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:

Denise Shull: The Psychology of Billions (#153) May 31, 2021

Show notes

Denise Shull is the author of MARKET Mind Games, which has been repeatedly called "ahead of its time", "a game-changer" and "the best book on trading psychology" in unsolicited Amazon reviews.

Shull is a performance coach who uses neuroeconomics and modern psychoanalysis in her work with hedge funds and professional athletes. She is also the founder of The ReThink Group. Shull focuses on the positive contribution of feelings and emotion in high-pressure decisions.

She has been called the most important inspiration behind the character Wendy Rhodes on the Showtime series Billions.

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🎥 🎥 Watch my most popular videos🎥 🎥

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
Michael Saylor The Physics of Bitcoin https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1
Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1
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/V6dMM2-X6nk?sub_confirmation=1
Sarah Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw
Stephen Wolfram: https://youtu.be/nSAemRxzmXM

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Lee Smolin: String Theory is Still Wrong (#152) May 27, 2021

Show notes

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His main contributions have been so far to the quantum theory of gravity, to which he has been a co-inventor and major contributor to two major directions, loop quantum gravity and deformed special relativity. He also contributes to cosmology, through his proposal of cosmological natural selection: a falsifiable mechanism to explain the choice of the laws of physics. He has also contributed to quantum field theory, the foundations of quantum mechanics, theoretical biology, the philosophy of science and economics. He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and numerous essays and writings for the public on science.

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Bill Pulte: Twitter Philanthropy! (#151) May 25, 2021

Show notes

Bill Pulte, a 30 something investor and entrepreneur coined the term “Twitter Philanthropy”. He has given away $800k+ via Cash App to those in need. Pulte’s grandfather (William Pulte) founded PulteGroup, one of America’s largest home construction and real estate development firms.

Inspired by Bill, I'm giving away $100 to a science teacher to use to buy a piece of instructional equipment to inspire young people! Follow us on Twitter enter the competion. Tune in live at 11:30a Pacific Time | 2:30p ET on Friday 21 May 2021 when I'll choose the winner!

https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating

https://twitter.com/pulte

Read more about Bill: https://thehustle.co/bill-pulte-q-and-a-trung-phan/

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Michael Shermer & Brian Keating: Part 1: How it All Began: Cosmic Inflation, the Multiverse, and the Nature of Scientific Proof (#150) May 21, 2021

Show notes

SAVE 25-40% on SKEPTIC Magazine Subscriptions

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40% off digital subscription (now US $8.99. Reg. US $14.99)Digital subscribers get the current issue instantly, and three more issues follow as they are released throughout the year.
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Shermer and Keating discuss:

cosmology and Intelligent Design,
the fine-tuning of the universe,
the multiverse and theism: many worlds or one God?
How does the Intelligent Designer or God as a disembodied mind interact with the physical universe?
If the origin of the universe and its fine-tuned nature points to an intelligence or mind behind it, why don’t most cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers accept that conclusion?
What are laws of nature?
Can you explain the origin of the universe by laws and rules of things in the universe?
What came before the Big Bang?
What caused the bang that gave rise to our universe?
Why there is something rather than nothing?
inflationary cosmology,
What is gravity? What is quantum gravity?
How did the Big Bang theory win out over the Steady State theory?
the difference between Popperian falsification, Kuhnian paradigm, and consensus science,
Is string theory physics, metaphysics, or mathematics?
What shape is the universe? Open, closed, or flat?
What is dark energy and dark matter?
What is time?
What is infinity?
cyclic universes and the multiverse.

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Michael Shermer & Brian Keating Part 2: How it All Began: Cosmic Inflation, the Multiverse, and the Nature of Scientific Proof (#149) May 21, 2021

Show notes

SAVE 25-40% on SKEPTIC Magazine Subscriptions

1 year/4 issues
25% off print subscriptions (now US $22.50. Reg. US $30)
40% off digital subscription (now US $8.99. Reg. US $14.99)Digital subscribers get the current issue instantly, and three more issues follow as they are released throughout the year.
Digital subscription can be synchronized to your favorite handheld devices: https://www.skeptic.com/magazine/app/#sync-devices
Subscribe to the digital editionhttps://pktmags.com/keatingSubscribe to the print editionhttps://shop.skeptic.com/subscribeThen enter coupon code at checkout: keating

A Conversation with Michael Shermer and Brian Keating: How it All Began: Cosmic Inflation, the Multiverse, and the Nature of Scientific Proof

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In this episode, Shermer and Keating discuss:

cosmology and Intelligent Design,
the fine-tuning of the universe,
the multiverse and theism: many worlds or one God?
How does the Intelligent Designer or God as a disembodied mind interact with the physical universe?
If the origin of the universe and its fine-tuned nature points to an intelligence or mind behind it, why don’t most cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers accept that conclusion?
What are laws of nature?
Can you explain the origin of the universe by laws and rules of things in the universe?
What came before the Big Bang?
What caused the bang that gave rise to our universe?
Why there is something rather than nothing?
inflationary cosmology,
What is gravity? What is quantum gravity?
How did the Big Bang theory win out over the Steady State theory?
the difference between Popperian falsification, Kuhnian paradigm, and consensus science,
Is string theory physics, metaphysics, or mathematics?
What shape is the universe? Open, closed, or flat?
What is dark energy and dark matter?
What is time?
What is infinity?
cyclic universes and the multiverse.

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

Steven Pinker: Things are Getting BETTER! (#148) May 19, 2021

Show notes

Was 2020 really the "worst year ever," as some would have us believe? Or are things getting better? Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has shown that poverty, pollution and other challenges are on the wane and we're doing better now in every one of a host of important metrics compared with 30 years ago. Yet progress isn't inevitable, and it doesn't mean everything gets better for all humans all the time, Pinker says. Instead, progress is problem-solving, and we should look at things like climate change, pandemics, and the threat of war as problems to be solved, not inevitable apocalypses in waiting. "We will never have a perfect world, and it would be dangerous to seek one," he says. "But there's no limit to the betterments we can attain if we continue to apply knowledge to enhance human flourishing."

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Topics Discussed:

How his thinking on liberalism has changed in light of recent events
Presumably it's still the antidote, but what nuances should we keep in mind
For example, free speech is sacrosanct, but with today's technology, "lies get halfway around the world before the truth can tie its laces."
The gatekeepers to the public square are increasingly concentrated.
Technology/social media exacerbate this issue
What should we do?
Advice to young adults
How to navigate these dynamics
Career considerations
His thoughts on capitalism, e.g., Coca Cola, MLB, Delta protesting Georgia; Dr. Seuss;
What about our current situation reconfirms his views? What has caused a rethink?
What does he believe that nobody else does?
What is he most hopeful about? Most concerned about?

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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
Michael Saylor The Physics of Bitcoin https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1
Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1
Jill Tarter https://youtu.be/O9K9OBd3vHk?sub_confirmation=1

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Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary (#147) May 12, 2021

Show notes

Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight.

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About Project Hail Mary

A lone astronaut must save the earth from disaster in this incredible new science-based thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Martian.

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission–and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, he realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Alone on this tiny ship that’s been cobbled together by every government and space agency on the planet and hurled into the depths of space, it’s up to him to conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And thanks to an unexpected ally, he just might have a chance.

Part scientific mystery, part dazzling interstellar journey, Project Hail Mary is a tale of discovery, speculation, and survival to rival The Martian–while taking us to places it never dreamed of going.

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Chapters

00:10:43 Did building things come naturally to you as reflected in the ingenuity of your characters?
12:00:00 How do you balance realism and scientific fact with a fictional narrative?
00:16:08 Could you really mobilize resources at a planetary scale?
00:19:00 Do you think it's realistic to turn an amateur avocation into a career?
00:20:48 Is there too much UFOlogy? What's your stance on SETI and UFOs?
00:25:24 Do you think we've been going about SETI the wrong way?
00:28:52 Do you think we really could communicate with an alien civilization?
00:31:46 Rapid-fire questions!
00:46:45 Would you ever want to teach?
00:48:00 What could UCSD have done better during your tenure here?
00:55:00 What science fiction novel would you make into a movie if you could?
00:55:35 Final Thrilling Three Questions: Ethical will, billion-year monument, advice to your younger self.

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Sarah Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw
Stephen Wolfram: https://youtu.be/nSAemRxzmXM

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Eric Weinstein & Lee Smolin: Judging Theories of Everything, ID, & UFOs 👽 (#146) May 10, 2021

Show notes

Eric Weinstein & Lee Smolin: A conversation on Theories of Everything: String Theory, Geometric Unity, Loop Quantum Gravity, Lisi’s E8 etc.

00:00 Introduction
05:00 Michio Kaku & the God Equation: problematic? https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI
10:00 Is String Theory sucking the oxygen out of physics?
15:00 There are challenges to challengers like loop quantum gravity
30:00 A rubric for judging theories of Everything?
1:00:00 Intelligent Design?!
1:05:00 UFO’s and Pentagon data dump
1:10:00 How to treat an 👽
1:15:00 God and Man: don’t be like Captain Cook!

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Michiio Kaku GOD EQUATION https://youtu.be/3to9ymn-XKI
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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
Michael Saylor The Physics of Bitcoin https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1
Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1
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/V6dMM2-X6nk?sub_confirmation=1
Sarah Scoles: https://youtu.be/apVKobWigMw
Stephen Wolfram: https://youtu.be/nSAemRxzmXM

🏄‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating
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Hawking Hawking! The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity with NYU Prof. Charles Selfe (#145) May 06, 2021

Show notes

Immediately recognizable in his wheelchair and surrounded by an entourage of nurses, Stephen Hawking was a symbol of the power of mind over matter. The public adored him, and the media compared hirn to Newton and Einstein. Appearing at concerts, on The Simpsons, and even on the edge of space, he was widely considered the world's best physicist, and even its smartest person.

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In fact, he was neither. In HAWKING HAWKING: The Selling of a Scientific Celebrity (Basic Books; April 6, 2021), science journalist and author Charles Selfe upends everything we thought we knew about Hawking, showing how his greatest genius was arguably in his talent for self-promotion. Delving deeper than previous biographies, which tend to be excessively flattering, Seife reveals Hawking as an important scientist whose importance is almost universally misunderstood; a person who suffered deeply and also caused deep suffering; a celebrity his forebears and fundamentally changed the concept of a scientific celebrity." scientist who broke the mold.

To understand Hawking, Seife traces his life in reverse, starting with his elaborate funeral at Westminster Abbey, where he was interred few feet away from Newton and Darwin, through the decades when he searched in the limelight for the recognition he craved, and further back to his devastating ALS diagnosis at age 21 and the beginning of his first marriage, which would end in scandal. Hawking made important contributions early in his career, most notably in his work on black holes, but as his celebrity grew he was increasingly apt to declare victory over problems he hadn't solved, persuading audiences of his authority on topics about which he knew little and enlisting students to defend him as he failed to break any new ground in the quest for a "theory of everything."

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00:00:00 Introduction
07:00 Did Charles get blowback from criticizing an icon?
21:45 Hawking Hartle then m theory - do physicists believe either of them?
28:00 Why everything we think we know about Stephen Hawking is wrong! In his lifetime, Hawking was seen as a genius on par with Newton. In reality, he was by no means the greatest physicist of his day. His early work on black holes was groundbreaking, but, Seife argues, much of his later work failed to measure up its promise, and physicists like Roger Penrose ultimately deserve more credit than Hawking.
38:59 Why did Hawking concede the BH information paradox?
42:35 What would Charles like to ask Hawking as a journalist?
50:00 The tragedy of Hawking's disability, and its relationship to his public image.
How Hawking struggled knowing that part of his celebrity was based on his illness.
57:36 The halo effect
58:28 How is life as a professor of journalism at NYU?
1:00:00 The perils of press conferences in science

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Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo

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Artwork: Sloan Sobie

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MIT Professor Sara Seager: Love, Loss, & Life in the Cosmos (#144) May 04, 2021

Show notes

An MIT astrophysicist reinvents herself in the wake of tragedy and discovers the power of connection on this planet, even as she searches our galaxy for another Earth, in this “bewitching” memoir.

“Sara Seager’s exploration of outer and inner space makes for a stunningly original memoir.”—Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone.

Sara Seager has always been in love with the stars: so many lights in the sky, so much possibility. Now a pioneering planetary scientist, she searches for exoplanets—especially that distant, elusive world that sustains life. But with the unexpected death of Seager’s husband, the purpose of her own life becomes hard for her to see. Suddenly, at forty, she is a widow and the single mother of two young boys. For the first time, she feels alone in the universe.

As she struggles to navigate her life after loss, Seager takes solace in the alien beauty of exoplanets and the technical challenges of exploration. At the same time, she discovers earthbound connections that feel every bit as wondrous, when strangers and loved ones alike reach out to her across the space of her grief. Among them are the Widows of Concord, a group of women offering advice on everything from home maintenance to dating, and her beloved sons, Max and Alex.

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00:00:00 Intro
00:04:46 The story of the title and cover.
00:07:53 Where did you find solace after your family tragedies? How did your write about them?
00:12:42 What gave you the confidence to write a memoir?
00:27:35 What got you into astronomy?
00:35:22 Why look for life beyond earth? Isn't life on earth enough?
00:45:21 What do you think about the academic "hunger games"? Is being a PhD. oversold? Post Doc bloating.
00:49:00 What is your philosophy of mentorship?
01:00:00 The controversial discovery of phosphine on Venus.
01:11:56 What do you think of Avi Loeb's assertions and extreme reaction to it?
01:23:00 What would you put in your ethical will?
01:25:00 What would you put on your monolith?
01:29:38 What have you done that you once thought was impossible as advice to your younger self?

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Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1
Michael Saylor The Physics of Bitcoin https://youtu.be/CaN_CDKqXOg?sub_confirmation=1
Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1
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