Exploring the Mysteries of the Expanding Universe with Adam Riess

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Jul 4, 2024

Renowned astrophysicist Adam Riess discusses the Hubble tension challenging our understanding of the universe, variations in the expansion rate, dark energy's role, and the concept of the cosmological principle with Brian Keating. Key topics include measuring distances, Einstein's contribution, and reflections on competition in science.

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INSIGHT

Hubble Tension

The Hubble constant, the universe's expansion rate today, should be predictable from its state after the Big Bang.
However, measurements from the early universe and the present don't agree, creating the "Hubble tension."

ANECDOTE

Childhood Awe

Adam Riess's childhood awe of the universe stemmed from learning about vast distances and light travel times.
His father's comment about stars possibly disappearing further fueled his fascination with the cosmos.

INSIGHT

Cosmic Distance Ladder

Measuring cosmic distances relies on parallax, but its limitations require "standard candles" like Cepheid variables.
These pulsating stars, combined with Type 1A supernovae, form a "cosmic distance ladder" reaching far into space.

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What is the Hubble tension? How does it challenge our current understanding of the universe? Why do different methods of measuring the universe’s expansion yield different results? And does our cosmological model need a complete overhaul?

I had the honor of discussing all this and more with none other than Adam Riess. Riess is a renowned astrophysicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his groundbreaking research on the expansion of the universe. Through extensive measurements and collaborations with other scientists, Riess discovered an intriguing tension in the size of the expansion of the universe, which has been steadily increasing over the last decade. These results, which have reached a significant level of more than 5 sigma, have revealed an unexpected phenomenon: the universe's expansion rate seems to vary depending on whether we start from the beginning shortly after the Big Bang or from the present.

In this episode of Into the Impossible, Riess and I explore the challenges of measuring distances in the universe, the possible role of dark energy, and how this challenges the concept of the cosmological principle.

Tune in!

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Intro
01:03 Proving Einstein wrong
06:38 Struggling with experiment results
08:57 What is the Hubble tension?
18:45 Can curiosity be cultivated and sustained?
24:05 Measuring distances in the universe using parallax
32:54 The Hubble tension persists
38:56 Revising the cosmological principle
42:47 Gravitational lensing
51:03 Surprising JWST findings
54:33 Theoretical implications of the Hubble Tension measurements
56:47 Outro

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