CERN is the largest scientific instrument in the world, and it’s a collaboration between the European nations which funded it, and a global collaboration of researchers and instrument builders from many nations: the US, Japan, the Russian Federation, China, and many more - an example of how science transcends borders. (Listen for Andres’ wonderful story of how WW2-era Russian naval guns were melted down to provide a special kind of brass needed for one detector.) So it’s appropriate that this last audio podcast gives voice to four researchers: CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti (Italy); theorist Dorota Grabowska (USA); Andres Delannoy (USA/Puerto Rico) and Andre David (Portugal.) Thanks to all of them, and CERN media rep Sarah Charley, and all others who welcomed us to this unique and amazing facility.

Rai Weiss, born 1932, is a modern day Galileo: that might seem like hyperbole but he was a key player in designing, testing and then building an entirely new kind of astronomical instrument that can unveil aspects of the universe that would otherwise go completely unseen. He shared in the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, which detected the 2015 collision of two black holes more than a billion miles from Earth. In this podcast, recorded in the rather noisy high bay workshop at MIT, Rai tells how he got started - tinkering with radios and hi-fi’s - and reveals fascinating details of the long decades of work to create LIGO.

Micah Greenstein is Senior Rabbi at Temple Israel in Memphis TN, Alan Lightman’s hometown, and a long-time friend of Alan, who describes him as “my rabbi." Rabbi Micah is a proponent of interfaith dialog and outreach, and has sat on the board of the National Civil Rights Museum, also in Memphis. In this conversation, Micah presents a strong counter-argument to Alan’s “spiritual materialism” arguing for the existence of a soul and an essential non-material component to human existence. He also agrees with the Dalai Lama that humanoid robot Bina48 cannot be conscious.