AN HOUR OF PEACE OF MIND IN THE JOYS OF THE UNDISCOVERED: 8/8: The Elephant in the Universe: Our Hundred-Year Search for Dark Matter by Govert Schilling (Author), Avi Loeb (Foreword)
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 22 October 2023
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Elephant-Universe-Hundred-Year-Search-Matter/dp/0674248996
In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos―some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.
1836 GREENWICH OBSERVATORY
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Emily, do you remember when One Direction called it a day? |
| 0:03.0 | I think you'll find there are still many people who can't talk about it. |
| 0:07.0 | Well luckily, we can. A lot. |
| 0:09.0 | Because our new season of terribly famous is all about the first One Directioner to go it alone. |
| 0:14.0 | Zayn Malik. |
| 0:15.0 | We'll take you on Zayn's journey from Shylad from Bradford |
| 0:18.0 | to being in the world's biggest boy band and explore why. |
| 0:22.0 | When you reach the top, he decided to walk away. |
| 0:24.0 | Follow terribly famous wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:30.0 | I'm John Nacho with Govert Schilling. |
| 0:36.0 | His wonderful new book, The Elephant in the Universe, |
| 0:39.0 | is the frontier of thinking about dark matter, dark energy, and our universe. |
| 0:44.0 | 100-year search. Right now, however, the searching heavens are searching particle physics. |
| 0:50.0 | They're in minds waiting for collisions. |
| 0:52.0 | And we come to, uh-oh, an exception. |
| 0:56.0 | They found a galaxy without cold dark matter. |
| 1:00.0 | They found several of them, in fact. |
| 1:02.0 | And that worries everybody. |
| 1:04.0 | Or the quote, D-F-44, that's the name of the galaxy. |
| 1:08.0 | They call it the Dragonfly Galaxy. |
| 1:10.0 | Is a problem for everybody. |
| 1:12.0 | Is it a problem for Munn too? |
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