The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

The Origins Podcast features in-depth conversations with some of the most interesting people in the world about the issues that impact all of us in the 21st century. Host, theoretical physicist, lecturer, and author, Lawrence M. Krauss, will be joined by guests from a wide range of fields, including science, the arts, and journalism. The topics discussed on The Origins Podcast reflect the full range of the human experience - exploring science and culture in a way that seeks to entertain, educate, and inspire. lawrencekrauss.substack.com

lawrencekrauss.substack.com

Hakeem Oluseyi: An unexpected life in Science, and unpopular truths 09/20/2023

Hakeem Oluseyi: An unexpected life in Science, and unpopular truths I confess that Hakeem Oluseyi had not really risen on my radar screen until the last year or two. I was aware of the National Society of Black Physicists, having sometimes gotten notices about is meetings, but, being generally unsupportive of current efforts to compartmentalize scientists by their identity, I hadn’t really paid much notice to it. Then, in one of those ironies that periodically makes one feel better about the vicissitudes of fortune, I learned more about him only after people had attempted to cancel him. When I read about Hakeem’s brave and impressive campaign to uncover the truth about James Webb after a small but unduly loud group of physicists, whose actions seem to be centered about their mutually celebrated victimhood, argued that the James Webb Space Telescope should be renamed, my interest in him, along with my respect for him, rose considerably. Prompted by this newfound interest, I read a book he had co-authored, entitled, A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars, and I was fascinated by the remarkable transformation of a hillbilly turned drug dealer into an academic. Here was someone who could have reveled in begin a victim by lashing out in hate, but instead was inspired to improve himself and those around him. I decided I wanted to delve deeper into the man, his life, his science, and his recent unfortunate experiences while holding firm to the search for truth in a podcast. It was a fun, and fascinating few hours. Hakeem and I both like to joke as well as tell stories, and we are both serious about the effort to understand nature, and to share our enthusiasm about that effort. I hope the combination of our mutual enjoyment about life and science, along with learning about his own story will inspire, entertain and inform. I certainly enjoyed our discussion and I hope you will as well. As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project Youtube channel as well. And a reminder that The Origins Project Foundation is programming some live upcoming events, including a live podcast with Richard Dawkins in Birmingham Sept 25th, and two live events in Southern California museums. Oct 15th, at the Bowers Museum, I will be giving a presentation on my new book, and Oct 17th Brian Keating and I will be recording a joint podcast at the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Go to originsproject.org for more info and the opportunity to purchase tickets. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602048

Martin Rees: If Science is to Save Us, Part 2 06/09/2023

An Origins Podcast EXCLUSIVE: A Dialogue with Cormac McCarthy About Science, on the occasion of his newest book releases 12/09/2022

An Origins Podcast EXCLUSIVE: A Dialogue with Cormac McCarthy About Science, on the occasion of his newest book releases Cormac McCarthy is a literary icon. Winner of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for his novel All the Pretty Horses, and the Pulitzer Prize for his apocalyptic novel The Road, Norma’s earlier novel, Blood Meridian has been labelled The Great American Novel. Many people did not know that this cultural giant is also fascinated by, and amazingly knowledgeable about science. Reading his newest books, The Passenger and Stella Maris (released this week!), however, and that becomes obvious. The protagonists are mathematical and physics prodigies, and just as one may requires a dictionary to keep up with the the remarkably diverse prose in Cormac’s writing, some people may need to consult some popular books on science to fully appreciate the scientific asides sprinkled throughout both volumes. I first met Cormac at the Santa Fe Institute back when I was considering a possible position there as its Director, some years ago. I was shocked to walk into the kitchenette there and discover him, as I had no idea that is where he spent his time. But, as we discuss in our dialogue, he moved to Santa Fe at the invitation of Nobel Laureate physicist Murray Gell Mann to join the new Institute. Cormac and I became fast friends then, and have remained friends ever since. The best hour of radio I ever did was with Cormac and Werner Herzog, on the occasion of Herzog’s film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, where both Cormac and Werner talked with amazing authority about the evolution paleontology of early modern humans. Then later, he honored me by asking if he could copyedit the paperback version of my book Quantum Man, a scientific biography of Richard Feynman. He said he wanted to make the paperback version ‘perfect’, in part by removing all exclamation marks and semicolons.. Of course I said yes, and we added his name as copyeditor on the front page! I have known that Cormac is extremely reluctant to appear in public or do interviews. He agreed to appear in our film The Unbelievers, which was a great gift, but has often demurred when I have asked him to appear in other public panels on subjects we love to talk about in private. So, when I asked him if, on the occasion of the publication of his new books, the first books in 16 years, if we could sit down and record a conversation about science for The Origins Podcast, I was shocked and thrilled when he agreed. He is 89 years old now, and I was so pleased to have the chance to record some of his thoughts on science for posterity. He invited us into his home for an afternoon conversation after a long lunch, and the conversation that ensued was much like the conversations we have had over the years. Cormac loves to discuss science, but prefers to listen to physicists talk about their work rather than initiate conversations. He is, after all, notoriously laconic. But when he does speak about science, his insights are fascinating. Using some of the ideas discussed in his new books a launching points, our discussion ranged over quantum mechanics, the role of mathematics in science, and whether there will ever be a theory of everything. There were a variety of challenges that day, including the difficulty of filming something in a sunlight room without window shades, but the end result was unique and memorable. I hope you agree. As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project Youtube channel as well. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602063

Geoff Marcy: The Search for Exoplanets and Life Elsewhere in the Universe 08/14/2022

Geoff Marcy: The Search for Exoplanets and Life Elsewhere in the Universe Geoff Marcy has been pioneer in the search for extra-solar system planets since the first discovery of an exoplanet surround a main sequence star was made in 1995 by Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz. Within months, Marcy and his team had not only confirmed this result but detected numerous other exoplanets. Seventy of the first one hundred exoplanets were discovered by Marcy’s team, including the firs exoplanet located as far away from its star as Jupiter is to the Sun, and the first exoplanet discovered by observing its transit of its host star, a technique that will be used by JWST to explore the atmosphere of exoplanets to search for bio signatures. Marcy was then a Co-PI on the Kepler Mission, which discovered over 4000 exoplanets. For their pioneering work in the creation of this new field Marcy and Mayor shared the international Shaw Prize in 2005. More recently Marcy has turned his attention to methods to probe for intelligent life in the Universe, first as a PI on the Breakthrough Listen Project, and more recently exploring novel methods, including optical techniques to probe for possible signals of intelligence elsewhere. We discussed all of these exciting topics, as well as Geoff’s own origins as a scientist in a thoughtful and fascinating discussion. He has become well known not just as a world renown scientist, but as one of the best communicators of astronomy there is. Our discussion will give a whole new dimension to your thinking about that age-old question: Are we alone in the Universe? As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers . Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube channel as well. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602043

Andy Knoll: The First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth 07/14/2022

Charles Murray: On Human Diversity 07/01/2022

Charles Murray: On Human Diversity After writing the book, The Bell Curve, Charles Murray became a controversial figure in the US Social Science scene, and was much maligned in the public arena. His work has been misinterpreted as being racist and sexist, and at Middlebury College students forcibly stopped his guest lecture and rioted. As often the case with stereotypes, Murray is instead a thoughtful scholar who has tried to base his social science research on data from empirical science, something that should be standard, but isn’t. I wanted to discuss his most recent book, Human Diversity, with him. It is far from controversial, and instead is a clear effort to explain often complex genetic concepts in a popular format. He makes it clear that he focuses on only well understood and well accepted concepts, and the discussion we had was instructive and enjoyable. He is a delightful and thoughtful individual and I believe that comes out in our dialogue. I know from experience, as I indicated at the beginning of our discussion, that many people will condemn the discussion without listening to it, just as they condemn his writing without reading it. But if you take the time, I think you will be pleasantly surprised, as well as learning some new things about the world. One of the purposes of The Origins Podcast is to connect science and culture, and Murray connects hard science with social science issues in a refreshingly honest and detailed way. Indeed, if all social scientists and policy makers took his approach, the overall tenor of popular discussion would improve, I believe. And while Murray and I do not share political views on a number of issues, thoughtful discussion is far preferred to blanket cancellation and denunciation or a refusal to even engage. Again, that, I hope, is a hallmark of the podcast. I hope you enjoy the discussion as much as I did. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602038

(Audio) John Mather: From the Big Bang to Searching for Life 06/16/2022

(Audio) John Mather: From the Big Bang to Searching for Life John Mather is an astrophysicist at NASA who has been involved in important space missions to probe our fundamental understanding of the Universe for over four decades. He helped lead the design and deployment of the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite (COBE), which launched in 1989 to probe the cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang with a precision that could not be obtained from terrestrial experiments because of absorption of radiation by the atmosphere. The experiments on COBE, and its successor missions WMAP and PLANCK, literally have turned cosmology from an art to a science, allowing the precise measurement of cosmological observables that previously were either not measured at all or only measured to within a factor of two. This has led to a golden age of cosmology, where theories of the early universe can now be compared directly to observation. John directed the building of the Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE which was able to show that the cosmic microwave background radiation was indeed an almost perfect ‘black body’ spectrum associated with a very well defined temperature of the Universe at a time of about 300,000 years after the big bang. Indeed, no terrestrial experiment has ever produced such an accurate black body spectrum, which was one of the fundamental predictions that helped develop quantum mechanics early in the 20th century. For his work on COBE, John shared the Nobel Prize with George Smoot. But John didn’t rest on his laurels, for several decades after COBE John helped lead the design and development of the James Webb Space Telescope, which recently launched and will probe both the very early universe and also extra solar planets, possibly helping us discover evidence for life elsewhere in the Universe. John and I talked about his origins in science, the science he has accomplished, and what his future plans are in a discussion that will help provide a valuable perspective for anyone on the current status of cosmology and astrophysics, as well as what we might learn in the future. The ad-free video is available for all paid subscribers to Critical Mass in an adjoining post.. Video with ads will be available on the Podcast YouTube Channel, and audio is also available wherever you listen to podcasts. Enjoy! Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602073

Origins Podcast with Michael Shellenberger: From Apocalypse Never to Running for Governor 06/02/2022

Origins Podcast with Michael Shellenberger: From Apocalypse Never to Running for Governor I was very happy to have the chance to speak to Michael Shellenberger some time ago, after his book Apocalypse Never appeared. Having written my book, The Physics of Climate Change, I was intrigued by his take on the fact that climate change is not an existential threat. Once I read his book, I realized we agreed on many things, with perhaps the differences being on emphasize rather than substance. Nevertheless, we did have some disagreements, and we had a very spirited, and I hope respectful, discussion about climate change and its implications, but also on the other issues that need to be addressed and which climate change activists may be exacerbating because of their unique focus on this issue. The need to address important infrastructure issues in Africa and elsewhere in order to bring people up from poverty and also to help insulate them, or at least allow them to adapt to climate change is of great importance. Also, one of his central issues, the need for Nuclear Power, is an important issue, and I agree completely with Michael that we should not be closing down nuclear power plants, nor interfering with the construction of new plants. I don’t see Nuclear Power alone as a panacea, however. While perhaps largely due to the current burden of regulation, nuclear power plants are expensive and time consuming to build, and I think that they are just one component of what needs to be a many-pronged effort to address climate change and other global challenges. Michael is incredibly passionate about his view of the crucial pressing challenges we face, and any categorization of him as liberal, conservative, libertarian, or climate denier, is false. He is a thoughtful humanist, and I found the discussion with him to be enlightening, as well as provocative, and I learned a lot in the process. That is the best kind of discussion, after all. After doing 2.5 hours together a year or so we sat together again (on zoom) for another discussion in the midst of his current run for California Governor. This gave us a chance to reconnect, and also talk about a different, new set of issues more relevant to that race, and to current problems facing the country. I hope you enjoy this two pronged episode. If you want to watch the episode Ad-Free, please purchase a paid subscription to Critical Mass. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602078

Jonathan Rauch: Free Thought, Democracy, and the Nature of Science 05/19/2022

Alan Guth: Inflation of The Universe & More 05/06/2022

Alan Guth: Inflation of The Universe & More In 1979 Alan Guth, then a postdoc at Cornell, made what is perhaps the most important contribution to our theoretical understanding of the evolution of the Universe in the past half century. His realization that the early universe could have undergone a brief period of what he dubbed as “Inflation” provided the first and to date the only explanation of the large scale properties of the Universe compatible with observations, and based on well-defined, calculable, microphysical physics principles. Since that time, Inflation has become the paradigm of modern cosmology, and it made fundamental predictions about other observables in cosmology that have since been validated by observations of the Cosmo Microwave Background Radiation. I was particularly happy to have Alan on the podcast for a variety of reasons. First and foremost he is a remarkably clear and precise expositor of science. Second, his own history in the field provides, I think, a good object lesson for young scientists who might be struggling. Third, it was important that he provide a counterpoint to the discussion I previously had with Roger Penrose, who has presented his own alternative to Inflation that is much less well-defined at this time. Finally, Alan is a lovely human being, and both a friend, and in some sense a mentor to me (having served on my thesis examination committee when he first came to MIT, and having been a colleague and co-author with me on scientific papers). I hope you enjoy what I found to be a very enlightening discussion about science, and a revealing window into the thoughts of one of the most important cosmologists currently alive today. The audio version is free to all on this Critical Mass site. An ad-free video is available on Critical mass for paid subscribers only, a video version with advertisements is available separately on the Origins Project Foundation YouTube Channel. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602088

Dorian Abbot: From Climate and Exoplanets to DEI and Free Speech. 04/21/2022

Dorian Abbot: From Climate and Exoplanets to DEI and Free Speech. Dorian Abbot is an associate professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, who uses mathematical and computational models to understand and explain fundamental problems in Earth and Planetary Sciences. His work on climate, and paleoclimate in particular is particularly important as we try and determine the likelihood that some exoplanets may be habitable. This is an area where may claims are made, most often on the basis of far too little solid evidence, so Dorian’s computer models have been particularly useful as we try and separate the wheat from the chaff in trying to determine if we are indeed alone in the Universe. He and I discussed the evolution of climate on Earth, and the important features that may determine habitability elsewhere in the cosmos. And then we turned to an issue that has made his name far more recognizable outside of the scientific community. Earlier this year, he was invited to give a named public lecture at MIT on climate, climate change, and exoplanet habitability. Previously, he and a colleague had written an unrelated that argued that “American universities are undergoing a profound transformation that threatens to derail their primary mission: “the production and dissemination of knowledge.” He laid the blame—as I and a number of my colleagues have independently also argued—on new "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" bloated bureaucracies at US universities that are stifling free speech, open inquiry, and merit based promotion. As if to prove his point, under pressure from various social media complainants, MIT cancelled Abbot’s public lecture (which was later given online through a group at Princeton University). The subsequent uproar over the MIT cancellation has prompted many people to argue that it is time to rein in the current almost religious DEI proscriptions against open debate and discussion on these issues. Dorian and I discussed his experience, and ways to try and address this current problem with higher education. I found the discussion provocative and enlightening. I hope you will too. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602098

Matt Ridley: The Origins of COVID-19 04/07/2022

Matt Ridley: The Origins of COVID-19 (The Origins Podcast will appear every other Thursday.) Matt Ridley is a veteran journalist and science writer, with a training in genetics. He is also a Conservative member of the House of Lords in the UK. Matt and I were able to discuss his training, and his move from scientist to journalist, as well as the spectrum of his experiences in his various roles. We then moved on to the centerpiece of our dialogue: His newest book, Viral, written with geneticist Alina Chan. Together they produced what I view to be a masterpiece of science writing and detective work, exploring the origins of Covid-19. Our discussion, like the book, allowed us to illustrate a lot of the science related to the virus, and the current pandemic. There are numerous surprises. One of the most remarkable was the realization that much of the important detective work uncovering the possible origin of the pandemic came from self-trained internet sleuths who were able to uncover masters theses, as well as online registries that had either not been referenced in the professional literature, or incorrectly referenced. One comes away from the discussion with the realization that we still do not know for certain the origin of Covid-19, in spite of claims to the contrary. Recent, highly publicized scientific articles suggesting the Wuhan Seafood Market as the origin still have to deal with the fact that no direct evidence of the virus has yet to be uncovered from any of the animals at the market. At the same time, there is clear evidence that the Wuhan Virology Institute was working on Covid viruses, including viruses from bats that had caused Covid-like symptoms coming from a cave located far away in China. Neither Ridley nor Chan advocate any particular scenario for the current outbreak. But it is clear that open, transparent discussion of the available evidence is very important if the world is to understand better how this pandemic started, and how to possibly head off, or prepare for the next one. I found our discussion, and the book, incredibly informative, and Matt is a lucid and experienced explicator of both science, and social issues. I hope you enjoy the in-depth discussion we had in this, our most recent episode of The Origins Podcast. Note that all future ad-free video podcasts will be available to paid subscribers only. The audio version will always be free to all, and a video version on Youtube will also always be available. Get full access to Critical Mass at /episode/index/show/originspodcast/id/30602108