Nerd Nite SF#156: ExplOratorium Collab!: Time Travel, Event Design, and the Science of Perceiving the World

The spooky season is finally here! Dust off your cobwebs, set up your 12ft tall yard skeletons, and mark your calendars for the Nerd Nite SF 2025 season finale! It’s our last show of the year and we’ve got talks to cover spooky situations like falling into a time vortex (how do you defend yourself if you wind up in another era?), questioning whether your senses are lying to you (sure, let’s add more existential terror to our lives), and how to survive the most terrifying thing of all: Public Speaking.

Self-Defense For Time Travelers

At the intersection of history and theoretical physics, comedian Mike Capozzola looks at the unexpected consequences of irresponsible Time-Travel. Learn non-lethal, humane ways to outsmart velociraptors, fisticuffs champ, a centaur and a 1950’s American ‘Greaser.’

Speaker: Mike Capozzola is a London-based, American comedian and actor.

Disagreeing About Your Senses

Have you ever wondered if your blue might be some else’s green? Thought we’d never know? Some really clever experiments have shed insight into personal sensory domains that were thought only answerable by philosophy. Join me as we look at some sensory illusions and what they can tell us about how brains process the world.

Speaker: Zeke Kossover, ExplOratorium

Experiments in Experience: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Event Design

Whether you’ve stumbled through a music festival, sipped wine at an art opening, or found yourself learning quantum physics in a bar…none of that happened by accident. Someone designed that event with you (and maybe your tipsy friends) in mind. Together we’ll pull back the curtain on how public art and science programs are crafted to invite creativity and curiosity, while leaving plenty of room for playfulness and connection.

Speaker: Amanda Freise, ExplOratorium