Why This Universe?
The biggest ideas in physics, broken down. Join theoretical physicist Dan Hooper and co-host Shalma Wegsman as they answer your questions about dark matter, black holes, quantum mechanics, and more. Part of The University of Chicago Podcast Network.
Our Editor's Take
Why This Universe? is a podcast for anyone with a healthy dose of intellectual curiosity. It hopes to capture people's interest from any level of knowledge. Whether they have a PhD in physics or are complete novices, there is something for everyone. It is a digestible and accessible source of information about the way the universe works.
The podcast hosts share a passion for physics, one that they discovered only later in life. Dan Hooper grew up in rural Minnesota and didn't receive any exposure to big science ideas as a child. He thought he'd be a music major when he went to college. However, he learned concepts like relativity and quantum mechanics when taking general classes. That made him want to explore more exciting ideas about why the universe is the way it is and how it came to be. Nowadays, Dan is a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. He studies cosmology, particle physics, and high-energy particles. He's also a professor at the University of Chicago, where he met his cohost Shalma Wegsman and acted as her thesis consultant.
Shalma is a PhD student in the Department of Cosmology at NYU at the time of writing. Her parents are writers, and she's the first physicist in the family. Like Dan, her first interest in the field didn't come from her classes. Instead, she became intrigued by watching documentaries and reading popular physics books. The same writers captured Dan's attention, such as Stephen Hawking, Paul Davies, and Kip Thorne. Those books gave the pair the idea to start a podcast. They wanted to be the next generation of pop culture scientists to attract people to physics.
Most of the topics on Why This Universe? are not a part of an undergraduate curriculum. Even people with PhDs have yet to encounter them. Listeners can discover complex subjects like dark matter, consciousness, and extra dimensions. The hosts' goal is to uncover them for the rest of the world to get excited about physics. New episodes drop several times each month.
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