Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Max Tegmark and Eric Weinstein chat on the last day of 2020! Let’s say ‘good riddance’ with good friends and great conversation! We’ll talk a bit about Artificial Intelligence, Theories of Everything & the seemingly impossible challenge of building a positive future for humanity.Max thinks that, by improving the news we receive with the aid of machine learning, we can achieve a brighter future.Check out his new center at MIT: https://iaifi.org Find him on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/mtegmark Watch Max’s appearance on The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast in 2020 discussing Theories of Everything: https://youtu.be/3MX8EpvLwaoEric Weinstein, host of the Portal will share insights from Geometric Unity and thoughts on the meaning of it all!Find Eric at https://www.youtube.com/c/EricWeinsteinPhD/Watch Eric’s previous debate with Stephen Wolfram: https://youtu.be/OI0AZ4Y4Ip4Watch my most popular videos: Sheldon Glashow Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner Frank Wilczek  Jill Tarter  Eric Weinstein Sir Roger Penrose  Juan Maldacena’s First Podcast Interview Jim Simons Sara Seager Venus Life Noam Chomsky Sabine Hossenfelder Sarah Scoles Stephen Wolfram ‍♂️ Find me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeatingFind me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeatingBuy my book LOSING THE NOBEL PRIZE: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpASubscribe for more great content https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1✍️Detailed Blog posts here: https://briankeating.com/blog.phpJoin my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.phpJoin my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes: https://itunes.apple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MIT Physics Professor Emeritus Rainer Weiss won a 1/2 share of The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017 For his contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves. He was born in Berlin, where his father was a doctor and psychoanalyst and his mother an actress. His father was of Jewish descent, and the family fled Nazism to the United States.After schooling in New York, Weiss studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctor’s degree in 1962. After a couple of years at Tufts University and Princeton University, he returned to MIT, which he has been associated with ever since. Rainer Weiss is married and has a daughter and a son.Professor Weiss’ Nobel winning work come out of one consequence of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the existence of gravitational waves. These are like ripples in a four-dimensional spacetime that occur when objects with mass accelerate. The effects are very small. Beginning in the 1970s the LIGO detector was developed. In this detector laser technology is used to measure small changes in length caused by gravitational waves. Rainer Weiss has made crucial contributions to the development of the detector. In 2015 gravitational waves were detected for the first time.00:00:00 Introduction 00:08:00 Concerns about Getting The Nobel Prize 00:12:55 Imposter Syndrome? You too!? 00:18:46 Theorists V Experimentalists pros and cons 00:23:22 Thoughts on STEM Pedagogy 00:27:21 Essential Skills: using your hands and the role of electronics surplus and music. 00:33:39 Dropping Out And Finding MIT and Atomic Clocks 00:35:52 Philosophy of Experimental Science 00:39:44 Thinkng about Einstein-What’s his most cited paper and why? 00:40:54 How do you know when to quit an experiment? 00:42:26 On LIGO and the art and science of detecting weak signals. 00:48:02 Did you have doubts about detecting gravitational waves? Thoughts on Eisntein’s original work on general relativity. 01:00:00 The nature of scientific collaborations (and rivalries). 01:21:00 The circular logic of singularity theory. 01:22:38 What if there was no big bang? 01:26:56 Why did your MIT Dean draw a huge zero? 01:28:10 Staying at MIT 01:30:34 What’s it like to work on “fringe” projects? 01:33:39 Can experiments get too big? 01:40:00 What would you do with your own billion year time capsule? 01:41:00 What advice would you give your younger self? Watch my most popular videos: Sheldon Glashow: https://youtu.be/a0_iaWgxQtA?sub_confirmation=1 Sir Roger Penrose, Nobel Prize winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMuqyAvX7Wo?sub_confirmation=1 Frank Wilczek https://youtu.be/3z8RqKMQHe0?sub_confirmation=1 Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Sir Roger Penrose https://youtu.be/H8G5onAqlVo?sub_confirmation=1 Juan Maldacena’s First Podcast Interview: https://youtu.be/uIzTliTHn7s?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Find me on Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join me in welcoming Prof. Cumrun Vafa (Harvard) in his first major podcast interview! We discussed a wide range of topics including what message he’d put into a billion-year time capsule. Plus, we discuss his delightful new book. Beneath all of the complex and formidable mathematical structures that formulate physical laws rest simple but deep nuggets of truth. It is these simple truths, and not the complicated technical details, that scientists strive for when uncovering the laws of nature. Fortunately, these core ideas can often be illustrated with simple mathematical puzzles. These puzzles are so simplified that one can tackle them and appreciate their meaning without using any complicated math.His book, Puzzles To Unravel The Universe, includes over a hundred puzzles and their solutions, along with a discussion about how they relate to deep ideas in physics and math. Examples are drawn from classical physics, such as Newton’s laws and Einstein’s theory of relativity, as well as from modern physics, including black holes and string theory. This book is designed for the general public, and it does not require an extensive background in mathematics or physics–just a sense of curiosity!For more information about the author see his website: https://www.cumrunvafa.org/ .Get the book here: https://amzn.to/3mSFGA1 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:39 The story behind the title and book cover 00:03:55 What is a puzzle versus a mystery? 00:05:48 What puzzles are you most fascinated by? 00:06:26 Black hole entropy 00:07:56 Albert Michelson 00:08:31 Godel’s Theorem: Are some puzzles not solvable? 00:10:39 Aristarchos of Samos 00:11:21 Galileo and the Dialogo 00:12:24 Why string theory? 00:17:25 Dimensional Analysis 00:21:35 Singularities 00:28:51 ADS and 5 Dimensions 00:31:08 string theory 00:35:09 Supersymmetry 00:40:42 On Religion 00:53:05 A scorecard for Physics 00:57:30 What would your “ethical will” be? 00:58:30 What would you put on monoliths that would last a billion years? 01:03:10 What have you accomplished that once seemed impossible? Professor Vafa is world-renowned for his groundbreaking work in string theory and the mathematical technology needed to explore this field. He is one of the founders of the duality revolution in string theory which has reshaped our understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe. He has uncovered mysteries of black holes using topological aspects of string theory and is the founder of `F-theory’ which is one of the most promising directions in connecting string theory solutions known as the `string landscape’ to particle physics. His ideas related to apparently consistent, but ultimately inconsistent, theories of quantum gravity which he initiated in the `swampland’ project has helped narrow down the vast string landscape and is currently an active area of research with an impact on cosmology, as well as particle phenomenology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week the Guardian and Scientific American announced that Breakthrough Listen astronomers using the Parkes radio telescope in Australia saw a weird radio signal coming from Proxima Centauri, the star system closest to Earth. The signal behaves strangely, only using a narrow 982MHz band typically not used by human-made spacecraft. It also does not correspond to known natural processes. The frequency moves around too…not what you’d expect from a planet. As soon as I heard about it, I knew I had to talk to my friend, Jill Tarter!Check out the biography of Jill (Making Contact) here: https://amzn.to/2M22Bv5 Please consider donating to the SETI Institute: https://www.seti.org Watch Jill’s TED Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EszGIvRdgTE Brian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 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.phpJoin my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize ️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Weinstein is the managing director of Thiel Capital, Peter Thiel‘s investment firm, a position he has held since 2015. Though not an academic physicist, he proposed a unified theory of physics in 2013. He and his brother Bret Weinstein coined the term Intellectual Dark Web to refer to an informal group of pundits. Weinstein received his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from the Mathematics Department at Harvard University in 1992 under the supervision of Raoul Bott Find Eric’s Portal Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR85PW_B_7_Aisx5vNS7Gjw Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 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.phpJoin my Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/losingthenobelprize ️Please subscribe, rate, and review the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast on iTunes A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas?Join me on a cosmic journey with Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek. We will embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. This is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring. Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and the ancient belief in the music of the spheres to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost the same ones that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls. Praise for A Beautiful Question:“An expertly curated tour across 2,500 years of philosophy and physics . . . [Frank Wilczek] has accomplished a rare feat: Writing a book of profound humanity based on questions aimed directly at the eternal.” —The Wall Street Journal “Both a brilliant exploration of largely uncharted territories and a refreshingly idiosyncratic guide to developments in particle physics.” —NatureGet it here: https://amzn.to/3oh48uZ COMING SOON!!!Fundamentals: Ten Keys to Reality by Frank Wilczek 1/12/21One of our great contemporary scientists reveals the ten profound insights that illuminate what everyone should know about the physical world. In Fundamentals, Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek offers the reader a simple yet profound exploration of reality based on the deep revelations of modern science. With clarity and an infectious sense of joy, he guides us through the essential concepts that form our understanding of what the world is and how it works. Through these pages, we come to see our reality in a new way–bigger, fuller, and stranger than it looked before. BUY IT HERE: https://amzn.to/37v5jAgBrian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barry Barish is an emeritus professor at Caltech, where he has worked since 1963. He became director of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory) project in 1997, which led to his Nobel Prize in 2017. He has many other awards and is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and American Physical Society, of which he was also president.Barry joins our Nobel Minds playlist on the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE podcast. He shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics with Rai Weiss and Kip Thorne “for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves.” We discuss Barry’s long and remarkable career that covers many disciplines within physics. It’s not the standard model, but he has a confidence about himself, and his contributions that make it seem perfectly natural to have been part of such varied, noteworthy projects during his career. Despite that, Barry also admits to feeling like an imposter at times, especially when singing the same Nobel register as Einstein. What a moment! 00:00:00 Introduction 00:03:55 Starting out at Cal Tech with long time collaborator Kip Thorne. 00:11:47 Changing from particle physics to gravity astronomy. Change or stagnate! 00:17:13 Was the sad demise of the US supercollider really fortuitous? 00:20:00 How did the discovery of the Higgs Boson by CERN make you feel? 00:22:07 What detector technology enabled the discovery of the Higgs Boson? 00:23:00 What fascinates Barry the most about gravity astronomy? 00:27:50 The feedback cycle between theory and experiment 00:28:45 Does there need to be a unified theory of everything? 00:29:54 Can/will LIGO detect primordial gravitational waves? 00:37:40 What is your philosophy of experimental science? When do you stop an experiment? Why peer review is too conservative. 00:41:00 What skill sets can be applied from one branch of science to another? Lessons from the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, and Managing big projects. Change Management. 00:57:45 How Barry began in particle physics at Berkley. How students learn today. 01:03:45 What is your vision for the future of LIGO? 01:10:10 What would most like to leave as an ethical will for future generations? 01:13:45 About curiosity 01:14:50 What have you accomplished that you once thought was impossible? Brian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sheldon Glashow is a theoretical physicist and emeritus professor at Harvard, where he also earned his Ph.D. He was the first to propose a grand unified theory and also worked as a visiting scientist at CERN. Glashow shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Abdus Salam and Steven Weinberg. He is a member of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It was an honor to have Sheldon Glashow on the INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE podcast.He joins our Nobel Minds playlist, having won the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his “contributions to the theory of the unified weak and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles, including, inter alia, the prediction of the weak neutral current.”Shelly recounts a remarkable life as the son of a plumber who went to the acclaimed Bronx Science high school and then worked his way through some of the most notable laboratories in the world, meeting colleagues and forming collaborations along the way. Having won science’s top prize over 40 years ago didn’t slow him down, as he only recently retired from research and teaching. Shelly’s 1988 book, “Interactions: A Journey Through the Mind of a Particle Physicist and the Matter of this World,” holds up decades later as one that asks important questions about physics and guides future generations of scientists.I recommend that everyone curious about the field read it. His writing style is enviously humorous and accessible. I was interested to hear about how his love of science fiction encouraged his career as a physicist. Considering many of the topics we cover would have been considered science fiction even in the time that Shelly has been alive, he is properly impressed and optimistic about the benefits technology can have on scientific discovery. It was also encouraging to see how interested and engaged he still is in the pursuit of knowledge. Though he does express some pessimism about the future of humanity. Perhaps it’s hard not to during the pandemic, combined with the grim news about climate change and other threats. Hopefully, the fields he and I know and love – “useless fields” as he calls them – can continue that Nobel legacy of bettering humankind. You will enjoy this Full course: Quantum Field Theory by Sidney Coleman (1975) [Havard Physics 253 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhsb6tmzSpiwrZuDMyweABm7FShZu3YUvBrian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating Instagram at https://instagram.com/DrBrianKeating Buy my book LOSING THE N Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all have limited time on Earth, so how should we spend it? Financial advisors urge us to be more like the ant than the grasshopper: work hard to maximize our earnings, save early and often, and, in retirement, reap the fruits of our labors and the rewards of compound interest. “What a monumental waste of human life,” says multi- millionaire Bill Perkins. If you spend a lifetime working and die with lots of money left over, you’ve squandered a huge amount of life energy, bypassing the opportunity to enjoy your money — or to give it away — during your lifetime. Our lives are only as fulfilling as the sum of our experiences, Perkins argues, so the more time and money we invest in experiences during our lifetime, the richer our lives become. “Bill Perkins’ Die With Zero opens up a completely different avenue of thinking to realize that your life can be maximized through memorable experiences. Why wait? Being present is a priority. This book provides an amazing blueprint to living your life while using your resources correctly!” —Kevin Hart, Award-Winning Comedian, and Actor Follow Bill on social media: https://www.diewithzerobook.com https://twitter.com/bp22 https://www.instagram.com/billperkins https://www.instagram.com/diewithzero/ https://www.twitch.tv/thirstloungeBrian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Weinstein joins me live to take your questions about the past, present and future of physics. We’ll discuss my recent chats with Lenny Susskind, Shelly Glashow, and Barry Barish and Eric’s recent podcasts with Lex Fridman too. Eric and Stephen Wolfram: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI0AZ4Y4Ip4?sub_confirmation=1 Join us in the chat room to ask questions! Previously featured: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Join my mailing list: http://briankeating.com/mailing_list.php Podcast mentioned: The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJUskAl8mzw?sub_confirmation=1 Subscribe for new interviews with Sheldon Glashow, Barry Barish, Cumran Vafa and more! Brian Keating’s most popular Youtube Videos: Eric Weinstein: https://youtu.be/YjsPb3kBGnk?sub_confirmation=1 Jim Simons: https://youtu.be/6fr8XOtbPqM?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 Host Brian Keating: ‍♂️ Twitter at https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 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 A production of http://imagination.ucsd.edu/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices