At a Thursday talk on her new book, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a University of New Hampshire physicist explored a wide range of subjects, including space-time, dark matter, storytelling and why the night sky matters.

By Kate Castro | 2:41 a.m., November 6, 2026

Contributing Reporter

A University of New Hampshire physics and astronomy professor delivered a Thursday lecture about her book on the concept of space-time and its implications on possibilities in American life.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, who wrote “The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry and the Cosmic Dream Boogie,” discussed space-time and dark matter, connecting the study of the cosmos to Black studies and human storytelling. The event was hosted by the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities at Yale.

“The universe is a regular and constant reminder that what we think is normal is actually a very small fraction of what is phenomenologically possible in the universe, and I think that that's good for us socially,” Prescod-Weinstein told the crowd in her lecture. “I think it’s good for us politically to remember that whatever boundaries have been set around like how things are, that things are often much more than whatever we’ve been told.”

The talk drew interested students, Yale professors, alumni and others. Priya Natarajan, an astrophysicist and the director of the Franke Program, said in opening remarks that Prescod-Weinstein has been a “force for good” and a “strong advocate for scholars of color” in her academic fields.

“Today we get to revel in one of her many avatars as the beautiful, clear and forceful writer that she also is,” she said.

Durel Crosby ’22, the STEM program manager for Yale Young Global Scholars, said he attended the talk to bring insight into his own work.

Crosby said he sees value in relating theories and concepts in a way that is culturally relevant to the individual.

“I think that I’m a big fan of what some would call culturally responsive pedagogy, and I think a big part of my teaching practice is trying to understand the identities that my students have, and to make the science real for them in conversation with their lived experiences,” Crosby said.

At the event, Prescod-Weinstein introduced the concept of space-time, an idea she simplified by explaining that the dimensions of time and space cannot be separated but rather operate in alignment with each other.

Prescod-Weinstein explained that it is difficult to find a perfect way of talking about or thinking of the concept of space-time.

She described the expansion of space-time with the analogy of a balloon being blown up. As the balloon expands, stickers on its surface move further apart because the balloon is expanding between them, filling the space, she said.

That informs Prescod-Weinstein’s understanding that social and political boundaries also have the capacity to expand, she said, referencing Tuesday’s Senate election in Mississippi, where Democrat Scott Colom is leading Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, the incumbent, by around 0.2 percentage points, as of Thursday night. Mississippi has not elected a Democratic senator since 1982.

Further in the talk, Prescod-Weinstein delved into the dark matter problem, which she said should be called the transparent or invisible matter problem.

“It is fundamentally different from the things that we typically identify as dark in our everyday lives,” she said.

Prescod-Weinstein connected her research with Black studies and women’s studies, emphasizing the role of storytelling and the value of making science accessible.

“We are a biological species, yes. But we are also a story,” she said. “We are also a species that self-constructs through storytelling, and we narrate our evolution through storytelling, and that becomes part of our evolutionary experience.”

The unit of measurement used to describe the universe’s rate of expansion is the Hubble Constant.

KATE CASTRO

https://yaledailynews.com/articles/in-lecture-physicist-connects-dots-between-space-time-and-politics

(https://autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5920511&forum_id=2#50244238)