Bridge the Gap

Description: Who says phase transitions are only diagrams and critical lines? What if they could be understood through something as simple as making a smooth, cheesy sauce? In this episode, Ivan Di Terlizzi, from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex systems in Dresden, will tell us all about the physics of cheese in the classic Italian dish Pasta Cacio e Pepe. Don't miss this tasty and brainy episode!
Link to the paper: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof/article/37/4/044122/3345324/Phase-behavior-of-Cacio-e-Pepe-sauce

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle prevents us from pinpointing an electron in real time with arbitrary accuracy. What this means is that if we were to shine light on an electron and excite it, we would not be able to follow its trajectory precisely. And yet, recent years have witnessed the development of so-called ultrafast spectroscopic techniques which allows us to indirectly reconstruct a movie of the elections evolution within a molecule. Peter Puschnig, Professor at University of Graz, Austria, will lead us through this fascinating world of ultrafast spectroscopy to hopefully answer fundamental (and cool) questions about electronic motions in real time.

Neurodegenerative diseases are disorders characterised by a gradual, yet steady, loss or death of neurons, the brain cells, a condition that eventually leads to decline in motor and cognitive functions. Despite our best efforts, some aspects of these diseases are still obscure. Rina Demjaha is a medical doctor and a PhD candidate at the Medical University in Graz, Austria. With her we will explore some of the experimental techniques which are used to identify so-called biomarkers which could lead to an early diagnosis of such diseases.

Johanna Byloff is a PhD candidate at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. In this episode, she will talk about experimental techniques to stick together metals and polymers to obtain flexible, yet resistant, compounds which find applications in electronics, from smartphones to telescopes in orbit around Earth.

How does a star like our Sun actually work? What fuels this giant ball of gas—and how does it change over time? And where do the elements of the periodic table really come from?
In this episode, we explore these cosmic questions with our guest, Professor Alexander Shapiro from the University of Graz.