Brian Keating: Astrophysicist and professor at UC San Diego, known for the BICEP South Pole experiment and the books 'Losing the Nobel Prize' and 'Into the Impossible'. He leads work on the Simons Observatory in Chile probing the birth of the universe.
What this episode covers
Brian Keating walks Steven Bartlett through humanity's quest to understand the origin of the universe and whether it had a singular Big Bang beginning. He recounts the BICEP experiment at the South Pole that appeared to detect the signature of cosmic inflation, only to be retracted when the signal turned out to be galactic dust, and the new $200M Simons Observatory built to finally answer the question. The conversation ranges widely across the existence and nature of God, faith versus evidence, simulation theory, astrology, and the probability of alien life. Keating argues we are likely alone given how many improbable events had to align for Earth to host life, and closes on meaning, mortality, impostor syndrome among Nobel laureates, and the lasting impact of creative work.
The guest's own work
Losing the Nobel Prize
Brian Keating
“spoiler alert my first book's called losing the Nobel Prize but there's only you know at most three people that can win a Nobel Prize every year in my field”— Brian Keating
Into the Impossible
Brian Keating
“the forward to the my second book into the apostles was written by Barry barish he won the 2017 Nobel Prize”— Brian Keating
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan
“people remember the movie Interstellar You' seen that movie ... the people on Earth are communicating with the people you know Matthew mcc's daughter”— Brian Keating
2001: A Space Odyssey
Stanley Kubrick
“the word podcast do you know that comes from the movie 2001 A Space Odyssey ... it was an engineer who called it an iPod”— Brian Keating
Animal Farm
George Orwell
“there's a there's a scene in the book Animal Farm um where there's this donkey named Benjamin and he's talking to the pig”— Brian Keating
Apple Vision Pro
Apple
“now you have an apple Vision Pro I think I I saw you with once um so that can you know kind of simulate it could make very accurate representation of me”— Brian Keating
Waking Up
Sam Harris
“there's no Sam Harris meditation waking up app it's not going to do the same for you as as just you alone”— Brian Keating
Big reveals from this episode
- Keating's team announced detecting the 'baby picture' of the Big Bang and was heralded worldwide as the greatest discovery in science.
- The signal turned out to be galactic cosmic dust, forcing a public retraction in early 2015 that he calls the most crushing experience a scientist can have.
- Mathematician Jim Simons funded the dream-team follow-up; the new Chile observatory got first light a month before Simons died.
- Bartlett reveals he was religious until 18, then fell down a Richard Dawkins rabbit hole and became agnostic.
- Keating concedes you cannot test God with the laws of physics and therefore cannot prove God exists, despite wanting to.
- Keating states he believes it is very high probability that we are alone in the universe.
- Keating gets emotional about death and friends impacted by October 7th, saying he has cried more in the past year than ever.
- Reveals Isaac Newton had impostor syndrome over Jesus and tried to die a virgin as Jesus did.
Worth remembering
- The iron in your blood's hemoglobin was forged in a supernova; we are literally 'star stuff'.
- Hemoglobin is nearly identical to chlorophyll, except chlorophyll has magnesium at its center and hemoglobin has iron.
- Almost every star has roughly 10 planets; the observable universe holds about a 1 followed by 24 zeros worth of planets.
- The farthest probe (launched 1977) is only one light-day away; the nearest star is 1,200 times farther.
- If the Milky Way were a 2.5m table, our entire solar system would be about half a grain of sand, and there are ~100 billion such 'tables'.
- There are more stars in the observable universe than grains of sand on every beach on Earth.
- The word 'podcast' traces back to the iPod, whose name came from the 'pod' in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- An asteroid about an inch across (in his model) hit the Yucatan ~65M years ago, killing the dinosaurs and clearing the way for mammals.
- Keating was born September 9th, statistically the most common birthday, roughly nine months after the holiday season.
- The Moon formed when a Mars-sized planet called Theia smashed into the early Earth.