Buy the ticket, take the ride featuring interview with Juan Thompson

It's sort of a shame Kanye didn't name his album Waves after all — the same week that The Life of Pablo dropped, the LIGO group said they found gravitational waves. (Waves would also be thematically appropriate for Tidal, which is the only place where TLOP is legally available.) Today, Liz and Emily discuss them both, and bring on special guest Juan Thompson, to talk about Hunter Thompson, writing, and too much fun. First up, the ladies discuss gravitational waves, their significance for Einstein's general relativity, and what promise they may hold for astronomy. As a special bonus: Liz also explains this isn't the first time someone's claimed to find gravitational waves — but every previous time, the "discoverers" have been wrong. Turns out, contrary to what your textbooks teach you, a great deal of science is about being wrong. Then, Emily talks about Kanye, and what it's like to see an album process from the point-of-view of the artist in real-time. If the streaming copy is all that's available, she points out, Kanye can continue editing songs to his heart's content — indefinitely. Then special guest Juan Thompson — son of Hunter S. Thompson, one of Liz's personal writing heroes — joins the show to talk about his new book, Stories I Tell Myself. (For anyone who has the misfortune of knowing Hunter Thompson only by reputation, here are two gems: "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved" and "He Was a Crook," the Nixon obit.) The younger Thompson's book, out now, isn't just about celebrity parents — it's about alcoholism, love, and fatherhood. Juan talks about Hunter's devotion to writing, and how painful it was in Hunter's later years when the drug use and alcoholism slowed and then halted his typewriter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices