Release date: December 2nd, 2018

Spencer Greenberg and Seth Cottrell

This episode features the hosts of "Ask a Mathematician, Ask a Physicist," a blog that grew out of a Burning Man booth in which a good-natured mathematician (Spencer Greenberg) and physicist (Seth Cottrell) answer people's questions about life, the universe, and everything. Spencer and Seth discuss the weirdest and most controversial questions they've answered, why math is fundamentally arbitrary, Seth's preferred alternative to the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, how a weird group of parapsychologists changed the field of physics, and whether you could do a Double Slit Experiment with a Cat Cannon.

Links

"Ask A Mathematician, Ask a Physicist" blog

"Do Colors Exist?" by Seth Cottrell (book and ebook)

"Bell Inequality for Position and Time" by J. D. Fransen

"On the Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin

"The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs in 20th Century Science, including the original papers" by Alan Lightman

"Can you do the double-slit experiment with a cat cannon?"

Spencer's website

Spencer's startup foundry, Spark Wave

Edited by Brent Silk

Music by Miracles of Modern Science

Full Transcripts