Astrophysics Goes Extreme

You wouldn’t necessarily guess it, but astrophysics comes with occupational risks. Trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe, some physicists journey to inhospitable parts of the world (Siberia, the Antarctic, deep mine shafts, etc.), searching for ideal conditions to perform experiments into dark energy, dark matter, and beyond. This all gets detailed by Anil Ananthaswamy, a software writer turned science writer, who recently published a new book The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth’s Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. The talk above was presented at the INK Conference last December. You can also watch him give a fuller 50 minute talk at Google here.