momentum of having just seen the exhibit and our heads spinning a little, we go back and forth on the question, 'Why did they think that way?' Please enjoy this discussion on the supposedly difficult topic of quantum mechanics, and feel about 30 yen smarter by the end of it.

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