The best and worst predictions in science are both based on the same underlying physics
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Prof. Sean Carroll
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Virtual particles are a way of talking about fields and their interactions as though particles are doing all the work. This is why there is some controversy around using the term ‘virtual particles’. Some people think the term is useful, especially since in calculating with Feynman diagrams you draw all the particle interactions that are possible (and then do the calculations to get the right answer). While others feel this terminology is misleading because virtual particles don’t behave like real particles and can’t be observed.
A History of the Thermometer and its uses in Meteorology by W. E. Knowles Middleton
Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold by Tom Shachtman
The Science of Measurement, A Historical Survey by Herbert Arthur Klein
Lehrbuch der Chemie by Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Special Thanks to the Uppsala University Museum
I filmed this in Uppsala in the summer of 2012! So I’ve been thinking about this idea for a very long time. I’m glad to finally have it out there in the world.
A rare look inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault which is closed ~350 days a year
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More info on the seed vault: http://wke.lt/w/s/EKFlK
My trip to Norway was funded by Screen Australia, Film Victoria and Genepool Productions as part of a new project. More information soon.
Longyearbyen on Svalbard is the northernmost settlement with over 1000 residents
My trip to Norway was funded by Screen Australia, Film Victoria and Genepool Productions as part of a new project. More information soon.
Captions:
Come take a walk with me around Longyearbyen, the largest town on the Norwegian islands of Svalbard.
Parts of it look familiar, but make no mistake, this place is different.
At 78 degrees North, it lies just 800 miles or 1300 kilometres from the North Pole. And with over 2,000 permanent inhabitants it is the Northernmost real town on Earth.
There are only 50km of road, including the small streets between houses, so people get around the island mainly on snowmobile.
In fact there are more registered snowmobiles than residents.
Anyone leaving town is required to travel with a gun and someone who knows how to use it because the islands are also home to polar bears.
The average daytime high is below freezing for all but four months of the year, and from the end of October to mid-February the sun doesn’t rise at all. This is the long polar night.
Living here is tough. This past December an avalanche in town destroyed 10 homes, which used to be here, killing two people.
So how did this cold, remote, ice-covered archipelago come to be inhabited?
The hills around town are rich in coal deposits that have been mined for over 100 years.
The coal was transported to the port via a series of aerial tramways some of which remain today, though they are no longer operational.
Coal is a reminder that Svalbard was not always an Arctic ice world. 360 million years ago it was actually in the tropics North of the equator. A swampy area, it was covered with the precursors to modern ferns, which were much larger than they are today, reaching 10-30 metres in height.
This vegetation was then covered in mud and sand and submerged under the sea. Over time it turned into the coal deposits that in the 20th century brought miners from Norway, Russia, and the US.
Most of the coal mines have now closed and the economy is gradually shifting towards tourism, education and research.
Tourists take trips on snowmobiles and dog sleds.
There is a university centre in Svalbard, which offers semester courses in biology, physics and geology.
And up on the side of a mountain is the Svalbard Global seed vault… but that’s a story for another time.
The locals tell me that interest in the region from different nations is increasing.
As the globe warms and Arctic ice shrinks, trade routes are opening up across the North. And Svalbard is strategically placed between North America, Asia and Europe.
One day in the future Svalbard may no longer be as cold or remote as it once was.
But for now it is a reminder of how through our ingenuity people can live in the most inhospitable of places.
