If you’re like us and most of the Internet, you spent last week goggling at the very first, and absolutely stunning, images from the James Webb Space Telescope. These images lead us right into the most profound questions about the cosmos, and our own existence…and they help to put some of our fights, disagreements, and problems here on this pale blue dot (the kinds of things we normally cover on this show) into some proper perspective.
To give us that perspective, our guest is Dr. John Mather, Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. In 2006, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE) which helped cement the big-bang theory of the universe. According to the Nobel Prize committee, “the COBE project can also be regarded as the starting point for cosmology as a precision science.” In 2007, Mather was listed among Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World.
***Note: we had low audio quality on Matt’s portion of audio, because when a Nobel Prize winner agrees to come on the show to talk about one of the most exciting stories in the world, you make it work even if one of your hosts is traveling and using sub-standard equipment. We apologize for the slightly hollow sound.***
