Into The Impossible

In this special edition of the Foundational Questions Podcast, physicist Brian Keating discusses his book Losing The Nobel Prize, which recounts the ill-fated BICEP2 announcement--and retraction--of the claimed discovery of primordial gravitational waves in 2014. Listen for the special treat at the end. A poetic ode to cosmic dust. https://fqxi.org/

Today, I sat down with someone who I respect greatly – Peter Boghossian. Peter is a former Portland State University professor, renowned philosopher, and best-selling author. His primary research areas are critical thinking and moral reasoning.  He actually resigned from his position at Portland State University because he felt that ideology had taken over the institution and that he did not have enough freedom as a scholar to continue his work. So, there’s no one better to talk to about the current legitimacy crisis in science and the moral obligations of scientists when it comes to communicating science to the public. We also dive deep into religion, the origin of the universe, and quantum computing.  Tune in!  Key Takeaways:  Do we have to agree on everything? (00:00) Can there be an infinite regress? (03:20) Why do we need a unified field theory? (13:12) On Eric Weinstein’s theory (23:43) Joe Rogan vs. Peter Hotez: Should scientists debate publicly? (37:53) Legitimacy crisis and death of expert

Is intelligent design a scientific possibility worth exploring? According to today’s guest, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, it is, and he claims he has scientific evidence to prove it! Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is a former geophysicist and college professor who received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. He directs the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. He authored the bestselling books Darwin’s Doubt, Signature in the Cell, and most recently, Return of the God Hypothesis, a book we discuss in depth in our interview.  You may be wondering what an advocate of intelligent design is doing on a show with a practicing cosmologist who frequently declares himself to be a devout agnostic and if I, a respected cosmologist, am getting into intelligent design. Well, tune in, and you’ll find out!  Let’s get into it! Key Takeaways:  Intro (00:00) Why Stephen’s work is so controversial (03:21) The level of epistemic support in his evidence (16:03) The origi

Is climate science being politicized? Are facts being misrepresented and distorted to fit a certain narrative? Are climate scientists trying to dictate policy instead of investigating the actual truth? And what does it mean to be accused of being a global warming denier? Here today to discuss this controversial topic with me is no other than Steven Koonin! Steven is a renowned theoretical physicist and has recently been working on urban studies and government policies. He has also published a very provocative book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn't, and Why It Matters. The book caused a lot of controversy as it challenged the dominant narrative on global warming, and today, he is here to state his case!

Watch the video of this conversation https://www.youtube.com/live/TezZ65_7MaY?si=-K12LzQeGNGN55Sg?sub_confirmation=1 Past episode with Avi Loeb on Youtube: https://youtu.be/N9lUceHsLRw Garry Nolan is a professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research is in microbiology, immunology, bio-computation, and analysis of UFO artifacts, materials, and he is actively investigating reports of UFO encounters. Avi Loeb is an astrophysicist at Harvard, the director of the Galileo Project, and the author of Extraterrestrial. In 1993 he moved to Harvard University where he was tenured three years later. He is now the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science and former chair of the department. EPISODE LINKS: WOW DNA SIGNAL http://bit.ly/3EBASJr Avi's Website: https://lweb.cfa.harvard.edu/~loeb/ Garry's Twitter: https://twitter.com/GarryPNolan Nolan Lab's Website: https://web.stanford.edu/group/nolan/ Please join my mailing list

Watch the video of our conversation https://youtu.be/nlrDky-fCtc?sub_confirmation=1 Once again, I had the pleasure of speaking to one of the world's most famous and perhaps most controversial astrophysicists – Avi Loeb! For those of you who don’t know him, Avi is a professor of science at Harvard University, theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, and cosmologist. He is also a bestselling author and a dear friend of mine. Avi just published Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars. In it, he explains why we need to become an interstellar species to ensure our survival and lays out a plan for how we can settle among the stars. As usual, we take some time to judge a book by its cover and discuss what went into the making of this book. We also dig into the recent Galileo Project expedition to the Pacific Ocean to retrieve spherules of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1, led by Avi, and discuss whether they found evidence of alien technology! For your chance to win

Scott Eastwood evokes one of the best primers on cosmology and astrophysics you’re ever going to get in this wide ranging discussion wit Brian Keating. From the age and size of the Universe to relativity and the essence of science itself, and the pursuit of the Nobel prize, this episode could make you one of the most interesting people in the room at your next dinner party! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/live-life-better-with-scott-eastwood/id1398401294 twitter.com/ScottEastwood Please join my mailing list

Today's guest is no stranger to drama and controversy, and he may have helped you pass a test or two in school… Meet Dave Farina, better known as Professor Dave Explains! Dave is a popular science communicator, chemist, author, and proprietor of one of the largest science YouTube channels in the world. Dave and I first got in contact after I published an interview with someone who Dave claims is a charlatan, and of course, that sparked my interest, and I knew I had to get Dave on the show, too, so he could state his case properly. Join us as we discuss the heated drama between Dave and the Discovery Institute, science deniers, faith, and the concept of lying. Are you ready? Let’s dive in! Key Takeaways: On exposing misinformation and fraudulent claims (00:32) The notion of lying (12:34) Judging a book by its cover: Is This Wi-Fi Organic? (21:32) On questionable influencers and fear-mongering (24:10) The undermining of the public’s trust in science and COVID-19 (30:04) Uncertainty in the scientific commu

Astrophysicist and cosmologist Brian Keating, Ph.D., talks about the high-pressure world of science. For a decade, Dave Asprey, “the father of biohacking,” elevated what you knew about the capabilities of your mind and body across a thousand episodes of Bulletproof Radio. Now, he’s evolving it even further in his plan to upgrade humanity. You’re invited to expand your knowledge, explore your own performance and embrace possibility with The Human Upgrade™. You’ll meet bright thinkers and radical doers who push the boundaries of science, technology, personal development, and human performance in every way imaginable. You’ll learn from experts around the world who elevate what it means to be human. Every guest you listen to, every topic you learn about, every new idea you discover on this podcast moves you forward. Join The Human Upgrade™ with Dave Asprey on this next evolution to upgrade your mind, body and life. Please join my mailing list

Juan Maldacena joined Professor Brian Keating for his first-ever podcast to discuss his fascinating work on black holes, AdS CFT, and 'human traversable wormholes and fundamental physics. We discussed the Multiverse, Black Holes, Wormholes, SETI, Life on Einstein Lane at the Institute for Advanced Study, wormholes in movies like Interstellar, and more. Brian and Juan start by chatting about his recent paper "HUMANLY TRAVERSABLE WORMHOLES" https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.06618 which is based, in part, on this earlier paper: "Traversable wormholes in four dimensions" https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.04726 Sign up for Professor Keating's newsletter, we'll send you links to download two explanatory talks on these papers. Please join my mailing list; just click here

Richard S. Ellis is professor of astrophysics at University College London and a world-renowned observational astronomer who has made numerous discoveries about the nature and evolution of the universe. He lives in Cambridge, UK. When Galaxies Were Born is Richard Ellis’s firsthand account of how a pioneering generation of scientists harnessed the world’s largest telescopes to decipher the history of the universe and witness cosmic dawn, the time when starlight first bathed the cosmos and galaxies emerged from darkness. Please join my mailing list

Watch this episode on YouTube to see the slides: https://youtu.be/G3xy-bEDJCY "I view string theory as the most promising way to quantize matter and gravity in a unified way. We need both quantum gravity and we need unification and a quantization of gravity. One of the reasons why string theory is promising is that there are no singularities associated with those singularities are the same type that they offer point particles." — Robert Brandenberger In this thought-provoking conversation, my grad school mentor, Robert Brandenberger shares his unique perspective on various cosmological concepts. He challenges the notion of the fundamental nature of the Planck length, questioning its significance and delving into intriguing debates surrounding its importance in our understanding of the universe. He also addresses some eyebrow-raising claims made by Elon Musk about the limitations imposed by the Planck scale on the number of digits of pi. Moving on to the topic of inflation and its potential detectability, Rob

See the video of this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/live/qQnDatnAWP4?feature=share Breaking news! A team of scientists in South Korea has made an extraordinary claim: they have discovered a room-temperature ambient-pressure superconductor. This means that they have found a material that can conduct electricity perfectly under everyday conditions. This is a huge deal. If it's true, it could revolutionize many technologies. We could have perfectly efficient power grids, levitating trains, and commercially viable fusion reactors. The possibilities are endless. But the scientific community is taking this with a grain of salt. There have been many claims of room-temperature superconductors in the past, and they've all turned out to be false. So we need to be careful before we get too excited. The researchers behind this latest claim say that they've done their due diligence. They've repeated their experiments multiple times, and they've had their results peer-reviewed. But until their work is published in

See the Video of this episode here! https://youtu.be/tnQtfv93agA "The gimbal object...we had never seen anything like that before!" In today's episode, we have a fascinating conversation with Ryan Graves, who shares his encounters with multiple unidentified objects that flew past Navy F-18 aircraft over extended periods. As we delve into this extraordinary event, we explore the complexities surrounding unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) and the challenges of reporting them. From the stigma surrounding UAP sightings to the need for standardized reporting procedures, we uncover the implications for aviation safety and discuss the importance of gathering data to ensure the security of our airspace. Join us as we navigate the mysterious realm of UAPs and contemplate their significance in our modern world. Get ready to explore the unknown on The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast. Ryan's fresh off his congressional testimony: Wednesday's hearing included testimony from two former U.S. Navy aviators, Ryan, and David Fra

Professor Brian Keating tells listeners: “If you go through life and you have this expectation that you are going to have the wind at your back. You are going to be much more disappointed than if you expect there to be adversity, headwinds, friction, and flux. Then you overcome it or maybe it is not even there.” How to engage passion in aspiring astronomers The emotion behind winning a Nobel Prize Coping with rejection and humiliation The importance of meditation Finding meaning in the unknown Lance W Essihos is the host of the University of Adversity Podcast. He created this podcast to help people learn from stories of adversity, which has ranked Top 50 on iTunes Worldwide and the Top #5 in Entrepreneur Magazine’s 20 Podcasts That Will Help You Grow in 2020 List. https://lanceessihos.com/ Please join my mailing list

See the Video! https://www.youtube.com/live/_45U7IjIJDk?feature=share In this episode Brian Keating and Allison Kirkpatrick respond to Rajendra Gupta’s controversial paper challenging the current model of the universe. What is the basis for this claim and why are media outlets and influencers promoting it so wildly? In addition to their detailed critique of Gupta's paper, they discuss galaxy formation, dark matter, and the scientific method. “Our newly-devised model stretches the galaxy formation time by a several billion years, making the universe 26.7 billion years old, and not 13.7 as previously estimated” Rajendra Gupta — Adjunct professor of physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa Find Allison: https://kirkpatrick.ku.edu/ Press release: https://www.uottawa.ca/about-us/media/news/reinventing-cosmology-uottawa-research-puts-age-universe-267-137-billion-years The Paper: https://phys.org/news/2023-07-age-universe-billion-years-previously.html The paper is now available without a

See the Video! https://youtube.com/live/BFuW-zfH5RU Avi Loeb joined Brian Keating after he led a Galileo Project expedition to the Pacific Ocean to retrieve spherules of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1. These samples were brought back to Harvard College Observatory over 50 spherules in total, which lay on the deep ocean floor for nearly a decade. These sub-millimeter-sized spheres, which appear under a microscope as beautiful metallic marbles, were concentrated along the expected path of IM1 — about 85 kilometers off the coast of Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Their discovery opens a new frontier in astronomy, where what lay outside the solar system is studied through a microscope rather than a telescope. That 83% of the matter in the universe is apparently composed of dark matter which was not found yet in the solar system should teach us modesty in forecasting the nature of interstellar objects. Aliens, UFOs and Extraterrestrial Intelligence Playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJGK

Brian Keating is interviewed by Micah Hanks. Micah is a writer, pocaster, researcher, adventurer, and cofounder of The Debrief, He delves deep into science, technology, history and UAP and UFO research.  In this interview Micah focuses on Professor Keating’s book, Losing the Nobel Prize, Brian’s personal Nobel stories, and his outspoken criticisms of the coveted Nobel. Brian gives his ideas on how the award process could be improved.  In addition, You're going to get a faced paced introduction to the field of SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, its history and evolution. What are the chances of find life beyond earth? What are the chances of discovering technosignatures revealing alien civilizations?  If you appreciate a civilized dialogue about controversial science, including research on SETI and UAPs, Please Keep Into The Impossible in your feeds by subscribing and following. Please help us evolve by Paying it forward with a share to curious friends. Jump over to our Youtube Channel at DRBR

Watch the full video on youtube here: https://youtu.be/b3Tx1g8gKmY Other Episode with Adam Riess: https://youtu.be/WZUqzHRuzhA Adam Riess is a renowned astrophysicist recognized for his groundbreaking research on the expansion of the universe with the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics Through extensive measurements and collaborations with other scientists, Riess discovered an intriguing tension in the size of the universe's expansion, which has steadily grown over the past decade. These results, reaching a significant level of more than 5 sigma, revealed an unexpected phenomenon: the rate of the universe's expansion seems to differ based on whether one starts from the beginning shortly after the big bang or from the present. This unexpected autonomy in the expansion challenged the traditional cosmological model, which tells the story of the universe's evolution from its inception to its current state. Riess's research has generated suspicion among many scientists, leading them to question whether the cosmologi

Physicist Brian Keating talks about his book Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor. Past episode with Avi Loeb on Youtube: https://youtu.be/N9lUceHsLRw Please join my mailing list