Ep 29: Jim Al-Khalili on Dark Matter in 'Sunfall'

The Science in The Fiction

Our theme in the next two episodes is dark matter, the kind of far-out science that is stranger than fiction and presents realms of possibility that are both more plausible and more interesting than parallel worlds or extra dimensions or even wormholes. In this episode we talk to Jim Al-Khalili, who is many things: physicist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, educator, broadcaster and all around extraordinary public intellectual who reaches millions of people around the world with his popular science books and as the host of the BBC’s flagship scientific program, The Life Scientific. In this conversation we talk about his new science fiction book Sunfall, which uses dark matter as the novum that drives the story, and makes heroes of the physicist who save the world. Along the way we talk about a lot of other cool science in his science fiction, including quantum effects in biology, the magnetic field of earth and how it prevents our atmosphere from being stripped away by the solar wind, as well as a really interesting bit of (fictional) particle physics that imagines the possibility of manipulating and focusing dark matter beams so they can interact with each other and release their energy in the core of the earth. This is a gentle introduction to the subject of dark matter, about which we still understand very little - but we know it exists, and it is likely to show us that the universe is more ingenious and creative and interesting than our human minds have yet to imagine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Al-Khalili
https://www.amazon.com/Sunfall-Jim-Al-Khalili/dp/0593077423
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https://thescienceinthefiction.buzzsprout.com
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