I'm Alan Olde and this is Clear In Vivid, conversations about connecting and communicating.

When I realized that all the particles in our body came from the big bang and went through

this unbelievable journey through the creation of the solar system, I started to think,

how could we possibly know that?

What are the clues that scientists found?

And that led me down the trail of wondering, well, what was the detective work that they

had to do?

And I discovered that for so many discoveries, it wasn't just hard work, but it was also

trials and tribulations and a lot of rivalries and a lot of heartbreak as well.

Those personal stories were just as interesting to me in the end as the science itself.

That's Dan Levitt.

He's not only amazed at every tiny bit of what we are dates back to the beginning of

the universe.

He's amazed at how we can know such a thing.

So he doesn't just track our atoms from the big bang to last night's dinner and a book

he calls What's Gotten Into You.

He also tracks the exciting detective stories of the people who figured so much about

it out.

People who sometimes had to push hard against the opinions of respected colleagues.

In one case, even against Einstein, colleagues who at the time thought their ideas were

preposterous.

You know, I'm very familiar with Carl Sagan saying, we all come from star stuff, but you've

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