The Michael Shermer Show

8. Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan — Mapping the Heavens: The Radical Scientific Ideas That Reveal The Cosmos


Listen Later

Dr. Priyamvada Natarajan is a cosmologist and theoretical astrophysicist from Yale University, specializing in dark matter, dark energy, and black holes. She also holds the Sophie and Tycho Brahe Professorship of the Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. She is passionate about sharing science with the general public and in her new book she provides a tour of the “greatest hits” of cosmological discoveries—the ideas that reshaped our universe over the past century. The cosmos, once understood as a stagnant place, filled with the ordinary, is now a universe that is expanding at an accelerating pace, propelled by dark energy and structured by dark matter. Priyamvada Natarajan is at the forefront of this research—an astrophysicist who literally creates maps of invisible matter in the universe. In the book, she not only explains for a wide audience the science behind these essential ideas but also provides an understanding of how radical scientific theories gain acceptance. The formation and growth of black holes, dark matter halos, the accelerating expansion of the universe, the echo of the big bang, the discovery of exoplanets, and the possibility of other universes—these are some of the puzzling cosmological topics of the early twenty-first century. Natarajan discusses why the acceptance of new ideas about the universe and our place in it has never been linear and always contested even within the scientific community. And she affirms that, shifting and incomplete as science always must be, it offers the best path we have toward making sense of our wondrous, mysterious universe.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Michael Shermer ShowBy Michael Shermer

  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4
  • 4.4

4.4

884 ratings


More shows like The Michael Shermer Show

View all
Making Sense with Sam Harris by Sam Harris

Making Sense with Sam Harris

26,336 Listeners

The Glenn Show by Glenn Loury

The Glenn Show

2,274 Listeners

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps by Josh Szeps

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

856 Listeners

Closer To Truth by Closer To Truth

Closer To Truth

247 Listeners

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating by Big Bang Productions Inc.

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

1,069 Listeners

The Good Fight by Yascha Mounk

The Good Fight

905 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,161 Listeners

Quillette Podcast by Quillette

Quillette Podcast

799 Listeners

Within Reason by Alex J O'Connor

Within Reason

1,644 Listeners

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss by Lawrence M. Krauss

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

501 Listeners

Conversations With Coleman by The Free Press

Conversations With Coleman

569 Listeners

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal by Theories of Everything

Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal

26 Listeners

Why This Universe? by Dan Hooper, Shalma Wegsman

Why This Universe?

390 Listeners

The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan by Andrew Sullivan

The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan

825 Listeners

Honestly with Bari Weiss by The Free Press

Honestly with Bari Weiss

8,789 Listeners