Like your stomach subjected to repeated $1.99 buffets, the universe is ever-expanding. As it grows, it inexorably becomes more chaotic. We’ll hear what drives this increase in entropy, and whether there can be meaning in a universe that will ultimately become no more than a dark soup of cold particles.
lso, the surprising patterns of organization around us – find out why you behave with the mathematical logic of an atom and why you can’t outwit the crowds at your favorite bar. Also, happy 300th birthday to Carl Linneaus. Without him, you and your neighbors wouldn’t be in the members-only club Homo sapiens.
Guests:
- David Quammen – award-winning science, nature, and travel writer. His article about botanist Carl Linneaus, “A Passion for Order,” appears in the June 2007 issue of National Geographic magazine
- Lawrence Krauss – physicist and cosmologist, Case Western Reserve University
- Mark Buchanan – physicist and author of The Social Atom
- Alex Bentley – anthropologist at the University of Durham, U.K.
- Virginia Trimble – professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Irvine
