All Episodes

Antony Valentini, "Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics" (Oxford UP, 2026)

Scott Solomon, "Becoming Martian: How Living in Space Will Change Our Bodies and Minds" (MIT Press, 2026)

Keith Cooper, "Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact" (Reaktion, 2025)

Keith Cooper, "Amazing Worlds of Science Fiction and Science Fact" (Reaktion, 2025)

Matthew Bothwell, "The Invisible Universe: Why There's More to Reality than Meets the Eye" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)

Douglas H. Erwin, "The Origins of the New: Novelty and Innovation in the History of Life, Culture, and Technology" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Vojta Hybl, "Rocks: A Guide to the Stones Around Us and the Stories They Tell" (Frances Lincoln, 2026)

Patricia B. O'Hara, "Food Chemistry in Small Bites: The Alchemist in the Kitchen" (U California Press, 2025)

Emma Chapman, "Radio Universe: How to Explore Space Without Leaving Earth" (Hachette UK, 2026)

Subodhana Wijeyeratne, "The Islands and the Stars: A History of Japan's Space Programs" (Stanford UP, 2026)

Antonio Padilla, "Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them: A Cosmic Quest from Zero to Infinity" (FSG,2022)

Jennifer Vail, "Friction: A Biography" (Harvard UP, 2026)

Dagomar Degroot, "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean: An Environmental History of Our Place in the Solar System" (Harvard UP, 2025)

Heino Falcke and Jörg Römer, "Light in the Darkness: Black Holes, the Universe, and Us" (HarperCollins, 2021)

Jeremy Bernstein 11–2007

Jon Willis, "The Pale Blue Data Point: An Earth-Based Perspective on the Search for Alien Life" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

Andrew H. Jaffe, "The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos" (Yale UP, 2025)

Craig Hogan, "The Unlikely Primeval Sky" (American Scientist, November-December)

Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth

Marcus Chown, "A Crack in Everything: How Black Holes Came in from the Cold and Took Cosmic Centre Stage" (Apollo, 2025)

James Trefil and Shobita Satyapal, "Supermassive: Black Holes at the Beginning and End of the Universe" (Smithsonian Books, 2025)

Liam Graham, "Physics Fixes All the Facts" (Springer Nature, 2025)

Vlatko Vedral, "Portals to a New Reality: Five Pathways to the Future of Physics" (Basic Books, 2025)

Alice Lovejoy, "Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War" (U California Press, 2025)

Jonas Enander, "Facing Infinity: Black Holes and Our Place on Earth" (The Experiment Press, 2025)

Mario Livio and Jack Szostak, "Is Earth Exceptional?: The Quest for Cosmic Life" (Basic Books, 2024)

Richard Mainwaring, "What the Ear Hears (And Doesn't): Inside the Extraordinary Everyday World of Frequency" (Sourcebooks, 2022)

Emilio Elizalde, "The True Story of Modern Cosmology: Origins, Main Actors and Breakthroughs" (Springer, 2021)

David J. Helfand, "The Universal Timekeepers: Reconstructing History Atom by Atom" (Columbia UP, 2023)

Robyn Arianrhod, "Vector: A Surprising Story of Space, Time, and Mathematical Transformation" (U of Chicago Press, 2024)

Paul Sen, "Einstein's Fridge: How the Difference Between Hot and Cold Explains the Universe" (Scribner, 2021)

Liam Graham, "Molecular Storms: The Physics of Stars, Cells and the Origin of Life" (Springer Nature, 2023)

Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin, "Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America" (Island Press, 2025)

Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP)

Grace Lindsay, "Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Patchen Barss, "The Impossible Man: Roger Penrose and the Cost of Genius" (Basic Books, 2024)

Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021)

Alan Lightman, "Einstein's Dreams" (Vintage, 1992)

Pierre Sokolsky, "Clock in the Sun: How We Came to Understand Our Nearest Star" (Columbia UP, 2024)

Siobhan Angus, "Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography" (Duke UP, 2024)

Bernardo Kastrup, "Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A Straightforward Summary of the 21st Century's Only Plausible Metaphysics" (Iff Books, 2024)

Kevin Lambert, "Symbols and Things: Material Mathematics in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2021)

Claudia de Rham, "The Beauty of Falling: A Life in Pursuit of Gravity" (Princeton UP, 2024)

Philip Goff, "Why? The Purpose of the Universe" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Vintage, 2006)

A Better Way to Buy Books

Herlinde Koelbl, "Fascination of Science: 60 Encounters with Pioneering Researchers of Our Time" (MIT Press, 2023)

Barbara Sattler, "The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

Working on Mars: Voyages of Scientific Discovery with the Mars Exploration Rovers

Vincanne Adams, "Glyphosate and the Swirl: An Agroindustrial Chemical on the Move" (Duke UP, 2023)

Janna Levin, "How the Universe Got Its Spots: Diary of a Finite Time in a Finite Space" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Chris Impey, "Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity" (MIT Press, 2023)

Athene Donald, "Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Hans-Jörg Rheinberger, "Split and Splice: A Phenomenology of Experimentation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Felix Flicker, "The Magick of Physics: Uncovering the Fantastical Phenomena in Everyday Life" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)

Seeing Truth in Physics

Brian Villmoare, "The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Measure for Measure Episode 8: Star Ladder

Measure for Measure Episode 3: Mohs

The Future of Nuclear Fusion: A Discussion with Sharon Ann Holgate

Tom McLeish, "The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art" (Oxford UP, 2021)

David Lindsay, "Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words" (CSIRO Publishing, 2020)

Joseph Silk, "Back to the Moon: The Next Giant Leap for Humankind" (Princeton UP, 2022)

David Kaiser, "Well, Doc, You're In: Freeman Dyson’s Journey through the Universe" (MIT Press, 2022)

Halloween Special: Schrodinger’s Cat

Brian Clegg, "Ten Patterns That Explain the Universe" (MIT Press, 2021)

Elise Vernon Pearlstine, "Scent: A Natural History of Fragrance" (Yale UP, 2022)

The Science Wars: Post-Truth and the Nature of Science

Elena Conis, "How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT" (Bold Type Books, 2022)

Frank Close, "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass" (Basic Book, 2022)

Slobodan Perovic, "From Data to Quanta: Niels Bohr’s Vision of Physics" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

Robert-Jan Smits and Rachael Pells, "Plan S for Shock: Science. Shock. Solution. Speed." (Ubiquity Press, 2022)

All About Dwarf Galaxies: A Conversation with Astronomer Charlotte Christensen

Albert Folch, "Hidden in Plain Sight: The History, Science, and Engineering of Microfluidic Technology" (MIT Press, 2022)

Timothy J. Jorgensen, "Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life" (Princeton UP, 2021)

Gernot Wagner, "Geoengineering: The Gamble" (Polity, 2021)

Elisabeth Ervin-Blankenheim, "Song of the Earth: Understanding Geology and Why It Matters" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Adam M. Romero, "Economic Poisoning: Industrial Waste and the Chemicalization of American Agriculture" (U California Press, 2021)

Greg Brennecka, "Impact: How Rocks from Space Led to Life, Culture, and Donkey Kong" (William Morrow, 2022)

Jim Al-Khalili, "The Joy of Science" (Princeton UP, 2022)

Will Kinney, "An Infinity of Worlds: Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe" (MIT Press, 2022)

Maia Weinstock, "Carbon Queen: The Remarkable Life of Nanoscience Pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus" (MIT Press, 2022)

Pandemic Perspectives 8: Covid and the Embrace of the Biological World

Deborah Gordon, "No Standard Oil: Managing Abundant Petroleum in a Warming World" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Dashun Wang and Albert-László Barabási, "The Science of Science" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Hilary Glasman-Deal, "Science Research Writing For Native and Non-Native Speakers of English" (World Scientific Publishing Europe, 2020)

N. J. Enfield, "Language Vs. Reality: Why Language Is Good for Lawyers and Bad for Scientists" (MIT Press, 2022)

Stephen B. Heard, "The Scientist’s Guide to Writing: How to Write More Easily and Effectively Throughout Your Scientific Career, 2nd ed." (Princeton UP, 2022)

Intellectual Humility in Science: A Discussion with Glenn Sauer

Raghuveer Parthasarathy, "So Simple a Beginning: How Four Physical Principles Shape Our Living World" (Princeton UP, 2022)

Retraction Watch: A Discussion with Adam Marcus and Ivan Oransky

Kenneth L. Caneva, "Helmholtz and the Conservation of Energy: Contexts of Creation and Reception" (MIT Press, 2021)

Aubrey Clayton, "Bernoulli's Fallacy: Statistical Illogic and the Crisis of Modern Science" (Columbia UP, 2021)

Fritjof Capra, "Patterns of Connection: Essential Essays from Five Decades" (High Road Books, 2021)

Ben Westhoff, "Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic" (Grove Press, 2019)

Emily Levesque, "The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers" (Sourcebooks, 2021)

Paul Halpern, "Flashes of Creation: George Gamow, Fred Hoyle, and the Great Big Bang Debate" (Basic Books, 2021)

Exploring Science Literacy and Public Engagement with Science

David Sulzer, "Music, Math, and Mind: The Physics and Neuroscience of Music" (Columbia UP, 2021)

Laurie Winkless, "Sticky: The Secret Science of Surfaces" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

Omar W. Nasim, "The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History" (MIT Press, 2021)

Paul Steinhardt, "Inflated Expectations: A Cosmological Tale" (Open Agenda, 2021)

Claudia de Rham, “The Pull of the Stars” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Dave Goulson, "Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse" (Harper, 2021)

Melinda Baldwin, "Making 'Nature': The History of a Scientific Journal" (U Chicago Press, 2015)

David Politzer, “The Physics of Banjos” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Rocky Kolb, “A Universe of Particles: Cosmological Reflections” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Ginny Smith, "Overloaded: How Every Aspect of Your Life is Influenced by Your Brain Chemicals" (Bloomsbury, 2021)

Noémi Tousignant, "Edges of Exposure: Toxicology and the Problem of Capacity in Postcolonial Senegal" (Duke UP, 2018)

Scott Tremaine, “Astrophysical Wonders” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Jill Tartar, “SETI: Astronomy as a Contact Sport” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Paul Steinhardt, “Indiana Steinhardt and the Quest for Quasicrystals” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Lee Smolin, “Examining Time” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Justin K. Stearns, "Revealed Sciences: The Natural Sciences in Islam in Seventeenth-Century Morocco" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

Hsuan L. Hsu, "The Smell of Risk: Environmental Disparities and Olfactory Aesthetics" (NYU Press, 2020)

Roger Penrose, “The Cyclic Universe” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Seth M. Siegel, "Troubled Water: What's Wrong with What We Drink" (Thomas Dunne, 2020)

Jenny Nelson, “Harnessing the Sun” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Anne Bogart, "The Art of Resonance" (Methuen Drama, 2021)

Jonathan Rees, "The Chemistry of Fear: Harvey Wiley's Fight for Pure Food" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)

Tony Leggett, “The Problems of Physics, Reconsidered” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Justin Khoury, “Cosmological Conundrums” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Joanna Haigh, “Solar Impact: Climate and the Sun” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Michael Gordin, “Science and Pseudoscience” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Artur Ekert, “Cryptoreality” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Chiara Marletto, "The Science of Can and Can't: A Physicist's Journey Through the Land of Counterfactuals" (Viking, 2021)

Freeman Dyson, “Pushing the Boundaries” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Nima Arkani-Hamed, “The Power of Principles: Physics Revealed” (Open Agenda, 2021)

Alyssa Ney, "The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Howard Burton, "First Principles: Building Perimeter Institute" (Open Agenda Publishing, 2021)

Skylar Tibbits, "Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution" (Princeton UP, 2021)

Howard Burton, "Conversations About Astrophysics & Cosmology" (Open Agenda, 2020)

Alex Wellerstein, "Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States" (U Chicago Press, 2021)

Michael D. Gordin, "On the Fringe: Where Science Meets Pseudoscience" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Philip Ball, "The Beauty of Chemistry: Art, Wonder, and Science" (MIT Press, 2021)

Lukas Engelmann and Christos Lynteris, "Sulphuric Utopias: A History of Maritime Fumigation" (MIT Press, 2020)

Alan Lightman, "Probable Impossibilities: Musings on Beginnings and Endings" (Pantheon, 2021)

Hannah Marcus, "Forbidden Knowledge: Medicine, Science, and Censorship in Early Modern Italy" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

Jacqueline Mitton and Simon Mitton, "Vera Rubin: A Life" (Harvard UP, 2021)

Jennifer M. Rampling, "The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

Paul Davies, "The Demon in the Machine: How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

Jimena Canales, "Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science" (Princeton UP, 2020)

D. Bilak and T. Nummedal, "Furnace and Fugue. A Digital Edition of Michael Maier’s 'Atalanta fugiens' (1618)" (U Virginia Press, 2020)

John Whysner, "The Alchemy of Disease" (Columbia UP, 2020)

Jeremy England, "Every Life is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things" (Basic Books, 2020)

James L. Nolan, Jr., "Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age" (Harvard UP, 2020)

Joseph E. Davis, "Chemically Imbalanced: Everyday Suffering, Medication, and Our Troubled Quest for Self-Mastery" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

Mel Schwartz, "The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live, and Love" (Sounds True, 2017)

Joshua Nall, "News from Mars: Mass Media and the Forging of a New Astronomy, 1860-1910" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2019)

David Kaiser, "Quantum Legacies: Dispatches from an Uncertain World" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

Matthew Duncombe, "Ancient Relativity: Plato, Aristotle, Stoics and Skeptics" (Oxford UP, 2020)

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020)

B. Earp and J. Savulescu, "Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships" (Stanford UP, 2020) )

Paul Nahin, "Hot Molecules, Cold Electrons" (Princeton UP, 2020)

Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020)

Maurice Finocchiaro, "On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair" (Oxford UP, 2019)

Ellen Griffith Spears, "Baptized in PCBs: Race, Pollution, and Justice in an All-American Town" (UNC Press, 2016)

Daniel Kennefick, "No Shadow of Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse that Confirmed Einstein’s Theory of Relativity" (Princeton UP, 2019)

Sarah Marie Wiebe, "Everyday Exposure: Indigenous Mobilization and Environmental Justice in Canada’s Chemical Valley" (UBC Press, 2016)

John Gribbin, "Six Impossible Things: The ‘Quanta of Solace’ and the Mysteries of the Subatomic World" (Icon Books, 2019)

Cara New Daggett, "Birth of Energy: Fossil Fuels, Thermodynamics, and the Politics of Work" (Duke UP, 2019)

David D. Vail, "Chemical Lands: Pesticides, Aerial Spraying, and Health in North America’s Grasslands since 1945" (U Alabama Press, 2019)

Sharra L. Vostral, "Toxic Shock: A Social History" (NYU Press, 2018)

Paul Sutter, "Your Place in the Universe: Understanding Our Big, Messy Existence" (Prometheus, 2018)

Chris Bernhardt, "Quantum Computing for Everyone" (MIT Press, 2019)

Gregory Dawes, "Galileo and the Conflict between Religion and Science" (Routledge, 2016)

Scott Bembenek, “The Cosmic Machine: The Science That Runs Our Universe and the Story Behind It” (Zoari Press, 2017)

Stephanie Ruphy, “Scientific Pluralism Reconsidered: A New Approach to the (Dis)unity of Science (U. Pittsburgh Press, 2017)

Ian Stewart, “Calculating the Cosmos: How Mathematics Unveils the Universe” (Basic Books, 2016)

William Sheehan and Christopher Conselice, “Galactic Encounters” (Springer, 2014)

David A. Rothery, “Planet Mercury: From Pale Pink Dot to Dynamic World” (Springer, 2014)

Vera Kolb, “Astrobiology: An Evolutionary Approach” (CRC Press, 2014)

Roberto Trotta, “The Edge of the Sky: All You Need to Know About the All-There-Is” (Basic Books, 2014)

Mary-Jane Rubenstein, "Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the Multiverse" (Columbia UP, 2014)

Oscar E. Fernandez, “Everyday Calculus: Discovering the Hidden Math All around Us (Princeton UP, 2014)

Edward Frenkel, “Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality” (Basic Books, 2013)

Brian Clegg, “Dice World: Science and Life in a Random Universe” (Icon Books, 2013)

Alex Vilenkin, “Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes” (Hill and Wang, 2006)

Ian Sample, “Massive: The Missing Particle that Sparked the Greatest Hunt in Science” (Basic Books, 2010)