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In this important guide to science and society, cosmologist Stephon Alexander argues that physics must embrace the excluded, listen to the unheard, and be unafraid of being wrong. Drawing on his experience as a Black physicist, he makes a powerful case, in his latest book, for diversifying our scientific communities.

Shermer and Alexander discuss: his journey from Trinidad to the Bronx to professor of physics \\u2022 what it\\u2019s like being Black in a mostly White and Asian field of science \\u2022 systemic racism and misogyny \\u2022 how to be an outsider inside a science \\u2022 how to tell the difference between revolutionary and worthless new ideas \\u2022 how do laypeople understand whether something is good science or not? \\u2022 the double-slit experiment \\u2022 superposition \\u2022 connections between quantum physics and Eastern mysticism \\u2022 creativity \\u2022 What banged the Big Bang? \\u2022 Are we living in a matrix? \\u2022 Deepak Chopra\\u2019s mind monism \\u2022 consciousness and the universe.

Stephon Alexander is a professor of theoretical physics at Brown University, an established jazz musician, and an immigrant from Trinidad who grew up in the Bronx. He is the 2020 president of the National Society of Black Physicists and a founding faculty Director of Brown University\\u2019s Presidential Scholars program, which boosts underrepresented students. In addition to his academic achievements, he was the scientific consultant to Ava DuVernay for the feature film A Wrinkle in Time. His work has been featured by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, and many other outlets. He has been a guest on Nova, the Brian Lehrer Show, and Neil deGrasse Tyson\\u2019s StarTalk, among much else. The author of Fear of a Black Universe and The Jazz of Physics, Alexander lives in Providence, Rhode Island.