Site • RSS • Apple PodcastsDescription (podcaster-provided):
The biggest ideas in physics, broken down. Join theoretical physicist Dan Hooper and co-host Shalma Wegsman as they answer your questions about dark matter, black holes, quantum mechanics, and more. Part of The University of Chicago Podcast Network.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ physics Q&A • quantum mechanics (Schrödinger, interpretations) • cosmology: Big Bang, expansion, Hubble tension • dark matter/dark energy, modified gravity • particle physics: LHC/CERN, colliders, neutrinos • science philosophy/history, pseudoscience, peer review • astrobiology/exoplanets, simulations, consciousnessThis podcast explains major ideas in modern physics and cosmology through conversational discussions led by a theoretical physicist and a co-host, often driven by listener questions and featuring interviews with researchers, authors, and science communicators. Across the episodes, the focus frequently returns to the big open problems that shape current research, including what dark matter and dark energy might be, how they are investigated, and how new measurements can create tensions or “crises” in our best models of the universe. Listeners are introduced to how cosmologists infer the universe’s history and large-scale structure, from the early universe and the Big Bang through the formation of galaxies, as well as how the expansion of the universe is measured and debated.
A substantial thread centers on quantum mechanics and related frontiers, with attention to core mathematical foundations such as the Schrödinger equation and broader interpretive puzzles like entanglement, uncertainty, simulations, and thought experiments. The show also explores particle physics and the tools used to probe fundamental laws, including colliders, neutrino observatories, pulsar-based gravitational-wave detection, and major telescopes, alongside occasional looks at the culture and practice of science—peer review, Nobel Prize recognition, and how scientific results are communicated to the public.
Astronomy and astrophysics topics appear alongside the fundamentals: the life cycles of stars (including the Sun), the search for exoplanets, and what neutrinos and gravitational waves can reveal about our galaxy and the wider cosmos. Interwoven with these are philosophical and historical angles, such as the development of Western astronomy from ancient Greece, landmark shifts like the Copernican revolution, and questions at the boundary of physics and philosophy, including the nature of existence and whether consciousness can be understood within a physical framework. Overall, the episodes collectively map out both established principles and active debates in contemporary physics, emphasizing how evidence is gathered and how theories evolve in response.
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98 - An Improbable Quantum Ghost Story (Ft. David Kaplan) 2026-Jan-19 41 minutes |
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97 - The Schrödinger Equation: The Heart of Quantum Mechanics 2025-Dec-22 29 minutes |
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96 - The Making of Particle Fever (Ft. David Kaplan) 2025-Nov-24 53 minutes |
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95 - Would Aliens Have the Same Physics? (Ft. Daniel Whiteson) 2025-Nov-04 43 minutes |
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38 - The Nobel Prize's Greatest Misses (2025 Update) 2025-Oct-13 34 minutes |
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94 - Inside the Hubble Tension (Ft. Adam Riess) 2025-Sep-29 31 minutes |
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93 - The Moment Dark Energy Appeared (Ft. Adam Riess) 2025-Sep-15 40 minutes |
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AUA: Changing Dark Energy, Twin Paradox, and What's Next for CERN 2025-May-02 54 minutes |
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AUA: The Early Universe, Quantum Interpretations, and Asteroids 2025-Mar-09 29 minutes |
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92 - What Cosmology Has in Store for 2025 (Ft. Dan Scolnic) 2025-Jan-13 46 minutes |
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91 - What Neutrinos Reveal About the Milky Way 2024-Dec-23 30 minutes |
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90 - Quintessence: Is Dark Energy Changing? (Ft. Sean Carroll) 2024-Nov-04 41 minutes |
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89 - A Dark Matter Vibe Check 2024-Oct-14 37 minutes |
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88 - Why Does Our Universe Exist At All? (Ft. Sean Carroll) 2024-Sep-23 28 minutes |
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87 - The Good and the Bad of Peer Review 2024-Sep-02 39 minutes |
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28 - How Noether's Theorem Changed Physics (Rerun) 2024-Aug-05 24 minutes |
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86 - The Life and Death of Stars 2024-Jul-02 40 minutes |
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85 - Our Sun: Present, Past and Future 2024-Jun-17 37 minutes |
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84 - The Search For New Worlds (ft. Josh Winn) 2024-Jun-03 45 minutes |
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83 - Witnessing a Revolution in Particle Physics (Ft. Chris Quigg) 2024-May-13 31 minutes |
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82 - Science Vs. Pseudoscience 2024-Apr-29 35 minutes |
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81 - Ancient Greek Astronomy 2024-Apr-15 43 minutes |
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80 - (April Fools 2024) A Surprising Discovery Shaking Up Modern Cosmology 2024-Apr-01 16 minutes |
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79 - NanoGRAV's Big Gravitational Wave Discovery (Ft. Chiara Mingarelli) 2024-Mar-18 41 minutes |
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78 - The Life of a Science Journalist (Ft. Katrina Miller) 2024-Mar-04 38 minutes |
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77 - All About Quantum Computing (Ft. Henry Lamm) 2024-Feb-05 40 minutes |
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76 - Do We Live in a Simulation? 2024-Jan-22 37 minutes |
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75 - Physics in Extreme Locations (Ft. Daniel Baxter & Alexandra Rahlin) 2024-Jan-08 42 minutes |
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8 - Is Space Flat or Curved? 2023-Dec-18 24 minutes |
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74 - The Copernican Revolution (Ft. Aviva Rothman) 2023-Dec-04 58 minutes |
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73 - Life Beyond Earth (Ft. Avi Loeb and Garrett Graff at the Chicago Humanities Festival) 2023-Nov-20 68 minutes |
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72 - The Physics Of Music (Ft. Tim Cohen) 2023-Nov-06 43 minutes |
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71 - How the Universe Got Its Structure 2023-Oct-23 20 minutes |
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70 - WTU Live: Will Intelligent Life Persist in the Universe? (ft. Daniel Holz and Diana Powell) 2023-Oct-10 57 minutes |
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Special Announcement + ChatGPT On Unifying Quantum Mechanics and Relativity 2023-Sep-28 9 minutes |
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69 - An Update on Modified Gravity (MOND) 2023-Aug-28 47 minutes |
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68 - The Age of the Universe 2023-Aug-14 29 minutes |
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6 - Your Tour Through Quantum Weirdness (Rebroadcast) 2023-Jul-31 30 minutes |
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67 - When Science Meets Spirituality (Ft. Alan Lightman) 2023-Jul-17 42 minutes |
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66 - When Space Was Filled With Music 2023-Jul-03 25 minutes |
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65 - Should We Build a Muon Collider? (Ft. Cari Cesarotti) 2023-May-22 42 minutes |
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64 - The Journey to the Big Bang 2023-May-08 30 minutes |
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63 - The Question of Consciousness (Ft. David Chalmers) 2023-Apr-17 50 minutes |
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47 - Boltzmann Brains: Could Reality Be An Illusion? (Rebroadcast) 2023-Mar-27 28 minutes |
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62 - JWST and the Earliest Galaxies in the Universe (ft. Mike Boylan-Kolchin) 2023-Mar-13 24 minutes |
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61 - Could the Large Hadron Collider Destroy the World? 2023-Feb-27 23 minutes |
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60 - The Search for Extra Dimensions 2023-Feb-13 23 minutes |
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59 - The End of Everything (Ft. Katie Mack) 2023-Jan-09 40 minutes |
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58 - The Risks of Science Populism 2022-Dec-12 14 minutes |
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57 - String Theory Part 3: Duality 2022-Nov-21 24 minutes |
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56 - An Icy Neutrino Interruption 2022-Nov-07 28 minutes |
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55 - String Theory Part 2: The First Superstring Revolution 2022-Oct-24 28 minutes |
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54 - String Theory Part 1: What Is It? 2022-Oct-03 25 minutes |
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53 - Why We Need a Theory of Quantum Gravity 2022-Sep-12 28 minutes |
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52 - The Large Hadron Collider and All Its Glory 2022-Aug-22 28 minutes |
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51 - Why Physicists Love Smashing Particles Together 2022-Aug-01 23 minutes |
50 - The Black Hole At the Center of the Milky Way2022-Jul-11 31 minutes |
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49 - When the Universe Changed in an Instant 2022-Jun-27 25 minutes |
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48 - A Wrong Picture Of Cosmology 2022-May-23 25 minutes |
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13 - Does Quantum Mechanics Imply a Multiverse? (Rebroadcast) 2022-May-09 34 minutes |
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47 - Boltzmann Brains: Could Reality Be An Illusion? 2022-Apr-25 28 minutes |
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46 - The Cosmic Rays Raining Down On Us 2022-Apr-04 25 minutes |
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25 - Do Extra Dimensions Exist? (Rebroadcast) 2022-Mar-14 28 minutes |
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45 - The Wide World of Exoplanets (ft. Diana Powell) 2022-Feb-28 39 minutes |
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44 - Our Deepest Theory: Quantum Field Theory 2022-Feb-14 24 minutes |
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43 - Is Physics the Most Fundamental Subject? 2022-Jan-31 28 minutes |
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42 - The Signal That Could Be the Dark Matter 2022-Jan-17 37 minutes |
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41 - The Hubble Tension: The Biggest Fight in Astronomy (ft. Wendy Freedman) 2022-Jan-03 23 minutes |
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40 - How Will JWST Change Astronomy? 2021-Dec-20 19 minutes |
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23 - Does Physics Allow for Free Will? (Rebroadcast) 2021-Nov-29 28 minutes |
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39 - Why Do Science Communication? (ft. Daniel Whiteson and Jorge Cham) 2021-Nov-15 27 minutes |
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A Special Neutrino Update! (ft. Pedro Machado) 2021-Nov-01 17 minutes |
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38 - The Nobel Prize's Greatest Misses 2021-Oct-18 34 minutes |
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37 - How Neutrinos Might Be Hinting at Dark Matter 2021-Oct-04 24 minutes |
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36 - The Neutrino's Quantum Superpower 2021-Sep-20 21 minutes |
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35 - The Chaos Underlying Everything (ft. David Grier) 2021-Sep-06 32 minutes |
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34 - Should Beauty Guide Physicists? 2021-Aug-23 28 minutes |
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33 - Our Love Affair With Supersymmetry 2021-Aug-09 34 minutes |
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32 - The Mystery of the Higgs Boson's Mass 2021-Jul-26 24 minutes |
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31 - If You Give an Astronomer a Neutrino 2021-Jul-12 27 minutes |
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30 - The Oldest Picture of the Universe 2021-Jun-28 32 minutes |
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29 - How the Big Bang Won the Debate About the Beginning of Time 2021-Jun-14 33 minutes |
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28 - How Emmy Noether Changed Physics Forever 2021-May-31 23 minutes |
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12 - The Fight Between Modified Gravity and Dark Matter 2021-May-10 31 minutes |
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3 - What in the World is Anti-Matter? 2021-Apr-26 16 minutes |
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27 - What Does the Muon g-2 Result Mean for Physics? 2021-Apr-12 34 minutes |
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26 - Did Inflation Rip Apart the Early Universe? 2021-Mar-29 27 minutes |
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25 - Could Extra Dimensions Exist? 2021-Mar-15 27 minutes |
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24 - Breaking Down the Standard Model 2021-Mar-01 28 minutes |
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23 - Does Physics Allow for Free Will? 2021-Feb-15 28 minutes |
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22 - The Particle That Might Do It All (Axions!) 2021-Feb-01 19 minutes |
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21 - The Quantum Mechanics of Black Holes 2021-Jan-18 29 minutes |
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20 - Everything To Do About Black Holes 2021-Jan-04 29 minutes |
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19 - Why Does Science Work? 2020-Dec-21 29 minutes |
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18 - Could a Hyper-Advanced Civilization Resist Dark Energy? 2020-Nov-30 37 minutes |
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The State of The Universe #81 - Dr. Daniel Whiteson - The Standard Model and Its Many Quirks! 2020-Nov-23 102 minutes |
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17 - Why Haven't We Met Aliens? 2020-Nov-16 25 minutes |
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16 - Where Is Life in the Universe? 2020-Nov-02 26 minutes |
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15 - What are Grand Unified Theories? 2020-Oct-19 24 minutes |
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14 - Why Does Time Move in One Direction? 2020-Oct-12 26 minutes |
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13 - Does Quantum Mechanics Imply a Multiverse? 2020-Oct-05 30 minutes |
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12 - Please Stop Emailing Dan About MOND 2020-Sep-28 30 minutes |
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11 - Discovery Alert! Let's Talk About Gravitational Waves 2020-Sep-21 26 minutes |
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10 - What is Dark Energy? 2020-Sep-14 28 minutes |
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9 - Is Space Expanding? 2020-Sep-07 22 minutes |
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8 - Is Space Flat or Curved? 2020-Aug-31 23 minutes |
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7 - Could Black Holes Be the Dark Matter? 2020-Aug-24 23 minutes |
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6 - Your Tour Through Quantum Weirdness 2020-Aug-17 29 minutes |
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5 - How Dan Lost a Bet With Dark Matter 2020-Aug-10 27 minutes |
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4 - Where Did the Antimatter Go? 2020-Aug-03 26 minutes |
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3 - What in the World Is Antimatter? 2020-Jul-26 15 minutes |
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2 - What's It Like to Discover Quantum Mechanics? 2020-Jul-20 32 minutes |
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1 - Why Are We So Sure About Dark Matter? 2020-Jul-13 20 minutes |
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0 - Welcome to Why This Universe! 2020-Jul-13 4 minutes |