{"podcast":{"title":"PBS Space Time","slug":"pbs-space-time-7778773","podcast_index_feed_id":7778773,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VG4094887262","website_url":null,"image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/f982ec76-1991-11f1-8531-1763dcadb313/image/9a88c1c5ae91e65f64e0c1324090ebb9.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"PBS","episode_count":188,"summary":"Space Time explores the outer reaches of space, the craziness of astrophysics, the possibilities of sci-fi, and anything else you can think of beyond Planet Earth with our astrophysicist host: Matthew O’Dowd. For all business inquiries and sponsorship opportunities please reach out to: pbsspacetime@lighthouseagents.com Matt O'Dowd spends his time studying the universe, especially really far-away things like quasars, super-massive black holes, and evolving galaxies. He uses telescopes in space to do it. Matt completed his Ph.D. at NASA's Space Telescope Science Institute, followed by work at the University of Melbourne and Columbia University. He's now a professor at the City University of New York's Lehman College and an Associate at the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium. Previous host Gabe Perez-Giz is an astrophysicist who studies black hole physics. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and also hosted PBS Infinite Series. patreon.com/pbsspacetime","last_synced_at":"2026-07-24T02:17:15.545680+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773"},"episode":{"title":"What If Dark Energy is an Undiscovered Quantum Field?","slug":"what-if-dark-energy-is-an-undiscovered-quantum-field","published_at":"2026-07-20T03:30:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773/what-if-dark-energy-is-an-undiscovered-quantum-field","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG9166999520.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/VG9166999520.mp3","summary":"PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the Space Time Discord! https://www.patreon.com/pbsspacetime What is Quintessence? Well we know that something is up with the way the universe is expanding - there’s some kind of anti-gravitational effect that’s causing the expansion to accelerate. We don’t know what it is - just that it competes against the inward-pulling effect of gravity. And it’s winning - it looks like the universe will expand forever, at an ever-increasing rate. We call this mysterious influence dark energy, but while we’ve talked a lot about how it behaves, we’ve never really explored what it is. So, what is dark energy, really? One strong possibility is quintessence. Quintessence is a hypothetical form of dark energy, more precisely a scalar field. Watch the episode to learn more. Check out the Space Time Merch Store https://www.pbsspacetime.com/shop Sign up for the mailing list to get episode notifications and hear special announcements! https://mailchi.mp/1a6eb8f2717d/spacetime Search the Entire Space Time Library Here: https://search.pbsspacetime.com/ Want to Learn More About Dark Energy? Check out the Dark Energy Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsPUh22kYmNAv1_8MA9-USkY6f2lfr1hb Hosted by Matt O'Dowd Written by Matt Caplan & Matt O'Dowd Post Production by Leonardo Scholzer, Yago Ballarini, Pedro Osinski, Caique Oliveira, Adriano Leal & Stephanie Faria GFX Visualizations: Ajay Manuel Directed by Andrew Kornhaber Associate Producer: Bahar Gholipour Executive Producers: Eric Brown & Andrew Kornhaber Executive in Charge for PBS: Maribel Lopez Director of Programming for PBS: Gabrielle Ewing Assistant Director of Programming for PBS: Joh…","meta_description":"PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to:http://to.pbs.org/DonateSPACE Sign Up on Patreon to get access to the S…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1324,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/pbs-space-time-7778773/episodes/what-if-dark-energy-is-an-undiscovered-quantum-field/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/pbs-space-time-7778773/what-if-dark-energy-is-an-undiscovered-quantum-field.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}