Lawrence Krauss: Every Atom in Your Body Comes From a Star

Lawrence Maxwell Krauss, author of the best-sell­ing book The Physics of Star Trek, is a the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist and Pro­fes­sor of Physics at Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty. His research focus­es on the begin­ning and the end of the uni­verse.

This past Jan­u­ary, Krauss attend­ed the World Eco­nom­ic Forum in Davos and was asked by 99 Faces TV to talk about his work. In a rel­a­tive­ly short 381 sec­onds, he speaks about the scale of the uni­verse, the con­cept of dark ener­gy and explains how “you real­ly are star­dust.” That is to say, every lit­tle atom in your body comes from a super­no­va (or explod­ing star). Krauss elab­o­rates on this poet­ic thought in this 2009 video (def­i­nite­ly rec­om­mend­ed), and he’ll have more to say in his new book, A Uni­verse from Noth­ing.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

By pro­fes­sion, Matthias Rasch­er teach­es Eng­lish and His­to­ry at a High School in north­ern Bavaria, Ger­many. In his free time he scours the web for good links and posts the best finds on Twit­ter.