Babbage from The Economist

Babbage from The Economist Podcast

Babbage is our weekly podcast on science and technology, named after Charles Babbage—a 19th-century polymath and grandfather of computing. Host Alok Jha talks to our correspondents about the innovations, discoveries and gadgetry shaping the world. Published every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page here https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/What-is-Economist-Podcasts

  1. 13 AUG • SUBSCRIBERS ONLY

    Cosmology in crisis, part one: how to build a universe

    Most of the universe is missing. Only 5% of it is normal matter, which makes up all the people, planets and stars we can see; the other 95% consists of mysterious dark matter and dark energy. Scientists have some hypotheses of what these enigmatic substances might be but recent astronomical observations have posed challenges to their ideas. Even worse, it could mean that there are cracks in the standard model of cosmology, the best scientific description of the universe’s evolution. It’s a nerve-wracking time for cosmologists—is everything they thought they knew about to come crashing down? This is the first of two episodes that explore a looming crisis in cosmology. We examine what scientists understand about the evolution of the universe, and why their best model might be under pressure. Host: Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor. Contributors: Mark Mcculloch, Michael Brown, Rebecca Bowler and Erik Rosenberg of the University of Manchester; Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille of DESI and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. To learn more about how physicists are searching for dark matter, listen to our episode “Babbage: The hunt for dark matter”. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+. For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

    37 min

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

Babbage is our weekly podcast on science and technology, named after Charles Babbage—a 19th-century polymath and grandfather of computing. Host Alok Jha talks to our correspondents about the innovations, discoveries and gadgetry shaping the world. Published every Wednesday. If you’re already a subscriber to The Economist, you’ll have full access to all our shows as part of your subscription. For more information about Economist Podcasts+, including how to get access, please visit our FAQs page here https://myaccount.economist.com/s/article/What-is-Economist-Podcasts

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