An astrophysicist who’s also explored her science by way of a novel about two pivotal 20th-century mathematicians, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Both pushed at boundaries where mathematics presses on grand questions of meaning and purpose. Such questions helped create the technologies that are now changing our sense of what it means to be human.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mathematics-purpose-and-truth/130

Janna Levin — Mathematics, Purpose, and Truth

http://www.onbeing.org/program/on-exoplanets-and-love/5029

For Natalie Batalha of NASA's Kepler Mission, it's just a matter of time before we look at the sky and know of planets where life exists. And that, she says, will transform our sense of ourselves:

    "When you look up at the sky on a very dark night at those stars or that crescent moon or whatever it is, what do you feel? You feel wonder, of course. You feel humility. But I think you also feel lonely, small, insignificant. There's a profound sense of loneliness, or just the universe is so big and I'm so small. But imagine in the near-term future, your grandchild or your great-grandchild looks up in the sky and his mother can point to a star and say, that star right there? That star has a planet just like Earth, and it harbors life. That's a different perspective. That's completely different when we can look up in the sky and know that. It's a game-changer."

A luminous voice of how we explore the heavens now — bringing the exuberance of science closer to home to us all.

    "We are extending our senses out into the cosmos in a very real, tangible way, and that makes it so much easier to capture our imagination, to inspire us. Through the Curiosity Rover, we are standing there in our hiking boots on the surface of Mars. Man, I can practically hear the crunching of the dirt underneath my feet. It feels like I could bend down and pick up a rock and toss it over that hill over there, you know? So in a very real way, these experiments are extending our senses out into the cosmos."

Natalie Batalha — Exoplanets and Love: Science That Connects Us to One Another (Aug 29, 2013)

Some of the biggest philosophical and ethical questions of this century may be raised on scientific frontiers — as we gain a better understanding of the deep structure of space and time and the wilder "microworld." Astrophysicist Martin Rees paints a fascinating picture of how we might be changed by what we do not yet know:

"If science teaches me anything, it teaches me that even simple things like an atom are fairly hard to understand. And that makes me skeptical of anyone who claims to have the last word or complete understanding of any deep aspect of reality."

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/cosmic-or…-we-dont-know/250

Martin Rees — Cosmic Origami and What We Don't Know

An astrophysicist who’s also explored her science by way of a novel about two pivotal 20th-century mathematicians, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Both pushed at boundaries where mathematics presses on grand questions of meaning and purpose. Such questions helped create the technologies that are now changing our sense of what it means to be human.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mathematics-purpose-and-truth/130


[Unedited] Janna Levin with Krista Tippett

An astrophysicist who’s also explored her science by way of a novel about two pivotal 20th-century mathematicians, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Both pushed at boundaries where mathematics presses on grand questions of meaning and purpose. Such questions helped create the technologies that are now changing our sense of what it means to be human.

See more at www.onbeing.org/program/mathematics-purpose-and-truth/130

Janna Levin — Mathematics, Purpose, and Truth (April 3, 2014)

Science and religion are often pitted against one another; but how do they complement, rather than contradict, one another? Physicist and theologian John Polkinghorne applies the deepest insights of modern physics to think about how the world fundamentally works, and how the universe might make space for prayer.

See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/quarks-and-creation/148

John Polkinghorne — Quarks and Creation (Jan 13, 2011)

Four Jesuits in history have had asteroids named after them. Our guests are the two living astronomers with that distinction. Brother Guy Consolmagno and Father George Coyne study the composition of meteorites and the life and death of stars. They share their observations of life, faith, friendship, and the universe from their seats in the Vatican Observatory.

See more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/asteroids-stars-and-love-god/68

Guy Consolmagno and George Coyne — Asteroids, Stars, and the Love of God (Mar 10, 2011)

Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning, hosted by Krista Tippett. Every Thursday a new discovery about the immensity of our lives — and frequent special features like poetry, music and Q + A with Krista.

Janna Levin — Mathematics, Purpose, and Truth

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