Many of the same questions that provoke our imagination about our universe today were asked by the ancients. How did the universe begin? What is it made of? etc. What is particularly interesting is how the ancients addressed the question of how to get something from nothingness, and ultimately how the notion of the aether evolved. In this lecture I discuss the ancient greek philosophers’ ideas of the stuff of matter and the origin of the universe, and contrast that with our modern understanding. While our modern picture of the universe is vastly different than that of the ancients and we dispensed with the idea of an aether in the early 20th century, we have now replaced it with something even stranger, in which the dominant energy of the universe is contained in empty space. In some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And the most beautiful thing of all is that the mysteries continue...
As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube.