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Last discussed
4mo ago
Jul 7, 2026
3 tagged in 12 months
The Universe is Stranger Than We Could’ve Imagined, with Mordecai-Mark Mac Low
StarTalk·Jul 7, 2026
All time
26
episodes
On record
8
took a position
Where they standWhere they stand
Camps of opinion · 2Positions people took on this topic in transcripts, grouped by school of thought. The bar shows each camp's share of the people sorted into a camp. It is not a poll and not a share of any audience, and people whose position fit no camp are left out of it. Within a camp, people with demonstrated expertise on the topic come first, then those who reached the most listeners on it. Positions are extracted from transcripts by a model and may misattribute who said what. Every quote links to the episode it came from.
Share of people placed in a camp7 people
57%
43%
- Undiscovered Particle Hypothesis4 people · 57%
- Fundamental Galaxy Gravitational Anchor3 people · 43%
Undiscovered Particle Hypothesis
Dark matter consists of unidentified fundamental particles that have not yet been directly observed.
4 people · 4 episodes
Dark matter is likely a particle that is predicted by supersymmetry.
“look I'm relatively conservative when it comes to these things so I think that it's likely to be a particle”
StarTalk · Jul 2024 · 1 episode · 5.0M views on this topic
Katherine FreeseUnrated
Dark matter is a type of particle that currently lacks direct identification.
“Well the paleo part means that they've been around for a billion years. And so these Let me back up. We're trying to figure out what dark matter is made of. Yes. And we think it's some kind of particle we haven't identified yet.”
StarTalk · Mar 2026 · 2 episodes · 1.8M views on this topicHC
Dark matter is a real phenomenon that suggests the existence of fundamental particles or stuff that has not yet been discovered by particle physicists.
“we don't think that's the end of the story for lots of reasons mostly to do with astronomy actually thanks to you know you and your colleagues discovering this inconvenient stuff out there in the universe called Dark Matter so that suggests there must be more stuff that we we haven't found yet”
StarTalk · Jan 2025 · 1 episode · 1.2M views on this topicFundamental Galaxy Gravitational Anchor
Dark matter is a necessary gravitational force that drives the formation and structure of galaxies.
3 people · 3 episodes
LR
Dark matter is a form of matter that does not interact with light but is fundamental to galaxy formation because it collapses more readily than ordinary matter.
“it's dark matter that sort of drives um Galaxy formation and then ordinary matter kind of comes along with it um and there's also just more of it and because there's more of it it can start collapsing sooner”
Lex Fridman Podcast · Dec 2023 · 1 episode · 673K views on this topic
Dark matter is a substance that does not interact with light and is currently invisible to us, although it is gravitationally detectable and dominates the mass of galaxies.
“dark matter, which is what we were originally talking about, doesn't interact with the light at all. There's no shadow cast. There's no darkness. It just passes right through.”
StarTalk · Mar 2021 · 1 episode · 526K views on this topicML
Mordecai-Mark Mac LowUnrated
Simulations must incorporate dark matter because it provides the majority of the gravitational force within galaxies.
“Well, one sixth of the mass of the galaxy is in anything visible. Stars, planets, gas, comets, all of that. One sixth of the mass. >> So, 85% of the gravity >> is from dark matter. It's something you don't even know what it is.”
StarTalk · Jul 2026 · 1 episode · 567K views on this topicExtracted by a model; may misattribute who said what.
In the transcripts
Episodes discussing this topic
75%
85%
Astrophysicists Discuss Issues with Gravity, Dark Matter, and the Unsolved Mystery of the Sun’s Heat
95%
70%
100%
Showing 10 of 26
Over time
Share of episodesThis topic's episodes as a share of every episode we analysed, in each complete month. We analyse more episodes every month, so a raw count would mostly show that growth. Recent months fill in as transcripts are analysed.
Complete months · first on record Jun 2015