The Middle of Everything Ever

After graduating from high school, without a clear plan for what to do next, Laura Andrews started asking herself a lot of questions. A spiral of big philosophical thoughts that led her to sit down and write to us with a question that was … oddly mathematical.  What is the most average size thing, if you take into account everything in the universe. So, along with mathematician Steven Strogatz, we decided to see if we could sit down and, in a friendly throw down of guesstimates and quick calculations, rough out an answer. 

Special thanks to all the listeners who sent in their responses to this question.

Episode Credits:
Reported by - Soren Wheeler and Alex Neason
Produced by - Annie McEwen
with mixing help from - Arianne Wack
Fact-checking by - Natalie A. Middleton
and Edited by  - Alex Neason

Citations:

Books
You can find links to many books by Steven Strogatz here: https://www.stevenstrogatz.com/all-books

Media
And the podcast he does for Qauntum Magazine, the Joy of Why, here: https://www.quantamagazine.org/tag/the-joy-of-why/

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Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.