Brian Greene: Does the MULTIVERSE Actually Exist?

Brian Greene: Does the MULTIVERSEActually Exist? Transcript Brian Keating: He’s known literally throughout the universe for his groundbreaking discoveries in the field of string theory. He co invented mirror symmetry, and he brought the notion of Calabi Yau manifolds to the mainstream. Meet the one and only Brian Greene. Brian’s a Professor of physics and math at Columbia University and the author of numerous best selling books. Join us on this It’s in person conversation held late at night at Columbia University as we uncover the hidden reality of our universe and delve into parallel universes and the deep mysteries of the fabric of reality. Let’s go. Here we are today with a man That needs no introduction. Fellow Brian.   Brian Keating: Oh, my my mom at least claims she named me Brian, so people are confused with brain. I don’t know about you. But Yeah.   Speaker: I haven’t heard that one directly, but,   Brian Keating: Now they, we have the 2 of the 3 Brian’s. Of course, I’m I’m the least well known of them, but Brian Cox is, of course, the The ultimate also, another Brian who gets a lot of attention. Maybe he’ll come on someday, but so far, he’s ignored my messages unlike you, and, I wanna Express my gratitude. Last time I was in these luxurious offices here at Columbia University, I was beseeching you for an encomium On my book, Losing the Nobel Prize   Speaker: Oh, I remember that. Yeah.   Brian Keating: Which you graciously provided back in, 2016, and the book came out in 2018. So I wanna I appreciate you and, express gratitude for for all that you’ve done for me personally and for the field of astronomy and cosmology and science communication. Thank you very much, Brian, for joining us. Thank you. One of my most requested, if not the most requested guest, and I have a ton of stuff to talk about today. We’ll run out of, I’ll run out of, energy And adrenal system excretions before we run out of questions, I’m sure, but we’ll see how far we get. The first thing I wanna do is I since I’ll introduce you later, But I wanna ask, what is in your estimation? I call this the experimental minimum. I’ve had on Lenny Susskind before, and he’s written books, The Theoretical Minimum.   Brian Keating: I I wanna ask you, what should a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, what should she or he know about experimental physics and why?   Speaker: Well, look, none of what we develop theoretically has any real value if it doesn’t make contact ultimately with Experiment. And so my quick answer would be know as much experiment as you possibly can. Right? Because That is the way in which you can make contact between abstract mathematics and the actual physical world. But the reality, of course, is There’s a limited amount of time that any graduate student, any undergraduate, any faculty member has. And so you need to know the basics for cosmology, Micoid background radiation, evidence for expansion of the universe, evidence for the accelerated Expansion of the universe. You should know something about black holes. You should know the Observational evidence from motions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy to the Event Horizon Telescope’s actual images of black holes. If you don’t know about that Stuff people will look at you kinda weird.   Speaker: And, you know, I think it’s also really good to know the basics of particle physics.   Brian Keating: Right?   Speaker: I mean, you should know the standard model of particle physics. You should understand the experiments that give rise to The gauge symmetry of the standard model, and you should understand that in 2012, we confirmed the Higgs particle. You should know that supersymmetry has not yet been confirmed. That’s an important experimental null result. And beyond that, you should understand That there is this mismatch between our calculations of Dark energy, which really comes from understanding the quantum physics of elementary particles and the observational evidence for dark energy. That I would call perhaps the minimum. No doubt there are other things that should be included, but that’s a good start.   Brian Keating: Yeah. And this building have been renowned, and this campus have been renowned, purveyors of both theory and experiment. I’m thinking about Rabi and and, of course, CS Wu, and and, of course, you know, all the many great experimentalists and and theoreticians who have come through this building, and I see it as a as sort of and I believe Arnold Penzias was a student here. Wasn’t he?   Speaker: I didn’t know that.   Brian Keating: I think I think   Speaker: he was. I’m not   Brian Keating: I’m not sure. We’ll have the fact checks here.   Speaker: But the students. Yeah. That could well be because that yeah. That would have been a long time ago. Yeah. Sure.   Brian Keating: Many of them came through here. And I I think about kind of what do I want my graduate students to know as experimentalists? Yeah. For me, I say you shouldn’t have to do theory, But you should know a theory as well as an incoming graduate student. Otherwise and no offense to plumbers out there, Lenny Selskin, as you know, was a plumber. But you’re kinda just doing plumbing and microwave And then it’s very important and interesting stuff. But you’re a technician, and you can get paid a lot more in, you know, free industry. Actually, I was talking to Jim Simons recently, As the benefactor, of course, of the Simons, Observatory, and I believe he supports the w World Science   Speaker: of the World. Yeah.   Brian Keating: He and Marilyn are huge champions of all the great work you and Tracy do. But, but he was saying, you know, once he had to call a

Lawrence Krauss: The Mysterious Origins ofDark Energy

Lawrence Krauss: The Mysterious Origins of Dark Energy Transcript Brian Keating: Lawrence Krauss   Brian Keating: is a world renowned theoretical physicist, a man who significantly changed our view and our understanding of the cosmos. He’s a fierce advocate for the public understanding of science and aims to bring it closer to the masses through the origins podcast. Recently, He’s also been pushing for much needed societal and cultural changes. Lawrence’s books have been pivotal in popularizing science and have profoundly impact in me since I first read them, and his latest book is no exception. Check out my episode from earlier this year right here. Join us as we embark on a captivating journey to the edge of knowledge recorded live in October 2023 at San Diego Air and Space Museum.   Brian Keating: Lawrence, how are you doing?   Speaker: It’s great to be here. I I I’m I’m really thankful for the museum and for Brian. When when the Origins Project Decided to do some events in California. When the last one we did was in Orange County a a few days ago, and I contacted Brian. I thought it’d be great to come down here. And, Brian, because he’s on the board, said, you know, I have a great place, and he arranged for this to happen. And and And so it’s it’s the 1st time I’ve been here, but it is truly an amazing place. And what a what a place to have this this joint podcast in the sense that we’re doing.   Speaker: The Origins Project is is, does do public events every now and then, and this is just a A wonderful venue. So I wanna thank you and the museum. It’s been it’s been great. And, of course, Andy Ornan who who organized it and Helped set up the venue and and and and the the the VIP reception. It’s been a it’s been a great chance to meet many of you. So it’s fun to deal with Brian here, and and I hope we’ll disagree and then chat, about science. And since it’s his home turf, I’m gonna turn it back to him for the minute.   Brian Keating: Yeah. One of the things I’m most excited to talk to you about tonight, in our signature kind of way where we debate things, I am a what I call a practicing agnostic Jew, which we can get into what actually that means. Lawrence is a devout bible beating Christian as you all know. Can’t get enough of it. We’ll talk about religion. We’ll talk about politics, all the stuff you’re not supposed to. But really, you stop science with a person who has had And, a considerable influence both on my career and my thought process, but on on generation of of young young people. And I want to start with something that, you know, you can deny paternity maybe, but, I want you to talk about this mysterious substance, which I’m told fills the universe, almost without par, and it’s called dark energy.   Brian Keating: And it’s something that you and my friend mutual friend, Mike Turner, really invented, discovered. Let’s talk about the scientific process. How do you think of this creation and the fact that it will Someday rip all of our molecules apart.   Speaker: How do you No. It won’t. It probably won’t do that. By by the way, I appreciate when you say, yeah, it was the news that you said, like, cast a long shadow on science because I thought that was Interesting way of putting it. But, so dark energy is the biggest mystery in, I think, in fundamental physics. It is the fact that when you take space and get rid of all the particles and all the radiation and everything and just have empty space there, it weighs something, And and we don’t know why. It is true that Mike and I had had proposed, that it existed. Mostly, I did anyway, and I think I convinced Mike that I I was being heretical, because At the time, the we looked at the data and all the data of cosmology didn’t agree with the Our picture of cosmology, the standard rule of cosmology, we knew we theorists knew way before the observers, and he’s an observer, and I’m an experiment he’s an experimentalist.   Speaker: I’m a theorist. We’ll get into the difference, and there are differences. And but we, theorists, were Virtually certain that the universe was flat. That that means it’s the and I and the other day in Orange County, I don’t think I got to what flat was so I should explain here. It’s not flat like a pancake. It’s flat a flat universe is just 1 in which the x, y, and z axes point in the same direction throughout all of space. If you follow him up, they keep going in straight lines. A curved universe is one that you might imagine.   Speaker: The x, y, and z axis point here, up there, but somewhere in the distant part of the universe is over here, over there, and over there. And in a in a in saying a closed universe, if you look far enough In that direction, you’ll see the back of your head. There are good theoretical reasons, and maybe we’ll get to them, why we thought the universe was flat, but but There was a big problem. The observers, being difficult people, did not Wasn’t weren’t finding the universe to be flat. That well, British and DeJean, they weren’t flying enough matter to make the universe flat because the geometry of the universe depends upon the stuff in it, And you have to have a certain amount of stuff to make a flat universe, and it wasn’t the right amount of stuff within a factor of 3. And then we looked at all sorts of other observations, and

David Brin: Your Privacy is Overrated. So is the Government’s

David Brin: Your Privacy is Overrated. So is the Government’s Transcript Brian Keating: David Brin is a world renowned astrophysicist and award winning science fiction author. He explores the widest array of topics imaginable, ranging from groundbreaking technology to futuristic humans, political intricacies, and extraterrestrial phenomena. He advises NASA and think tanks around the world. He’s spoken at Google. And best of all, he helped establish the Arthur c Clark Center For Human Imagination right here at UC San Diego, so you best believe he’s a personal hero of mine. David is a leading authority in technological currency and Internet security, and he’s extremely passionate about the prospects of AI and human augmentation. Join us on a fascinating journey through time as we explore the future of human civilization.   Speaker: Hello out there in cyberspace, in the multiverse, Wherever you may be, I am joined today by one of my friends and a great mentor to 1,000,000 And a great thought leader to even beyond, maybe perhaps 1,000,000,000. And that’s doctor David Brin, proud graduate of UC San Diego and Caltech, 2 places I’ve spent a little time at, but having him back here for his 1st in person interview, 2nd time on the podcast.   Brian Keating: Thank you, David, for coming.   Brian Keating: Oh, of course. Anything for you, for you, Brian, and also for, those who really are interested   Speaker: in our adventure that we’re having. Yes. You’ve been involved with the Arthur c Clark Center For Human Imagination since, you know, before it was a star in its parents’ Eyes, I don’t even know if it had parents, but back in 2011.   Brian Keating: I helped write the, the proposal for UCSD to get the, Clark Center, and they’re doing, very interesting very interesting things.   Speaker: It’s been a lot of fun. It’s been over a decade and, going strong. And we have our leader, doctor Eric Theory, who’s a great fan of of everything you do, as am I. And we have started a tradition since 2020 if you can believe it when you were last on. And that’s Every edition of the Into the Impossible podcast starts with something you’re never supposed to do. You’re forbidden to do it in Some circles judging a book by its cover. So today, you’ve graciously brought me one of your how many books have you read? Are you writing a book right now as we speak?   Brian Keating: Oh, yeah. I’m usually Writing a couple. I guess I’ve had 20 books, but, at least 3 or 4 of them are nonfiction, like The Transparent Society talking about About the, importance of of light in an enlightenment civilization for holding each other They’re accountable, but the novels are what I’m best known for. I, my first novel, Sundiver, a murder History, set during visits to the sun, which by the way has a, a funded project named after it. That one, came out when I was at grad school and helped pay for my way for through through grad school here.   Speaker: Really?   Brian Keating: And heart of the comet, which I just gave you a copy of, That one, I was working on while I was finishing grad school here, and we got it out in Time for Halley’s comet’s last, last, fly through, and it, was filled with science about About comets, this one is Earth, and it’s a doorstop, book for grown ups. I mean, if you want a real sort Adult read. Earth and my later book, Existence, are set just 30 years in the future. No aliens, ray guns, or thing like that, but a lot of speculation about what’s to come. This one came out around 1991 and is on almost every list Of, top 10 prophetic novels, things that they had inside that came that came true.   Speaker: Mhmm.   Brian Keating: Web pages before there was a web, things like that.   Speaker: Mhmm. And you and I were talking, just before I started recording in earnest About, these different phenomena that are kind of gripping the planet. And the 1st time we spoke for the podcast back in 2020, You expressed great derision at this notion of the 4th turning and, its its lack of realism, predictive power, and so forth. And yet And yet, I find us living in in times that I can only I can only relate back to when I used still listen to Art Bell. Remember Art Bell?   Brian Keating: Art Bell, I was just on, coast to coast with his successor.   Speaker: That’s George Noory. Right?   Brian Keating: About, about 2 weeks ago.   Speaker: Wow.   Brian Keating: And, of course, the topic of UFOs and psychic phenomena and all that come   Speaker: up, and I imagine they’ll come up here. They will. They will indeed. So Art Bell I used to talk about the quickening and the pace, which Ray Kurzweil, mutual friend, talks about the singularity. He’s coming on the podcast not too long from now. But tell me, David, are you more less optimistic? Dick, are you more nervous? Are you how have your views changed since COVID? You know, we really spoke April of 2020, and now we’re speaking again three and a half years later. Are you more optimistic, less optimistic? Do you wanna take back what you said about the 4th turning? Have you changed your mind at all?   Brian Keating: Being willing to change one’s mind is the character fate, that we’re taught in science. The sacred catechism of science that we’re supposed to recite is I might be wrong, followed by the code of soul. Ain’t it cool? Let’s find out. And that’s a degree of courage and intellectual honesty that, most of those who are attacking science right now, have no comprehension of. I’m accused of being an

Exploring Curiosity with Nobel Prize Winner Barry Barish

Exploring Curiosity with Nobel Prize Winner Barry Barish Transcript Speaker: I think it’s innate. I think we’re all curious.   Brian Keating: Mhmm.   Speaker: So it’s hard for me to say that it’s something we have to teach. It’s something that we have to support and something that we have to let grow and thrive. And that’s why all kids, they they are adventurous. I really don’t think the big problem is somehow teaching kids how to be curious. I think it’s somehow stimulating them to be curious in an effective and positive way.   Brian Keating: Barry Barish, Welcome back to the Into the Impossible podcast. It’s your 3rd time on the on the show. Thank you so much for doing this. Hi, Brian.   Speaker: Go ahead.   Brian Keating: You’re one of our, audience’s most favorite favorite guests for many reasons and Very special to me and, influence on my life and career. I’m actually the progenitor in some sense of my 2nd book called Into the Impossible. Think Like a Nobel Prize winner, which you did honor me by writing the, foreword to that book, the 2nd the 2nd book. And, since you’ve been on the show, the first time in 2020, when the kind of inciting incident that we’ll get to Led to the creation of this book. I’ve added a new feature to my to my episodes where I ask authors of books To help me and the audience judge their books by their covers, which   Speaker: Oh, by their covers? Yeah. You’re never supposed to   Brian Keating: do that. Right? You don’t judge a book by it. But else do you have to go on? Right? There’s there’s almost no information, especially if it’s somebody, you know, that’s a relatively unknown author. So an author spent a lot of time ruminating about, you know, what To call the book and and so forth. But, I thought we’d play, you know, we we play that same game even though you didn’t write this book, but your name is on the front. So when we talked first, it was actually the 2nd or 3rd time we had ever met. We we spoke about this notion that it’s very common in science called the imposter syndrome. And I remember, you know, clearly as day, and I told my wife that I just couldn’t believe that we closed out the interview when I asked you, as I asked all my guests as well, what advice you’d give to your former self.   Brian Keating: And you basically said, you know, to kinda get over the imposter syndrome. And I often think I’m not good enough to have the imposter syndrome, but but I was blown away. And I said, Barry, you won the Nobel Prize, and you said you still have it. Maybe you could recount a little bit of that, that that, sentiment that you Expressed, originally.   Speaker: Well, I think anybody, if they actually think about it, has it. I I happen to have a psychoanalyst for a wife, So I can’t avoid kind of the self reflection that that, makes it maybe more evident than than otherwise. But No matter what, you’re I think anybody is in company where people are, have more ability or whatever you’re talking about than you do. And I don’t remember what I said in the in the early one, but the The image that comes to my mind was actually at the office of the foundation for the Nobel Prize. Did did I talk about that?   Brian Keating: Yeah. That’s what I’d like. Yeah. I’d like to reiterate that.   Speaker: That was the so I’ll just repeat it in a few seconds. And that was it. You go and, you You know, there’s all this excitement, everything. It makes you feel like you’re 10 feet tall through a week of celebration for the Nobel Prize. And at the end, you go to collect your check and sign the book and get your, the portrait that they use. And, as the official portrait in the foundation offices, which aren’t very, like, yeah, you know, fancy or anything. It’s just a set of offices, in a nondescript building in Stockholm. And so you go and you go through all this stuff.   Speaker: Take your picture and so forth. And eventually, they they say, oh, but you also have to sign this book. And they pull out this little book. It’s It’s nondescript. It’s more nondescript than yours. It doesn’t as I remember, it didn’t have much of a cover. Maybe it’s all leather coming down.   Brian Keating: This Segment.   Speaker: And they opened to a page that had nothing on it, because of the fact that, in Nobel’s will, physics is first. So physics is the first one to get it and probably the 1st one in the office. I my name starts with b, so I must have been the first one. They were they opened this book to a blank page, And the top said, 2017. They just said sign your name. It’s okay. I signed my name, and then I didn’t know what to do. So I page backwards.   Speaker: And then you see the names of all the people you idolize in your life, you know, Einstein, Feynman, blah blah blah. And, if that isn’t a moment when you feel like you don’t belong, which is kind of the through dramatization of this syndrome. And then, you know, something’s wrong with you, I think. So so I think it’s a it’s a feature that we all have, and should just be aware of it. It shouldn’t stop you from anything. It’s true that you should be aware that you’re not uniquely, because nobody is better than everybody else in the world at everything in in the world. So the fact that you can do some

Bruce Partridge:What Happened AFTER the Big Bang?

Bruce Partridge: What Happened After the Big Bang? Transcript Brian Keating: Bruce Partridge, Emeritus professor of astronomy in the science department at Haverford College is a true pioneer and hero in the study of the cosmic microwave background. He’s one of the OGs.   Speaker: But it sure helped establish the cosmic nature of the radiation that And Williamson found.   Brian Keating: He was involved in the 1st measurements of the CMB spectrum to confirm its true cosmic origin. That result decimated the steady state theory. He was also one of the 1st scientists to look for the small scale temperature fluctuations which provided us with detailed insights into the distribution of matter in the early universe. He’s made major contributions in both theory and experiment, helping us understand the cosmos, turning cosmology into a precision science. Join us for an exciting episode as we explore the early universe.   Brian Keating: Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the Into the Impossible podcast featuring a friend, a colleague, a collaborator, And most importantly, a mentor in the space of education of my field, cosmologists, generations of them, And that’s Bruce Partridge, who’s an emeritus professor at Haverford College in Pennsylvania. How are   Speaker: you today, Bruce? Doing well. They’re here to talk to you. Yes. It’s about Maybe even at you.   Brian Keating: Yes. The Internet is quite is Quite amazing. It allows us to do these things. And I am talking to Bruce because of many things. First of all, he’s an incredible scientist and amazing, knowledge about the field, its its past, present, and maybe even its future, having been involved with some of the greatest experiments of all time, including, Perhaps, you know, one of the 1st or second experiments to really go after the detection of the CMB and its properties. And Bruce was involved with, with my grand advisor. So my grand advisor was David Wilkinson, and he advised Peter Timby. And I’m Philip Peter Timbe is soon to be hopefully collaborating closely with us on the Simons projects as well.   Brian Keating: So as I talked to you earlier in the week, We always love to do a segment on this podcast that represents something you’re not allowed to do, you’re not supposed to do, which is to judge a book by its cover. And you have 2 wonderful books, one of which I read 30 years ago, which is called three k. So I’ve always been eager to ask you how you came up with the title,   Speaker: and the cover design because it depicts the Horsehead Nebula, which to my knowledge has nothing to do with the 3 Kelvin background, but maybe it does. So Bruce, the clever title three k was mine. I figured a nice abbreviation. The damn cover was designed by Cambridge University Press. It’s part of a series, And they all show the Horsehead Nebula, which you’re right, has nothing to do with the micro background at all.   Brian Keating: I was thinking we could talk about the nebulae just for a minute in that It’s often said that, I think it was McKellar, had detected properties of cyanide, in the interstellar medium, and that Supposedly, that was, you know, revelatory of a 3 Kelvin background. What do you make of that? Did you know about those measurements? What do you think about those measurements in the early days 1940?   Speaker: The situation is following. These little cyanogen molecules, c n, that float around in space, But they appear to be excited as though they were bathed in a roughly 3 Kelvin field of radiation. They’re not at zero temperature, they’re 3 kelvins, 3 degrees above absolute zero, or roughly 5 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero. This is written down Back in the thirties and forties, and it was described by the discoverer as a being of some interest. But George Field, among other peoples, remembered reading that paper. And then when Enzys and Wilson found the 3 Kelvin radiation, he he recognized that that 3 k Three Kelvin radiation might be responsible for the excitation of cyanogen, and that gave us a measurement at a particular wavelength of 2.6 millimeters. Wasn’t very precise, but it sure helped establish the cosmic nature of the radiation that Enzius and Wilson found.   Brian Keating: That’s right. Now I look at a lot of your research and you have, you have an h index. I think it’s the, you know, the cube of mine or something like that or Number of papers and citations that number close to a100000, which is which is just astounding. And I I’ve gone through many of them because they’re all treasures and little Diamonds, and they’re not so rough. Many of them are incredibly readable. But I want to ask you about when I think of the Bruce Partridge brand, I think very high quality theory, but always attached and never divorced from experiments from the very beginning. Can you talk about your philosophy as a scientist? To couple together theory and experiment is very hard to do, But you managed to do it. Can you give us tips to mortals like me? How did you manage to cultivate that? Is that, like, intention by intentionality? Experiments like Planck, ACT, Now the Simons Observatory.   Brian Keating: What is that philosophy that says guided?   Speaker: In in terms of the theory side, I was interested in a field that was interesting but fairly simple. And if you go back to the sixties, cosmology was simple. We we didn’t know anything, so it was a very simple subject to get into. And that extended also to my abilities and interest in in the experimental side. When I showed up at Princeton as a postdoc, there were 2 experiments Going on, one was the most famous one, namely looking at the microwave background and trying to

Peter Diamandis: Are We Moving Too Fast With AI?

Peter Diamindis: Are We Moving Too Fast With AI?! Transcript Speaker: There’s no on off switch and there’s no velocity switch we can turn down. We’re using faster and faster computers to design and build faster and faster computers. We’re using stronger and stronger AI to write code on its own for stronger and stronger AI. The notion that we’re gonna have AI that is fully human like and then exceed human capabilities. I don’t think it’s a matter of if. It’s only a matter of when.   Brian Keating: Hi, everybody. Welcome back to AI and Your Life, the Essential Summit. I’m joined here. Well, I should say I’m Brian Keating, and I’m joined with my good friend And, mentor and and really, big influence influential person in my life, doctor Peter Diamandis, Who was recently named one of the world’s 50 greatest leaders by Fortune Magazine. Peter is the founder and Co and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, the executive founder and director of Singularity University, and cofounder of Bold Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250,000,000 in investing in in exponential technologies. Doctor Diamandis is also a best selling author New York Times best selling author of 2 books, Abundance and Bold. I’ve got those here. He earned degrees in molecular genetics, aerospace engineering from MIT and did his MD at Harvard Medical School.   Brian Keating: And Peter’s favorite saying is the best way to predict the future is to create it for yourself. Peter, it’s always a treat to be with you. Thank you for Joining us on this AI summit.   Speaker: My pleasure, my friend. A pleasure. And, I was just saying, when we’re getting ready here, how much I enjoy my time speaking with you. So this is always a treat when when you got 2 friends getting together and talking about the amazing world we’re living in.   Brian Keating: Yeah. We’ll we’ll run out of time before we run out of topics. We’ve, both hosted each other on each other’s podcast. Peter’s podcast is, Moonshots and Mindsets, And that’s, really delightful. It’s seen exponential growth of its own, so make sure you subscribe, wherever fine podcasts are bought and sold. So let’s get started. So, I wanna ask you. You are the person I look to, a guru for many things, but lately, there’s so much information coming in on AI, and so much promise, so much hype, so much excitement.   Brian Keating: And I I don’t have time. I I get 20 emails a week as you do, probably even more. But the one I always read is yours, in addition to mine. But I read yours because you distill it, You concatenate and you make sense of the world of the new developments in AI. So we talked a few months ago, but so much has changed. Where are we at right now with artificial intelligence?   Speaker: Wow. So where we are is at a fascinating, transition point, an inflection point. You know, one of the things I wanna just, put this into perspective. Right? I think we might have talked about this before. The first time AI was really discussed, was at a conference at Dartmouth in 1956. And so at that conference, some of the, you know, founding leaders in AI gather. It wasn’t a large group, was a dozen or so, but the the term artificial intelligence and the concepts around AI. And so that’s just 70 years ago or so.   Speaker: Why has it taken so long, to get to where we are today? We’re finally in 2023, and I put that as the inflection point because everybody’s speaking about it. Chat GPT was a user interface moment. I’ll talk about that in a moment too. But why did it take so long? And and it turns out there are really four reasons, that have done to us where we are today. The first is, computational power. Right, what’s called the law of accelerating returns by our friend, Ray Kurzweil, and, you know, Moore’s law, which is integrated circuits. There’s been an exponential growth, it’s continued, you know, doubling in power every 18 to 24 months And it’s just now, really in the last 5, 6, that was almost 7 years that there’s enough computational power you can throw at these deep neural networks to get them to operate. So computational power, and by the way, it’s just exploding still, you know, we’re seeing massive, GPU clouds that are coming on whether it’s Tesla or Microsoft or, you know, Google, everybody.   Speaker: So computational power is not slowing down. In fact, on a log scale, if you graph it, it’s curving upwards. Right, which tells you the rate at which it’s accelerating is itself accelerating. The second thing is the amount of labeled data out there. And this is the Internet, this is everything, every tweet, every Facebook post, every corporate web page, everything you ever put online. This labeled data is what these AI engines are crawling and learning from, they’re learning from us. It’s not like they’re making it up, you know, from 0, they’re basically modeling us, and they’re extrapolating and interpolating from the information we’ve given them. So the amount of data is doubling every 24 months.   Speaker: There’s a new term for the amount of data. We’re gonna hit a yottabyte of data very soon. I love that term. And the third reason is that the models, how we’re modeling AI. There’s been a 99.5% improvement over 5 years, so for a dollar invested. So it’s just getting cheaper and cheaper to create these models. And then the 4th reason, probably the most important one, is, you know, massive amount of money being invested 100 of 1,000,000,000 of dollars. So all those things are just turning the volume to 11 on AI here.   Speaker: So that isn’t slowing down. It’s accelerating.

Gad Saad: How Can You Be Happy After the October 7 Massacre?

Gad Saad: How Can You Be Happy After The October 7 Massacre? Transcript Brian Keating: Today, we feature 2 time guest, doctor Gad Sad, a marketing genius renowned for applying evolutionary psychology to consumer behavior. He’s a professor at Concordia University, a behavioral scientist, and a best selling author.   Speaker: Can you do something unique that makes you stick out from that clutter?   Brian Keating: You may know him from his strewn successfully in YouTube channel, the sad truth. Or you may know him from his previous appearance on the Into the Impossible podcast where we discussed his book, the acidic mind, in which he foretold of what would become of society starting in 2020. And he was uncannily accurate, explored how infectious Just ideas are killing common sense.   Speaker: But instead of leading us to the proverbial cat, it leads us to the abyss of infinite lunacy.   Brian Keating: Today, though, we dive into a happier topic, the sad truth about happiness. Join us for an insightful conversation. Discover the 8 secrets of living a good life even during times like these of war, conflict, famine, and pestilence.   Brian Keating: Professor Saad, how are you, my good friend?   Speaker: Oh, good to be with you again. Thank you for having me.   Brian Keating: We’re gonna go deep into happiness. We’re gonna go into get into a little, thermodynamics actually today. And I know that with your mathematics background At that, scourge of the Ivy Leagues, Cornell, you will, be able to hang with that. But, the first thing I wanted to ask you is why do we need another book on happiness? Our mutual friend, Dennis Prager, who we’ve both been involved with is Prager University, which Which is you know, we we you and I believe that that’s a real university. Right, Gada? I mean, I just wanna make it clear for the the people in the that’s not a real university. Did you know that? Yes. We’re aware of it. But, but we have all sorts of fake professors in the world, like, my favorite, professor Galloway, Scott Galloway or a professor who also wrote a happiness book or professor Dave Farina who has a bachelor’s degree, I believe.   Brian Keating: So, anyway, Gad, why do we need another happiness book? There’s so many of them out there.   Speaker: That’s a great question, and it actually made it daunting for me to decide whether I should Delve into writing a book on happiness. If you would have asked me 3 years ago on the heels of The Parasitic Mind coming out what would be Some of my future book projects, I would have never told you that, oh, yes. The next one is it looks like it’s gonna be a happiness book. So As many things in life, it was through some serendipitous forces. So it was really two reasons why I wrote the book, and then I’ll I’ll answer the question of, You know, why we need another happiness book in in answering, in the way that I will in a second. Number 1, I would get many, many emails from people Saying, how is it that you can tackle so many difficult, sensitive, dangerous, corrosive subject, and yet you always seem to have a twinkle in your eye. You’re always smiling. You don’t take yourself seriously.   Speaker: You do all these funny satirical skits. You’re Playing around. What’s your secret, professor? How are you so happy? So that was 1. The second thing is that, you know, Whenever I would post something that is prescriptive, usually as an evolutionary psychologist, as a consumer psychologist, I operate in descriptive world. I just Describe why humans do the things that they do. Prescriptive world is typically reserved for clinical psychologists or self help gurus. And but whenever I would post something that was prescriptive on my social media, which to me seemed like a like a banal call to action, That would be some of the stuff that would be most impactful to people. Oh my god.   Speaker: You don’t know how much you’ve changed my life by telling me the 4 steps to losing weight and how you lost weight. That I’ve lost 80 pounds now because of you, professor. And so I thought, okay. Well, people wanna know what’s my secret to happiness. They wanna They seem to really trust trust me as a source of dispensing information. Well, why don’t I take a crack at writing a book? But to your point, If there is 1 topic that philosophers have most written about, it’s the good life. It’s well-being. It’s happiness.   Speaker: So what can I add that’s unique? Well, Here is how I tackle it. My stories, my personal experiences are unique to me. So there is that coupled with the ancient wisdoms Backed up by the contemporary science, put that together, and I think if I’ve done a good job, you have a unique book.   Brian Keating: Yeah. It covers so many different topics, and, there’s there there is a prescriptive element to it, but I would say it’s also exploratory and sort of a hero’s journey fashion of how you have with tangible, you know, outcomes and and supporting anecdotes, which I you know, I always say the plural of data is not anecdotes or The other way around, I guess. But, but in reality, I think for me, looking at all these books, it seems kind of, hopeless. On one hand, Anybody can write a book about happiness. Right? I mean, my my, you know, toddler might be happy, and, oh, you could everything I needed to learn, I learned in kindergarten, which I say, I I updated that. I wrote a book called Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in Advanced Relativistic Astrophysics in graduate school. But, but, you know, I think For professors

Avi Loeb Strikes Back:Answering the Critics

Avi Loeb Strikes Back: Answering The Critics Transcript Brian Keating: K. So I’m broadcasting, and there are about 20 people who’ll be waiting. We’ll record it, and then we’ll upload it and edit it, so the maximum number of people can actually watch it. Let’s see here. Alright. So I believe we’re on live here. Yep. Okay.   Brian Keating: We’re on live on Twitter, and, and we’re also, I believe, live on YouTube. Let me check Yes. Yeah. Perfect. Okay. We’ll give it a minute. Let people join in. There’s hundreds of people coming around here.   Brian Keating: Let’s see if they will, see what questions they will come up with as well. We see a lot of things trending from the campus of Harvard, which is not always a good thing. Right, Avi?   Speaker: Well You’re   Brian Keating: trending on Twitter.   Speaker: Like anything, that humanity does these days, it can it can be better.   Brian Keating: Mhmm. So we got a a 100 plus people already. We’ll give it another minute. Let people trickle in. I’m also on LinkedIn, And Avi is so productive because he does not waste his time on what is known in Yiddish as is stuff for the ego, but he is, extremely prolific and needs basically no introduction. I will give him 1 in in just a minute. Let’s see if it’s live, it should be on LinkedIn. Join here, maybe this will work, maybe it won’t.   Brian Keating: Yep. Oh it’s wow. Okay so we’ve got this on multi different streams, interdisciplinary streams. So, first off, I wanna welcome you, and it’s been about 3 months since we spoke. We spoke last for your wonderful second book, Inter Stellar. And a lot has happened, since that time. And I cannot ignore kind of the mastodon trampling through the room and not ask you as, as as someone who was born in Israel, who was raised on farm in Israel, who is, one of the most preeminent scientist in the world, but also a very proud Jew and as am I. And I I don’t make any apologies for that.   Brian Keating: I was in Israel a mere 2 weeks before the October 7th, Hamas terrorist attacks. I was in Tel Aviv. I was in southern Israel. I was in Jerusalem, and I was very close because it was Rosh Hashanah. I actually got to be very close with a lot of, Palestinians, Arabs, because they were the ones working while Jews were enjoying their holiday. So I actually had many meals with with Palestinians, shared many rides with them on public and and private transport, and, had no inkling of what would happen, And the, the insight that I think we need to start with before we turn to to Harvard and then eventually to the, the subject that I originally invited you to speak about which is your area of expertise, which is this interstellar meteorite, which is received some pushback from the community as as happens. Some of it fair, some of it possibly not fair. We’ll talk about that.   Brian Keating: So 3 things on the agenda today. First of all, Avi, I need to give you a chance to just share your thoughts as as a man of science, as a man of conscience, and as a Jew. How have you been dealt affected by the events of October 7th?   Speaker: Well, let me first clarify. This is not a war between, the Palestinians and Israel. It’s a war between the Hamas in Israel and there is a clear distinction because, given the charter of the Hamas, there cannot be peace. There cannot be a two state solution. The Hamas calls for, the removal of Israel, for killing all citizens of Israel. There is no room for compromise. And therefore, anyone that’s, sides with a terrorist organization which basically aims to annihilate, -Uh, the state of Israel, kill all the Jews rather than reach a compromise, is basically advocating violence, And that has nothing to do with political opinion. I want to clarify that, you know, my wife is Peace seeking, Israeli, and she was always, on the left advocating for Finding a resolution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.   Speaker: But, what happened on October 7th was, rape Of women killing of babies, one of whom, you know, the I I will not get into the details. There is actually a film about it, but it was the Most violent, act of barbarism, against humanity. Basically, killing people, that had nothing to do with a military conflict. These are civilians at their homes. And, In a way, you know, it’s sort of like, the reckoning after 9/11, you know, we should all condemn such an act. Now Then you ask yourself, how is it possible that the 25 student organizations at Harvard University would cheer up And say that the victims, deserved it. Irrespective of political views, nobody should celebrate Killing of innocent civilians for any political purpose. And so that is a distortion of, the moral compass.   Speaker: And you ask yourself, how did we get there? Well, it’s obviously a result of social media where, that polarizes society, but you can’t just relate it to that. There is something wrong with academia. And yesterday, I was actually in Washington DC. I was jogging at 6 AM, on the Arlington Bridge, with a backdrop of a beautiful, sunrise. And it, a few a few hours later, Harvard’s president, along with 2 other university presidents, was testifying, in Capitol Hill where I I met with other people. And she was asked Claudine was asked whether calling for a genocide of Jews should be considered harassment. Yes or no? And she said it depends on the context. And not only she, but the other 2 presidents.   Speaker: And to me, That is a terrible message

Why I Went to War With Stephen Hawking – Leonard Susskind

Why I Went to War With Stephen Hawking – Leonard Susskind TRANSCRIPT Lenny Susskind: Go where your curiosity leads you. Pay no attention to what people are saying is or is not good science. If you are curious and you want to understand something, follow your nose and go where your curiosity leads. That’s the only thing I can say. All of the very, very good theoretical physicists that I know have done exactly that. Brian Keating: What did Steven mean to you personally As a foil, he wasn’t the easiest person to get along with. I I remember hearing that from many people, but, but he had this magical captivating Effect on all of science so much so that if you asked any person who’s the most famous scientist, they would say someone like Stephen Hawking. Not me. Yeah. Lenny Susskind: Well, there were many aspects of Stephen Hawking. First of all, he was a great physicist. There’s no question of that. Maybe it was a little bit of a stretch say that he was Einstein or Newton, but he was a very, very, very important influence in physics. But, you know, there were other aspects to him that, that certainly caught people’s imagination. His stubbornness against, against over overwhelming odds. How he managed to to not just survive, but to flourish and to do great physics when he could barely move no more than his eyelash. This is an incredible story. Lenny Susskind: So he was, in addition to being a great physicist and a hero to physicists because of his physics. He was a gigantic hero, in a in a much bigger sense. That being said, he could frustrate me. He could annoy me. He could anger me, but not because of any personality glitch, but because I was very frustrated by, by let me call it his Incredible stubbornness not to recognize the to to my mind, not to recognize the importance of his own work in a sense. It asked an extremely deep question, Really deep question. A question that, that has dominated theoretical physics ever since the, for, you know, for 30, 40 years now. But I felt he had taken the easy route and tried to find an easy answer when the answer was far more subtle and complex. Lenny Susskind: His recognition of the question was monumental. His answer was probably not. His answer was information is lost in black holes. That seemed wrong, and I wanted Steven very much to realize that His question would lead to something much deeper than what he, than what he had envisioned. So he was that’s right. He was a very complicated man, very complex and interesting, for sure. The problem is it was hard to communicate with him just because of physically hard to communicate Brian Keating: I remember once seeing him speak at a Royal Society meeting that I had somehow, stolen someone’s invitation to attend. And Steven was there, the guest, and it was, 1996 or so. And someone asked him a question, and this was when he could still move his finger. Yeah. So he said, they asked him, why did you write A Brief History of Time? It’s rumored that no one understands the entirety of this book, and no one’s even read it. And Steven answered in his inimitable, synthesized voice, I wrote it because my daughter needed to go to college. And his sense of humor comes across. Of course, your books are known for their clarity, but not for their dumbing down. Brian Keating : I actually, learned quite a great deal. Not that it’s, like, some great encomium to hear from some nobody like Brian Keating that he benefited and profited greatly from your book. But some of the topics that you talk about are more relevant than ever, 9 years after its publication. And I wanna ask you. In the intervening 9 years since you wrote the book, What has changed? What would you write differently if you were to write this book again other than lamenting the loss of your of your friend and and rival in a in a friendly way, Stephen Hawking? Lenny Susskind: Actually, I think I wouldn’t write anything different. I think I would write almost exactly the same thing, but the difference would be that I would have written another book right afterward on the follow-up of what happened afterwards. The follow-up of what happened afterwards in the last well, when did I write that book? 2005, something like that. It is now let’s see if I can do the arithmetic. 15 years later. Mhmm. The subject is the subject, and the subject means the subject of the quantum mechanics of gravity. That subject is not only expanded, but it’s been clarified, not more than clarified, almost revolutionized by new ideas, ideas that I did write about in that book, but which have developed extraordinarily, surprising directions. Lenny Susskind: So I don’t think I would have changed what I wrote in that book. I would have run another book afterwards. Mhmm. So if I have the, I don’t know if I have the endurance to do, to do it. Brian Keating : Yeah. I mean, when we think about books so your most famous paper, I looked up, you know, citations. I forget what it is. It’s several 100 to 1000 citations. This book and your other book, The Cosmic Landscape, I think, that book sold tens of tens and tens of thousands of of copies. What’s the difference when you write a popular a book for a popular audience that has a lot of red meat, sorry to my vegan fans, but, versus writing, you know, a paper, which might be read by a few Thousand nerds at most and maybe not even all the way through versus your book writing for the popular audience that’s consumed rabidly by hundreds of thousands of people. Lenny Susskind: First

Michael Turner Explains Dark Energy

Michael Turner Explains Dark Energy TRANSCRIPT Brian Keating : Michael Turner is a theoretical cosmologist, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, and former director of the Kavli Institute For Cosmological Physics. He’s a pioneer in exploring what he called the dark side of the universe. He actually coined the term dark energy, and his revolutionary ideas led to the cold dark matter theory of structure formation. Mike’s contributions to modern physics are truly invaluable, and I’m beyond thrilled to have him as a guest on my show. Join us in a deep dive into the dark side of our twisted universe. Welcome everybody to a very important, meaningful, and delightful episode of The Into the Impossible podcast with an impossibly brilliant guest who I’ve been, really, you know, in love with his mind since I was a wee lad, a graduate student, he’s a legend in the field, and it’s, professor Michael Turner, University Of Chicago, theoretical cosmologist who among many things is rumored to have coined the term dark energy. Michael, is that correct? Did you coin the term dark matter? Michael Turner : Guilt guilty as charged. Brian Keating : Who claimed that, I guess, Wiki coined the term dark matter in German. Correct? Michael Turner : That’s right. I can’t pronounce the German Dunkelmater or something like that. Brian Keating : Yeah. I think you’re you’re closer than I’ll ever get to it. Michael, where are you joining us from today? Michael Turner : I’m joining, from my office in Venice, California. Brian Keating : I really appreciate your time and whatever you’ll spare in person or online. But, Mike, we have a lot to talk about. We’ll run out of time before I run out of questions. Beg your forbearance as we go into the very first question I ask all my guests who honor me with, their presence on my humble podcast, And that is to judge a book by its cover. And in your case, your book with Rocky Kolb, your, colleague at the University of Chicago, has, really influenced generations of of cosmologists, of of theoretical particle physicists, astrophysicists, experimentalist like myself. And I want to do the following, if you will. To judge the book by its cover, I would like you to describe the cover art, The cover title and the subtitle. How did you and Rocky Kolb come up with it? Michael Turner : The original hardback version had a very boring cover. It was just white And the words early universe. And if my memory serves me correct, there was no subtitle. And, The paperback version which you may be referring to, has a wonderful story with it. The cover is a beautiful image of a galaxy, Actually, for its time. I mean, today, we get much better images from, JWST and and the Hubble. So the title, that was exceedingly easy. Rocky and I, were pioneers of studying the 1st microsecond. And, I like to tell the joke by the time we got to cosmology, you know, everybody specializes. All that was left was the 1st microsecond. And that is the early universe, but we got there at a very good time because the early universe had just opened up. Shortly before we got there, you couldn’t talk about the early universe because it was just a mess. It was nuclei and protons and neutrons sitting on top of one another. And we were there when the doors opened when people realized that it was cork soup. And early universe, it you know, a good title’s gotta be simple. It’s gotta have cosmology, and, early Where it was at? Do you wanna hear the paperback version? Brian Keating : Yeah. Because we’re gonna springboard from the paperback to a discussion of these peculiar properties of galaxies, which in my mind, Michael, I’m not gonna teach I’m not gonna let the student teach the master, but a galaxy is not exactly, at least when I was a kid, An early universe phenomenon of the 1st microsecond. So, yes, how did that come to be? The Whirlpool Galaxy. Michael Turner : So that’s perfect. Our our our book did really, really well, And it was going into paperback, and I was in Aspen, Colorado, and they sent the artwork to me for the new cover. And it was this beautiful picture of a galaxy, and, I called up Rocky, And he said, well, you got the cover artwork. What do you think? And I said, it’s beautiful, but it has nothing to do with our book. And he said, we’ll take it. So our book is about the 1st microsecond, but that’s where the blueprint for the universe got laid out And that’s where galaxies can trace their origins to. So it’s not quite fair to say that, it was a bait and switch, that it’s not really about the Pretty Galaxies You See in the Sky, but the cover was chosen because oh my god. Well, the, I wish I had could easily get copies here. It’s so funny. Rocky and I pioneered a lot of ground there. I think we were at book number 69, And David we we asked David to make some changes because he had a standard preface that talked about, You know, these are not to be designed to be polished, and, they’re typically from mimeograph notes. Yeah. And we said to David, David, what is a mimeograph machine? And, so we changed some of his, forward, but they had a standard. You know, that’s important when you have a brand. Frontiers in Physics was a brand, and it was very simple. It was white and blue. But then when some other publishing company took it over and did the paperback, they made it really fancy. Brian Keating : It’s still in the top 200 of books in astrophysics even, you know, it’s, coming up on its 30th 30th anniversary, incredible, of