Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Big Bang Productions Inc.

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

Episodes

Mentioned books

Mar 9, 2021 • 1h 11min

Deepak Chopra: How To Know God (#124)

DEEPAK CHOPRA™ MD, FACP, is the founder of The Chopra Foundation , a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global , a whole health company at the intersection of science and spirituality. He's a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation. Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization.He is the author of over 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. His 90th book and national bestseller, Metahuman: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential (Harmony Books), unlocks the secrets to moving beyond our present limitations to access a field of infinite possibilities. For the last thirty years, Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution and his latest book, Total Meditation (Harmony Book, September 22, 2020) will help to achieve new dimensions of stress-free living and joyful living. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”https://chopra.com/https://www.deepakchopra.com/@DeepakChopra 00:00:00: Intro 00:07:15 What do you make of the way science is regarded? 00:08:54 Research on the effect of meditation on aging (telomeres) 00:10:12 Science is not the only way to "know" the world. 00:14:20 Can matter create mind? How is wisdom different than knowledge? 00:16:24 External Vs internal knowledge and the scientific method. 00:19:51 Do you believe that triangles exist? What is the nature of existence? 00:21:29 "God of the Gaps" and the elusive definition of consciousness. 00:23:44 Different ways to think about consciousness from a spiritual perspective 00:30:54 Defending extension of the senses in the service of science. 00:33:09 Deepak explains consciousness. 00:38:37 What is your moral imperative? Why must you be vegan? Related thoughts on the evolution of consciousness. 00:43:04 How do you organize your life? 00:47:44 The #1 thing in Deepak's life. 00:48:58 Deepak on the 4 stages of life and where he is now. 00:51:41 Advice from Deepak on how can we extend our lives? 00:58:07 Strategies on to have a disagreement like an adult. 01:01:02 What would you put in your "ethical will"? Your values to be passed down. 01:01:55 What would you put in your billion-year time capsule? 01:04:57 What advice would you give your younger self? And please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝🏄‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔥 Find me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating📖 Buy my book LOSING THE NOBEL PRIZE: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA 🔔 Subscribe for more great content https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1✍️Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php📧Join my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php👪Join my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize🎙️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-impossible/id1169885840?mt=2🎙️Listen on all other platforms: https://wavve.link/intoA production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/Artwork: Sloan SobieResearch: Nick DaiglerMusic by: Yeti Tears, Theo RyanSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 8, 2021 • 46min

Chiara Mingarelli: Hints of the Gravitational Wave Background from NANOGRAV! (#123)

Prof. Chiara Mingarelli is a gravitational-wave astrophysicist, looking to understand how supermassive black holes in the centers of massive galaxies merge, if at all. She does this by predicting their nanohertz gravitational-wave signatures, which will soon be detected by pulsar timing array experiments. With pulsar timing data, She looks for both individual supermassive black holes in binary systems, and for the gravitational-wave background which should be generated by their cosmic merger history.She an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut, and an associate research scientist at the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CCA) at the Flatiron Institute. Before joining the CCA she was a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellow at Caltech and at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.PRESS RELEASE:In data gathered and analyzed over 13 years, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has found an intriguing low-frequency signal that may be attributable to gravitational waves.NANOGrav researchers studying the signals from distant pulsars – small, dense stars that rapidly rotate, emitting beamed radio waves, much like a lighthouse – have used radio telescopes to collect data that may indicate the effects of gravitational waves, as reported recently in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.NANOGrav has been able to rule out some effects other than gravitational waves, such as interference from the matter in our own solar system or certain errors in the data collection. These newest findings set up direct detection of gravitational waves as the possible next major step for NANOGrav and other members of the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA), a collaboration of researchers using the world’s largest radio telescopes.“It is incredibly exciting to see such a strong signal emerge from the data,” says Joseph Simon, lead researcher on the paper. “However, because the gravitational-wave signal we are searching for spans the entire duration of our observations, we need to carefully understand our noise. This leaves us in a very interesting place, where we can strongly rule out some known noise sources, but we cannot yet say whether the signal is indeed from gravitational waves. For that, we will need more data.”Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time caused by the movements of incredibly massive objects, such as black holes orbiting each other or neutron stars colliding. Astronomers cannot observe these waves with a telescope like they do stars and galaxies. Instead, they measure the effects passing gravitational waves have, namely tiny changes to the precise position of objects - including the position of the Earth itself.Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeatingAnd please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝🏄‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating🔥 Find me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating📖 Buy my book LOSING THE NOBEL PRIZE: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA🔔 Subscribe for more great content https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1✍️Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php📧Join my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php👪Join my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize🎙️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-impossible/id1169885840?mt=2🎙️Listen on all other platforms: https://wavve.link/intoA production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 2, 2021 • 1h 45min

Andy Viterbi: Wireless Pioneer, Co-Founder of Qualcomm - A Historic Perspective (#118)

Communications pioneer Andrew J.Viterbi — who in 1962 earned one of the first doctorates in electrical engineering granted at the University of Southern California — has forever changed how people everywhere connect and communicate.Dr.Viterbi’s lifelong interest in communications began as a child, when his family fled Italy for America in 1939 to escape the persecution of Jews.Born into an analog world, this visionary thinker opened the doors to the digital age with the Viterbi Algorithm, a groundbreaking mathematical formula for eliminating signal interference. Today, the Viterbi Algorithm is used in all four international standards for digital cellular telephones, as well as in data terminals, digital satellite broadcast receivers and deep space telemetry.In the spring of 1967, Dr.Viterbi met Irwin Jacobs at a telecommunications conference in California. Both men, and another of Dr. Viterbi’s colleagues, Leonard Kleinrock, shared an interest in forming a consulting group. With an investment of $1,500 — $500 from each man — the trio founded Linkabit. By the 1970s, Linkabit began providing technology for defense communications satellites using very large antennas.Dr. Viterbi and his Linkabit associates came up with a breakthrough computer to accomplish the task and dubbed it a “microprocessor,” even though it was made up of many chips.His renown grew as fast as the company. In 1975, Italy’s National Research Council awarded Dr. Viterbi one of its highest academic accolades, the Christopher Columbus Award.In 1980, Linkabit merged with M/A-COM of Boston. It soon produced the VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal), the foundation for private satellite communications networks. In 1985, the VSAT division was sold to Hughes. The team of Viterbi and Jacobs had a new dream: together, they founded Qualcomm Corp. to develop and manufacture satellite communications and digital wireless telephones. 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:12 How did you come to write your latest book? 00:03:02 Centro Primo Levi NYC and The Italian Jewish Experience 00:05:27 Knowing Primo Levi 17:53:06 Early days of wireless digital communications 00:23:33 Why didn't you patent the Viterbi Algorithm? 00:25:20 How do you separate tech hype from reality? 4G Vs 5G? 00:30:47 The commercial value of basic research and how to keep funding it. 00:38:16 Would a tax on scientific innovation impeed progress? 00:42:00 What do you think about SETI? How would you communicate with an alien civilization? 00:48:32 What would you put in your ethical will? 00:51:27 What would you put in your billion-year time capsule? 00:53:56 What advice would you give your younger self? Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeatingAnd please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝🎥 🎥 🎥 🎥 Watch my most popular videos🎥 🎥 🎥 🎥Deepak Chopra and Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/E-8mF4HWDnE?sub_confirmation=1Weinstein and Wolfram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1Garrett Lisi https://youtu.be/TCZxpMTzRP4Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1🏄‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating🔥 Find me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating📖 Buy my book LOSING THE NOBEL PRIZE: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA🔔 Subscribe for more great content https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1✍️Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php📧Join my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php👪Join my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize🎙️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-impossible/id1169885840?mt=2🎙️Listen on all other platforms: https://wavve.link/intoA production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 16, 2021 • 53min

How to BEAT failure, CRUSH obstacles, and THRIVE with NASA Spacewalker Scott Parazynski! (#117)

Scott Parazynski is an American physician and a former NASA astronaut. A veteran of five Space Shuttle flights and seven spacewalks, Parazynski's phenomenal book, THE SKY BELOW, tells the gripping first-person account of life at the Universe's extremes. Join me in the live chat with ScottScott is also the founder of https://fluidity.tech/ Fluidity Tech is a Houston-based technology company focused on redefining movement through 3-dimensional space. Founded by former NASA astronaut, pilot and physician, Scott Parazynski, the company’s mission is to simplify and improve motion. In Fall 2018, Fluidity Tech introduced the FT Aviator, its first patented drone controller designed to dramatically increase the precision of drone flight, while tremendously simplifying it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 16, 2021 • 37min

Laurence Tribe: The Physics of IMPEACHMENT & The Curvature of Constitutional Space (#116)

Laurence Tribe Is an American legal scholar who is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at the Harvard Law School of Harvard University. We are discussing the impeachment of Donald Trump and unique aspects of the constitution that have a mathematical connection.Tribe is a constitutional law scholar and co-founder of the American Constitution Society. He is the author of To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment.The influence of Euclid on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was profound. The founding fathers were versed in the mathematical principles of the Elements, and used geometric proofs in the drafting of many provisions of the Constitution, as well as on money and measurements.It’s no surprise that you’d look up Euclid in relation to the U.S. Constitution. Thankfully, there’s an easy way for you to see the connection and read about it in this fantastic blog post from this piece in Nautilus.You can find a copy of Larry’s fascinating paper, helped out by a young research assistant named ‘Barack Obama’, here.The Curvature of Constitutional Space_What Lawyers Can Learn From Modern Physics_103 Harv. L. Rev. 1 (1989): https://blog.bkeating.ucsd.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/64/2021/02/The-Curvature-of-Constitutional-Space_What-Lawyers-Can-Learn-From-Modern-Physics_103-Harv.-L.-Rev.-1-1989.pdfSupport the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeatingAnd please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeatingAnd please join my mailing list to get resources and enter giveaways to win a FREE copy of my book (and more) http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php 📝A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Feb 9, 2021 • 36min

Max Tegmark: Life 3.0 (#115)

Also on YoutubeMax Tegmark is a physicist, cosmologist, and artificial intelligence - machine learning researcher. He is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the scientific director of the Foundational Questions Institute. He has been my mentor and friend for a LONG time :-)Professor Tegmark’s research is focused on precision cosmology, e.g., combining theoretical work with new measurements to place sharp constraints on cosmological models and their parameters. Early on, this challenge has lead him to work mainly on cosmology and quantum information. Although he’s continuing his cosmology work with the HERA collaboration, the main focus of his current research is on the physics of intelligence: using physics-based techniques to better understand biological and artificial intelligence (AI). Ultimately, this could culminate in what he calls an "AI Physicist" https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/11/01/1895/an-ai-physicist-can-derive-the-natural-laws-of-imagined-universes/A native of Stockholm, Tegmark left Sweden in 1990 after receiving his B.Sc. in Physics from the Royal Institute of Technology (& a B.A. in Economics from the Stockholm School of Economics). His first academic venture beyond Scandinavia brought him to California, where he studied physics at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his PhD. in 1994.Tegmark is an author on more than 200 technical papers, and has been featured in dozens of science documentaries. He has received numerous awards for his research, including a Packard Fellowship (2001-06), Cottrell Scholar Award, an NSF Career grant. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His work with the SDSS collaboration on galaxy clustering shared the first prize in Science magazine’s “Breakthrough of the Year: 2003.”His book "LIFE 3.0" was an instant New York Times Best Seller and one of Mark Cuban and Barack Obama's favorite books of 2017. Life 3.0 asks the question: "How will Artificial Intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human?" The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology—and there’s nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark.How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today’s kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle?Read Life 3.0 https://amzn.to/2YTDg9L 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:09 Disagreement with Noam Chomsky and the challenge of the Imitation Game 00:04:16 Will AI exceed human intelligence? 00:07:04 Should we fear AI? Are we being to passive? 00:09:02 Should we trust AI? What we should worry about. 00:11:21 Were you born tooearly to make good use of AI? Could AI avert war? 00:12:45 AI may have a democratizing impact. 00:17:55 The "Improve The News" experiment 00:26:19 What do you think about exponential change? Will tech solve humanity's problems? 00:30:31 What is your ethical will? 🏄‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 📖 Buy my book LOSING THE NOBEL PRIZE: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA 🔔 Subscribe for more great content https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1✍️Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.php📧Join my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php🎙️Listen on all other platforms: https://wavve.link/intoA production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/drbriankeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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