Lawrence Yolland

In this episode we talk to economist Rob Larson about the immense power of the big 5 tech companies (even if in the intro I say big 4...sorry Microsoft), the economics of how they got to be so big, the tyrannical rulers at the helm, and the perverse business practices that insure them against competition. Rob is a Professor of Economics at Tacoma Community College and author of Capitalism vs. Freedom (2018), and Bit Tyrants (2020). He also writes for venues such as Jacobin and Current Affairs.

In this episode we chat to Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist and author of Lost in Math. In the book Sabine makes the case that physicists have committed themselves to ideas of beauty rooted in maths that are unsupported by the data. She calls for a radical re-evaulation of how physics is done. Lawrence Yolland

In this episode we spoke to materials scientist and author Ainissa Ramirez about her brilliant new book The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another, all about the 8 inventions that shaped our society and the materials behind them. We talked all about telling science stories within a wider context of politics, history and society; why material science is the New Jersey of academia; and - of course - the joy of the archives! Ainissa’s Twitter The Alchemy of Us Lawrence Yolland