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Big Bang Productions Inc.

Think like a physicist. Wonder like a human. Into the Impossible is where Cosmic Conversations happen — uniting Nobel Prize winners, iconoclasts, authors, and technologists to explore reality’s deepest questions. From AI to aliens, from biophysics to the brain, from the cosmos to the multiverse, Brian Keating, Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Physics at UC San Diego covers it all.
If you’ve ever asked What’s out there? or What’s next?, this is where curiosity meets clarity.
Learn to think like this. 🎙 Full episodes, notes & more: briankeating.com/podcast

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

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What if 85% of the universe is invisible—and the one experiment claiming to have found it is wrong? 

For nearly three decades, Italian physicists have claimed their DAMA/LIBRA experiment detected the elusive particles that make up dark matter—the mysterious substance holding galaxies together. Yet no one else has ever confirmed it.

Join Brian Keating, UCSD cosmologist and host of The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast, as he visits Kaixuan Ni and his team—scientists building the world’s most sensitive detectors deep underground—to uncover:

 • ⚛️ How detectors using liquid xenon can “fingerprint” single atomic collisions.
 • 💡 Why dark matter’s “heartbeat” signal divided physicists for 30 years.
 • ☢️ How dark-matter detectors are now being repurposed to detect nuclear weapons and monitor reactors remotely.
 • 🌞 The shocking discovery of solar neutrinos and ultra-rare nuclear decays—phenomena rarer than the age of the universe itself.

This is the invisible architecture of reality—where cosmology meets particle physics, and theory meets obsession.

📍 Filmed at UC San Diego’s Mayer Hall and Harold Urey Hall — home to experiments that may finally prove what 85% of the cosmos is made of.

👇 Watch till the end to see how a failed dark-matter search could save the world from nuclear war.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 "Dark Matter Detection Debate"

04:51 "Physics, Peace, and Deuterium"

08:20 "Annual Modulation from Dark Matter"

10:05 Particle Physics' Atomic Fingerprinting Revolution

16:03 "Data Processing for Dark Matter"

18:56 "Boron-8 Neutrinos Observed"

22:43 "Exploring Electron Recall Signal Excess"

24:22 "Xenon Experiment Resolves Signal Mystery"

30:11 S1, S2 Signal Discrimination

33:11 "Radon Control for Clean Detection"

34:26 "From Cosmic Mysteries to Peace"

38:10 Dark Matter: Undetected Mystery

🎥 Directed & Narrated by: Brian Keating
🔬 Featuring: Prof. Kaixuan Ni, Prof. Liang Yang, Zihao Shi (Columbia)
📍 Location: UC San Diego 
🎙️ From The Professor Keating Experiments series

Join this channel to get access to perks like monthly Office Hours:

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My tell-all cosmic memoir Losing the Nobel Prize: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA 

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Did We Detect Dark Matter… or Fool Ourselves?

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Today's guest made bacteria immune to every virus that exists. This breakthrough could revolutionize medicine by creating virus proof cell therapies and potentially extending this protection to human cells. Also demonstrating that we can fundamentally rewrite the language of life itself, something that was previously thought impossible.

George Church is a Harvard Medical School genetics professor and pioneer of synthetic biology. He's an entrepreneur who's found in multiple biotech companies and is known for pushing the boundaries between science fiction and reality. His team just did something that sounds like pure science fiction.

They made living cells completely immune to every virus on Earth. That resistant immune, every single virus that tries to infect your cells just fails.
The viruses can't evolve around it. Here's the wild part. They didn't add anything new. They just removed a few letter from the genetic alphabet. But George isn't stopping there. He wants to do this to human cells. He's talking about engineering astronauts for Mars missions, bringing back wooly mammoths, and maybe even, just maybe, making humans virus proof to the implications are staggering.

The ethics are murky. And the timeline. Well, if church's track record tells us anything is happening far faster than we think.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

00:00:00 – Church’s team made cells virus-proof, a major medical breakthrough
00:02:34 – Radiation resistance may come from DNA repair linked to desiccation
00:04:43 – A few genes can boost bacteria’s radiation resistance
00:07:16 – Panspermia is unlikely due to harsh space conditions
00:10:50 – Space travel may need biological, not just physical, changes
00:14:19 – Regenesis explores synthetic biology's potential
00:18:19 – Height involves many genes, but single ones can have big effects
00:20:57 – Once sci-fi, genome sequencing and pig organs are now real
00:23:20 – Church and Venter are more collaborators than rivals
00:27:17 – Rewriting genes can create virus-proof organisms
00:35:36 – DNA can store data, but reading/writing is slow
00:41:06 – Gattaca and Jurassic Park portray genetics well with small flaws
00:44:03 – Gene therapies can be affordable for all
00:46:44 – Stem cells can create any body cell for therapy
00:49:15 – “Mirror humans” are possible but avoided ethically
00:53:59 – Genomic privacy isn’t an issue since we shed DNA constantly
00:56:09 – Gene editing helps endangered species adapt, not revive extinct ones
01:00:30 – Virus-proof humans are possible, but tough to deliver to all cells
01:02:59 – Gene therapies could reverse aging at the cellular level
01:04:18 – Church avoids saying “impossible,” but admits to timeline optimism

-

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-

Join this channel to get access to perks like monthly Office Hours:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join

 Get a copy of my books:

 Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner, with life changing interviews with 9 Nobel Prizewinners: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu

 My tell-all cosmic memoir Losing the Nobel Prize: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA 

 The first-ever audiobook from Galileo: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un

 Follow me to ask questions of my guests:

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Will this NEW Scientific Breakthrough Make Us Immune to Everything? | George Church

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—

Once again, I had the pleasure of speaking to one of the most famous and perhaps the most controversial astrophysicists in the world – Avi Loeb! 

For those of you who don't know him, Avi is a professor of science at Harvard University, theoretical physicist, astrophysicist, and cosmologist. He is also a bestselling author and a dear friend of mine. 

By the time you see this, Avi will have published his new book, Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars. In it, he explains why we need to become an interstellar species to ensure our survival and lays out a plan for how we can settle among the stars.

As usual, we take some time to judge a book by its cover and discuss what went into the making of this book. We also dig into the recent Galileo Project expedition to the Pacific Ocean to retrieve spherules of the first recognized interstellar meteor, IM1, which was led by Avi, and discuss whether they found evidence of alien life. 

Judging a book by its cover: Interstellar (00:44)
On extraordinary evidence (08:13)
Does Avi have proof of alien life?! (13:55)
On David Grusch and government obligations (28:01)
Internet hate, constructive criticism, and the scientific method (42:01)
More on Interstellar and what it means to become an interstellar species (1:10:56)
Elon Musk’s plan to make humankind interplanetary (1:15:12)
On space archaeology (1:21:08)
Rapid fire audience questions (1:39:20)
Outro (1:50:57)

—

Additional resources: 

📚 Interstellar by Avi Loeb: https://a.co/d/gN18ylO

📺 Watch my most popular videos: 

Neil Turok • Neil Turok Believes Physics Is In Crisis (... 

Frank Wilczek • Nobel Prizewinner Frank Wilczek: Beautiful... 

Eric Weinstein vs. Stephen Wolfram • Stephen Wolfram vs. Eric Weinstein: Mathem... 
Sir Roger Penrose: • Nobel Prize in Physics, Black Holes and Wo... 

Sabine Hossenfelder: • “I Don’t Care About Your Theory of Everyth... 

Avi Loeb: • UFOs & UAPs: The Situation Has Changed! Av... 

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—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode!

#intotheimpossible #briankeating #aviloeb
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Does Avi Loeb Have PROOF of Alien Technology?

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Brian Keating and James Altucher have an unfiltered talk on humility, arrogance, and the strange mix of traits needed to achieve great things. From the wisdom of the Talmud to the Dunning–Kruger effect, they explore why even Nobel Prize winners wrestle with imposter syndrome.

James shares how writing books requires a mix of blind confidence and humility, while Brian connects scientific resilience to obsession, quests, and flow states. The two also talk candidly about the challenges of writing and publishing science books in today’s world—and Brian previews his bold new project exploring Jim Simons, “Chern–Simons Theory,” and the very arrow of time itself.

What You’ll Learn

 Why success requires balancing humility with courage—and sometimes arrogance with ignorance

 How Nobel Prize winners secretly struggle with imposter syndrome

 Why writing books demands both blind confidence and ruthless editing

 The difference between obsession and quest when pursuing success

 What “Chern–Simons Theory” reveals about time, space, and the structure of the universe

Timestamped Chapters

00:00 Humility and Chutzpah in Science

06:35 "Feel Good Productivity Insights"

08:08 Considering Career Change for Fulfillment

10:36 "The Genius of Science"

13:54 Topology Links Time and Dimensions

—

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—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!
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Brian Keating on Humility, Chutzpah, and the Arrow of Time | The James Altucher Show

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Astronaut and bestselling author Chris Hadfield joins me to discuss his new Cold War thriller Final Orbit and the real history behind it—UAPs, Operation Paperclip, and the exiled genius who built China’s rocket program. Along the way, we debate the moon landing hoax, the cost of the ISS, and why humans—not robots—must carry our story into the stars.

Key Takeaways: 

 
00:00 Intro 

 
03:06 The Cold War and space exploration 

 
05:40 Conspiracy theories, UAPs, and whistleblowers

 
10:38 Checklists as a survival tool

 
16:06 Moon landing denial 

 
21:26 Judging a book by its cover 

 
26:38 Apollo-Soyuz collaboration 

 
30:59 The legacy of Wernehr von Braun

 
34:20 McCarthyism and the future of space exploration 

 
38:24 Chinese space program and rivalry 

 
44:19 Is it reckless to send humans to space? 

 
48:54 Outro 

Additional resources: 

➡️ Follow Chris Hadfield:

✖️ Twitter: https://x.com/cmdr_hadfield?lang=en 📚 Explore Chris Hadfield’s books: https://chrishadfield.ca/books/ 

➡️ My new book:

📖 Into the Impossible Volume 2: Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: Lessons from Laureates to Concentrate Your Creativity and Ignite Your Career: ⁠https://a.co/d/hi50U9U⁠ 

➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms:

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📝 Join my mailing list:⁠ ⁠⁠https://briankeating.com/list⁠ 

✍️ Check out my blog:⁠ ⁠⁠https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/⁠ 

🎙️ Follow my podcast:⁠ ⁠⁠https://briankeating.com/podcast⁠ 

—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Hadfield’s Final Orbit! The Moon Landing Hoax, UAPs, China & the New Space Race

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Lou Ignarro went from building pipe bombs as a curious teen to winning the Nobel Prize for discovering how a gas—nitric oxide—regulates blood flow, fuels Viagra, and revolutionized cardiovascular medicine. In this explosive conversation, we trace how one molecule transformed sex, science, and the story of human health.

Key Takeaways: 

 00:00 Intro 

 00:55 The molecule that saves and kills 

 04:00 The invention of the X-ray

 05:44 Nitroglycerin: explosive or life-saving drug? 

 11:07 Fine-tuning and Lou’s religious beliefs 

 14:38 Judging a book by its cover 

 16:56 The importance of curiosity 

 20:00 Thoughts on the Nobel Prize

 24:58 What does Viagra do and how does it work? 

 32:10 The importance of collaboration in scientific research 

 35:15 Achieving the breakthrough discovery 

 41:02 What happens if a woman takes viagra?

 42:55 Other applications of nitric oxide 

 47:57 Lou’s heart-healthy diet 

 52:41 Outro 

Additional resources: 

➡️ Follow Lou Ignarro: 

✖️ Twitter: https://x.com/drignarro 

📚 Dr. NO by Lou Ignarro: https://a.co/d/gSarIKX 

➡️ My new book:

📖 Into the Impossible Volume 2: Focus Like a Nobel Prize Winner: Lessons from Laureates to Concentrate Your Creativity and Ignite Your Career: https://a.co/d/hi50U9U 

➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms:

✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 

🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 

📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list 

✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 

🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast 

—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Pipe Bombs to Viagra: Nobel Prize Winner’s Secrets Revealed

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb joins Brian Keating to discuss a groundbreaking observation: the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged 3I/ATLAS, a rare interstellar visitor, from the vantage point of Mars.

In this episode, we explore:

 • What HiRISE detected and why it matters for planetary science.
 • How interstellar objects like ʻOumuamua and 3I/ATLAS challenge our theories.
 • Why Mars may become an ideal outpost for detecting future interstellar visitors.
 • The implications for astrobiology, planetary defense, and our search for extraterrestrial technology.

✨ Just as the 1977 “Wow! Signal” jolted radio astronomers with a one-time unexplained burst, 3I/ATLAS may be its optical cousin—an anomalous, fleeting, but potentially transformative messenger. Loeb even calculated that 3I/ATLAS’s trajectory passed within about one degree of the Wow! Signal’s sky position, making the connection more than metaphorical. Ignoring such rare alignments risks repeating history: anomalies slip through our fingers while orthodoxy insists nothing unusual happened. The Wow! Signal warned us of the danger of complacency; 3I/ATLAS reminds us that cosmic surprises often lurk at the margins of expectation, carrying lessons we may miss if we force every mystery into old categories.

-

🚀 EXCLUSIVE: Avi Loeb Reveals What HiRISE Just Saw on Mars! 🌌

Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb joins me to discuss the latest revelations about interstellar object 3I/ATLAS as it makes its closest approach to Mars. From HiRISE images to unusual chemistry, polarization anomalies, and even a potential link to the Wow! Signal, this conversation explores whether 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet—or a possible technological artifact. Along the way, we cover censorship from Galileo to today’s UAP debates, the “Sputnik moment” of interstellar objects, and what a global response might look like.

⏱️ Timestamps

0:00 – Introduction & why this day is special
1:29 – 3I/ATLAS closest approach to Mars: HiRISE imaging
2:50 – Mass, size, and what it means for its trajectory
5:06 – Global spacecraft observing 3I/ATLAS (NASA, ESA, UAE, China)
7:21 – Explaining the anomalies: jets, chemical makeup, negative polarization
13:06 – Alignment with the plane of planets (0.2% likelihood)
14:31 – Coincidence with the Wow! Signal and radio SETI opportunities
18:52 – White paper to the UN: global response to interstellar visitors
24:21 – Perseverance rover possible detection of ATLAS
29:47 – Nickel–iron anomaly and unusual chemistry
36:44 – Science inefficiency & missed discoveries (Hot Jupiters analogy)
43:29 – Why critics are wrong about “just a comet”
55:04 – Galileo, Pinker, and common knowledge parallels to UAP debates
1:01:20 – Peer review, censorship, and suppression in modern science
1:03:59 – Anti-science, conspiracy theories, and science communication
1:11:55 – Risk vs. safety in research; why scientists avoid anomalies
1:23:28 – China, Mars samples, and the race for extraterrestrial life
1:37:32 – JWST chemistry results: carbon dioxide vs water
1:41:42 – Should we send signals to 3I/ATLAS?
1:44:12 – Wake-up call for humanity & final reflections
 
 
️ The INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE Podcast has featured 22 Nobel Prize winners, Fields Medalist Terence Tao, and legendary mathematician Jim Simons. Subscribe to join the conversation at the frontiers of science, math, and technology.

👉 What do YOU think HiRISE really saw? Could 3I/ATLAS change how we understand our place in the cosmos? Drop your thoughts in the comments below!
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EXCLUSIVE: Avi Loeb Reveals: What HiRISE Just Saw on Mars!

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Is AI our partner in evolution, or is it a harbinger of our downfall?

In this episode of Into the Impossible, I sit down with two brilliant minds to explore the current and future relationship between artificial intelligence, human evolution, and creativity. Blaise Agüera y Arcas, a leading AI researcher, and Benjamin Bratton, philosopher and theorist, bring their unique insights to this conversation. Together, we discuss how AI is not here to replace us but to reshape what it means to be human, through symbiosis rather than competition. 

We explore the concept of the hardware lottery, the role of randomness and creativity in both human brains and machines, and how AI can help us rethink the concept of evolution itself. From quantum computing to AI’s future in medicine and education, this conversation explores the big questions shaping tomorrow’s world.

—

Key Takeaways: 

 00:00:00 Einstein's happiest thought and the hardware lottery 

 
00:11:13 Co-evolution and human-AI interaction 

 
00:12:44 Is AI training us?

 
00:15:43 The limitations of AI 

 
00:23:19 Ethical considerations of AI use

 
00:26:42 The path to a new physics 

 
00:30:32 Blaise’s books explained

 
00:40:23 It takes a computer to know a computer 

 
00:44:30 The role of improvisation 

 
00:47:19 The role of predictability 

 
00:52:48 Where are we now? 

 
00:57:01 AI, education, and daily use cases

 
01:02:27 Judging a book by its cover

 
01:11:29 Outro 

—

Additional resources: 

📚 Who Are We Now? by Blaise Aguera y Arcas: https://a.co/d/aG81gqL 

➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms:

✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 

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✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 

🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast 

—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is AI Our PARTNER or Our ENEMY? Google CTO Blaise Agüera y Arcas

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Dive into the fascinating world of Lord Kelvin, a pivotal figure in the scientific revolution! In this video, we explore his groundbreaking contributions, including the concept of absolute zero and the Kelvin temperature scale.

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Timestamps:

 00:00- Introduction to Lord Kelvin

 02:15- The significance of absolute zero

 05:30- Kelvin's early academic achievements

 08:45- The cosmic microwave background explained

 12:00- The evolution of physics from natural philosophy

 15:30- The enduring legacy of Kelvin's work

 17:00- Conclusion and reflections

-

Join this channel to get access to perks like monthly Office Hours: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmXH_moPhfkqCk6S3b9RWuw/join

📚 Get a copy of my books:

Think Like a Nobel Prize Winner, with life changing interviews with 9 Nobel Prizewinners: https://a.co/d/03ezQFu

My tell-all cosmic memoir Losing the Nobel Prize: http://amzn.to/2sa5UpA

The first-ever audiobook from Galileo: Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican https://a.co/d/iZPi9Un

-

Follow me to ask questions of my guests:

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The Scientists: Lord Kelvin’s Dangerous Idea (Absolute Zero)

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In this episode, Steven Pinker unpacks how common knowledge shapes everything from why rational people can’t agree to disagree to why markets boom and bust. We explore the risks of falsifying expert claims, the power of social norms, and whether civilization is held together by truths—or by the fictions we all agree to share.

—

Key Takeaways: 

 
00:00 Intro 

00:58 When common knowledge is wrong

02:37 The role of common knowledge in social
coordination 

08:48 Free will and determinism 

14:48 Judging a book by its cover

21:08 Government suppression and common knowledge

30:08 The agree to disagree theorem 

34:54 Generosity and charity in human affairs

41:12 The role of common knowledge in religious
beliefs 

48:31 LLMs and common knowledge 

50:39 Outro 

Additional resources: 

📚 When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows… by Steven Pinker: ⁠https://a.co/d/bKJzohi⁠ 

➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms:

✖️ Twitter:⁠ ⁠⁠https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating⁠ 

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✍️ Check out my blog:⁠ ⁠⁠https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/⁠ 

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—

Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known.

Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode!

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Steven Pinker on Cancel Culture, Common Knowledge & AI

Learn about the exciting promise of quantum computing and how it may solve problems in fundamental physics.
Join my mailing list to get slides from this conversation: briankeating.com.
We went deep…discussing Artificial Intelligence, the simulation hypothesis, lessons from Richard Feynman and more! You don’t want to miss his answers to my patented Thrilling Three final questions!
John Preskill is the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, where he is also the Director of the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter. He is one of the most prolific and influential scientists of our time. Preskill is a leading scientist in the field of quantum information science and quantum computation, and he is known for coining the term “quantum supremacy.”
Preskill studied magnetic monopoles in Grand Unified Theories. This work pointed out serious flaws in the then-current cosmological models, a problem which was later addressed by Alan Guth and others by proposing the idea of cosmic inflation. He’s the Director of the Institute for Quantum Information at Caltech. He is known for coining the term “Quantum Supremacy” in a 2012 paper. Preskill has achieved some notoriety in the popular press as a party to a number of bets involving fellow theoretical physicists Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne. Preskill was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014.
Watch my most popular videos:

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Part 2: John Preskill – Quantum Computing, Artificial Intelligence, and Encountering Richard Feynman (#111)

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