Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Latest Episodes:

Ben Shapiro REACTS to New NASA Facts! (#243) Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

In July NASA released the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Here's my discussion with @Ben Shapiro on this treasure trove of data including:

Carina Nebula. The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars form. The Carina Nebula is home to many massive stars, several times larger than the Sun.

WASP-96 b (spectrum). WASP-96 b is a giant planet outside our solar system, composed mainly of gas. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014.

Southern Ring Nebula. The Southern Ring, or “Eight-Burst” nebula, is a planetary nebula – an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth.

Stephan’s Quintet: About 290 million light-years away, Stephan’s Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus. It is notable for being the first compact galaxy group ever discovered in 1877. Four of the five galaxies within the quintet are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters.

Don't miss my exclusive LIVE Q & A with JWST Project Scientist, and Nobel Prize winner, John Mather! https://youtu.be/vC77uaWYd44

Please join my mailing list to get the latest news in the Universe and win cool prizes like meteorites, books, and more! briankeating.com/list 📝

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Watch my Ben Shapiro Sunday Special: https://youtu.be/9YC5vjD4Ypg

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A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

Producer and Writer Stuart Volkow P.G.A.

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The Elephant In The Universe: Govert Schilling (#242) Jul 24, 2022

Show notes

In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos—some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation.

Govert Schilling is an internationally acclaimed astronomy writer in the Netherlands. He is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope, and his articles have appeared in Science, New Scientist and BBC Sky at Night Magazine. He wrote over fifty books (in Dutch) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, some of which have been translated into English, including Evolving Cosmos, Flash! The Hunt for the Biggest Explosions in the Universe, The Hunt for Planet X, and Atlas of Astronomical Discoveries. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union named asteroid (10986) Govert after him.

Find him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/govertschilling

📺 Watch my most popular videos:📺

A New Contender is Here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6A6myur--c
Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1
Weinstein and Wolfram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1
Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1
Neil deGrasse Tyson https://youtu.be/1kxgK6J4S5Y
Michio Kaku: https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI
Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo

Topics Include:

Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND)
What is the most convincing evidence for the existence of Dark Matter?
When do you stop an experiment?
What tool or technology is the most promising for unlocking more secrets of the Universe?
Some secretive dark matter experiments.
The Xenon Wars.

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A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

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Brian Keating with James Altucher (#241) Jul 20, 2022

Show notes

Have you ever thought about why Galileo Galilei, an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer was willing to risk his life to speak out about science against the will of the church at that time? How was science back then?

How can America maintain its leadership in the sciences? Is it slipping?

Dr. Brian Keating, an American physicist, podcaster, and author, talks to James Altucher about his project of making the first-ever audiobook that was written by Galileo Galilei, and we also brainstorm on how we could better fund science.

Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo Galilei for your chance to win space dust here: https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue

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James Webb Space Telescope First Results Q & A with Project Scientist John Mather, Nobel Prizewinner (#240) Jul 17, 2022

Show notes

@NASAWebb Senior Project Scientist, and @NobelPrize winner, John Mather answers questions about the JWST from listeners of Into The Impossible.

📺 Watch my #JWST explainer here https://youtu.be/1MjR_A5oDyI

Please join my mailing list; for your chance to win 4 billion year old space dust click here 👉 briankeating.com/list 📝

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🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php

A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

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Astrophysics Professor Explains James Webb Space Telescope Results: What do they mean? What's next? (#239) Jul 13, 2022

Show notes

Watch this on Youtube!

Today NASA released the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Here's my reaction to this treasure trove of light, including:

Don't miss my exclusive LIVE Q & A with JWST Project Scientist, and Nobel Prize winner, John Mather!

Don't miss John Mather’s past appearance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwqTNa9e_LE

Please join my mailing list to get the latest news in the Universe and win cool prizes like meteorites, books and more! briankeating.com/list 📝

Subscribe to The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast for exclusive audio interviews https://briankeating.com/podcast.php

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The Elusive Higgs Boson: Frank Close (#238) Jul 10, 2022

Show notes

Frank Close is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics, and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College. He was formerly Head of Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, vice President of the British Science Association and Head of Communications and Public Understanding at CERN. He was awarded the Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics for his 'outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics' in 1996, an OBE for 'services to research and the public understanding of science in 2000, and the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for communicating science in 2013. He is the only professional physicist to have won a British Science Writers Prize on three occasions.

Author of 20 books about science, the latest "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass", marks the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. On July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in understanding why particles have mass, had finally been discovered. On the rostrum, surrounded by jostling physicists and media, was the particle’s retiring namesake—the only person in history to have an existing single particle named for them. Why Peter Higgs? Drawing on years of conversations with Higgs and others, Close illuminates how an unprolific man became one of the world’s most famous scientists. Close finds that scientific competition between people, institutions, and states played as much of a role in making Higgs famous as Higgs’s work did.

Topics Discussed Include:
The mystique and character of Peter Higgs
A brief history of CERN and the LHC
The influence of Freeman Dyson.
What part did the Nobel Prize play in motivating Peter Higgs?
A brief history of particle physics and super-colliders.
The Large Electron Positron (LEP) Collider, precursor to the LHC.
The Nobel Prize for the Higgs Boson: Was it given fairly? Who deserves credit?
Frank's advice to his younger self for going into the impossible.

📺 Watch my most popular videos:📺

A New Contender is Here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6A6myur--c
Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1
Weinstein and Wolfram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1
Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1
Neil deGrasse Tyson https://youtu.be/1kxgK6J4S5Y
Michio Kaku: https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI
Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo

Be my friend:

🏄‍♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating

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📝 Join my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php

✍️ Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php

🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php

A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating

Produced by Brian Keating & Stuart Volkow P.G.A

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Does the Universe Bounce? A Conversation with Anna Ijjas (#236) Jul 03, 2022

Show notes

Was there a Big Bang? Did the universe emerge from a singularity? Is there any evidence for a Multiverse? Anna Ijjas and I explore these questions and much more, including her incredibly fascinating work on bouncing cosmological models.

Anna Ijjas is a research faculty at New York University. Her research lies at the intersection of gravitational theory and cosmology. She has pioneered the application of mathematical and numerical relativity to cosmology with the goal of developing novel theories that explain the origin, structure and evolution of our universe. Her work has already led to several advances in this new field, including the establishment of slow contraction as a rapid and robust smoother. Currently, she is developing novel mathematical and computational methods for studying the effects of modifications of Einstein's relativity theory on cosmology and black holes.

Her Website: https://anna-ijjas.com/

Topics discussed include:

What should a theorist know about experimental cosmology?
Why is the cyclic universe theory not often taught and often ignored?
The Friedman Equations.
What is geodesic complete? Some alternative theorems.
Inflation and scalar fields.
Quantum fluctuations in the scalar field.
About the Hubble Tension! What's Anna's take?
What should we be teaching young cosmologists?

📺 Watch my most popular video about Bouncing Cosmology and more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvi2hL2FnOc

A New Contender is Here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6A6myur--c
Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1
Weinstein and Wolfram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1
Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1
Neil deGrasse Tyson https://youtu.be/1kxgK6J4S5Y
Michio Kaku: https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI
Michael Saylor: https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1
Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo

Be my friend:

🏄‍♂️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating

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📝 Join my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php

✍️ Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php

🎙️ Listen on audio-only platforms: https://briankeating.com/podcast.php

A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating

Produced by Brian Keating & Stuart Volkow P.G.A.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is a rogue black hole lurking in the Milky Way? | Professor Jessica Lu (#237) Jul 03, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest, UC Berkeley Professor Jessica Lu, discusses the discovery of the first dark, isolated black hole or neutron star in the Milky Way using gravitational microlensing!

This ‘ghost black hole’ is far from the center of the Milky Way. We also discussed:

⬛ dark matter and the future of multi-messenger astronomy w/ the Roman and James Webb Space telescope as well as the Vera Rubin Observatory. Finally, we answered your❓Questions -- you can always submit them on the "Community" tab for this channel.

This work was led by UC Berkeley grad, Casey Lam, and details are in papers in The Astrophysical Journal (https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.01903). See Jessica's awesome Twitter thread on this discovery, and what it might mean:

https://twitter.com/jlu_astro/status/1535292954180341760?s=20&t=ZFaQb9iG5SIsaQW3ijH7ZQ

Please enjoy my black hole playlist for more on the theory and observation of these mysterious objects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvGInn1efR8&list=PLJGKdZD30K_9Gx0SBRjFn_TNPBN-9t9md

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Avi Loeb + Eric Weinstein: UAPs, Academic Research, & Truth – Part 2 of 2 (#235) Jun 26, 2022

Show notes

Join Brian Keating and his friends Eric Weinstein and Harvard's Avi Loeb for an update on the Galileo Project, NASA's recent formation of a government panel investigating UAP/UFOs and more.

Resources here:

NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-...
Eric Weinstein's Website https://ericweinstein.org
Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue
NASA is embarking on a RISKY mission to investigate UAPs https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/nasa...
Galileo Project home: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galil...
NASA is putting together a research team to study UFOs https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/9/231...
China Says It May Have Detected Signals From Alien Civilizations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
Avi and the interstellar meteorite: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-as...
Avi Loeb: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/imitation...
Avi Loeb On scientific legacies: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-bliss...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Avi Loeb + Eric Weinstein: UAPs, Academic Research, & Truth – Part 1 of 2 (#234) Jun 23, 2022

Show notes

Join Brian Keating and his friends Eric Weinstein and Harvard's Avi Loeb for an update on the Galileo Project, NASA's recent formation of a government panel investigating UAP/UFOs and more.

Resources here:

NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-...
Eric Weinstein's Website https://ericweinstein.org
Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue
NASA is embarking on a RISKY mission to investigate UAPs https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/nasa...
Galileo Project home: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galil...
NASA is putting together a research team to study UFOs https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/9/231...
China Says It May Have Detected Signals From Alien Civilizations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...
Avi and the interstellar meteorite: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-as...
Avi Loeb: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/imitation...
Avi Loeb On scientific legacies: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/the-bliss...

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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