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Coffee might seem like a simple pleasure, but it’s taken centuries of scientific theory and experimentation to begin to understand the physical mysteries contained in a single cup – and scientists are still working out the details. A collaboration between the French filmmaker Charlotte Arene and the University of Paris-Sud’s Laboratory of Solid State Physics, Physics and Caffeine explores how the best models for understanding the physical world – from electromagnetism to special relativity to quantum mechanics – converge in every cup of coffee.
Director: Charlotte Arene
Website: Physics Reimagined
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History
Hags, seductresses, feminist icons – how gender dynamics manifest in witches
13 minutes
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Earth science and climate
Images carved into film form a haunting elegy for a disappearing slice of Earth
3 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
Leading 1950s thinkers on the search for happiness in trying times
29 minutes
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Biology
Butterflies become unrecognisable landscapes when viewed under electron microscopes
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Engineering
Can monumental ‘ice stupas’ help remote Himalayan villages survive?
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Virtues and vices
Why Bennie tried to disappear, and what happened when he was found decades later
16 minutes
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Cognition and intelligence
A father forgets his child’s name for the first time in this poetic reflection on memory
4 minutes
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Animals and humans
Join seabirds as they migrate, encountering human communities along the way
13 minutes
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Art
Background music was the radical invention of a trailblazing composer
17 minutes