Starts With A Bang — October 29, 2017

New podcast, on String Theory and Quantum Gravity, is live!

Do we need quantum gravity? We sure do… and here’s how we’re trying to get there!

Our current best theories describing the Universe, general relativity for gravity, quantum field theory for electromagnetism and the nuclear forces, do a fantastic job independently and together. But there are fundamental questions that go unanswered if we take these as the final answers. What happens to the gravitational field of an electron passing through a double slit? What happens to the information on a black hole’s surface when it decays? And what happens close by a gravitational singularity? Without a quantum theory of gravity, we can’t know.

Yet we’re on a path to try and figure it out! Where are we, and how far do we have to go? Find out, on this edition of the Starts With A Bang podcast!

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature's most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it's a JWST image or any other observatory.

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