268 | Matt Strassler on Relativity, Fields, and the Language of Reality
In the 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell argued that light was a wave of electric and magnetic fields. But it took over four decades for physicists to put together the theory of special relativity, which cor...
4 Mar 20241h 30min
267 | Benjamin Breen on Margaret Mead, Psychedelics, and Utopia
The twentieth century was something, wasn't it? Margaret Mead, as well as her onetime-husband Gregory Bateson, managed to play roles in several of its key developments: social anthropology and its imp...
26 Feb 20241h 13min
266 | Christoph Adami on How Information Makes Sense of Biology
Evolution is sometimes described -- not precisely, but with some justification -- as being about the "survival of the fittest." But that idea doesn't work unless there is some way for one generation t...
19 Feb 20241h 20min
AMA | February 2024
Welcome to the February 2024 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Pa...
12 Feb 20243h 24min
265 | John Skrentny on How the Economy Mistreats STEM Workers
Universities and their students are constantly being encouraged to produce more graduates majoring in STEM fields -- science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. That's the kind of training that...
5 Feb 20241h 20min
264 | Sabine Stanley on What's Inside Planets
The radius of the Earth is over 6,000 kilometers, but the deepest we've ever dug below the surface is only about 12 km. Yet we have a quite reliable idea of the structure of the Earth's interior -- in...
29 Jan 20241h 12min
263 | Chris Quigg on Symmetry and the Birth of the Standard Model
Einstein's theory of general relativity is distinguished by its singular simplicity and beauty. The Standard Model of Particle Physics, by contrast, is a bit of a mess. So many particles and interacti...
22 Jan 20241h 26min
262 | Eric Schwitzgebel on the Weirdness of the World
Scientists and philosophers sometimes advocate pretty outrageous-sounding ideas about the fundamental nature of reality. (Arguably I have been guilty of this.) It shouldn't be surprising that reality,...
15 Jan 20241h 20min
