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PBS Space Time

PBS
Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew O’Dowd. For all business inquiries and sponsorship opportunities please reach out to: pbsspacetime@lighthouseagents.com Matt O'Dowd spends his time studying the universe, especially really far-away things like quasars, super-massive black holes, and evolving galaxies. He uses telescopes in space to do it. Matt completed his Ph.D. at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute, followed by work at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. He's now a professor at the City University of New York's Lehman College and an Associate at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium. Previous host Gabe Perez-Giz is an astrophysicist who studies black hole physics. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and also hosted PBS Infinite Series.
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Episodes

What If Gravity Remains Non-Quantum?

Take the PBS Annual Fan Survey: https://to.pbs.org/pbssurvey2023d PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The holy grail of theoretical physics is to come up with a quantum theory of gravity. But after a century of trying we really have no idea how close we are, or it it's even possible. But we shouldn't feel bad because it turn...

May 29, 202622 min

What If Alien Life Ran on Silicon?

Thank you to Brilliant for Supporting PBS. To learn more go to https://brilliant.org/SpaceTime/ PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Life as we know it is carbon-based, but does it have to be this way? There’s another element on the periodic table that shares some of the key properties of carbon but is far more abundant on mo...

May 29, 202627 min

How Much Of The Universe Can Humanity Ever Witness?

Thank you to Brilliant for Supporting PBS. To learn more go to https://brilliant.org/SpaceTime/ PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime There’s an absolute limit to our access to the universe beyond our own galaxy. There’s a limit to what we can ever hope to explore or send signals to, and a very different limit to what we can e...

May 29, 202622 min

Interstellar Expansion WITHOUT Exceeding the Speed of Light

Watch Space: The Longest Goodbye on Independent Lens: https://pbs.org/longestgoodbye In the far future we may have advanced propulsion technologies like matter-antimatter engines and compact fusion drives that allow humans to travel to other stars on timescales shorter than their own lives. But what if those technologies never materialize? Are we imprisoned by the vastness of space—doomed to remain in the solar system of our origin? Perhaps not. A possible path to a contemporary cosmic dream may...

May 29, 202626 min

How To Identify Black Holes By Catching Neutrinos

Check out PIA's special Black Friday deal for Space Time fans https://www.piavpn.com/SpaceTime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Neutrinos are one of the most bizarre of known particles. Black holes are probably the most bizarre of astrophysical objects. Makes sense we should use one to study the other, no? Well, today we’...

May 29, 202622 min

How Many Black Holes Reside In The Solar System?

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Dark matter has eluded us for many decades. Even our most advanced particle colliders and sophisticated underground detectors have come up short. But it may be that we can finally solve this mystery with a much simpler experiment, involving a ray of light, a good clock, and the planet Mars. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspa...

May 29, 202626 min

Could the Higgs Boson Point Us Toward Dark Matter?

For more information please go ➼ https://nordvpn.com/spacetime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The discovery of the Higgs boson ten years ago in the Large Hadron Collider was the culmination of decades of work and the collaboration of 1000s of brilliant and passionate people. It was the final piece needed to confirm the...

May 29, 202618 min

What If Gravity Isn't Quantum? New Experiments Examine

👉 Head to https://brilliant.org/spacetime/ for a 30-day free trial + 20% off your annual subscription Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime If we discover how to connect quantum mechanics with general relativity we’ll pretty much win physics. There are multiple theories that claim to do this, but it’s notoriously difficult to test them. They seem to require absurd experiments like a particle collider the size of a galaxy. Or we could tr...

May 29, 202622 min

Why Life on Mars Will RUIN Humanity

Click this link: https://www.boot.dev/?promo=spacetime and use my code SPACETIME to get 25% off your first payment for boot.dev Recent findings have brought us closer than we’ve ever been to confirming life beyond the Earth. As we wait for confirmation or otherwise, let’s think about what this will tell us about life everywhere, and also about our own imminent destruction. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Check out the Space Time Me...

May 29, 202626 min

Can Interstellar Travel Be Possible?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Space is pretty deadly. But is it so deadly that we’re effectively imprisoned in our solar system forever? Many have said so, but a few have actually figured it out. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notificat...

May 29, 202625 min

Why Time Flows Differently Across Galaxies

Thanks to Radiacode for sponsoring this video. Use the promo code "PBS" to get an exclusive 10% discount at: https://103.radiacode.com/PBS The universe is expanding and that expansion is accelerating under the power of dark energy and eventually all matter and energy will be dispersed over such unthinkable distances that nothing can stop space from blowing up infinitely. Unless of course cosmologists blundered and dark energy doesn't even exist. Then it's back to the drawing board. Sign Up on Pa...

May 29, 202620 min

How Eclipses Demonstrated Our Solar System

Check Out PBS' Earth Month playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnNZYWyBGJ1F8ofFm4H9UTrHxqU8zngK4 Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Of all the astronomical phenomena you can witness, the total solar eclipse has to be the most visceral--the most in-your-face reminder that our reality consists of giant balls of rock spinning around stars. It's also the eclipse and phenomena like it that set us on the path to understanding that reality in the first p...

May 29, 202620 min

Was the Gravitational Wave Background Finally Identified?!?

Learn More About Opera One: https://opr.as/Opera-browser-PBS-Space-Time PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime A few weeks ago a large team of gravitational wave astronomers announced something pretty wild. The moderately confident detection of pervasive ripples in the fabric of space time that presumably fills the cosmos, det...

May 29, 202621 min

Are Many Worlds & Pilot Wave THE SAME Interpretation?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to: http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime It’s hard to interpret the strange results of quantum mechanics, though many have tried. Interpretations range from the outlandish—like the multiple universes of Many Worlds, to the almost mundane, like the very mechanical Pilot Wave Theory. But perhaps we’re converging on an answer, beca...

May 28, 202621 min

We Had It WRONG About the Quantum Eraser! ft. @LookingGlassUniverse

Thank you to Cyber GhostVPN for Supporting PBS. Learn More About Cyber GhostVPN: https://cyberghostvpn.com/PBSSpaceTime Does quantum mechanics allow the future to retroactively influence the past, as in the infamous delayed choice quantum eraser experiment? How about we get an actual quantum physicist--who many of you already know--to show us how to do this experiment at home, and hopefully set this matter to rest. Check Out Looking Glass Universe: https://www.youtube.com/@LookingGlassUniverse A...

May 28, 202630 min

The Crisis in Physics: Why the Higgs Boson Should Never Exist!

Learn More About Anydesk: https://anydesk.com/spacetime According to quantum physics, the universe should have collapsed on itself in the instant after the Big Bang due to all particles being 100 million billion times heavier. Recent observations of the universe existing suggest that this may not have happened. Even more recent experiments at the Large Hardron Collider have failed to find out why. In particular, why the Higgs boson is light enough to allow the universe to exist. This is part of ...

May 28, 202623 min

Can We Propel THE SUN?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Interstellar travel is horrible-what with the cramped quarters of your spaceship and only the thin hull separating you from deathly cold and deadly cosmic rays. Much safer to stay on here Earth with our gloriously habitable biosphere, protective magnetic field, and endless energy from the ...

May 28, 202616 min

Why Antimatter Engines Could Blast Off In Your Lifetime

While faster-than-light travel remains fiction, antimatter drives offer a compelling alternative for interstellar exploration, promising unparalleled efficiency. This episode delves into the fundamental physics of antimatter, the complex processes of creating and containing it, and various propulsion designs, including hybrid nuclear-antimatter systems. It also examines realistic timelines for development, revealing that some antimatter-enabled missions, like reaching the Oort cloud, might be possible within decades, challenging the perception of antimatter engines as purely sci-fi.

May 28, 202627 min

How Earth ACTUALLY Moves Across the Galaxy

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime Perhaps you’ve seen videos of how the planets of the solar system move through the universe in this cool helix. Not only are these misleading, but the Earth’s real motion - YOUR motion through the universe, is way more complicated and way more interesting. Check out the Space Time Merch St...

May 28, 202625 min

The Final Obstacle to (Nearly) Infinite Energy

Thanks to Radiacode for sponsoring this video. Use the promo code "PBS" to get an exclusive 10% discount at: https://103.radiacode.com/PBS They say fusion is 50 years away, no matter when you ask. Then why are billions suddenly being pumped into fusion startups? Yes to train LLMs, but there's a reason the technobrats are bullish on fusion in particular. The fact is, the technological challenges have been chipped away and in many cases solved over the past decades, and there's really no one deal-...

May 28, 202626 min

How Are Quasiparticles Separate From Particles?

For more information on membership go to https://www.magellantv.com and use code PBS PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The device you’re watching this video on is best understood by thinking about positive and negative charges moving around a circuit of diodes and transistors. But the only elementary particle actually flow...

May 28, 202620 min

The Science of the James Webb Telescope Explained!

Learn More About Henson Shaving: https://hensonshaving.com/PBS PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime You’ve probably heard about the James Webb Space Telescope and seen some cool pictures. But why should astronomers have all the fun? How do we get to use this new toy ourselves? JWST Links: Galactic Hunter JWST image processing...

May 28, 202622 min

The Gravity Particle Ought to Be Real. So Where Is It?

Head to https://brilliant.org/Spacetime/ to start learning for free. Plus, our viewers get 20% off an annual Premium subscription for unlimited daily access to everything Brilliant has to offer Physics is this close to understanding the entire universe. And what lives in this gap? Many physicists think it’s the elusive graviton—the quantum particle of gravity—whose discovery will finally allow us to stitch together our two great theories of nature into a single master theory. But what is the gra...

May 28, 202628 min

Could We Decipher Alien Physics?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime How hard can it really be to decode alien physics and engineering? It’s gotta map to our own physics - I mean, we live in the same universe. We start by noticing that the alien technology seems to use good ol’ fashioned electronics, even if it is insanely complex. We know this because the ...

May 28, 202623 min

Will The Big Bang Happen ANEW (and Anew)?

Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime How did the universe begin? How can something come from nothing? One way to “solve” this most difficult of philosophical conundrums is to avoid it altogether. Maybe the universe didn’t begin. Maybe the Big Bang was just one in an endless cycle. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http...

May 28, 202622 min

How Far Beyond Earth Could Humanity Travel?

Check Out Untold Earth on PBS Terra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BVHSUMAWR4&list=PLzkQfVIJun2J5q9CIXPAlL95FSb0tJul7&index=85 PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime We humans have always been explorers. The great civilizations that have arisen across the world are owed to our restless ancestors. These days, there’s ...

May 28, 202621 min

Does Antimatter Yield Anti-Gravity?

Learn More About 80,000 Hours at: https://www.80000hours.org/spacetime PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime From hoverboards to flying cars to cloud cities, anti-gravity is a staple of science fiction and our dream of a less Earth-bound future. But in the real universe gravity appears to be a purely attractive force. Feels li...

May 28, 202621 min

Do We Live in the Most Exceptional Solar System In The Universe? We're about to find out!

To learn more visit: https://hensonshaving.com/pbs and use code spacetime to get 100 blades for free with your purchase of a Henson Razor. Add both products to your cart for the code to take effect! There are lots of reasons to search for planets around other stars—exoplanets. A big one is to find other places in the universe that might harbor life. We only know of one such planet so far: Earth. And so we get particularly excited when we find Earth-mass planets at the right distance from their s...

May 28, 202628 min

Does Many Worlds Justify Quantum Probabilities?

Check Out our NEW MERCH Store! For 15% Off Use the Code: PBS https://crowdmade.com/collections/pbsspacetime Principle of Indifference Proof: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qsYNMb6OK3ZbJADE0jDXWsjp6OtijPBS/view?usp=sharing Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime The mystery of what happens when we go from a superposition to a definite state is known as the Measurement Problem, and it’s arguably the most mysterious outstanding problem in p...

May 28, 202625 min

Your DNA's Codes Are (Almost Certainly) From Outer Space

Thank you to Cyber GhostVPN for Supporting PBS. Learn More About Cyber GhostVPN: https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/PBSSpaceTime Did you know that many of us have up to 4% neanderthal DNA? And that 100% of your DNA may come from outer space? No joke. The biochemistry that defined the coding system of your DNA may have happened off-world, and perhaps even long before Earth existed. Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime PBS Member Stations rely...

May 28, 202621 min
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