News of the world: History and Physics in Conversation

Brendan Dooley, historian, and Brendan Roycroft, experimental physicist

Historians wrestle every day with a reality that often seems just out of reach. Surprise: so, in their own way, do physicists, we learn from this wide-ranging and depth-sounding conversation between Brendan Dooley, historian and P.I. of the EURONEWS Project, and Brendan Roycroft, physicist at University College Cork's renowned Tyndall Institute.

Click below to listen to a discussion covering such questions as:

How do we know what we know?
What is real and what is not?
Whose reality, anyway?
What does general relativity have to do with it?
What can quantum mechanics do for me?
...... and much else!!

Dr. Brendan Roycroft has been interested in science all his life, and received a doctorate in physics in 1998, modifying the vacuum interactions between light and electrons. Since 2001, he has worked in the Tyndall National Institute, Ireland, and has interests in all things optical, including visible and infra-red lasers, using light for data transmission, displays and metrology. He has worked in many science projects funded by the European Union, the Irish government, the European Space Agency and industry funded projects. 

Recent research includes developing photonic integrated circuits for data communication, optical coherence tomography for early diagnosis of cancer using an endoscope, optical metrology for manufacturing and superluminescent light emitting diodes. Hobbies include uncovering the nature of the universe, spanning consciousness, the mind and the physical world

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