Lisa Randall, Harvard physicist
WGBH broadcast this ThoughtCast interview on Arts and Ideas, and also features it on their “Science Luminaries” series, as part of “WGBH Science City.”
Lisa Randall
Now while this might sound like so much Greek — just wait. Randall’s latest book, written for the layman, is called “Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions” — so she’s had plenty of practice explaining these high-flying ideas to English majors.
Click here: 
to listen (28:30 mins).
Click here to listen to Lisa Randall’s lecture at IDEAS Boston on the WGBH Forum Network.
Tags: CERN, extra dimensions, feminism, jenny attiyeh, large hadron collider, lisa randall, string theory, thoughtcast, warped passages
April 12th, 2006 at 6:13 am
Thank you very much, the podcast was very enjoyable.
Especially where you asked Dr Randall about her belief in extra dimensions, and she replied:
“But I’m still skeptical … I’m willing to be proven wrong.”
This is a very exciting subject, and I hope you will visit it again.
Nigel
September 15th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
Lisa Randall reminds us that ideas come from “warped passages.” It is not always that we come to understand by following someone else’s line of reasoning. We can come across ideas accidentally; it is a lot of ideas flowing in and across from different directions, and how someone reaches a particular point can be very different. Secondly, we can honor Adonis and Aphrodite, and be pleaseantly surprised that Prof. Randall reflects Aphrodite, and is not another non-Adonis male professor. For both of these reasons, how refreshing her appearance is!
Paul
November 12th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
If Lisa Randall is not a super-symmetric twin of mine then i guess no one is. ed.
December 13th, 2006 at 2:04 am
Communication has its own multitude of branes here in this puny three dimensional pocket. Sometimes I can’t believe how many branes I feel exist; When this one is so bleepin’ ignorant and hard to cope with, it makes the Universe(s) so grand. You go girl, uh-um I mean Dr. Randall.
~ NMR
(not Nuclear Magnetic Resonation)
~ Nicholas Michael Roach
January 7th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Mercy me!
Although I have seen this woman expounding some of her theories several times on various cable networks I have not had so much information from her all at once. That has made me inquire further into her ideas regarding gravity (or the lack therof), string and brane possibilities. Amazing!
Kind of like backward engineering applied to hypothetical inversities.
Although her preponderences are certainly boggling to me, she strikes a wonderful chord. Strings resonating?
March 18th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
If gravity is stronger in other dimensions, life would be very different. Humans would have to be more strong to support the pressure of it…
March 19th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Have heard lisa on a couple of interviews and i do think she’s a genius!
if gravitons really do exist and escape to other dimensions then maybe there’s a way of trapping some just before they do escape and using them to communicate with anyone that might be in there!
mind blowing.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
I think Dr Randall is a great physicist. I now have a whole new world opened up to me, thanks to her. Unfortunately my Husband does’nt have a clue what I’m talking about, quite honestly nobody does! I’m really hooked on her theories.
Kind Regards
Amelia.
January 15th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Lisa Randall is a leading expert in extra-dimensionality. Having read her book, she has surpassed everyones expectations, and what charisma. It is very pleasing listening to her.
February 13th, 2008 at 3:26 am
All the good stuff happening in particle physics and cosmology makes me wish I could rewind the clock about 30 years. I’m sure if I could I’d wind up in particle physics or cosmology. Very exciting times. While I don’t have the advanced mathematics, I do have the interest. Keep up the good work!!!
February 19th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
This is the first book like it I have bought. I avoided hard stuff like this when I was in school, and over the years my work kept me too busy to just read things for fun. What is really hard for me is reading about things where there is no answer to why something is doing what it’s doing. Dr. Randall’s book seems to be saying that all she can do is describe how things do what they do, and while that is very cool, I’m left with kind of an empty feeling afterwards–like I’m missing the end of a story.
February 24th, 2008 at 11:27 am
I cannot wait to read what the LHC will present when they collide protons. It would be great if they detect the Higgs particle as well as the graviton. They may also find out if gravitons spend most of their time in other dimensions.
Regards, Amelia.
September 15th, 2008 at 9:08 am
I knew I wasn’t smart enough, but I slogged, with considerable discomfort, through “Warped Passages,” which is about two brains separated by an infinite dementia.
September 21st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
I’m interested in this comment from an interview with Dr. Randall in the London Sunday Times from purely novice curiosity, “Yet Einstein, she points out, had little idea about the practical uses of the general theory of relativity but it now forms a key component of GPS (global positioning satellite) technology.”
The idea that the theory of relativity “forms a key component of GPS” might answer a question I have about GPS signals.
Again, I write this as a non-scientist who uses GPS for mapping and other environmental pursuits.
Thank you.
Bruce Amaro
November 16th, 2008 at 12:42 am
i saw lisa on charlie rose, so i read warped passages. it was fascinating. the brane stuff.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:46 am
I am a reader, not a physicist, but I am entranced, captivated and obsessed with wanting to understand gravity (the what and the how). I read and read and search and search for better and better material and explanations and theory as to why gravity is and why it is as it is.
I like to read books written by as many authorities on the subject of gravity, as well as all other branches of physics, as I see all branches related in on way or another and I do not want to leave one particle unturned under which may lay the answer.
I had wanted to read a book written by you for some time and I finally picked up a copy of your book “Warped Passages” which I am reading now.
While reading your book, I was once again thinking about gravity and, for the thousandth time, listening to what another physicist had to say regarding that perplexing question as to why gravity is the weakest of the four forces, and I thought to myself, “what if there are really only three forces and gravity is merely residue of the strong force.” What if the reach of the strong force extends further then believed. What if the strain of holding matter together is so great that, like an evaporating-black hole, matter and the strong force holding it in shape, “leaks.” And, what if that “leak” is what we experience as gravity. Of course, thinking like that is not only off the known path of physics, but over the cliff. Just a thought, though.
respectfully,
gregory p. lomb,
PS: “Warped Passages” is a well-written book and very enjoyable reading for lay people like myself.
February 4th, 2009 at 8:47 am
What I like most about Professor Randall is the effort she brings to the game. She remains the enthusiast. She is obviously exceedingly bright. There is also something of a slugging it out smart about “Warped passages”. I liked Nigel’s observation. One wonders how completely willing she would be to abandon the current theories. She’s blessed with talent.
February 27th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Large Hadron Collider whilst colliding particles, what of leaks to other dimensions at such high energy? Consider magnetic eddys along the paths that reconnect with the resonant megnetosphere/Earth dipole. Would this indeed provide a path to another dimension? Once initiated could such a leak be controlled? I am not convinced the reconnect issue is as controlled as we have been led to believe.