368 | Elizabeth Alexander on Why Democracy Needs Imagination

More from Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas All episodes →

1. 

   12 Oct 2026 · 3 hr 32 minNew

   Ask Me Anything | October 2026

   Welcome to the October 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy! Blog post with show notes, AMA questions, and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/10/12/ama-october-2026/ Listen or watch…

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   E370 · 3 Oct 2026 · 1 hr 16 min

   370 | Daniel Akerib on a Faint Hint of Dark Matter

   One reason it's been so hard to directly detect the dark matter is that we're not sure what it is. But for a long time, a leading candidate has been "Weakly Interacting Massive Particles" (WIMPs), so an impressive amount of experimental effort has been put into trying to detect them. Recently, a single provocative event appeared in the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter experiment. Daniel Akerib, a physicist at LZ, joins us to talk about dark matter and the recent data, which has low statistical significance but is intriguing nevertheless. Blog post with show notes and transcript:…

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   E369 · 28 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 24 min

   369 | Gregg Caruso on Living Well Without Free Will

   The worry about debates over free will is that they degenerate into semantics -- what do you mean by "free will," really? But there are important substantive issues that shouldn't be ignored. Do people deserve blame for doing wrong things? Can we make choices that create meaning for our lives? Philosopher Gregg Caruso denies the reality of free will, but is in favor of making good choices, as he discusses in his new book How to Live Well Without Free Will. Listen or watch Rolex Planet Visionaries wherever you get your podcasts. #ad Blog post with transcript:…

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   14 Sep 2026 · 3 hr 52 min

   Mindscape Ask Me Anything, Sean Carroll | September 2026

   Welcome to the September 2026 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). We take questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable number -- based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good -- and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy! Blog post with show notes and transcript: https://preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2026/09/14/ama-september-2026/ Stop piecing your software…

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   E367 · 7 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 17 min

   367 | Jared Diamond on the Course of History and the Role of leaders

   The course of history is affected by many things, including the political and social situations of large groups of people, their biological and physical abilities, and their geographical and environmental contexts. Sometimes, it would seem, history -- or corporations, or religions, or sports teams -- can be affected by the actions of just a few influential persons. In his new book, Profits, Prophets, Coaches, and Kings , Jared Diamond asks what effect leaders can have, and what it is that makes them successful (or not). Right now, Babbel is offering listeners who want to learn a new language…

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   E366 · 31 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 15 min

   366 | Jim Al-Khalili on Time, Quantum, Biology, and Cosmology

   Everyone lives through time, but we continue to struggle to fully understand it. We remain unsure whether time is fundamental or emergent, why it has an arrow pointing from past to future, and how that arrow connects to our experience of time's passage. Jim Al-Khalili's new book is On Time: The Physics that Makes the Universe Tick . We discuss what time is at the most basic level, and how it connects to open questions in biology, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. Mindscape listeners can try StatsKey Pro free for one month with code MINDSCAPE . After that, it's $4.99 per month unless…

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   E365 · 24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 6 min

   365 | Vitor Cardoso on Why Black Holes Are Special

   Black holes, as Stephen Hawking discovered, do grow old: they emit radiation, lose mass, and eventually evaporate away. But our fascination with black holes never grows old. This is especially true today, as we are seeing a flood of new data and intriguing theoretical ideas, which both tests the limits of Einstein's general relativity and teach us new things about the astrophysical universe. At the Center of Gravity at the University of Copenhagen, they are currently celebrating Black Hole Week , which provides an excellent opportunity to talk with Center director Vitor Cardoso about what…

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   E364 · 17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 16 min

   364 | Stuart Firestein on How Science Relies on Ignorance and Failure

   One of the paradoxes of science is that it seeks objectively true understanding of the world, but its methodology is driven by ignorance, failure, and uncertainty. Some phenomena we understand pretty well, but interesting research happens at the boundary of what we do and don't know. And there is no foolproof algorithm for moving in the right direction; we need to make conjectures and test them against the world. Biologist Stuart Firestein has been advocating for a better public understanding of the true methods of science, most recently in his new book It Could Be Otherwise: Science In the…