# Basement: Daniel Whiteson | CERN, Dark Matter, and the Aliens Next Door

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-why-files-operation-podcast-5570241/basement-daniel-whiteson-cern-dark-matter-and-the-aliens-next-door
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-why-files-operation-podcast-5570241/basement-daniel-whiteson-cern-dark-matter-and-the-aliens-next-door.md
Podcast: [The Why Files: Operation Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-why-files-operation-podcast-5570241)
Published: 2026-04-20T09:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/433/claritaspod.com/measure/traffic.megaphone.fm/QCD9137888421.mp3?updated=1776655291
Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/mgln.ai/e/433/claritaspod.com/measure/traffic.megaphone.fm/QCD9137888421.mp3?updated=1776655291
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-why-files-operation-podcast-5570241/episodes/basement-daniel-whiteson-cern-dark-matter-and-the-aliens-next-door
Duration seconds: 12256

## Resource

The Why Files releases video episodes on Spotify every Monday and Friday. And when you become a Spotify Premium subscriber, you get fewer ads – that means more story, less interruption. Daniel Whiteson is a particle physicist at UC Irvine and an active researcher at CERN's Large Hadron Collider — the largest machine ever built — where 5,000 scientists are using high-energy collisions to read the universe's secret menu. He co-hosts the show Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe, co-created an award-winning science show for preschoolers, and recently wrote a book asking whether aliens would even recognize our physics at all. His work sits at the collision point of experimental science, philosophy, and the biggest unanswered questions in physics — what everything is made of, why gravity is so weak, and whether the universe has a bottom. DANIEL LINKS sites.uci.edu/daniel X - @DanielWhiteson Podcast - Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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## Transcript

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