The Times podcast: Masters of Disasters: Broken records!
For the next few weeks, we’ve been running a series with a guest each episode of the podcast. We’ve featured two men who share a common passion for history, science, and nature, two men whose work is always on the cutting edge, and whose interests cross the lines of traditional fields. But we’ve also featured two researchers whose work is highly experimental and often experimental in the extreme. And these aren’t, like, the kind of scientists who are just, like, really into, like, the science-of-science thing. These are two science writers whose writing has a certain experimental bent: they try to push traditional ideas and methods to their logical limit. Which is to say, beyond the limits of any practical use.
When our latest episode is finally released, it should be a blast. The show has been a long time in the making and, in my heart, I’m excited. We’ve invited Richard Harris (The Age of Kali) to be on the show, and he will be doing an excellent job. We’ve also invited Nick Reding (The Decline of the Past) and, last but not least, Matt Simmons (Beware the Beast). Matt Simmons is probably the most exciting scientist we’ve featured on the show. He’s an astrophysicist who uses his expertise in observational astronomy to study how our universe is changing, and how we’re changing it. Because in the past, the universe seemed to be standing still, and science was just a pretty, easy word to describe it. We’ve also got a science writer whose books are like the science fiction of astronomy.
This is a guest episode, and that means we’ll be talking about other great stories that may be of interest to you. This week, we’ll talk about the biggest science and technological stories of the 20th century. I know you probably have a thousand stories you want to tell. Or maybe you have a hundred stories about the biggest science and technological stories of the 20th century. That’s cool either way.