Natural Sciences
**Into the Impossible With Brian Keating**

Think like a physicist. Wonder like a human. Into the Impossible is where Cosmic Conversations happen — uniting Nobel Prize winners, iconoclasts, authors, and technologists to explore reality’s deepest questions. From AI to aliens, from biophysics to the brain, from the cosmos to the multiverse, Brian Keating, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego covers it all.
If you’ve ever asked What’s out there? or What’s next?, this is where curiosity meets clarity.
Learn to think like this. 🎙 Full episodes, notes & more: briankeating.com/podcast

Latest Episodes:

David Chalmers: You Are in a Sim (#213) Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

David Chalmers is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist specializing in the areas of philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science at New York University, as well as co-director of NYU's Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness (along with Ned Block).

In 2006, he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. David Chalmers first formulated the problem in his paper Facing up to the problem of consciousness (1995) and expanded upon it in his book The Conscious Mind (1996). His works have proven to be provocative. Some, such as David Lewis and Steven Pinker, have praised Chalmers for his argumentative rigor and "impeccable clarity." Others, such as Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland, believe that hard problem is really more of a collection of easy problems, and will be solved through further analysis of the brain and behavior.

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Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already.

Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis.

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Harry Cliff: How to Make an Apple Pie (#212) Feb 04, 2022

Show notes

Win a copy of Harry’s book, HOW TO MAKE AN APPLE PIE! Click here

Harry Cliff is a particle physicist at the University of Cambridge working on the LHCb experiment, a huge particle detector buried 100 metres underground at CERN near Geneva. He is a member of an international team of around 1400 physicists, engineers and computer scientists who are using LHCb to study the basic building blocks of our universe, in search of answers to some of the biggest questions in modern physics.

He also spends a big chunk of his time sharing his love of physics with the public. His first popular science book, How To Make An Apple Pie From Scratch, which will be published in August 2021. From 2012 to 2018 he held a joint post between Cambridge and the Science Museum in London, where he curated two major exhibitions: Collider (2013) and The Sun (2018). He has given a large number of public talks, including at TED and the Royal Institution, and made numerous appearances on television, radio and podcasts.

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00:00:00 Intro
00:04:00 Origin of the book cover and title
00:07:56 What was your thought process in writing this book? Was it a science career risk?
00:12:04 Is there too much hype in science? Is LHC worth it?
00:18:15 What is an "historic" experiment and why do you refer to them in the book?
00:23:31 When can you trust a theorist?
00:26:25 What's new about the "new" physics?
00:30:16 How far away are the next breakthroughs in physics?
00:30:43 Justifying big physics: Was finding the Higgs boson worth it?
00:34:34 The next big physics machine - and the one that wasn't (The Superconducting Supercollider)
00:38:32 The latest results from LHCb collaboration.
00:47:15 Is this really "new" physics or simply modifications to the standard model and its forces? Anomolies?
00:53:28 What is the elementary particle missing gap to the Standard Model?
00:55:59 On the miraculous "fine-tuning" of the Universe, and thoughts on the multiverse.
01:00:24 What is Harry's day job? (LHCb)
01:07:57 Can we get to a grand unified theory with existing data?
01:14:45 Can you foresee getting more out the existing data with new computational methods?
01:19:15 What would you put in your ethical will?
01:24:00 What would you put on your billion-year time capsule for the future?
01"26:17 What has occurred in your life that you thought was impossible? What advice would you give your younger self?

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Part 1 of 2: Brian Keating Λ Lee Cronin on Life in the Universe, Assembly Theory, and the Meaning of Time -A debate on Curt Jaimungal's Theories of Everything YouTube Channel (#210) Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

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BI7-5YnXSqk

LINKS MENTIONED:

-Brian Keating's Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating

-Brian Keating's "Losing the Nobel Prize": https://amzn.to/3AyXMyE

-Brian Keating's "Into the Impossible": https://amzn.to/33IjsfC

-Brian Keating's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating

-Lee Cronin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/leecronin

-Brian Keating's appearance on Lex's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhGwJ...

-Stephon Alexander podcast with TOE: https://youtu.be/VETxb96a3qk

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00:00 Introduction

00:04:59 Brian Keating's opening statements

00:08:21 Lee Cronin's opening statements

00:13:45 Why defining "life" is difficult

00:23:43 Disagreements on the origin of life

00:38:12 The definition of Entropy is "wrong" (controversial claim)

00:51:44 The universe is filled with life

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Part 2 of 2: Brian Keating Λ Lee Cronin on Life in the Universe, Assembly Theory, and the Meaning of Time - A debate on Curt Jaimungal's Theories of Everything YouTube Channel (#211) Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

Watch the debate here on Curt's channel https://youtu.be/BI7-5YnXSqk

LINKS MENTIONED:

-Brian Keating's Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating
-Brian Keating's "Losing the Nobel Prize": https://amzn.to/3AyXMyE
-Brian Keating's "Into the Impossible": https://amzn.to/33IjsfC
-Brian Keating's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating
-Lee Cronin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/leecronin
-Brian Keating's appearance on Lex's podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhGwJ...
-Stephon Alexander podcast with TOE: https://youtu.be/VETxb96a3qk

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Nobel Prizewinner Reinhard Genzel: The Monster Black Hole at the Heart of our Galaxy! (#209) Jan 25, 2022

Show notes

Reinhard Genzel studied physics at Bonn Univ., and received his doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy Bonn (1978), He was a Postdoctoral Fellow, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (1978-1980), Cambridge, MA, was Associate Professor of Physics and Associate Research Astronomer, Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley (1981- 1985), Full Professor of Physics, University of California, Berkeley (1985-1986).

He is Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (since 1986), Honorary Professor Munich Univ. (since 1988), Full Professor of Physics University of California Berkeley (since 1999).

Professor Reinhard was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics 2020 together with Roger Penrose and Andrea Ghez "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy."

Since nothing, not even light, can escape black holes, they can only be observed by the radiation and the movement of nearby objects. Since the 1990s, Reinhard and Andrea Ghez, with their respective research teams, have developed and refined techniques for studying the movement of stars. Observations of stars in the area around Sagittarius A* in the middle of our galaxy, the Milky Way, revealed a supermassive black hole.

https://www.mpe.mpg.de/ir/gravity

https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/paranal/instruments/gravity/overview.html

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Neil deGrasse Tyson https://youtu.be/1kxgK6J4S5Y
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Sir Roger Penrose: https://youtu.be/AMuqyAvX7Wo
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A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/

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Produced by Stuart Volkow (P.G.A) and Brian Keating
Edited by Stuart Volkow

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www.Nobel.org
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Christopher Sweat: Philosophizing in Public (#208) Jan 21, 2022

Show notes

Find Chris on Substack - his Writing & Podcast are not to be missed: https://christophersweat.substack.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SweatEm

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrissweat/

Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/@sweatem?utm_source=clubhouse&utm_medium=share_profile&utm_campaign=Yca0naeOjJ7gOYHyTy3n_Q-25455

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Paul Davies: What's Eating The Universe? (#207) Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

Paul Davies is an internationally acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, where he runs the pioneering Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He also chairs the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Post-Detection Task group, so that if SETI succeeds in finding intelligent life, he will be among the first to know. The asteroid 1992OG was officially renamed Pauldavies in his honor. In addition to his many scientific awards, Davies is the recipient of the 1995 Templeton Prize--the world's largest annual prize--for his work on science and religion. He is the author of more than twenty books, including The Mind of God, About Time, How to Build a Time Machine, and The Goldilocks Enigma. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.

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Please join my mailing list; just click here http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php00:00:00 Intro
00:20:36 How do you know when to pursue a scientific hint with further research?
00:33:40 What's unique about your approach to science?
00:38:26 The laws of nature are not perfectly symmetrical. Why tro to find a unifying theory?
00:46:15 What is the Bunch-Davies Vacuum State?
00:52:14 Why did Stephen Hawking make implausible bets?
00:57:50 On black holes and singularities.
01:00:52 Lorentz Invariance and measuring the expansion of the universe with Hawking Radiation.
01:10:19 What are your thoughts on life as information?
01:16:00 Do you believe in God or is that even a meaningful question?
01:25:00 Have your feelings changed on the multiverse and un-falsifiable conjectures in general?
01:41:11 What advice would you give your younger self about how to venture into the impossible?
01:31:53 What advice would you leave in your ethical will?
01:38:20 What would you put on your billion-year time capsule/monolith for the ages?

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A New Contender is Here! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6A6myur--c
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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
Jill Tarter https://youtu.be/O9K9OBd3vHk?sub_confirmation=1
Sara Seager Venus LIfe: https://youtu.be/QPsEDoOTU6k?sub_confirmation=1
Noam Chomsky: https://youtu.be/Iaz6JIxDh6Y?sub_confirmation=1
Sabine Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/sh98cwRkzAA
Sarah Rugheimer: https://youtu.be/w5DxU-lPYK4
Stephen Wolfram: https://youtu.be/nSAemRxzmXM
Avi Loeb: https://youtu.be/N9lUceHsLRw
Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM

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Barbara Ryden: A Teacher's Teacher (#206) Jan 11, 2022

Show notes

Professor Barbara Ryden has been a member of the Ohio State University faculty since 1992, Prof. Ryden studies the formation, alignment, and shapes of galaxies, and the large-scale structure of the universe, and cosmology, including tests for dark energy, dark matter, and the properties of the primordial density fluctuations. She is internationally known for her textbook Introduction to Cosmology, which won the first Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award in 2006 from the American Astronomical Society, and is now in its second edition, and she co-authored Foundations of Astrophysics with Prof. Bradley Peterson, a beginning-level text in astrophysics for astronomy majors. She is currently editor in chief of the Ohio State Astrophysics Series, a series of graduate-level textbooks now in contract with Cambridge University Press. The first two volumes will be Interstellar & Intergalactic Medium by Prof. Ryden and Prof. Richard Pogge (2021) and Stellar Structure & Evolution by Prof. Marc Pinsonneault and Prof. Ryden (2022).

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Carlo Rovelli: Quantum Weirdness!? (#205) Jan 04, 2022

Show notes

Carlo Rovelli was born in Italy, is a US citizen and lives in France. His main activity is in theoretical physics, where he is known as one of the founders of loop quantum gravity. He has also interests in the history and philosophy of science. He has written "Quantum Gravity", a treatise on loop quantum gravity and, for the large public, "The First Scientist: Anaximander and his Legacy", which is primarily a reflection on the nature of science. The book is translated in five languages and has been awarded by the "Prix du Livre Haute Maurienne".

Rovelli has worked in various Universities in Italy, the US and France. He is currently head of the quantum gravity group at the Center For Theoretical Physics of the Aix-Marseille University. He is Honorary Professor of the Normal University of Beijing, and member of the International Academy for the Philosophy of Science.

In his latest book, Helgoland, he examines the enduring enigma of quantum theory. The quantum world Rovelli describes is as beautiful as it is unnerving.

Helgoland is a treeless island in the North Sea where the twenty-three-year-old Werner Heisenberg made the crucial breakthrough for the creation of quantum mechanics, setting off a century of scientific revolution. Full of alarming ideas (ghost waves, distant objects that seem to be magically connected, cats that appear both dead and alive), quantum physics has led to countless discoveries and technological advancements. Today our understanding of the world is based on this theory, yet it is still profoundly mysterious.

As scientists and philosophers continue to fiercely debate the meaning of the theory, Rovelli argues that its most unsettling contradictions can be explained by seeing the world as fundamentally made of relationships rather than substances. We and everything around us exist only in our interactions with one another. This bold idea suggests new directions for thinking about the structure of reality and even the nature of consciousness.

Rovelli makes learning about quantum mechanics an almost psychedelic experience. Shifting our perspective once again, he takes us on a riveting journey through the universe so we can better comprehend our place in it.

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Eric Weinstein: UFOs, Crypto, Fatherhood, & The Portal Podcast Reboot (#204) Dec 31, 2021

Show notes

It's been a phenomenal year for some folks; a tough year for others. Join us live to review the year that was and look forward to 2022 too! A wide-ranging, fun, free for all conversation with my friend Eric Weinstein!

00:00 Topics:
05:00 Eric and Project Galileo investigating UFO/UAP
30:00 Woit's TOE as discussed with @Lex Fridman https://youtu.be/nDDJFvuFXdc
Geometric Unity and Chern-Simons
45:00 Wolfram Physics Project
1:00:00 Raising kids to succeed in STEM
Opportunities and Threats to our future
Thoughts on Bitcoin/Blockchain/NFT for science
Brian's Assayer Project
Maxwell Trial
Covid-19
2:00:00 Should Eric Revive the Portal?

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Sabine Hossenfelder: https://youtu.be/V6dMM2-X6nk
Sarah Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw
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