30 | Derek Leben on Ethics for Robots and Artificial Intelligences
It's hardly news that computers are exerting ever more influence over our lives. And we're beginning to see the first glimmers of some kind of artificial intelligence: computer programs have become mu...
21 Jan 20191h 28min
29 | Raychelle Burks on the Chemistry of Murder
Sometimes science is asking esoteric questions about the fundamental nature of reality. Other times, it just wants to solve a murder. Today's guest, Raychelle Burks, is an analytical chemist at St. Ed...
14 Jan 20191h 15min
28 | Roger Penrose on Spacetime, Consciousness, and the Universe
Sir Roger Penrose has had a remarkable life. He has contributed an enormous amount to our understanding of general relativity, perhaps more than anyone since Einstein himself -- Penrose diagrams, sing...
7 Jan 20191h 35min
Holiday Message 2018
There won't be any regular episodes of Mindscape this week or next, as we take a holiday break. Regular service will resume on Monday January 7, 2019. In the meantime, here is a special Holiday Messag...
24 Dec 201844min
27 | Janna Levin on Black Holes, Chaos, and the Narrative of Science
It's a big universe out there, full of an astonishing variety of questions and puzzles. Today's guest, Janna Levin, is a physicist who has delved into some of the trippiest aspects of cosmology and gr...
17 Dec 20181h 8min
26 | Ge Wang on Artful Design, Computers, and Music
Everywhere around us are things that serve functions. We live in houses, sit on chairs, drive in cars. But these things don't only serve functions, they also come in particular forms, which may be emo...
10 Dec 20181h 10min
25 | David Chalmers on Consciousness, the Hard Problem, and Living in a Simulation
The "Easy Problems" of consciousness have to do with how the brain takes in information, thinks about it, and turns it into action. The "Hard Problem," on the other hand, is the task of explaining our...
3 Dec 20181h 22min
24 | Kip Thorne on Gravitational Waves, Time Travel, and Interstellar
I remember vividly hosting a colloquium speaker, about fifteen years ago, who talked about the LIGO gravitational-wave observatory, which had just started taking data. Comparing where they were to whe...
26 Nov 20181h 19min
