Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe
597 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago - ★★★★★ - 2.1K ratingsA fun-filled discussion of the big, mind-blowing, unanswered questions about the Universe. In each episode, Daniel Whiteson (a Physicist who works at CERN) and Jorge Cham (a popular online cartoonist) discuss some of the simple but profound questions that people have been wondering about for thousands of years, explaining the science in a fun, shorts-wearing and jargon-free way.
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Episodes
Which force(s) power the human senses?
October 26, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 73.6 MBDaniel and Katie talk about how we experience the Universe and what physics underlies our senses. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could we see moons around exoplanets?
October 24, 2023 04:00 - 53 minutes - 48.7 MBDaniel and Jorge are over the moon about the possibility of spotting alien moons. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could we seed exoplanets with life?
October 19, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 58.5 MBDaniel and Kelly wrangle with the tricky science and ethics of sending microbes to distant worlds. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do Black Holes Have Hair?
October 17, 2023 04:00 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBDaniel and Jorge wrestle with the hairy question of what's happening inside and on the surface of black holes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Was the interstellar visitor oumuamua natural or artificial?
October 12, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 60.1 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the claims that 'Oumuamua might have been alien space junk. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could dark matter be making flashes of light?
October 10, 2023 05:00 - 43 minutes - 40.3 MBDaniel and Jorge break down a new study that looks for dark matter using both gravity and light. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Where is all the missing matter?
October 05, 2023 05:00 - 45 minutes - 41.6 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the effort to track down all the quarks in the Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How does gravity escape a black hole?
October 03, 2023 05:00 - 57 minutes - 52.4 MBDaniel and Katie warp their minds around the question of what gravitational information really is and what we know about a black hole. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listener Questions 43: Light, heat and vision
September 28, 2023 05:00 - 43 minutes - 39.6 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from listeners like you! Send in your questions to [email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Great, Big Questions about the Universe
September 26, 2023 05:00 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from young people about the Universe, to mark Jorge's new book! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How important is cosmic dust?
September 21, 2023 05:00 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBDaniel and Jorge dust off their knowledge of the tiny-but-mighty grains of space dust which help form our world and block our view of the cosmos. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Explain the Universe: Behind the Scenes
September 19, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 82.1 MBTo mark the 500th episode, Daniel gives a tour of the podcast's history and production process, including candid interviews with the co-hosts, Sean Carroll and other podcasters. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How big is the smallest habitable planet?
September 14, 2023 05:00 - 47 minutes - 43.8 MBDaniel and Kelly talk about what it would take to live away from Earth, and whether a small planet could host humanity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why do moving objects look shorter?
September 12, 2023 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46 MBDaniel and Jorge wrestle with the weird consequences and hard questions of special relativity! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How do we measure the Higgs boson mass?
September 07, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.9 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about why the Higgs mass is such an important number and how physicists weigh such a fleeting particle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listener Questions 42: Life, the Universe and Ghosts!
September 05, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.2 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from listeners like you! Send your questions to [email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why do scientists do simulations?
August 31, 2023 05:00 - 58 minutes - 53.7 MBDaniel and Jorge explain how simulation lets scientists answer new kinds of questions about the Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Have we seen more or fewer gravitational waves than expected?
August 29, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 57.4 MBDaniel and Katie talk about what physicists expected when they turned on a new kind of ear for listening to the Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why is space so flat?
August 24, 2023 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about what it means for space to be curved, how we measure it and why the answer is a puzzle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Science Fiction Universe of "Meru" by SB Divya
August 22, 2023 05:00 - 51 minutes - 47.5 MBDaniel and Kelly talk to the author of "Meru" about a future which blurs the line between humans and machines. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is the maximum vacuum?
August 17, 2023 05:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about what is revealed if you empty space of all possible particles. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The Science Fiction Universe of "Orbital Cloud"
August 15, 2023 05:00 - 44 minutes - 40.6 MBDaniel and Kelly talk to Tayio Fujii, author of "Orbital Cloud" See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What does the center of the galaxy look like?
August 10, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBDaniel and Jorge turn their eyes to the center of the galactic action and give us a sense for where we are. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How fast can a black hole spin?
August 08, 2023 05:00 - 52 minutes - 48.1 MBDaniel and Katie get their heads spinning as they spiral into the center of spinning black holes See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How can we look for magnetic monopoles?
August 03, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.5 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about a particle with a pure magnetic charge and how to look for it using a cubic kilometer of ice. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How massive is a neutrino?
August 01, 2023 05:00 - 55 minutes - 50.5 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the mysterious mass of the neutrino and how we can measure it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How can we keep solar panels clean on Mars?
July 27, 2023 05:00 - 43 minutes - 39.5 MBDaniel and Kelly talk about how to keep solar panels bright and powerful when they far away on a dusty planet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is a non-Newtonian fluid?
July 25, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 48.6 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the gooey physics of honey, gravity, asphalt and ketchup! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listener Questions 41: Questions about the mass of the Universe, moons made of gas, and backyard blackholes.
July 20, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from listeners like you! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What everyone misunderstands about the Universe
July 18, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 56.3 MBDaniel talks to Zach Weinersmith about the most common misconceptions about our Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How stable is the Earth's orbit?
July 13, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.6 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about whether we can expect the Earth to continue in its path forever, or if our days are numbered. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do things get more massive the faster they move?
July 11, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about what happens when you start to move fast, and whether it makes sense to think about your mass growing. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How do planets get their moons?
July 06, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.3 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about how a planets gets its natural satellites and the stories that each one reveals. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do all galaxies have central black holes?
July 04, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about whether galaxies have to have black holes at their hearts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How to use the whole galaxy to hear huge gravitational waves
June 29, 2023 05:00 - 1 hour - 55.2 MBDaniel and Jorge break down the recent discovery of huge gravitational waves by NANOGrav, and what it means about supermassive black holes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What drives the movement of Earth’s continents?
June 27, 2023 05:00 - 46 minutes - 42.9 MBDaniel and Jorge explore the deep, violent history of the Earth's surface. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What happens if you explode a nuclear bomb in space?
June 22, 2023 05:00 - 52 minutes - 48 MBDaniel and Katie touch on the explosive question of nuclear weapons and explain the impact of space-based explosions. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listener Questions 40: Ways our Universe could end us
June 20, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from listeners about the dangers of our Universe and whether engineers could save us. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could there be more than one theory of everything?
June 15, 2023 05:00 - 46 minutes - 42.4 MBDaniel talks to philosopher Thomas Barrett about whether there could be multiple effective descriptions of our Universe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why are some things transparent?
June 13, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 50.3 MBDaniel and Jorge try to see through the mysteries of transparency. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is a superluminous supernova?
June 08, 2023 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46.4 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the super names for some of the most incredible events in astronomy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What color is the Sun?
June 06, 2023 05:00 - 53 minutes - 49 MBDaniel and Katie talk about the amazing physics, chemistry and biology that determines how we see the Sun. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Why does the Universe have antiparticles?
June 01, 2023 05:00 - 49 minutes - 45.7 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about whether the Universe would make sense without antimatter. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Could we reveal quantum gravity in a tabletop experiment?
May 30, 2023 05:00 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about how clever experiments might provide a breakthrough in the effort to understand the quantum nature of space-time. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What is tidal locking?
May 25, 2023 05:00 - 44 minutes - 40.7 MBDaniel and Kelly talk about how the gravitational dance of the Earth and Moon, and other objects in and out of our Solar System. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What's the best way to measure the expansion of the Universe?
May 23, 2023 05:00 - 57 minutes - 53.1 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about how to use different cosmic rulers to measure the expansion of the Universe. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listener Questions 39: gravitons, antimatter and unified forces!
May 18, 2023 05:00 - 50 minutes - 46.1 MBDaniel and Jorge answer questions from listeners like you! Submit your question to [email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Will our supercluster be torn apart?
May 16, 2023 05:00 - 54 minutes - 50.4 MBDaniel and Jorge talk about the deep future fate of our cosmic neighborhood. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do black holes have a maximum electric charge?
May 11, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.7 MBDaniel and Jorge explore whether its possible to crack open a black hole by overcharging it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What did the night sky look like to the dinosaurs?
May 09, 2023 05:00 - 48 minutes - 44.5 MBDaniel and Kelly talk about what the night sky would look like if you travelled back to the time of the dinosaurs. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.