Science, Actually Presents : The Nerd and the Scientist

Our very first guest and our very first return guest - Dr. Dimos Katsis - becomes our second 'third timer'. He's the principal engineer at Overview Energy - a company that's building the infrastructure to gather solar energy in space with satellites each as big as two football fields, and then beam it down to us here on Earth. To sum it up real quick... Kovi and Benjamin asked, "so, the microwave power plant from the video game Sim City 2000 is for real!?" Dimos, "yep."

Moondial! Get it? Like 'Mundial' but we made it say 'Moon' because we're space nerds? FIFA World Cup 2026 is over (congrats, Spain!), so get your vuvuzelas ready as Kovi and Benjamin get into some of the science behind soccer. Over time the ball was reengineered to be smoother until it actually ruined its aerodynamics, one venue is almost 1 1/2 miles above sea level where the air is 23% less dense, players lose up to 2% body mass due to sweat each game, and penalty kicks happen faster than the goalie's brain can process what's happening - so it's all chance.

Kovi and Benjamin talk about things that explode in space. Well Kovi talks about things that explode in space, and then Benjamin says something along the lines of, "you mean like in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country!?" Tune in and clearly see where the line's drawn between nerd and scientist. The boys talk micronovae, novae, supernovae, and 'movie physics'. (spoiler - those 'launch a nuke at it' solutions in the movies? yeah, they won't work)

Dr. Bryan Scott's interested in principled inference and astrostatistics. His research focuses on the use of large galaxy surveys and intensity mapping experiments to constrain cosmology and astrophysics over cosmic time. His graduate work at U.C. Riverside focused on measurements of the Ultraviolet Extragalactic Background Light and on the sensitivity of future spectroscopic intensity mapping experiments to modifications of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. And he's won many certificates for his excellence in teaching all that stuff. And he loves LEGOs... And Star Trek... In this episode our nerd, Benjamin, and our scientist, Kovi, are faced with someone who's both. And did we mention he launched things into space? He's launched things into space.
Émilie du Châtelet : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89milie_du_Ch%C3%A2telet
Bryan Scott : https://github.com/bscot
Kovi Rose : https://www.facebook.com/funfactscience/
Benjamin Salles : https://www.facebook.com/actuallyscience

While Benjamin might be a working nerd, Kovi's a working scientist. In this episode Kovi walks us through this new thing he found, lurking out there in the universe. A rare binary star system in the Ara constellation. A 'Rosetta stone' for explaining mysterious, repeating cosmic radio pulses. You probably saw it online - it made all the news - we're talking about ASKAP J1745. Also, how does Kovi eat a sandwich?
Follow Benjamin at Science, Actually : https://www.scienceactually.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/actuallyscience
Follow Kovi at Fun Fact Science : https://www.funfactscience.com/ & https://www.facebook.com/funfactscience