Physics turned weird during the last century, first with the relativity and then with quantum mechanics. Supersymmetry and String Theory have been en vogue for the last decades because they are such beautiful theories, but the experiments (LHC at CERN) don’t turn up the predictions (all the while LIGO has found the gravitational waves). Sabine Hossenfelder is a German theoretical physicist and has asked herself, why the physics community likes the beautiful theories so much more then the ugly but well-tested Standard Model, in this months non-fiction book recommendation. 

And Terry Pratchett delivers the highly entertaining fictional wyrdness with the all new audiobook of his „Wyrd Sisters“. Witches and particle physics? A wyrd but entertaining combination.

Hear you soon.

Podcast Timetable: Stream on Sunday, June 12th 7 PM local time. Drops on Monday, June 13th, noon-ish, Oldschool Radio (UKW 104.8) Tuesday 10 AM local time. YouTube: whenever we get around to it (Even the older episodes are now available)

Bookdragon, Producer: SandyJ

Music: Erwin Schmidt

Book Recommendations:

Non-FictionSabine Hossenfelder „Lost in Math – How Beauty leads Physics astray“ (2018) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36341728-lost-in-math

Fiction:Terry Pratchett „Wyrd Sisters“ (1988) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34504.Wyrd_Sisters

Books mentioned:

Lee Smolin „The trouble with physics“ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/108939.The_Trouble_with_Physics

Brian Greene „The elegant Universe“ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8049273-the-elegant-universe

Sabine Hossenfelder „Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s biggest Questions“ (August 9th 2022) https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59695048-existential-physics

William Shakespeare „MacBeth“ https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8852.Macbeth

Other Stuff:

Penguin Randomhouse „Turning Terry Pratchett’s Discworld into Audiobooks“ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw4kYXx8s4k

LIGO – Gravitational Wave https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/gravitational-waves

CERN lhc https://home.cern/science/accelerators/large-hadron-collider