Into The Impossible

Astrophysicist and folklorist Dr. Moiya McTier channels The Milky Way in this approachable and utterly fascinating autobiography of the titular galaxy, detailing what humans have discovered about everything from its formation to its eventual death, and what more there is to learn about this galaxy we call home. After a few billion years of bearing witness to life on Earth, of watching one hundred billion humans go about their day-to-day lives, of feeling unbelievably lonely, and of hearing its own story told by others, The Milky Way would like a chance to speak for itself. All one hundred billion stars and fifty undecillion tons of gas of it. It all began some thirteen billion years ago, when clouds of gas scattered through the universe's primordial plasma just could not keep their metaphorical hands off each other. They succumbed to their gravitational attraction, and the galaxy we know as the Milky Way was born. Since then, the galaxy has watched as dark energy pushed away its first friends, as humans mytho

From renowned physicist and creator of the YouTube series “Science without the Gobbledygook,” a book that takes a no-nonsense approach to life’s biggest questions, and wrestles with what physics really says about the human condition Not only can we not currently explain the origin of the universe, it is questionable we will ever be able to explain it. The notion that there are universes within particles, or that particles are conscious, is as scientific, as is the hypothesis that our universe is a computer simulation. On the other hand, the idea that the universe itself is conscious is difficult to rule out entirely. According to Sabine Hossenfelder, it is not a coincidence that quantum entanglement and vacuum energy have become the go-to explanations of alternative healers, or that people believe their deceased grandmother is still alive because of quantum mechanics. Science and religion have the same roots, and they still tackle some of the same questions: Where do we come from? Where do we go to? How much

A conversation with Nobel Prize Winner and renowned mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Dr. Stuart Hameroff about consciousness and quantum mechanics. Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff have tackled one of the most vexing problems in science -- how does consciousness work? Their theories of consciousness were selected by the Templeton Foundation for study. We will discuss Is the brain a sophisticated computer or an intuitive thinking device? Following on from their conference in Tucson which pitted Integrated Information Theory (IIT) against Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), Sir Roger Penrose OM and Stuart Hameroff discuss the current state of theories that might explain human consciousness and objections to them from FQXI and others. Sir Roger Penrose describe examples of ‘non-computability’ in human consciousness, thoughts and actions such as the way we evaluate particular chess positions which cast doubt on ‘Turing’ computation as a complete explanation of brain f

A conversation with Nobel Prize Winner and renowned mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and anesthesiologist Dr. Stuart Hameroff about consciousness and quantum mechanics. 00:00 Intro 01:00 Happy Birthday to Sir Roger! 05:00 Updates to The Emperor's New Mind 07:00 What about Schrödinger’s Cat? Part 2: https://youtu.be/OoDi856wLPM Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff have tackled one of the most vexing problems in science -- how does consciousness work? Their theories of consciousness were selected by the Templeton Foundation for study. We will discuss Is the brain a sophisticated computer or an intuitive thinking device? Following on from their conference in Tucson which pitted Integrated Information Theory (IIT) against Orchestrated Objective Reduction (Orch-OR), Sir Roger Penrose OM and Stuart Hameroff discuss the current state of theories that might explain human consciousness and objections to them from FQXI and others. Sir Roger Penrose describe examples of ‘non-computability’ in human c

Dennis Prager and Brian Keating discuss the findings and impact of the James Webb Space Telescope. Brian's Prager videos: Prager U-What's a Greater Leap of Faith: God or the Multiverse?: https://www.prageru.com/video/whats-a-greater-leap-of-faith-god-or-the-multiverse Prager U-Follow The Sciene: https://www.prageru.com/video/follow-the-science Brian Keating on The Dennis Prager Show Ultimate Issues Hour, Sept 24 2019 https://youtu.be/uvU0FFt2rIY Dennis Prager interview with Professor Brian Keating: https://youtu.be/3E_6pIsQTjM Be Brian's friend:

We imagine physics is objective. But quantum physics found the act of human observation changes the outcome of experiment. Many scientists assume this central role of the observer is limited to just quantum physics. But is this an error? As Heisenberg puts it, "what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." In all our studies of reality and nature then, the observer plays a role -- not just in quantum physics. Should we recognize science can never access reality independent of the observer? Should we re-define science not as uncovering objective reality, but as uncovering the functions, limitations and structures of the mind of the observer themselves? And if we cannot remove the observer, might quantum physics help us to understand the observer - as Roger Penrose suggests consciousness "reeks of something quantum mechanical." Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Ast

We imagine physics is objective. But quantum physics found the act of human observation changes the outcome of experiment. Many scientists assume this central role of the observer is limited to just quantum physics. But is this an error? As Heisenberg puts it, "what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning." In all our studies of reality and nature then, the observer plays a role -- not just in quantum physics. Should we recognize science can never access reality independent of the observer? Should we re-define science not as uncovering objective reality, but as uncovering the functions, limitations and structures of the mind of the observer themselves? And if we cannot remove the observer, might quantum physics help us to understand the observer - as Roger Penrose suggests consciousness "reeks of something quantum mechanical." Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Ast

In July NASA released the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Here's my discussion with @Ben Shapiro on this treasure trove of data including: Carina Nebula. The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars form. The Carina Nebula is home to many massive stars, several times larger than the Sun. WASP-96 b (spectrum). WASP-96 b is a giant planet outside our solar system, composed mainly of gas. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014. Southern Ring Nebula. The Southern Ring, or “Eight-Burst” nebula, is a planetary nebula – an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth. Stephan’s Quintet: About 290 millio

In The Elephant in the Universe, Govert Schilling explores the fascinating history of the search for dark matter. Evidence for its existence comes from a wealth of astronomical observations. Theories and computer simulations of the evolution of the universe are also suggestive: they can be reconciled with astronomical measurements only if dark matter is a dominant component of nature. Physicists have devised huge, sensitive instruments to search for dark matter, which may be unlike anything else in the cosmos—some unknown elementary particle. Yet so far dark matter has escaped every experiment. Indeed, dark matter is so elusive that some scientists are beginning to suspect there might be something wrong with our theories about gravity or with the current paradigms of cosmology. Schilling interviews both believers and heretics and paints a colorful picture of the history and current status of dark matter research, with astronomers and physicists alike trying to make sense of theory and observation. Govert Schi

Have you ever thought about why Galileo Galilei, an Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer was willing to risk his life to speak out about science against the will of the church at that time? How was science back then? How can America maintain its leadership in the sciences? Is it slipping? Dr. Brian Keating, an American physicist, podcaster, and author, talks to James Altucher about his project of making the first-ever audiobook that was written by Galileo Galilei, and we also brainstorm on how we could better fund science. Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo Galilei for your chance to win space dust here: https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

@NASAWebb Senior Project Scientist, and @NobelPrize winner, John Mather answers questions about the JWST from listeners of Into The Impossible.

Watch this on Youtube! Today NASA released the first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope. Here's my reaction to this treasure trove of light, including: Carina Nebula. The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars form. The Carina Nebula is home to many massive stars, several times larger than the Sun. WASP-96 b (spectrum). WASP-96 b is a giant planet outside our solar system, composed mainly of gas. The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every 3.4 days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014. Southern Ring Nebula. The Southern Ring, or “Eight-Burst” nebula, is a planetary nebula – an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth. Stephan’s Quintet: About 290 mil

Frank Close is Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics, and Fellow Emeritus at Exeter College. He was formerly Head of Theoretical Physics Division at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, vice President of the British Science Association and Head of Communications and Public Understanding at CERN. He was awarded the Kelvin Medal of the Institute of Physics for his 'outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics' in 1996, an OBE for 'services to research and the public understanding of science in 2000, and the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize for communicating science in 2013. He is the only professional physicist to have won a British Science Writers Prize on three occasions. Author of 20 books about science, the latest "Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass", marks the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Higgs Boson. On July 4, 2012, the announcement came that one of the longest-running mysteries in physics had been solved: the Higgs boson, the missing piece in unders

Today's guest, UC Berkeley Professor Jessica Lu, discusses the discovery of the first dark, isolated black hole or neutron star in the Milky Way using gravitational microlensing! This ‘ghost black hole’ is far from the center of the Milky Way. We also discussed: ⬛ dark matter and the future of multi-messenger astronomy w/ the Roman and James Webb Space telescope as well as the Vera Rubin Observatory. Finally, we answered your❓Questions -- you can always submit them on the "Community" tab for this channel. This work was led by UC Berkeley grad, Casey Lam, and details are in papers in The Astrophysical Journal (https://arxiv.org/abs/2202.01903). See Jessica's awesome Twitter thread on this discovery, and what it might mean: https://twitter.com/jlu_astro/status/1535292954180341760?s=20&t=ZFaQb9iG5SIsaQW3ijH7ZQ Please enjoy my black hole playlist for more on the theory and observation of these mysterious objects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvGInn1efR8&list=PLJGKdZD30K_9Gx0SBRjFn_TNPBN-9t9md Learn more about y

Was there a Big Bang? Did the universe emerge from a singularity? Is there any evidence for a Multiverse? Anna Ijjas and I explore these questions and much more, including her incredibly fascinating work on bouncing cosmological models. Anna Ijjas is a research faculty at New York University. Her research lies at the intersection of gravitational theory and cosmology. She has pioneered the application of mathematical and numerical relativity to cosmology with the goal of developing novel theories that explain the origin, structure and evolution of our universe. Her work has already led to several advances in this new field, including the establishment of slow contraction as a rapid and robust smoother. Currently, she is developing novel mathematical and computational methods for studying the effects of modifications of Einstein's relativity theory on cosmology and black holes. Her Website: https://anna-ijjas.com/ Topics discussed include: What should a theorist know about experimental cosmology? Why is the

Join Brian Keating and his friends Eric Weinstein and Harvard's Avi Loeb for an update on the Galileo Project, NASA's recent formation of a government panel investigating UAP/UFOs and more. Resources here: NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-... Eric Weinstein's Website https://ericweinstein.org Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue NASA is embarking on a RISKY mission to investigate UAPs https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/nasa... Galileo Project home: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galil... NASA is putting together a research team to study UFOs https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/9/231... China Says It May Have Detected Signals From Alien Civilizations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl... Avi and the interstellar meteorite: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-as... Avi Loeb: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/imitation... Avi Loeb On scientific leg

Join Brian Keating and his friends Eric Weinstein and Harvard's Avi Loeb for an update on the Galileo Project, NASA's recent formation of a government panel investigating UAP/UFOs and more. Resources here: NASA to Set Up Independent Study on Unidentified Aerial Phenomena https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to-... Eric Weinstein's Website https://ericweinstein.org Download the first-ever audiobook by Galileo https://BrianKeating.com/dialogue NASA is embarking on a RISKY mission to investigate UAPs https://www.axios.com/2022/06/14/nasa... Galileo Project home: https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/galil... NASA is putting together a research team to study UFOs https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/9/231... China Says It May Have Detected Signals From Alien Civilizations https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl... Avi and the interstellar meteorite: https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/bad-as... Avi Loeb: Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery: https://avi-loeb.medium.com/imitation... Avi Loeb On scientific leg

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He's won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2021, Powers has published 14 novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory. Powers’ latest book is Bewilderment in which, The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves t

Do you ever look up to the stars and wonder about what is out there? Over the last few centuries, humans have successfully unraveled much of the language of the universe, exploring and defining formerly mysterious phenomena such as electricity, magnetism, and matter through the beauty of mathematics. But some secrets remain beyond our realm of understanding—and seemingly beyond the very laws and theories we have relied on to make sense of the universe we inhabit. It is clear that the quantum, the world of atoms and electrons, is entwined with the cosmos, a universe of trillions of stars and galaxies...but exactly how these two extremes of human understanding interact remains a mystery. Where Did the Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic Questions allows readers to eavesdrop on a conversation between award-winning physicists Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis as they examine the universe through the two unifying and yet often contradictory lenses of classical physics and quantum mechanics, tackling questions suc

Chat with Nobel Prize winner Adam Riess about his team's newest measurements of the 'most important number in cosmology' the Hubble Constant. Using the Hubble Space Telescope for what it was meant to do, Adam's team continues to make ultra-precise measurements. We'll also explore the Hubble Tension, the future of Hubble now that the James Webb Space Telescope has deployed, and other cosmic conundrums. Adam is a brilliant teacher and a wonderful raconteur. Don't miss your chance to chat with a brilliant scientist about the most important topic in cosmology today! From the team: https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-005 From CNN: Measuring the expansion rate of the universe was one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s main goals when it was launched in 1990. Over the past 30 years, the space observatory has helped scientists discover and refine that accelerating rate – as well as uncover a mysterious wrinkle that only brand-new physics may solve. Hubble has observed more than 40 galaxies that