How Does The Universe Get It On? with Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Getting Better with Jonathan Van Ness

Sony Music

Comedy, Society & Culture, Education, Self-improvement

4.9 • 21.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2023

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is life one big cosmic orgy? To wrap up our Pride Beyond Borders series, we’re going big… with an episode all about our universe! Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein joins Jonathan to discuss why spacetime isn’t straight, what quantum spin can teach us about gender expression, and why the key to understanding the cosmos may just be (wait for it) the world’s biggest dental dam. Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is an Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Core Faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of New Hampshire. She is a researcher in particle cosmology and author of the award-winning book for general audiences, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred. She is working on her next book, The Edge of Space-Time. You can follow Dr. Prescod-Weinstein on Twitter @IBJIYONGI, on Instagram and TikTok @chanda.prescod.weinstein, on Bluesky and Substack @chanda, and at cprescodweinstein.com. Curious for more? Here are some resources Dr. Prescod-Weinstein recommends: lgbt+physicists Astronomy and Astrophysics Outlist The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy by Moiya McTier The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe by Clifford V. Johnson The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) by Katie Mack Risa Wechsler: The search for dark matter -- and what we've found so far | TED Talk Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: The search for the invisible matter that shapes the universe | TED Talk You can find more episodes about space (including one with Dr. Moiya McTier!), and the rest of our Pride Beyond Borders series, here. Follow us on Instagram @CuriousWithJVN to join the conversation. Jonathan is on Instagram @JVN. Transcripts for each episode are available at JonathanVanNess.com. Find books from Getting Curious guests at bookshop.org/shop/curiouswithjvn. Our executive producer is Erica Getto. Our producer is Chris McClure. Production support from Julie Carrillo and Emily Bossak. Our theme music is “Freak” by QUIÑ; for more, head to Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to getting curious. I'm Jonathan Van Ness and every week I sit down for a gorgeous
0:09.4	conversation with a burr really expert told all about something that makes me curious.
0:13.5	All month we've been celebrating Pride Beyond Borders and today we are like going like beyond
0:18.6	all the borders that you could ever even go through because we're going into space time.
0:22.5	But if you want to go back into our other episodes from Pride Month because they really
0:25.6	have just been like on point if we do say say ourself you can get into some Haitian photo you
0:30.4	can get some global drag culture or queer communities in China we've really just been doing the most
0:35.4	and having the most fun this month. But to wrap up the series we're going into an episode all about
0:40.4	our universe. So welcome to the show Chanda Prescott Weinstein who is a theoretical physicist
0:47.3	specializing in early universe cosmology. She is a tenured associate professor of physics and
0:54.0	core faculty and women's and gender studies at the University of New Hampshire. She's also the
0:59.1	author of the disordered cosmos a journey into dark matter space time and dreams deferred.
1:05.5	Chanda my biggest question is how gay is space? That's really what I wanted to ask and just how queer
1:13.1	like how LGBTQIA is space you're the most exciting person to ask about this and we're so excited
1:19.1	you're on getting curious sidebar the earring game is so on point. Thank you they're inuit I love
1:27.1	them. I guess I will just start by saying there's a chapter in the disordered cosmos called space
1:32.2	time isn't straight which like I will say that title started as a joke because space time is curved
1:41.3	gravity isn't really a force it's just that space time is curved and it looks like a force that
1:45.9	we call gravity to us. Chanda I'm so sorry to interrupt you like right at the very beginning but like
1:51.4	I think you might have just broke my gay brain. Gravity is not just a song by Sarah Barellis
2:01.0	and it's not just so what it's just because space time is a curve. I purposefully said gravity
2:08.9	isn't a real force because this is almost like if I wanted to pick a fight with other physicists
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sony Music, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Sony Music and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.