In this podcast we listen to how the universe could end. Students can listen to the podcast and complete the questions. It’s a terrific way to practice their listening skills in class or for homework.

The vocabulary used in this podcast is:

Nihilistic	Astrophysicist	Theory
Expansion	Cosmos	Mass
Decay	Dissipate	Molecules
Unravel	Vacuum	Instability

The answers are at the bottom

Click here for the transcript!

Podcast Questions:

1. Who is the podcaster interviewing today?
2. What does Katie think about regarding the universe?
3. What is dark energy doing to the universe?
4. Why is dark energy weird?
5. One of Katie’s theories is called the heat death. What is the heat death?
6. What is the second theory Katie talks about? Can you explain it?
7. Why is the “Big Rip” scarier than the “Heat Death?
8. The third theory is called vacuum decay. What is it about?
9. Which theory does Katie like the most and why?
10. What reason is there to studying the end of the universe?

Extra Discussion Questions:

1. Have you ever thought about the universe? What did you think about?
2. Is it important to study the end of the universe? Why, why not?
3. What do you think about the study of Astrophysics?
4. If the universe were ending now, what would you do?
5. Does studying the universe make you feel big or small? Why?

Answers to the Questions:

1. She is interviewing Katie Mack’s an astrophysicist at North Carolina State University. And she has a new book out called “The End Of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).
2. Katie thinks about the universe, the beginning of the universe, the end of the universe, what the universe is made of, how it works – all of the kind of questions about the nature of the cosmos, how it’s changing over time and generally our whole cosmic story.
3. Dark energy is helping the universe expand at a faster and faster rate over time.
4. Dark energy is weird because it doesn’t behave like anything else scientists have observed.
5. If the universe keeps expanding farther and farther, then all the stars and planets will get further apart and there will be no heat.
6. The second theory is called “The big Rip”. In this theory, dark energy is not a constant, but something that grows in intensity and so after some time it would split everything apart, including atoms.
7. It’s scarier because you would be able to see it coming and you wouldn’t be able to stop it.
8. This theory says that there could be a bubble created in the universe where the laws of physics are different. This bubble would grow until it occupied everything and whatever is inside the bubble would not function properly.
9. She likes the vacuum decay the most because it’s random and less straightforward than the others.
10. Mostly curiosity. It’s also a clever way to test physics and see if they can predict what’s going to happen in the future.

Downloadable Questions and Answers:

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