Cosmic Queries: Gravity

About This Episode

The pull of gravity (the fundamental force, not the movie) is irresistible as Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Leighann Lord grapple with weighty fan questions about matter and the curvature of spacetime. You’ll learn about gravitons (even though we’ve never directly detected them) and find out how we would know if a gravity wave passed over us. Dive into Isaac Newton’s equations. Discover why gravity is essentially irrelevant to particle physics, and why the electromagnetic force, which is 10^40 more powerful than gravity, is much more important to particles like the Higgs boson. Explore how the laws of physics manifest differently at different scales, and the importance of surface tension versus gravity to insects. (You’ll also find out why there are no giant spiders.) All this plus Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, anti-matter, hypothetical elements and gravity guns.

NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Cosmic Queries: Gravity.