Surely You're Joking

Dr. Robert Zubrin of the Mars Society returns to discuss Mars Direct, carbon credits, plans for the moon, and his shout out from Micheal Collins on the 50th Anniversary of the moon landing.

Meeting up at the April Meeting of the American Physical Society, Dr. Avery Broderick tells Kevin about the Breakthrough Prize winning first photo of a super massive black hole in Virgo, Kevin's birth sign.

Robert Picardo, best known as the holographic doctor on Star Trek Voyager and host of the Planetary Post, meets up with Kevin and returning Surely You're Joking guest star and Planet Nine hypotheses and hunter, Konstantin Batygin, to revel brand new secrets about Planet Nine! From the headquarters of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, Konstantin announces fresh of the presses details about the size, shape, and location of the still as-of-yet photographed Planet Nine!

Mark Mamonne is a actor, comedian, and production assistant on Seth McFarland's "The Orville." Mark comes on Surly You're Joking to talk about leaving stand up for acting and to tell us about his upcoming first appearance on the show!

Dr. Sumner Norman can do a lot of things, but one of the most amazing is that he can read your thoughts, sometimes even before you realized you thought it. Sumner explains how his work will help disabled people regain control their lives, almost straight out of the movie Upgrade.

Dr. James Tuttle Keane brings some of his sketches of the most distant (and possibly the oldest) probed object in our solar system named Ultima Thule. In addition to studying planet, James makes brilliant drawings to help explain what we are learning about this strange, city-sized snowman-like object that was visited on New Year's Eve 2019 by the New Horizons space probe. James works along side Brian May from Queen and together they help both discover our distant celestial past and share those exciting discoveries with the public.

First Surely You're Joking episode of 2019! Planetary research and Dr. Kevin Hardegree Ullman and comedian Aubree Sweeney get an update of the Kepler telescope replacement : the TESS satellite, the Rose Parade, and three letter acronyms. Ullman explains the viral video of the music made tuning solar system K2-128. Happy New Year!

Julie Jester is the queen of the prank court. When she's not inventing widgets and working on spaceships, she helping Caltech prank arch-nemesis MIT or building an homage to Hollywood sign pranks of old.

How does Ant-Man shrink? Quantum Mechanics of course! Professor Spyridon Michalakis, scientific consultant of Marvel's most recent super hero block buster, starring Paul Rudd. It turns out the Hollywood star loves physics, so Spiro explains that while working directly with him, he came up with the Quantum Realm. Kevin and Spiro talk about some the tech details, how exotic atoms like muonium and pionium, can actually change size in real life labs.

Joking's favorite Professor Konstantin Batygin is back to explain how he discovered that equation that governs the quantum world of Schrödinger's cat fame, also describes planetary disks and the formation of solar systems. He also breaks down the progress on the dark hunt for Planet Nine.

Paul Zaloom, star of the hit science show for kids, Beakman's World, drops in to tell Kevin about the popularity of his show all over the world, has him trekking across the globe. Paul give the low down on his latest project: puppet astronauts.

Author of The Case for Mars explains his plans to take people to mars, Mars Direct. Kevin and Robert discus SpaceX, making fuel on Mars, space nuclear, the intellectual dark web, and the uselessness of tollbooths in space.

"The Martian" Andy Weir returns to Surely You're Joking after meeting up with Kevin and Matthew in the Bay Area to tell us about his new book, "Artemis." Andy also gives his take on why the Moon will be the home of the first Space city, not Mars, squarely breaking with Elon Musk. Andy welcomes his friend joining the sci-fi author turned movie club with the release of "Ready Player One." and shares his outlook on BFR.

Kevin drives up to Berkley to meet up with environmentalist turned Gubernatorial candidate Michael Shellenberger. Michael is the founder of Environmental Progress, a non-profit devoted to well, environmental progress. Much like Kevin, Michael see nuclear energy as a critical part of growing the economy and standard of living of California and beyond. Is this episode hilarious? Meh, not really, but covers pretty serious stuff and Shellenberger is definitely a serious contender for the biggest state in The Union.

Richard Rieber tells of his work on the Martian rover Curiosity and the up and coming rover Mars 2020, the dangers of driving the world's most expensive vehicle at 0.01 mph and what happens when you use wheels to leave your mark.

Physicist Liz Friedman joins Kevin and Jimmy O Yang (right after wrapping Silicon Valley Season 4)meet up at Jimmy's old apartment to talk about detecting high energy neutrinos, in the coldest place on earth. Liz brings Jimmy polar schwag and tells us about her famous picture from New Years. Jimmy pitches his new book How To American.

Comedian Sarah Keller and Mitch tell Kevin how unimpressed they were with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch, and discuss the secret of living forever, the science of bullfrog mating calls, emotional truck commercials, and three parent babies.

Rocket scientist Manan Arya uses the ancient art of origami to fold complex space structures, like solar collectors, radio dish antennae, and even mirrors for the next generation of powerful telescopes. Along the way they brain storm on new origami space fashion.

Comedian Irina Skaya has strong opinions about politics (and the comedy of politics) and she doesn't care if you're offended by them. Kevin and Irina talk about life of immigrant families. Irina talks about how embracing her Russian/Ukrainian background has liberated her comedic voice. They manage to fit some science in there too and Irina pleads in Russian to get Surely You're Joking unbanned in Russia.

Viral video blogger, gamer, and comedian Vito Gesualdi joins Mitch and Kevin talks about his adventures trolling politically charged rallies, as the extreme left and right collide, sometimes with frightening results. But what would a SYJ episode be with out discussing alien asteroids, robots and demonetization.

Prof. Jessie Christiansen returns to give Mitch and Kevin heads up on the planet hunting Kepler Space Telescope's final mission update, on how discoveries sometimes have to be walked back a bit, and the "what's up with that?" on Oumuamua, the asteroid (or maybe space ship?) from outside the solar system. There is some singing involved.

Comedian, Marine and veteran, Mitch Burrow, doesn't let his GED stop him from tackling the genius of Einstein, quantum entanglement, artificial intelligence, and A/2017 U1. the first asteroid to fly by earth from outside our solar system.

Comedian Ken Garr talks about his time performing in Iraq, starting a new political comedy show, and SpaceX fans and haters.

Seattle comedian Monica Nevi from 'Laughs" on FOX stops by to talk about sports injury science, missing the ellipse by just a few miles and the importance of talking about farts and swearing when you want to get your point across. Kevin brings up militant veganism and science gone wrong by creating extremist robots.

On Aug. 17, 2017, a wave of signals reached earth from 100 million miles away of two neutron stars violently colliding. Dr. Jess McIver (sounds just like "MacGyver") was behind the team that published the news to the world. She also helped remove all the "glitches" that might have looked like a fake signal. What made this so spectacular, was that this was first time such an event was detected from gravitational waves, and then shortly after detected from light all the way from gamma rays down to radio frequency.

Just hours before the announcement is made in Stockholm, award winning professor, activist, and (as of this episode's release)Nobel Laureate Barry Barish sits down with Kevin and talks about the discovery of gravitational waves from massive colliding black holes billions of miles away.

Astrophysicist Prof. Hakeem Oluseyi returns and things get deep with Kevin. Dark matter, invisible shape of the galaxy, quantum reality, nerds v. jocks, gaslighting scientists, and the correct way to pronounce salmon merlot, which should never be paired.

After 13 years orbiting Saturn, the NASA probe Cassini is about to die a fiery death. Dr. Morgan Cable from JPL tells us about why, and how much this amazing probe has taught us about the solar system and maybe even about life. [photo: Dan Goods NASA/JPL]

40 years ago, on September 5, 1977, Voyager 1 launched from Florida, Earth, to begin a grand planetary tour of the solar system, taking spectacular pictures and measurements of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune and then, spectacularly, being the first human made object to leave our solar system and officially enter interstellar space. Kevin and Jimmy talked to Ed Stone, a scientist who shaped the path of Voyager 1 and 2, about their historic discoveries over the last four decades.

Connor Mcspadden and Keith Carey are a hilarious duo. And it all might have been different if Connor had gone into the sciences instead of stand up at the age of 16. Coming from their podcast Mean Boys and their appearances on Comedy Central's Roast Battle, they stop by to "discuss" HIV farming bacteria, heat death of the universe, gradient driven evolution, and testing estimating how many boobs fit in a race car.

Technology writer Gina Hall comes to West Hollywood to explain how her recent article managed to get Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk into an all out Twitter war over the future of artificial intelligence. She and Kevin tell Griff about the rich and proud history of Caltech prank culture and what it is like covering news out of the world's most powerful start up community.

Neuroscientist and comedian Ori Amir explains to Kevin and Griff how he used fMRI brain scans of comedians to study and analyse the neurogenesis of humor and clever insight in the human brain.

Jimmy, Griff, Kevin, and comedian Ryan Demarest, a double finalist of Kevin and Bean’s April Foolishness critique Nye’s new show, the identity politics of Saturn’s moon-ring spectrum, and party crashing the Space Shuttle.

Dr. Kristjan Stone joins us to chat about space probes. space logos and all things otherwise spacey. Jimmy gives us the lowdown on his bigger role on Season 4 of Silicon Valley.

Biologist and comedian Forest Shaw talks styrofoam cups in space, climate change, reptile stunt pay, science budgets, and juice box conspiracy theories. Jimmy wraps another season of Silicon Valley. Kevin proposes a possible method for solar systems to spread life.

Dr. Sean Carey and his team discovered seven brand new earth-like planets orbiting another tiny star just a stone hops away from our sun! Matthew, Jimmy, Kevin and Griff ask him about the possibility of life there and the probability of humans traveling there.

Show favorite and Planet Nine discoverer Konstantin Batygin and Astrophysicist Fred Adams join the entire SYJ gang including Patriots Day star Jimmy O Yang and the newly appointed co-host Matthew Broussard to discuss just how lose the sun's grip on the solar system really is.

Roboticist Dr. Heather Knight swings down from Stanford for the New Year and her annual Robot Film Festival. Heather shares her work with Griff, Kevin and guest co-host comedian Sarah Keller, on creating a robot stand up comedian.

Applied Mathematician turned comedian, actor, and cartoonist Matthew Broussard talks to Kevin and Griff about his recent career successes (like his first Comedy Central spacial) making them kinda jealous. The also touch on lighter topics like the true nature of space and time, quantum entanglement, and Mathematical theorems that have awkward names that make people uncomfortable.

Actor, comedian, and rational optimist, Wayne Federman, known for many films, "Knocked up," "Funny People," and the upcoming "The House" and way more, stops by to tell an IPA loaded Griff and Kevin why he loves science, his attraction to rational optimism, and the proper way to name freeways.

Prof. Ed Stone, one of the most accomplished and decorated scientists of our time, joins Kevin and Jimmy to break down the spectacular news about the Jovian moon Europa (the forbidden moon in the movie 2010.) Not only do we now have proof that it has a salty ocean, but it is spraying out water geysers on to the surface and into space. Searching for life on the moon, may not require drilling into miles thick of ice sheets that cover.

Matt Kirshen is a British comedian, but like Kevin, started off in the hard sciences, in his case, math (or as he calls it, maths). He has his own science and comedy podcast called Probably Science. Matt gives Jimmy, Kevin and Griff his take on Brexit, rockets, and the time he got burned by Buzz Aldrin. Also, Pico the Chihuahua make his debut bark.

Kevin and Griff introduce Jimmy to former guest, Prof. Hakeem Oluseyi, host of Outrageous Acts of Science. Conversation volleys back and forth wildly as the Olympics keep distracting the crew from any possible resolution of Susskin's famed ER = EPR conjecture.

To help announce an amazing new discovery: a new exoplanet about the same as planet earth potentially habitable, Griff and Kevin meet with Caltech postdoc Dr. Courtney Dressing. The planet orbits the pale red dwarf star named Proxima Centauri visible only in the southern hemisphere.

While visiting Princeton, Kevin stops by Rutgers to talk to former Caltech theoretical particle physicist Professor Mathew about so disappointing news from the Large Hadron Collider. All the promising signs of a new super-massive scalar previously discussed on SYJ with Prof. Maria Spiropulu, have all collapsed with new data. The two also discuss whether we should hold Owen up to his promis to shot his own foot.

Brian Brophy has been over 40 films and TV shows. Brian played one of the top rated Star Trek villains hallmarked by an incredible scene opposite Patrick Stuart debating the definitions of life and consciousness. He's taken his vast acting experience to the Caltech theater department, where he helped produce the first Star Trek musical, "Boldly Go", and also to budding actor Jimmy, and want-to-be actors Griff and Kevin. Speaking of questionable intelligence, the SYJ crew also bemoans the new phenomenon of Pokémon Go, which already sucked in Jimmy. That's two things that end in Go. Weird.

Don't call me "Surely!" Uh, or is that "Shirley?" Jerry Zucker joins Jimmy, Owen and Kevin to discuss the important question of whether the internet teaches science as well as Scooby Doo. Zucker is the awesome force behind hits like Airplane! And Naked Gun (“big in Hong Kong!”), yet Kevin repeatedly fails to pronounce his name correctly. (You will never forget after you learn the secret.) The origins of the Science and Entertainment Exchange as a beacon of light against an age of anti-science darkness, are also revealed.

Ex-physicist and current expert maker, Daniel Busby, stops in to talk about the extensive and ridiculously creative list of projects he has going on. Daniel and his inventive genius have been featured on the Science Channel, "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition", and in the viral OK GO video "This too shall Pass" featuring an amazing real life Rube Goldberg Machine.

Kevin's buddy from school, Prof. Peter Plavchan, visiting from Missouri, and comedian Richard Chassler, join Owen and Kevin in Hollywood, to talk about a weird planetary system discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope, which Peter uses to study distant solar systems. Some have found this particular system to be so odd, that it may be evidence of an enormous alien mega-structure surrounding the distant star. Or not.

Danny Lobell been doing stand up comedy for over 15 years and has a two podcasts, "Modern Day Philosophers," where he pairs comedians with philosophers, and "The Mostly Bull Market", where he takes on companies. Jimmy explains the his favorite philosopher is a comedian, Owen calls everything a "dick move" and Kevin mansplains why, from now on, he will only mansplain everything to everyone.

Don't believe the hype! The's a big difference between an ice sheet and sea ice. And the movement can actually move the axis of the Earth herself! To explain which is which, Dr. Surendra Adhikari from JPL/Caltech tells Kevin, Jimmy, and Owen the difference. Using a NASA satellite, Dr. Adhikari, tells how he made his measurements that grabbed social media's attention last week. Since Jimmy's back from Boston after hanging with real life heroes, he tell the guys about the trip.