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Kitchen Table Kibitzing 4/4/2023: Physics Girl [1]

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Date: 2023-04-04  

Dianna Cowern is a 33-year-old physicist and YouTube “science communicator”, inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson (who was in turn inspired by Carl Sagan). Her YouTube channel is Physics Girl, and I’d been meaning to show it to you for a while; I came across it looking for videos to go with school science projects in the Inoculation Project series.

Now, however, I need to open the diary with a video from another YouTuber, Rebecca Watson (of Skepchick.org), whose viewers asked her to comment on Dianna Cowern’s utterly disabling case of long Covid that currently keeps her bedridden and in and out of the hospital. This is a good general discussion of the condition, and a reminder that young, healthy people who are fully vaxxed and boosted are still at risk of something life-wrecking. [10:19]

There’s a video on the Physics Girl channel, the most recent one, that I am linking to here rather than embedding. It’s one made by her friend, describing her condition and showing it to some extent, and although it’s informative, please know that it’s mostly intended to acquaint viewers with Dianna’s Patreon page. I’m not embedding it because this is not a fundraiser, but also because it’s too freakin’ sad. I hope it will soon be out of date in a GOOD way, but meanwhile, I really prefer to stick to her own ebullient work to inform you about science.

So! Here’s one of a visit to LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), to learn how it detects gravitational waves. [8:19]

Here, shortly after the death of Stephen Hawking, she explains what black holes are and how they work. [7:52]

From two years ago, all about a new kind of muon just discovered and what that means. [12:51]

From soon after JWST launched, a discussion about what it is and what it does, and why that’s important. (When you get to the embedded ad, you can slide to 5:25 if you aren’t interested.) [19:04]

She and her friends build an acoustic levitator (from a kit, because there are acoustic levitator kits now), and then she explains how it works. [9:23]

At the beginning of the Covid lockdown era, she did several “experiments you can do at home” videos. [9:00]

A couple of years ago, she did an entire 20-part intro physics class (which apparently also functions as an AP Physics 1 review). This is the brief introduction to the course — actual lessons are more like 20-25 minutes. The entire course playlist is here. [4:15]

This episode about “Concentrated Solar Power” technology, from just last year, is the last of a four part series about renewable energy. [11:29]

The first three are:

Thanks for indulging my affection for physics! And please, my friends, don’t be in a hurry to leave your mask home and dive into crowds.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/4/2161699/-Kitchen-Table-Kibitzing-4-4-2023-Physics-Girl

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