You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sifai here bringing Shortwave space week to an end with the end of everything,

the entire universe, which seems very fitting for the moment.

You know, when I was first proposing this book, it was 2017 and there was definitely a kind

of a kind of nihilistic vibe going on.

And so I felt like at the time, you know, the time you might be pretty good.

But I didn't know how bad things would get.

Katie Maxx, an astrophysicist at North Carolina State University, and she has a new book out called

The End of Everything, Astrophysically Speaking.

And so, you know, in a sense, I'm a little bit worried that people are going to be like,

oh, there's enough terrible stuff happening.

But what I've heard from people is that the book is actually kind of a nice escape from the

day-to-day terribleness and stress and worries that everybody's going through.

But the thing is, it's Katie's job to think about this kind of stuff, stuff like the universe,

the beginning of the universe, the end of the universe, what the universe is made of, how it works,

all of the kind of questions about the nature of the cosmos, how it's changing over time,

and, you know, our whole cosmic story.

You know, super casual.

By studying this and lots of other fancy stuff, astrophysicist like Katie are able to theorize

possible ends to our universe. And all of these different universe-ending scenarios

have surprisingly kind of awesome names.

Based on name alone, I think the big rip is pretty good.

...