0:00

I don't know if you heard about

0:02

this, but there was an asteroid spotted.

0:04

We might have a 1%, 2%, this

0:06

week it got as high as 3%

0:08

chance of being impacted by a 300-foot

0:10

wide, you know, bigger than Foxborough Stadium.

0:12

If it does hit the earth, I

0:14

think it was like 2032, I would

0:16

think it was, right? Yeah. By then,

0:18

do you think we would be able

0:21

to do anything about it in 2032?

0:23

That's a very good question.

0:26

This is only seven years from now,

0:28

Ryan, right? Astronomy is not an experimental

0:30

science. It's a purely observational science. We

0:32

have time machines, so telescopes are time

0:34

machines. They allow you to look back

0:36

in history and see it as it

0:38

was then. Web is able to do

0:41

things as far back as the beginning

0:43

of the earliest galaxies. Not quite the

0:45

Big Bang, but closer to it than

0:47

ever before. And one of the most

0:49

interesting aspects of it is to look

0:51

for extraterrestrial life. on other planets and

0:54

the formation of so-called

0:56

exosolar planets that could

0:59

harbor extraterrestrial intelligence. It's

1:01

one of the most

1:03

exciting discoveries, if true, that

1:05

could ever be named. So are there

1:08

any big unanswered questions about the

1:10

universe that keeps you up

1:12

at night right now? They don't keep

1:14

me up at night, they keep me

1:16

fully employed. You know, that's the nice

1:18

thing about being a scientist is you

1:20

never run out of mysteries. You know,

1:22

science is what's known as an infinite

1:24

game that you, you know, the object

1:27

is to keep playing. But it's made

1:29

up of a whole bunch of finite

1:31

games, you know, getting into college, getting

1:33

into graduate school, getting into, you know,

1:35

prestigious postdoc or working as a faculty

1:37

member. These are all things that are

1:39

mandatory to succeed and then they can

1:41

keep going, getting tenure, winning a Nobel

1:43

Prize. But luckily nature supplies us with

1:45

an unending supply of mysteries that have varying

1:47

degrees of importance, interest to the general public

1:49

and interest of scientists. So they don't keep

1:51

me up at night, but they get me

1:54

so excited to get up in the morning.

1:56

That's the more important thing. Have the questions

1:58

to have the tools. have the collaborators to

2:01

really unravel what would have seemed like godlike

2:03

abilities, you know, just a hundred years ago.

2:05

I mean, we've learned so much, but there's

2:07

so much more left to learn. So yeah,

2:10

it's a fascinating job. It's the best job

2:12

in the universe. I can't believe I got

2:14

paid to do it, you know, and not

2:17

very much, but as a public employee at

2:19

a university in California, but it's really the

2:21

best thing I could ever imagine doing.

2:23

Now is there any are there any

2:25

mysteries right now about the universe that

2:27

are getting you going that you're really

2:30

working on or try to figure out

2:32

or that the collective is trying to

2:34

figure out? Yeah, we're trying to unravel

2:36

what happened before the Big Bang. The

2:38

Big Bang is thought to be the

2:40

origin of the universe. Now, whether that

2:43

was the origin of all matter, all

2:45

energy, everything that was, is, or ever

2:47

will be, is one of the hottest

2:49

questions in all of science. We don't

2:51

know for sure that our universe is

2:53

unique. In other words, there could be

2:55

other universes. parallel universes, universes that exist

2:58

parallel to us in time or in

3:00

space, you know, at the same time

3:02

or both. And there could be as

3:04

many as, uh, as an infinite number

3:06

of so-called universes within the multiverse, what's

3:08

called the multiverse. So that is perhaps

3:11

one of the biggest mysteries of all

3:13

time, not just of, you know, modern

3:15

day science. And until now, it hasn't

3:17

been possible to identify ways to answer

3:19

that question. You know, people ask me

3:21

all the time, you know, do you

3:23

know, I was, there was, there was

3:26

a, there was a, not as successful

3:28

as you. His name is Sean Kim

3:30

on Instagram. He's got 16 million followers.

3:32

He's been trying to get me on

3:34

this podcast for a while, but you

3:36

know, I had to go on you,

3:39

Brian, first, because, you know, fellow Brian,

3:41

even though you spell your name with

3:43

a wife. So it's a, you know,

3:45

we can, mine's an an anagram for

3:47

brain. So that's the only advantage of

3:49

my spelling. But he's put a tweet

3:51

today or put out post on Instagram.

3:54

Yeah. 55,000 like so far. You know,

3:56

do you believe in evolution? So I

3:58

wrote them back, provocative. I don't believe

4:00

in evolution. Not at all. I'm not,

4:02

as a scientist, I don't believe in

4:04

evolution. I have evidence for evolution. And

4:07

that's the distinction that most people don't

4:09

realize. We don't talk about belief. You

4:11

know, I don't believe in, you know,

4:13

unicorns or the tooth fairy either, but

4:15

I also don't have evidence for them.

4:17

So the difference between scientific pursuits that...

4:19

a good scientist should do not many

4:22

not all scientists are good scientists there's

4:24

a bad many bad scientists as there

4:26

are bad you know accountants or lawyers

4:28

so it's not immune from that just

4:30

because we study something that seems to

4:32

have no practical benefit people assume we're

4:35

all altruistic and just want to give

4:37

you know of ourselves but no we

4:39

have a whole lot of ordinary desires

4:41

and and greed and jealousy and envy

4:43

and all sorts of petty things as

4:45

well as wonderful traits as well curiosity

4:48

imagination and this sense of wonder that's

4:50

very childlike, and I think that's delightful.

4:52

But we don't believe in things. A

4:54

good scientist shouldn't believe in, they shouldn't

4:56

believe, you know, in germs. We have

4:58

evidence for germs, viruses, you know, vaccines,

5:00

work, all sorts of things that are

5:03

controversial to, you know, general public. But

5:05

that doesn't mean I'm denigrating faith. You

5:07

know, faith has a place as well

5:09

in human endeavor, and we're creatures of

5:11

faith in language. And because of that,

5:13

people conflate and mix together belief and

5:16

evidence. And science is the one place

5:18

that shouldn't ever happen. So I don't

5:20

believe in gravity. I don't believe in

5:22

the Big Bang. I don't believe in

5:24

evolution. I have evidence for them. So

5:26

the thing you may be to answer

5:28

your first question less flippantly. That's the

5:31

thing that keeps me up. perception of

5:33

how much they should trust in science

5:35

and how much work and kind of

5:37

activity of their mind they should outsource

5:39

to scientists. So I'm trying to do

5:41

my part through my public outreach on

5:44

YouTube and and podcast and my appearances

5:46

on other shows like this to give

5:48

back to the public who pay my

5:50

salary a way that they can interpret

5:52

a new scientific reasoning to improve their

5:54

lives and improve their interpretation of this

5:56

very brief moment in time in the

5:59

universe's history that we get to call

6:01

being young and alive. Yeah. Isn't there

6:03

some, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't

6:05

there some doubts about the Big Bang

6:07

right now? Like wasn't there like some

6:09

recent thing that came out about it?

6:12

I might be wrong, I'm not sure.

6:14

No, you're absolutely right. Yeah, there's always

6:16

doubts. Look, the Big Bang is not

6:18

the final word. Einstein is not the

6:20

final word. And that's the beauty of

6:22

science. Science is always provisional. That word

6:24

may not be familiar to many of

6:27

your listeners, or maybe it will be.

6:29

Science is provisional. I could be wrong

6:31

tomorrow and that's a good thing. And

6:33

scientists, most of all, should be welcoming

6:35

the idea that they could be overthrown,

6:37

made irrelevant. And the swifter that occurs,

6:40

the better, because the more frequently you

6:42

can iterate, improve your reasoning and your

6:44

thought process, the better, because then you

6:46

can make more progress. Again. We scientists

6:48

should be very stoic. We should believe

6:50

that we have a very limited amount

6:52

of time to be alive to do

6:55

the type of work that we do.

6:57

Most scientists do their best work when

6:59

they are young, when they are, you

7:01

know, kind of below 50, I'm over

7:03

50, but younger than 50 is kind

7:05

of the common age, younger than 30

7:08

even in some cases to win Nobel

7:10

Prizes, to win accolades, and so forth.

7:12

So we have a limited amount of

7:14

time. but we shouldn't be afraid of

7:16

being wrong. And so I'm not at

7:18

all afraid of finding out the Big

7:21

Bang didn't happen. And in fact, I

7:23

have videos on my podcast with many,

7:25

many of the most eminent minds that

7:27

I respect so much, and they believe

7:29

the Big Bang didn't happen, or perhaps

7:31

it happened in a different way than

7:33

we had originally thought. But all these

7:36

things are very recent in developments in

7:38

this three pound supercomputer that sits on

7:40

our shoulders called the brain. This has

7:42

only been around for, you know, 50,

7:44

60 years at most out of. 200,000

7:46

years of being Homo sapiens. So the

7:49

fact that we can even comprehend this

7:51

stuff, let alone prove it via data,

7:53

via evidence, via scientific theories and paradigms

7:55

that get overthrown and replaced by better

7:57

ones. So a good way to think

7:59

about this is, you know, I've got

8:01

a globe in the back, I don't

8:04

know if you can see it, my

8:06

boca so creamy lately. gotten addicted to

8:08

lenses and stuff. Brian, it's an addiction

8:10

that, you know, hopefully my wife will

8:12

forgive me for. But, but the, there's

8:14

a globe in the back sort of

8:17

right around here if you're got a

8:19

wide screen. And it's perfectly round, but

8:21

the earth is not perfectly round. It's

8:23

not flat, and it's farther from being

8:25

flat than it is from being round.

8:27

So if you think it's flat, you're

8:29

completely wrong. You're unequivocally wrong, you're unequivocally

8:32

wrong, you know, the flurfers, that believe

8:34

that. But if you think it's round,

8:36

you're also completely wrong, you know, the

8:38

flurfers, that believe that. But if you

8:40

think it's round, and it's... for a

8:42

long time and thought it was around,

8:45

but thinking that it's purely round is

8:47

also detrimental. It's a thing, it's flat

8:49

means you think you're going to fall

8:51

off the edge of the earth, what

8:53

does that do that impede scientific progress

8:55

and exploration? People thought they'd fall off

8:57

the edge of the earth, they'd be

9:00

more reluctant, might be apocry, I'm not

9:02

sure. Seriously believed by intelligent people, or

9:04

explorers even. But let's just say you

9:06

believed it believed that you believed it,

9:08

that you could fall off the edge

9:10

of the earth. And that was bad

9:13

because believing that would impede the scientific

9:15

knowledge that actually we live on a

9:17

planet and that planet goes around and

9:19

there's still millions of people that believe

9:21

this as I joke all around the

9:23

globe. There are people that believe the

9:25

Earth is flat. Now beyond that, believing

9:28

the Earth is perfectly around is also

9:30

a mistake, less egregious, but it's a

9:32

mistake. And that would also, if you

9:34

were dogmatic about that Brian, you would

9:36

then, you know, remove the possibility that

9:38

you could ever... this determined that the

9:41

earth is rotating and that the earth

9:43

formed from a more molten state when

9:45

it was more plastic and its rotation

9:47

causes it to bulge slightly at the

9:49

equator like some of us when we

9:51

get older. The earth bulges slightly, it's

9:53

not a perfect sphere, it's a flattened

9:56

what's called, you know, oblate sphere, it's

9:58

more spherical than flat, but always being

10:00

open to overthrowing your previously held paradigm

10:02

allows you to learn more and more

10:04

things. So in science, the controversy now

10:06

that you alluded to in your question

10:09

is whether or not the Big Bang

10:11

happened. I would be overjoyed to find

10:13

out either way. People ask me, what

10:15

do you hope to discover with your

10:17

200 million dollar project that you co-lead

10:19

in Chile? And we can talk about

10:22

that. I don't hope to find anything.

10:24

I hope to discover the truth and

10:26

get closer and closer to it with

10:28

more and more data, more and more

10:30

evidence, more facts, and more and more

10:32

of this unique capability that humans can

10:34

do for now, which is called the

10:37

scientific method. This is the only sponsorship

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for 14 days. Do not wait until

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it's too late. Now back to the

11:41

podcast. Yeah, if you look at like

11:43

the history of like scientific discoveries, it's

11:46

always like beliefs being challenged. Like people

11:48

used to think that the Earth was

11:50

the center of the universe and then

11:52

that was challenged. Like there's all these

11:54

beliefs that we have and then they're

11:56

constantly challenged. So you know, I hope

11:58

people. these days can be open to

12:01

that, the fact that some of these

12:03

common beliefs that we have about the

12:05

universe might not even be true, and

12:07

then who knows what discoveries will happen

12:09

in your lifetime, right? I couldn't add

12:12

anything to what you said, it's perfect.

12:14

So for people that don't understand how

12:16

big the universe truly is, like what's

12:18

a good analogy? that you can use

12:21

to like really get it through them.

12:23

Yeah, so for a long time we

12:25

thought the earth was effectively the entirety

12:27

of the known universe. We knew about

12:30

objects in the night sky that were

12:32

fixed in place. They seemed to be

12:34

glued onto some fictitious globe that surrounded

12:37

us called the the night sky. But

12:39

there were five other objects that seemed

12:41

to move against those fixed stars

12:43

and those were the, you know,

12:46

obviously the sun. and then the

12:48

moon and then mercury Venus Mars

12:50

Jupiter and Saturn those those planets

12:52

the first five planets from the

12:54

sun those were all that were

12:56

known for since antiquity since you

12:59

know two three thousand years ago

13:01

and that only really changed our

13:03

perspective when the telescope was was

13:05

invented in the late 1500s and

13:07

then perfected by Galileo in early

13:10

1609 and 1610 in in Padua

13:12

in Italy. And what he did with

13:14

that telescope is really move the earth from

13:16

being the center of the universe. Think of

13:18

the telescope as a lever. I have a

13:20

telescope somewhere around here. Never too far away

13:23

from a telescope as an astronomer. But what

13:25

he did was he moved it like a

13:27

lever from its lever from its place. Where

13:29

it had been centered for innumerable years and

13:31

eons. But that wasn't the end of it.

13:34

Again, good science is about overthrowing. So the

13:36

earth is not the center. He claimed the

13:38

sun is the center of the center of

13:40

the universe, just the solar system. We had

13:42

no idea how far away the stars were

13:45

at that time. So the universe expanded from

13:47

being just the earth, just the part that

13:49

we could kind of explore in a human

13:51

lifetime or a few human lifetimes. We hadn't

13:53

even explored most of the continents, you know,

13:56

the Antarctica, for example, it wasn't reached for

13:58

400 years later. So this whole... you know,

14:00

kind of epic story of discovery is

14:02

one of sort of blows to our

14:05

cosmic ego because we first thought we

14:07

were the center of the universe. The

14:09

center of the earth is the most

14:11

important place in the universe. Aristotle, even

14:14

up to the church, etc. in the

14:16

Renaissance, they really believe that the Earth

14:18

is the center of the universe. Then

14:21

Galileo, Copernicus, based on Copernicus's ideas, demonstrated

14:23

the Earth is not the center of

14:25

the solar system. It's in fact one

14:27

of the, you know, five planets that

14:30

orbit around it that were known at

14:32

the time, and then later more planets

14:34

would be discovered. Then we learned that

14:37

the Sun isn't the center of the

14:39

galaxy. that we live in a galaxy,

14:41

it's sort of an island of a

14:43

hundred billion or more stars, many of

14:46

them like the sun, many of them

14:48

very different from the sun. We have

14:50

all sorts of weird and exotic stellar

14:53

objects. These are objects that undergo nuclear

14:55

fusion, that produce heat and light in

14:57

most cases. Some of them when they

14:59

die, they become really exotic materials called

15:02

neutron stars. We don't have to get

15:04

into that or black holes. You've probably

15:06

heard of it. orbiting around the center

15:09

of the galaxy at a distance of

15:11

some, you know, 30,000 or so light

15:13

years. So a light year is the

15:15

distance traveled by light in one year.

15:18

And this was phenomenal discovery and later

15:20

it was just demonstrated that there are

15:22

more than one galaxy that the objects

15:25

that were formerly thought to be part

15:27

of our galaxy, such as what was

15:29

called the Andromeda and nebula, but is

15:31

really a galaxy. that that object was

15:34

actually located 2.5 million light years away.

15:36

So when the very first hominids in

15:38

Africa were coming out of Olduvai Gorge,

15:41

2.5 million years ago, the light that

15:43

we can see tonight from the Andromeda

15:45

galaxy left on its journey to my

15:47

eyes or your eyes or a telescope.

15:50

You actually see it with your naked

15:52

eye if you live in a dark

15:54

spot. Where do you live, Brian? Where

15:57

do you live, Brian? a lot of

15:59

attractions associated with it. So you can

16:01

certainly glimpse it through a telescope at

16:03

Harvard or MIT or Boston College or

16:06

Boston University. Anyway, so that was then

16:08

discovery that we live in just one

16:10

of perhaps 100 billion more galaxies. Each

16:13

one filled with 100 billion or more

16:15

stars. Each of those stars harboring 10,

16:17

maybe 100 types of planets or asteroids,

16:20

comets and Kuiper belt type objects. And

16:22

so the scale of the universe gotten

16:24

bigger and bigger and bigger. But all

16:26

those discoveries, except for the discovery of

16:29

the sun being the center of our

16:31

solar system, all of those were made

16:33

in the last hundred years exactly. In

16:36

other words, the fact that we live

16:38

in a galaxy, it was not known

16:40

until 1929, the fact that there were

16:42

other galaxies, and that those galaxies are

16:45

in fact moving away from us. And

16:47

over time, people have suspected... At each

16:49

moment, we're the center of something, first

16:52

center of the Earth, next center of

16:54

the solar system, next center of the

16:56

galaxy, and now we know we're not

16:58

the center of the galaxy, maybe we're

17:01

the center of the universe. No, we're

17:03

not the center of the universe. every

17:05

point in the universe is the center

17:08

of itself of the universe and the

17:10

universe keeps getting bigger and bigger it's

17:12

expanding expanding into what we don't exactly

17:14

know but it could be we're expanding

17:17

towards other universes now be the ultimate

17:19

kind of Copernican revolution starting with the

17:21

earth not being the center of the

17:24

universe to our universe not being the

17:26

center of the multiverse that is the

17:28

hottest topic in all of science in

17:30

my opinion right now So I have

17:33

a theory and before I say keep

17:35

in mind that this is coming from

17:37

a 25 year old It's like I

17:40

have a psychology degree like this isn't

17:42

my field But I do have a

17:44

theory that like that just like like

17:46

the atoms and stuff that make us

17:49

make us up like is what's the

17:51

chances? That like the universe itself is

17:53

like that where we're something making a

17:56

bigger structure. Does that make sense? The

17:58

universe is like a cell in some

18:00

organism or something I'm not or an

18:02

atom in a in a yeah, so

18:05

it's like Yeah it all makes up

18:07

like a bigger structure whether that's that's

18:09

that's my stupid theory, but what do

18:12

you think about that? Well, okay. So

18:14

it's not stupid in the sense that

18:16

most of the interesting things that occur

18:18

in the universe, in nature, etc. are

18:21

networks. And in fact, you know, we're

18:23

connected through a social network, right? I

18:25

mean, so these are a phenomena of

18:28

the importance derived not from the individual

18:30

components of the network, but the network

18:32

connections between other things. So for example.

18:34

Each neuron in your brain is connected

18:37

to hundreds or perhaps thousands of others

18:39

and what are called synapses and those

18:41

spread out and there's perhaps a hundred

18:44

trillion known possible permutations of connections in

18:46

a human brain. The galaxy is made

18:48

up networks held together by gravity of

18:50

stars of planets of comets and things

18:53

like that. Galaxies are held together in

18:55

what are called clusters and then clusters

18:57

of galaxies, perhaps a thousand galaxies like

19:00

the Milky Way. are held together in

19:02

superclusters of perhaps tens of thousands of

19:04

galaxies and those create these vast filaments

19:06

and if you look at the filamentary

19:09

structure seated with with planets with podcasters

19:11

with stars with galaxies you also have

19:13

a lot of dark matter and there's

19:16

dark energy and exotic materials called neutrinos

19:18

All of these things are bound together

19:20

in a network. And if you look

19:22

at those networks, they spread out and

19:25

they look kind of like this spongy

19:27

type material where there's pockets where there's

19:29

nothing, there's pockets where there's very high

19:32

density, and that's where the interesting stuff

19:34

like you and me reside. So now,

19:36

whether that then expands into a bigger

19:38

structure called the universe, called the multiverse,

19:41

is not understood. There are theories that

19:43

that actually has a spongy-like structure like

19:45

structure. instead of the individual material, the

19:48

sponge being galaxies or clusters of galaxies,

19:50

or neurons, they're universes. That's very speculative.

19:52

There's no evidence for it. But so

19:54

where there's no evidence... I never thought...

19:57

I gave up my morning coffee, not

19:59

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20:47

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20:52

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21:53

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21:56

speculate. Yeah. So what have we learned

21:58

from the from the James Webb telescope?

22:00

That one up in 2021, right? Around

22:02

that time. It was launched in Christmas

22:05

Day, 2021. And it's been in orbit,

22:07

you know, revealing the universe in wavelengths

22:09

that the human eye can't see called

22:12

infrared radiation. and that's slightly longer. It's

22:14

the way it's the type of radiation

22:16

that causes the sensation of heat. So

22:18

you can go outside on a sunny

22:21

day here, it's finally sunny, and you

22:23

can put your hand up and you

22:25

can keep your eyes closed like this,

22:28

and you can move your hand around,

22:30

you can locate the sun, right? You

22:32

can imagine your hands are acting like

22:34

crude eyes, but only because they're sensitive,

22:37

the molecules rub together and they're heated

22:39

up by the infrared radiation, not the

22:41

visible light. and you'll still be able

22:44

to detect it with your hand using

22:46

the infrared transmitting portion of these filters.

22:48

So when you do that, you're able

22:50

to detect the sun. So we're actually

22:53

able to sense it, but not with

22:55

our eyes. So what the James Webspace

22:57

telescope said, well, this whole invisible universe

23:00

that we can't see, but we can

23:02

feel in a sense, we can detect

23:04

more phenomena than we have seen before.

23:06

And so it's really focused on that.

23:09

And the types of findings that they're

23:11

unveiling have to do with everything from

23:13

the earliest galaxies in the universe, what

23:16

did they look like? Sort of looking

23:18

back in evolutionary terms, you know, astronomy

23:20

is very hard. because we can't do

23:22

an experiment. You know, you can do

23:25

an experiment in your psychology class, you

23:27

know, you can put some marshmallows in

23:29

front of some toddlers and see if

23:32

they grab them, right? I mean, you

23:34

probably done a bunch of, you know,

23:36

you can threaten to electrocute people, you

23:38

know, and be jailers like in the

23:41

Stanford Prison experiment, and I'm sure you're

23:43

familiar with all these things, you know,

23:45

electric shots. marshmallows, you know, hopefully more

23:48

marshmallows and electric shocks. Hopefully you're a

23:50

nice guy. And then you're doing an

23:52

experiment. What are you doing? You're comparing

23:54

the ones that you shock or give

23:57

marshmallows to. The ones you didn't give

23:59

marshmallows to are the ones you didn't

24:01

shock. So you have a control. You

24:04

have a variable and you have a

24:06

control with. astronomy we can't do that

24:08

I can't go and say hmm wonder

24:10

what happened if I turn the magnetic

24:13

field of the earth you know up

24:15

a thousand times and then I watch

24:17

what happens or the sun's temperature can

24:20

I change the sun's temperature up by

24:22

a thousand times and then see what

24:24

happens to sunspots or solar storms or

24:27

all sorts of things. Or what if

24:29

I added 20 times more dark matter

24:31

in our game? So it's obvious we

24:33

can't do any of those things. So

24:36

astronomy is not an experimental science, but

24:38

it's a purely observational science. And that's

24:40

very, very unusual in the annals of

24:43

all scientific endeavor. So what can we

24:45

do? Well, there happens to be the

24:47

good thing that we have access to

24:49

to really unique tools that no psychologist,

24:52

biologist, or chemist could have access to,

24:54

and that's we have time machines. So

24:56

telescopes or time machines, they allow you

24:59

to look back in history and see

25:01

it as it was then. unlike what

25:03

we do with archaeology. We see, not

25:05

unlike what we do with art, so

25:08

we see a fossil, and it kind

25:10

of has some aspects of what it

25:12

was like when it was alive. You

25:15

know, maybe it was eating something, maybe

25:17

the dinosaur was pregnant, maybe it was

25:19

trapped in this kind of, maybe the

25:21

dinosaur was pregnant, maybe it was trapped

25:24

in this kind of geological formation, so

25:26

you can kind of understand the environment,

25:28

but you can't see it as they

25:31

were when they were... babies are alive,

25:33

if you will, young and alive. And

25:35

so when you look back, you see

25:37

galaxies and you can ask, what were

25:40

their evolutionary paths from that time? And

25:42

then you look at older and older

25:44

galaxies, or younger and younger galaxies, going

25:47

forward in time. And then you see

25:49

what they look like. And you see,

25:51

are they similar to galaxies today? Are

25:53

they different? Do they have the same

25:56

structure, the same number of stars, the

25:58

same color, temperature of stars? Were they

26:00

undergoing fusion? same rate, was there as

26:03

much dark manner, was the dark energy

26:05

affecting it, all these things blend together.

26:07

And that's what the web can do

26:09

uniquely so, such a wonderful job of.

26:12

It can also do stuff much closer

26:14

to us in our own solar system.

26:16

It's looked at Jupiter. It's looked at

26:19

this asteroid. I don't know if you

26:21

heard about this, but there was an

26:23

asteroid spotted. I write about this on

26:25

my newsletter, it's briankeying.com. You can find

26:28

it there. And there's an asteroid not

26:30

like this one, so I give these

26:32

away. My bokas, too luxurious of blending

26:35

it up. But if you're watching, I'm

26:37

holding up a chunk of an asteroid.

26:39

So this is a chunk, not the

26:41

asteroid that could come and destroy Earth,

26:44

but it's still an asteroid. fragment nonetheless

26:46

called a meteorite. So it fell in

26:48

Argentina in 1604 or something like that.

26:51

I wasn't there, but we dated it

26:53

and I give them away on my

26:55

website brianking.com so you can subscribe for

26:57

that. And I write about like what

27:00

are the implications of this psychologically on

27:02

knowing that we might have a 1%

27:04

2% this week it got as high

27:07

as 3% chance of being impacted by

27:09

a 300 foot wide, you know, bigger

27:11

than than Foxborough Stadium there where I

27:13

used to hang out when I was

27:16

at Brown University. So yeah, these these

27:18

objects are just phenomenally interesting and James

27:20

Webb was able to reveal that actually

27:23

has a lower percent chance, you know,

27:25

so don't, you know, don't, don't take

27:27

those jello shots that people are talking

27:29

about or whatever, you know, keep living

27:32

your life. It's, it's probably not going

27:34

to head, but it's good to think

27:36

about those things, existential, appreciate what we

27:39

have even more on being alive and

27:41

the present moment, what we call momento

27:43

mori, you know, is a very important

27:45

concept in humanity and we shouldn't lose

27:48

sight of that literally or figuratively. So

27:50

web is able to do things as

27:52

far back as the beginning of the

27:55

earliest galaxies, not quite the big bang,

27:57

but closer to it than ever before,

27:59

and as close as an asteroid. and

28:01

our own solar system. So it's just

28:04

an incredible instrument. And one of the

28:06

most interesting aspects of it that I've

28:08

had on my podcast, some of the

28:11

most brilliant and popularizers of science, David

28:13

Kipping recently, Adam Frank, is to look

28:15

for extraterrestrial life on other planets

28:17

and the formation of so-called exosolar

28:20

planets that could harbor extraterrestrial intelligence.

28:22

And we can talk more about

28:24

that, but James Webb has been

28:27

able to spot... the possible habitable

28:29

worlds that these things could live

28:31

on, if they exist now. There's

28:34

no evidence for them. We don't

28:36

have belief in things and science,

28:38

as I told you earlier. So

28:41

right now we have to say

28:43

there's no evidence. There's no belief

28:45

warranted, but nevertheless, it's one of

28:47

the most exciting discoveries, if true, that

28:50

could ever be made. No, what if

28:52

the asteroid is coming our way? Yeah.

28:54

If it does hit the earth, I

28:57

think it's like 2032, I would think

28:59

it was, right? Yeah. Would we, by

29:01

then, do you think we would be

29:03

able to do anything about it in

29:06

2032? That's a very good question. So

29:08

we have actually had a mission from

29:10

NASA, I should say I'm not involved

29:12

with it, called the DART mission, which

29:14

actually shot an impactor. So you can

29:16

imagine this thing being, you know, a

29:19

couple hundred meters across. And then they

29:21

shot a little tiny, you know, a

29:23

BB compared to the size of this

29:25

thing, maybe even smaller than a BB,

29:27

but just to visualize it. And then

29:29

that impacted it and made this huge

29:31

explosion explosion on it and changed its

29:33

orbit tiny, tiny, tiny bit. We learned

29:35

a lot about that. There are other

29:37

ways to do that because you can

29:40

think about if it did actually make

29:42

an impact on it, like the movie

29:44

Deep Impact, or you know, if you

29:46

blow it up, you don't solve the

29:48

problem, right? You may have made it

29:50

much worse. You turn a single nine

29:52

millimeter bullet into a shotgun spray of,

29:55

you know, millions of BBs. Okay, so

29:57

each one won't destroy the earth entirely,

29:59

but each... will take out a city

30:01

and now you've got a million cities

30:03

that are going to go up and

30:05

smoke. So that's not a good way

30:08

to do it. Other ways have been

30:10

proposed attaching a small rocket to it

30:12

to nudge this thing out of the

30:14

way starting early enough now. Now this

30:16

is only seven years from now, right?

30:18

It's only seven years from now, right?

30:20

It's not like we have a hundred

30:23

years and like Elon Moscow, you know,

30:25

instead of going to Mars, I mean,

30:27

I don't think that's necessarily necessarily and

30:29

they couldn't do anything about that, but

30:31

that ended all of their civilization. So

30:33

it's incredibly high impact. I mean, the

30:35

consequences of this thing hitting us is

30:37

incredibly high, but you multiply by an

30:39

incredibly low probability. Let's say it was

30:41

3%. That's that's actually very high. It's

30:43

gone down to less than a percent.

30:46

Again, went up to 2%. When it's

30:48

high is 3%. Now it's back down

30:50

a below a percent. But imagine, you

30:52

know, Brian, if you had a, you

30:54

know, one in 30 chance, every time,

30:56

every 30 times you get in your

30:58

car, you're going to die. Would you

31:00

stop driving? No. You wouldn't stop

31:02

driving? You wouldn't stop driving.

31:04

You keep going? Oh, one in 30? Oh,

31:07

okay. So I know, like, the statistics

31:09

are pretty up there for getting in

31:11

an accident and like people doing it

31:13

anyways, but one in 30 is, no,

31:15

I'm not doing that. Yeah, I wouldn't

31:17

do it. Yeah, I think I'm taking

31:19

the I'm taking the train. I'm taking

31:21

the train exactly exactly right. So now,

31:23

so what 3% is 1 in 30

31:25

roughly, right? So the question of whether

31:28

or not this is going to, you

31:30

know, literally be civilization ending multiplied by,

31:32

you know, a lower probability now makes

31:34

people a little bit more. sanguine that

31:36

we can evade complete destruction unlike the

31:38

dinosaurs. So yes, there's there is, you

31:40

know, there's there's wiggle room. The last

31:43

way of looking at this, my friend

31:45

is a professor at UC Santa Barbara,

31:47

Philip Lubin. He's devising a way that

31:49

we could take lasers, which are non-destructive,

31:52

and over the years, slightly push these

31:54

things away. Now these would be space

31:56

lasers, not Jewish space lasers. I am

31:58

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fee starting from $5 per month unless

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canceled. We're not using space lasers in

33:46

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33:49

off its path without any distress. thing

33:51

at all, not making new projectiles spraying

33:53

forth from it, just gently pushing on

33:55

it using the pressures of light itself.

33:58

Remember I told you you can feel

34:00

the heat of the sun without seeing

34:02

it. Then you could detect it. The

34:04

photons from the sun have momentum and

34:06

they have very very tiny amounts of

34:09

momentum each, but there's a huge number

34:11

of them. So with a laser in

34:13

space, you can generate a tiny amount

34:15

of energy per photon, but literally trillions

34:17

upon trillions upon trillions of photons. pressing

34:20

for five years, say, four years, three

34:22

years even. And actually we could do

34:24

that from the Earth too if we

34:26

needed to. So the smaller the asteroid,

34:28

the less momentum change you need to

34:31

get it to deflect its orbit, but

34:33

the earlier you have to act. So

34:35

it's a tradeoff right now. I'm not

34:37

particularly worried. I'm still paying my taxes

34:39

and, and you know, shaving on occasion.

34:42

So yeah. It could happen, but it's

34:44

just an piece of evidence that James

34:46

Webb unexpectedly has contributed to and was

34:48

never designed to do. But that's one

34:51

of the brilliant things about science. Gallejo

34:53

didn't invent his form of the telescope

34:55

to prove the Copernican theory was correct.

34:57

He invented it and used it first

34:59

to look at boats. that were really

35:02

far away so that he could sell

35:04

it to the government at the time

35:06

the literal doge government it was called

35:08

and and that would then be used

35:10

to make him a lot of money

35:13

and he tried to make money because

35:15

he had three illegitimate children and he

35:17

had a support and mistresses so he

35:19

had practical reasons to do it that

35:21

was the reason he invented it and

35:24

used it and then only later did

35:26

he realize that no I actually proved

35:28

the earth is not the center of

35:30

the solar system So you had this

35:32

debate on Rogan about extraterrestrial life and

35:35

you seem to be very, like you

35:37

seem to not think there's other life

35:39

out there. Why is this? So again,

35:41

the key word when talking to a

35:43

scientist is evidence. If people believe things

35:46

without evidence, that's up to them. That

35:48

often is what faith is all about.

35:50

I mean, faith literally means, you know,

35:52

trust or belief in something without evidence,

35:55

right? I mean, if you knew for

35:57

that's fine. But on the other hand,

35:59

the concept of aliens kind of transcends

36:01

things because you wouldn't get any credit.

36:03

I mean, you'd be foolish not to

36:06

believe, you know, if you will, and

36:08

have faith in that, and that would

36:10

be evidence, right? You'd have to have

36:12

evidence for it. So the fact is

36:14

in religion, you get credit for believing

36:17

in things for which you don't have

36:19

evidence for, and that's fine. and it's

36:21

being covered up by powerful conspiracies and

36:23

government machinations to deceive their public citizens

36:25

and even scientists like me are covering

36:28

it up because it would threaten my

36:30

very you know livelihood and all sorts

36:32

of nonsense. But the fact is, again,

36:34

we have no evidence for the existence

36:36

of any extraterrestrials. We have, you know,

36:39

currently no studied fragments of, you know,

36:41

extraterrestrial craft. We have a lot of

36:43

claims from pilots, you know, in the

36:45

Navy, from Air Force officers like David

36:48

Grusch, from a lot of retired, you

36:50

know, people, Ryan Graves, people I've talked

36:52

to on my podcast. And then we

36:54

have claims from, you know, people that

36:56

were in certain programs, like this guy,

36:59

Lou Elizondo. And then we have all

37:01

these counterclaim counterclaims, This week I had

37:03

on Nick Pope who is the inspiration

37:05

for the character Mulder on the X

37:07

files. And he's been, you know, in

37:10

the government circles investigating, crashed UFOs and

37:12

so, and he even admits there's no

37:14

hard evidence for it, and there's a

37:16

lot of tension behind it. But there's

37:18

always this hope of so-called disclosure right

37:21

around the corner. So I talked to

37:23

Rogan almost two years ago now, and

37:25

at the time they were saying all

37:27

sorts of, you know, trust us, you

37:29

know, disclosure is imminent, there's, it's about

37:32

to happen. And in fact, the title

37:34

of Lou Elizondo, you know, best selling

37:36

smash hit book that he's been on

37:38

all sorts of, including Rogan and Smartless.

37:40

And he hasn't come on mind yet,

37:43

but hopefully will. And that was, it's

37:45

called imminent, meaning that imminently we're gonna

37:47

find out. Now this book was written,

37:49

you know, over the last five, 10

37:52

years. There's no, there's no. you know,

37:54

imminent anything that's really come out other

37:56

than stalling, you know, dragging feet, etc.

37:58

Whereas there have been conclusive demonstrations that

38:00

many of the sightings up to 95%

38:03

of them can be explained through ordinary

38:05

means. Now if I told you, you

38:07

know, you were listening to the weather

38:09

forecaster and you thought that you're sure

38:11

that there's, that there are, you know,

38:14

kind of gods and goblins and ogres

38:16

and trolls and they make the weather

38:18

and only, you know, you don't have

38:20

any evidence for it, but it's being

38:22

covered, but it's being covered. up because

38:25

you know NASA and and Noah and

38:27

channel whatever seven news there they all

38:29

have vested interest so they're covering things

38:31

up from you Brian but you admit

38:33

that 95% of the time they get

38:36

it right I mean you'd be kind

38:38

of foolish to believe the other 5%

38:40

is really your best hope for things

38:42

and if you continue to dive down

38:44

deep into it you start to find

38:47

out things that are, you know, even

38:49

more incredible, meaning unbelievable, and the people

38:51

that they bring forth, and the eyewitnesses,

38:53

and the fact that it's predominantly seen

38:56

in America and not really seen throughout

38:58

the world, these are all things that

39:00

make me highly skeptical, but a good

39:02

scientist will never say there's no chance

39:04

of it. Even if I knew for

39:07

sure that all these people are lying,

39:09

that they're all trying to sell their

39:11

books, you know, get on Rogen or

39:13

do whatever, I would still... I would

39:15

say that is irrelevant because what's important

39:18

is whether or not we have evidence

39:20

for stuff and the more and more

39:22

we collect evidence and there are actual

39:24

legitimate scientists my friend Avilob not far

39:26

from you at Harvard University is working

39:29

to detect stuff but even he doesn't

39:31

say for sure these UAPs or alien

39:33

technology sent from the distant past have

39:35

to be thousands of thousands of years

39:37

ago sent here for what purpose I

39:40

don't know but there's certainly no evidence

39:42

for it so yes I'll remain skeptical

39:44

but you have to have an open

39:46

mind. just you shouldn't have it so

39:49

open that your brains fall out of

39:51

your skull. What's your what's your relationship

39:53

with religion? despite being an astronomer? I

39:55

was actually, yeah, both my parents are

39:57

Jewish, but my mother and father divorced

40:00

when I was a kid, and then

40:02

they each remarried non-Jewish people. So I

40:04

was actually raised with my non-Jewish, Irish

40:06

Catholic stepfather, and at age 13, instead

40:08

of having a bar mensva, I was

40:11

an altar boy in the Catholic Church

40:13

in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and it

40:15

was one of the greatest experiences in

40:17

my life, you know, learning and developing,

40:19

I was confirmed and baptized that I

40:22

went much farther into Christian. and Catholicism

40:24

than I ever went into Judaism. That

40:26

all changed after September 11th. So after

40:28

September 11th, I certainly everybody was very

40:30

knowledgeable about Islam and kind of the

40:33

threats that that jihadist fundamentalism represented. And,

40:35

you know, the whole world was on

40:37

notice at that point, although, you know,

40:39

many people knew about it before then,

40:41

and certainly that ideology of Al-Qaeda and

40:44

so forth is still still with us,

40:46

scarily, terribly, in places like Gaza and

40:48

elsewhere. But the notion that we could,

40:50

that we could kind of ignore... the

40:53

third religion. So I knew everything there

40:55

was to know about being a Christian

40:57

and Catholic. I knew a lot about

40:59

Islam. I knew nothing about Judaism because

41:01

I had stopped practicing it when I

41:04

was seven years old and I, you

41:06

know, you don't really know much when

41:08

you're seven. But I came back to

41:10

it, learned more about it, taught myself

41:12

how to read Hebrew, which was not

41:15

easy. And then later, you know, longer,

41:17

longer wanted to, you know, get married

41:19

to someone who was Jewish to keep,

41:21

you know, kind of the tradition, and

41:23

faith and faith and culture, and culture

41:26

going. And I became more and more

41:28

curious about this legacy and heritage that

41:30

I've been introduced to and you're absolutely

41:32

right. Not only most astronomers, 90% of

41:34

all scientists either do not believe actively

41:37

that there is a God or don't

41:39

know. In other words, they're atheist or

41:41

agnostic. And so it's very unusual for

41:43

the 7 to 10% of us that

41:46

that have a faith practice. You know,

41:48

like the way that Judaism influenced my

41:50

life is that I observe the commandment.

41:52

that are unquestionably good in a sense.

41:54

So every Saturday, Friday night to Saturday

41:57

night, I don't work. I won't like

41:59

speak. I won't go on a podcast.

42:01

You know, Rogan invites me. Sorry, I

42:03

can't do it. And those things have

42:05

happened. I've had to turn down a

42:08

lot of, you know, wonderful opportunities. the

42:10

payoff is so much better I get

42:12

to be with my wife, my kids,

42:14

my friends, my family, my community. We

42:16

often have a lot of non-Jews that

42:19

participate in our services and are, you

42:21

know, kind of events together. And so

42:23

it's wonderful and that gives me so

42:25

much more life and joy and meaning

42:27

and, you know, stopping for one day

42:30

and saying you don't own. everything that

42:32

you think you own, that you know,

42:34

detaching from the spiritual, from the spiritual

42:36

during the week, but then reconnecting with

42:38

it, detaching from the material one day

42:41

a week. It's a wonderful thing. And

42:43

now you see more and more people

42:45

talking about digital sabbaticals and like, you

42:47

know, quiet quitting and all these things.

42:50

These are all manifestations of ancient wisdom

42:52

that was known thousands of years ago

42:54

that I just was ignorant about. until

42:56

I investigate it. So I treat it

42:58

like a scientist. I don't believe literally,

43:01

you know, that the, you know, there

43:03

were two people started like started all

43:05

of life on earth, but I also

43:07

don't believe that all of it's false

43:09

as well. I believe that there's a

43:12

lot of very interesting truths that where

43:14

it doesn't intersect with suspension of the

43:16

laws of nature. or scientific truth and

43:18

scientifically plausible? I have to be a

43:20

scientist. I can't say 100% for sure

43:23

the red sea didn't split. I have

43:25

to look. Well, is there any evidence

43:27

for it? Could it be some natural

43:29

phenomenon? But the more you do that,

43:31

you have to start thinking, well, what

43:34

was the purpose of that? And, you

43:36

know, why is it that the earth

43:38

was created and the sun were created

43:40

on the fourth day after the creation?

43:43

Isn't that the Big Bang? So what

43:45

does all that mean? And so it's

43:47

actually given me a great riches and

43:49

least of all, you know, it's impossible

43:51

to be a cultured, educated human being

43:54

without knowing at least about, you know,

43:56

the new and old testaments, which I

43:58

feel like I'm quite expert on. To

44:00

me, it's given me a great amount

44:02

of enriched my life greatly, and I

44:05

feel somewhat sorry for my colleagues who

44:07

are, you know, just obstinate atheists who

44:09

hate the idea of religion, I think

44:11

it's pure evil, and, you know, I've

44:13

talked with many of them, Lawrence Cross,

44:16

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, all

44:18

these great minds, but, you know, ultimately,

44:20

I've never been persuaded that I would

44:22

be a happier person to reject. the

44:24

practice of religion. So my last question

44:27

for you is, if you had a

44:29

minute with your younger self, what would

44:31

you tell them? Ah, you stole from

44:33

my podcast. I usually ask in a

44:35

different way. So my podcast is called

44:38

Into the Impossible. And I usually ask

44:40

people, you know, if you had one

44:42

minute, 30 seconds with your 20-year-old self,

44:44

what would you tell them to give

44:47

them the courage to go into the

44:49

impossible? So a minute. I would say

44:51

very little, because the way that my

44:53

life has played out has been so

44:55

spectacularly fortunate. There's almost nothing I would

44:58

change. And so by definition, any perturbation

45:00

to the life trajectory we call in

45:02

physics, the worldline, which is the past

45:04

history, and from an omniscientian, God's perspective,

45:06

the future path of an individual, can

45:09

only be made worse. And I give

45:11

the following analogy, like there are many

45:13

ways to have, if you take 52

45:15

cards, right? in a playing card deck.

45:17

And there's literally, effectively, infinite number of

45:20

ways you can arrange them, sort them,

45:22

shuffle them, throw them around, do whatever.

45:24

But there's only one way where you

45:26

can stack them all in order, right?

45:28

If you just think about it. And

45:31

so there's many more ways that you

45:33

could. Similarly, in life and happiness, I

45:35

don't know if you have a wife

45:37

or kids or plan to or whatever

45:39

partner, but someday you'll have kids maybe

45:42

or maybe you'll adopt a kid, I

45:44

don't even care. I don't care how

45:46

you have kids, but I just think

45:48

it's important for people to have kids

45:51

because otherwise we won't have a planet

45:53

worth inhabiting, we won't have anyone inhabiting

45:55

it. So all scientific progress depends on

45:57

humans, by the way. So when you

45:59

have kids, you'll realize there's an infinite

46:02

number of ways. your life has been

46:04

made better, but now there's also an

46:06

infinite number of ways your life could

46:08

be, infinite times worse your life could

46:10

be. And I won't even mention it

46:13

because it's, you know, considered bad form

46:15

to do it. Maybe I'm superstitious, I

46:17

don't give a crap, I've got good

46:19

enough scientific benefitis, but you're not really

46:21

supposed to talk about certain things, but

46:24

you can use your imagination. in my

46:26

history, in my past, would only deflect

46:28

me from the person I was supposed

46:30

to marry and the children that we

46:32

have together and the job that I

46:35

have and the opportunity to talk to

46:37

people like you and your audience. So

46:39

I wouldn't change anything. And so I

46:41

just say, you know, everything's going to

46:44

work out, you know, you're doing fine.

46:46

I don't think I live to really

46:48

impress anyone other than myself. And I

46:50

think... You know, I'm impressed with my

46:52

20 year old self and I'd continue

46:55

to be impressed with my 50 plus

46:57

year old self, but I have a

46:59

lot more to go and a lot

47:01

more to do and just really stay

47:03

hungry, stay curious, and never give up.