Episode 24 – Space

Joint winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for Physics, Felix Bloch, famously recounted a walk he took with his doctoral supervisor, Werner Heisenberg, pioneer of Quantum mechanics and himself a Nobel Laureate in 1928. During this walk Bloch remarked that, following his recent reading of Hermann Weyl’s “Space, Time and Matter” it was obvious to him that space was simply the field of linear operations. “Nonsense” rebuked Heisenberg, “space is blue and birds fly through it.” The accepted reading of Heisenberg’s remark is that it is foolish to describe nature in terms of idealised abstractions far removed from the evidence of actual observation.

However, at No Stairway, we favour the interpretation that Heisenberg was in fact misunderstanding Bloch’s broader point describing the nature of the physical universe and was merely pointing out that space is whatever is ‘up’. And it is up we go this week, as we venture further than any middle-aged mixtaping podcast has gone before, through the blue bit with birds in it and out into the farthest reaches of the cosmos with three playlists on the theme of ’Space.’

In this first episode of a brand new season of No Stairway Bill recommends listening to Apex Twin when being chased by the police, Carl debuts his beat boxing skills, and Tim shares that he is tortured at night by the sound of his plumbing. Cosmic stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Don’t forget to check out The Golden Shuffle

Montgomery Scott

Listen to the previoust podcasts here or on your preferred podcast provider.

Play along at home and post your own playlists here.