Playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb has two loves: theater and biology. In “Boom,” at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, he mingles the two interests, telling the story of Jules (Aubrey Deeker), a marine biology grad student who studies the sleep cycles of fish in an effort to determine details about the end of the world.

At the beginning of the play, Jules has placed a personal ad promising “sex to change the course of the world,” which is answered by a co-ed named Jo (Kimberly Gilbert), who assumes that the ad is promising just a lively sexual encounter. Jules has bigger and more scientific ideas, however, and most of the play’s first half-hour teases out the confusion inspired by the ad.