Dr Karl Podcast The age of space, explosive planets and black hole portals
Dec 18, 2025
Explore the mysteries of space with fascinating questions! Discover how black holes might challenge our understanding of information. Learn what would happen if everyone jumped at once, and why it wouldn't affect Earth's rotation. Find out how music sounds on different planets and why Jupiter won't explode from rocket flames. Dive into the theories of our universe possibly existing within a black hole and the odds of intelligent life beyond Earth. Join in on this cosmic adventure for all space enthusiasts!
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Knitted Jumpers In Space Stay Structured
- Rosie asked whether knitted jumpers or a single thread would straighten out in microgravity when taken into space.
- Dr Karl said internal tensions in yarn and knitted structure would likely remain, so garments wouldn't magically unravel in space.
Information Loss Is A Real Paradox
- Information is a real, conserved quantity in physics and underlies the black hole information paradox.
- Stuff falling into black holes seems to lose information, creating a deep unresolved problem in theoretical physics.
All Humanity Jumping Isn't Catastrophic
- Randall Munro (XKCD) modelled everyone jumping at once and found global jumps wouldn't register on seismometers.
- Clustering people in one place might be measurable but impractical and dangerous, so it wouldn't affect Earth's rotation.