Why does it always feel like we’re on the verge of something — great or terrible? And how do we resist the pull, the lull, and the stress of the void?

Guests:

Dr. Matt Connelly — historian at Columbia and author of the book The Declassification Engine
Dr. Susan Hough — seismologist at the US Geological Survey
Liz Neeley — science communicator and founder of Liminal
Eva Hagberg — architectural historian and the author of When Eero Met His Match.

→ → → Further reading & resources here! ← ← ←

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Poem Credits:

“Future Memories” by Mario Melendez translated by Eloisa Amezcua, Poetry Magazine, 2017, Reprinted by permission of author.

This episode of Flash Forward was written by me, Rose Eveleth, edited by Avery Trufelman, produced by Ozzy Llinas Goodman and sound designed by Ariana Martinez. Much of the music in this episode is by Ilan Blanck. The outro music is by Hussalonia. The episode art is by Mattie Lubchansky. The incredible beat that dropped at the end is by Lazerbeak.

Special thanks to Julia Furlan, who hit the streets of New York City to ask people about aliens for us. Thanks also to everybody who sent in voice memos around that question we couldn’t use them all and wow there were so many good ones. Thanks also to Ed Yong who read a passage from A hundred years hence : the expectations of an optimist; to Tracy K. Smith who read her poem Sci-Fi, and to Stanford University for letting us use that audio; to Jeffrey Nils Gardner who read Storming Toward a Precipice By Simon J. Ortiz; and to Elena Fernández Collins who called to the void for us and read Future Memories by Mario Melendez in both Spanish and English.

2. PRECIPICE