Mysteries of the universe: Expansion and gravity

Brains On! Science podcast for kids

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 13.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2018

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode we ponder some big questions from Brains On listeners about the vastness of space.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Brains On or we're serious about being curious.
0:04.4	Brains On is supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
0:16.3	You're listening to Brains On from American Public Media. I'm Molly Bloom and today we're going
0:20.6	to start the New Year off with something that we love here at Brains On. Mysteries about our
0:26.0	universe and questions without easy answers. We're going to revisit a couple big questions from some
0:32.4	of our favorite episodes. Have you ever wondered what's beyond the edge of the universe or maybe a
0:40.1	better question? Is there even an edge of the universe? And what does it mean that the universe is
0:45.4	expanding? We're about 15 seconds into this episode and my brain already hurts from thinking about
0:50.8	these big questions so it's a good thing that we have help. Today we're going to be listening in
0:55.2	on a conversation between two very smart people who are wrestling with these very big and very
1:00.7	mind blowing questions. The first is an astrophysicist. Hi my name is Katie Mack. I am a theoretical
1:07.2	astrophysicist and I study the early universe and dark matter and stuff like that. And the second
1:12.9	is thea Hutchins. Hi my name is Thea. I'm nine years old and I live in Sydney, Australia.
1:19.2	Thea wrote what is perhaps our favorite email that has ever been written to Brains On.
1:24.2	I don't understand how the universe can be expanding into nothing. Like what is the
1:28.5	nothing that the universe is going into? Also, before the big bang there was nothing. So what made
1:33.7	the bang? Usually explosions blowing up something but there was nothing to blow up. How can everything
1:39.4	have come from nothing? What is nothing anyway? How can it be no space? I can't understand how to
1:46.1	think about the nothing. Too many questions. Thanks Thea. In our book too many questions is always a
1:53.2	good thing. We arranged a conversation with Thea and Katie and we are very excited to share it
1:57.6	with you. Now we can all stare into the infinite together. Thea started by asking about the
2:02.9	expansion of the universe. I understand how the universe can be going and expanding into nothing.
	...

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